Remember how yesterday I said I have a shopping problem? Yeah, well last night I bought four new nail polishes to prove this point.

It all started with seeing Essie’s Turquoise & Caicos colour on Elsie and some other websites. Turquoise is one of my most favourite colours at the moment and I’d been looking for a decent turquoise nail shade but with no luck until then. I had to have it.

Image via Polyvore

Then I found an Essie colour called Borrowed & Blue, part of their 2011 wedding collection. It’s the perfect baby blue and I am in love with it! I would marry it.

Image via Polyvore

And then while perusing online auctions for the above polishes I came across Not Just A Pretty Face, another Essie colour, this time a dusty pink. Hello gorgeous! Add that to my cart.

Image via Polyvore

The auction seller the other colours came from had a combined shipping deal for up to four polishes. So obviously I had to make the most of that and snagged up a nail care product, OPI’s Avoplex Cuticle Oil To Go:

Image via YourSecretSalon.com

Oh well, at least I will have really pretty nails by the end of the week. xx

Photo by John Rawlings

Good morning, Monday! I’m feeling most excellent and rested after a great weekend; I hope you are, too.

Friday was a blunder of a day until the evening. I had a difficult exam (biopsychology) that afternoon which I had not done enough study for. The amount of information we had to learn was huge and I, unfortunately, had not prepared well for that throughout the semester. It was the worst exam I have ever had and I felt absolutely awful throughout, stuffed with anxiety. Despite the fact I am an anxious sort of person, ever since I started university I have been really proud of the fact that I am fairly cool when it comes to sitting my tests and exams. I get nervous beforehand, I feel the stress of studying, but once I’m in the room I manage to find a calm enough mental space to get the work done. I credit my sister in helping me accomplish this; she gave me some very sound advice before my first set of tests and I gave carried it with me over the last two years. However, on Friday, sitting in that chair and reading those questions and literally not knowing some of answers at all sent me to a mental and emotional place I never want to go again. I ended up in tears in the exam, just managing to hold myself together until I could leave, after which I promptly broke down while sitting on the steps of possibly the most beautiful building on campus. I was glad to have my hooded coat, so I could mostly cover myself for privacy. It was embarrassing. I had no tissues. I didn’t want to go to the restroom as it would require going inside and seeing people. Them seeing me. I just sat there and waited for Josh to pick me up on his way home from work, crying for a bit, hating myself, and then people-watching once my tears had slowed.

Fortunately the remainder of Friday was better. Josh and I went to see Green Lantern and had dinner out, and we did a bit of shopping too. Honestly, I have a ridiculous shopping problem. Some people are emotional eaters, drinkers, drug takers or gamblers. I shop. Bad day? Go buy something! It’s potentially terrible financially, but I never spend money I don’t have. And I do not have a credit card and I do not plan on having one until I really need to get a credit rating, which will not be for another good few years. When I do get one, it will also have a really small limit on it and I might keep it in a complicated card case with a puzzle I have to complete in order to unlock it, or something.

Anyway, on Friday I bought a pair of track pants and a new hoodie, then on Saturday I got another hoodie and a scarf. I also indulged in a chilli chocolate truffle and a chilli hot chocolate, both to die for. So I suppose that counts as emotional eating too? Or maybe just my sweet tooth, which seems to be increasingly worse lately, possibly from the influence of a certain dessert-loving girlfriend of mine.

Sunday was lazy. We woke up late, picked up a few things from the supermarket and grabbed KFC for brunch on the way home. Normally not a fast food I like. I hate to admit it, but I’m a McDonald’s girl. Sad but true! We hung out, played on the internet all day, and played guitar. Well, Josh played and I practices the two little pieces he taught me. It was such a nice way to wind down the week.

I’ll be back later with the last 8 weeks to a better me post!

As many of you know, one of my favourite things in the whole entire world is crafting. I always feel a bit lost and unproductive if I don’t have a project on the go! Recently I found myself in a head-space that was incredibly bogged down with school work and I was forgetting to allow myself time to do things I really love, just for me and just because. I was so restless and fidgety – for days – and it did not stop until I started with some new projects.

Lesson learned: don’t forget to do the just-for-fun stuff! It decreases stress and generally makes life better.

Project 1: turn a boring wooden clipboard from the dollar store into something pretty. Or alternatively called: doodle on a boring wooden clipboard and see what happens. (Clearly it is unfinished, so I will post another photo when it’s been totally covered.)

Project 2: crochet! I have lots of left over yarn around so I was looking for crochet projects that are small, quick and fun. Low and behold my discovery of amigurumi (how did I not know about it before!?!), which lead to me finding this owl pattern. It is hands-down one of the easiest things to make and super-quick which is very handy for time-strapped people. I call it the small creative fix, a bit like a coffee fix only more productive! Well, that is assuming you take your coffee fixes as I do: leisurely and sitting down doing NADA.

