Last week I was lucky enough to get an invite to the Illamasquacounter opening at Chadstone shopping center. Considering how much fun the city launch was I was really excited to go. They had flown in 3 of their best make up artists to give us all transformations too so that was the icing on an already awesome cake!
Champagne and orange juice was waiting when we arrived.
With lots of the MBBE girls it was awesome to catch up with good friends.
Lovely make up artist Daniel Busuttil welcomed us to the event. All of the MBBE girls are in agreement, he has the most perfect eyebrows that any of us have ever seen.
And Jaciewho had a “Futuristic Mad Men” themed make over…
Love this photo of her so much:
And this one too, Jamestook so many awesome photos of the night!!
After all of us had caught up, the transformations began!
I was given the royal treatment by the fantastic Philip Buck who is so funny and sweet. The girls started plotting ways to keep him in Australia and not let him go home!
Now before we get to the “after” pictures I should probably explain the idea of an Illamasqua Transformation. The tag line for the brand is “Your Alter Ego” so a transformation is different to a regular make over because it is supposed to take you completely out of your comfort zone and show you an alter ego. So if you think it will be too traumatic to see me in anything other than sweet cutesy things it’s probably a good idea to skip the rest of this post -_-‘
Philip’s skills were amazing. I told him the look that I usually go for and that I wanted something completely crazy and he ran with it!
My eyes started freaking out at the powder (crazy sensitive eyes) half way and watering everywhere so I undid some of his beautiful work, instead of re-doing he took it as inspiration and turned it into something even more awesome!
This sparkly pigment was awesome and I have added to my want-list!
Starting to get darker now…
Adding more pigment…
Before, the regular plain old me with just foundation, lip gloss and lashes:
After, the transformed Tim Burton nightmare me:
And with the mastermind himself!
Rocking our transformations:
And with Melwho looked absolutely stunning in her Black Swan inspired Transformation
And Daniel who was the genius behind it!
By the end of the transformation there was a whole crowd of onlookers watching us XD
Some of the MBBE girls and I trying to do our scary faces:
The rest of the post is just going to be pic spam because it was so cool it deserves pictures!
Haha the poor other girls were convinced that they were going to have nightmares about me!
I think James was a little worried about waking up to this too hahaha!
These ones were taken once we got home and could control the lighting
My absolute favorite photo:
All in all it was a fantastic night and I really enjoyed breaking out of my comfort zone. I like trying new things, that’s how you discover old favorites! I would definitely recommend having an Illamasqua transformation, it’s an awesomely fun way to try something new.
This is a special edition of Snapshots which is fairly Celeste-centric because she’s moving away ;_; Nuffnang threw her a going away party which was also the first meet up of the year!
The meet was held at the lovely Pan Asianrestaurant in Prahn and we started the ridiculously hot day by cooling down with gespacho with egg whites.. or something… I can’t remember I’m not good at food stuff XD Go check all the food bloggers for more detailed food accounts!
Of course being a blogger meet, there were about a billion photos taken XD
Loooots of photos.
More of the yummy food:
And exchanging of business cards which is my favorite part of meets ups! I love getting home and going through everyone’s cards to see their blogs and information, I’ve always had a weird hoarding thing about business cards ^_^
My favorite part of the decor in Pan Asian is the awesome chandelier, it’s made of kitchen bowls and salt/pepper shakers!! It kind of inspires me to make something like that for our house!
I made this mistake of wearing ridiculously pointy high oxford shoes but they looked so good with the beautiful stockings Alisa from Kinda Fancysent me it was totally worth it!
All in all I had a fantastic time and it’s so nice to be able to get out of the house and out from behind the computer for a few hours 😀
This poor little cupcake didn’t quite survive the train ride home but it was damn delicious anyway! How on earth it managed to turn itself completely upside down is anyone’s guess *_*
Recently Celeste graduated and Jameswas the official photographer for the day so I thought I would share some of those photos too because it was a really fun day and the photos looked amazing!
The grass was so green and lush that day, it was like the first day of Spring!
Celeste looked absolutely beautiful and her bouquet was made up of little graduation Lemur stuffed toys!
