Just a very quick post today. Lots of people in Melbourne are very excited because we just got our first Daiso here in Aus!
Very exciting! Everything is only $2.80 😀 Anyway I went earlier in the week and everyone was asking me about the range so I took some photos of things that caught my eye. Dodgy phone quality photos but oh well.
Enjoy ^_^
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Ok so I went a bit overboard with the title XD To be fair it was pretty exciting! Mecca Maxima (which is kind of like Australia’s answer to Sephora) opened a store in Melbourne Central a couple of weeks ago and the whole beauty scene here has been buzzing about it!
So of course Celeste (go check out her new beauty blogbtw) and I had to go have a look see 😀
We weren’t disappointed! The store is nice and large compared to other stores in Aus and everything was set out really well.
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I could probably spend a good couple of hours looking around XD
I love that they have testing stations everywhere and actually encourage you to play with things 😀
Of course being a nail polish junkie this totally helped my opinion of the place:
One thing that I absolutely fell in love with at the store was the staff! Celeste and I both had our hair and make up done there and it was a really lovely experience 😀 My major gripe with a lot of cosmetics companies is that because the sales staff are paid on commission there can be a lot of pushing product, I think good product should be able to talk for itself and I don’t like being badgered if I’m not interested. The staff at Mecca were FANTASTIC, they were very friendly, super knowledgeable, gave fantastic service and not even a little bit pushy. I really enjoyed chatting to them and while I didn’t buy anything that day it’s that the kind of service that makes me a loyal customer who will go out of my way to shop there. |
My feelings were completely justified when we happened to pop back in today and they all remembered us! Customer service WIN 😀
Having my hair done:
Post getting my hair straightened, it looks so looooong 😀
Celeste had her hair curled:
We bumped into the lovely Jess from Miss J Shopaholicand chatted to a lovely girl that she had met on the way over and much giggling was had.
After our hair and make up was done!
I told the lovely make up artist to go nuts and surprise me with a cute look, she got it 100% spot on with a pretty pinky/purple shadow. It’s not a shade I had considered much before because I’m so pale but I loved the outcome!
After I was given a sheet detailing all the products that were used with an example face so I could recreate it at home. She very cleverly added sticky tape so it didn’t rub off all over my handbag.
All in all I would very much recommend checking Mecca Maxima out if you’re in Melbourne and you are a make up lover! I will be going back as soon as my budget allows!
Time for snapshots! I found a whole heap of photos that I forgot we took so let’s start with those first then I’ll show you what we did for Halloween!
When we first came down to Melbourne we went with SuperKawaiiMama, Kruppy and Dave from Nuffnang to an American style diner called Misty’s. James was absolutely thrilled XD
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He was so excited to have buffalo wings!
And a ridiculous amount of fries XD
And a chili cheese dog with bacon XD Seriously he’s been reminiscing over this for *ages*. Anyone that knows a good recipe let me know ok?
Some architecture, love this fountain!
This was when we went to Taste of Melbourne!
So pretty!
And this is what happens when people are silly enough to let me hold all of their money 😀 This should be accompanied by a big evil laugh!
When my highschool friend Tash came to visit we went make up shopping at The Face Shop.
Did someone say nail polish?? I want one of these displays in my house!!
James baked a key lime pie which is another (apparently) America food. I ruined it by writing my name in the top with my finger before it set 😀 Mwahahha poor James!
Celeste, James, Sarah, Lynda and I went to visit Pan Asia and I had the most delicious pork belly baguette I’ve ever had in my life!
This is what happens when you hang with food bloggers… everything goes cold while they take photos XD
The decor there was so pretty! This chandelier is actually made of kitchen equipment like bowls and salt/pepper shakers! Cool yes?
There is a huge pretty mural there as well and each picture has a fantastic story behind it tying in traditional elements with modern…
We met the owner Li, she is the cutest person ever with an awesome sense of humor!
She even gave us a platter of deserts to taste! I can’t wait to go back again for another baguette 😀
Now on to Halloween! This probably sounds crazy to those of you not in Australia but here we don’t have Halloween… like at all. It doesn’t exist. Over the last few years people have been getting more into it (mostly because we are influenced so much by American culture now) but you generally still won’t find kids trick or treating… If fact in all my life I’ve never had anyone come to my door. Which is probably good because I don’t like to share candy! Anyway! This year Celeste decided that we would all have a Halloween party at her place, James was really happy because he really misses Halloween! I’ll leave the food run down to Celeste because I’m no good at that stuff. This is what we brought:
I decided to pipe little faces on them too:
James was more interested in eating them…
My costume was a very lazy version of a kitty XD I drew leopard print on my nails while we were riding the train there but it all rubbed off >_<
The real kitties apparently didn’t appreciate my costume and kept attacking my socks XD
Even the kitties had costumes, one was a devil…
The other was an angel!
The yummy entree spread:
Of course being Halloween where any number of spooky things happen James has to point out that with my bow, my shadow looked like the devil! XD
I bet none of you can guess what everyone is looking at…
Of course James was childish as per usual, here he is crushing my head with his fingers >_< Typical boy.
And the group shot!
I had such a wonderful time! I definitely want to do Halloween next year too ^_^ |
Today I am enjoying my first weekend off in a *long* time! So while I’m crafting and photographing tutorials for you all I thought you might enjoy some more photos from the teaparty Celeste and I had the other week ^_^
You saw all of the cute parts now see behind the scenes as we are slightly less lady-like and fight for the last cupcake!
I’ve also been featured with a couple of blog interviews this week…
I chat about blogging with the delightful Miss Lumpy here!
