Retail Therapy - Vintage Jewelry

In September I went to the Round She Goes vintage market. They had a lot of pre-loved clothing, shoes and accessories, but as I tend to do, the jewellery stalls kept grabbing my attention. I'm a sucker for browsing through retro costume jewellery. I don't often buy anything, but I love looking at the kitchy stuff. That day, however, I did find something and as soon as I saw it I had to have it.

It's a vintage 1950s or 1960s (I forget which) Hematite necklace. It was so unique, and the silver and Hematite glinted so nicely in the light that it caught my eye straight away. I bought it from this lovely lady, and she had a lot of other gorgeous stuff.

The pendant is such an unusual shape and texture. I just need to add a few links to the clasp at the back because it sits a bit too high on my neck, but other than that it's in amazingly good condition.

Weirdly, in Googling Hematite I discovered it's a birthstone for both myself and my husband's zodiac signs, and is supposed to ground and protect the wearer. Nice!

The only other thing I wanted to buy at the market was a stunning black knife pleated vintage Balenciaga dress, but it was about $300 and it didn't fit me. It was seriously gorgeous, though! Pin It

Holiday Eating

This is a really quick post about food. Specifically, the best meal I had while we were on holidays last week.

Salt and pepper squid with a lime and maple dressing on a rocket, cabbage and capsicum salad. I actually don't like sweet and savoury flavours mixed together, but this was so subtle it was absolutely delicious. The squid also had also been cooked in a little bit of curry powder, so the salty, curry flavour mixed beautifully together with the lime and maple. Probably the best squid I've ever eaten.

We enjoyed this meal at a little place called Flying Fish Cafe in Port Elliot, South Australia. It's definitely worth a visit if you're ever in the area - the beach in front of the cafe is just gorgeous as well.

Pin It

Sweet Things - La Belle Miette

We had breakfast at Affogato on Hardware Lane last week, which is directly opposite La Belle Miette, the most gorgeous patisserie.So of course, as soon as we had finished our breakfast I insisted we go and have a look inside, because the crisp blues and whites of the shop window were just too inviting to resist.

Once inside, I decided that I had to try their specialty, something that is very much flavour of the month (year?) at the moment.

 

Macarons! A long, gorgeous case of ever colour macaron you can imagine! And they come in such lovely packaging, you cannot go into that shop and walk away empty handed. 

I've had a couple of macarons in the past, but nothing that really knocked my socks off.

We got a pack of 6.

From left to right we have: hazlenut (which was not red at all, not matter what this photo looks like), salted caramel, raspberry, blueberry and violet, and strawberry and vanilla.

The hazelnut was soooooo good, and the strawberry and vanilla had the most subtle, lovely flavour. The raspberry and strawberry and vanilla ones had a tiny layer of jam in them, which added to the flavour without making them overly sweet.

Best of all, a pack of 6 was only fifteen dollars ($2.50 per macaron).

 

Well worth it! They also have a shop in Church Street, Richmond.

Pin It

Gadding About - Daylesford

We took Friday off last week and headed up to Daylesford for the weekend. It was lovely to get away, despite the (very) cold weather. We took lots of walks, ate a LOT of good food and saw lots of lovely scenery.

Chocolate Mill!

The most divine smell greeted us as we walked through the doors into the shop. You can also see the chocolate being made through a window, and they do demonstrations at 11am and 2pm daily. They have only ever used fair trade, Callebaut Belgian chocolate and oh, my. It was divine. I highly recommend the peanut cups and the nougat parcels. There was a vat that held 30kg of tempering milk chocolate in the kitchen, and to say I wanted to swan dive into it would be an understatement.

Wombat Hill Reservoir

We went for a meandering drive and ended up here at about 4.30pm just as the sun started to get low in the sky. It was a brilliantly sunny day there (MELBOURNE: TAKE NOTE) and the light and the reflection of the trees on the water was beautifully golden.

Field somewhere outside of Daylesford

All the rain we've had this year has made the country side so green. We were heading back to the B & B when we came across this cute little landscape and pulled over to snap a couple of shots. Sometimes I forget how lovely the state of Victoria is.

