Thrifting!

Thrift store treasures!

I went thrifting with L_____a recently at a local St. Vincent De Paul's in Sydney, Australia. I hadn't been thrifting for a while because funds have been quite tight.

I must admit that I was suddenly appalled at the prices! I noticed a vast majority of these thrift store items, brand new, would not have fetched such highway robbery prices such as the ones they carried in there donated & second hand state. 

You see I was hoping to do a Thrift store haul segment but alas, although I was cashed up to the tune of $90 I was not willing to pay $25 for a white genuine glo-mesh ladies wallet - don't worry I felt the disappointment curl its invisible hands around my neck as I left the thrift store - dismal & glum & empty handed. Ho-hum...

Well hold your horses! I was able to take some pics of objects I would have bought if they hadn't been so pricey, oh & yes, the glo-mesh ladies wallet, I was def. kicking myself when I got home. It was in mint condition after all but I see countless other glo-mesh or Oroton (genuine of course) purses, key holders, cigarette holders and even bags up on Etsy www.etsy.com in the vintage categories. I think my silent protest of refusing to pay $25 for something I can get and to my taste (in gold) online much more cheaper, only reflects my strong principals. 

Ok, plus I wanted to eat Korean sushi in Campsie for lunch as well - lol!  

I did come across this adorable wooden angel though, most likely a broken christmas decoration & the asking price was $2 - a bit steep if you ask me! I mean if I was running a thrift store where all my merchandise was sourced from donations then I would be keeping my prices low. Also I wouldn't forget that a lot of my customers are shopping at my store because they can't afford to buy brand new stuff. 

Save dosh!! Raid golf course ponds & sell your harvest back to these rich fat cats for double price!

Wax paper dried leaves lamps, pretty but...pricey @ $5 ea - see ya!

Happy Birthday 4 my Husband...

Happy Birthday P_____!!! 

I love you everyday. 

May God keep you safe always.

All my love...

xxx

Handmade by moi

Italian Fabric Samples repurposed into earrings, plated silver, OOAK.

Leaf earring design sketch.

I think I'll use this later.

 Moving on...I also made some really pretty earrings out of some Italian Fabric Samples I picked up for a buck or two. What attracted me to this fabric was the texture, how it felt in my hands, so soft and billowy. I quickly sketched some designs up in my sketchbook to see how it would look.

Also the colors were quite subdued, soft blues, taupes, nudes, and natural brown and I really love honouring natural shapes, so I cut the fabric into 

I used scrap fabric and fabric samples from one of my favourite spots in Sydney, Australia (link below):  

http://www.reversegarbage.com.au/

More of the design process.

I totally love this place but I must admit that the last time I was in Sydney, Australia (which wasn't that while back, maybe a few months or so), I have noticed that it's getting a bit higglty pigglty. 


Since I'm a Creative soul I tend to ignore this but it was just something I noticed. (I still love you though RG - no hard feelings!)


I'm forgiving of this also because I know that Reverse Garbage have had other projects on their plates, such as an exhibition: 

http://www.reversegarbage.com.au/events/trash-amour-exhibition-opening

Close up of very soft fabric, romantic and feminine. 

soft leaves. I added plated silver findings and chains and voila! 

I did buy some small Swarovski bicone shaped beads from one of my other favourite spots for Jewellery findings, 'Beadhouse and Castings' in Alexandria - link below:

http://www.beadhouse.com.au/

My handmade head bands for spring races, picnics, church...

Ok, so Im back today with a feature of some of the nifty things I've made. I really love how each headband came out differently, I guess I was experimenting. 

I bought a packet of 8 colourful headbands from my local dollarstore for only $2. I guess Melbourne cup was coming up at that time and I also got inspired by seeing a girl at church rock some awesome headband with flowers on it. She had purchased it from some commercial accessories outlet called 'Diva'. I only buy broken jewelry from Diva so that I can remake OOAK pieces out of them. I decided since I didn't have the funds to buy a $16.95 headband that I would make it myself. Great for church, picnics, the races, springtime carnivals - paired with a pretty feminine dress and some cute sandals - Hey! You're good to go!!

Swarovski Crystal's neck earrings and Repurposed fabric earrings.

I make these earrings very long in length and they look sublime on woman with short hair. In saying this I have worn my own designs and I have long hair and I've often been stopped and asked where I got my earrings from. 


It's a wonderful feeling to then proudly respond with:

"I made them myself!"

Stay Gorg!!!

