MY DEAR KIMBRA: HELLO ADORATION.

Posted on 15/05/2012 by jayjayne

So, here’s some news – I have (thanks to my dear Fiona F), scored some tickets to KIMBRA. FREAKING KIMBRA, LIVE. LIKE, REALLY. I’ve been notified that the tickets to this gig have sold-out. So, I’m absolutely jiggling around in causing major jelly. I also should probably lay off the caffine for a bit. And the alliteration as well.

I will be heading out there tonight with my dear girlgirl Kathy – meanwhile we must both find something to munch on, as well as find, the dreaded P-word – Parking. /SHUDDER. Now parking in the Valley is like a mini-jackpot, where the jackpot is a parking spot and the opportunity for your vehicle to be peed-on by an overly enthusiastic beer-glugger. It being a weekday, the likelihood of urinary expulsion on one’s vehicle is greatly lowered, so there’s something to sigh in relief about. But this is little relief to me – a woman of little faith in the human race, rich in a thick dosage of sarcasm and brain-batteringly-bad* parallel-parking skills. WATCH ME BATTER ALL OF THE CARS!

PERTH, AUSTRALIA – SEPTEMBER 25: Kimbra performs on stage during the Parklife 2011 music festival, on September 25, 2011 in Perth, Australia. (Photo by Matt Jelonek/Getty Images) 2011 Matt Jelonek

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM – FEBRUARY 29: Kimbra performs on stage at Shepherds Bush Empire on February 29, 2012 in London, England. (Photo by Joseph Okpako/WireImage) 2012 Joseph Okpako

Another metaphysical-terror that I am currently experiencing is the “WHAT DO I WEAR” connumdrum. A typically female futile pursuit, dressing for comfort as well as warmth and with a healthy dose of style will be a difficult task. What the sod is there to wear in my wardrobe that will make sure I will also not die of hypothermia? What the sod is there to wear in my wardrobe that will not make me look like a mad cat-lady? Clearly, the leg-warmers are not an option (maybe). The anthem of “Where are all of my flat shoes?” will be heard house-wide as I stare listlessly into a wardrobe packed with flat shoes.

Augh, in any case, for those poor (suckers) who couldn’t get tickets, here’s a little taste of what you’ll be missing out on. Because I’m a sadist. Now it’s time for me to get psyched for Kimbra. Yeaaaahhh.

*ALLITERATION!

BE INVITED; MY WEDDING, IN PAPER.

Posted on 19/04/2012 by jayjayne

A wedding post? I think it’s about time to heave-ho into the foggy word of manic decisions and throwing handfuls of tulle in the air and crying “FRANTIC CITY! FRANTIC CITY!”. Being of the typography-loving disposition, the idea of having a sub-par set of stationery to accompany by big day seems distasteful. Also, I would not be pleased. Not pleased in the least. So, i’ve been piling up a few ideas (with the assistance of Pinterest, many thanks to Jenn for the invitation) and staking wedding websites like 100 Layer Cake and Etsy to trigger some ideas.

For my own engagement shindig, I pulled together a few ideas, hours of Photoshop time and a shaky colour scheme to create a little invitation, utilising the lovely people at Vistaprint. It was only a trial printage, but it managed to help me get a gist of how the system works, the prices and the quality of the print – which wasn’t half bad.

See, not too shabby for a first effort at this thing – managed to get me some pretty fonts, and see the TINY LITTLE ALPACA? Yes, I managed to add a tiny little alpaca. Pretty awesome sauce!

So I’m planning to follow this very adorable little DIY tutorial from A Practical Wedding – time for me to get busy, once again, with Photoshop and plenty of blood, sweat and tears, to add to it all.

The Oops I Really Care Way

This morning, we posted the APW theory that really nice invitations have two elements, with everything else being extra: good design and good paper. If you’re using an APW printable invite sponsor, I’m pretty sure you’ve already got good design in the bag. But perhaps you also want good paper, and you want to print at home. Well, here is the thing. People will tell you this can’t be done. But it can. We did it. David and I printed part of our wedding invitations on our home printer, using 100% cotton paper. And they looked so good that I wondered why I’d also effed around with Gocco (well, actually, I did that because it was fun). So it can be done, and here are my tips:

