The other day my toddler took his favourite bunny outside to play, and subsequently used it to rub CHALK DUST OFF THE CONCRETE.

Mr Bunny looked awful. He looked like he was run over by a hideous, dusty rainbow.

My toddler was a little upset.

So I brought Mr Bunny inside and gave him a bath. I couldn’t quite clean all the dust off his fur, so I decided that he needed a good soak.

I actually filled the bowl right to the top and placed a weight on his belly so he was completely submerged.

But it looked really creepy. As in horror-movie creepy. His head underwater. That frozen smile. Those innocent, black beady eyes peering up at me happily, from just beneath the surface of the water.

It made ME A LITTLE UPSET!

So I tipped some water out of the bowl and resolved that Mr Bunny was relaxing and enjoying a lovely spa treatment.

That’s what I told my toddler anyway.

I bought two tops from The Outnet last week – from two of my favourite labels.

Marni is an Italian label that always seems to catch my eye at fashion shows around the world. I love her (Consuelo Castiglioni) bold, colourful, quirky, off-beat style.

While I wouldn’t actually wear most of the quirky-bold pieces in her collections, there are always some sleek designs that I drool after, and her accessories are just gorgeous.

Top by Marni, denim shorts by Acne, shoes by Habbot Studios.

Anyway, I was looking for some casual tops, that still looked a bit dressy. Something that I could wear to a summer time dinner and drinks, and to a nice afternoon event.

I bought this simple, cotton camisole top by Marni – with flowers, mainly because I already have a good stock of plain tops and thought I’d try something different.

It arrived in 5 days, and it’s absolutely lovely! Light, simple, feminine, and very sweet, without being too sweet.

I also threw on some coloured cropped pants and a dressy skirt, just to play with the versatility of the top.

It’d go great with lots of other bottoms – maxi skirts, pencil skirts, wide leg pants, work pieces, and of course, your favourite pair of jeans :)

The next top is a Polka Dot Tank by Sonia by Sonia Rykiel.

Sonia Rykiel is an uber iconic French designer, first popular in the 70s. The label’s style is gorgeous, flirty, French, chic, ultra-feminine – full of bold colours, pink, stripes, and polka dots. It has a very unique and timeless style, but it’s very playful and cheeky too.

The top is a very simple tank, made from deliciously soft jersey, but not see-through.

While I think I will actually be wearing it more with casual shorts and skirts… I paired it with a leather skirt and pony hair heels, and it looked fab! Very French glamour!!

( See all my Daily Outfits here )

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Check out more of my favourite online shops in my Women’s Online Fashion Shopping Guide.

Sitting by the river at sunset.

My children in my lap.

Watching fireworks under the stars and the new moon.

Loving life.

Happy Chinese New Year to everyone!!

xxx

Patterned tank, by Sass and Bide.

Light denim shorts in a casual boyfriend style, by Acne.

I LOVE!

Silver crinkle tee, from Topshop.com.

(I actually bought this 2 months ago and wore it here)

( See all my Daily Outfits here )

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Check out more of my favourite online shops in my Women’s Online Fashion Shopping Guide.

The other day, I woke up at 5am to go for a 5:30am cycle.

It sounds a bit hard core, but my reason is that I feel that I’m such a cycling newbie, that I prefer to go when there are less cars, less pedestrians and fewer other cyclists on the cycle paths!

Not to mention, watching the sun rise is a beautiful moment.

I rode 25km in 1.5 hours. Including a 5 minute stop.

Before I left, I ate a bowl of muesli + cereal and yoghurt.

During the ride I ate one strawberry muesli bar for fuel.

And when I came home at 7am, I made myself this.

Slow cooked omelette, with mushroom, tomatoes, basil and garlic butter. It was soooo delicious.

(Yes I did cook the eggs a bit more after I took this photo!)

Later at 10am, I packed all 3 of my kids and took them to the beach.

I also packed my inflatable boat. I love my boat. We take him everywhere now. He’s like our big sleepy animal, who sits permanently and obediently in our front seat. We perk him up once we hit the beach and he delivers hours of fun for the big kids (and me).

We play paddling games, pirate ships games, diving for treasure games, bump-a-boat games, hanging-on games, general kicking and splashing and just plain lazing around in the surf.

It is so, so much fun.

(My legs look soooo long in this photo, but they are not. My legs and the boat are both short!)

We also make sand castles. Lots of them.

Then we head home by 2pm, and every one is ready for an afternoon nap.

Especially me!

With all the bright, bold colours, crazy prints and sparkly, glitter textures swirling around in the media, magazines, my screen, and my wardrobe… it’s a nice change to turn your nose up to it all and come back to black on black.

I recently found a classic, biker styled, leather jacket by Nabi, courtesy of YesStyle.

I have been looking for one for the looongest time.

Here’s a bit of fashion pop-culture history for you.

Leather jackets were worn in the early 1900s by people in aviation and the military.

The black motorcycle leather jacket was first made popular by Marlon Brando in The Wild One (1953). His jacket style was called the “Perfecto motorcycle jacket”, which was actually first designed in 1928, and cost $5.50.

Since then, the Perfecto has made it onto the big screen again and again, worn by John Travolta in Grease (1978), Patrick Swayze in Dirty Dancing (1987), Johnny Depp in Cry-Baby (1990), and Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator 2 (1991).

And not to mention, rock stars like Blondie, The Ramones, and The Sex Pistols, wore their jackets all the time.

Of course, the one I have has been evolved a little – slight shoulder pads, epaulettes on the shoulders, no waist-band belt.

