A summer on film

So much for a blogging hiatus, I couldn't even last a full week! Guess I just love it too much :) Anyway I'll get back into my normal routine next week (hopefully) but for now I just wanted to drop in and share my first few summer snaps from my LC-A+.

I'm glad I made the most of the first few days of my break and got out as much as I could because now it's raining like crazy and I'm cooped up inside (but popcorn and Audrey Hepburn movies make it not so bad). Other than the last day or two summer so far has been lots of fresh fruit and salads, running every day, salty hair, sun kissed skin and Kimbra on repeat.

Tomorrow I'm back off to the beach to see in the new year with friends and I'll be sure to load up on film and keep documenting. Fingers crossed that the rain will cease and we'll have a pretty starry night to relax under x

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Best Wishes

Merry Christmas everyone :) Thanks for being such amazing blog readers and for all your lovely comments and emails and tweets. It's been a great year and I look forward to an even better 2012! I hope you all have an amazing time with your families and friends over Christmas and New Years. I'll be taking some time out from blogging for a week or so to relax with my family and enjoy my summer holiday and will be back here some time in early January. Best wishes to you all!! xx

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2011: A Year in Review

January - March

♥Adding a second kitten to the family - little Rocky

♥ Liss from Daydream Lily visiting New Zealand and staying with me

April - June

♥ Attending the Auckland Art & Craft Fair and meeting bloggers, blog readers and vendors

♥ Learning to bake adventures including Macarons, Peanut Butter pastries & Red Velvet Whoopie Pies

♥ Becoming a LomoAmigo and getting to use the LC-A+

♥ Enjoying my favourite local festival, Balloons over the City with friends

July - September

♥ Attending New Zealand Fashion Week for the first time & being reuinted with Nicole from Gary Pepper Vintage

♥ Getting my first major haircut in years

♥ Auckland adventures with the husband

♥ The launch of Ruby Boutique in my little old city

October - December

♥ Holidaying on the Gold Coat (Part 1, Part 2) with Liss from Daydream Lily

♥ Celebrating 3 years of marriage with Jeremy

♥ Attending the second Auckland Art and Craft Fair for the year

All in all 2011 has been a pretty good year! There were so many more things I could have included in this post but I thought I should keep it concise. Pretty excited to see what 2012 might have in store :)

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My Christmas Wishlist!

1. Dahlia embroidery velvet & chiffon dress

2. Leah Goren black cat tote bag

3. Modcloth panda iPhone case

4. Daydream Lily Holga camera

5. Four Corner Store film collection

6. Donna Wilson mog plate

7. Kinfolk Magazine volume 2

The final in my Christmas wishlist series is this little collage of things I'd love to see in my stocking come Sunday morning! To be honest I've probably left it a bit late to be hinting to my loved ones for these things but you never know, maybe I'll treat myself to some of these goodies if I end up with some spending money for Christmas. 

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Christmas Wishlist: By See Me Everywhere

1. Peacock Ring - Meadowlark

2. LC-A camera - Lomography

3. Inspire book - Kikki K

4. Paper Birch Cutout Dress- Ruche

5. Storm Point Shoe- Asos

6. Angola Bag - Overland

7.  Peacock Necklace - Meadowlark

8.The Vintage Tea Party Book - Amazon

Todays Christmas wishlist is brought to you by Ilana from See Me Everywhere. Ilana and I share a mutual obsession with Christmas and every year we get excited over baking together, visiting the light displays, drinking festive flavoured hot drinks, watching terribly cheesy Christmas movies and listening to carols. I'm glad to have another friend who's as into the festive season as I am!

On another note, I'll be sharing my own Christmas wishlist here tomorrow and then maybe another post or two and then taking a little Christmas/ summer hiatus from here for a week or so. Would you believe that in the 3+ years I've had this blog I have never done that before? I figure I deserve a wee break and it'll be nice to come back here all refreshed in the new year :) 

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Inspire

Cecy Young - Flickr, Website, Blog

It's been awhile since I've done a good old fashioned photography post on here so I thought it was about time to change that! I recently fell in love with these pictures by Cecy Young so I thought I'd share them with you guys too. It's not often you stumble upon pictures that make you stop what you're doing and scroll back and forth for minutes just admiring the beauty. Hope you guys like them as much as I do :)

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Tis the Season

Ilana from See Me Everywhere and I have developed some Christmas traditions over the past few years and it's always fun to get into the festive spirit together. Last night we went to a lights display with our husbands in tow and we'll be heading to another one later this week. We also baked gingerbread houses from scratch for the first time ever this year, you can check out the results over at Ilana's post here. Oh how I love this season!!

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Christmas Wishlist: Daydream Lily

1. Nadinoo Fleur’s Spinning teacup dress

2. Emily Green Liesl necklace

3. Kindle

4. Bloom nail polishes

5. Chip Chop! LOVE denim tote

6. Beci Orpin notebook

7. The Selby coffee table book

8. amerrymishap triangle pendant

9. Kelly Smith L'avon scarf

Todays wishlist is brought to you by Liss from Daydream Lily. This is actually part II of Liss' Christmas wishes and you can see her first gift guide here. 

