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 :D

$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 :D

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 :D

Outfit details:
Dress- 50′s style flared dress
Cardi- Polka dot with peter pan colour
Headdress- From Equip, pill box hat with feathers

Shoe 2: Ballet Dancing Shoes

Pretty much any of the shoes that I’m posting can be dressed up or down. These cuties would be fantastic for a long walking shopping trip and with a few good accessories could be dressed up for an evening dinner. The big ribbon bow keeps everything really feminine so keep the co-ordinate light and girly. You could even replace the ribbon depending on the colour you’re wearing.

http://www.modcloth.com/store/ModCloth/Womens/Shoes/Ballet+School+Flats

Outfit details:
Dress- Target
Cardigan- Myer
Headband- Diva
Stockings- Myer (but they don’t sell them anymore)

Shoe 3: Diamante bow shoes

The first thing that I thought when I saw these shoes was of my good friend Trashtastika’s tutorial on how to make a crown headband. You can see the tutorial here, and it would be the perfect co-ordinate for these shoes!

http://www.yesstyle.com.au/en/zahir-bejeweled-bow-accent-flats/info.html/pid.1022476810

Outfit details:
Dress- patterned grey dress from Myer
Cardigan- Ballet style from a thrift store
If it’s a bit cooler, pair it with some opaque black or grey stockings.

Shoe 4: Black and White Alternative Shoes

These shoes have a distinctly punkish feel to them, you could wear them with a Kodona or other boy-style outfit. For a more rockabilly inspired look, pair them with the cutest floofy dress you own. I chose the girly path (surprise) and chose a mostly black and white outfit with just a splash of bright colour to make it a little more interesting! It reminds me a bit of a bowling outfit!

http://www.yesstyle.com.au/en/woorisin-patent-loafers-white-250/info.html/pid.1022072233

Outfit Details:
Dress- Target
Cardigan- White lace from a thrift store
Bow- Made by my friend Susie
Stockings- Black opaque from Myer

Shoe 5 and 6: Pink Lacy Ballet Flats and Pink Quilted Flats

This next outfit is to show you how different flats can give a completely different fee to an outfit.

Outfit details:
Dress- Handmade floral and lace design
Headband- Gift from a friend

Now if you were wearing that dress for a nice warm summer day out, you could easily wear it with the lace pink flats below. They are very delicate and are a lovely summery. They don’t over power the outfit but they would be a nice point of interest.

http://www.yesstyle.com.au/en/hobak-girls-beribboned-lace-flats/info.html/pid.1022487306

These pink quilted shoes are my favorites overall! While they do have a tiny heel for the most part they are flat enough that I don’t think they would cause any discomfort at all even if you wore them all day. They really remind me of the kind of shoes I thought princesses wore when I was a little girl ^_^ I would wear white stockings with the above outfit and use these as a statement piece to draw attention.

http://www.yesstyle.com.au/en/cookie-7-beribboned-quilted-pumps/info.html/pid.1022322364

Shoe 7: Pink Suede Walking Shoes

These shoes I fell in love with at first sight. The little ties at the front give them an interesting shape which is a nice change from the thousands of ballet flats out there! They are ideal for times you know you’re going to be doing a lot of standing and could look cute worn with out without stockings. I think these would look very cute worked in with a Mori Girl co-ordinate. My co-ordinate is more along the lines of how I would wear them though.

http://www.yesstyle.com.au/en/cookie-7-lace-up-loafers/info.html/pid.1022348596

Outfit details:
Jacket- Angelic Pretty
Skirt- Vintage gift from a friend

Shoe 8 and 9: Red Sneakers and Blue Bow Sneakers

This is another double co-ordinate to show that even the humble old sneaker can be dressed up enough to be good for a more formal event. The outfit I’ve picked for these two is a nautical/sailor inspired.

