New Pretty-50's outdoor setting

Look what I am now the proud owner of...isn't it AMAZING!!! Purchased from eBay for cheap as chips because it needs a bit of restoration.

 Hurray! The set is complete, I pick it up in the next few days, it will match beautifully with my scrolly bench seat my Mumma bought me for my birthday. Each slat will be a different colour in red, baby blue, pale yellow, pastel green and pink! Now to figure out trailers and cars with tow balls and all those other lovely things that you forget to think of when blinded by furniture infatuation!

This setting is even prettier than any of the settings I have fallen in love with til now... ECSTATIC!

New Lolita Dress

Well I've finally found a pic online of the cutest dress this world has ever seen, and I mean sickening cute!!!
I found it a while back at a vintage market for a steal! I've become increasingly obsessed with the whole "Lolita" style dresses and skirts. I wouldn't go the whole piggy tails and platforms, but I would go a cutesy dress covered in fruit and icecream sundaes! There's bows, red and pink stripes, confectionary....seriously what more could you want? There's heaps of Japanese brands that sell these dresses for around the $200+ mark so I'm thinking that Angelic Pretty must be like the Alannah Hill of Japan :) Still, they are adorable! So here's the one I now own...

This is the style but it's in red and pink like.....

this!!! 

And looks exactly like this!

Pic from here

ooh and I love her red and pink glasses...

Seriously what's not to love about clothes you buy from stores that look like this...

Isn't it "hard to keep down breakfast" cute...I LOVE it!!!

Girly Girl Sneakers

Now my world has been frantic since starting my full time job, plus two catalogue delivery runs and dancing stuff so yeah wooo crazy. Having said that I have quite a lot of energy compared to when I worked before it seems. I credit it to the Paleolithic diet we have now and some cool pro biotic that we are trying out. We've been trying out all sorts of weird and wonderful things based on the researching of Mr in Wonderland. The past week we have been using coconut oil instead of olive oil for cooking because apparently you shouldn't cook olive oil at high temperatures. It comes in a tub and tastes like that chocolate "Summer Roll", and strangely enough is very tasty with scrambled eggs :/

So back to my point...as you guys know I love my pink...and pink and red colour combos make me swoon. Well I've come across Valentine's Day themed kicks by Nike. Apparently each Valentine's season they bring out a limited edition style...in PINK and RED!!! One pair even has red and white embroidered polka dots. I have no idea why I hadn't seen these earlier! So seriously these are the go for the gym frequenting girly girl. Ebay would be my first hunt for past season styles, but there's also plenty of websites selling them. Check them out!

And I'm now the proud new owner of THESE from eBay...They are Air Force 1 Valentine's edition, I love the pale pink, candy pink and cherry, the contrast stitching on each section and red soles! LOVE LOVE LOVE, I can't wait for them to arrive now! :)

The Ella Revival

So I've fallen off the edge of the world for a little bit, dunno why really but I lacked the motivation to write really, definitely not that I haven't had anything to write about...it's been crazy busy! :)

So yeah, where to start. Firstly Mum's operations were a huge success and she's on to the next stepping stone of chemo and radiation. She had a big bandage around her head from the last operation and even though she felt bloody terrible, amused herself by wearing a pretty pink Alannah Hill scarf tied over it, ready to get the frog outta there!!! My Mumma is a crazed lunatic for Alannah Hill, her wardrobe is 90% the pretty pinks, reds, greens, browns and a million pairs of Alannah Hill boots, many the same style....in every colour that they come in :) She always has a new "Larni", she spent many hours eBaying in bed, buying new treasures :)

Mum had her last operation, which we had named "The scary operation" on Thursday, we went to visit her in the Intensive Care Unit for a quiet celebration after a long roller coaster of waiting for test results, hospital trips, three operations and week-long stays for each, then let her sleep and went home to catch up on three months sleep. But we were woken by two policeman knocking at the door at 12.30 at night asking if I owned a scooter. By this time, I just laughed, bah, seriously, now? I remember asking if they'd set it on fire( I've heard this happens a lot with pinched scooters), grabbed some shoes and walked down the road to check out the damage.

Oh my "Ella" was smashed to bits, the guy that took her was drunk or high as a kite and dropped her a few times in the 500 metres he got up the road before he was surrounded by 6 police cars and two sniffer dogs. The officers were a bit shocked by my reaction until I explained, "Seriously after the day we've had, this is so bleep, it's hilarious!". One officer told us that the thieving bleep had been brought out of the lake by the sniffer dogs, mud all down the front of him saying "I didn't do it!" haha!!! We couldn't go into the bushland to see the extent of the damage that night because of the sniffer dogs, she got put on the back of a tow truck and taken away, after a week we went to pick her up and she looked like this...

