My Owl Barn's Anthropologie Necklace Giveaway!

My Owl Barn's Anthropologie Necklace Giveaway!: "Use your imagination ;)"
WOW!! Yvette sent me the link to a whole site of Owl Stuff! It's Owl heaven for me! YOu know I have a little tiny {love} for owls :) {wink} Well it started off tiny, and then has grown to epic proportions with owl clothes, owl jewellry, owl bowls and egg cups (thanks to Fliss!), it's nice to see I"m not alone in my love of Owls!
My Owl Barn is giving away a Necklace from Anthropologie, fingers crossed for me!! LOL!!
:) C

Who's in there??

Oh how cute is this pic of Fliss’s tummy with Sienna’s ultrasound pic! I loved it as soon as I saw it and new the kind of page I wanted to create with it! Great work Fliss, it's an awesome pic! I also found this cute little pic of Sienna in a gorgeous head band and went to town making this page. I love it when Fliss puts headbands on Sienna, she’s just gorgeous! I love the red and green colour scheme of this page, even though it’s not a Christmas page :) Yvette taught me red and green are ok to use outside of the festive season! The little pic of Sienna isn't near as red IRL as it is here, sorry it didn't photograph so well!

I hope you've had a good week! I just got sick today :( It's been going around my work and some (inconsiderate) people feel the need to stand right at my shoulder and talk down to me while I sit at my desk and collect all their germs in my face! ARGH!! So the 3 razor blades that have set up shop in my throat have not gone unnoticed today. Even the 2hr nap I had this arvo did NOTHING! D'oh! I've taken Anti histamine, Lemsip, Strepsil and echinacea (not all at once). Still waiting for some relief {sigh..sniff..sneeze...ow}.

Yay for Friday tomorrow!

:) C

Urban Renewal 2010 continues...

I've got a Spare Room. Wanna come stay? I used to have a flatmate, but now it's just me and the house, on the countdown to our Wedding and the day that Will moves in. Until then, it's Nudie Runs from the bathroom to my little bedroom and leaving shoes all over the house (who knew I had so many pairs! I can probably line them up from the front door to the kitchen and back into my bedroom. One day I will test that theory!) Honestly, I have so many shoes. But I did buy another pair on Thurs so I guess I'll never stop. {sigh} That's beside the point. The point is I have a Spare Room and the Spare Room had a borrowed country style Doona Cover from Mum and I thought it was time to sophisticate that space up! Also, did you know pillows that say "Handwash only" don't survive in the washing machine? Even a front loader?! Well they don't. They get all lumpy. So when you visit you might want to bring your own pillow. Anywho.. I was at Spotty on Monday and I was in a super mood after a great weekend and a fun morning in Ikea with Yvette and the euphoria of a sale was too much for me and I caved in and bought this uber sophisticated new Doona cover and even bought a complementary case for the Euro pillow! Cool or what?! It's mostly white with a stripe of grey silk (or whatever fake silk is) with the flourishes appliqued on! That's right, not just printed but actually appliqued! The Euro pillow case is the same grey with pretty straight line design in a silver thread. I love it! So next time you visit, I hope you feel a bit more sophisticated! I find myself standing at the door and staring at it. So pretty!
:) C

High Tea Love!!

Wow, I finally got around to putting away all the beautiful High Tea gifts I (we) got on Sunday, and then realised I hadn't taken a pic yet! {slapping hand on forehead!} So I grabbed it all back out again and here they are! One present didn't make it though, I forgot I'd already put away the Chinese Lantern Doona Cover and sheets I got off Mum and Dad! D'oh {another slap on forehead!} Sorry Mum! I am keeping it until we get married then I'll put it on our bed :)