Order a design that isn’t super ink heavy. Don’t make me say that again.
Order 100% cotton paper. Go somewhere with a heavy duty paper cutter to cut your paper down to size. Normally you can go to a Kinkos, or other print shop, offer to pay to use the printer cutter, and have them offer to just let you use it. Score.
Cut extra paper because your printer will inevitably eat some of them, leaving you yelling profanities if you didn’t cut enough.
Get a cheap-o paper cutter for your house, to handle the part when you inevitably didn’t cut enough. These work well, and will come in handy for years to come.
Buy envelopes in a complementary color.
Buy extra printer ink, because your printer will inevitably run out of color at the most inopportune time.
Go home, sit by the printer, feed your lovely cotton paper. Curse loudly as the printer yells at you about the paper. Tell the printer who is boss. Admire how professional your invitations look, and think about how cheap they are, and realize how little skill this took on your part.
Fin.

Read more: http://apracticalwedding.com/2011/04/how-to-print-your-own-wedding-invitations/#ixzz1sUBq1Ix4.

Now to accrue some ideas – here are a few that I’ve been eyeing off – and yes, I’ve noticed that they’re all pretty different from each other – but i’m planning to mish-mash ideas into a delicious soup of…er…invitations? One thing I’m certain of, though, and that is I’ll be using heavy weight (cotton/linen) paper. Oh yes. Yes indeed.

RAVISHING SCRIPT, PRETTY IDEAS: Swooshy calligraphy, simple, but modern. [ LINK ]

SIMPLE, ON AMAZING PAPER: The contrast colours are truly amazing. Customisable with a matching RSVP card. [ LINK ]

ILLUSTRATED, WATER COLOUR: Hand drawn wedding invitation, a sweet and simple watercolor invitation set. Personalised to perfection – but so pricey and impossible to create oneself (unless you’re particularly handy ay drawing). [ LINK ]

DIY, PRINTABLE: Instantly downloadable from Etsy, cheap and complete with invitation, RSVP and info card all together in one pack. Oh my. [ LINK ]

SELF INKING, ADDRESS STAMPS: Custom calligraphy style self inking address stamp – fabulous for the lazy people like me who hate writing my address over and over again. [ LINK ]

AIR MAIL, THE LOVELY THINGS IN THE MAIL: This has all the hallmarks of a lovely vintage invite – all the way down to the bakers twine (or which can be put together so easily, as well). [ LINK ]

CARNIVAL WEDDING, ALL OF THE COLOURS: A printable suite pre-created – but this colour scheme is so lovely and perky. Love the perky! But maybe it’s a little…too perky? [ LINK ]

Yeah, so here’s to me scratching my head and cracking my knuckles in front of my trusty Mac and Photoshop (I’ve finally managed to re-install it). I’ve got so many ideas bustling around and not enough presence of mind to calm down and start prodding buttock. More ideas and inspiration to follow (and any other little suggestions are eagerly accepted)!

BABY, WELCOME TO NEW YORK.

Posted on 18/04/2012 by jayjayne

The trip to New York was an education in it’s itself. Never have I been on a flight this long before – consider me, completely wiped out – absolutely exhausted, and for some inexplicable reason, my knit weave sweater unravelled and turned into a pile of beige yarn. Much like half-cooked Maggi noodles. Highly unappealing, not at all appetising. The whole apparel item gave me a haggard, homeless-bum look to my travel get-up. But not in a good way.

So after shipping off to Taiwan, then on to Osaka and then finally to New York – we arrived in the great land of the US – where the incoming Customs scan was practically non-existant and when released into the arrivals lounge, were almost instantaneously approached by a scammer asking us if we needed “transport anywheerrre” (rolling the “r’s” here) and, when he realized we understood English, he backed off right away. Also, security were eyeballing him. Also, a few seconds later, an announcement came over the PA system warning travellers not to accept such offers of apparent “generosity”. Go figure.

The trip into the Big Apple from JFK contained me ooh-ing and ahh-ing in semi-conciousness at the architecture styles of the US of A – apparently, eves on houses aren’t a thing for a large number of residential plots in the US? The houses appeared in uniform rows, only discernable by their paintwork (and possibly a discreetly placed property number) – the roads presented themselves beautifully, but most showed no form of sewerage gutter, the majority of trees were still recovering from Winter’s howl and waving at the blue sky with empty fronds. But the most astonishing thing? The huge, expanses of clean, uniform cemetery plots of the Cedar Grove Cemetery that seem to stretch as far as the eye could see, when we headed past Queens and into the belly of Manhattan.