The little graduations bears are so cute too, I couldn’t believe how pricey some of the merchandise they were selling was, if I had just dropped like $50K on a course you’d think they could throw in the damn bear for free XD
Her parents flew over to see her!
And while her sister couldn’t make it, she sent this in her place XD
My absolute favorite photo of the day, Kev’s expression is priceless!
We had to do some silly ones too, like imitations of this moustache guy outside the music department!
She was nice enough to lend me her mortar board and everything so I could pretend to graduate too XD
While Celeste was taking care of the actual graduation part James and I decided to take advantage of the lovely green grass and take photos of our own!
There were so many of these beautiful daisies around so I took some home to press! We took a ridiculous number of photos to take advantage of the pretty lighting that day but I think too many photos of me would get pretty boring so I’ll leave it at these two XD
Most amusing part the programme for the day was this guy with his gigantic mace looking thing! There were many many many jokes about beating people into submission with the pointy mace of knowledge made hahaha! I think this must be the punishment for students who don’t study hard enough XD
The epic shoes she was wearing that day, so pretty but apparently so painful! I had to giggle at some of the girls who were running around in tiny little mini skirts under their big billowy robes XD
My favorite photo of us together! I’m going to miss you Celeste!! I’m already planning our first vacation to the middle of no where to come visit you 😀
Obligatory hat throwing shot:
And the most important photo of the day XD
We already miss you! Time for me to start Skyping more XD
For Christmas this year I really wanted to make James something personalised and after lots of thinking about it I settled on making him a personalised camera strap because he loooooves photography. This is his photography site 😀
I had to take some of the photos on my phone as not to ruin the surprise XD
First thing I did was cut out two pieces of fabric after measuring his strap.
Using a chalk marker I drew his name in a pretty font for the outside and then a special quote from my favorite show (Pushing Daisies) on the inside.
I embroidered it all and tried to make daisies as manly as possible… it’s unsurprisingly quite difficult to make daisies manly XD
I love junk stores. I do some of my best shopping in junk stores but a lot of people ask about how I manage to find nice things amongst all of the… well junk XD I personally find that it’s all about digging, you have to sort through about 100 crap things before you find 1 good one. So with thinking about that I went to the junk shop at Harbour Town (which is currently my favorite) the other day to see what I could spot.
There were less nice things than I usually find but I still managed to hunt out a decent amount of things that I would have bought if I’d had the money.
Frist find of the day, I spotted these cute rose towels with lace edging on the way over.
A lot of the things I found this day were homewares and cute storage. These boxes would be perfect for keeping winter clothes in or accessories. The biggest was $5.50
This pretty serving tray is perfect for tea parties and only $2.
Of course you could get the whole tea set for $25 XD Much too pricy for a kids set but totally cute anyway!
Keeping with the tea party theme these plates are only $2. I actually prefer plates like this to display things like hair accessories in the bathroom or make up I use the most often etc.
This was around $7 if I remember correctly, yes it’s a fairly standard cupboard organiser thingy *but* it’s damask print! Super cute 😀
$2.50 for a cherry purse that comes with it’s own lipgloss? Yes please!
Of course it would be terrible not to go to a junk store and try on a bunch of ridiculous sunglasses. This is the part in the movie where there is also a montage of trying on hats 😉
Again in the realms of cute storage we have these lacy baskets. Pricy at $16.95 but they would make adorable laundry baskets!
There were also these big boxes with cute prints, can’t remember the price but under $10.
Pretty floral vases, probably not the one with the bird but I really like the others.
Or for the garden there were always these ones:
Again more flowery boxes. There was a serious over abundance of flowery boxes this time around but junk store shopping is like that, there is always too many of some things and not enough of others. The key is to buy what you like when you see it because next time it probably won’t be there.
There are always fun items like this too, it’s a Mario style mushroom piggy bank! I so wanted to take this home!