As I mentioned in my last post, I have some projects in the development stage, but they are on hold until after university adjourns for the year (holy-moley, only 5 more weeks!), after which I will have a bit more time to get these ideas into the doing stages. I’ll also be looking for work for the summer, which is my top priority (groan, being an adult is sometimes so very inconvenient, sheesh!).

Anyway, today I had half an hour to spare before my first morning class so I whiled it away in an art shop on Symonds St. Probably not the wisest of ideas because art shops make me go all whimsical and then I get excited about creating things; lots of things; things in ABUNDANCE, and then I want to buy stuff. Today I walked away with a new pen (er yes, very exciting), a pack of plain Moleskine pocket journals and a fabulous Moleskine 2011 weekly planner! I’m most excited about the planner. I love organisers and I take it upon myself to find The Best Planner Ever each year. Generally I do a fairly good job of it but I’ve come to the conclusion that a smaller one would be better for next year. Carrying an A5 lump around everywhere is a bit of a pain. I was thinking of going all out and getting a kikki.k one, with little emoticons to record your mood(s) for the day, and stickers and blah-blah, but then I saw the Moleskine and was all “Oooh, shiny!” Except that I wanted black but they didn’t have one in the page layout I like. However, the sky didn’t fall on my head because the guy at the shop gave me a discount on the red one – ten dollars off! – to match the price of the black one with the different layout. It made my morning.

As for the little journals, so far I have plans for one, as you can see. It’s a craft journal to record ideas, completed projects, whatever. What I would really adore is to get a Fuji Instax camera so then I can take dinky wee instant photos of my completed projects and stick ‘em in the journal. Sadly, Instax cameras do not come cheap and seem to rarely come secondhand (which I suppose is good because if loads of people were reselling them then it might suggest they suck).

Do you like journals? You know, paper ones? What do you like to use your journal(s) for? Do share!

Eeek, it’s been a while!

Life is pretty good at the moment, though very busy. It’s major assignment time for uni so that’s my main focus, though it’s hard because I have all these craft project ideas running through my head almost constantly. I haven’t made anything in probably about a month or so and you can tell; I seem to get rally restless and distracted when I don’t have a wee project on the go.

Three of my ideas relate to Christmas gifts so I can’t really go into detail here as people may see it who should not! But I can share with you plans for making a tote bag for summer and starting a family tree scrapbook. I’m still looking for fabric for the tote – I want something pretty but inexpensive! Preferably with gray, yellow and blue incorporated. For the scrapbook, I’m still in the very early stages and I’ve never scrapbooked before so I’m trying to figure out what I need based on what I want to do. You can get some pretty things cheaply from department stores, which is nice. I looked online at supplies and was shocked by how expensive they can be! Especially albums.

Here are some links I’ve been loving this week:
Making a Duvet Cover @ Design*Sponge
This house @ Design*Sponge
Handmade Swedish Teddies
Icon Finder

I shall leave you with a photo of the swag I bought from SourpussClothing.com! Super-fabulous store, I highly recommend them.

Yesterday I came over to the boyfriends house for the first time and I got to meet his dad. To be honest I was a bit nervous meeting The Dad! Of course I want him to like me and approve of the relationship I have with his son, and I think it went well. He wasn’t as scary as I thought he might be.

I know, it’s a bit anti-climactic, sorry there wasn’t an awkward meeting-the-boyfriend’s-parent story to tell you. But there is still time since I’m here until at least Friday! Perhaps something highly embarrassing will happen by then and I can blog about it. lol

Last night after dinner Josh and I went for a walk to one of the local beaches. I have no idea what it was called, just that it’s in Pt Chevalier, has swings, a very nice trail, looks over to Te Atatu and is very pretty. Speaking of pretty, some of the surrounding homes (and classic cars) were very pretty! Um, I will have one of each thanks.

On the way home from the beach we passed an organic food market which I decided to go back to this morning. It had a decent amount of stock, from fresh fruit and vegetables to store cupboard basics, organic spice mixes and a bit of everything else in between. I came back with some oat milk, which I’ve never tried before, apricot muesli and a 50c papaya. I think the papaya was 50c because when I came home, eager to eat it for lunch, it was rotten inside.

Anyway, sorry this post is a choppy update. I wish I had some blogging inspiration but I really don’t!

My four-month long holiday from university began last Wednesday (5:30pm, to be exact) and so far my time has been filled with grocery shopping, a novelty I had not experienced in some time (seriously—and I missed it); seeing family; a Guy Fawkes BBQ on Saturday; spending time with my new boyfriend (yup, he’s pretty great, so I should probably tell my mother about him); cleaning; and shopping. Next up is finding a job and organising Christmas presents, as well as numerous summery adventures I have planned.