We also ate at some really, really lovely restaurants and cafes - I highly recommend Kazuki (Japanese/Australian fusion), Ego's Culineria, Frangos & Frangos restaurant and Wombat Hill House Cafe, just to name a few.

I ate the greatest toasted sandwich of my life at the Wombat Hill House Cafe - slow roasted lamb on brown bread with dijon mustard and tomato relish. It. Was. Divine.

Pin It

A break in blogging

We're headed away for a long weekend this morning, and unfortunately I didn't have time to put together the Fun Friday Links this week (sorry!). Check back on Sunday or Monday for your links and feel free to comment here with anything cool you've seen online during the week.

In the meantime, I'll somewhere in the vicinity of the below location. Relaxing, eating and sleeping.

I can't wait.

Happy weekend, everyone!

Pin It

Gadding About: Joshua Radin at The Forum, Melbourne

Singer Joshua Radin made his way Down Under for the second time in two years (sans tonsils, he informed the crowd) performing shows in Sydney, Adelaide, Melbourne and Brisbane to coincide with the release of his latest album here in Australia, titled The Rock and The Tide. Thursday night I saw him perform at The Forum here in Melbourne.

The Forum is a great venue - not too big, not too small. There's both standing room and seating, so the atmosphere is usually super relaxed. From the moment Radin stepped onto the stage, the audience was completely under his spell. There was an intense energy from the get go as he performed his 2008 track No Envy, No Fear (from the album Simple Times). Radin's familiar, easy-going audience interaction began after the opening song, and he introduced the next performance (the hauntingly beautiful Everything'll Be All Right/Will's Lullaby) with a short anecdote about writing it around the time Hurricane Katrina hit, giving additional weight to a song already soaked in sincerity.

Radin performed the title track from his latest album early in the set, and again he introduced with a gorgeous story about the all too early loss of innocence that happens to kids these days. This song is one of the most unexpectedly resonant tracks on the album, and to hear it live was thrilling. The lyrics have a way of getting under the skin, and Radin's performance with his band was enthralling - his self-proclaimed "whisper rock" really captured the room, particularly with this song, and the next one (One of Those Days).

The electric guitar was busted out for Nowhere To Go (which isn't on the Australian release of Radin's album, unfortunately), The Ones With The Light and We Are Only Getting Better, all of which were a hit with the crowd, thanks to the infectious energy of Radin and his band mates, who rocked the shit out of each of those numbers. Things turned sultry when Radin sang You've Got What I Need, a song that has a definite 'gettin' it on' vibe to it, so it was no surprise to hear him reveal he wrote it for close friends of his who were trying to conceive a baby. It's so easy to call Joshua Radin's song ballads, but they're so much more than that. Thursday night's performance of Today was further evidence that his music can be described more as music with incredibly personal vignettes sprinkled through that take what could be a simple love song and turn it into so much more.

Highlights of the set included a fantastic performance of Brand New Day, which is probably one of the best indie pop songs written in years, as well as the punchy new single I Missed You, which is ridiculously catchy. This blogger was beyond excited when he announced he was going to sing You've Got Growing Up To Do, also from 2008's Simple Times album, which is a perfectly bittersweet break up song (he didn't perform it at The Espy in 2009 and I was gutted), and the final track before the encore was the delightful I'd Rather Be With You, a sweet and simple melody that perfectly portrays the start of a relationship - simultaneously hopeful and innocent, and laden with optimism.

The encore tracks were 2006's Winter (from Radin's debut album We Were Here), which was a crowd pleaser, and a cover of Bob Dylan's Don't Think Twice, It's All Right. Before he started singing the Dylan cover, he unplugged all his cords and announced to the crowd that in a room so attentive it would be a shame not to try some plain old unamplified acoustics. He then proceeded to sing the Dylan track without any help. And man, he really nailed it. You could have heard a pin drop in The Forum during that amazing last track. The audience was so enraptured with Radin's talent - I doubt many people have see a performer try that in a venue of that size. I certainly haven't.

