January Favourites!

Monthly favourites time and mostly beauty related. January has flown by. I went on holidays up the west coast for a week by the beach, had a great Australia day with friends, although crappy weather, hung out with friends before school started yesterday and this afternoon I got a haircut and took of about 25-30 cm of hair! My hair is so short now but I love it so I guess that is a fav for this month.

CPR Frizz control smoothing creme

I love this creme to control my frizz and make my hair a LOT smoother plus hair protection. It also smells amazing sort of like Turkish delight, why wouldn't you want to put it in your hair! for more information about what this product does click the link below.

http://www.cprhair.com/the-frizzy-solution.html

The Body Shop - Japanese Cherry Blossom Body Mist

Smells amazing and isn't too powerful. It is the perfect balance between floral and fruity. Quick spritz of this in the morning on the pulse points to last all day. Or if you are like me most of the time I will spray into the air and run through it!

Have a read of the product more here

The Body Shop - Mango Hand Cream

Another Body Shop product this time, mango. Mango being my favourite fruit this needed to be good and it was. So creamy and moisturizing to apply and a gorgeous scent that doesn't linger which is good if you are already wearing a scent. Love the packaging as always and great travel size for handbags and purses.

Again if you would like you can purchase it here

Tanya Burr - Nail Polish in Mini Marsmellows

I love Tanya's videos on YouTube and she is so sweet. I was so happy when my friend bought me a nail polish from her trip to England. This summer I have been loving the colour on my nails. Beautiful pastel pink colour it is definitely a 'Tanya" shade but would suit everyone! Her range of nail polishes, lip glosses and lashes are available at boots and superdrug and online at http://www.feelunique.com/brands/tanya-burr 

Tanya has also recently come out with her first book called 'Love Tanya' which is available for pre-order from amazon. If you want check her out on www.youtube.com/tanyaburr for beauty related videos.

KIKO Lipstick - shade 904

Another summer colour, I have worn this many times these holidays. It applies so easy, has a creamy texture but literally lasts all day long even after lots of drinking and eating! I will have to check out this brand more because I need more of these lipsticks in my life.

T2 Tea - Southern Sunrise

The most gorgeous tea, it has become my new favourite and i can't wait to get more of it. I absolutely love T2 their tea is just such good quality and for the price you get a lot of tea, they have amazing flavours to suit anyone even people that swear by coffee. I have a smaller packet because it came in a box with five teas. I think I will get at least 10-15 cups of tea out of this one packet which is amazing. Absolutely in love and I can't wait to try out more flavours.

Artist - Tjalf Sparnaay

You have to check out his work it is so amazing. the picture just above is not a picture, it's a painting. he is so talented and self taught! So much time and dedication must go into these artworks which you can check out here

Favourite songs of the Month have been:

Ring off - by Beyonce 

Bel air - by Lana Del Rey

Both talented and beautiful artists these are my two favourite songs from these albums.

Hope you guys liked reading what I enjoyed this month and maybe got some inspiration. Hoe you had a lovely January and a better February.

| Credits and thanks to Thea McLachlan for taking the photos and editing |

audrey x

Hottest 100

Australia Day is over but today's tunes from Triple J's Hottest 100 will be in our heads for days. Triple J is an Australian radio station that plays music more towards the alternative side and Australian artists. Hottest 100 is a countdown of the best songs decided by Australian votes. The music starts at 12pm and is a big part of Australia day for many Aussies.

Here are my favourite songs from this years Hottest 100

Chet Faker | Talk is Cheap

Peking Duk | Take Me Over ft. SAFIA

Mark Ronson | Uptown Funk ft. Bruno Mars

Chet Faker | Gold

Chet Faker | 1998

Glass Animals | Gooey

Lorde | Yellow Flicker Beat

Lana Del Rey | West Coast

Broods | Mother & Father

Lorde | Tennis Court (Flume Remix)

FKA Twigs | Two Weeks

Check out some of these great artist my fav being Chet Faker *insert praise emoji* so proud he made it to number ONE and three songs in the top ten!

So I leave you with great music and a proud Aussie.

Happy Australia day to my fellow Australians!  x

audrey x

Ideas and Inspiration

All of these artworks I found on pinterest and fell in love with. These are just some of the talented artworks that caught my eye. I hope to recreate my own version of these in the future and use them as inspiration.

Enjoy.

Click here to see more amazing realistic food paintings by this artist.

Click here to view more of Tayla Johnson's artwork and shop.

Click here to view the water colour painting and more information about the artwork, artist, and her etsy shop. 