Outfit details:
Dress- Yacht dress thrifted
Nautical scarf- also thrifted

These bright red sneakers are a great addition to this dress as they follow the traditional red/white/blue nautical colours and they are a more feminine shape than traditional sneakers. The bow on the top is a nice touch and as long as they were clean and presentable they would be perfectly appropriate for a day time event.

http://www.yesstyle.com.au/en/holly-shoes-bow-front-sneakers/info.html/pid.1022434640

Now if you wanted to wear the same outfit to a night event these next shoes would do the trick. The blue stripes continue the theme of the scarf and the dark plain fabric draws attention away from the lighter dress. The bow keeps it fun but they are still dressy enough for an evening event!

http://www.yesstyle.com.au/en/cookie-7-stripe-bow-wedge-flats/info.html/pid.1022405407

Shoe 10: Leopard Print Sneakers

Lastly we have some awesome leopard print sneakers! I’ve paired these ones with a bit of a fancy out on a town outfit! Leopard print is funny and a little bit really does go a long way! This one is definitely the kind of co-ordinate that is all in or nothing XD

http://www.yesstyle.com.au/en/kvoll-rhinestone-leopard-print-slip-on-sneakers-blue-europe-39/info.html/pid.1022503176

Outfit details:
Dress- Valley Girl
Jacket- can’t remember, added the leopard print myself
Stockings- Myers

So there you have it! 10 ways of co-ordinating cute flats with cute outfits for all occasions! I hope you enjoyed the second installation of Sneaker Sunday, make sure you go check out Valerie’s awesome post as well!

Keep sending in your photos and feel free to browse the Sneaker Sunday gallery for more inspiration, also if you’ve made a Sneaker Sunday post that I missed please let me know so we can add you to the galleries! :D

Part 3- Putting it all together and what else do you need?

So today is

Part 3- Putting it all together and what else do you need?

Well isn’t that the just longest title in the universe? Very important though. One quick disclaimer, this isn’t actually my blogging space at the moment. Because we’re living in a room at James’ parent’s place for a few months to save for our mortgage deposit, my current blogging place is in bed with a tray table holding my lap top… and it sucks. James has a big computer so he gets the desk in our room, nuts to him I want the desk! In our new house when I’ve stolen my desk back this is how I’ll be setting it up :D Oooow it’s like you’re seeing into the future! *cool sci fi music*

So this is *my* blogging space:

I’ll go through it bit by bit but the most important part of the whole thing is the laptop! You can’t blog without a computer ^_^ My laptop of choice is a big Mac Book Pro with lots of useful programs. You can see my pink twitter page on the screen heehee! If at all possible you should have a desk and a really comfy chair with lots of back and neck support. When you spend a large amount of time in front of a computer screen you really need to have a supportive chair which doesn’t hurt your back! Trust me, blogging in bed is not as comfy as it sounds.

From the picture below you can see that I’ve set up my inspiration board up right in front of the window. This way I can see outside (natural light is really important fr your eyes too) but I have lots of things to inspire me.

Here is a close up of the right side of my desk. Here is a list of what’s there:

-Decorated mirror (to check I look cute before photos)
-Wacom graphics tablet (for work and to draw all the cute graphics for my blog)
-Nail up magazine (INSPIRATION! God I love this mag so much but on any given day it could be replaced with some other book or mag. Inspiration is so important!)
-Cake eyelash holder, ok see the little thing that looks like a cake on my graphics tablet? It’s actually a false eyelash holder I made. I’m going to do a tutorial soon, but the point it that I keep recent or current projects close by so I can remember what I’m talking about when I write up the tutorials. That an false eyelashes are awesome :D
-Water bottle/soft drink (Always keep yourself well hydrated, when you’re using a computer time can run away from you and all of a sudden you haven’t had a drink in 7 hours >_< Very important!)

And for the right side:
-My lamp (For when it’s night time or I’m decorating something small and need extra light)
-Cute headphones (For when you want to watch videos and it’s like 2am and you don’t want to wake up your boyfriend who is asleep right next to you.)
-Video Camera, case and mini tripod (Very important for video blogging obviously…)
-Phone (Important for taking calls from clients and also for quick photos etc)
-Kinder Chocolate or Bueno (Snacks! Chocolaty delicious snacks! Very, very important to remember to eat. Snacks are fantastic, especially Bueno shaped snacks. Damn would Bueno hurry up and sponsor me? I give them enough advertising!)

Not pictured here but also important:
-Reliable camera. I use my phone and my video camera when James doesn’t have his awesome DSLR handy.
-Boyfriend who’s good with his fancy DSLR camera to take photos for you

Having lots of power points around your area is handy too so you can plug everything in.