This brand is stocked in a lot of newsagents and junk stores and while they are aimed little girls there are a whole lot of cute things like these rose printed sunglasses…
And these little purses…
And a lot of these accessories and hair clips…
Of course when you go shopping with a boy and spend so long taking photos of random things he tends to get bored and be a little bit juvenile -_-‘
This next photo is a prime example of how sometimes you find the most random things at the airport! When we went to Singapore last year I spent *ages* scouring for a cute hard cover wheelie suitcase. I couldn’t even find anything pink so I took my crappy busted old one which I had to sew back together! Now I manage to find pink adorable ones in a junk store for $45 *_*
And of course if none of that is what you’re looking for there is always the wall of BYS make up that these places always seem to have. Including but not limited to the old BYS shimmer pots! I bought a couple of these when I was 14 and then they were discontinued. It was a sad sad day but they brought them back! and in lots of new colours too 😀
So there you go! Not my best trip but hopefully the general message got across that if you dig, you can find really cute things in the places you’d least expect especially when you’re on a budget 😀
It’s been a while since I did a snapshots post, I have so many photos in my back log XD These ones go all the way back to November *_* So let’s try to catch up a bit! This post is full of beauty related things.
Celeste and I did the 10 Step Bobbi Brown Experience which is pretty much a make up lesson with one of their artists. Quite a fun day out!
Our make up artist for the day was a super friendly girl from New Zealand called Nikki.
Here’s the make up that she did for me, lots of sparkles on the eyes!
Celeste loved the look she had done! I would totally recommend booking in if you’re looking for some tips on make up ^_^
On the subject of make up Celeste and I managed to get a sneak peak at the Christmas collections thanks to the awesome girls at Mecca Maxima 😀 I could so spend hours in that place!
My good old make up sorority buddies the MBBE girls had our first Christmas party too!
We played Secret Santa but this version involved stealing each other’s presents!
As you can see, there were some interesting arguments over the best ones hahaha!
Thank you so much to Stef for letting us crash her house!
Everyone bought heaps of delicious food with them!
Being the only boy, James got to pick the first Secret Santa name out XD
I think even with the theivery going on everyone was pretty happy with their presents XD
Stef (who is the nicest host ever BTW) even showed us some of her make up collection! I wish I was this organised!!
A make up collection for MBBE girls is like a porch light for moths XD
We were all invited to a session at the Elite Make Up Academywhich was very informative.
We got to play with some really amazing pigments too!
Stop. Architecture time!
There’s a shopping center here called QV and the top level area changes every few months, they had a gigantic Christmas tree there at one point and before then it was an ice skating rink! I wanted to go skating but it was always full of kids >_<
This was of course a month of presents too XD
James bought me this cute little doggy named Shakespeare because we aren’t allowed dogs in our rental place!
My Mum sent this calculator and some crafting stamps, I’ve already deco’d the calculator so there’s a tutorial coming soon haha!
When I saw this in the mail I knew who it had to be from…
The lovely Stephen from Hipe! Love love love this bag, such a cute kitty!
Trashtastikabrought me back some deco supplies from Malaysia 😀 I can’t wait to use them! I’m such a lucky girl to have so many awesome friends!
We went to Hardware Societe with Alice, they had the cutest tea cosies:
Alice, being completely adorable as always!
The macarons were really good too!
James has been taking photos like a mad man lately. His favorite subject? Local buskers! This guy is a fantastic pianist, I really want to buy a cd!
Of course Daiso opened here too!
And as lunch is pretty much the only time I get to meet up, there were more lunchings with MBBE girls… Apparently little Chuff has a crush on me, he even gave me a very embarrassed kiss on the cheek, look out James!
James was the photographer for the Rock n Roll Jam Sessions that the lovely Super Kawaii Mamawas organising.
How could we resist a chance to ham it up a little in front of some classic cars XD
I think that brings us up to Christmas at least XD I hope you’re all still enjoying these types of posts ^_^
As you probably remember, James and I went to the Melbourne Zoo on Christmas! It was seriously one of the most fun days out I’ve ever had 😀 We were there for almost 6 hours and we didn’t even see all of the animals *_*
Between us we took around 500 photos that day but I’ve whittled it down to my favorites plus a slideshow at the ends heehee! I was considering making a video too but that seemed a bit like overkill XD But yes fair warning that there are a lot of photos here!