HRH Queen Alexandria and I talk crafts and tutorials here!
Enjoy 😉 
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I picked up these tiny cups for $10 for a set of 4!
This is how we drink tea at my house 😉
It was all smiles and niceties until there was only one cupcake left!!
MINE! 
Bring it on!!! 
What are you all up to this weekend?
I don’t think I need to tell you all how much I love tea parties. I will use pretty much any excuse possible to hold one 😀
So when the lovely Celeste mentioned she wanted to enter a Nuffnang contest about the Mad Hatter’s tea party I said “Come on over it’s tea time!”.
Some of you saw a teaser on Twitter on Saturday so here is a guest post by Celeste of what happened that day ^_^
Enjoy!
<3 Violet
With the long weekend in sight, it was a perfect time to unwind.
And what better way to unwind than to have a beautiful tea party with the lovely Violet Le Beaux?
We all know that Tea Parties are the love and joy of the Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland, in fact, our very own Violet was channeling a little bit of Alice today, with the long straight blonde hair and the black headband. Just needed a beautiful blue dress to go with it… Hmmmm wonder if we could swipe one from the Tim Burton exhibition?
I do so love Alice in Wonderland. But everytime I read through the book, I felt that the Mad Hatter’s tea parties always lacked a little something… Can you guess what it was that it lacked?
It lacked a little PINK, and a little Charm and was also sorely missing in some princess action.
So we changed it around, to make this tea party perfect! Starting with the adorable little pink tea pot, which was perfect for tea for two. Tea for the day was Rose and French Vanilla from Dilmah, very very yummy!
It’s not just teapots that need to be pretty. We polished our very best fancy tea set and coaxed the flower pixies to come out to play. You can’t just set a tea set down and call that a tea party! I mean, next you will be saying that merely having tea would be good enough!
Every single aspect has to be perfect. For the perfect tea party, you can’t go wrong with cake tea spoons. There’s more than one way to eat your cake, after all. Violet keeps a collection of such silverware beauties around for when princesses and maidens come round for tea. Which is quite often, as we do love our teas.
Just look at the amazingly beautiful hanky that Violet embroidered! Polite tea party conversation involved the ooh-ing and aah-ing over such delicate handiworks and there was much discussion on how we could add more pink to the world. Pink world domination! In the gentlest and most princess-y of ways, of course.
Pour out the tea, give it a swirl with your cake spoon, and you are ready to go! Tea Party to relax your weary souls, and something the Mad Hatter himself would have been proud of. Had he been a fan of pink of course. Oh, and of princesses. It’s not very Mad, but it was definitely very Rad.
And what tea party would be complete without nibbles and cakes? I brought along for us all, Chocolate and Coffee Fudge Cupcakes, don’t worry I’ll share the recipe with you soon. It was quite rich and quite decadent. Fit for a beautiful spring afternoon’s tea party.
We had a beautiful afternoon, having our very own tea party with a nod towards the Mad Hatter for sharing his love of tea parties with us. There’s really nothing more relaxing than having a girlie afternoon with your best girlfriend over some decadent cupcakes and amazingly delicious tea.
So, would you care to join us for a cuppa or two?
Images courtesy of myself and Jimmy from Blue Crane Designs
Snapshot time 😀
Let’s start off with some architecture. This building didn’t photograph nearly as well as it looked in person. Of course it’s typical that the one time I went walking without my camera I spotted about 20 awesome buildings I never noticed before XD
Last weekend I had a catch up with a friend from highschool- Tash! She was in town for a day before she went for a walking tour somewhere that I’ve already forgotten >_<
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We did a bit of shopping and stopped for a nice hot chocolate.
I had a Timtam cheesecake and OMGWTFBBQ it was the best thing I’ve ever tasted! For those not in Australia, this is a Timtam. Timtams are one of the very few things Australia has ever invented that are awesome. They have spawned awesome things like the “Timtam slam” which is where you bite off the top left and the bottom right corner and then use it like a straw to suck up your cup of tea. I tell you we really do invent some strange things… |
Anyway Timtam cheesecake= awesome and I want to make one!
While we were walking that day there was a gigantic hole in the road for some reason and this truck was there filling it with water. Yuck!
Yesterday a bunch of the beauty blogger girls met up for lunchies 😀 James was there too but he was taking the photo so he’s not in it ^_^ So lovely to have girly days like this!
We had some lovely Thai food at Ghin Khao 😀 The waiter was hilarious telling us that we could stay as long as we want to have our secret woman’s meetings and telling James to report back about it XD
The best part of going out is coming home to packages!
The skirt and shirt I’m wearing here the ones I bought from Savers a couple of weeks ago 😀 Skirt= $5 Shirt= $2!
Packages are awesome and I’m so happy to have such lovely friends all over the world that are kind enough to send them! I received the above from She Falls Softly 😀 She sent me some of her favorite things! The perfume roll on there smells *exactly* like cake!
The coolest part though are these rainbow lashes! I can’t wait to put together an outfit to wear them with 😀
I received a second package this week too from the lovely Reece! She made all of these hair flowers herself specifically to match my outfits :O So thoughtful! And so many yummy chocolates!
She included this beautiful pin and these adorable little hand written recipe cards too! Even one for James: sloppy joes ahahaha!
I have to write so many reply letters and parcels this weekend, I’d better get started soon 😀
I’ve taken up embroidery at night time while we watch movies before bed now too, this is my first project, you’ll have to wait to see how it turns out!
Lastly: Cranky bunny is cranky.
How was your week?
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