So we got heaps of stuff that we'd put on our Gift Registry, I am now worried that there's nothing left on it! I hope there's still enough to satisfy the gift givers. Here's some ideas if you've got a Kitchen Tea to buy for: Tupperware!! OMG I had so much fun deciding what to go in what container (I have awesome cousins/Aunty/Nanny {who read my blog incidently} who knew I would just love some organisation for all my baking!) Kerrie, I think I may be hooked now. Don't forget to invite me to your next party, I've got a list! Or maybe I should have a party of my own!; we also got glassware, a gorgeous short squat coffee plunger, ice tea jug, placemats in cool geometric designs, baking tins & Cookie cutters, serving bowls, ice cream bowls, gorgeous bamboo cutting board, salad bowl, Owl egg cups, hand appliqued tea towel from Mum, T2 Cup and Saucer and MORE!! There were so many presents! One of my fave though was a T-shirt hand personalised by my wonderful bridesmaids.... I haven't actually seen it written in person and actually thought of myself as that person, but here is my T-Shirt for Post Wedding... Mrs Lam. hehehehe {giggles}. I love the T-Shirt! It's such an awesome present, and I will wear it on our honeymoon!! LOL!! Don't worry, I wont be competing with Will's Mum to be Mrs Lam, she's Mrs Cheung, so she'll never get confused and wear my shirt!

:) C

Urban Renewal 2010 begins...

I want to post you some pics of all the gorgeous stuff I got at my High Tea to help start of Will and I in our new married life, but at the moment they are all still in boxes and bags strewn from one end of the lounge room to the other! I had Yvette staying til Monday and took her to Ikea then went off to work, I had OT Tues, Weds and today and yesty Will and I had a photo shoot for pre-wedding pics! It's been a busy AS week {yawning at the memory}!! Last night I left work at 1:30am after a horrendous night where everything just fell apart! Ah the joys of relying on Dud machinery... Never trust a Multi-Million Dollar machine, it too needs a swift kick up it's tiny computerised mechanical butt every now and then. And we have 3 such Duds! ARGH!

So I'm going to post about the one organised thing in my house- my TV unit! It has undergone a little bit of Urban Renewal this year. I took away what was there as last year's decoration and have updated it for a new year {smiling at tiny sense of accomplishment!} And seeing as it appears to be the only part of the house that has any relative calm to it, I do like sitting on the lounge and looking at it. Lame, but relaxing! It includes a couple of my fave pieces around the house- the candy jar from Freedom filled with Pink Musks, a fun pic of Will and I in a gorgeous black moulded frame from Myer, the Bird candle holder is from my fave homewares shop, Nest, at Rhodes and the babushka doll I made last year! I love the little pink stuffed birdhouse Mum made me for my birthday and I {heart} the Candy pic from Orange Beautiful's etsy store. She hand prints them all and this one is printed in shimmer candy pink ink on soft paper! LOVE IT!! I also got another print from her about marriage, I'm gonna put that one up once it's official :) I searched around for ages to find a nice white frame big enough to fit it, so many frames are either boring or only made for 4x6. Bless Target, they had one that fit my specs exactly!

And finally, up the other end of the TV unit is my gorgeous new Bird and Branch Candle Holder, again from Target! I have bought lots of homewares from Target lately, I must commend their buyer for having (partly-don't get me wrong, they still have some weird stuff) my taste! Hurrah! I also love the C & W letters from Typo. I took them to the High Tea for a little bit of decoration too. Did you see them anyone?! LOL! I did plan on taking this pic when the pale pink roses were still in bloom, but alas I was late and they're dead there in the background. Notice I haven't chucked them out yet??! I'll do that later (when they start stinkin- that's how I roll. Word {gangsta voice}). I LOVE this candle holder, it's so perfect for me! I love that it can sit tea lights or even bigger candles inside the little "nests". So cute!!

Happy last day of the Week! YYYYYAAAAAYYYYY!!!!!

:) C

Frocks & Fascinator's High Tea!

