bunting, bands and cats

Last Friday night was my boyfriends bands last Australian show before we head off on our holiday, so to celebrate they threw a USA-themed bash!

I had been busy all week creating a flag bunting to decorate the stage with, as well as planning my theme-appropriate outfit. 

Here are a few photos from the night. And some of the bunting. With cats.

Apollo never looks at the camera when I take his photo. He's perfected the art of staring wistfully off into the distance.

Disney just tries to eat everything.

Eli and some of the band!

Oh hai! I wore my American flag shirt, vintage skirt and my favourite vintage shoes. I curled my hair and did a little front roll, and wore my new hoop earrings.

I had to make this almost 6 metres long so it would drape across the stage nicely. That's a lot of triangles!! I found that it was pretty easy to make, except there was WAY too much ironing involved. And I hate ironing.

How cute is this toy soldier print? I actually have an almost-finished dress in this fabric.. I really should get around to completing it!

Sorry for the brief posts guys, still sick and my brain is just not functioning. Let's hope it's back to normal by next week :)

DIY: pet silhouette portraits

I completely adore my cats, Apollo and Disney. 

I also think the word "silhouette" is an awesome word. Seriously. Look at it. Say it. So great.

Anyway, I've been meaning to do this for a while. I actually want to do one for each member of our household eventually, so I thought I'd get the ball rolling with some cute silhouette portraits of my two favourite felines. 

You will need:

Photos of your pet(s), facing side on. 

A very good black marker or black paint

Scissors

Backing paper (I just used some lined paper ripped out of a notebook)

Frames

1. Print your photos so that they will fit in the frame you have chosen.

2. Outline the shape of your pets head, and a little way down their chest and back, closing off the bottom with a sloped line (it helps to google "silhouette portrait" to get an idea of the usual shape)

3. Colour in the outline with your black marker or paint

4. Carefully cut around your silhouette. I actually did this one earlier and I left some parts not-coloured so there was a bit more of an obvious shape around Disney's ears

5. Ensure your backing paper fits into your frame, or cut to shape if not

6. Stick the portrait cut out onto the backing paper, and put into your frame.

7. Display your finished portraits somewhere noticeable so that your guests can coo over them when the real things are feeling less than sociable!

I love the internet.

Isn't the Internet amazing?

Honestly, sometimes I just think about how enormous and powerful it is that it makes me feel like my head is going to explode.

So then I go watch cat videos on YouTube until my brain calms down.

I thought I'd share with you guys a few things I've found around the WWW that made me laugh/cry/think/drool..

* * *

This piece on Hyperbole and a Half on depression, which is so spot on. Allie is an amazingly talented and hilarious writer and I really hope she keeps pushing on and comes out the other side of the depression-tunnel.

From another hilarious writer - The Bloggess linked to this site which allows you to write in cats. I don't think I have to explain how amazing this is. I can't stop using it. Also have you read her book yet? It is SO FUNNY and surreal. I snort-laughed-cried on the train many a time.

I just purchased my first dress from the enchanting Bonne Chance Collections which just arrived today (!) - It is SO cute! I'm going to wear it to Eli's bands new EP launch and I'll be sharing a bit of a review with you later this week.
I actually almost don't want to tell you about these guys because I want EVERYTHING, however I am poor and cannot really afford to buy 30 new dresses so I guess I'll just have to live vicariously through anyone who can.

I spent literally hours (at work, heh) reading this thread on Reddit about the creepiest things peoples kids have said to them. Both funny and scary - I also love that there are a few pretty strong arguments for reincarnation and lots of supernatural themes!

My boyfriend sent me a photo of this weird amphibian that has no lungs.. and also looks like a totally strange penis.

My friend Charlie is in a cute band called Brightly who just released their first album!! We went to their launch on Thursday night and it was epic and fabulous. If you like "folk electronica" (or if you don't know what that is and are now curious) you should check them out!

I just bought some foam rollers, setting lotion and pin curl clips and I'm so excited to try out this ingenious roller set from By Gum, By Golly. No kinks! Well, we shall see anyway!

