I’ve done quite a bit of traveling in my time and I love exploring new and interesting places. I try to make my everyday life as beautiful as possible and traveling is no different. You won’t find me in sweat pants and thongs (or flip flops for my American readers), I want to feel as pretty leaving a 7 hour flight as I do going out to dinner!

So with my recent trip to Singapore I thought it was the perfect time to show you all how I travel in style. This is a compilation of tips I’ve picked up on my travels and my “must have” items for along the way.

First thing’s first…

I was so surprised, normally if I get anything foreign in my change it’s New Zealand currency. This seemed so random and fateful that I kept it in a special compartment in my bag the whole trip!

Take some good headphones (and an ipod if you want to listen to *good* music). I hate airplane headphones, they are usually uncomfortable and don’t block outside sounds. Also they aren’t anywhere near as cute as mine! Headphones are super easy to deco, even if you have little ear bud ones a few diamantes will jazz them up nicely!

Below are some of my travel essentials. Clear zip pouch with make up and liquids, letter writing kit, wet naps, face washer, mini sewing kit and bag tags for checked in luggage.

And of course a matching passport holder helps too These are all made of suede so they feel soft enough to be used as a pillow if it’s an emergency!

A jacket

Take it on the plane with you, seriously. Even if you’re going to a hot destination the plane is always freezing and those little blankets don’t help. Good protection against the rain too.

Candy!

Candy is good to pop your ears in the plane and also tastes great. And they are a good conversation starter if a cute boy is sitting next to you

<
p style=”text-align: center; color: rgb(204, 51, 204);”>Beating the climate bug

• Pick clothes that are appropriate for your situation. Fabrics that don’t wrinkle or require ironing are great for long flights but synthetic fabrics are horrible in hot climates! On the plane to SG I wore a cotton printed cord dress with a lace cardigan over the top.

• Fabric choice is important. While in the heat in SG I wore thin stockings, cotton dresses and cardigans. Everyone was sweltering in the heat, even though I was wearing more layers I was cool because I was wearing fabric that could breathe.

• Layering is the key to being ready for any weather! Cardigans are awesome, you can dress them up or down, take them off if you’re hot or add a jacket if you’re cold.
  
  Weapons of choice:

A fan

I picked this one up for $0.70 and added bows, diamantes and lace. They are compact and can be invaluable in the heat. They can also be used to hide yawns behind in boring situations, keep your coughs or sneezes to yourself or whisper gossip to a friend Keep it in your hand bag!

A singlet

Singlets are the ultimate versatile piece of travel clothing. Wear during the day if it’s hot, layer with a cardigan to go out to dinner, use as pajamas or as swimmers if you’re in a pinch. Cute pajamas are surprisingly important, if you have luck like mine you’ll end up outside at 2am for a fire drill chatting to the other hotel patrons so this is probably not the right time to sleep in the nude Be prepared for anything because holidays are all about going with the flow!

Sunglasses

… ok maybe not “‘Nuff said”… These are only half for the sun protection though. The other half is looking damn good! There is nothing classier that popping on some nice sunglasses when you’re not feeling 100%. Hide the bags under your eyes from the 7hr flight and look like a rock star

The scarf is not only useful but looks damn stylish hanging off a handbag! Did your hair get ruined? Then wear it like a 50′s movie star. Forget the hot rollers? Use it for pin curls. Sudden hay fever attack and not a tissue in sight? Well you get the idea…

Other travel musts:

Gifts for the new friends you meet!

I didn’t get to hand any of these little babies out because we were just so busy but I really wanted to give them to the organizers at Nuffnang. It’s a really great idea to take something from your home country. These little kangaroo and koala toys didn’t cost much but I hand glued a bow and diamante to each to personalize them. That way your friends will have something cute to remember you by And you won’t feel awkward if someone gets you something nice because you’ll have something give back!

A bag full of cables for your various gadgets.

