Pickles and Peanut Butter

'What the *** is that!?' I hear you cry. THAT, my fellow blogettes, is pickles and peanut butter on toast. The finest breakfast there is. How do I know? Because my Grandad got me hooked on it when I was a wee dot, and wise old Grandads know everything. End of story.

Things I'm Lovin' This Weekend...

A print arrived for me all the way from Edinburgh. Thanks Susie Wright and Oddities Streetwear!

Summery music by Eliza Doolittle...



Fluffy monsters hiding in... rubbish bins...

 Cute boys and their new buzz cuts that I just want to run my hands across all day!

Pikelet making lessons from my mama... mmmmm...

What about you, lovelies?

P.S. I've just joined in on PaisleyJade's 'Things I'm Loving...' post section, check it all out here!

Janine Wareham Illustration

How much fun is this doodle slash piece of amazing artwork? It's kinda like all those times when you were supposed to be listening to the teacher back in school but you just ended up doodling all up the side of your refill, only, this is SO much better. Nice! Janine Wareham, catch her here.

Girl Crush: Lykke Li - I Follow Rivers

I'm a little bit in love right now...

I Just Coloured Outside the Lines: Dinosaur Tootsies

Today I have coloured outside the lines in two respects.

Firstly, I manned up (woman-ed up?) and painted my toenails in my yellow nail polish. (Hearing sarcastic 'oohs and aahs' from the sidelines) ... Yes I know people, it's baby steps OK!?

I'm a bit on the fence with the outcome - in some lights it looks like I have dinosaur toenails, in others more like I've just removed layers and layers of old nail polish and not put any more on. Hah! ewww!
But outside it's not too bad, it's growing on me.

The other bold move I made today was actually putting photos of my hory feet on the internet for the world to see. There is nothing elegant about my feet, and trying to photograph my feet in a flattering way has proven pretty impossible this morning and confirmed what everyone tells me - that I have weird stubby toes, curled up pinkies and some bad jandal tan lines. There, I said what you were all thinking so now it's not uncomfortable haha!

I'm stepping out and heading off to work shortly, in my open toed sandals, ready to rock my dinosaur tootsies. But I think I'll draw the line at painting my fingernails too.

The Lost & Forgotten - part 2

Would ya look at that, another one that slipped through the memory cracks!

The Lost & Forgotten

I recently found this drawing of mine from a few years back - for some reason I'd scanned it onto the computer at work, then of course buggered off overseas and forgotten all about it. I do love my sketchy, free-hand bird drawings, but gimme a ruler and I can have lots of fun too!


Sorry if it's a bit fuzzy, I no longer have the original, who knows where that ended up!

New Header

Jeepers, blogging does nothing for controlling my extreme, unhealthy habit of procrastination.
Anyone else have trouble refraining from 'tweaking' all the time and making new headers!? Yikes!

I Just Coloured Outside The Lines! : The Plan

Sarah at BobbyRobin has gotten into the spirit of 'getting out of the comfort zone' and created a button for anyone interested in joining us on the way! Check out her first super example of 'colouring outside the lines', and please feel free to hop over there and grab a button for your own page too!

Great idea Sarah, thank you!

                                                                  Well, I'm planning on it...!

Yellow, I Love You

Dear garishly bright yellow nail polish. I loved you from the moment I saw you. So in a moment of madness, I brought you home with me. You know, I really do still love you, it's just that now you terrify me too. I just don't know if we're compatible; you in your 'super and ultra brilliance' and me in my... 'wussiness'...

While The Sun Shines

I had big plans to head back into work today, (though we don't officially start back until tomorrow) ... however I peeked my head out from under the covers at 5.30 this morning to see the beginnings of a super glorious day and I thought, nah! So instead my sister and I decided to muck around with the camera down the back of our house.

It's funny how you spend ages trying to get 'nice' photos, and then your favourites often tend to be the 'in betweens' and the 'out-takes'.

It's All About Me

As I mentioned in my last post, one of my goals for the year is to work on my self confidence. To step out of my comfort zone a little and for goodness sake, stop freaking out about what other people think ALL the time.

Because I will admit now, that I am actually a very shy person. I avoid social situations because they're just all a bit too scary. I don't like trying out new activitites because I freak that I might suck at them. I don't dress or act the way I want to all the time because I stress about what others will think. I am reluctant to set up the little online shop of my drawings that I have wanted to in so long, because what if no one buys anything!?

People who know me well might think this all sounds a bit strange, because with my family in particular, I'm probably the loudest, crudest and craziest amongst us. But that's a little different. Even here on my blog, my 'voice' is a lot more like I want to be in the 'real world', but it isn't. Not always anyway.

So there we go, it's out there. I know there are some other fairies around who sometimes feel like they're in the same boat, so I say hey, let's make it a goal for the year to work on it. I'm going to try my best to update monthly on what I've been doing to get out of 'that zone', even if it's just little things.
Let's see how it goes!

Yeah x3

In the spirit of one of my top most 'resolutions' - to step out of my comfort zone and not worry so much what other people think - I am posting this. I don't agree at all with some of the stupid things Chris Brown has done in the past, but JEEPERS this guy is talented, and if I could dance like that... well, I wouldn't be doing what I do today, and probably not here either. So there. I love this song. It just makes me want to dance and dance and dance. Woot!