In other news, I am beginning to throw around some ideas for a new site design, and expect another instalment of the 5000 Question Survey and a post about the Books & Bubbles evening with Paullina Simons that I went to!

I shall leave you with a few photos of my most recent purchases:

Dress from Peachy Keen Vintage. The shop only got this in on the day I went and the owner was going to take it home for his wife. Alas, I snapped it up first! All I need is a petticoat to poof the skirt out a bit.

I want one of every colour they have, please.

Stockings and garter belt from Farmers; faux pearl earrings from Cotton on.

I bought a reed stick scent disperser (you know, bottle of scent + reed sticks stuck in said bottle) today — lavender — because I want my room to smell nice, instead of like crap*.

I’m not entirely sure if ‘nice’ can describe this scent, to be honest. I don’t even think ‘lavender’ can describe it… It’s more like cheap $2 Shop perfume.

*Literally; our chickens wander around outside my room and they poop. A lot. By the way, for anyone unaware, my room is in a sleep-out, so no, the chickens are not wandering around inside.

ETA: Baby Buns died this morning. Not sure why.

Black skinny trousers. Technically these are currently on lay-by at Just Jeans.

Skinny blue rinse jeans, also on lay-by at Just Jeans. I got both pairs with the 2 for $100 deal.

Lugging a backpack around uni all day was getting lame, so I picked this up at a Strandbags sale a couple of weeks ago. I heart it oh so much, and I can fit everything but the kitchen sink in it. Because I don’t need to take a kitchen sink to uni, just every else.

Yesterday I bought a pair of grey canvas sneakers from Number 1 Shoe Warehouse, but I couldn’t find a photo and I’m too lazy to take one, so you can just use you imagination.

Gimme these!:

I tried these on the the Number 1 Shoe Warehouse yesterday and I’ve been lusting ever since. I used to hate gladiator style sandals, but I’ve changed my mind!

Delicious Oxford style flats. So vintagey, so jazzy, so yum.

I have a stationery addiction. I can’t help it, but even if I could I wouldn’t want to stop. I want need a new pencil case because my existing one is a little too chunky, so when I was in the city today I went looking for any and all stores selling cute stationery. There is one I went to on Queen Street (main street of CBD) that sells cheap Japanese goods, but their cases were rubbish, then I remembered this gift shop I went to in 2006, so I went to find that.

Oh my fuck, stationery heaven! And Hello Kitty, and bento boxes, and Sanrio plushies, and STUFF. I maybe peed my pants a little from the excitement (not really; that would be weird). I spent ages picking out the perfect pencil case and then I found a headband for $3; I stopped there because I knew I did not have much money left.

In fact, it turned out that I did not have enough money to buy anything. My card declined. Twice.

FOR SHAME!

I’m going back tomorrow, of course.

My bank has just released the Flexi Debit Visa card, a Visa card that is directly connected to one’s debit account, meaning you can buy things wherever Visa is accepted with your own money as opposed to using actual credit. This is a god/dess-send for people like myself who wish to buy online (or overseas) but realise an actual credit card would land them in a black hole of debt! I can only spend what I actually have, and I no longer need to ask my parents if I can borrow their credit card to, for example, go on a shopping spree at Etsy.

Of course this doesn’t mean I can slack off on being responsible with my finances. If anything, I have to be more vigilant, otherwise I’m liable to sit at my computer merrily clicking ‘Add to cart’ and ‘Go to checkout’ until I start frothing at the mouth and my bank account is drained like the last delicious drop of Merlot.

But I digress, this post isn’t actually about that, I just wanted to explain the above to bring me to this: I finally have an iTunes account and the first three songs I’ve bought are all Michael Jackson ones. I’ve not posted about his death because, well, everyone else was, however after listening to these songs I feel compelled to say something. When I was little (very little) the Jackson family was pretty much my favourite bunch of musical people ever. I adored Michael’s solo music, loved The Jackson 5 and was obsessed with Janet from age 5-9. It was difficult to escape them, especially with older siblings who were also fans.

As I got older I discovered other music and, although my appreciation for the Jacksons was still there, I didn’t avidly follow any of them. I’m still like that, but have many fond memories of listening to Michael and Janet and being wonder-struck whenever I saw either them on television, especially for live performances. There is no doubt that Michael was an amazing performer who knew how to put on a show for people and make them feel amazing. I’m saddened that he died at 50; he should have had much longer than that.

Mainly, though, I feel bad for his children. I’m of the opinion that he was likely never inappropriate with children, but I don’t want to write about what he may or may not have done, or about anything “odd” he’s done. I just hope his own children will not be put through any more stress than what they will already be experiencing now that he is gone. At the end of the day, he was their father and it seems to me like they adored him as most children adore their fathers, and that is all that actually matters.

So, to Michael. Thanks making awesome music and for your contributions to the music industry.