Definitely important so you can charge your ipod/laptop/phone etc. A power point converter is also a great idea. The most important part of this is the bag, don’t bother going searching through your whole suitcase just grab the bag. On the way home the bag also be used as carry on luggage for all that extra shopping

Luggage:

I hate not being able to find my luggage at the other end. I’m also paranoid because I’ve had luggage stolen before and no matter what compensation you get there are some things which can’t be replaced. So if it can’t be replaced, don’t pack it. I also hate that all luggage pretty much looks the same. Ideally I would have liked one of these babies by Hideo Wakamatsu but as we only discovered how broken our old cases were the day before we left, I didn’t really have time to shop for a new one :(… It’s made my dream list for next time though, in fact I would go as far as to say that this is my dream suitcase! (click the image for the specs)

So in lue of one of those beauties we borrowed plan old suit cases from James’ parents. To make it more memorable I tied some old crappy acrylic lace around it several times. James laughed at me but it worked, we spotted our bags in like 2 seconds at the other end and were out of there!

Super bright bag tags help too if you can’t afford a whole new suitcase.

When you get home…

Unpack everything as quickly as possible otherwise you’ll get lazy and it will never get done! I’ve left a suitcase for weeks before because I was tired when I got home and then got busy at work, don’t fall into the trap! It only took me like half an hour to unpack both of our cases this time.

So hopefully you’ve enjoyed some of my silly tips and they make your next trip even more fun!

Do you have some fun tips to share with me?

A warning that there are a lot of photos in this post so be warned If these photos just aren’t enough, I’ve uploaded a large selection of everything we took over at my Flickr account. Hey it’s not everyday that someone flies you to Singapore for free so I took a lot of photos!

So starting on Thursday night, our flight was at like 11:45pm so James’ Dad drove us to the airport and we chatted before going through security and customs and doing a little shopping. We were keeping an eye out for Erica from Girl With a Satchel who was the only other blogger coming from Brisbane. We travel in style baby!

This is a kind of silly inside joke but ever since we started going out like 2 and 1/2 years ago James has been promising to buy me a mood ring and he finally did! Hahaha guess what I’m feeling!

The food and service on the plane was lovely, we flew with Singapore Airlines. They gave us little travel packs with socks and tooth brushes, how cute! For dinner we had yummy noodles.

We arrived at the Link Hotel at around 5am and we were all so tired that we piled into bed! Erica was only a couple of rooms down the hall from us which was awesome! She was such a wonderful traveling companion, we had lots of fun together! Here is our hotel room…

To give you an idea of the size, that’s a double bed and the wall is behind the desk on the right. My little laptop Edward lived there but the internet connection was very sketchy so I couldn’t post

After a few hours napping we met up with Erica, Candice and her husband Craig for an… interesting breakfast. Erica ordered coffee with skim milk and they brought her a cup of frothed milk. I ordered tea and they brought warm milk tea like you would have with pearls in it… it was very pretty though!

After breakfast we headed out to a shopping center and shopped around, the girls were super excited that there was a Zara! We met up with Grace and Dave here and she introduced herself by sneaking up behind me, poking me in the back and whispering in my ear “GIMME ALL YOUR MONEY!!” she managed to scare the hell out of me

I bought a pair of earrings and Candice bought me a shiny pink bling ring, the shop assistants kept telling I looked like a Barbie Doll so we took a photo together

Erica was sleepy so she went back to the hotel while Candice and I got pedicures! Ah felt so good and so much nicer than the places here in Aus! Woo for deco iphones!

After that we went back to the hotel to get ready for the awards, which you saw last post so I’ll skip to the next morning which was Friday. I stayed up after the awards and got up early so I could pin curl my hair. I was going to take hot rollers but they were too heavy so I learned to pin curl instead. I was super happy with the results and they lasted all that day and night! James and I met up with Candice and Craig for breakfast at the hotel before the tour started.

Our first stop was the Mint Toy Museum… which is exactly what it implies: a museum for old toys in mint condition. Our tour guide was hilarious, this kind of sums the whole thing up:

I got to pose with a life size model my childhood hero Tintin and his dog Snowy as well as Captain Haddock so I was happy!

We were literally like kids in a toy shop amongst all of the memorabilia! Old favorites like Strawberry Shortcake brought back childhood memories and it made me sad to see the new slutty version they’re trying to pedal now.

