So I photoshopped Venice..

Does it look ok? This is my first time using curves and levels and to be honest I had no idea what I was doing, just experimenting. I think it's pretty good for a first try, when you compare it to the original image it's amazing how blurry and dark it was to start with. This could become a very addictive relationship I'm afraid..

*EDIT* Here is the original pic for comparison, still good, but it just doesn't show off the beautiful colours of the buildings as well.

This is my favourite book(s)

When it comes to books, I love nothing more than browsing through bookshops, looking at new books, finding treasures hidden at the back, flipping through cookbooks, fawning over photography books, wistfully looking at the travel books. I actually have to limit myself from visiting bookstores because I inevitably spend hours in there. Despite this, I don't actually own that many books. This primarily stems from the fact that I can only read books during holidays otherwise I'd never get any sleep/homework done, and also the fact that books are expensive and I only ever buy one that I know I am going to love and read over and over again.

And I've actually been pretty spot on with most of my book purchases, I have a couple which I read once a year every year without fail. Despite how many times I've read it I still get caught up in the story and I still forget little details which surprise me each time I read them. So without further ado, here is a book I bought in America on exchange in year 11 and have read once a year every year: The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold.

I don't know what it is about this book, but I just love the way the narrative is written, it obviously has a good storyline and it just gets me everytime. I still cry at the same points throughout the book that I did the first time I read it.

Now my second book is one that I've only read once, and this is because I only bought it last year. But I am so looking forward to my next set of holidays so I can re-devour this book, cover to cover in less than three sittings like I did the first time I read it. I present: The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger.

To me this book is just amazing, it is so completely out there and yet you totally believe every word of it, and this is a story that sucks you in so much that when I finished it I was actually sad because I wanted the story to keep going. Also, there is one part in this book, which you totally see coming, and yet I still absolutely balled my eyes out over, like seriously, I cried more over this part of the book than I did about my breakup. Well not really, but it was comparable.

Oh and the third one (I'm bad at deciding!) I almost forgot about because my friend has been holding this book hostage for 6 months now because she is also too busy to read it. The third one is Atonement, and before you ask, I bought this book back in Year 10, so it has nothing to do with the fact that it is now a movie with Keira Knightley in it. In fact the movie totally ruined the book in my eyes, plus it cut out 90% of the storyline.

Ok back to the much less exciting reading I have to do for my lab report, I hope you try reading these books one day, then again I guess what you're taste in books are!

This is my latest (late!) discovery

I've been meaning to this all week, I've even known exactly what I was going to photograph and write about all week! My good intentions had to be delayed however, as the impending doom that is the due date of my four major assignments seems to be getting frighteningly close while I am terrifyingly far from finishing (or starting..) all of them!

Luckily my latest discovery has been helping me through all the stress and hair-pulling-out, and has made me a little bit more serene and a little bit less likely to have a panic attack as soon as my head hits the pillow at 1am.

My discovery is:

T2 tea! Now it's not like I just stumbled across T2 recently and said "oh my what is this delightful store? I must buy some tea". No, I discovered T2 for the first time years ago, but being stingy and a total tea-novice I decided that it wasn't worth the extra moolah and that I would be quite happy with regular old Lipton.

I continued to re-convince myself of this every time I walked past (and into) T2, I would browse the store smelling the tea and trying not to knock over the $60 teapots. And then I cracked. Last week I decided that enough was enough, I needed some T2 tea and I needed it now. Now I am the proud owner of "Melbourne Breakfast" and "Sencha quince", both gorgeous teas and both can handle a bit of honey (yay).

I am absolutely convinced that drinking all this tea not only gives me a little bit of "oh how extravagant and luxurious am I?" time, but it's also totally mellowed me out and I'm not constantly yelling at my brother and random friends anymore (just occasionally now). So if you're feeling strung out, stressed out or just plain angry, find yourself some lovely tea and just relaaaax.

p.s Thanks so much for all the helpful advice about the quilting! Because of assignments and such I won't be able to start it until holidays which is mid-way through June, so something tells me it won't be finished by November! Oh well, the little bubba's just going to have to wait for 'Aunty' Fi to finish it ;)

Oh and um, who is this Amitie lass you ladies are talking about?

Advice please?

A few weeks ago I found out that someone very close to me is pregnant! This is super exciting for me because I've never had anyone so close to me be pregnant before, only cousins, and not even the close ones. So I'm really excited to hopefully make a few things for the little bambino when it arrives. But as you all know.. my crafting/sewing skills are somewhat lacking.

