I Went To Christchurch

So I spent Christmas this year with my boyfriend's family in Taranaki, so I wanted to catch up with my parents before Christmas. The festive season doesn't mean a lot to us, but I barely get to see my parents because they live in Vietnam for 95% of the year so I was super excited to hang out with them and drink sav in the sun.

When I arrived, I saw Aaron Gilmore in the airport! So the trip was off to a good start.

 I was also super excited to see Christie and go opshopping with her, such is customary every time I go back to Christchurch. First we stopped off at her place where I tried on everything in her wardrobe and we, as always, dressed in matching-ish outfits. It's a pretty regular occurence when we hang out that people ask if we are sisters, which is hilarious because do you know any sisters who have the same haircut and dress in the exact same way? Nooo. But we just run with it.







But yeah, after like 5 hours of shopping and bargain-finding and a little bit of arguing over 1950s dresses (THANK YOU CHRISTIE, I LOVE THE DRESS SO MUCH!!!) we were parched and some fancy drinks at The Tannery were in order. The Tannery is a new development in Christchurch, full of sickeningly beautiful boutiques and homewares shops and cafes. We took some outfit snaps too, in front of the beautiful Christmas tree.

Christie is wearing a 1950s floral dress that her grandma made for a sewing contest, with Urban Outfitters t-bars and her Cambridge Satchel.

I am wearing a 1950s rose-print velvet dress that I got from a vintage garage sale thing, with won-from-Mimco t-bar sandals, opshopped belt, bangle from Ziggurat, 1950s sunnies from Trade Me and my Cambridge satchel.

I always sort of forget to take photos on my proper camera but here are some Instagram shots from Chchchch:

Drinking something minty and delicious / Overcast garden in my childhood home

Cracks in my (condemned) childhood home / The flat my mum lived in when she was my age, where she met my dad, now earthquaked

My mum and I both wearing opshopped 1950s dresses / Returning home to my massive wardrobe

Stay tuned for Part 2: I Went To Taranaki And Some Other Places

Hello...again...

I am possibly officially the worst co-blogger ever. I haven't posted since June last year. That really, really sucks. If it weren't for Georgia holding the fort this blog would have died a long time ago (so thanks, Georgia!).

But here I am, back in 2013 and ready to blog again! An awful lot of things have happened (and been bought) in the past months that I feel should have been featured here - for example, I've finished high school forever and I now own a Cambridge Satchel (which is beautiful - but more on that some other time). I was considering doing a big update-y post, but today I rearranged my bedroom and created some wonderful new spaces that I really like so I've decided to share some photos of my bedroom with you instead (seeing as I haven't shared any photos of my new house since my family and I moved here in May of last year!).

There's really no one better to grace the door of my bedroom than Patti Smith.

I found myself a desk and put together this new workspace today featuring the blackboard I made myself, a 1950s dining chair, my Instax Mini 8 (a Christmas gift), a Maidenhair fern and my collection of Popular Penguins, among other things. It feels great to have table space without too much clutter!

Hung from a string of fairy lights, a string of polaroid pictures taken with my Instax Mini and pegged to some twine with teeny tiny wooden pegs, featuring a photo of me & Georgia when she came down to Christchurch recently! I love all of these photographs so much.

The very DIY jewellery organiser made from picture hooks and twine that I put together last month, my favourite perfume and Karen Walker jewellery, and a see-through storage box (actually just a recycled Ferrero Rocher box) inspired by this post on Love Aesthetics.

A sneaky mirror photo of my messy hair and $7 thrifted daisy shorts. They were just sitting there, waiting for me. So amazing. Also featuring hydrangeas in an old Coca-Cola bottle.

I love my bed so much. It has a beautiful quilted linen headboard and I love sleeping in plain bedding so I bought a white duvet cover from Ikea when I travelled to Australia last December (amongst other things that I struggled to fit in my suitcase on the way home).

It feels great to have a nice-looking, well-functioning and uncluttered space to spend time in. I also recently had a massive wardrobe clean-out - I've gotten quite sick of having so much clothing that never gets worn or loved - so for all our New Zealand followers, I'll be listing a lot of vintage dresses on Trademe soon, so keep an eye out!

I'm trying to be a better blogger. Really, I am. Hopefully this gets the ball rolling again. But in the meantime...

(PS. This is one parenthesis-heavy blog post!)

REUNITED AND IT FEELS SO GOOD

CHRISTIE CAME TO WELLINGTON AND IT WAS REALLY FUN. She came to look around universities but I'm gonna pretend she came just to visit me and go vintage shopping and eat amazing food, which is what we did all weekend.