Next we went to the Museum of Early Chinese Settlers. You should all note that I’m saving the cutest girliest photos for a special treat on Monday or Tuesday You’re going to love it!

We stopped for lunch at an insanely busy crowded pavilion. Everything was so cheap and there were so many smells in one small area!

It was so awes
ome to be with other people who understand the importance of photos

Our next stop was the Singapore Planning Museum. They had a replica of all of inner Singapore in miniature! Oh what’s that I spy down there?

ZOMG IT’S GIANT VIOLET ATTACKING THE CITY!

We stopped off for a spot of shopping but the museum of planning kept reminding me to look at the architecture There were so many pretty buildings, I wish my windows were rainbow!

The next stop was Merlion park which I was totally looking forward to!

We spent ages just being silly and taking photos, most of those will be in the post on Mon/Tues.

Lots of posing!

Our next stop was the Singapore Flier which is basically a very fancy ferris wheel.

The view from the top was great!

We were fortunate that our capsule was full of awesome people!

Group shot! James, Me, Candice, Craig, Christie with little Immy and Erica.

It was such an action packed tour that Nuffnang had planned at this point we took some time out to just chill with some cocktails at the bay. I had a mocktail version of the “Sinagpore Sling” and it was yummy!

Little Immy was so adorable she had herself a bunch of admirers when the day was done. Here she is with Martin from Nuffnang, she was eating ice cream, too cute!

James made me take this picture of him next to the bus. Low brow humor…

That night we went to a crazy shopping center called Mustafa. There is no way to describe it other than insane. So huge, sold everything from cosmetics to diamonds to cheap shoes to frozen goods to ANYTHING. It was so hard just to find the exit once we were in *_* The lights outside were beautiful though.

We had dinner at a celebrity hot spot (apparently) and out the front there was the ultimate deco project… a motorbike!

I had the most disgusting grass jelly drink for dinner. It was like frozen rice noodles in sugar water. ICK.

After a good night’s sleep we were ready for shopping again Quick breakfast and some photos.

We headed off to Orchard Rd for fancy upmarket shopping.

I bought a bunch of Japanese magazines, I was so happy! They are like 1/3rd of the price compared to Australia!

The boys played Wii Sports Resort while we all shopped.

Then it was our last shopping stop for the trip…. SIM LIM SQUARE! Everyone had been waiting so long to get here, it’s basically a whole shopping center devoted to gadgets and cameras I wanted to get a video camera (mission unsuccessful) and James wanted to look at lenses. We ended up spending 3 hours there because everyone wanted to bargain for things! Some of the guys got really good deals t
oo I had a hilarious experience with Grace as she put on her famous Singaporean accent to try and bargain on my behalf The shop keeper was a nut job and he was yelling at us not to leave! Grace’s bargaining skills were so awesome she even got $5 off a steam iron which was supposed to be set price!

While we were wandering around waiting for the boys to finish haggling Kruppy took us on his magical tour of the past and educated us on the subtitles of the landline phone

Apparently his tour made him so tired that he felt the need to try out a magic eye massaging gadget… hahaha! I sure hope he didn’t sustain any lasting damage ^_^

Oh and I couldn’t help but share the signs we could see from the hotel… Frog porridge sounds interesting! We were all daring each other to try it but there just wasn’t time!

After all that there was time for one last hurrah online and then a dash to the airport!

Erica can testify to the fact that our taxi driver was the funniest man in the universe! He was giving us the good old cab driver philosophy and saying we should work less and enjoy life before our retirements! We were convinced he should write a book.

At the airport we grabbed some dinner and did a dash to the plane (almost missed it oops!). James couldn’t believe there was a Burger King, he was so excited! In Australia Burger King is called Hungry Jacks because when it first arrived the name was already taken, so it’s a novelty.

On the plane back I managed to get some sleep, dinner was some kind of fish which was icky but smelled good.

The best part was desert which was chocolate covered icecream bites!

James really enjoyed his hahahaha!