This didn't look so bad, but as we pulled her to bits to see the extent of the damage...oh dear!

Here she is on the back of the truck from the depo

With all the bits that he'd broken off her in the basket on the back :(

The Ella Revival begins!!! Kraig and I had great fun pulling her apart, less so in seeing the extent of the damage...check this out!

This is meant to be straight...



These were without a single scratch, let alone with cracks and pieces missing :(

But there is a something great from all of this, because she was in such great condition from when I bought her new, there were lots of things that I wanted to do to change her but never had the heart to do it because she looked so new. I've always wanted that seat to be black, so I've  finally sprayed it with vinyl paint and it looks FANTASTIC! :)

Another amazing thing happened, after hearing about my Mum in hospital and then the scooter pinched that night, the dance school Swing Zing, put on a fundraiser for me to get my scooter fixed up they raised an amount of money that I almost burst into tears on the spot, but I quickly composed myself because I wanted to remain at least a bit anonymous. It was SUCH a wonderful surprise.

So I've spent a lot of time researching wreckers all over Australia to find parts... Scooter Wreckers was AWESOME!! I sent them an email and they got back to me the next day with quotes for parts, very impressed!!! They can just post the parts that you need. Two Wheel Wreckers, here in Perth, I sent them an email, waited three days, called and they said "yes we received your email" I asked them for some parts and to their credit they DID get access to a scooter even though they only deal with motorcycles but when I said "so you just send me the quote to my email" he said that they delete them so I doubt if I hadn't called, that I would have received a response. I don't like doing business with people that don't bother with the little things in service. I DID expect the 5 minutes (if that!) of your time it would take to write "sorry we only deal in motorcycles, not scooters" and would instead happily recommend their business to my motorcycling friends, but after this....not so much. But Scooter Wreckers, without a doubt, and I'd rather pay for postage to give them my business.

On a whim I searched Gumtree and found a guy selling parts of a Vmoto Milan for $150, I rang him to see what parts he had and he said $100 take the lot...and so I did! When I arrived and started digging through, there was nearly a whole scooter plus extra bits and bobs and guards, AWESOME! All the pieces that I needed were there. The funniest thing is that the guy he had bought all the parts off had painted this dodgy matt black paint job on it and from where it had scratched off, I could see it was originally GREEN....AAAAAAAHHH! really? again that is so bleep, it's funny! :)

So this scooter is called Sammy Davis Jnr, as it looks like this guy was trying to make some kind of Rat Rod and Sammy was in the Rat Pack.

So now I'm on the search to get Ella painted, I am a little bit hooked on this Flake paint that looks like glitter...but I'm also thinking cherry apple red and duck egg blue, my FAVOURITES. This will be the most expensive part so I'm saving as much as I can at the moment to go towards it :) But the Ella Revival is going much better than I had imagined, thanks goodness.

I've quit the newspaper round and now have a junk mail round...similar amount of work for 3 times the amount of money, you can't say no to that really :) And I have a new job at a Early Learning Centre just up the road from me. I have 25, 3-6 year olds and two assistants in the room and I'm really quite excited about it. I've got a great feeling about the centre and it should be really fun to work there. Mr in Wonderland has been in renumeration and the redundency has been pushed back again and again so it should go through in August now. This way if I have a job it allows him to have a break and not to stress between jobs, which he deserves after all of his hard work and support for me. Plus being only 5 minutes up the road, we can have lunch together every day, which will be nice :)

I am also singing for Kalamunda Youth Swing Band, I performed for the first time a few weeks ago. Hullaballoo was on again and was massive, I had my birthday and many friends birthdays and another Shaolwater Bay trip with my awesome friends :)

So that is the latest news for now, I'll back track some of those things because their is some hilarious photos from them :) So yeah it's been plenty of trying moments and also great moments, so all over the place it's so hard to think that it has only been two months but, as always, it's been fun!  

