2. The golf-y greens (the pants, not the grassy bits) that the boyfriend wore today. No, we don't play golf. Yuck.
3. A Royal Doulton plate with a happy green pattern named Navajo we found today in a charity shop. It is sitting on our table runner named Inka from Aura by Tracie Ellis, an Australian company that makes some pretty good-looking napery and bedlinen which we only discovered recently.
Lately, I've been coming home with secondhand things in colours that I was wearing on the day that I found them. Last week, my hot pink belt led me to some hot pink jelly sandals. Today, green-everything found us the plate. Coincidences like these tickle me so. Tee hee hee.
There are a lot of made-up words and phrases that I've stopped using (some I've even forgotten about) since we moved from Singapore to Sydney. Pals back home, from years of shared experiences and all, have a firm grasp of Likkle Girl lingo. Here in Sydney, sometimes it takes too long to explain them to new pals and, like jokes, if you have to break down the punchlines or tell some long backstories, it gets tedious and they lose their charm. Maybe it's just me being lazy. So we (my best buds in Sydney, Ms Carpet and Meeps, and I) simply make up new words/terms/phrases.
"Future ex-husband" is not one of those. It's a very old number from my days in Singapore which I learnt from a Canadian producer that I worked with. It means "A guy who's so hot that it's not enough to just marry him. You have to sign divorce papers further down the line just to be sure that you actually married him. Like having to pinch yourself when you're not sure if you're dreaming or not." Yes, he's that hot.
Anyway, Joseph Gordon-Levitt is one of the many hot dudes on the long list of hot dudes that I want to marry and then divorce. The boyfriend (he approves of most the people on my list) and I watched two of his films back-to-back on Friday and marvelled at his acting skills and good looks - playing a cancer-stricken dude in one (with Seth Rogen, another future ex-husband of mine) and a skanky metalhead in the other. In that order. We've learnt that the order in which we watch movies on such actor-themed evenings is important. From a few weekends ago when we did a Ryan Gosling (another future ex!) one. We played Drive before Crazy, Stupid Love and all through the latter, we kept seeing him as The Driver instead of Jacob Palmer and half-expecting him to whack someone and fill the screen with blood. Bad but also kind of good fun. Haha.
So, yeah, future ex-husbands. Now that you know what I'm talking about, expect more of them to pop up here. Not just hot actors. Those of you who don't know me (which is most of you) might find my varied taste in men and what makes them desirable a little questionable. Hee.
Haven't been able to get this oldie-but-goodie by The Bees out of my head since bedtime last night. Now that I've mastered the art of embedding videos (yay!), I thought I'd share this hilarious one with you.
Get your best interpretive-dancing shoes on and hit "Play"! Tee hee hee.
Which is not too different from all our Saturdays. Tee hee hee.
1. The boyfriend and I usually start the day "treasure hunting". In the few charity shops in our neighbourhood. If it's the first Saturday of the month, the Surry Hills Markets (my favourite Sydney market!) will be our first stop. Last Saturday, we went to the RedWater Markets in Redfern Park for the very first time. I loved it for its rustic village-y charm - no commercial secondhand ware-sellers (except for our regular Surry Hills Markets vintage watch guy), just what seemed like locals who have set up shop to get rid of stuff that they don't need anymore and to sell homemade handicraft. Not that I would have minded if all our favourite Surry Hills stall-owners decide to do business there every third Saturday of the month too. Tee hee hee. And you know what they say about Redfern, that it's the new Surry Hills.
2. Treasures found: Two 1950s needlework teaching guides for teachers in primary schools. All I need to know to cut super-basic dressmaking patterns! No, I didn't do Home Economics in school because I chose Woodwork & Metalwork instead.
3. The Great Buckingham Street Market across the road from the park that we would have missed if we didn't see the poster. Surprise bonus treasure hunt! Wheeeeeee! And it was a good one! The residents of Great Buckingham Street (a beautiful tree-lined street with some amazing houses) got together and organised a massive garage sale. Most of them were young folks (living in big share houses, I assumed) so the wares were hipper and trendier than at most garage sales I've been to. There was a girl culling her vast collection of vintage dresses and if I was her size, quite a few of them would have come home with me.
