:: A Tag and an Award ::

A couple of days ago I was received this award from the beautiful Gracie. If you haven't been over to Gracie's blog you really should, it's one of my favourite reads! Thank you, Gracie! Along with this award is 10 questions I must answer, and then I need to pass the award on to someone else.

1. Who is your style icon?

I don't have a style icon. I don't think I have fully developed my own style yet, and I'm not sure what look I like or what message I am trying to convey through my clothing choice, and as such I don't look to anyone for inspiration. It's fair to say I am in a clothing funk.

2. Which is your favourite socialite book?

I've never read a socialite book beore. Can anyone suggest one? I love reading new books.

3. Favourite party theme?

In my opinion, any theme is a good theme! I have been to many dress up parties: Super Hero (I went as Bat Girl), Nintendo (I went as Bubbles from the Powerpuff Girls), Stereotypes (Cheerleader for one, Goth Punk for another), French ... the list is huge! I love a good dress up party. Here are some photos from some of the parties I've been too.

This is me with my two younger sisters.

My friend, brother-in-law and younger brother at the same Nintndo party.

Younger brother, younger sister and friend at the French party.
I went to a themed party last night, which I will tell you all about in a separate post very soon!

4. Go to Halloween costume?
I have never celebrated Halloween. If we did, I would probably go as an Emo, haha.

5. Extravagance you cannot live without?
My DSLR. I love, love, love my camera (even though I'm still trying to figure it out!).

6. Living person you admire.
My Mum. She devoted her life to raising us and she did so without any selfish intention or regret. She is a strong, kind woman whom I admire greatly.

7. Greatest fear(s).
I have a few silly fears, like jelly fish. I cannot stand to be anywhere near jellyfish, they freak me out. But then I also have fears, like the fear of people not liking me and the fear of failure that sometimes means I end up putting everyone else first and don't allow myself to grow as an individual because I'm afraid of what might happen if I do something "wrong".

8. Traits you deplore in yourself.
See above, ha!

9. Which talent would you most love to have?

I wish I had a better singing voice.

10. Greatest Achievement?
Getting to where I am right now, with all the experiences I have under my belt.

I pass this award on to:

Amy from Junghwa by Amy Stewart

Chloe from Chloe in Reality
K from The Body Electric

I was also tagged by Gracie (thank you, again!) to answer eight questions she has thought of. It is then my turn to think of eight questions and pass them on.

1. What's your favourite fairytale?

Probably 'Beauty and the Beast' or 'The Ugly Duckling'.

2. Do you prefer Mac or PC?

PC! This is a frequent topic of discussion in our house, as I am marrying a Mac supporter.

3. How would you describe yourself in 5 words?

Family, nice (that sounds very bland, doesn't it?), happy, loyal, caring.

4. Heels or flats?

Definitely flats. I hurt my foot almost two years ago and it's still sore. Wearing heels is out of the question!

5. What's your biggest dream?

To be happy and content, and to be able to look back on my life and know that I did the best I could.

6. Your favourite book character?

I don't believe I have one!

7. Are you the type of person who keeps their feelings inside or lets it out?

Inside. I'm a bottler with random explosions every now and then, haha.

8. Who is your role model?

My Mum, for the reasons listed above and many, many more. To be told, "You're just like your mother" is the greatest compliment.

I pass this on to:

Amy from Junghwa by Amy Stewart

Becky from Same Page Notion

Chloe from Chloe in Reality

My questions for you are:

1. If you could have any super power, what would you choose and why?

2. Would you rather forget all the memories you have, or never be able to make any more?

3. If we learn from our mistakes, why are we so afraid to make them?

4. What is your favourite comfort food?

5. Tea or coffee?

6. Where is your favourite place to visit?

7. What is your favourite store and what is your favourite item in that store?

8. What is your favourite item of clothing?

:: Our Kitchen ::

Despite the fact that our kitchen looks a little '90s country cottage' it is currently my favourite room in our house. Most people will spend a fair portion of their day doing something in their kitchen - whether they're whipping up an amazing meal, or boiling water for a much needed cup of coffee. Mr LG and are lucky enough to have a fairly large kitchen, especially considering the age of our house, as most old houses in our area have small galley-style kitchens.

We are currently using the 'normal' white oven seen in the right-hand side of the picture above. Eventually we will use the beautiful green oven seen on the left. The green oven was given to us by my parents when they redid their kitchen. It is one of the oldest working ovens in my state. Everything takes twice as long to cook in it, but I am absolutely in love with it.

The previous owners has this oven area converted in a cupboard for storage space. We used the cupboard for a few months before we decided to pull it apart and use the space for it's original purpose.

Mmm ... pancakes ... Can you tell I like the colour green?

We have a lot of plans for our kitchen. The entrance to the kitchen is currently the size of a normal doorway. We would like to open the wall up with an arch to create more airflow, light and openness to the room. The walls are in need of a good paint and all the door handles need to be replaced. We would also like to get a nice big island in the middle of the room. I have seen a lot of kitchens that have white cupboards lately and I really like that look. I'm not sure if it will suit our kitchen though. What do you think?

Thank you all for the decor inspiration ideas you gave me in my last post! I now have some great eye candy material.

Have a great weekend!

:: House Inspiration ::

About six months ago Mr LG and I bought a house together. Our house is an adorable two-bedroom "Queenslander". This means that it is made completely from wood, has VJ (vertical join) walls (I think some places call this beadboard walls?), polished wooden floorboards, and is raised on stilts. It was built around 1910 but the current wall colours, kitchen and bathroom all scream of a dodgy 90s home reno job :/

We have been scouring realestate.com.au, home renovation magazines and blogs for inspiration on the best way to slowly mould our house into our home. Right from the word go, we have found the best inspiration has come from my parents house. In my opinion, my parents have amazing taste.

