Splurged
Today I splurged. Splurged big. I am now the proud owner of a Canon 5D MKIII. Oh yes! I cannot wait to start using this bad boy! I wish there were some interesting things to photograph in our apartment tonight but there really isn’t and Hook is unkeen on me taking photos of him. Boo.
Bring on the weekend. We { A Couple Of Night Owls } will be putting it to great use this long weekend (yay Easter!). Will be working on a fun project and I can’t wait to tell you more about it. Now I’m off to do some planning for it! Woo!
P.S. The lovely Rachel of Made From Scratch featured our shoot with Amanda + Jeremy today. She’s the best!
You’re the only place that feels like home.
Apologies for the lateness of this post, again. I’m not going to say I was just ‘so busy’ because that’s a cop-out, and I actually wasn’t too busy at all. Sometimes you just need to have a break. I let my Google Reader get away from me this week and only now, on Sunday evening, am I getting on top of it.
This weekend has been a good one. I spent Saturday shopping my little heart out with my flatmate. I actually bought a ridiculous amount of stuff for myself. A skirt, three tops, two dresses and three pairs of shorts to be exact. Oops. Won’t need to go shopping for quite a while now!
I also bumped into my cousin and ended up sitting in Wendys chatting with her for an hour or so. Was good to catch up with her! Must spend more time with her now that we live in the same city again.
I did manage to pick up some Christmas presents as well. Nearly all done! Just need to get the boy to give me his Christmas wishlist. I bug him on a daily basis about it. 
He must be getting annoyed haha.
Alright, time for bed now! Hope y’all like the links!
- Some sweet festive feather gift tags for you to download from Love vs Design.
- Have you guys heard of Martha Goes Green yet? If you’re into vegetarian recipes you really should check them out. I studied with two of the lovely ladies behind it and they are very talented! They’ve just put out a 2012 calendar full of yummy looking recipes. Great gift idea for a vegetarian!
- Some fantastic tips from Grandma. Some of these are so good!
- In our tiny apartment there really isn’t room for an actual Christmas tree and my flatmate and I usually craft something together to hang up as our tree. I wish I had come across this modern geometric Christmas tree print from I Need Nice Things sooner. It’s the epitome of my style at the moment.
- Chocolate bark looks so simple to make that I think I might give it a go this Christmas.
- Sometimes I wonder if it was worth the 3 years of study to get my bachelor… and then I read posts like this ‘5 reasons to get a graphic design degree‘ and I remember that it was worth it, especially if you want to get into any kind of corporate in-house teams or design firms.
Got my Whimsy Fix!
I bought these lovely little ruffle rose studs from Whimsy Fix from the Foxes Indie Market at We Can Create the other weekend and I love them so much! I originally grabbed the turquoise ones, paid for them and was about to walk off when I noticed they had grey ones too! I thought Carly and Ellie would appreciate the grey ones hehe. How convenient that the change they had given me was the exact amount to grab that second pair.
Check out the Whimsy Fix store cause they have heaps of other cute pieces. I kind of want the retro red ones too now!
A bit behind.
Happy Monday everyone! Hope ya’ll had a good weekend! Mine wasn’t tooooo bad. I worked all day Saturday on a wedding invitation design which I happily got distracted by emailing Vanny (rants ensued). I was really looking forward to Sunday just because I had nothing I needed to do. No deadlines to meet. Just a free day for me to do whatever I wanted. And what did I do? I cleaned! Haha. Yep, that’s me. I like to clean, tidy up and organise things.
I decided to organise the boy’s things in the cupboard into storage containers so that the cupboard wouldn’t be such a horrid mess. I’ve found out that he’s actually much more of a hoarder than I am! And I thought I was pretty bad….