Radin made reference a few times to his 2009 show at The Espy, and remarked about how sick he had been during that tour and how below par his singing was. I was at that show and, to be honest, his singing was really great. The 2009 show had a very different atmosphere - it was a Saturday night, he didn't go on until about 11.30pm and the audience was a little more rowdy. This Thursday night show, however, had a completely different energy. About halfway through the show, Radin paused to thank the audience for being so attentive and listening to the lyrics so closely, and that could really be felt throughout the entire show. People were so enthralled with and appreciative of his music, it was really something else.

Joshua Radin has one show left tonight at the Brisabane zoo, then he's headed back to the States. If you're in Brisbane and need something to do tonight, try and get your hands on a ticket - it's one of the best live shows you'll see for a while. Radin mentioned that he wanted to come back to Australia later in the year, and I won't hesistate to buy tickets to see him live for a third time. 

There are artists that you can see live once and be satisfied that you don't need to see them perform again. Joshua Radin is not one of those people. His music is beautiful, both lyrically and rhythmically, and I can't sing his praises enough. He is fantastic.

Sidenote: if he comes back later in the year, I really, really, REALLY hope he performs Paperweight. It's my favourite track of his and I would love to hear it live.

Pin It

Gadding About: Hosier Lane

I had a distastrous Friday afternoon. I went to pick up Husband's wedding band and it was repaired incorrectly, then I went to look at the Disney exhibition at ACMI and left without realising there was a whole other section* I hadn't seen yet (and thus couldn't blog about), then I had to pay FORTY EIGHT DOLLARS for two hours of parking at a car park on Flinders Street.

So instead I present you with this photo of just some of the awesome street art in Hosier Lane, Melbourne.

* FYI, what I did see of the exhibition was really, really cool, so you must go and have a look (at the whole thing).

Pin It

Gadding About - Birthday Edition

It was my birthday last Saturday. I don't want this to turn into a photo heavy blog post of five billion different photo angles of the same ingredients/meals/etc, so I'll keep it brief (but delicious).

Here is everything I ate.

Enjoy.

Cupcakes from Cupcake Central in Hawthorn. They were the baby cakes and were $2 each. So light and moist and perfect for a bite sized dessert. We got a variety of raspberry and white chocolate, chocolate devils food cake, vanilla vanilla, cookies 'n' cream (each shown above) and chocolate malted milkshake (not pictured). I will definitely be going back there to sample the rest of the flavours, and I highly recommend you stop in to stuff your face with cupcakes ASAP.

On my actual birthday evening we dined at Hellenic Republic, where I've been wanting to go for a while now because I love Greek food (and NOT because it's one of the Masterchef judges' restaurants, I promise you). 

Entree was Tyri saganaki (Kefalograviera with peppered figs - left) and warm pita bread with Taramosalata (white cod roe dip right). These three things were some of the most delicious entrees I have ever eaten. EVER. The salty cheese with the sweetness of the figs was delicious, and the pita bread and dip were so fresh and perfectly prepared they were delightful to eat.

Main meal was grilled calamari (tasted like it had dill and another herb I couldn't identify), Arni sto fourno (slow roasted lamb, garlic, oregano) and Fasolakia (green beans with feta and pine nuts). The calamari was nice and tasty, but holy cow - that lamb? Incredible. So tender and the spices were flavoursome without tasting too salty or garlicky). The green bean salad was small, but the flavours went well with the mains.

Then we saw Black Swan and feasted on Ben & Jerry's ice cream for dessert. No pics because I HAD TO EAT IT ALL REALLY FAST. I had the mint choc chip flavour and the chocolate pudding flavour, which went nicely together.

And that's how I began the last year of my twenties. It better be a good one, universe (shakes tiny fist at the skies)!!

The end.


Actually, wait. Not the end.

