New Kicks

I bought these new kicks recently and have been wearing them a lot since.

They add the best pop of colour to any ensemble and are easier to wear with things than you may think!

If you are interested in a pair yourself, I bought these minty green Vans at City Beach - not sure where else does this colour? Hype maybe?

I just recently got a new minty green nail polish to match! Hopefully I'll be able to do a full post on both of these soon.

Easy As Apple Pie

Lately I have been baking all the time. Something I have always wanted to make was a good apple pie from scratch, pastry and all. All of the recipes I have seen for this look a bit time consuming and involved. Until I found one in a great little cookbook: A Generous Helping.

This book, given to me by my Dad, is compiled of recipes from Queenslanders around the time of the Queensland floods in early 2011. I have used several recipes from this book and it is my new go-to and favourite.

These apple pies are so easy to make up that I now make 1-2 a week!
Recipe below...

Pastry:

1 & 1/2 cups of plain flour
3/4 cup of sugar (I use castor sugar)
1 tspn vanilla essence
1 egg
125g butter, melted
1 small pinch of cinnamon (this is my extra little something)

Filling (this is my own variation):
5-6 green apples, peeled and diced (fresh is best but use canned if you prefer)
25g butter
25g caster sugar
Pinch of cinnamon

What to do:

Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius.

For the pastry, combine all ingredients together and press into a pie dish, reserving about a third of the pastry for the top of the pie (no need to grease the pie dish as the butter in the mixture will substitute).

Meanwhile, make the apple mixture; if you're using canned apples, mix all the filling ingredients together and put into the the pastry lined pie dish. If you're making the filling from scratch, place the diced apples, butter, cinnamon and sugar in a saucepan on moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until most of the apples are soft.

Then, spoon the apples into the pastry-lined pie dish.

The recipe says to crumble the the remaining pastry on the apples, creating the top. However I prefer to roll out the the leftover pastry between two sheets of baking paper and carefully drape it on top of the pie with apples.

Then this all goes into the oven for 50-55 minutes or until golden brown on top.

And that's it! Trust me, it takes no time at all once you've done it a couple of times! I have also tried bottled peaches instead of apples and it's pretty good too.


I recently converted this apple pie pastry to make little Caramel Kisses, instead of using a biscuit base and it was delish!

Hopefully more recipes to come soon :)




A Generous Helping is by Madonna King & Alison Alexander

SuperMoon

Last night saw the super moon light up the sky. This rare occurrence only happens every few years (I have heard different things but I'm sure one person told me it's been about 18 years from the last!).

The moon travels closer towards the earth making it appear much brighter and a lot bigger.

Below are some photos of the beautiful moon and sunset, that I took last night. I just had to share these with you!

Source: Photos taken with my iPhone - gotta love the little baby!

(I'll be the first one to say that the last photo is very blurry, but I still love the look of it all blurring together so I included it)

 

That Dress

If only I had $225 (AUD$217) and a magical postal service that provided same day shipping from the US...
I would love this dress for the weekend! Or just this dress at all really.


This beautiful Silk Colour Block Dress from Nasty Gal looks so bangin'!!

Find this baby here

Black Beauty

For someone who loves, and wears, everything black all of the time, its hard to believe that I didn't really have a go to black tote at all! Until now...

I had been eyeing off this seed bag ever since I first saw it in they're new Wintergarden, Brisbane store. But at $250 a pop, I couldn't see it as my own anytime soon.

So when my friend Ashley, (check out her blog Da-shh) arrived back from a trip to Melbourne with the dream bag in tow, I was literally jumping up and down asking where, when, how (much $$)??

You can grab this glorious all-leather-with-pony-hair-pocket shopper at seed for around $150 I believe, however David Jones right now is offering an extra 25% off that price bringing it down to $112! Which is what I scored this baby at.

This bag is so practical!
It's a little on the heavy side though but I think that's just because if I have space in a big bag, I'll always manage to (annoyingly) fill it to the brim!

Soo in love with this bag!!

Get Into It

Nasty Gal has come out with a new May Lookbook!
As always, they're stuff is out of this world cool and I want every piece!

What I love most about this Lookbook are the nails (that change everyoutfit!) and the set deisgn - so cool!