For me, oogling from the back seat of a 4-wheel-drive taxi, the whole experience was not only mind-blowing, but also surreal – we travelled over bridges, in communter tunnels and were spat out in Brooklyn – the land of massive converted warehouses, imposing fume stacks and a ferociously devout community of Hasidic Jewish families living alongside a growing generation of skeptical hipsters – bristling in their skinny jeans and sullen expressions.

Hitting Manhattan, we were warmly greeted by hordes of drunk St. Patrick’s Day revelers – clad head to toe in green, their garish outfits – decked with shot necklaces, jangly shamrocks and flashing bobbly shamrocks donned upon headbands – our cabbie swore fluently as he attempted to wrangle his way around the inebriated masses – all of whom were practically dribbling down the sidewalks. If anything, the police force looked bewhildered with the sheer force of alcohol-induced frivolity that orbited them. The police horses appeared amusingly unfussed.

Then our cabbie hit a green-clad, beer swelling, buzz-cut-sporting, jay-walking pedestrian.

And swore again.

Baby, welcome to New York.

A LOT HAS HAPPENED.

Posted on 06/04/2012 by jayjayne

So it’s been a while since … well, I’ve been lurking the Internet. I would love to blame “being busy”, “planning wedding things” or “travel”, but the plain, and somewhat glaringly pathetic truth is – I’ve been reading Hunger Games (yes, all three books, not just the lousy Movie Tie In). But, saying this, I have been out and about, I recently returned from my holiday in New York (awesome) and Taiwan (awesome), I have fainted in a major shopping centre and have subsequently relieved myself of my breakfast in a food court (not very awesome), I have spent the large part of a day in hospital (very not awesome at all) and have performed okay, albeit deliriously neurotic, in a job interview (not sure about the level of awesomeness, but it credits an allllllriiiiggghttt). So I guess I can actually hide behind the mysterious curtain of “busy”.

Now I would love to go right ahead and plunge into the awesomeness of my holiday in New York (and all of the wacky things going on around me), but I don’t feel like I’ve actually finished capping off my trip to Beijing – in that way, I have to come clean and apologise for being a lazy sod. Also, to apologise, for soon I plan to confuse you all with my convoluted timeline of photographs and memories. Yes, I’m going to Do An Evil and mix up my posts from Beijing with those from New York. I know, I know, you hate me.

Before I do start assailing you all with all forms of mental torture, just a few website updates:

The winner of the giveaway, Cindii, has recieved her giveaway things! Hooray!
I will be updating more frequently due to the sheer number of blog posts and crazy things I have to share with you all (we’ve all heard this before, but work with me here folks, it might just come to fruition).
I will be trying my hand at a few more arty-type things, so stay tuned for my adventures in Craft.
Wedding-orientated posts will become a more frequent apparition. I know right. Be scared. Be very scared.

PS. I now have an unhealthy addiction to Graniph shirts, especially since they’ve altered their “SS” cut to accommodate those of us with abnormally long abdomens. I didn’t buy as many as I wanted in Taiwan as the shop girl had freaky creeper-stalker eyes. Uuggghhh. Luckily you can buy them online.

Andy Cheung vol.01 Colour splashed floral grenade – a vivid image of life and death from the artist, Andy.

World of Fantasy Vivid world of coloured balls. A fantastic graphic experience.

Christine Berrie vol.01 Retro camera madness from Christine Berrie. One for camera nerds worldwide.

Heiko Windisch vol.02 Surreal mash-up courtesy of Heiko Windisch.

Yeah, yeah, shameless capitalistic post. Tomorrow? On to the good stuff.

BEIJING; ALL THE THINGS TO EAT.

Posted on 15/03/2012 by jayjayne

I’m thinking I should get this out of the way and dedicate an entire blog post to the food that I ate while on tour in Beijing. I have to admit, it was definitely an experience (and a delicious one at that). We got the opportunity to eat at some of the flashiest joints in Beijing without having to toe shuffle and wait about – show lucky is that? Very lucky, I should think.

BEIJING DUCK: The most definitively delicious point in the tour was found at this joint - Quanjude Roast Duck Restaurant (全聚德):

“This is Beijing’s most famous Peking Duck restaurant, and also one of the oldest, having been established in 1864. The huge, plush dining hall is filled with diners eager to try this dish in its most authentic setting. A basic duck starts at CNY108, but the pancakes, scallions and sauces are extra.”