And that was our lovely trip! Now what you really want to see… the loot
Here’s the candy!

Things that I bought:

Nuffnang Australia had these awesome shirts made up for us, I love the one I got!!

And look… FOREIGN BUENO! And yes it tasted just as good Damn Kinder, just sponsor me already

To say thank you very much to Nuffnang and all the sponsors James and I made this photo <3

I had such a wonderful time, I wish it had lasted longer but it was lovely and it all feels like a dream now

While we were taking photos in the lobby of the hotel, everyone started taking our photos too! I felt like a celebrity!

There was literally a wall of other bloggers snapping us!

We traveled by bus to the event and around half way there Craig (who was sitting behind me) tapped me on the shoulder and pointed outside to the car full of kids who were waving and cheering at me! So cute!

When we arrived we were greeted with an explosion of camera flashes! We all walked the red carpet to the official photographer and got some shots done.

Aussie bloggers for the win!

Here I am posing with the program. It was a lovely souvenir! The entertainment for the night was Alan Woo (a Singaporean tv celebrity), JC Sum and Magic Babe Ning and the band Electro. I felt bad for Alan Woo, he was doing his best to keep everyone on track but with a room full of bloggers everyone kind of does their own thing!

We shared our table with the adorable Valerie from Dweam and her friends. Here we are making silly Mickey Mouse faces with the ears she borrowed from one of the fashion bloggers!

Valerie and her friends (who’s names I couldn’t hear over the loud music sorry!)

James chilling with some water looking suave

Reading about the nominees…

Our view of the stage.

Each person got a little jar of hard candy which actually have Nuffnang’s initials/logo in the candy! They were really yummy!

It was funny how many people wanted my photo, I didn’t realize so many people actually read my blog! I felt so much like a celebrity, I think I took photos with everyone there!!!

Here I am with Ringo from Cheeerland who had super cute make up.

James’ Pringles video CAME SECOND!!!! They picked the two best ones and played them both on the big screen! He was so excited! Here he is with the winner Jayden (who’s video was super professional). James was so happy to meet him!

This is to give you an idea of the number of people there… it was a massive event! We didn’t realize how big blogging was in Asia *_*

I was taking photos with Audrey from FourFeetNine when who should jump into our photo but Grace from Living Footprints!

Of course Grace and I had to start taking stupid photos, Audrey couldn’t help looking adorable in them

The food that night was delicious, it was absolutely 5 star!

The desert was my favorite, it was some kind of chocolatey cheese cake (maybe?) which tasted like Bueno… Perfect! And it gave me the perfect chance to show off my cute new eyelashes courtesy of 1000Hour Lashes

After all of that excitement I was pretty tired so I settled into bed to wake up early for the tour day in the morning.

I had such a wonderful night, I really can’t thank Nuffnang enough. This was an opportunity of a lifetime and I couldn’t be happier. Look out for me next year on the nominee’s list

Hello everyone! This is a super quick post to let you all know that I’ve arrived back in Aus safe and sound. I have over 600 photos of the trip so I’m working to edit them now but unfortunately I’ve become quite ill from doing too much while away! So I’m taking a day or so to try and kick this flu thing and then I’ll put everything up online for you guys to see! I made so many new friends over in Singapore so I want to do the post justice!

<3 you all and we’ll chat soon!

P.S. Omg I am one off of 100 followers!! To celebrate I’ve got a couple of surprises planned! You guys rock

WE ARE GOING TO SINGAPORE FOR THE NUFFNANG AWARDS THIS THURSDAY!!!

That’s right everyone! We both won tickets to the Nuffnang Asia Pacific Blogger Awards with our Pringles competition entries! OMG SO EXCITING!

Thanks so much to Nuffnang for paying for our tickets and accommodation! We are so grateful for everything and can’t wait to meet all the other bloggers going!

And OMGOMGOMGOMG we leave this Thursday! So much packing to do!

This is the first formal event I’ve ever been to (I didn’t go to my highschool formal) so I can’t even say how excited I am to be able to get dressed up. I’m putting the final touches on my outfit over the next few days but I’m going to keep it a surprise for you guys!

