Blog Design Update

Hello! Happy Monday :) I thought I'd quickly share a blog design I've done for a lovely girl, Ashley. Her blog is The Story Project and you can check it out here. Ashley wanted to update her existing blog, so I've created a fresh new look for her. Her Pinterest inspiration board was an awesome starting point for me, it was full of great ideas. Because her blog is about colour, inspiration, passion and courage, I decided to illustrate a feather as her icon, as it represents spiritual progression, encouragement and overcoming challenges (amongst other things) I thought it was fitting and encapsulated the light, airy feeling on Ashley's inspiration board. I hope you like it!

On the topic of blog design, if you havent just come from there, Little Chief Honeybee currently has a little feature on yours truly with a full blog design giveaway! If you did just arrive from Kaelah's blog, hi, welcome, it's great to have you here :D

If you're in the market for a brand new blog design, head on over and enter (or just click the link to read my life story - haha)! I'm still running my introductory offer of 50% off the full custom design as well, head over to my design page for more details!

Kitty
xo

Wordless Weekend #8

All photos courtesy of C, from the Australian Museum

Kitty
xo

Guest Post with Kristina - Vegetarian Abroad - Beatles Collection

Today I'm really happy to have Kristina from Vegetarian Abroad here to guest post :) She is sharing her awesome Beatles collection with us today, The Beatles was one of the very first bands who I heard from my dad's music collection, they have a special place in my heart :)

I went over a few options in my head for this post to which I finally settled on my crazy Beatles collection.  2 things people always know about me are: she's a vegetarian and she is in love with The Beatles.  If you walk into my apartment it is a shrine to them and I thought what better way to show my love/obsession with them then in this post!  It all started with Paul McCartney; as I think it generally does with most girls ;).  I became obsessed with anything that had their name on it and immediately had to have it.  I would read for hours about the lives they lived with all of it tragedies, happiness, sadness and triumph.  Plus, when I found out Paul is a vegetarian like me it made me look up to and admire him even more.  Call me the crazy Beatles lady, nice to meet you!

My collection has grown rapidly over the past year with 20+ items now at my disposal.  It all started with the abstract painting above that I randomly ran across in Zellers (it is a store found only in Canada).  After that I was hooked and needed to have more.  I now have books, magazines, pictures, posters, DVD's, shirts and it is constantly being added to.  Most of my collection comes from BC, Canada.  It's normal to have an obsession this strong, right?  Right?!  I hope you enjoy my Beatles collection just the same and thanks for having me, Shell!

Kristina, thanks so much for sharing your collection today!

You should head over and say hi to Kristina, she blogs about beauty, living as a Canadian in America and Vegetarianism amongst other things, I'm sure you'll get along just fine :)

Kitty
xo

Found #43

I spotted this lovely bag on Sydney-based online store Girl + Graaf. I looks like such a comfortable bag, if that makes sense? Just soft and comfy. The stars are so pretty as well!

via: Girl + Graaf

This has been popping up everywhere lately, Lomography are running a Kickstarted campaign to get their 35mm film scanner into production. It's reached the project goal amount, but you can still get a piece of that pie if you're interested! It's a film scanner that works with your phone, so you can digitise 35mm film using your cellphone camera and this special device. Pretty cool huh?

via: Kickstarter

When I was in school, I loved art class. One of my favourite parts of art class (aside from photography) was pottery! There seems to be this huge resurgence of ceramics lately and I feel a little nostalgic toward the art. I've decided not to indulge that nostalgia just yet I think I have enough on my plate! When I saw these "Potheads" by Melbourne lady Kim Jaeger, it reminded me of one of my favourite pottery activities, making squishy heads with funny faces. Aren't they lovely?

via: Kim Jeager Cermanics

Howbeautiful are these cushion covers from Little Attic Shop on Etsy? It makes me want to do some cross-stitching on furnishings. Once again, see previous item for reasons why I won't! I love the texture and colours on this one.

via: Little Attic Shop

There's a photo feature on Boston.com celebrating 125 years of National Geographic. The photography is always beautiful and it reminds me of a time when the world was mysterious and not readily available on the internet. I'm not sure how NatGeo still does that, but they seem to achieve it. Must be something about seeing it in print. Maybe I'm old fashioned. Check out all the photos, they are incredible. This is one of my favourites.

via: Boston.com

Today in Sydney we had our hottest day on record, since records began in the late 1800's. It reached 45.8ºC which is just over 114º. Insane. It felt like an oven. It's ok though, tomorrow is rainy and 25º. Sigh. I don't like the heat but can we have some consistency? My poor immune system cannot handle these drastic fluctuations. 25 and rainy is actually fine by me, let's tune in on that one!

