Happy Hanukkah & mixed prints

At the moment I really do feel like summer is here, although I do live in Wellington so the weather is prone to changing without notice. However, today was a beautiful day, too bad I had to spend most of it in an office.

However after work Ria and I decided to hang out and visit the Hanukkah festival that was happening in Civic Square.

The Hanukkah Festival was a really big celebration - I really don't know that much about Judaism to be honest, but I did learn today that on Hanukkah they hand out chocolate coins. I still don't know the reasons for this, but I do know that a nice lady came around and gave us a chocolate coin and told us it was a Jewish tradition.

The festival was so lively and there was loads of music and dancing and our mayor was at the festival, seriously that lady is all over town. It's pretty cool to have a mayor who is so visible and also really approachable and friendly. This afternoon Ria and I got to meet her as we wanted to know if her mayoral robes had real ermine fur on them. I was a little disappointed to find out that they did, I always feel so sorry for little critters like ermine - she told us that sometimes the tails fall off the robes and today was one of those days as she was carrying an ermine tail around in her pocket.

Here's a photo of the Hanukkah festival - the tallest building you can see in the picture is actually the tallest building in Wellington. 

I did also do the Aussie Curves Challenge today - so this post does also include an outfit post. The theme this week was mixed prints and I'm wearing an animal print frock, animal print shoes and a scarf with a love heart print on it.

Sorry there's no close up detailed photos but after this Ria and I headed back to my house to make vegetarian nachos for dinner and I kind of forgot to take any more photos.  It was pretty fun taking an outfit post outside though - perhaps now Rich has finished playing football on Wednesday he can help me to do some more outdoors outfit photos.

OUTFIT DEETS:

Shoes - Number 1 Shoes
Tights & Cardi- Glassons
Dress - Illicit Clothing Aotearoa
Belt - The Warehouse
Brooch - Sucre Noir
Scarf - Equipt
Bracelet  - From Vany
Ring - Op Shopped

12 Day of Christmas Swop: Day Three

I'm not normally a person who really gets into the whole "Christmas" thing - but I have to admit doing the 12 days of Christmas Swop is really lifting my Christmas Spirit.

Here was today's present from Allison - its the best smelling hand and body lotion in the world. The scent is pomegranate citrus - its so good!

Sorry but I must keen it short and sweet - I hope you're all having a great week and hurrah I only have one and a half weeks of work left in 2012!

12 Days of Christmas Swop: Day Two

Here's a very quick post about day two of the 12 days of Halloween Swop - here's another super cute package from Allison, she really does know how to do festive wrapping well!

Here's what was inside - a super cute Christmas tree decoration. We don't have a Christmas tree (there's limited room in our central city apartment) so I've put this cute guy on top of our television to add a wee touch of Christmas to our home.

I see that Georgiana has now opened the first day of her swap package too - if you want to see the cookie cutters I bought her you can see them here.

Christmas Swop: Day One

Some of you may remember that a while back I joined a Christmas Swop organised by Chloe and Juanita.

For this swap you sent your package to one partner and received a package from a different person - I sent a package to Georgiana at Pretty when you smile and received a package from Allison at Alli McBally.

Here's the package I received from Allison.

Here's the inside of the packages - such cute paper!

Here's my first package - Allison wrapped everything up so carefully.

I forgot to take a photo of my day one gift with my camera - so here's a photo I took via instagram. It's not the best picture, but I did receive a lovely lip balm. You can never have enough lip balm!

Here's the rest of the presents the I have to open over the next 11 days - exciting!

So perhaps I've gotten completely carried away with Pic Monkey - but its so much fun! Hope you all have a lovely week xoxo

Second Day of Summer

I know this may blow the minds of a few of you northern hemisphere folk - but last Saturday (1 December) was the first day of summer for us in the southern hemisphere.

Wellington's weather is extremely mild and we don't really have strong seasons and at the moment the weather is a little more crazy that usual. At the moment you can leave work in beautiful sunshine and return home to rain.

But as Rich always says, if the weather was good all the time in Wellington then everyone would want to live here and we can't have that! It's only the hardy souls that can put up with the less that fabulous weather that remain here.

On the first day of summer my mum and some other family were here from Australia and the weather was alright, it was a kid of overcast day but not really hot or cold.