What a truly AWESOME day I had yesterday at my Frocks & Fascinators High Tea!! It was such a success, everyone dressed so beautifully in gorgeous dresses, high heels and fantastic fascinators! (I did hear the joke "What a fascinating day this is" a few times! {giggles!})

One of my work friends, Dennis, is a budding professional photographer and was gracious in accepting my offer/request to come and take pics at the High Tea (I'm not sure how that worked, but it turned out sounding like I was doing him a favour by letting him come and take pics for free, not the other way around!) and I LOVE the pics he took! Plus it meant that one of us didn't have to run around taking pics and could sit back and enjoy the day. He was so wonderful, he's such a lovely guy and I am so grateful to have these gorgeous pics from the day! We had so much food, and we even forgot to put some of it out to eat (too much excitement!) We had mini cupcakes, cupcake Pops, Lumberjack Cake, Chocolate Raisin Cake (my fave cake!), Choc coated strawberries, rocky road, lemon slice, mini sandwiches, macadamia & white choc chunk brownies, mushroom tarts etc etc etc! We even sent some people home with a box of goodies cos there was heaps left over!

Are you ready for a pic overload? I'm going to do a photo blah {insert appropriate noise} now....

Me and the Glam Girls (super sisters/beautiful bridesmaids)

With our magnificient Mum..

With Will's Grandma and Mum

One of the delicious tiny treats- a chocolate mini cupcake with chocolate ganache.. oh so good!

More food!!

A long view of the table with Tara (i.e. Jasmine from Aladdin) and I! Isn't it such a pretty table! Marie would be proud Mum!I had more pics lined up but it's late and I'm tired and Yvette already posted them so you can hop over to her blog and see the others!!

Thank you everyone who came and made it a super day! I loved it! I can't believe we're on the real countdown to the wedding now!!

:)C

An exciting Weekend ahead!

Hi y'all!

I'm gearing up for a busy few days, it's my Frocks and Fascinator's High Tea on Sunday! I didn't really think I'd have a Kitchen Tea, only I really wanted a High Tea, then got the idea for a Frocks and Fascinator's theme and realised it would be the perfect party for a Kitchen Tea! And cos I have a family of really amazing sweet and savoury cooks (Mum, Dad and Sisters all!) we have a plan for some amazing High Tea Fancies! Cakes, brownies, cupcakes, sandwiches and more! I'm so excited! Alicia and I sat down on a Saturday arvo a few weeks ago and belted out all the invites in the one afternoon! I was pretty impressed with our effort! I was especially impressed with Alicia's work on the invites cos if you know her you'll know she doesn't make cards (Something about her nails sticking to everything in sight and lack of patience!). She did as good as any card maker I've seen :) Great Work {high five!} When we finished them in the one afternoon I was so relieved, I hate having unfinished projects weighing on my mind (like Wedding Invites maybe??!!)

We used 2 different patterned papers and 2 different brads to mix it up a little. I like that they're not all uniform :) I'm so excited about the party!! I hope to have some awesome pics to share! I'm so excited that Yvette and Tassy are coming! My cousins are bringing their daughters and so are a couple of girls from work so it will be a fun ladies party and tea party for the little girls too!

:)C

The Most Old Ladiest Cupcake Ever...

It was one of my guy friend's at work's birthday last week and he requested cupcakes from me as his birthday treat. But he went further than that... he wanted cupcakes with a creme cheese icing! Well, hello Mr Specific! So I set about making him the most gayest, old ladiest of all cupcakes... Lemon Cupcakes with Creme Cheese Icing. The recipe came from my new Cupcake book and man they turned out well! The cupcakes were so dense and moist and high! Then I lathered on the icing so thick, and sprinkled them with yellow coloured sugar sparkles from Dollar Sweets. They turned out perfectly and were welcomed with open arms for his birthday! He loved them and I have to agree, I don't think he minded that they were so old lady-ish at all! They were mighty fine cupcakes so I really recommend the book and it's recipes so far have all been awesome! The only thing about the book I don't understand is that the recipes for the Cupcakes make 12, but the recipe for the icings say they ice 15-20 cupcakes. What the?? I made 3/4 of the icing mix, totally lathered it on the cupcakes and still had enough left over to ice about another 5 cakes! Weird! But other than that... some of the best cupcakes I've ever made I think!
:) C

Happy Valentine's Day!

I hope your Valentine's Day was filled with Kisses and Roses!