I realised that I’m a bit behind in showing you all some of my new goodies so I also took some photos today (my weakling wrists are really not made to hold a heavy camera whilst also trying to hold a bit of paper to bounce the light off – it really didn’t work when I tried to photograph my own arm either!) of the leather bracelets I bought from Flourish! Vanny got me onto them. Decided to buy a few of them and what I love about them is that I can wear each of them individually or wear all of them at the same time cause the colours I chose go quite well together! Particularly handy when I often wear all black to work, brings a bit of colour in!
So happy that I got them! I was tossing up whether I would even wear them or not because I don’t ever wear bracelets. I don’t even think I own any other ones now. But these have already gotten their fair share of wear so I’m stoked! 
I love Foxes.
During the weekend I ordered some goodies from Foxes.co.nz. Foxes is an on-line store of predominately New Zealand indie-design and art. They sell lots of awesome jewellry, clothing, accessories, prints and homeware. Jessica, the wonderful girl who runs Foxes, is pretty much the best. She added in a little something extra in my package – a ring to match the earrings I bought! As I said, the best!
I ordered the black flower earrings and the black geo necklace. Love love love the necklace so much. And I actually almost like the black flower ring Jessica gave me more than the earrings I bought haha! They’re all great though. So happy with them!
Foxes is celebrating their first birthday by giving away a Foxes Birthday Swag Bag containing $210 worth of awesome stuff! Every order made during July gets an entry. So I was sneaky and got my purchases on separate orders so that I got two entries in. I want to win!
Jessica is also holding a Foxes Indie-Design Market side event at We Can Create in August which I’m really looking forward to! What’s the bet I buy some more stuff? Hehe!
By the way, you should all enter Polli’s Foxes Giveaway! The winner gets an awesome tote bag, a ‘Let them eat pav’ card (very NZ!) and the peppermint coloured flower ring and earrings (like my black ones above). This giveaway ends on Friday 5th August so get your entries in!
Tattly love.
The awesome Tina of Swissmiss has recently launched Tattly, a store full of temporary tattoos that have been designed by an amazing line up of creatives such as Jessica Hische, Josh Smith, Kelli Anderson and Jessi Arrington – just to name a few.
They are super cheap too! Especially for me, since the New Zealand dollar is so good right now. You can get a set of two for $5 USD or get the entire full set for just $35 USD. Bargain! Be sure to get your order in quick!
I just put my order in for the Type Nerd and Tattone tattoos. Cannot wait for them to arrive!
Happy Queen’s Birthday!
I love 3 day weekends.
Although a 4 day weekend would be even better… Not that I’m complaining.
In celebration of the Queen’s birthday (Well not really. Regardless of her birthday, I still would have gone to get them) I decided to FINALLY try out the J’aime les macarons from Dizengoff Cafe in Ponsonby. My friend Mel had told me they were amazing and much better than the Ma Cherie ones that seem to be stocked everywhere else in Auckland.
Boy was she right. They were AMAZING!
Sour cherry and pistachio macaron (below)
This was really great! The flavours were fantastic and the filling was super creamy with little bits of cherry and pistachio in it. YUM!
Coconut macaron (below)
I’m not usually a coconut fan but this was really good, I’d definitely get it again! The toasted coconut on the top really made the entire macaron.
Blackcurrant and chocolate macaron (below)
I don’t even know what to say about this one, words cannot describe how AMAZING it was. With the added surprise of the blackcurrant jam / sauce / stuff in the middle with the chocolate ganache, it’s really giving the blueberry cheesecake macaron I had in Melbourne a run for my favourite macaron.
Vanilla macaron (below left)
If you’re a fan of vanilla, then this is the macaron for you. The vanilla flavour was perfection.
Rose macaron (below top)
This was the only one that had any downside to it and that’s just because I realised whilst eating it that I really don’t like rose flavour. Just not my thing. Otherwise the textures were still spot on, so if you like rose flavour you should try this one. It was definitely better than the rose one I had in Melbourne.
Chocolate and caramel macaron (below bottom)
Caramel and chocolate work so well together. This was yummy as! Although it was a little sickening (especially after I had eaten 5 macarons in the few hours before it – bad idea).