Eating - Denny's LAX area

Today I was so tired as I got off a 12 hr flight actually felt longer than that! So I'm in L.A today cleared customs & came to _______ hotel. I showered & went to nearest restuarant - Denny's.
The food wasn't that great, the steak was a grey-ish colour & over cooked not the medium rare I ordered, the shrimp was ok I guess, I didn't finish this meal thought.

My 2nd post for the day um, I mean night - why 2 posts you say in dismay?


BTW: These pics are totally unrelated, but I just wanted to post them - ha! because I can! break the rulz I say: Anyway I wanted to poste this almond croisant and cafe latte, all the foods/beverages I can no longer partake in, due to the arthritis in my knee etc. Though I will have a coffee once I'm back home but probably not the lovely dee-litghtful massively GORG croisant. Damn!

Enjoying an Almond croissant, cafe latte @ The Atwater Marche, Montreal, Canada. 

Who says you can't do 2 posts in one day or 3 posts for that matter or even 4, hey why not go for 5, then again why stop at that, why not just move on to 6 but 7 such a lovely number...

(ok you get my drift)Inspired by one of my other fav. channels off the YT Working class foodies, check them out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJNR3uLAWpg

Yesterday I made dinner, so here's a preview of yesterdays menu:

Taco de lengua (Cow tongue taco's) - Yummy

Skirt steak stew in a thick tomato sauce

Fresh Salsa made with cucumber, tomato's, cilantro and fresh limes

Stewed white beans in a hot and spicy sauce

Basmati Rice

For desert, I used one of Elba's recipes pulled from her youtube channel for Puerto Rican Bread Pudding with Vanilla Sauce:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5F6hddZBeLg&list=PL71ABA21CDA577163&index=11&feature=plpp_video

Did someone say "Heart Attack?" no, correction it's actually a "Tripple Bypass" - Gotta love this woman. She's so old school she's even got a recipe for stuffed devilled eggs! I totally love this chick, I mean check out that GORG hair!!! She's a real Glamma! I enjoy watching her channel because she's fab and so are her step by step instructions for each tutorial. My other half absolutely loves bread pudding but only if it's made puerto rican stylz. 

Anyways, I made this Puerto Rican Bread Pudding with Vanilla Sauce (yes, thank me for the caps again) but instead of using raisins I decided to use choc chunks. Only because 1) I didn't have any raisins on hand and 2) I was given a bar of dark chocolate which I shoved in the freezer. 

Everyone simply adored this desert, I forgot to mention that I baked some fresh figs, drizzling them with organic honey before popping them in the oven. I served my bread pudding with the vanilla sauce, so rich and so totally unhealthy for you but shesh! gotta live a little. 

Alas I did not partake in the joyous feasting but rather sat on the side lines with my small portion of chicken, steamed zucchini and sweet potatoes, tiny mound of basmati rice and large serving of salsa. 

The day before I blew the fam. away with another pretty spread that made the table heave...

Teriyaki chicken wings(making my own homemade teriyaki sauce recipe that I pulled from youtube 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xvljkw7JWbc&feature=g-hist&context=G2b75f21AHTxLPAgAIAA

Than I accompanied that with blanched Chinese choy sum (I prefer choy sum to bok choy, sometimes the texture of bok choy doesn't agree with me)

Also some Boiled white rice, for desert I made a very easy, very frugal and tasty desert that even vegans can enjoy. Again from Elbacooks4u, youtube channel: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1--QndOCeo&list=PL71ABA21CDA577163&index=26&feature=plpp_video

I also forgot to mention that I really love IKU in Sydney's Glebe suburb. One of the best Vegan restaurants for fast food. I've been going there since this chick Maude introduced me to it when I was 21. As I don't eat meat, I am eating chicken and seafood now but down the line I would like to primarily eat more legumes, whole grains and other alternatives. 

Don't get me wrong, I still love meat, I really want to eat meat, my body is craving it, but alas, I cannot due to health reasons. I did promise my hubby that once in a while I will go back to my carnivorous sabre toothed habits and blood let with him, literally paint NYC red. But on special occasions only. 

Later I will be posting some really healthy totally dee-lish vegan recipes for all you dreadlocked, bongo playing peeps out there.

Eat your heart out!

Fabric Flower Hairpins repurposing fabric samples.

I was quite the busy bee when I was back in Sydney, Australia. I was repurposing some fabric samples that I got from Reverse Garbage. 

http://www.reversegarbage.com.au/

I really LOVE Reverse Garbage, basically these guys are not for profit and they take commercial waste (or basically trash from commercial places like supermarkets, department stores, warehouses, offices etc) and they sell them to the public. 