On the second day the rain set in and it was a bleak and miserable day with really high wind. I guess some people would use that as their queue to spend the rest of the day indoors, watching movies and drinking hot chocolate.

But Rich and I aren't like most people - so first of all we headed out to see the Wellington Underground Markets which are currently open both Saturday and Sunday at the moment in the lead up to Christmas. We grabbed some lunch at the markets and then headed off for a walk along the waterfront. Who says you can't have a fun time in the wind and the rain?

We had WAY too much fun taking silly jumping photos - I hope you're all having a lovely weekend this weekend. Ours has been really busy so far - we've been to our first bbq of the season and been to an art auction with Emi. Today I'm hanging out with Ria and then Rich and I are off to a Phoenix game in the afternoon.

Aussie Curves Challenge: ORANGE!

So Wednesday Wardrobe Challenge hasn't really been working out for me for a while - however, with some encouragement from my girl Olivia I decided to join up with the Aussie Curves group (which is open to Kiwis as well) and change up my Wednesday Wardrobe Challenge to a weekly Aussie Curves Challenge.

My first challenge with this new group is orange, which meant it was time to crack out this wee vintage number I've had for literally YEARS.

It looks like my dress is actually glowing - its not actually quite this orange - I kind of made it go super ORANGE using pic monkey. I really don't like this photo - but I didn't have Rich around to help me, so I used my tripod and I'm totally rubbish at using my tripod.

 This is how orange my dress actually is - its not really glowing!

I wore my dinosaur brooch - he's a pretty recent purchase, I like him a lot, dinosaurs rule!

Last week felt like summer and this week had been pretty wet, cold and rainy so its back to wearing boots.

OUTFIT DEETS:

Boots - Doc Martins, Bought in Seoul

Tights & Cardi - Glassons

Brooch - Sweet and Lovely

Necklace - Op Shopped

Dress - Vintage

Dr Grordbort's Exceptional Exhibition

At the moment we have a completely awesome exhibition happening on Cuba Street - in fact its so awesome I've been twice already. Once with Emi on opening night and once with Rich last weekend.

One thing that makes me a little sad is empty shops in the central city - so I was pretty excited when I heard that Dr Grordbort's Exceptional Exhibition was moving into one of the empty stores in upper Cuba Street. Even if its only going to be here until January - its a great use of what would otherwise be an empty space.

The exhibition itself is the brainchild of Greg Broadmore - one of the guys behind Weta Workshop. Weta Workshop is pretty much iconic in Wellington and perhaps even throughout New Zealand. If you've see any of the Lord of the Rings movies, King Kong, The Chronicles of Narnia or Tintin then you've seen the work of Weta Workshop.

The work at the exhibition was a mix of sculpture and painting (although I suspect the paintings were more digital are than traditional painting).

Every part of the exhibition was delightfully steampunk - I love the robots, even the evil ones. ESPECIALLY the evil ones!

If you happen to be in Wellington in December/January I really recommend this exhibition, its absolutely amazing. If you can't make it to Wellington then you should really check out some more about Dr. Grordbort here.

An award - for me? Oh you're too kind!

So I've been nominated for a Liebster Award by CityScape SkyBaby - I always feel a little bit fancy when I get nominated for awards like these.

 The first part of the award is to list eleven facts about yourself - so here we go:

1) I used to have a green budgie called Greenpeace when I was at primary school.
2) At high school I played the flute and did up to grade three flute, but only grade one music theory (music theory kind of made my brain explode).
3) I am the oldest of three and my youngest brother is eleven years younger than me.
4) I live in an inner city apartment and absolutely love it!
5) I can't remember a time when I didn't love creepy things and horror movies.
6) One of the trainers at my gym told me I'm a "natural" at boxing - I think its the only time ever I've been a "natural" at any kind of physical activity.
7) When I was at university I wore jeans pretty much every day - I know, hard to believe right?
8) My natural hair colour is mousey brown - but I've been dying it black for a number of years.
9) I love Mexican food and culture - I'd love to visit there sometime in the next few years.
10) I can't drive and Rich and I have never owned a car.
11) We would like to buy an apartment/unit in the next few years - but will have to wait and see what happens.