Will and I started our day in the City for Chinese New Year, heading under the Chinese Lanterns strung in the park opposite central, where we discovered a man enjoying the festivities on a park bench! I was Super happy to see a Dragon Dance though, something I have always wanted to see! At World Square one of the Yum Cha Restaurants had hung a lettuce at their front door with a Red Pocket in it. After taking Red Pockets (of money) from the prominant locals the Dragon headed to the lettuce, did a little dance, jumped up, grabbed the lettuce, "digested" the Red Pocket and spat the lettuce back out to the restuarant owner! LOL! It was so cool. There were only 2 guys in the dragon but man they were good. The "head" guy at one point had his legs wrapped backwards around the "tail" guy's waist and was stretching up with the head facing forward. Now that's upper body strength- for both of them too cos the tail was a smaller guy than the head!

For dinner Will and I headed to Newtown and wandered around looking for a restaurant to take our fancy. We ended up at Grub & Tucker again, where we went last year! It was a great night, they even had a long stem rose resting on each table which we had fun playing with! :) And Will had bought me flowers for home too, what a sweetie! I bought him this cute foil balloon on a stick that said I {heart} You! LOL! Kitch, but cute {wink}. I also made him a card with an awesome "Like-O-Meter" stamp from SU and inside used a cute naive stamp set I got off a friend for my birthday to stamp the inside. I love the "Like-O-Meter" stamp! Will asked why I didn't fill it to the line that said "I'd Marry You Again!" but I had to point out that we aren't actually married yet and so that just didn't make sense! My fave line on the stamp is "a lot, but not like a stalker!" hahahah {giggles} it's so funny.

Hope you had a great day!

:) C

Remember we went to Japan?!

Boy does that seem like a long time ago now!!

Well, I did this page only recently and had fun using up all the clothing stubs that have been sitting on my bedside table for months, begging to be used on a LO! I kept them cos they were so everyday and yet they looked awesome cos they are all in Japanese with the little Yen "Bunny!" I wanted to scrap something "different" yet "everyday" about Japan to use them on and so I chose what we enjoyed drinking in Japan. As I may have said before (a lot) Japan is FULL of vending machines and you could always vend something interesting! For me it is more of a challenge- finding Diet drinks to vend made me cheer {hooray!} especially when it was Diet Lemon Fanta! I was a little bummed they didn't make Diet Grape Fanta, but I had a little snifter of Will's and I think the sugar almost solidified on my nose! Will's fave drink ended up being "Afternoon Tea".. which to me just tasted like you'd left your cup of hot tea on the bench to cool down for a second then remembered it about 4hrs later. I chose Pepsi Nex Zero which was like Pepsi Max here. NOt like the Pepsi Max in Hawaii which had Guarana in it, which I only discovered after drinking it one night then trying to work out why I was so wide awake! My other fave drink was Van Houton Cocoa which is chocky Milk and man was it good. I have been dreaming about that Choc milk for months and then the other day when I was at Rhodes (co-incidently the same day I had my car accident) I found Van Houton Cocoa Powder to buy! Man Was I happy. So pretty much it had been the happiest day (finding VH Cocoa) and the unhappiest (having a car accident) in one! Sigh {shaking head}.

Well seeing as it is 2:35am (damn it, late night AGAIN!) I'd better get off to bed.

:) C

G-L-A-M-O-R-O-U-S

Do you want some creativity? Or some craziness?

I'll go with the craziness cos it's 2:04am and we worked like Ants in a crumb factory at work tonight so I don't have much of a brain to share any creativity. Another record number of patients today really wore me out, man I am tired AS!! THis is my current fave pic of Will and I, all dressed up ready for Kamal's wedding with the wind blowing my hair out of my face Charlie's Angels style (as Will said!) Then we took some more cos we were happy and excited for Kamal and then knowing we're next made me more excited but a little nervous too!! At least we can still laugh at ourselves..

Good Night!

We've got marriage prepare tomorrow. Will joked that he spent the whole night downloading the answers off the web. What are the questions going to be anyway?!!