We are going to sit down and hatch some kind of Japan plan. It's Operation Itinerary! I do love to be spontaneous but I have a tendency to be a little teensy bit like Owen Wilson's character in The Darjeeling Limited. Look out for some laminated itinerary documents soon. I think it's a good idea to embrace that part of me for this trip as the language barrier, and the fact it's a busy time for tourism might throw a spanner in my laissez faire holiday traditions. There's also some exciting blog design happening, I'll give you an update on that next week. What does your weekend hold? I hope it's something nice, have a great one :)

Kitty

xo

Currently

Since you enjoyed the first Currently post I wrote, I thought I'd keep them up, here and there, just whenever I feel like it. Today, I feel like there's a lot going on, so I'm going to share!

Watching //
Lots of movies, we went to see Paranorman at the cinema (the only adults without children, aside from one other guy who sat next to us, I bet so it seemed like we were all together - I felt awkward, I can't imagine how he felt!) It was pretty good. My favourite part was during the previews though, we put on our 3d glasses and the cinema proudly advertised the theatrical re-release of Jurassic Park in 3d. I leaned over to C and whispered "They don't make kids movies like this anymore", feeling quite proud that I emerged (relatively) unscathed what with giant dinosaurs eating people having been implanted into my impressionable young mind. After the trailer ended, the cinema was silent for a moment. Well, it should have been. Instead there were the petrified cries of pretty much ALL the children in the packed theatre. Crying, screaming, weeping and a plaintive "Scaaarrryyyyyyy" I nearly lost my mind, it was way too funny.

Listening to //
Arvo Pärt and C's beautiful tunes, oh and not to spoil the surprise in the next paragraph, but refreshing my Japanese language skills with some audio lessons ;)

Planning //
In case you didn't hear me squeal with delight from the other side of the planet... This week one of my work colleagues was talking about his upcoming trip to Japan, and I was thinking about how much I wanted to go back after a brief visit a few years ago. I've always wanted to go over there for the Cherry Blossom Festival, so I thought I'd look at flights (you know, that online window shopping where you spend thousands of imaginary dollars and then close the window? I do that with holidays a lot) Except. The flights weren't expensive. Actually, they were on sale for really, really cheap. So... we're going to Japan!! That is about all I can think about right now. 67 days to go and counting. We're in the process of planning exactly where we will be going, but pretty much Tokyo and south, we'll definitely be heading to Nagano to visit some Onsen (hot spring baths), Koya-San (it seriously looks like a Ghibli movie there), Kyoto (so many things, I don't know where to start) and also hoping to make it to a world heritage site island right down off the southern tip. We will definitely go to the Ghibli Museum and probably Tokyo Disney. If you have any suggestions of must-see places do let me know. I'm after nature/quiet/beauty and traditional places as well as maybe some thrift stores in Tokyo (or anywhere actually!) We'll be gone for three weeks, the countdown is ON!

I'm thinking about how to handle my holiday with the blog, I will definitely not be blogging while I am away, I need a 'proper' holiday from everything! But I will most likely be scheduling some posts ahead of time so you probably won't even notice that I'm gone ;)

Thinking about //
Miss One Track Mind here is thinking about holidays, holidays, holidays. Also, to be fair, I'm thinking about trying to get a lot of 'stuff' done before we leave, just so that my 2013 goals list doesn't completely fall off the wagon. So thinking about my schedule, organisation, and trying to make every day count between now and then so I leave organised and not stressed!

Looking forward to //
I bet you can guess one thing... Other exciting things happening soon include Sydney Festival! There's a lot of great shows/events on in Sydney right now, it's almost too much. We selected a few special events to attend so I'm looking forward to seeing some orchestra+choir, art, bands... there's probably more. I was going to go to the Twin Peaks Pie Party this weekend, but I think I need to show some restraint, be thankful for all of my upcoming events and save money for Karaoke bars and a coffin hotel. Oh, also... in February it's my one year blogiversary!!

Reading //
I'm doing well with my goal to read 12 books this year! I've almost finished one, it's "Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children". It was a Christmas gift and I'm quite enjoying it! The writing style is pretty simple too, so it's an easy read. It's about an American boy who travels to an island off the coast of the U.K. searching for the truth about his grandfather's fantastical stories of his youth during WWII. I'd say it's a sort of coming-of-age fantasy novel...

Making me happy //
I'm so grateful that I can take time off work and have a paid holiday, I'm really lucky and I appreciate that! I still have to save my butt off, but it's easier when I know I have some income coming in while I'm away. When I quit my day job, I know this will change! Other things making me happy: everyone reading my blog who is in love with our Nico // C making lovely music while I work // finding my fitness again // cool water // skirt weather // sleeping in // salad // reading books! // lovely blog comments // finishing up my first blog design (for a client) of the year!

Thanks to Danielle from Sometimes Sweet for encouraging these posts!

Kitty
xo