So if you’re on the hunt for a really good macaron, look no further. There are a few stores you can get them from around the country, or you can order them direct from Christchurch and they will courier them to you. Although they are more expensive than the Ma Cherie ones, they are far more superior in flavour, texture and creative combinations.
Will definitely be buying these every time I visit Ponsonby!
I’m gonna get faaaaaat.
Beautiful you.
I never used to wear jewellery when I was younger but recently I’ve started to love wearing necklaces, and sometimes the odd ring if I like it enough (and if it fits – stupid giant knuckles!).
I came across the Beautiful You store on Felt (which is sort of like New Zealand’s version of Etsy) a few weeks ago and HAD to buy a few things.
I’ve wanted an octopus necklace for a while now so that was the first on my list. Then I made a list of about 6 others that I wanted and decided I should really cull it back and ended up adding the wishbone necklace to my cart.
Then I found these cute cream flower studs and decided that those were a necessity also.
And while I was at it I thought I’d see if any of my friends wanted to add to my order (save on shipping and all that!). Brit decided on the tea party necklace and Jessamy decided on the rawr means I love you in dinosaur necklace. So cute!
I might do another order and grab the swooping bird, mixtape and origami crane necklaces… one day…
I do love to shop.
I expected to buy A LOT while I was away in Melbourne, Australia. Mainly because I love to shop and buy things all the time. However, this year, I just didn’t really find much to buy. I didn’t buy a single item of clothing, which is shocking for me!
The thing I spent the most amount of money on was probably macarons.
I purchased a total of 26 macarons in 5 days.
I may have a problem…
Cacao: Salty caramel, strawberries and cream, raspberry and violet/blackcurrant.
Not a fan of salty caramel at all. Just not my thing. Violet/blackcurrent was fantastic. The others were great too!
Cacao: Tangy lemon, short mac (coffee), dark chocolate and passionfruit (ate it before I took the photo haha)
The short mac one was the best out of these ones. The other two were great too. Not sure that I’m a fan of chocolate ganache in passionfruit macarons though. I’ve seen them paired up heaps and I just find the chocolate too overpowering.
Melbourne Markets: Blueberry cheesecake (x2), dark chocolate, vanilla, chartreuse, expresso, tiramisu and strawberry or raspberry
I don’t remember what the actual store was called that I got these from but they are in the deli hall if anyone is going there.
On the left is the chartreuse macaron which was really intense! Quite strong. If you’re a chartreuse fan I’m sure you would love it but it was a bit too much for me and I only ended up eating half of it. It looked really pretty though! One of the most interesting looking ones I saw the whole trip.
On the right is the blueberry cheesecake macaron and I think it might have been my favourite of the trip. The filling was cheesecake and it was absolutely fantastic. The second one was for Carly (who also had the vanilla one).
Lindt Cafe: Strawberry, roselli, champagne, dark chocolate, caramel and passionfruit
These were all pretty good although I had higher expectations from what I had heard about them.
I also bought 4 from Cafe Vue in the Melbourne International Airport before we left for home, which were pretty good. They were the most expensive ones I bought and they were smaller than the others, but the flavours were good. I had the pistachio, passionfruit, orange and vanilla.
I think overall, I would say that the ones from Cacao were the best. They should be since they won the Best Macaron in Melbourne in 2010.
Apart from the macaron purchases, the only other things I managed to buy where these:
An adorable knitted owl hot water bottle
A heart shaped ice cube tray from Ikea
Oddly shaped cupcake cases from Ikea
BYS nail polishes (the black with glitter in it on the left is for my best friend Brit) – I sort of regret not buying more of these. They were so cheap and this one shop seemed to have the entire range!
So that really sums up the non-Soundwave part of my trip. I didn’t really get any good photos of any of the bands/shows but I loved every single band I saw and managed to see some of my favourites twice because I saw them at the festival and at their sideshows. Lucky me!