Below are some pictures of my parents place. This is the first room you see as you walk in the front door. I would love a chandelier one day. They can brighten even the dullest of rooms! You can just see my darling earless cat sitting in her bed on the couch.

This is the same room, looking back towards the front door.

My absolute favourite room in my parents house is their main bathroom. My love for this bathroom makes me a little sad every time I enter our little bathroom.

I also love their kitchen. I love the random stained-glass windows that dot the walls and act as art as well as a source of light.
As you can see, I am a huge fan of antiques and anything "old fashioned" and "quaint". I appreciate that this style is not for everyone, I'm lucky to have found someone who likes the same things I do!

Where/who do you look to for decorating inspiration?

:: Bridesmaid Inspiration ::

Earlier this week I had my first appointment with the lady who will be making all the dresses involved in Mr LG's and my wedding (my dress, 3 bridesmaid dresses, a flower girl dress, and a Mother of the bride dress).

My dressmaker made the bridesmaid dresses for my sister's wedding and for my sister-in-law's wedding (both of which I had the honour of being a part of). We chanced upon her completely by accident. Back in 2008, my sister and I were looking at materials one day and a lady came over to ask if we needed help. We politely declined and continued to be overwhelmed by all the choices. Then another lady came over to ask if we needed help. We told her we would love some help. About half an hour later we had the most beautiful fabric in our arms and a handful of dress sketches (which she drew up on the spot) and an appointment to see her the following week!

This woman is undoubtedly the most talented designer and seamstress I have ever had the pleasure to meet. I found out last week that she was in charge of the 'cutting and sewing' team for the costumes in the latest Narnia movie :o !!!

The day after talking over my ideas with her she had already drawn up some sketches and sent them through to my inbox for perusal. She's incredible! I would love to show you the images, but Mr LG reads this blog and I want to keep the dresses a secret from him (sorry!). What I will show you is my inspiration for my fabulous girls! I love the flowy Grecian-inspired look. It will work well with the braided hairstyles I wrote about here. As the wedding will be in January, I plan to have short dresses, and the colour I have chosen is the mint green colour similar to the green dress in the left-hand corner.

What do you think?

:: Backyard Demolition ::

This weekend was a busy one! Mr LG and I had our family and friends over to help us demolish our backyard. The previous owners of our house were a little ... free-range, shall we say. They let the backyard become a jungle. Observe exhibits A and B.

Mr LG and I have already had a good crack at cleaning up the backyard and we filled a huge skip full of debris, but we decided to call on a little help this time. The majority of my brothers and sisters came around with their partners (save for the ones that were unwell) and a few friends came 'round too. This is what our backyard looked like before everyone started venting their pent-up anger on it:

Some of our trees are quite tall and will need to be removed by professionals because they sit too close to the house, the fences, and our neighbours house! We can't afford to fix someone else's house right now! Here are the boys, hard at work.


Our backyard now looks like this:

There is still a lot of work to be done, but our backyard looks 100 times better than it did before. For starters, you can see our back fence from our back deck now! We plan to knock down all the trees and put proper grass down so we can start fresh, but that's a story for another day.

:: Long Weekend ::

I have just come out of our last long weekend in a while. Over here on the East Coast of Australia we're quite spoilt around this time of year with long weekend after long weekend. Our next one isn't until mid-June, I'm not sure how I'll cope with a full working week next week!

I spent this past long weekend celebrating 60th birthdays - two of them in fact. The first was my sister-in-law's mother. We celebrated at her house. The long joint living/dining room was filled with a long table and was laden with all kinds of mouth-watering delicacies. My sister-in-law's Mum loves to cook, as does my sister-in-law, so we were all thoroughly spoilt with entrees of chicken soup and cabbage rolls (a Croatian food), mains of pig on a spit and corn salad, and a dessert of the fabulous cake you're feasting your eyes upon. It was made of layers of chocolate cake and chocolate mousse. To die for!

The second 60th I celebrated was my Aunty's. We celebrated by having a High Tea at the Hilton. Everyone dressed up and "played ladies" (or gentlemen) and it was lovely. I love how a High Tea takes seemingly simple items such as scones, sandwiches, and cake and turns it into one of the best meals you've tried in a long time. I have now decided to create a High Tea inspired dinner - with mini sample sized treats for each course. I'll let you know how this goes if I ever muster up the cooking courage to do this - I'm not exactly the most creative person in the kitchen.

Mr LG and I also potted our plants this weekend ... and sad to say all the daisies have already died on one of the plants ... I fear gardening may not be our strong point :/ Nevertheless, I am determined to persevere! Here are our plants in their new home on our front deck. The furry four-legged model is our next-door-neighbour's cat - Cleo.

Thank you for all the lovely comments on my potential bridal hair. I think I may have found my hairdresser, so I will soon be able to rest easy on that topic. I am currently growing my hair (which seems to be a bridal trend, I've noticed). I have quite a large fringe at the moment, so I am growing it out to allow for more flexibility when it comes to hair styles. I have started braiding my fringe across my hairline in an attempt to keep it outof my face (if I leave it out it looks like I'm growing out a bad mullet. Classy!). Gracie has asked me to post a photo of what my braided fringe looks like. I am not quite talented enough to braid both sides of the plait - as you can see, one side is braided and the other sits as a normal plait.

I hope you all have a great week!