The one thing that I really really want to make is a quilt. I've been wanting to make one fuh-eva but never really had the motivation.. or a timeline! I only want to make a really simple patchwork-y still one, nothing too difficult for my first ever quilt attempt. I also don't have a sewing machine, so any bit that MUST require sewing I'll have to do while I'm back at the parentals over the holidays.

So my question to you all is, should I buy a quilting book of some kind? Considering I am a beginner beginner beginner, I need the very basics of what to do and how to do it. Do you know of any good quilting books out there? Whatever advice you can give me I would appreciate to the ends of the earth!

The first..

Well it might not make anyone else smile. But when I walked past it on my way to IGA after I forgot my diced tomatoes for my veggie soup, well.. it made me smile :)

Stay tuned for more!

Mixtape Monday

Have I mentioned..

I've sort of, kind of, been published? Now I know it's really nothing special, and it's really little, but for me it's also really exciting! It happened a few weeks ago now actually and I forgot to mention it on here.

So basically on flickr I got a message asking if I would like to submit my photo of the Fourviere Basilica in Lyon to some online French travel guide thingy. I had no idea what they were talking about but it was nice that someone thought my photo was special enough to be submitted anywhere! So I'm like yeah sure why not. This is the pic in question.

So then I get another message telling me:

I am delighted to let you know that your submitted photo has been selected for inclusion in the newly released second edition of our Schmap France Guide.

Here's the link: http://www.schmap.com/france/churches/#p=40766&i=40766.jpg

And that's my pic on the left! Yay, it even has my name on it!

Tough bounce.

I found this on the found magazine website quite awhile ago. It's been sitting in my pictures folder ever since and I could never remember where I got it from so I didn't want to post it on here until I remembered. So I googled the file name which I had saved it under: toughbounce, because I had a feeling that it was saved as that for a reason. As is turned out that was what it had been uploaded as originally, so it was easily re-found.

I love this for so many reasons, you can really create your own story from it. I'm going to name the first person X and the second person Y. Ignore the "he's", I only do it because without them it makes it very confusing.

1: X is throwing his heart to Y, hoping they will accept it. Y doesn't want X's heart and lets it fall to the floor where they both stare at it. X realises Y never wanted his heart anyway.

2: Y is grey and the heart is grey. Y had previously given X his heart. But X no longer wants it, he tries to give it back to Y but Y doesn't want it back. He wants X to keep it so he lets it fall to the floor.

3: X has no arms. He has lost the ability to love and therefore cannot catch Y's heart, even though he really wants to.

I remember in the comments on this picture on the website everyone had come up with so many beautiful and haunting little descriptions of what they thought was going on in the picture. What do you think? Can you see yourself in this picture?

I don't know that I fit in with any of my stories, if I could change it to make it more applicable to me it would be both X and Y throwing their hearts at each other, and neither one being able to catch it.

edit this is the link to it's page on Found, I just stumbled on it while looking through the website again, read everyones comments, there are some beautiful ideas there.

This is.. my perfect dinner party guest list

Well I've been waiting all week to see what Three Buttons would suggest for today 'this is' meme until I remembered that she had handed the torch to Lily and Agathe, so I took a sneak peak over at their blog today and found what she had suggested! So thankyou Lily and Agathe for this week's 'this is' which is of course, 'my perfect dinner party guest list'.

Now I have a bit of a dilemma with this one. Do I want scintillating and intelligent conversation? Do I just want to be surrounded by gorgeous boys I have crushes on both in the real and the 'Hollywood' world? Do I want to fill my table with dead celebrities just for the "Elvis said the funniest thing over dinner last night" factor? It is a conundrum indeed.

But in the end let's face it, I'm 21, I don't have to be mature about this at all. If I want a table full of cuties who are as dumb as the food I'm serving, then so be it, at least I'll have something nice to look at! Oh AND I don't have a significant other, so therefore I am choosing an extra guest. So here are my 7 guests:

1. Jay from Bedouin Soundclash. We all know I'm in love with him.

2. Justin Timberlake. Yeah yeah I'm 21 leave me alone. Could this guy be any more smooth?

3. Arj Barker. Someone's gotta tell the funnies.

4. Graeme from So You Think You Can Dance. Because he's cute and if we get bored he can contemporary dance around the table.

5 & 6. Hamish and Andy. Both cute. Both funny. Both single for the night (in my eyes).