We took the tram over fairly early that morning hoping to miss any crowds that might show up. Public transport was free on Christmas so that was a big plus because it’s damn expensive here >_<
From the CBD the trip was only around 10 minutes and the tram goes right to the entrance of the zoo.
The first thing I wanted to see was the meerkats but as we arrived there was a loud speaker announcement that the tigers were going to be fed in 10 minutes so we hurried over that way first. They had 1 big tiger and 4 “babies” that were actually pretty much fully grown.
One of the many “Funniest Home Videos” moments was when one of the tigers tried to climb a tree to get some meat and unlike the graceful big cat I was expecting, it lost it’s footing and fell in a very ungraceful manner XD
They were very interesting to watch feeding and such shiny coats! I wasn’t expecting them to be so vocal either but clearly dinner conversation with family has that many arguments whether you’re a cat or a person hahaha!
Next we went to visit the meerkats which is what I had been looking forward to for weeks! You can actually book in to feed the meerkats for $30 but we didn’t get there in time so I didn’t do it. Next time I totally want to though!!
Again we were lucky enough to arrive just in time for the “meet the keeper” session where you could talk to the keeper and ask him questions. The most popular question was “Can I keep one as a pet?” to which he answered “You can keep anything as a pet but whether it’s a good idea or not is another thing entirely!” XD
They were so much smaller that I had imagined, on TV they look like they are maybe knee high when they’re standing up but in reality they are the size of a small kitten… which makes them even cuter!
Apparently they aren’t very clever at all and even though they’ve had the same keeper for 3 years they can’t recognise or remember people, they only know the jangling of the keys means feeding time. This point was illustrated by the fact that he was feeding them worms from a bottle and he put it down for a second and a meerkat promptly got it’s face stuck in the top trying to get the worms -_-‘ Then it couldn’t get it out and fell off the log!! Funniest part of the whole day 😀
Meerkats. Super cute but not the brightest crayon in the box.
They were very inquisitive though and because they’ve been in captivity for so long they were very friendly. Here I am being photobombed by a meerkat, how embarrassing hahaha!
When they stand up like that I always want to squish their tummies XD It’s probably for the best we missed out on going into the enclosure haha.
They had a separate enclosure for one girl meerkat who had been flown in from Sydney Zoo for a breeding program (all of the other ones were related so no breeding for them!) but apparently she was so mean and antisocial that whenever they put her in the same cage she attacked and killed the others *_* I think she was probably lonely, the keeper said that they don’t do very well without their families and if I had my own clan and someone yanked me out of it and stuck me in a completely new one I would probably be antisocial too.
Next was the Red Pandas but they wouldn’t turn around so this was the best photo I got.
We stopped off at the gift shop and got souvenirs ^_^ I wanted to take home a whole pack of these meerkats to set up around the house XD
But I settled for one (now named Thundercat for lack of anything better) and snow leopard (or white tiger?) ears. A day at the zoo just isn’t complete without silly ears!
There was a big carousel set up in one of the parks too which looked pretty cool, though every time we walked past it was playing songs that seemed hilariously inappropriate for a children’s ride. I can’t even remember what any of them were now but at the time they were very funny… ugh great story grandma right? >_<
There was a beautiful Japanese garden which was very peaceful other than the 60 billion children running around it too.
The whole place was super clean and well manicured. It would be a really nice place for a picnic.
Of course as the lake was full of swans this photo was inevitable. OMG SMALLEST SWAN IN THE WORLD!
The otter enclosure was always really busy so it was hard to get good photos but they were very cute making little squeaky noises!
The orangutans had just opened their Christmas presents so there was wrapping paper everywhere. They didn’t seem overly interested, mostly just sleepy.
There were heaps and heaps of different monkeys, I’ve always found them to be a little creepy though so I didn’t take many photos.
I liked these ones, mostly because they looked so grumpy at being awake. That’s what I look like first thing in the morning XD
After that we headed to the butterfly enclosure which was spectacular!
There were so many butterflies it was hard to move without running into them.