So you can understand why I haven’t been posting much this week, I’ve been busy making arrangements!

Over the next few days as I pack I’ll be putting together a post called “Violet’s Traveling Tip’s” so you can see how I travel in style ^_^

A sneak peak of what I’m going to take with me…. I deco’d my DS Lite this week Here’s a mini tutorial on how I did it (with some bonus photos down the bottom)!

First I got my diamante case of doom!

I arranged all of the biggest charms first and glued them down with epoxy. Don’t worry I’m just decorating a case. I used a bunch of random charms, some bows and pleated ribbon on the bottom.

Then I filled in all of the gaps with smaller jewels and pearls.
I gave everything a few top coats with clear nail polish.
After it was dry I popped it back on the DS.

Tadaa!

Now some bonus pictures from our adventures with the stupid car! Poor little car being towed to it’s final resting place

Me at the mechanic paying for it all. They were so nice and only charged us a tiny bit! I would totally recommend them if you live in Brisbane check out Mechanix Plus in Wynnum ^_^
It actually hailed this week ! My back yard was covered in ice, if you know Brisbane’s climate you know how rare this is! I’m almost glad we didn’t have a car to get damaged

Well that’s it for now! Join me next week for my epic travel post!

Oh would you guys prefer that I set up a couple of automatic posts for while I’m away? Or would you just like me to set it up so my twitter updates here so you can get a blow by blow of all the fun we’re going to have?

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH SINGAPORE!! Thank you Nuffnang!

Hey everyone! This is the second part of my Nuffnang Blog Awards competition entry. This one is all about Singapore!

So why do I deserve to go to Singapore? Well I don’t know if I deserve to go above all of the other entries as there have been some really awesome ones but I would really like to go! I’d love to actually get out of the house and meet some fellow bloggers in person for a change ^_^ The most important reason I would like to go is experiencing another culture! Singapore is completely different to Australia and I’d love to be able to meet new and interesting people.

The second part of this post is all about my perfect day in Singapore!

When you’re traveling you should always take comfortable shoes with you as you never know how much walking (or shopping!) you’re going to have to do. I find it really difficult to find comfortable shoes that are also really cute

So I made my own! I bought a cheap set of white runners from Big W for $25 and added glitter, pearls, diamantes and bows

I’m always doing photo posts on my blog so I thought I’d do something a little different this time so you can see things from the perspective of my new shoes ^_^

I like to look nice as much of the time as possible. So even when I’m flying I wear nice comfortable clothes. On my day in Singapore I’ll arrive at the airport looking cute as ever
The first thing I’ll do after I arrive is meet up with all the awesome friends I’ve made through blogging! Traveling is so much more fun with friends ^_^ That’s James on the far right in the stylish wing tips I’m totally going to buy him. Next I want to take a ride on the famous “Ducks”. They look so cute! And I’ve heard that the guides are very charismatic and informative ^_^ I’ll probably have to run to catch it because I got side tracked with all my friends!

Then it’s… SHOPPING TIME! Yaaay! Ah you all know how much I love shopping, I am a champion bargain finder! I am so looking forward to spending time on Orchard Road. Shops get ready for me!

There are many Lolita shops in Singapore too so I would love to visit one or two and pick up some new dresses or accessories! It would be lovely to actually be go into the shops and feel the fabric of the clothes I want rather than having to order online. *sigh* I’m dreaming about feeling all of that beautiful lace (other Lolitas will get this).

I want to see as much of the city as possible but I want to see the parks and other areas as well. I would try to get as diverse snap shot of Singapore as I could in 1 day! Ad with my awesome shoes I could do all the walking I wanted without feeling the horrible ouch of high heels ^_^

When I have finished my tour around the town and seen all I could see I would definitely head back to the hotel for a little “me time”. I always try to schedule a couple of hours where I can just relax on holidays otherwise I would run out of energy! My favorite is relaxing by a pool with a nice cold drink…

And to top off my fantastic day? Well I couldn’t really ask for more than that but I would love to go to the Nuffnang Awards! I would probably change my shoes at this point though!