* * *

The days are getting waaay shorter here now, so hopefully I will be able to get myself out of bed early enough this week to catch the last of the daylight to take photos in when I get home from work in the afternoons (which I did not today - hence the text-only post!)


*I should also point out that I am not sponsored or paid by any of the above-linked sites/people - this is all just stuff I liked and wanted to share :) *

busy weekend..

I don't have any real photos for you today - this weekend was such a whirlwind that I hardly had time to think, let alone shoot outfits :( in fact, I've taken today off just to catch up on all of the around the house stuff that just didn't get done (all week ugh).

But anyway, here are some snapshots from my weekend via my Instagram (and my boyfriend Eli's Instagram!)

I spent my Friday night furiously painting, gluing and stapling to finish our costumes for the 90's party we went to on Saturday...

I was SO happy with the finished costumes! Can you believe I only spent 2 nights on this!?!?

So Eli ended up as a box of nerds (or a nerd in a box of nerds), and I was Oblina from Ahh! Real Monsters which was one of my favourite cartoons growing up. The party was fun, and I was surprised by the amount of people who dressed up!

I had a brief lie-in with these two on Sunday morning before it was off to the city to help out with Eli's new video for his band Skyways Are Highways. It should be all ready to release by the end of next week so I will definitely share it here - from what we could see by watching the screen on the (incredibly expensive!) camera it looks to be amazing!!!

The intimidating, movie-grade $90,000 camera.. 

Front and centre and ready to dance! I think I'm going to make a couple of very brief appearances in the video :)

Eli and I - I wore a thrifted shirt over a dress that I made and my sisters creepers. I also tried bumper bangs for the second time and I LOVE them. It took me so long to figure out how they worked but now that I know it is so so easy and looks so cute!

Eli is wearing a hula-girl printed shirt from ASOS and Dr. Denim skinny jeans if anyone is interested :)

All in all a very productive, exciting and BUSY weekend!

outfit: crazy cat lady

This bag is my new favourite thing. IT IS A CAT!!!!!!!! Now I have 2 animal-face bags (owl here!) and I want morrreee!

This was my only purchase when I went to one of my favourite op shops at the start of my crazy day yesterday. There was shopping followed by KFC eating followed by bed-dismantling followed by show-going followed by a super fun party back at our place with the best group of people :)

Today has been very quiet, just sleeping in, brunch at Mixed Business in Clifton Hill and now off to do some grocery shopping.

Thank you all for your lovely comments about my hair, I'm really digging the purple although I am still not quite used to it. Somehow pink seemed a lot tamer than purple (maybe because it's closer to red/orange) so I appreciate the compliments!

I am wearing a vintage playsuit, thrifted belt, bag and shoes.

 Meow!

outfit: bright white, mustard and leopard

I have a confession to make.

I never really got in to Mad Men.

I realise that probably sounds insane when you look at my outfits and notice that I am just a slight bit inspired by the 1950's and 60's.. and I did really like a lot of the outfits, I can't deny that.. I just got a little bored of it and didn't really find the storyline really gripped me at all. 

Sigh. I really did want to like it.

Regardless of that, today my outfit had me feeling very Joan Holloway (although these photos do absolutely nothing for my little "curves" - I swear I looked much curvier in real life!!), so naturally I was strutting about the office today, swinging my hips and lashing out bitchy remarks and broken hearts.

Hahaha as if.

My skirt and top are thrifted, and I have no idea where I got these shoes - only that I desperately need a new pair because they are basically falling off my feet broken (so sad).

Oh hi Disney kitten!

Happy Friday everyone!

february wrap up

I totally failed at the Fat Mum Slim Photo a Day Challenge for February.. Honestly with moving and everything that was going on I just had no time or motivation to think of interesting photo ideas!

I did of course have time to take a heap of random snaps, so here is a wrap-up of my February, via Instagram!