I will be announcing a new giveaway on the weekend, so check back for your chance to win some fun prizes! Pin It

Gadding About - Ingrid Michaelson

 

New Yorker Ingrid Michaelson made her first trip to Australia this past week to perform four shows in Queensland, New South Wales and  Melbourne. I was lucky enough to get tickets to the Melbourne show, which was held at The Corner Hotel, in Richmond ( place I haven't been to since I was about 16 years old - man, I feel old). The band room she performed in was probably slightly bigger than my house, so it was a nice intimate venue for the gig.

Michaelson only performed with two band members, which created a low-key, comfortable vibe between her and the crowd. Largely performing songs from her 2009 album, Everybody, Michaelson kept the energy of the set upbeat and entertaining, providing witty anecdotes as introductions to each tune and inviting the audience to participate with her during the choruses (with bonus hand actions - the ironic jazz hands were a favourite). Her acerbic wit and quirky personality clicked with the crowd  (how can you not love someone who references Dawson's Creek, Britney Spears and an ill-fated pet hamster story in the space of an hour?), and during the first song of the set she included a mash up of one of  Lady GaGa's hits, which was greeted with cheers of appreciation. 

Other crowd favourites during the set included her hits The Way I Am, Keep Breathing and the adorable You and I from previous albums. Her cover of Radiohead's Creep made a lot of people lose their shit (that link is from an Atlanta gig in the States), and the final number of the evening was her at a keyboard performing Elvis Presley's Can't Help Falling in Love which was absolutely perfect - soft and sweet and slightly melancholy (this version from youtube does not even do it justice, not one tiny little bit). From start to finish, the entire set was a wonderful ride through the emotions of betrayal, longing, friendship and love, and it was a thoroughly enjoyable ninety minutes.

If Ingrid Michaelson ever performs at a venue near you, I highly recommend you check her out. It was possibly one of the best performances I've seen in recent years, and I'm surprised more people in Australia haven't heard of her by now. 

In a word: amazing.

Pin It

Lighthouse

Lighthouse

Cape Schanck, Victoria.

Pin It

All Aboard the RMS Titanic!

I have always loved the story of the Titanic. That may seem morbid because obviously it was a tragedy, but there's something about it I find so fascinating. So, when the Melbourne Museum began it's exhibition, Titanic: The Artefact Exhibition, I knew I would head over there to check it out.

This exhibit has apparently been the most successful museum exhibition in Australia's history - so popular, in fact, that they extended it for another few weeks.

You have to book in advance, because practically every session is sold out. We had the 5pm timeslot, and joined the queue too climb aboard and receive our boarding White Star Line boarding pass, a particularly clever marketing tool. You hand over your ticket just as you're about to walk in, and the usher gives you a boarding pass that looks like this:

Flip it over and you'll see that they've personalised each boarding pass with an actual passenger's name, what class they were in, their age, where they were from, who they were traveling with, where they were traveling to once they disembarked at the end of the journey and a quick fact about the person. It makes the exhibition feel a lot more personal and emotional, as some people would no doubt have been looking at artefacts worn/owned or used by the passenger on their boarding pass. And of course at the end of the exhibit you find out if your person survived the journey/shipwreck.

Here's mine:

In case you can't quite read it I'll give you a quick run-down: my passenger was Mrs. John Borland Thayer (Marian Longstreth Morris) who traveled in first class. She was sailing from Cherbourg and traveling to Haverford, Pennsylvania after visiting her son Jack. She had also just been in Berlin with her husband as guests of the American General Consul. She survived. Once on board the Carpathia (the ship that resuced those in lifeboats - also known as the Ship of Widows) she was one of only four women rescued to be reunited with her husband.

So you can see the moment you step inside the exhibition you're already connected to someone traveling. The first parts of the exhibit are the Construction Gallery and the Departure Gallery, which focus on the design and construction of the ship and what it was like to set sail on that April day in 1912.

Then you get to the First Class Hallway & Grand Staircase replicas, which totally made me want to watch the movie right that very second. They've gone to a lot of trouble to bring parts of the ship to life as much as possible for patrons, and it was a lot of fun to walk through. Next stop is the Passenger Gallery, which details stories and has personal artefacts on display that have been recovered (fun fact: over 5,000 artefacts have been recovered from the ocean floor wreckage since it was discovered in 1985). Things like mens boots, toothbrush and toothpaste, jewelery, letters, postcards and clothing can be seen in varying degrees of decay (a lot of items were pristine - it was really quite incredible). Next you'll head into the Third Class Gallery where you'll seen the simple accommodation offered to passengers in steerage (which, incidentally, were a lot more generous than other ocean liners at the time).

