Merry Merry

Three of my favourite Christmas things

Gingerbread houses

Stockings stuffed full
Fairy lights everywhere

(click on the images for source)

Merry Christmas everybody,
BuzzChildxx

Ps. the blog will be returning to regular posting soon in the new year.

It's nice to dream

Soon I'm going to be living in a house which has no curtains. I'm not sure that this is ok with me, but I don't think there's much I can do about it. I'll have to check.

The first time I can remember really wanting to move out of home was when I was about thirteen years old. It was the beginning of high school and my friend and I were already making plans graduate, move to Sydney, go to NIDA and become famous. My how dreams change. As far as I know, my friend and I are both graduating from university next week, and while neither of us are heading towards becoming the famous actresses we thought we'd be seven years ago, I think things are working out well enough.

Anyway, I get to live in my little unit alone for a month before my housemate moves, and so I've been drooling over decorating ideas. Not that we have any allowance to decorate, in either money nor lease terms, but it's nice to dream.

Unfortunately I never recorded where all the images came from, but a mixture of these would probably make somewhere close to my dream house.


BuzzChild

Book Review: The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

When I saw the trailer for the upcoming film, I figured that I must've missed the hype about The Lovely Bones, much as I did Lolita or The Virgin Suicides. Now that I've read it though, I wonder if there was a hype, or if Peter Jackson just knows how to pick a damn good story for his films.

Written by Alice Sebold, The Lovely Bones is about as beautiful, poignant, funny and heartbreaking as a book can get. The books follows the story of Susie Salmon as she watches her family and friends from heaven after she is murdered at age fourteen. Don't worry; no spoilers here, all these details come in the first sentence. What follows is a novel which seamlessly spans over a decade and follows the journeys of multiple characters with remarkable ease thanks Susie's narration.

"My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973."

This novel is captivating and meaty and will challenge your expectations and beliefs on life, death and beyond. As usual, I reckon give it a read before seeing the film, though it too looks extraordinary.

Enjoy!

BuzzChild

Long Time No Write

Dear Blog,

I've missed you!!!

I swear, lamest and most lazy blogger award can land right here. It has been two months?? No lame excuses will suffice, I can only plead that I have been rather busy with uni and work and life lately.

To catch up quickly, here are a few of the things I've been doing lately which are really quite random:

Taking many, many flower photos with an amazingly brilliant but borrowed camera.

Growing spring vegetables and fruits.

Hiding from a couple of red dust storms (they were big BIG exciting news here, but very inconvenient!)

The next few weeks are going to be very exciting and hopefully only marginally stressful. I'm finishing university after three long years, crazily completing all my assignments and exams, celebrating in my class's graduation show, moving cities, beginning new jobs and starting my 'career' and hopefully getting back into this blog full time and posting about it all!

And now it's time to get back to it.

BuzzChildxx

1 Million Women

It's been near impossible over the past couple of years to ignore or avoid all the talk about climate change and carbon emissions. With all the massive coverage, however, it's also been difficult for just regular people to know what they can do to help, and many of us are leaving this issue up to our politicians and scientists to sort because it seems just too difficult for us to do anything.

This is why the 1 Million Women campaign has stepped in; to cut through the confusing statistics and help the general population (so far only Australian women) to really make a difference in the fight against climate change. The aim is to enable 1 000 000 Australian women to each reduce their carbon emissions by 1 tonne over the year, thus reducing 1 million tonnes altogether. Here's what they have to say:

It's a campaign of daughters, mothers, sisters and grandmothers inspiring climate action.

Our goal is to inspire 1 million women of Australia to take practical action on climate change and cut 1 million tonnes of CO2 pollution (the main greenhouse gas causing global warming). That's 1 tonne for each of us involved.

We launched 1 Million Women 1 month ago and already over 4000 women have joined up.

Our first milestone on the way to 1 million is to get to 10,000 members as fast as we can.

We hope you will join us.

Just go to www.1millionwomen.com.au

You don't need to be an expert on climate change. We'll guide you every step of the way. On our website you will be taken to an activity centre that will show you exactly how to cut 1 tonne of CO2 pollution and you will be able to track your progress as you go along.