You can get things like plastic tubing, cardboard rolls, scrap metal, buttons, shop display stands and fittings - the list goes on. 

I remember hearing about them from this youth worker when I was 16, she used to make jewelry out of all this waste and my ears perked up. It wasn't until I was 21 that I moved to Marrickville, I live Weymess street which was only down the road from Addison road which is where this  place is located. Geez, I don't wanna give my age away here but that was a while back....

Anyway - I've spent countless hours, days, months, years at Reverse Garbage touching, feeling, grabbing, ripping (oops!), handling, stuffing, shoving and pulling my way through the endless treasures they have in their bins. I remember you could stuff a hessian bag you could buy from them for like $2, with all the popular items they sold. Which consisted of fabric samples, colored foam scraps, leather scraps, acrylic plastic, labels etc 

Some more fabric flowers made from silk organza for a bridal look.

Sooooooooooooooo....I repurposed - I made these really cute and lovely hair pins from a bunch of the fabric samples I bought for like $2 seriously. I grabbed like 2 fistfuls or possibly more and the chick at the counter practically gave it away. A lot of these fabric samples were made in Italy and the quality of them were so good that it took great inner strength to tear myself away from the fabric sample bin. 


Some of these fabrics were so soft and billowy, so feminine that they inspired me to make some beautiful earrings with them using Swarovski crystals, plated silver chains and kidney ear hooks. 

One of my Fabric earrings made from Italian Fabric Samples.

I can't tell you how exciting it is to go to my studio and just sit there all day with these wonderful materials, experimenting, creating, dreaming up new designs and just having a really good time enjoying repurposing something whose destiny was transformed from the dumpster to the designer. 


If you are interested in buying any items or even just want to ask any questions, please either email me or leave a comment along with your email address and I will reply to you as promptly as I can. 


Todays plug:


Check this chick out on youtube, I've gotten some really naff ideas from this bird, check out her ransom letters tutorial - really talented lady and the creations she makes are GORG!!! Happy viewing!


http://www.youtube.com/user/BeyondBracelets?feature=watch


Nitey Nite!

The Humility of Tulips

So P______ & I went for a walk this sunny sunday morning & I felt bad about not being able to go to church. P_______ & I decided we would start attending morning service for church but somehow we would either sleep in or I would procrastinate. It's like we were always getting distracted.

So this particular sunday morning we went for a walk, our destination was The Botanical Gardens http://www.nybg.org/visit/ in The Bronx. 

This was truly a story about the journey rather than the destination itself. 

On our way we came across a large wall sized mural & I took it as a "sign" but really it was a beautiful message, a reminder it's just at the time I was so worldly.

Yet something inside me, some tiny reserve rejoiced at coming across this mural, this message.  (Of course we did end up going to church eventually but not that sunday - that will be another story).

"The Message" - I was so happy to come across this mural.

We ended up getting to the gardens but only to find it charged $20 entry fee for each person & we just couldn't afford that. 

So we were disappointed & I felt P______ was a little embarrassed about not being able to afford to get in. 

However we ended up sitting outside the park in a small & humble clearing. 

Their were red & yellow tulips growing & they were very pretty. We sat on the park bench there, feeling quite deflated. I knew how bad P____ felt as he became very quiet. 

I decided to break the ice & told him how over priced the gardens were & how I would never pay that much for an entry fee into a garden. I told him how in Sydney it's actually free. 

I spoke the truth, I thought it was ridiculous to pay $20. I guess he must of felt a little better after that as he agreed with me, we laughed & ended up talking about other things. After a short while of talking with each other, our spirits lifted!  

Beautiful Tulips - "Consider all the works thy hands have made..."

You see, although we couldn't afford to get into the gardens where we hoped to have a small picnic amongst the beautiful trees, flowers & plants, we realised that we could enjoy each other anywhere. 

"P_____'s dimple" - beautiful dimples, for we were created in His image.

We ended up sitting there in the sun, amongst the small patch of tulips, talking for quite a few hours. I really enjoyed that day, looking at his 2 dimples every time he smiled or laughed. 

I thought of the all the pain we each suffered in our lives, the miserable paths we took as we descended further into our own destruction until the night our paths crossed.

The weather changed just as we got on the bus to go home. I remember thinking to myself how much money I have spent on a "good time" & didn't even have a good time.

Yet, on this particular sunny sunday, when we didn't have much money but we had each other, I finally understood what it was to truly have a "good time" & we did. 

God is good. Praise God!

"P_____'s hands" - 221st Subway, The Bronx, New York.