What to wear to deliver papers

I got my new paper round...I have 375 houses to deliver to. Did you know that folding 375 papers and putting three pamplets inside each one before you fold it, takes a bloody long time? well I didn't. I do now!
They delivered them in a big pile downstairs, so instead of hauling them all back upstairs and then lugging them down when they were folded...I bought down a nice cushy 50's wool blanket, a big bottle of water and got stuck into it in the cool (well cooler than out in the weather) of my neighbours parking spot/garage-y thingy (he works away, I had free reign) :)

I was black from head to toe, mostly my hands from folding, but then you get an itch and it was hot and sweaty, so you can imagine, I put newspaper print ink, ALL over myself. :)

It's nice to wander and deliver them though, I look at everyone's garden, eyeing off the pink frangipani trees that I'm going to ask ever-so-politely for a piece...and geraniums. Because it's an area where people most have their houses designed by archetects instead of bought from a plan, it's quite interesting to see what people do with the shape of a block or to fit in a boat, or have built after knocking down two houses. :) There's some very clever designs, it gives me lots of great ideas for when we renovate our old house....when we find it!

So this is what you wear to deliver papers...

Playsuit-bought second hand from the "Thursday Night Swing" stalls formally "The Leedy Hop" for $5!!

Pink belt- Alannah Hill Outlet store $2

Cherry lace Singlet- Just Jeans Outlet Store Harbourtown $5

Pink patent ballet flats- Melville swap meet $3

Art deco style wool fascinator- by me Ashliegh in Wonderland :)

Pfft, haha isn't this the bargain hunters outfit!

Alvin (the neighbour's kitty and Charlie's best friend) wanted in on the photo action.

Oh yeah and I cut off all of hair, gotta get me onto some pin-curl action and make those curls REALLY springy! :)

Margaret River Swing Camp 2011

Ok so I'm naughty and didn't blog when I said I would but I've been very much one for procrastination at the moment, I don't know why but geez I'm determined to cut it out because it is definitely annoying me. Well I better start hurrying up and blogging all the cool things that I've been up to or I'll be so far behind that I forget stuff...which last year I did a lot. The swing camp was very cool, just as last year we stayed in the bunk beds which in my opinion is the most fun. And each day we did a little bit more exploring than we did last year, heading out all over Margaret River and even a trip to Augusta because we were determined to find mini golf. Mind you the drive is 40mins, all in the name of mini golf but it was a pretty fun little adventure.
We had a "J" themed party...Leah's a jukebox and Nicoles a bag of jelly beans :)

My absolute favourite costume of the night was this one...Jiminy Cricket, brilliant! And that's Johnny Cash with my guitar :)

Haha here's our mini golf expedition...it's seen better days, don't you think. We drove 40 minutes to get to it and then laughed. We had fun however, inside the shed is arcade games and a scelectric car set and the owner gave us a dollar each to play a game and lots of time on the cars, nice bloke :)

LOOK!!! The chairs I have been after for my fifties table, I swear if we had the room in the car I would have haggled for these :)

Tammy being held hostage by a creepy pelican

From there we set off on more adventures, Googling what to do in Augusta and Cape Leeuwin, guess what is in Cape Leeuwin?  A lighthouse, guess what else?....not much. So with really only one option we headed up the coast to look at the lighthouse...oh my the Australian coast is just breathtakingly beautiful.

Crystal clear pool we waded in, this beach was FULL of perfectly rounded pebbles, it was beautiful.

On the coast walking over huge boulders

Unfortunately this doesn't capture the huge CAVERN these two are jumping over :)

Steven Mitchell asked me to sing with the band that night, which was a major highlight!!!

Wrapping up the camp, then on the way home we decided to stop in and see THESE!

This is Lakes Cave, that's water on the bottom and it reflects the formations, they drip into the water too creating ripples, just stunning.

As you can imagine it was a weekend of lots of dancing, but ofcourse I don't have photos of that because I was too busy dancing, SUCH a great weekend...don't know how we are going to top next year, seeing as we've seen everything that there is to do down to the tip of Cape Leeuwin (which is the place where the Indian Ocean meets the Southern Ocean btw). We might have to plan ahead a bit and visit a different town and convoy in a different direction completely :D

Welcome New Year

Yes of late I have fallen off the face of the earth, we've had all sorts of shiz going on, from cancer to circus trapezing. I won't go too much into the bummer stuff, it's been crazy and it's not likely to stop anytime soon. Just know that I'll be posting as often as possible now that we're (kind of) back on track :)

So to catch up....hmm where to start

Our New Years was full of silliness as you would expect. Lots of friends and fun!

This is our set up for outside, loads of big wool blankets, candles, cushions and tissue paper flower decorations.

We played ping pong and because it's just no fun to play by the actual rules, we had beer pong (hence the cups in each corner) and a rule that you had to play with rediculous sight inhibating themed glasses on!