Great challenges are also great opportunities. They unite people. They inspire us to change our world for the better.

The site is user friendly and so are the tasks which you can pledge to reduce your emissions. I built up my 1000 tonnes of saved carbon by pledging to do small, easy things like switching off electrical appliances at the wall, not taking plastic bags in shops and recycling as much as possible. Every so often I'll go back to the site and update how I've been going with my tasks.

This campaign is putting the power to change the world into our hands, and if you're into challenging yourself and seeing results it's really kind of fun too. So, if you're an Aussie woman check it out, and if not still have a look, because there's nothing to stop you from reducing your own emissions too.

BuzzChildxx

How To: Grow Your Own Little 'bedroom garden'

Materials:

• Teacup (or other such small holding apparatus)
• Marbles (or, novel idea, you could plant your bulbs in soil!)
• Small bulbs (I used Grape Hyacinth bulbs)
• Water
• Slightly greenish thumb

Method:

Firstly, I should say, this was pretty much my mother's idea; she was inspired by a magazine cover she saw where there were many bulbs planted in all types of kitchenware. I happened to have this spare little teacup lying around (I'd bought it for a Mad Hatter's Tea Party Housewarming which, although sounding like tremendous fun, sadly never eventuated).

• 1. Put marbles in cup/container.
• 2. Place bulbs on top.
• 3. Fill with water until it's just touching the bulb bottoms.
• 4. Wait for roots and sprouts!

There are a few little extra tips for success. Firstly, wait for winter until planting your bulbs; you'll get shoots through the winter and then hopefully flowers all spring. Also, if any of your bulbs aren't taking root, put them in a separate container on some damp cotton wool or tissue for a couple of days and you'll soon see some forming. Thirdly, plant your bulbs quite low down in the container. Mine are sitting right up the top and the shoots have grown in all crazy directions, which would probably be guided by the teacup if they were down further.

After the planting all you have to do really is water and wait and tadaa! Your very own little bedroom garden!
Of course, it would be much more of a garden with a few more plants. For next year I'm thinking teapots, egg cups, candles holders...who knows what!

Plant up and enjoy!

BuzzChildxx

sweet saturdays

I've long thought that if you aren't going to do what your supposed to be doing, you may as well do something fun instead, bonus if you're going to make other people happy. So today, when I lost all appetite for my uni study, I decided to make yo-yo biscuits.

You can never have just one colour filling.

mm delicious! This one was bound straight for my tummy!

While baking, I watched Across the Universe, a film which definitely rates in my favourites. How could I not be a fan of a Beatles musical with scenes looking like this?




This is probably the sixth or seventh time I've watched it in just over a year, and I am nowhere near sick of it yet! If you haven't already, I highly recommend you give it a watch.

I hope everyone is having a similarly lovely weekend!

BuzzChildxx

watch listen love

The Roaring Twenties

Today I turn twenty and officially enter the third decade of my life.

Here are ten things I plan to do in the next ten years of my life:

• Live in Paris

• Become a published writer

• By a new, fantastic camera

• Meet these people: Nick Earls, Marieke Hardy, Hamish Blake

• Write for a (good) magazine

• Take yoga class

• Become fluent in another language

• Become organised at household chores; cleaning, tidying, washing

• Have a library in my own house

• Have adventures

There is the delicious chocolate truffle meringue cake!!!

It really is quite amazing.

I actually have a large list of things to do today before I go to uni in the afternoon, so I'd better snap to it. It is a lovely warm day outside with a cloudless blue sky, so I think I might do my work outside.

Have a great Monday!

BuzzChildxx

sugar and spice and all things nice

It has been said that all people consider their mother to be the best cook in the world. In a world of increasingly tempting packaged and pre-prepared foods, my mother bought me up on a diet of homemade baking and cooking, and for this I am immensely grateful. As I've grown older I've learned to love making and sharing food myself, particularly sweets and cakes, and have started voraciously hording cookbooks and recipes to fuel my future planned cooking extravaganzas.