7. (Edit) GEORGE CLOONEY! *melts a little bit in chair*

To fringe or not to fringe?

Up until about the age of 7 or so I had a fringe. As you can see from the photo I was totally adorable with a fringe, if I do say so myself. As I got a bit older I wanted to grow my fringe out, like every single other girl my age, must be one of those things you just do when you hit 8 or something.So I'm thinking of maybe getting a fringe again. I need a big post-breakup-hair-cut thing, and let's face it, if I don't like it it won't take long to grow out and I can pin it back anyway. What do you think, would a fringe suit me now?
I need reassurance otherwise I can't do it! Oh and does anyone know any cute, single, kind, considerate, loyal, funky, smart, arty, 21-25 year old boys out there that you feel like setting me up a on a date with? It's time I got back out there, seeing as he already has...

A job? For moi?

Well today turned out to be one of those super fantastic days where little things just add up and you find yourself walking on air. For awhile now I've been trying to find a new job because frankly, cleaning just isn't cutting it, and while I'm happy to keep on cleaning for the doc two days a week it just isn't enough. I don't have enough money to frivolously spend on fun and pretty crafty things, and we just can't have that can we?

So I've been applying and applying and handing out resumes and emailing resumes and sucking up in cover letters and smiling my face off and I haven't back from them, not. a. single. one. So clearly I was getting pissed off, I was getting cynical and angry and pouty. I was ranting about how employers expect too much form you and no wonder there is such an unemployment crisis and how am I meant to get "experience" if noone would ever hire me!

And then it happened. Today I handed in a resume at a cafe, it sounded promising, perhaps a Wednesday shift at least. I went out for coffee with a friend at the same cafe then walked down the road to check out the Asian supermarket which I've never been in before. Found some gorgeous green soup bowls and soup spoons which I had to buy (photos will come later), I checked my phone and I had a v-mail. I checked it and it was Ikea, asking me to come in for a group interview on Thursday. Whoo hoo I yelled, another possible job! I can do a group interview no problem.

So I bought my friend back to my flat to lend her some boots for a themed 21st and I noticed I had a message on the answering machine. I checked it and it was a girl from a the sports medical clinic that my cleaning boss is the foot surgeon for! I had emailed in a resume on the off-chance that by having "contacts" within the clinic they might give me a reception job. And she said she wanted me to come in for an interview! This would be perfect because I want to do nursing after I finish my psych degree this year and working in a clinic would be such a great experience, even if I'm only on reception.

So yeah I'm dancing, and I know none of them are guaranteed and I might not get any of them, but it's so nice to hear back from them, I'm so sick of being completely ignored and dismissed and just feeling like there was something wrong with me. And now I'm going to make Asian chicken noodle soup for myself and a friend who is coming over to drink beer and watch The Sweetest Thing with me, could this day get any better?

My very first tag!

As the title suggests I've been tagged! I've never been tagged before, wow I'm feeling the bloggy love, I've felt like such an outsider and a blogger wanna-be, but now that I'm taking part in the "this is" meme and more and more people are commenting on my silly random posts I feel like I'm really part of the blogging community, and now I've been tagged! Yay! Ok so I was tagged by kitty's kaboodle which was very nice of her and it's very nice to make her bloggy acquaintance, I'll be sure to add her to my bloglines (like I really need anymore!). I love these random things so if anyone ever wants to tag someone and know they'll do it then send it my way :)

So here we are, 6 random things about me:

1. I love and adore my Frankies, but that doesn't stop me hacking them up so the prettiness can be spread across my bedroom walls. I'm aware this might horrify some people.

2. I broke my right wrist in grade 1 by falling off a stump. I broke my left wrist in grade 3 when my brother pushed me off a couch. Hence I have crazy weak wrists which often get really achey.

3. Macaroni and cheese is my comfort food. I can always tell when I'm depressed because I head straight for the Kraft Mac and Cheese in the supermarket.

4. (Kitty's 6th thing reminded me of this) I was a flowergirl for my cousin who I'd never met when I was 5, I cried because I really liked her and I thought I'd never see her again. My mum had to comfort me during the ceremony. I didn't see my cousin for 10 years after the wedding. I knew it!

5. As I kid I wanted to be either a ballerina, a waitress, a supermodel or a flight attendant. I was such a girl. Well I achieved at least one of those goals, I waitressed for 3 years, can't see the other ones happening anytime soon though.

