By the sea side

Wow, I'm a terrible blogger. Once a month, got to pick it up a bit I reckon.

So, I'm in Coffs Harbour visiting my family at the moment. My dear baby sister is doing her HSC this year. One of her subjects is photography, and she has decided to do some "vintage" photography for her major photography assignment.

After much discussion about what actually constitutes "Vintage photography", we came to the conclusion that she wanted photos of me in me vintage threads, with an old school arty photography feel or something. Anyway, yesterday I got all dressed up (despite my Coffs Harbour cold coming on) and we traipsed around the country side looking for somewhere to take some photos. We decided on the lookout that overlooks the harbour. All well and good. I start frolicking along a hillside, looking kind of like a freak in front of a bunch of tourists, and dear baby sis's camera dies......WOO!!!!!! So she whips out her phone and starts snapping with some "vintage photos" app, which surprisingly, turned out quite well. Not being a photographer type myself, I'm really impressed with what one can do with a phone and a free app.

After being looked at sort of strangely by the coast watch dudes in there tower thingy, we decided to try another location.

*WARNING* the following paragraph contains boring local history. Skip if you do so wish.

At the south end of the harbour is a sentry point from the second world war. During the second world war, Coffs Harbour was seen as a vital point in the east coast of Australia. Its about halfway between Sydney and Brisbane with good roads leading to both cities. It also had a harbour and an airfield, so it was defended quite rigorously during the war.

There were coastal patrols by locals and sentry points set up at sites along the coast. The Army cadet unit from Coffs Harbour was the only Cadet unit to ever actually do anything of importance to national security when they did armed patrols along the beaches and sentry duty along the coast. My former high school had an armoury and there was a big "secret" communications bunker (which is now a cartoon gallery) near town.

Most of the sentry points on the headlands are still there, so we headed down to the closest one, and this is what we came up with....

Before the real camera died

Waiting for my sweetheart to return

So there we go, the beginnings of Rubies assignment!

Oh, also, if your interested (your probably not though), outfit as follows, Dress: Vintage from London, Cardi: Vintage from Misfits Vintage, Shoes from "Schu", Snood from the Darling Sisters, Belt from Mum, Sweetheart pin: Antique from Sweetheart, Socks: one from Target, one from BigW. Im rubbish at matching socks once they have been in the washing machine.

I hope you are staying warm. Needless to say it is far warmer up here in Coffs than it has been in Canberra. I will be glad when winter is over!

Crocheting a blanket out of babies.

So, my sister dearest is up the duff, again. This will be her second baby and they found out a couple of weeks ago, that its a boy. Ive mentioned my niece Olivia here before, and how cool I think she is, now ill have another child to dote on during my visits up north (Oh how I wish I was there now, its freezing here in the 'bez).
As soon as Jemima told me the news, I went out and purchased blue baby yarn. Its thinner than regular yarn, and I have to say, it makes for a finer, more delicate crochet and I'm beginning to think ill have trouble parting with this blanket.

My friend Zoe is a super awesome knitter,we, along with our super awesome musical friend Laura were once perusing the yarn selection in lincraft and came upon the baby yarn...she piped up "Baby yarn, yarn made out of babies" we had a giggle, only to be shot daggers by a little old lady who had overheard our conversation....Either our sick nursing sense of humour has kicked in or someone needs to lighten up...or both...probably both.

My shift got cancelled today, and to tell you the truth, I don't really mind. I mean, ill be eating pasta bake for another week, but its pretty rainy and awesome outside, the perfect day for pottering around the house. I have a load of readings to do for the "Remote Emergency Care" course I'm doing next weekend, so today is the perfect day to curl up on the couch with a nice hot cup of tea and read my way through about 1000 pages of words that I mostly don't know the meanings of.....

Anywho, enough rambling, this is what I'm wearing today. The factory girl look is one of my fav's. Its easy, its practical and its warm. Tick, tick and tick

Outfit:

Overalls: Op-Shop

Blouse: Vintage

Head scarf: Just Jeans, years ago

So I hope everyone is staying warm, I know im trying.

Tata chickas!!

Being engaged and stuff

So, what a week it has been!

Last Wednesday, we went for a walk, and sat on our favourite fallen log, and Soldier Boy popped out a ring and said "hows about it baby" (well, more like, will you marry me, eventually), and I said yes. Then we moved to our favourite big rock sat some more, me mostly giggling. Then we came home and kinda went..."errr...what do we do now???" so we broke out the scotch/brandy and watched some TV.

Before he left too be awesome dor a while, we went and took cool photos with Sarah of Misfits Vintage. She did an awesome job. And she was wearing a cardigan with dominoes for buttons. One word....Sauceome!

So, we don't know when were actually getting married. It hasn't stopped me from trawling etsy for vintage dresses though.......

Nawww......

And a few outfit shots for good measure...

 Outfit:

Dress, Hat: Vintage

Shoes, Parasol: Retail

Brooch: Antique Australian Army sweetheart pin, Ebay

Yay!!!