They were very friendly too and landed pretty much everywhere. James said at one point there were a bunch of them fighting over space on my bow, must be some tasty ribbon!
I was disappointed not to see any Ulysses because they are my favorites but these green ones were amazing to look at anyway.
Outside they had the caterpillars and also rows upon rows of cocoons. This didn’t come out well in the photo but these blue ones looked like someone had deco’d them, they had rows of what looked like glittery jewels along the tops!
Enjoy this photo of James being mature while I try to remember what came next XD
Right elephants! There were 2 baby elephants which everyone was going crazy over. I didn’t see the fuss so we didn’t get many photos.
After all of that walking it was time for a lunch break! While some of the food places looked really nice the one closest to us ended up being not so yummy. The chips were luke warm and the drink tasted like sea water *_* Yuck! Next time I’m going to shell out for the nice restaurant.
This is me shaking my fist at some pelicans because they creep me out XD
We went to see the fairy penguins but because it’s mating season they were all huddled under a boat, this was the only photo I managed to get:
The sea area of the Zoo looked like an old pier with sand everywhere.
Inside there were playful seals and all kinds of fish!
The seahorses were so pretty~
Everything inside was under a black light so it was kind of difficult to look at some of the animals but it did make for cool photos.
Outside there was a peacock running around looking pretty and I took so many photos!
When I was a kid we lived in a place that had peacocks nearby and they used to let them roam around the streets, they would come and sit on my front porch and leave feathers behind, it was awesome!
It was more interested in impressing the tree than us >_<
If you’re going to try and see everything, I totally suggest wearing comfortable shoes! I kept managing to get sand in mine so I was very ladylike having to stop and empty it all out!
Onwards to the big animals! We managed to see feeding time for the giraffes too which was pretty cool. While the keeper put the food out, the giraffes were pacing around in their enclosure and drooling. There was a lot more drool in general at the zoo than I expected XD
Normally the giraffes and zebras live together but they have to be separated for feeding.
The zebras were all lined up in a very orderly fashion for their food!
James doing his best photographer/explorer pose ^_^
The lemurs had a big playground enclosure with heaps of toys but they were all sleepy too. It was a very sleepy kind of day, I kind of wanted a nap at this point too!
There were ducks wandering around all over the place.
We saw this family of them a couple of times too wandering around for food.
Birds were sleepy too!
Next was the reptile enclosure which James was very excited about. Again it was all black lights ^_^
This snake sleeps like this so it can be a gigantic spring when something to eat comes by *_* Sounds like my worst nightmare.
I think this lizard was giving a big friendly wave and saying “Heeeeeeeeeeey!” XD
Pink snake!
There were lots of very bright lizards ^_^
This frog was my favorite because it was such a pretty colour!
Sexual harassment lizard slaps this turtle on the butt 😉
The last area we went to before my feet gave out was the big cat area! This one was a little crazy, it kept pacing in this one area and looking out the cage at a wall *_*
I can’t remember the name of this cat but it had such pretty ears, it looked really sarcastic like it was the cat in the corner which made fun of the other cats XD
The last one we saw was the snow leopard 😀 There were 3 cages of them but we could only see one, the others were hiding! Again it was nap time XD
Doing my best or possibly worst snow leopard impression XD
So pretty though, I’m glad we got to see one! It’s tail was so fluffy.
On the way home I picked a couple of the purple daisies that were around the park so I could press them for another souvenir 😀
And here are the rest of the photos!
And that’s it! Afterwards we went home and got some bubble tea and James made me a massive yummy dinner 😀 Best day ever!
So those of you in Melbourne, have you been to the zoo? I know I missed out on lots, which should I see next time? Which other Zoos are good to visit here?
Illustrator. Strong tea, knitting, watercolours, and making a video game called Moonlight in Garland. Living with her adorable husband Jimmy, fluffy puppy Miss Lottie and Bergamot Bunny in Melbourne, Australia.
By continuing to use the site, you agree to the use of cookies. more information
The cookie settings on this website are set to "allow cookies" to give you the best browsing experience possible. If you continue to use this website without changing your cookie settings or you click "Accept" below then you are consenting to this.