I've been working normal-people hours at my normal-people job and I now remember the joys of a Friday afternoon, and how great it feels to have two wonderful days of freedom and sleep-ins ahead of you, and my afternoon was made even better by seeing Christie. Man, I have missed her. We vintage shopped and had a cheap noodle dinner (Satay Kingdom, you are my everything), and then did the same thing on Saturday except with a slightly fancier dinner. It was so nice seeing the city through new eyes. Pix:






Christie is wearing an opshopped lemon yellow angora jumper, a pale blue 1950s day dress from Emporium Vintage, Goldenponies t-bars and a Baggu backpack. Her rings are by Karen Walker and Steven Junil Park.





I am wearing a 50s-style dress by Papercup via Recycle Boutique, emerald green 1950s princess coat, Golenponies t-bars and a belt off another vintage dress. We accidentally wore the same colours and the same shoes, which many many people commented on. WE KNOW.

And we both bought lots of excellent things (which I can actually do now because employment) including a Ruby Boutique dress from 2008 that I have wanted ever since it came out, an amazing black beaded 1930s blouse (Christie) and this amazing perfect dress:



And it was perfect and fun and Christie needs to move here next year the end.

Musical Happenings

I just got home from a band practice - I'm in a new band with two blonde guys, and I sing, and it's a pretty swell time. Musically, I've always felt like I was too much of a Joni Mitchell (not that I have anything against her, I adore her!) and not enough of a Patti Smith - I always wanted to show a little more anger and be a little crazier on stage and never did. And now I have the opportunity to do that (well, sort of) with a songwriting genius/pedal wizard and a surfing/marathon-running drummer and I had no idea how great it would be. It's all so exciting.

So here we are:
HALF MOUNTAIN!

Band logo designed by yours truly.

Liam, Hunter and I performing at the Rockquest heats last weekend (a nationwide band competition for high school students here in NZ) - which we aced, I'm not even going to lie. Photo credit to Frances Martin.

Your support in our ventures into musical territory would be greatly appreciated, no matter what distant part of the world you hail from! You can like our Facebook page here. I would be extremely grateful! We're recording some demos soon so keep an eye out!

On another note, here are a bunch of photos from my Instagram account (my username is typewrite, follow me if you have one too!) involving small details of my recent purchases and day-to-day life over the past few months. Enjoy.

1. dreamcatcher bought in Bali 

2. polka-dot nails that I spent ages doing - OPI Skull & Glossbones and misc cheap black polish

3. a new addition to my Popular Penguin collection and my lovely Bedrock Bones bracelet and  hairbone that I purchased from ONCE'IT 

4. my awesome Demonia creepers

5. the AMAZING Commes Des Garçons PLAY sweater I thrifted for NZ$8!

6. a flyer stuck on a carpark sign

7. the beautiful last days of autumn in the area I recently moved to

8. my Balinese canopy and new bed in my new bedroom

9. sunset in our broken and deconstructed city

10. adorable lacy bloomers that my mother brought back for me from Kitten D'Amour in Australia!

And to finish, here's a shameless self-portrait that I snapped before Rockquest on Sunday. Until next time, lovely followers!

(P.S. I'm publishing this a day late because the internet stopped working last night - today it snowed all day so I'll post some pictures from that tomorrow!)

Squirrel Sale

I've been a bad blogger lately. I apologise. I have the same boring excuses: busy with school, extra-curricular activities, social life, travel. I've bought so many beautiful things that I haven't shown the world yet! My goldenponies t-bar flats arrived in the mail a month or so ago and they are like, the nicest shoes I've ever had. They are really really nice. And they look cute with everything.

Not long after that my Demonia creepers arrived - and they are so awesome, but oh lord the blisters of the first week were the worst of my life. Now they're worn-in and super-comfortable and I have a lot of fun being two inches taller.

In April I went to Bali for 10 days, and it was hot and insane and there were monkeys climbing on me and I loved it. Expect some photographs of my trip soon, it was an amazing place to photograph so I took hundreds!

I have a fair amount of spending money left over from my trip and I was thinking of buying a black 15" Cambridge Satchel. Do any of our followers have one? Is it worth the two hundred NZ dollars?

wearing:

thrifted faux fur hat and vintage 'juniors' dress, gifted fur coat, retail tights, goldenponies t-bars, Revlon lipstick in berry haute

I wore this to the wonderful winter sale at Two Squirrels Vintage, one of my favourite vintage stores that I'm sure I've mentioned before, owned by the very sweet Vanessa and Warren. I took home beautiful things and saw lovely people, and went home happy.

This dress fits me so well, I love the shape of it and the swiss dots are wonderful!

(the back of this dress is so perfect, I almost want to wear it backwards) 

The pale pastel blue colour and style of this dress gives off a vibe that is hard to describe but so fantastic!

I took this photograph a few hours ago of the beautiful 'super-moon' out in the sky tonight. The photo really does not do it justice, it was breathtaking.