I think colour and decoration are very important to putting me in a good mood for blogging. I find pink and other pastel colours make me happy so I’ve decorated accordingly. You really don’t need to spend much money on decorating, the table cloth is just a scrap of fabric ^_^

So there you go! That’s the series, I hope you guys found that a bit helpful. If you have any questions I’d be happy to answer them, if there are lots I might even do a reader Q&A post on setting up your blogging space in general. :)

Part 3- Putting it all together and what else do you need?

So today is

Part 2- Decorating a Mirror and Lamp

Ok so now you’ve got an inspiration board to look at, you are going to need a few other things to reach optimum blogging potential :P I’ll show you the rest in the next post but today we’ll focus on 2 very important parts: 1. A cute mirror and 2. a really good, cute light source.

Let’s start with the mirror. You’re probably wondering why you need a mirror, well you want to look good for all the photos you’re going to be posting right? Well having one next in your blogging space is very handy when you’re doing a last minute post or twittering photos. Now you won’t have the problem of taking 109281 photos trying to get your hair right etc. Also useful for taking self portrait photos so you can see if you are in frame and watching tv in the reflection if your desk doesn’t face it!

Materials:

• Glue gun
• Cheap mirror (mine was $3 from a discount store)
• 2 kinds of lace
• Ribbon is optional

My mirror has a thin plastic frame around it so I’m going to glue to that but if yours doesn’t then just glue straight to the glass. Ok starting with one end of your lace (the rufflier the better in my opinion) put a spot of glue in the middle of the bottom edge of the mirror frame. Don’t start at the corners otherwise you will have one corner that is slightly different from the others… and that would bother me.

Slowly continue gluing the lace until you reach a corner, glue right up to the edge like the picture below.

Now put a little dot of glue on top of the lace right on the corner.

While it’s still wet fold the lace over so it forms a right angle, it should look like below. Please be very careful when you do this, the glue is very hot and if you touch it it will burn you!

Keep going until you’ve done every side!

Now if you want you could leave it like this but I like over the top things so I want more lace! Flat lace works best for the next step. With this part it’s best to start at the corner because the pattern in the lace makes it easy to hide corners. Before deciding to start in the middle/corner check your own lace and see how it looks as some work better than others. You can use ribbon for this step if you prefer or put a strip of ribbon at the bottom etc. What are you waiting for? Be creative and get gluing!

Aaaaaand you’re done!

Time to test it out :P

Now part 2 of this! Decorating a lamp!

This is what I ended up with:

Lighting is super important plain and simple. If you don’t have good lighting you can ruin your eyes trying to squint and read tiny fonts online. When you look for a lamp (as well as being cute) you should look for something with an easily replaceable bulb, variable brightnesses and the ability to adjust which way it’s facing. Being so adjustable means you can not only use it for reading online but also for different lighting effects in photos. A while ago I was sent this lamp from Buyster which was exactly what I was looking for (being very adjustable etc) but it was quite plain. So It was time to start decorating!

Materials:

• Lace
• Ribbon bows
• Diamantes in various sizes
• Fake flowers
• Epoxy glue (make sure you check the packet for what temperature the glue is stable until as lamps can get very hot when left on for a long period of time)

Before you start test how hot your lamp gets when left on for a long time, if it get very hot in some places it’s best not to decorate there.

I decided to stick to a flowery theme and not go too over the top because James wanted to use the lamp too XD First roughly lay out what you want to do with your lamp, using epoxy glue means you only get one shot at the final product because once it’s stuck it’s not going anywhere. I decided to put lace around the bottom of the lamp.

After gluing my lace I added some large pink diamantes and pre-made ribbon bows.

Using a match stick with some old blue tack I dipped the back of each in glue and placed them. Be careful to hold them in place for a few minutes otherwise the glue will just run off and you’ll have a bunch of diamantes all over your lace.

I decided to cover where the neck and base meet with flowers. Because this part bends it’s not a good idea to use glue in this area so instead it’s better to thread a needle and sew the flowers in a circle around it.

Taadaa flowers…

As a bit of an after thought I added some diamantes to the top part. This part gets *very* hot if you leave it on for a while so my original idea of turning it into a gigantic hungry face of diamantes went out the window.

And there you have it, finished lamp! If you want to make one exactly like mine you can get this kind of lamp here.

Hope this was kind of helpful and stay tuned next time for Part 3- Putting it all together and what else do you need?

As always let me know if you have any tips for setting up your blogging space!

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!

<
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:

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:

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)

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.