After that you walk through a dark passage and enter the Iceberg Gallery. It's pitch black, except for spotlights on the display cases, and they've cleverly displayed stories and quotes on video and projectors to add to the frigid feeling in the room. They've also brought in a giant mound of ice with finger holes in it. Patrons are encouraged to put their fingers in the holes or place their hands on the ice to get a sense of just how freezing conditions were that fateful night (-2 degrees celsius in the water). It definitely sent a chill down my spine. As did this quote:

"We have lived together for many years. Where you go, I go."

- passenger Ida Strauss, who jumped off her lifeboat at the last second to reboard the Titanic to be with her husband as the ship went down.

Then you'll step through to the final two sections of the exhibiton: the Seabed Gallery, which shows how the wreckage was found and the process of receovering artefacts, and the Memorial Gallery, which is where patrons can stand in front of six large boards to see who lived and who died. Finally, there is a small gallery called Australian Stories, which details the Australians on board that night, where they came from, why they were on the ship, and if they survived.

The exhibition was fantastic. It took about two hours to wander round the entire thing (probably less if it hadn't been a Saturday) and it only costs $25 for an adult ticket. It closes on the 7th of November, 2010, and I really recommend it!

Pin It

The Gap Has Arrived. Yay? Sort of.

On a whim, I decided to visit Chadstone, the fashion capital here in Melbourne because The Gap opened its first shop in Australia there today.

It wasn't too crazy - busy, yes, but not insane. A girl greeted me as I entered the shop with a perky "Welcome to The Gap!" and there was another sales assistant on the other side of the doors handing out Gap branded chocolates. It was all very cheerful, and I began browsing in the ladies section.

The shop is laid out like any other shop at Chadstone. It's worth noting that there are two levels, with Baby Gap upstairs (I think, I didn't actually go up there because there was a bit of traffic on the escalators), but the lower level has the men's and women's wear.

This is the only photo I managed to take inside the shop on my phone before I got told politely that "We can't allow you to take photos in the store. Sorry, the manager will get really angry." Will he? That's too bad - so stressed out on the first day of business, my heart bleeds for you! The guy who told me this was wearing a headset, so I presume he reports any illicit photo-taking directly into the manager's ear so the Angry Manager can come down and shout at people.

Anyway, like I said, I began browsing and made a couple of notes in my phone (I didn't dare write anything down in case I got reported for writing things in a little notebook, SHOCK HORROR) about the prices and such.

First of all, they do have a nice collection of casual and dressy casual wear, which I liked - a lot of good basics for the wardrobe. A lot of it in the women's section tended towards the Spring/Summer wardrobe, which I was a bit disappointed with. I had hoped to see a few more Winter-y things like jumpers, but they did have plenty of long sleeved t-shirts, jackets, trench coats, button down shirts and blouses, and a couple of cardigans. They did also have bikinis, a few pairs of shoes and general accessories like hats, scarves and bags.

The most obvious flaw I spotted straight away is that they've stuck with US sizing in the Australian shop, which is hideously confusing and, I suspect, not accurate against our sizes. For example, the jeans are labeled as size 0/26 (or whatever size 0 equates to), which is kind of stupid. I was asking the girl to explain the sizes to me and she gave me a brief run down on what each one is, so I asked her what a size 14 or 16 would be and she told me "We don't actually stock anything over a size 12."  

They DO NOT STOCK OVER SIZE 12 in jeans/pants. Some of the most common clothing sizes in Australia are not catered for, immediately ignoring most of the female population. Well done Gap, well done. But wait! I was told, as I held up a teeny, tiny "size 12" pair of jeans that they're a "loose fit." Phew! I was worried there for a second! 