6. I'm obsessively organized to the point that I have a diary, a semester wall planner, a bimonthly wall planner, and a weekly planner. Despite all of these things I'm actually really really unorganized.

Ok so I will tag (I know you've probably been tagged a thousand times so you don't have to do it) : Hey Bubbles, Daydream Lily, Kirin Notebook, Hula Seventy, Hollabee, and Lululollylegs

And here are the rules

1. Link to the person that tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself.
4. Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.
5. Let each random person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website

Go forth and yonder and all that jazz

This is.. my knick-knack/jewellery box, sort of.

I love the idea of the theme this week but I have to admit, I don't actually really have a designated jewellery or knick-knack box. So I thought to start off with I would show you what could potentially be a very pretty and suitable box for this sort of thing. It's a really beautiful black jewellery box with mother of pearl in-lays that my Mum got from a lady from Singapore who used to live in our Caravan Park. Of course I claimed it as my own, but have never actually used it.You see my problem is that I like to live in a world of organised chaos. Everything has it's place, and I know where that place is, despite it looking like someone has planted mini explosives around my room. The other problem is that I am a necklace person, I have minimal numbers of brooches, rings, bracelets and other things that easily live within the confines of a box. Being a necklace person I have to either hang them up or keep them separate otherwise they become a tangled frustrating mess, especially when I'm running late for something and I have my heart set of on a particular necklace. So as you can see from the photo below, my jewellery is generally in one of four places: hanging from my lamp, tangled up on my mini transportable jewellery box, sitting on my alarm clock (this is where my most recent wears sit) or in the little asian ceramic cup thing which is mostly inhabited by loose pendants which don't have a chain.
I used to have a lot more necklaces hanging from my lamp actually, but annoyingly the when I accidentally leave my blind pulled down with my window open it has a habit of blowing open and knocking my lamp over, sending necklaces sprawling across the floor and sometimes into my trashbin and under my bed. As you can imagine, this is not good.
Oh and by the way do you remember me gushing over this lampshade and everyone pointing me towards Ikea? Well huzzah, I totally bought it. And I love love love it.

Supermarket loneliness

I had a moment today in the cleaning aisle of my local Safeway when I realised just how lonely grocery shopping can be. It's such a strange stark environment that is populated by people wandering around in a daydream, avoiding eye contact, wordlessly maneuvering around each other.

Then you get the young flatmates, laughing as they decide what Taco kit to buy for tonight's dinner, or the mother and daughter pairs arguing over what cereal they should get this week, and of course the couples who seem to know exactly what their partner wants. I always find myself jealous of people who shop in groups or pairs, they always appear in another world to us lonely single shoppers.

It's moments like these when I miss having a boyfriend. And then I think about them shopping for ingredients to make cocktails like we did every Friday night, or buying lemons and milk to make crepes for her like used to make for me. A little part of me curls up into a ball, and I realise that I am lonely, despite being surrounded by all these people.

Project Smile

I'm embarking on my first guerrilla art project. Well it's not so much art as words, but basically it's inspired by this website, You Are Beautiful. I know I read about this website on someone's blog but for the life of me I can't remember who it was, so thankyou if it was you!

Basically the idea of the You are Beautiful project is for people to print out those stickers and just stick them all over the place where people will see them, then you take a photo of it and send it in to the site. I like the basic message behind the whole thing, and I know that if I saw a "You are beautiful" sticker on a lamppost in the street it would make me smile even though I'd know it wasn't intended specifically for me.

So I thought I'd take this a step further and put a heap of inspiring mini phrases on some sticky labels and stick them around the place. I couldn't get the big sheets that you can print on to, but in hindsight I like them handwritten, it's more personal, although it makes me nervous that people could recognize my handwriting, as silly as that is!

Most of the 'phrases' are more like little reminders, things like "Make someone smile", "Love is everywhere", "Be kind to yourself" etc. Nothing too complicated or corny, just little things that sometimes we forget, and personally I find it nice to be reminded every now and then. I haven't told anyone about this project, because honestly I'm a bit scared that I'll be too chicken to do it, and if I do I'll be so nervous and embarrassed that I won't take a photo of where I put them.

So basically I'm putting this up on here so that I have a bit of a public accountability thing going on, and hopefully it will make me actually do it! Maybe if I start off at night or in less exposed places I'll build up the courage to actually photograph the whole thing.

Anyway we'll see, feel free to join in if you like, or take on your own little guerrilla art project, anything to make this concrete world a little more happy and smiley!