It’s buttery soft, faux leather, with lining. It has a lovely heavy feel, and just the right amount of embellishments and garment detail to my liking (and it is affordable). It’ll slip into my wardrobe *perfectly* and ooze understated badass-ness :)

Jacket: Nabi

Top: Marc Jacobs

Jeans: Vivienne Westwood

Heels: Nude

( See all my Daily Outfits here )

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Check out more of my favourite online shops in my Women’s Online Fashion Shopping Guide.

My children’s interest in anything cool and gross has often led me through a multitude of emotions, namely: annoyance, irritation, disgust, revulsion, fear… and as is so often the case, a new appreciation.

The boys found a dead rat behind the garden shed the other day.

The rat had been dead for a long time, and it had been cleaned out by the ants, who left nothing but the fur and the bones.

My boys separated the bones and the fur, and proudly brought the bones into the kitchen to give to me as a present.

Thanks guys!

I took pictures of the dead rat – on my kitchen benchtop – just to show them how much I liked their present.

The rat’s skull was pretty icky – like a poster of a rat-zombie horror movie. Screaming, eye-less, undead, yellowed skull with gnarly broken teeth. Ughh!

I thought I would spare you all from the gross-ness.

But check this out. These are the bones from a rat’s tail. They were teeny tiny, and I thought they were pretty cool.

Last month, I attended the Curtin Fashion Grad Show held at the Midland Old Railway Workshops. It was a breathtaking venue, with so much character. The show was amazingly produced, with no apparent expense spared.

There were 24 designers showcasing around 6 pieces each, so it was a long show. But I was not bored once, the whole event was fun and exciting to watch. What’s great about student grad shows is that the grad are going all out to catch people’s attention with their creations.

I snapped this ethereal, pink feathery piece from behind, by Tobi Stanley.

An interesting investigation into the concept of body binding and wrapping, by Ahmad Srolestz. I loved the bronze metallic accents, dark ruffles and layers within his work. It looked sexy and dark, but modern.

And this gorgeous show stopper by Jeromy Lim, who took out a top student award. He has already launched his debut menswear collection at his Jeromy Lim Facebook Page and is currently interning with Akira Isogawa!

I turned up in this outfit – that was a bit dark glam/gothic with a touch of trend.

I’m wearing a black asymmetrical dress from ASOS (that I wore last year) with a long skirt that blew around behind me in the wind… in a dramatic, ghostly way!

For accessories, I wore bright blue suede shoes (which everyone was looking at, maybe because the front of my skirt was a bit short :P), a leather studded belt, a Prada-inspired, dark maroon velvet clutch (a bit hard to see) and a House of Harlow necklace.

I love dressing up!

One day I came home after my 6am cycle and I found a few things that made me want to cry – with joy.

1) My husband made banana pancakes for breakfast. There was a massive, freshly-made one sitting on the kitchen counter top, just for me.

2) He also made me a cup of tea, 15 minutes ago, so by the time I returned it was at the *perfect* temperature for me to slam it down fast. Just how I like it.

3) My 6 year old drew a picture and my 2 year old coloured it in (the bridge is pink!). Yes it’s me on a bike, riding on a bridge, over the river. And maybe a shark?

Had coffee with a girlfriend in the leafy suburb of Applecross last week. It was a beautiful day for sitting outside, under the jacaranda trees, sipping fine coffee and catching up on 20 years of friendship. I wore  bright blue jeans.

We were in Ikea the other day, eating their famous Swedish meatballs. I LOVE Swedish meatballs. But my kids do not.

Boy – Tastes like dog meat.
Me – Umm, you haven’t eaten dog meat before.
Boy – Yes I have.
Me – No you haven’t
Boy – YES I HAVE!
Me – WHERE HAVE YOU EATEN DOG MEAT??
Boy – Mum. I eat dog meat all the time!
Me – NO YOU HAVEN’T!!
Boy – YOU’VE EATEN IT! AND EVEN DAD!! WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL?!?!
Me – What are you talking about?!?!
Boy – HOT DOGS MUM!! WE EAT IT ALL THE TIME!! UGH!!

(And the kid had the audacity to roll his eyes at me in that teenager-ish way!!)

We went to a bowling party, and my 8yo son played one of those CLAW GRABBING ARCADE GAMES.

You know, the ones that we always say, “No you can’t play that. Don’t waste your money. It’s too hard. You’ll never win anything. $2 for one try? It’s like flushing money down the toilet. Imagine what else you can buy with all that money. Those things are designed so no one can win. No one ever wins from playing them.”

But my kid won – not one – but TWO large Angry Bird toys!

OMG my boy is a genius!

While I was SOOOO thrilled for him, like, on the verge of worshiping how cool and clever he was, I was very aware that…
1) All the other boys at the party were already worshiping him (and were insanely jealous).
2) I’ll never be able to warn him, or his siblings, off those Claw Games again. Crap.

Vegetarian meal for this week – Pumpkin, Chickpea and Lentil curry. It was absolutely delicious!!

I received a whopping 1400+ entrants for this giveaway! I want thank you all for entering (and for supporting my giveaways), but I’m so sorry there can only be one winner…

By random selection, a BIG congratulations to Veronica T from Singapore! She is over the moon!!

Veronica chose these two items she would love to own:

TIBI V Neck Layer Dress

Love Moschino Black Ribbon Laced Dress

Alas, for the rest of us, we can only dream. Or check out the current up to 70% off sale at my-wardrobe? :)

Thank you again everyone!

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