Insert eyeroll here.

Anyway, I continued on through the shop and found a couple of super cute floral shirts (very Felicity Porter-esque), so I reached up to feel the fabric. It was paper thin people. I put my hand inside the shirt and could actually see it fairly well through the fabric. I checked the label: made in China. Not really a surprise, but given the shirt was $79.95 I would have expected slightly better quality.

There were a couple of cute jackets and trench coats, but again, they were very thin. There were a couple of nice maxi dresses, and a good array of denim jackets, which a lot of people were checking out, as well as short shorts, singlets, t-shirts and other Summery things. Towards the back of the shop there were a few racks of buttons down shirts that were slightly more business-like, but still quite casual, which I really liked. There were also some tables with sleeveless dressy tops, as well as a couple of racks with cardigans and long sleeved t-shirts, so they seem to have most of their bases covered. 

I am a dork and noted down the prices for a bunch of items and came home to compare them against the items on The Gap's US website, so here is a quick sample list of clothing stocked in the Melbourne shop versus the prices online on the American website (note that the items I looked up on the USA website are similar, not the exact same item).

Denim jacket

$129.55 (Melb) vs. $22.54 to $78.63 (US prices converted into Aussie dollars)

Ladies jeans

$99.95 vs. $28.17 to $78.36

GAP hoodie

$79.95 vs. $16.90 to $44.54

Shorts

$69.95 vs. $16.90 to $56.37

Bikini

$39.95 per piece (top or bottom) vs. $6.76 to $28.17

Cargo/capri pants

$89.95 vs. $16.90 to $67.10

Button down shirt

$79.95 vs. $20.29 to $67.10

So you can see that the Melbourne shop has jacked up the prices a bit in most cases. Obviously they have overheads and import costs/taxes to deal with, but I don't really think a paper thin shirt should cost almost $80. Call me cheap, but when I'm shelling out what is nearly $100 for a casual shirt, I don't expect it to feel like it will fall apart after two washes, especially when I could visit Jeanswest or a similar shop to purchase something for nearly half that price. I think that while people will making a lot of purchases there for the first couple of months, come November or December and The Gap will start slashing prices in pre-Christmas sales, and that's when I'll wait to grab a few bargains.

It's also worth noting that The Gap's US website now ships to Australia, so you can potentially pick up a lot of bargains there (however I'm not sure if they ship sale items overseas).

The verdict? Iffy. Prices are a little bit too high when you compare them to the quality of the garments, and limiting the sizing to size 12 and under for women is a HUGE mistake (apparently the tops ago up to a size 14, but I didn't see any in the store while I browsed). While I think The Gap will be a nice novelty for a little while, by the end of the year I think they'll be having huge sales and/or sending a lot of their stock to the factory outlet store at the DFO in South Wharf.

Have you been to check it out? What did you think?

Pin It

Channeling Joan Holloway

On a recent trip to Sydney for a friends' wedding. I wore what I refer to as my "Mad Men dress" (because it's totally something Joan Holloway would wear - the colour, the collar, the style). While I may not be the thinnest person in the world, I figure if Joan Holloway can get away with a slinky dress, why can't I? If only I had the skills to style a super retro up-do I'd have the look complete.

Worn with a black belt around the waist and some cute black patent heels. Pin It

Spotted....

In the Thomas Dux gourmet grocery store at the end of Bay St, Port Melbourne:

One of my absolute favourite American brands has landed in Australia! Well, just Sydney and Melbourne specifically.

Although they have a limited number of flavours available, you can find out which delicatessans, providores and gourmet grocery stores near you stock this delicious, delicious ice cream right over here.

In case you were wondering, the above flavour was a blend of chocolate and vanilla ice cream, with big chunks of chocolate brownie and choc chip cookie dough in it. Mmm-mm.

Pin It

Icon

 

Flinders Street Station, Melbourne

Pin It

Vino at MoVida

A glass of 2007 Marques de Riscal Limousin Spanish Rosé. I'm not a huge wine drinker, but this is probably one of the nicest rosé wines I have had.

Pin It