Here's the eleven questions I received from CityScape SkyBaby:

1. What is the worst film you have ever seen?

I've seen a LOT of films and a lot of these have been horror or "b" grade, just because I enjoy that sort of thing (truly!). But the worst film I have EVER seen would have to be Stephen King's "Dreamcatcher". The Preview looked amazing and it had aliens, gore and friends heading out to the woods and everything going terrible wrong. It sounded JUST like my kind of thing - it wasn't, it was horrible. It came out in 2003 and Rich and I went to watch it in the cinema and we STILL talk about how horrible it was.

source

2. Who is your favourite comedian?

I'm the kind of girl that prefers TV shows to specific comedians and I do love British comedies. Here's a few of my all time favourites:

The Mighty Boosh

The Vicar of Dibley

The Young Ones

Father Ted

3. Who is your least favourite comedian?

I know everyone thinks he's hilarious and easy on the eye, but there is something about Russell Brand that I just find infuriating - I'm not sure what it is, but I just find him so annoying.


4. Have you ever climbed a mountain?
 


I guess it depends on your defintion of what a mountain is - our mountains in New Zealand are pretty big, I have climbed any of the major mountains like Mount Taranaki or Mount Ruapehu. I have however climbed some of our smaller mountains, but I'm not sure if I really consider them to be mountains or hills!

Here's a photo of me walking in Mount Kaukau - does this count as a mountain? If yes - I've totally climbed a mountain.

5. What was your favourite past time as a child?

I think it would have been drawing, painting and anything a bit crafty and arty (some things never change).

6. What is your favourite place?

It's hard to choose just one! Wellington is my favourite city in New Zealand, but I do love traveling in the South Island and all over the world.

7. Who was your favourite male popstar as a teenager?


I think it would have been Jarvis Cocker or Damon Albarn - I really wasn't a typical teenager. Especially living here in New Zealand where that whole "Brit pop" thing in the mid 90's wasn't even a thing.

8. Who was your favourite female popstar as a teenager?

My first "tape" that I bought myself when I was a wee girl was Madonna's "The Immaculate Collection" so I think I'll have to say Madonna. I still love he old stuff, but her new stuff not so much.

9. If you could meet up with anyone from history and have a chat with them, who would you choose?
 


I always find this question difficult, as I'm sure if I met some important figure from history I'd go all tongue tied and freak out.

I think I would pick Alfred Hitchcock and I hope that I wouldn't freak out when I told him how much I love Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

10. Do you believe in an afterlife?
 

I'm a secular humanist, so not really, but then who knows. I guess anything is possible?

11. If your life was a film, what film would it be?

Well I'm original - so I need a film of my very own - perhaps it could be called "The awesome adventures of Trees" or even "Adventures of a girl from the Naki"? 

My eleven questions to the blogger universe:

1) Can you speak any languages other than English?
2) What's your favourite movie of all time?
3) What was the first concert you ever attended?
4) If you could visit anywhere in the world and money was no objective, where would you go and why?
5) When you were a child, what did you want to do for a job?
6) What's your favourite time of the year?
7) Do you have any siblings?
8) How many different towns/cities have you lived in?
9) Can you play any musical instruments?
10) What's the best part of your day?
11) Do you have any goals/aspirations for 2013?

I'm not really sure who to nominate as there are so many blogs I follow - so if you'd like to take part feel free to answer my questions.

I hope you've all had a lovely weekend - only 3 more working weeks until the Christmas holidays. Hurrah!
 

Hobbits and High Tea

Wellington has recently gone pretty much Hobbit crazy - I didn't make it to the movie premier early this week, but last Sunday I did have the chance to visit the Hobbit Artisan Markets in Waitangi Park.

It was an absolutely beautiful day and there were people everywhere enjoying a day in the sun. It was a little hard to see most of the stalls (due to so many people being there) but I did snap a photo of this pennant bunting which I absolutely loved.

 This stone dragon was also pretty rad.

Whilst we were there Weta Workshop was putting on a prosthetic/make-up display which was fascinating.

Later in the afternoon - Ria and I got together and went to a high tea that was a Christmas fundraiser for Altrusia Wellington. The High Tea was held at the Wellington Muesuem of City and Sea.

The food at the high tea was amazing - especially chocolate coated strawberries. I'm so excited that strawberries are in season, its a sure sign the summer is on the way.

Here's a photo of Ria and I after the high tea - such a beautiful day (even though it was super windy).

Hope you are all having a lovely weekend so far - I can't believe its only three weeks until I finish work for the year - this year is truly flying by!