Since our group of hungry tourists was quite large, they sent chefs, en-masse to to our banquet room, where they skillfully sliced and diced our duck for us. Mmm, delicious.

To be truthful, i'm actually not a fan of duck at all, but this completely changed my opinion - it's crispy, greasy and meaty texture, mixed with fresh spring chive slithers and wrapped in a thin pancake-like bread - ohhh, heaven.

CHEAP BEER: We managed to be seated with a group that weren’t big beer drinkers. Interestingly enough, when we asked to switch out one of our bottles of beer for a bottle of Coke we were told that we could not – apparently, Coke (and other Western soft-drinks) are twice as expensive as beer. JAW. DROP.

BEIJING YANJING BREWERY: the company is one of the largest breweries in Asia. The company has approximately 20,000 employees, and is one of the largest beer manufacturers in China. They produced 3.11 million tons of beer in 2005 alone.

SNOW BEER (雪花啤酒): Directly translated as "snowflake beer" - apparently this is the world's biggest selling beer? I don't know, I'm just repeating what The Google tells me. PS. It's pretty tasty.

ALL YOU CAN EAT ADVENTURES: This gem was one that we scrounged out at the Silk Market – “Beijing Duck” Patio Pizza - which apparently specialises in Beijing Duck Pizza – an all-you can eat extravaganza, it also features a few sneaky tricks – if you want a cup of tea, be prepared to fork out a few yuan. Sly, sly, sly.

My favourite thing they served? Chicken nibbles - hey, I didn't say that the joint was healthy, did I?

TEA: All sorts of tea – of course China would be the place to go and buy silly piles of tea. We were carted off to a place near the Olympic City, joyfully labelled “Dr. Tea” (茶博士家) where we got to sample different types of tea and surround ourselves with all things tea-like. Chamomile is still my favourite – Pu er tastes manky to me and always will. The lady doing our demonstration had the most clean accent I had heard up to that point, in Beijing – without the very curly Beijing accent attached to it.

BEIJING HOT POT: Now, we had hot pot previously at a chain-restuarant, but this time we went to a legit place (complete with birds in cages singing and hanging from the ceiling) to experience some hot pot loving. They pulled all the stops at this place and made sure all the tables were decked with a huge choice of additions. Oh my.

Various vinegars and herbs are tapped-off these and used in the soups and sauces.

BUNS AND DUMPLINGS: We managed to score a booking at the famous Gou Bu Li (狗不理) Restaurant in Tianjin (天津 ) – which, apart from epic traffic jams (seriously, epic), is a town known for being the home town of these steamed buns – which are usually stuffed with meat filling made of pork, fresh shrimp and all things delicious.

I only managed to get this sorry excuse for a picture as everyone at the table had managed to snake one from the plate before I could even get my camera out. Oh, those old people, faster than they look, I tell you.

The name “Goubuli Baozi”, literally means “stuffed bun that dogs are not interested in”. The name originated from a boy’s nickname. Many years ago, a chinese family found an abandoned child in a garbage dump and adopted him. Alluding to his good fortune in not being eaten by dogs, they nicknamed him Gou Zi, or “Doggy.” The child grew up to become an accomplished chef whose steamed dumplings were unparalleled in the area. His buns were very popular and his business became so exceptionally good that his customers would have difficulty getting his attention. People began to refer to him as “Goubuli (Doggy ignores us).” With the passage of time, the bun became widely known as “Gou Bu Li Bao Zi”.

COFFEE: Is REALLY bloody difficult to find – well, a good coffee is really bloody difficult to find. Being from a city that’s doing it’s best to rival Melbourne as the coffee-city of the nation, I found it heart-breaking to be in a country where nobody really thought of coffee as an important beverage. This left me super sad – and after trial after trial of drinking odd Starbucks concoctions (in the hope that they would suddenly be better if I kept on drinking them), I gave in and glugged instant coffee and looked hangdog-awful for the days we were in Beijing. Moral of this story? Well, it doesn’t have a moral really – I just wish Beijing had better coffee.

At the airport when leaving Beijing, we found a Costa Coffee joint - packed with people and the smell of coffee in the air. We practically ran inside and snuffed up the store.

MARKET MISCELLANY: One of the more memorable moments was spent at one of the undercover markets in Tianjin (天津) – filled with people selling all sorts of wares (mostly tacky things with goggly eyes) but also all sorts of food stuffs and random animals spewing strange bubbly water and eschewed with numerous tentacles. Tasty!