Poppers and sparklers...of which Emma set one of the pom poms on fire by accident which was HILARIOUS! Lucky the blankets are wool :)

A 'Happy New Year' Man Hug

These are the most tame photos of the night as it was pretty silly, the boys did some fabulous podium dancing (hilarious), I made my first batch of jelly shots which were a huge hit, some wang pong and 360 degree pong were invented amongst other rediculous stunts...most of us were staying the night to go to the beach the next day so we let our hair down to ring in the New Year :) It was a night of friends comfort and old fashioned childish games :) 

At the beach the next day...Dan decided to dig a big hole!

Yep a BIG hole!! Funny bugger! :)

So yeah that was our New Years Eve and day...I post about this years Margaret River Swing (dancing) Camp tomorrow :)

BUTTONS

Just thought I'd give you a bit of a sneak peek at all of the buttons from Melbourne...this is the smallest bag that I bought home, the colours are so pretty and all of them are the "pressed" style, so bows and florals and oh-so many pretty designs, enjoy!

Merry Belated Christmas 2010

Well I hope you had a very Merry Christmas... ours was particularly vintage-y, as you would suspect :)
The weekend before Christmas we went to swapmeet to sell away some of our clutter. Boxes and boxes of stuff in storage are now gone, hooray!
Plus, very proudly I only came home with these...

Toadstool cushions, which the red and duck egg blue goes PERFECTLY with the colours of the vintage hankie cushion, that and the grass rug, bunnies and birds all about the place...toadstools in the grass, very cool!

You know my obsession with plastic flowers, these could never be passed up...they were $2 for the bunch.

Cute red jelly shoes...$2

30's/40's Green Pyrex dish...$2, I also got a couple of white Pyrex type dishes with red strawberries on them...the beginning of a very pretty Pyrex collection :)

Vintage Tupperware coasters...$2, also the beginning of my 60's Tupperware collection :)

AND a big stash of vintage Christmas decorations...free from Mr in Wonderland's Mummy who we set up

next to, as well as the toadstools, they were from Mr in Wonderland's Aunty :)

LOVE these little elves, they are my favourite!

Notice the little angel at the black with her dicky eye, she looked a bit "Bride of Chucky" so I went to her with some sharpies :)

Not perfect, but definitely better, this way she won't come alive and get me in my sleep :)

We made a lot of our gifts, we have lots of garden-y people in our families so we gathered terracotta pots and did mosaic on them with old smashed up cups, saucers, plates, ramekins...all sorts of things we could find in a pretty design...sadly I was too busy stressing out  about getting them finished in time & forgot to photograph them, but I will try to photograph them all in their new homes...some have gone to accompany equally vintage-y surrounds :)

For my cousins I made cross-stitch kits with designs from Etsy. The lovely gal was very chuffed to know her designs were going all the way from Canada to Australia.

Steph is the most gorgeous geek ever, she's a kind of literary geek, especially when it comes to Harry Potter...so when I saw this, PIXALIZED Harry Potter cross-stitch I just KNEW that she had to have it!

As much as Steph is obsessed with her books, Kate is obsessed with her BF :) So I got the lady to make a similar style based on photos I pinched from Facebook :)

I got a piece of card and hole-punched it to make the thread thingy, cut all the thread into the same length of a kit I own and thread it all through, based on approx how much would be needed, plus a bit just in case. I cut Aida cloth to size and cut a pack of needles in half so that they had three each (coz I always lose the bloody things) and took a baby bulldog clip to attach them to the cloth. I bought two pretty turquoise embroidery hoops and put it all in a brown paper bag with raffia handles, cut square of Christmas wrapping paper and taped it to the front, then tied it shut with a red ribbon.

Here's my mess as I cut, coloured, thread and measured...



That afternoon Steph sent me a message saying she had finished one leg, under the watchful eye of my Nanna, which is AWESOME! My Nanna also taught me to cross-stitch, and knit, long-stitch and a million other crafty things which i now LOVE! I have such fond memories of that, I'm really glad that it continues.

This year we put up the tree after finding all of the vintage decorations that I've always wanted...here's my fav's...

These balls would have been silver about 50 years ago, now they are speckley in silver, clear and pearl white...I love them!

Here's the tree...

Charlie helping

These baubles below always get hung some where...they're retro style ones that I bought years ago from Bed, Bath and table...they say Happy Holidays, Seasons Greetings and Christmas Cake :)

Hope you had a very Merry Christmas!