:) C

P.S. These pics may prove I don't get around in House Clothes with Bed Hair all the time {wink!}

My Birthday :)

Sorry I haven’t posted much lately, but you know how my internet only works well at night? Well I’ve been SOOOO tired that I haven’t been logging on after work at night and I've just been conking out in bed instead! I know you’ve missed me (Yvette!) but I’ve been thinking of posts and mentally blogging when I get into bed! LOL!
So a little about my birthday- it started out with Breakfast at Bar Contessa at Balmain, we missed you Yvette!! Everyone else from my immediate family was there, including Cooper and Sienna! Sienna was wearing a phoofy pink dress Auntie Vicki gave her, it was so tissy and frilly but man did Sienna look cute in it and it's gorgeous matching headband!
I wanted pancakes for Breakfast, but can you believe it, they didn’t have pancakes on the menu! I had to settle for French Toast instead. And having not had French Toast before I wasn’t sure what to expect… oh man was I happy!! {Happy dance!} It was 3 pieces of sourdough soaked in egg batter and fried, covered in delicious maple syrup and topped with 2 rashers of bacon. HEAVEN!! Oh man it was so good, I can feel it indulging my mouth with it's sweet deliciousness right now {drool!}

So we stayed at Bar Contessa for about 2 hours while I opened my mountain of presents (thank you family!!), ate breakfast, drank coffee and ate my sweet giant Cupcake birthday cake! After breakfast we headed over to the Rozelle markets, they are mostly second hand, junky markets but I did get some cool vintage buttons and ric rak and Mum got a Royal Albert Tea Cup and Saucer to add to her giant collection of tea cups. Good thing she can use her Annual craft sale as an excuse to own all the cups and saucers, she gives them all a day out then, at least they don't just stay in a cupboard and never get used! I didn't want to go home just yet so after the markets Will, Mum and I headed to Chatswood for a look around then home again after a few hours (and after wearing Mum out!)

Will took Mum and I out for dinner to Caesar's Italian Restaurant at Leichhardt where Mum and I chit chatted the night away while Will amused himself on Facebook on his mobile. At least he wasn't bored with our conversation! LOL! I thought it was so sweet that Will was happy to take Mum on our birthday date too! Hehehe {giggles}. He is a man (boy) of all patience that one. Glad he's gonna be my man soon! Eek! 61 days to go!! Our dinner was delicious BTW, and I was so stuffed after an awesome breakfast and wonderful dinner! I was thoroughly spoilt!

:) C

P.s. The middle of the cake... superb!

P.p.S Good view of my Engagement ring! LOL!!

THE Cake!

I had a FABULOUS birthday! Thank you family and friends for all the love and awesome gifts {wink!} it was super special! Will promised to "blow me away" with his present after he was disappointed with his "lame" Christmas present for me (DVD's and a CD... not much thought there! Sorry if that sounds unappreciative, I mean I loved the DVD's but I wanted him to put in more thought and he said himself that his gift was lame!) and boy did he ever blow me away! I was way spoilt! I'll post more about my Birthday later, first I wanted to post about my cake!

Remember the Cupcake Tin Alicia got me for Christmas (now that's thinking!!) well I had so much fun making it as my Birthday cake! I made Mississippi Mud Cake as the Cupcake Base and the Margaret Fulton butter cake (from my vintage MF cook book) as the "icing" bit. It was so much fun! I made Marshmallow icing from my new Cupcake book and had fun pushing the springy icing all around the cake. It was the most awesome-est Cupcake ever! I sprinkled it with Pink shiny cachous and pink and white sprinkles. We ate it at the Cafe after brunch but seemed to hardly make a dent in it! I took it to work for the next couple of days too and shared the love with my friends! They all loved it. I'm not much of a fan of butter cake (why have plain cake when you can have chocolate??!!) but my friends said the butter cake recipe was moist and delicious, so I believe them.
I can't wait to use the tin again and am thinking of all new and cool ways to decorate the giant Cupcake!


YUM!

:) C