To thank you all for reading here are some bonus shots of my shoes, I did have a bunch ready for a tutorial of how to make them but my phone reset and deleted them all
The glitter is ridiculously sparkly in person but the camera didn’t catch it well.Even the back must be cute!And nothing I own is complete without a flower!

And if you really miss the silly photos of me feel free to click over at James’ entry to the competition where you can see lots of photos of us doing what he wants in Singapore!

Thanks Nuffnang and don’t forget to Indulge in the Uniquely Singapore Experience!

Evening everyone! Nuffnang is having another competition to win tickets to the Regional Blog Awards. For those who haven’t heard of the competition it’s basically to show how fun Pringles are and you have to use the word “Krrunch” in place of the word “fun”.

Anyway this is my entry, I hope you enjoy it!

Today has been a very boring day

There is absolutely nothing to do. It’s my day off so there’s not even any work to keep me occupied.
There is nothing going on online either *_* No new emails, slow Twitter day and no comments to reply to!
Luckily my savior arrives! James is home and behold he’s brought lots of yummy Pringles

Yaaaay! Maybe today won’t be so boring after all! Maybe it will be a Krrunch day!
After just one chip something amazing starts to happen….
I am transformed from plain old boring Violet to……………..

SUPER AMAZING KRRUNCH PRINCESS GIRL VIOLET! Gone are the boring pajamas and pig tails, replaced with a hime style ensemble! I’m ready to rid the world of bad style every where, look out people with bad fashion sense, IT’S KRRUNCH TIME!

Hmm now that you mention it, this outfit looks a little bit plain doesn’t it? I wonder how I could jazz it up a bit?
Hmm maybe Pringles will come to my rescue again!

Now what do I need? I’ll separate the cardboard from the coloured front and go from there.
Now I can gather up some other craft supplies life felt, glue and the staple of a Princess’ closet: lace!
I’ve got lots of ideas what to do but I’m going to start with 3 to begin with. Here is what I’m going to start with…

I cut a bigger circle out of the Pringles box to make the base of idea #1 and taped them together. I added some glue to make sure it would stick and left to dry.
Idea #2 sees me cut a small tube cover the outside with some squishy batting.
Now time to decorate idea #2, I got some nice ribbon and started wrapping it around the tube.
Here’s what it looked like when that stage was finished…Then I covered Idea #2 in pink felt to match my dress!
I added some pretty decorations to cover all the yucky edges and left it to dry again. Can you guess what it is yet?
While idea #1 and #2 are drying let’s get started on making some decorations for them! Remember when I stripped off the wrapping from the Pringles can? Well I’m going to make some roses with it. First cut it into strips varying in width depending on how big you want the finished rose to be. Then fold them in half so the red is on the outside.
Start at the end and fold it backwards on an angle. This is actually how you make ribbon roses but it works the same with paper.
Start curling it around. Fold the long edge backwards again and keep rolling, continue doing this over and over again.
It’s starting to look like a rose! Keep going until you reach the end of the paper and glue the end out of the way.
Taadaa!
Repeat and make a bunch of them to decorate everything with
Did you guess what Idea #1 was? It’s a mini top hat! Now add some roses and ribbons to make it even prettier.

And Idea #2? It’s a bangle! Add some roses to that too, everything looks better with roses!
Now those ones are finished, time to move on to Idea #3! I cut a Pringles can to this shape:
Next I glued the lids on both sides and covered it in felt and lace. I added a ribbon handle and used one of the roses I made as the closing mechanism.
So Pringles inspired me to make all of these adorable pieces!
Now to model them all! Cute right? Not bad for a couple of Pringles cans and lace!
Thanks Pringles, you sure made my day Krrunch in the end ^_^

This outfit looks pretty good now? I am ready for a night out on the town! (Preferably in Singapore *hint hint*)And a close up to end it all nicely ^_^ SUPER AMAZING KRRUNCH PRINCESS GIRL VIOLET TRIUMPHS AGAINST A PLAIN BORING OUTFIT!What do you guys think, am I in with a chance? It’s Krrunch time, get playful!