Have a great weekend everyone and if you still have some Christmas shopping left to do, all the best with it!

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Christmas Wishlist: By Kelly Smith

1. TRENERY Ikat print dress

2. PRATTEN Eel skin trifold wallet

3. MOLTEN STORE Oh Stevie raffia clutch

4. SAMANTHA WILLS Distance & Time cuff

5. FRIDA PLUMM Alba platter

6. MAXWELL & WILLIAMS Kimono teacup & saucer

7. BAILEYS & FERRO ROCHERS: (A MUST at Christmas!! :) )

8. DAVID DOWNTON print

9. DIOR COUTURE by Patrick Demarchelier

10.MIDNIGHT IN PARIS Blu-Ray

In the lead up to Christmas a few of my bloggy friends will be sharing their wishlists and gift guides on here and first up is the above collage from Kelly Smith of Birdy and Me. 

I'm one of those people that actually prefers to do my Christmas shopping as close to the actual day as possible, so these gift guides will hopefully serve as some great last minute inspiration! For me it always feels more festive to do it close to Christmas - when the shops are packed to the brim, the carols are playing, the decorations are up and everyone is racing around!

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Where is the Love?

(picture credit)

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." 

1 Corinthians 13:4-7

I wish we could all be a little nicer to each other, judge a little less, love a little more and make more effort to accept people for who they are. I know this isn't like my normal blog posts but this is on my heart to share. 

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Garth Badger - Bitter Sweet

Photography – Garth Badger 

Styling – Greta Van Der Star 

Hair – Danny Pato

Makeup – Anamaria Franco 

Model – Natalie @ 62

One of my favourite New Zealand photographers Garth Badger recently shot this stunning editorial "Bitter Sweet" for Remix magazine. All I can say is I'm in love! The colours, the styling, the gorgeous photography... so beautiful. If you haven't heard of Garth's work already you should head to his website to check out some more.

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Auckland Art and Craft Fair

On Saturday some friends and I went to Auckland for the Art & Craft Fair. The day flew by so quickly and I didn't take nearly as many pictures as intended but here's a peek for you of a few of the stalls. All in all it was a good day. I snapped myself up some Hunter Gatherer Christmas wrapping paper and tags, caught up with friends, met a few lovely blog readers and got a good dose of inspiration from all the amazing talent. Huge shout out to Jess from Foxes for doing such an amazing job and being such an awesome champion of the handmade community in New Zealand xx

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His & Hers: In the Bag

Recently the lovely folks at Status Anxiety sent the husband and I some the above leather wallets. Jeremy's is the Noah in chocolate and mine is the Audrey in red. I was going to do an outfit post to showcase these but the weather has been all over the place here lately so instead I thought I'd follow in the footsteps of Daydream Lily and show you a "his and hers" version of what's in the bag!

          HIS:

• Tom Clancy - Executive Orders
• Nivea for Men
• Status Anxiety Noah wallet
• Samsung Galaxy S2 phone
• Burts Bees lip balm
• Eclipse mints

     Hers:

• Frankie 2011 daily journal
• The Hunger Games - Mockingjay (great series, I definitely recommend)
• Status Anxiety Audrey wallet
• iPhone 4
• Babushka doll film canister
• LC-A+
• Mink Pink sunglasses c/o Market HQ
• Business card wallet c/o Ruby

This actually makes me laugh a little bit, cause if you go over to Liss's post about this (here), it's crazy how many of the same things we have in our bags, right down to the film canister! Talk about blogger soul mates haha :)

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2011 on Film

This year I was lucky enough to be selected as a Lomo Amigo and sent the LC-A+ to document my life with. Over the months I've had it in my bag with me everywhere I've went and seen some amazing results. It's an incredibly consistent camera and it's fun looking back at the pictures I've taken and remembering all the adventures I've had this year. These pictures are my top 10 LC-A+ shots from 2011, hope you like them :) If you want to see more pictures I've taken with this camera you can go HERE, and if you want to read why I love it so much and why I'd recommend it, you can go HERE.

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Tiny Hearts

(Burgundy heart print dress c/o Dahlia)

I feel like every time I have a spare second to take blog pictures it's either raining or crazy windy. On the weekend we managed to snap a few pictures of this dress but you should see the out-takes... picture after picture of my hair getting whipped all over my face and me looking like a hairy monster haha! Anyway I just wanted to show you guys the cute little heart print all over it, so sweet! It's been starting to get really muggy here lately but the sheer material on this dress is perfect to avoid getting too hot in. 

I have my eye on a few other items on the Dahlia website too, like this stunning dress I recently saw Erin from Calivintage in, that's going straight on the Christmas wishlist!!

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