Swedish photographer Therese Aldgård and prop stylist Lisa Edsälv created these amazing 'designer cupcakes' which look far too good to possibly eat, and inspire me to try my hand at more structured decoration. Check out the bright red of the Louboutin cake!

Pictures from Hint Blog

Today my mother and I have made vanilla icecream and meringue chocolate truffle cake for my family birthday dinner. Hopefully they shall be delicious!

BuzzChildxx

Shake it like a Poladroid Picture

Today I discovered Poladroid Project, a free downloadable program designed to turn digital photos into "polaroid-like" images with minimum fuss. Once you have the program, which for me downloaded in a matter of minutes, all you have to do is drag and drop your photos onto the camera that appears on the screen. It then spits out your polaroid version which will take time to slowy develop; white boarder, "random and realistic Polaroid-like colors " and all. You can even shake the picture on your screen and you can only do ten photos per session; the same number as a polaroid camera's cartridge.

Here are a few I prepared earlier, I'm very impressed with the results.

My friend Aleisha and I on our cruise in January.

Mickey Mouse burger at Tokyo Disneyland. My favourite!

A goat kid at a Japanese farm, he was really tiny and silky and absolutely cute.

My nineteenth birthday afternoon tea.


Me and my favourite purple tights last week.

I've always wanted a real polaroid camera, but I think this will do just fine in the meantime!

BuzzChildxx

Colour Me Beautiful

Petite Esthète left a comment telling me to watch the film clip of Regina Spektor's Fidelity.

Holi inspired? I'd like to think so.

Apart from fueling my desire to coat everyone I see in multicoloured powders, I loved how obviously restrictive the rest of the film clip was in its black and white styling. It made me wonder how creative I could be if my own wardrobe/world had similar colour restrictions; if I would be pushed to the limits of sartorial creativity ala The Uniform Project, or if I would end up wearing the same outfits day in day out.

When I used to work in retail and wear the same baggy, dirty uniform every shift I dreamt of the day when I would have a job that I could wear my own clothes to. I envisioned how lovely it would be and how I would be inspired to come up with new outfits and remixes all the time. Now that I have that kind of job, however, I find I do tend to wear many of the same tried and true outfits time and again. I think it's time to shake it up a bit in the wardrobe department, and perhaps creating some boundaries is the best way to really challenge myself. I'm not sure how yet, but watch this space!

Anyway, here's what I wore today, my favourite cold winter's day outfit. I tend to somehow always make silly faces in my photos without meaning to, it looks here as though I'm thinking really hard! If you want to see more, I also post on Chictopia, you can be guaranteed to see more of my funny faces :)
Now I am off to the gym; I've been eating lots of dark chocolate, chocolate chip cookies these past few days, and big helpings of creamy pasta carbonara too, and my body is begging for some exercise!

Farewell!
BuzzChildxx

Ps. Let me know if you have any specific clothing challenges you would like to see happen and I'll endeavour to give them a go!

Holi

Quite awhile ago I watched a documentary on the Holi, a Hindu festival also know as the Festival of Colours, and ever since I have desperately wanted to take part in a celebration.

The festival celebrates love and spirituality. During one part, participants throw coloured powders and water at each other, and become coated in the bright, bold colours.For more images, check out this flickr slideshow.

Though I may not get to a Holi celebration any time soon, this spring and summer I think I shall give my wardrobe a Holi theme, with lots of bright, rich colours.

BuzzChildxx

Time for Adventure

This winter holiday, I'm planning many adventures.

So far I've slowly spooned through a gorgeous Italian hot chocolate at a new found cafe

Eaten the best nachos that I think I've ever had out

Walked to the circus that has set up temporary home in the city's main park; we didn't see the show, but we did see the animals!

Tiny Shetland Ponies

A friendly camel

and big, BIG cows!I wonder, what do cows do in a circus show??

Pretty apricot winter roses

A collection of windmills

and a new summery dress (we had gorgeous weather for a couple of days, it was divinely warm! Pity about the messy photo though)

One week down and two long, lovely weeks to go...I wonder what they have in store.

I hope everyone else is having fun little (or big!) adventures too :)

BuzzChildxx