New Days & Birthdays

Hello 2011, just like that you're underway and I realise all those resolutions that I was mulling over haven't been put into action yet (though I don't like to call them resolutions because that word screams to me 'final, definite, commited goals' and that freaks me out). More on the 'R' words soon.

Today is also my 26th birthday, and adding to the freaking out front a little, I am suddenly aware of all the things I want to have done by the time I'm 30 and how many of those things just haven't happened yet! But I'll get there. Patience, patience.

It used to be a bit of 'a thing' that my family would go berry picking most summers around this time of year, so today I've chosen that as my birthday outing. Mmm raspberry goodness, tastes even better when you've picked them yourself.

See Ya in 2011

    Image by Small from http://www.flickr.com/photos/small/148002047/

See ya peeps, I'm off to the Marlborough Sounds for Christmas - no internet, no phone, no roads, just chillin'. Mint.
Catch you in the New Year, happy Christmas everyone!

Emiliana Torrini - Jungle Drum

Try and not wiggle your ass to this!

Glitteratti

There's nothing like whipping out the glitter and glue as if you're 10 years old again and proceeding to make a sparklified mess, oh and if you're lucky, a glittery chrissy card too. My only problem however, still seems to be the issue of not knowing when enough is enough...

Boing Boing Weeee

Not So Secret Santa

...and I've also been working on a little something for my Secret Santa pressie...

2011 Calendar

Lately I've been working on this little calendar...

A Tunic

   

I hate the word tunic, but I guess it kind of describes the loose fitting dress/top that I made last night.
I used the most basic of basic patterns to whip it up, and it's perfect for wearing over leggings which pretty much sums up my summer wardrobe mantra.

I love the subtle pattern on the fabric which you can see best when the light shines through it.
This piece of fabric came out of my 'stash' that was in storage - what a brilliant day that was when I rescued it from the garage!

Why Who

Dear Santa,

If you could bring me just one thing this year, it would be a pair of shoes by 'Why Who'.
I want them so bad it hurts. Like, ouch.

Please Santa, it would rock my world. Promise.

Love Nikki

Theirs & Mine

One of the upsides/downsides of being a poor, mega thrifty (stingy), creative type, is that I tend to look at everything I love and think, 'that's cool, but I don't want to pay fifty gajillion dollars for it, I bet I could make it for cheaper...'.

It's not that I don't appreciate other people's fantastic ideas, or the work that goes into producing them, but because I'm so used to not being able to afford any of the things I want, I seek to create my own version.

(Please note here, that I make sure I don't rip off and copy other people's designs only to swan around claiming them to be my own. 9 times out of 10 I'm talking about clothes I see in stores and quite generic items, all of which I keep for myself!)

So, here is my perfect example.

Theirs...

                            From Rocket St. George


Mine...

   

When All Else Fails...

(ie. there is absolutely nothing going on in your life that you can think to blog about...) - buy new shoes, get a haircut, and share that.

Ta daaa!

The Keeper of the Patterns

Still not a lot of creating going on around here, I'm just getting back into the groove of that thing called 'work'!
But I did go to have a scrounge through my mum's box of patterns this morning to find this. Look at that cute, fluffy face. My sister's cat should be 'the face' of 'My Cat Likes to Hide in Boxes', she seriously tries to sleep in anything! So I left her to it - creating can wait a little longer.

I'm Baaaa-aacck!

Wow what a way to finish off blogging about my trip around the world with a fizzle! Sorry everyone. World's most consistent blogger? FAIL.

But in bigger news - after 2 years of gallivanting around the world I'm HOME, like, New Zealand home! Which makes me very excited because it means getting my mits stuck into my boxes of 'creative goodies' in our storage unit. It means eventually having a steady income for the first time in a year so that I can go and buy MORE creative goodies.
It means that just maybe I can start to turn this blog into what I think I always intended it to be - a little more about me and my creations and a little less about the randomness in my life. OK who am I kidding, it will absolutely still be about the randomness, but perhaps a little more balanced.

It's gonna take me a little while to get on my feet and get some sort of order and regular blogging going on around here, but I'm looking forward to what's on the horizon!

Plus I'm really enjoying just being with my family and friends again and sinking back into the Wellington pace of things. Oh and making my way through the 3000+ unread entries on my google reader. Aggghh!

Bear with me peeps, things should get good around here, just wait and see...

Is It Really Bad...

Is it really bad that I kinda can't stand the thought of taking another single photo of an 'architectural marvel' or 'historical monument' or 'priceless sculpture'? So much so that I just end up doing this whenever the camera comes out in that direction?

Does that make me a naughty, disinterested designer? Would my old interior architecture lecturers hang their heads in dismay?

Oh Woops... Catch Up

Oh geez, everything's going by so fast!

It's involved a bit of this...

Some of this...

And then lots of this!

Mmmmm gelato.... soooo goooooood.....

Home in ten days! Exciting!
Then it's back to the real world, the design world, and maybe some serious blogging... or maybe not. We'll see.