I cooked and ate a lot of yummy food! Tomato soup, chocolate zucchini cake, soft-boiled egg salad & valentine cupcakes :)

We moved house!! We found some enormous zucchini's in our new backyard (currently on the lookout for recipes to use them all up!), one of our 5 different floor coverings throughout the house.. lots and LOTS of boxes. You never realise how much stuff you have until you move. Wow. Our pre-decorated mantel with mural wall :) The house is a huge 3 bedroom place built in the 70's with so many kooky details (floral carpets, wallpaper murals, weird kitchen carpet printed to look like tiles...) and I am SO excited to share it once there is some semblance of order!!

I got some cute things - like this beautiful antique locket from the 1900's (my boyfriend is amazing) and this adorable owl bag!! A valentines walk (and photo shoot). Eli's reaction to hearing his song on the radio for the first time!!!!!

I got crafty! Our countdown continues (oh.my.god.so.excited), a cute morning message in our kitchen, scrapbooking fun and name tags.

I got out and about (sometimes!) Crazy beach ball display at Australia on Collins, waiting for shows to start in Collingwood, a cute alley bird, more park walks (I will miss these!)

And of course, I cuddled with some cute kitties!! Apollo and Disney are loving the new house, there is so much more space for them to run around and explore. Apollo just adores sitting in front of the back screen door, watching the birds in our backyard :)

I've started back up with the FMS Photo a Day Challenge for this month and I'm going to try and stick to it this time!! If you want to follow me on Instagram my user name is @taygan

scrapbooking - january

Just a warning - this is going to be a long and pic-heavy post!

Towards  the end of last year I started becoming intrigued by the idea of scrapbooking. I'd never done anything like that before (it wasn't very big when I was growing up in Australia) and thought it would be a cute and creative way to document some of our memories for the year.

I just finished my very first month of scrapbooking, and I'm pretty pleased with it so far! I've been quite inspired by the Project Life layouts - particularly the ones that Ann-Marie comes up with and shares on her blog, they are just so beautiful but not overly "home-made crafty scrapbook" kind of feel.. if you get me. I wanted to incorporate photos and memorabilia but in a modern way with a kind of eclectic feel.. let me know what you think!

the text on the photo above and below top left have been edited on using picmonkey.com. I love this website and actually use it to edit most of my photos - they have a really great range of editing tools and it's (mostly) free!

a whole page for my boyfriends birthday! Includes some of the wrapping paper I used on his presents and a card he got from work :)

That piece of paper with the clip on it has been edited in - the brown paper is the front of the envelope one of my Frankie magazine subscriptions came in and it has my address on it.. security, people!

and of course Disney wanted to get in on the action...

"look Ma, it's me!"

a page for when my poor boyfriend ended up in hospital with appendicitis :( he's doing a lot better now but still has a week off work.

So there you have it! Most of my supplies like the letters, hearts, washi tape, labels etc. were purchased from Typo on sale - they have some incredibly cute stuff and I should NOT be allowed in that store!!!

Other stuff was collected. I got my photos printed at Officeworks.

The album I am using I got off eBay and it is one of those ones with the self-adhesive pages that you can buy refills for.. I'm not sure that I love it because the adhesive is not really strong enough to hold heavier card or things and it also makes the pages a bit shiny which I also am not a huge fan of.. it has plastic protective pages for each page which are alright but they flap around a bit so I've just stuck them down along the edge once each page was completed.

I'm so excited to continue this - I almost want February to be over now so I can get started!!

a sleepy, dreamy kind of day

Today is a very Melbourne kind of day - grey skies, cool temperatures (at least compared to what we've been having the last few days) - it makes you want to curl up under a comfy blanket and alternate napping with reading books and eating comfort food.

I'm not feeling particularly motivated to do anything much - however all this talk of moving houses has got me thinking about and looking at our current home and the things I do actually like about it (there aren't many if I'm honest).

So here are a few snapshots of the room I've confined myself to today; the bedroom.

I'm going to miss these plain white walls.

Now if anyone needs me I'll be in bed, reading and hanging out with this little cutie.