Pack your bags, Winter

I'm done with Winter. It's gone and good riddance! It's been nothing but coughs and germs for months. 
Bring on Spring I say. I've already packed away our Winter clothes (let's hope there's no more chilly weather), and I've completed a Spring Clean.
See below for 'befores' and 'afters.

...it doesn't really look like it, but I did do more than put the breakfast bowls away.
This below was a lot more untidy than it looks in the photo.

....and...

I also framed a few of the butterfly plates from the book I bought a couple of months ago. Now, in another couple of months I might just get some of them up on the wall?

The black frames are just Target specials, which I picked up for $7.50 each.

Now, I'm a dog person. Should I be keeping this brute in at night? He should be a lover, but he's getting the battle scars that say he's more a fighter (by night anyway).

In Breaking News, Anthropologie are doing half price delivery until the end of September, and if that ísn't enough.....tomorrow I pick up my basket chandelier that I bought on Ebay. If it's anything like the photo, it will be very exciting, or as exciting as a light fixture can be.

Melbs and me

I went to Melbourne on the weekend, only overnight on Saturday. I went to see my dear friend Fi, who turned 40....back in May.
I meant to visit for longer, but I got a bit muddled on-line when I was booking, and ended up with the wrong weekend, and one night instead of two.
The point was, however, as we agreed, that I got there in the end.
Fi has been my friend for 21 years, and as I like to point out to her, she will always be one year older than me.
I think people sum us up as opposites, but we actually have more similarities than differences. One difference, however,  is that Fi is less of a home-body than me.
She used to have a little apartment in St Kilda. She'd been there for quite some time when some friends came to visit. They were looking at her things still in boxes (including clothes I believe), just like a real life Holly Golightly, and at the mantle used only for shoes and perfume. 'I thought you'd been here a couple of years?', they said.  'I have.' she replied.
Now Fi has her own house.

Saturday morning we headed down to Hausfrau in Albert Park for a snack before lunch! I snapped the pretty kitchen dresser like a good blogger.

Saturday night we got stuck into the Whisky Sours at the Tile Market (yes, a tile shop by day, bar by night). P & K even stopped by so I could see Mary Agnes. The lovely Uraguayan lady who owned the bar let her come inside, which was very civilised. While I caught up with P & K, Mary sat on the floor beside a lady eating dinner, steadily being slipped tidbits and loving every minute of it - both of them. This is Mary. I'd just told her about my faux pas booking the flight, which she found hilarious.
  

And this snap is just a run-of-the-mill streetscape in Albert Park. She's a very pretty town.

I haven't been able to blog in the past couple of weeks because I've been so busy, working three days a week and then doing a lot of freelance work in any spare time I have. It all seems a bit calmer now.
I've also got myself a new camera so I can get right back in the saddle again! I shall be taking quite a few happy snaps tomorrow!

Off and Away

I'm off the air for a while. See you soon.

Dress Daisy Chain

Nigella Lawson has a segment on her talk show where she shows a panel of people a group of items. She might have four pairs of bikinis, four pairs of summer sandals, four evening bags, etc. She passes them around and her guests have to guess the price of each item.
It's very, very interesting. There's quite often a comment like, 'this is so awful, it must be very expensive'.
It's amazing how labels can sway our opinion. I wonder what our wardrobes would look like if we never looked at a label or a price tag? It's interesting to think about anyway.
I keep files of all sorts of things, mainly house-y type wares. I also have a little folder on my computer of frocks that I've come across that I'd like to own. I call it imaginatively, my 'frock foldér'. This is what I have in it. It's a daisy chain.

Anna's House

I visited my friend Anna on Thursday. She is a fashion person by trade and her most excellent personal style transcends perfectly into her home.

It's bayside, fresh, bright and light. Every time I visit the rugs have changed, the paintings have changed, the cushions have changed, furniture that was downstairs is now upstairs.  It is a work in progress and I love to see what's new.

This is how it's looking currently. My apologies again for my very ordinary photography, I completely blame the camera of course. All of these photos were taken downstairs in the living room, study and courtyard.

This is the study below.

The courtyard.

We have another birthday coming up in 12 days time. Fasten your seatbelts people, it's time for another cake!!