Check out their behind the scenes video on the Lookbook shoot below..

Simply the Best

I post a lot of my photos of my breakfast, hey?

It's just so nice to wake up and prepare yourself a delicious breakfast to start the day!

When I set these babies down on the bench this morning and had my iPhone right there, I couldn't not take a photo!

My favourite breakfast combination, as pictured below, includes delish natural yoghurt (Black Swan - best brand) with banana & passionfruit, Nespresso coffee and buttery rye bread with baked beans. Yum!!

Hardware

So do you remember that post I did on metal accessories? Well I actually I've to do another one because my collection keeps growing!!

I now have some new pieces. Some of them you may have seen in posts before, but below is a feature of all of them, including some new additions to my rose gold/copper collection, which I'm very stoked about!

L to R, T to B:
Copper Coin Bag: Sportsgirl
Rose Gold Belt: ASOS
Silver Cuff: present from my Dad for Christmas :)
Solid Rose Gold Cuff: Lovisa
Rose Gold Choker: Lovisa
Spiked Black & Gold Necklace: present from my friend Emma :)
Solid Silver Cuffs: ASOS
Solid Silver Choker: Lovisa
Silver Belt: ASOS
Spiked Ribbon Necklaces - Fluro Yellow & Orange: Lovisa

Ballet Class

This outfit reminds me of my ballet days as a tot - very brief days at that. I was a bit of a tomboy and ballet wasn't quite my thing.

The flippy, Lycra skirt along with the wrap around tee and the top knot bun are very off-to-dance-class. I didn't even realise until looking back at the pictures to write this post, but I kind of like it.

To spiffy it up a bit, of course I added my new favorite blazer and rose gold metal hardware.

On a side note - I love these sandals so much that I'm seriously considering getting another pair as a back up. And lucky for me these are now on sale at ASOS! They are 20% off until March 4th if you're interested in a pair yourself!


I'm wearing:

Skirt: dance wear skirt from ebay (found here)
Tee: Sportsgirl
Sandals: ASOS
Bag: Urban Originals
Belt: Sportsgirl

Zara

Always excited when Zara comes out with new lookbooks.

These are the March lookbooks for Zara Woman & TRF filled with simple yet really cool shapes and pieces.

I'm a sucker for tees so I'm really liking the washed printed tee with the white jacket in TRF and liking absolutely everything in the Woman's lookbook - especially that embellished collar shirt and peachy pants.

Man I love Zara. Must make a trip to Sydney soon and stock up!



TRF and Women's below...

TRF

 

WOMAN




Model: Kasia Struss
Photos @ Zara's Facebook

Handy Dandy

I have been wearing this blazer so much lately!

I feel with outer pieces though, that it's ok to wear the same one everyday pretty much.. Maybe not.. But I do anyway!

This blazer was a steal as well at only $20! It's perfect for our weather too because it's not too heavy and makes the perfect handy, go-to trans-seasonal piece.

I felt like being comfortable today, so I threw it on with my favourite leather shorts and tee shirt as well as some boots I picked up on sale ($40 for leather!) at the end of last season. To keep it a bit bright on this drizzly day (starting to really feel like winter's on it's way), I wore my fluro striped scarf.

I'm wearing:
Blazer: One Way from Foxx Foe
Tee: Sportsgirl
Shorts: Forever New
Scarf: Sportsgirl
Boots: Siren 'Reach'


I'm listening to Vampire Weekend as I write this post. They're music is so good and never gets old! Practically singing along to it on the train..

Holiday oh holiday and the best one of the year..

Neeeon

Finally I'm steering clear of black. I've been wearing it a bit too much lately. But you know what it's like, it's just so easy!


So I paired this neon coral Dotti skirt with my neon yellow necklace and a simple heather grey tee. I kept it more casual with black/multi-colored sandals and my favorite black bag.


To break it down a little more for you, I'm wearing:

Skirt: Dotti
Tee: SES
Sandals: Sportsgirl
Bag: Urban Originals
Necklace: Lovisa
Cuff: ASOS

Wake Me Up

Nothing like good, strong coffee to get you going in the morning...

How good does it look?!
I thought I'd share this with you because it does look so damn delicious. And it was!