Owl Sketch source here

(Can not find the original source of this image)

audrey x

Elizabeth Beach

The other week I came back from a lovely holiday with my family up the coast. We went for a week and spent every day day at the beach. It was nice to be able to relax and with limited interenet I could really enjoy the area. Here are some photos of my trip. I did some stand up paddle boarding, got up at 5:30am for the sunrise, playing with light exposure and more.

| Some photos taken by Thea McLachlan |

audrey x 

Party Planning - Part 5 (round up)

Today is the last post of my Party Planning series. First I hope you all enjoyed it and maybe picked up some tips and ideas. Because this is the last part lets go over everything you need to plan when having a party.

Theme: have a theme for your party to interest guests and make the event more memorable. I choose Great Gatsby but there are so many possibilities.

Who will be coming: figure out who you want to come according to the type of party, venue and budget.

Invitations: once you know who is coming use can use your theme and guest list to great some nice invitations to give to the guests. Spend some time making them look appealing to get your guests excited. Plus also it’s get you excited and ready to delve into party planning.

Venue: now that you know what party you would like you need to decide on a venue that caters for the amount of people you are having. If you are having an activity party like bowling, they usually do party catering with food and decorations, but you will need to investigate and go from there!   

Food & drinks: of course you will need to cater food and drinks to keep your guests happy. Look online, in cookbooks and magazines for ideas that will fit the theme roughly and suited for the venue and time of year. I had to think about how much food to cater? I had vegetarians coming so some vegetarian options for theme and everyone. My party was in the afternoon so it was just finger food, rather than a meal. Think about how much time you have to prepare the food and drinks. If hosting a large party maybe consider hiring caters for food and look into party hiring for tables, chairs, cutlery and crockery. Check out the links below if you are wondering about how much food and drinks you will need.

Food: http://entertaining.about.com/cs/recipesandmenus/a/foodquantity.htm
Drinks: http://entertaining.about.com/od/generalpartyplanning/a/How-To-Estimate-How-Many-Drinks-To-Buy-For-Your-Party.htm

Decorations: Make your venue a memorable place by buying or making your own decorations. I DIYed a few myself and also bought a few things. Look around your house because you might already have items that you can use. A life saver for me was my beloved Pinterest. So easy I typed in Great Gatsby Party and 1000’s of pins shone before my face. I scrolled down and many pins later and a new board dedicated to my party I had plenty of ideas. Definitely give it a go!

Music: create a playlist of songs to play in the background and for guests to dance along to. I choose a few songs from Baz Luhrmann’s Great Gatsby soundtrack, and many more songs of my own. Make them tasteful.

What I will wear: that’s right what will you wear! You are the host, maybe birthday girl or boy, you need to look the best. Spend some time for yourself choosing out your best outfit and rock it!

Games: if you want you can think about games. Again check Pinterest and online. Get creative, maybe even match them to your theme.

Party favours: also optional you can send your guests home with a party favour to make the night even more memorable and show your guests that you were glad they came and had fun. They will notice how much effort you have put in.

So that’s it! The last part of this series and a roundup of what I believe are the most important elements to think about and plan when hosting a party. Hope you enjoyed and helped you! Have fun party planning, but most importantly enjoy yourself on the day and have fun. After all you put in lots of effort and you deserve a great night to remember!

audrey x

Wintery Tree Scene - Paint tutorial

Hello I have a painting tutorial for you today but first sorry for not posting in a while, I have been away on holidays without internet but I am back to regular posts. This year I am hoping to get a post up every three days.

It’s summer here in Australia and this is a wintery painting but it was just after Christmas and I still felt festive after seeing this really cute painting on Pinterest so I gave it a go.

So the things you will need are:

- Paint brushes (in the appropriate size)

- Canvas (mine was 13 by 18cm so quite small)

- A palette

- Acrylic paint (paint colours listed below)

- Cup of water to wash your brushes in

- Some paper towel 

Paint colours I used:

-          Lamp black

-          Zinc white

-          Lemon yellow

-          Light green

-          Scarlet (red)

-          Phthalo blue

-          Yellow Ochre

First mix your black, blue and green together to get a nice dark shade. You don't want it to be too light, you want just enough blue and green so it's not black. 

Use this shade to paint the whole canvas. Do NOT forget to paint the sides!

Mix a tiny bit of your dark shade into some white to create a very light grey. Follow the picture below using a paint brush and small strokes to create a rough tree shape.

Use the white, yellow orche and mixture of red and the dark shade to use on the bottom on the canvas as the ground.

Build up the strokes on the tree using different colours. I added in a light/medium blue colour along with the purples, white and yellows.

Towards the end I added more yellows to make it look more magical but you can do whatever you would like. Don’t forget to add in a tree trunk I just did a stroke of dark brown mixed by some black!

Have a go and remember that it doesn't have to look like mine and mine didn't look like the photo I got inspiration from. If it isn't going how you would like it take a break and come back to it later.

Have fun and good luck!

audrey x