4. Our at-least-once-a-week lunch at our beloved Chat Thai followed by macarons from Cre Asion on our walk home. We've been making the sweet treats pit-stop quite often (so many flavours to try!) but fear not, I'm a long way from being one of those girls.
5. Dasher the Wonder Dog! The mascot of Crown Street, Surry Hills! My favourite puppy pal in the 'hood! I look forward to saying "Hello!" to him everyday! Not just Saturdays. He's really one special dog and you can read all about him on his own Facebookpage.
6. Home! With a secondhand pair of hot pink MelissaAranha 1979 - a recent re-release of the first pair of jelly sandals made by the Brazilian company some 30 years ago. From the street market. Which I had to wear right away to match my hot pink belt. Tee hee hee. I thought I've kicked my bad Melissa-buying habit with the sale of half my collection on Ebay recently but I guess I thought wrong.
And...it's another Saturday tomorrow! Wheeeeeeeee! Have yourself a fantastic one!
A very very old shirt that I re-discovered hidden in the boyfriend's side of the wardrobe and wore for the very first time on Saturday.
This men's shirt was obviously way too big for me but I had to buy it (because I love Astroboy!) fifteen years ago in Kiddyland when Singapore still had a small branch of that fantabulous Japanese cutesy-shit nonsense superstore. I gave it to the boyfriend when we first met and it was big on him too! Why we brought it with us to Sydney, I don't know. Haha. But I'm glad we did!
Never thought that it would work (on me) worn knotted at the waist with the sleeves rolled high. Now that I know gigantic shirts can instantly go like ten sizes down without any cutting and sewing, I can buy all the happy printed vintage men's shirts that I always see at charity shops! Wheeeeeeee!
Dug out my old sci-fi necklace charms for some matchy-matchy fun too. They were from Lady Luck Rules OK who, sadly, has stopped making and selling jewellery last year but has since opened Thrift-ola! (Go visit! You will love it!) I wore the Laser Gun just so I can silly-ly say "I'll hit you with my laser beams!" and make shooting sounds to the boyfriend all day. Haha. Yes, very childish.
Do you have as much fun shopping for gifts as gift-wrapping them? I do!
The plan was to embroider or print some handkerchiefs* to give to our pal Slow Loris for his birthday but we had to settle for these pre-monogrammed ones from the shops because I ran out of time. To make up for the lack of effort in the pressie-making department, I got rid of the quite-ugly packaging the hankies came in and made my own.
Two pieces of cardboard (corrugated on the front with a square cut out and regular on the back) stitched together on the sewing machine (version 2.o of this now that I have a machine). Just pull, like one would with tissues-in-a-pack, to use the hankies. I added printed labels too but what's on them is too personal to show here.
I had so much fun making these that I want to give presents that can be flat-packed this way from now on. Haha.
* I used to tease the boyfriend for his hanky-carrying habit but not so much anymore. We decided on handkerchiefs as gifts for our pal Slow Loris because one year ago, at his last birthday drinkie-poos, the boyfriend was the only one who had on him something to wipe Slow Loris' post-puke mouth outside a club. Haha. Now I think all boys should carry "pukerchiefs".
I buy and use a lot of Sharpies - I drain the ink of one nearly every month. And this is the first time I've seen one with a proper name on the sticky label. Like nail polish. If I'm Queen of the World, I'll abolish the use of boring (and sometimes long) article numbers on all colouring products (paints, coloured pencils, crayons, eye shadows, lipsticks...) and order their manufacturers to label with descriptive colour names instead. If they need help, I'll send them to the people who name OPI nail colours.
I had lovely Lyn, my pedicurist, paint my toenails a shiny aluminium foil silver one sunny day two weeks ago in anticipation of the arrival of my equally shiny leather platinum BAGGU.
The bag finally arrived today (it took way longer than the last delivery) and the sun is shiny no more after nearly a fortnight of gloriousness. Boo. I like the idea of wearing silver in the day, under the glaring Sydney sun, and blinding drivers and passers-by like a photographer's reflector. Wahahahahaha.
And silver + tan...I like how my add-on tan "strap" (two leather cuffs) looks against the iridescent bag. Now, where can I find a sheeny-shiny silver blouse (not made from heat-trapping sweat-inducing synthetic fabric) to wear with some tan pants?
For days when I feel like wearing something girly but don't feel like sitting all lady-like with my legs crossed. Which is most days of the week, really (don't tell my mother!). And then there are the windy days.
My smock dresses work best - tucked in, they look like the loose peasanty-type blouses I've always liked wearing. Plus with some creative tucking, I get to have some asymmetrical/mullet hem fun. And the easy no-cutting-and-sewing dress-to-blouse conversions con me into thinking that I have new tops to play with. Always a good thing! Tee hee hee.
That's where we were yesterday. I would have totally missed it if not a morning chirpy text-tip* from my pal Top Bird! And the one-day event was just down the road from us. In a hired studio on the top floor of an old building that I've been dying to explore the interior of (I was not disappointed! It was an amazing space!)!
The market itself was WOW-some too! I was in textile heaven! Vintage and new. From bales to neatly folded fat quarters. Buttons! Trims! How-to books (including those cool Japanese ones)! But I was good and came home with only a vintage embroidered collar, a scrap of soft brown leather (to make an eye patch for my cute one-eyed pal) and nearly 3 metres of this happy lamp-and-ukulele-printed Hawaiian barkcloth...
...from the lovely Roberta who makes a range of cute kiddie clothes. I knew right away when I saw this piece of fabric that it would be perfect for a copy of my sack dress (it is wide enough and the print is so right for the muumuu style!). Then Roberta told me that the barkcloth is what's left after she made some cushion covers for her 1950s Parker sofa (we have something similar) and a lampshade (our vintage bendy lamp can do with a pair of standby shades) and I was suddenly plagued by indecision. Haha. I guess if the go the dress route, which is essentially two big squares of fabric, I can always transform it into cushion covers or lampshades when I get bored with it. We shall see.
* I get special shopping tips from Top Bird via text messages only because we are pals and because she knows I'm not into Facebook-ing. If you're into it, be her pal on Facebook and you'll never miss a good treasure hunting event in Sydney ever again!
2. The life stories of a French man and five British dudes bought at various charity shops in the last few months. The boyfriend is a big reader of non-fiction while I usually like to escape to what I call "the fluffy-land" that fiction provides but I can do autobiographies, especially of dudes that I like (all of them here except Roger Moore which I might still read). The Peel book I started reading a long time ago but man, the man sure can ramble! The boyfriend says it gets better when I get to the second part of the book written by Mrs Peel after his death (sob!). I couldn't get past his childhood so I cheated on him with Ronnie and then Russell (both such easy and rock 'n' rollin' reads) but I'll go back to John eventually. After I'm done with Stephen and Arsène (the man who made football exciting for me again, many years after my teenage craze, with a team of the hottest, in looks and talent, players that he put together in the early 2000s).
3. Ding-dong, Amazon calling! A recent drop, in three separate batches, in our mailbox. Free postage. Hardcovers! Yay! We love our hardcovers. The joy of reading a book with some heft! I'm on page 78 of The Marriage Plot (Jeffrey Eugenides, I've missed you so!), a book that features a lot of books so far. Can't decide which one of the two Douglas Coupland and the Murakami to tackle next but I know the big fat Mark Twain will be last. The boyfriend is going take a while to finish it. And the Miffy, I'm saving it for easy bedtime reading and happy bunny dreams.
Remember how these cool dudes made me hunt down this old basket? Nearly two months later, a longer crossbody-able strap has finally been added! I'm still nowhere near as cool as the dudes are but I'm as pleased as Punch because the "modification" didn't cost me a cent!
Two hinged rings (they are the safety pins of my D.I.Y. bag-modification world!) through the tiny gaps on the existing strap + a leather strap from another manbag-inspired bag (on which the all-important hinge rings were also used) = no trip to my good old bag repair man! Wheeeeeeee!
1. The tropical-ly greens that I wore today.