Picnic

About 3 weeks ago, we went on a picnic. Im finished uni for the semester, so I can finally spend some time doing fun stuff on the internet, and off the internet.
Yay for the outdoors. I think I was a lizzard in a past life, as ive spent a considerable amount of time latley hunting for sun and just sitting, or standing very still, soaking up the limited rays as we head into a cold and lonley winter. Soldier boy is heading off for a while with the army, so dont be too alarmed if this blog goes a tad emo. Ill try to keep a level head. I tried emo before, it didnt really go well....

Jeans: made by me

Blouse: Misfits Vintage

Cardi: Op-shopped

Shoes: Big W

Snood: The Darling Sisters

I wear these jeans a lot. They are my fallbacks. They go with almost all of my blouses and they are warm. I can wear them with a snood or a scarf in my hair. Ive worn them to work (on mufti day). They are my favourites. Some people think they look silly, but I dont. I think that paying $400 for "distressed" denim is silly. 

Enough harping for one day I think.

Sam

Sauceome iPhone photography

So, if you haven't already noticed, I'm not the interwebs best ever blogger. I haven't posted in over a month, because basically, ive been saving lives in the Emergency Department of one of Canberra's hospitals. This is pretty much me at the moment:

Yeah, government really needs to boost funding...not super sanitary...

Anywho, don't own a super duper fancy camera and I cant use photo shop to save myself.
I do however have an iPhone and a mirror and not a lot of spare time, so I will FINALLY post again, with a small collection of photos I call "iPhone chic: gal on the run"

On our way to the pub! Im so excited hehe!

The "Thelma and Louise", our favourite of all poses.

And again...

Awesome gloves I got at the last "Fash n Treasure" in Canberra



Off to study after acquiring awesome wellies from the op shop at the ABC flats. Skirt and Blouse from "Misfits Vintage", Socks from "Rubi shoes"




Casual Sam. Jeans: Made by me, Blouse "The vintage nest", Bellingen; Cardi: Its a secret, Scarf: Just Jeans, Shoes: New Yorker, in Munich Germany...yeah...



So, the end of semester is coming up fast, therefore I may be doing some cool stuff soon. ANZAC day is next week, and there will definitely be photos. Its pretty much the only day of the year that I drink (Gunfire breakfast, rum in hot chocolate is a solid winner!), and Soldier Boy's unit has a good number of boys (himself included) going away to fight the war in the pacific (ok, peacekeeping in the pacific) for a while this year, so im anticipating a big day.

Anywho, must be off, have hair to do!

Toodle pip chickies!!

What I looked like

A few days ago, it was my friend Hannah's birthday. She had a lovely dinner party attended by a very select few, myself inculded. In natural Sam styles, I was way overdressed. But, it was worth it, because I just couldn't keep this bad boy in the wardrobe any longer.
I got this dress from the lovely Sarah of Misfits Vintage. Its early 1940's, and its awesome. It had a few spots with damage. Some sustained by ruffians and others which could probably be attributed to the age of the dress. I fixed them by sort of darning over the tears. It worked quite well. They are hardly noticeable anymore.

Outfit:

Dress: Vintage - Misfits Vintage

Shoes: Big W, years ago

Broch: Gift from Boyfriend

So, I hope everyone's weekend is going well,

Cheerio Pretties!!

WAG's

Wives and Girlfriends......what can I say about this unique breed of woman. To be the wife or girlfriend of a serviceman is not an easy feat. You have to put up with a lot of crap. Mainly, well in my case anyway, army (dis)organisation. Were leaving on the 8th. No, the planes broke, were leaving in a week and a half. Wait on, were leaving this afternoon....
I get that you cant set some things in stone. Sometimes, routines don't work. I work in health care. Routines don't really work at all. Something always comes up and your routine gets thrown out. You think your shift is going really well, then 4 people that need mechanical lifters all need to go to the toilet at the same time, and Mr Jones has a fall. You end up running between rooms with people who cant control their legs sitting on toilets, while trying to mop up the bit that missed the bowl.
So, the point is, you have to learn to be adaptable, and be OK with it.
Anyway, the reason I'm writing this dribble on my blog about clothes and stuff, is that I found a bunch of photos from when my Grandpop was at sea, and my Nana was livin it up...so I thought id share, as my Nana has style, at my Grandpop has cool hair.

Grandpop, chillin in Venezuela

Nana and the Girls chillin at redcar, or Blackpool or some other British beach with a colour in the name.

Old mate, sleeping in the background

And Grandpops hair. I think he wanted to be Dirk Bogard

So, there we have it. Some styles from the Grandparentals. Nana being awesome and Grandpop having hipster in 2011 hair. My Grandparents kind of rock.

Cheerio...

makin stuff...

Ok, so, Sarah of Misfits Vintage posted this pay it forward and I was one of the first 5 to comment, so here we are. Paying it forward. 5 comments, maybe a stretch, we'll give it a go eh?....



I'm sorry I've been so absent, I just haven't been motivated to blog at the moment. Its probably the combination of working like a crazy person and it being too hot to wear anything cute and too humid to spend ages on hair that wont work, so I'm hoping that it will cool down soon, and swing also starts back up again this week, and ill find something cool to write about.
So anyway, if your one of the first 5 people to comment, ill make you something cool, so come on, get to it!

Re-fashion?

So, one of my first posts was after "The way we wear" vintage fashion fair, and I showed you guys an awesome dress I purchased. If you don't remember or are new around here, this is the original post, and here is a picture of the dress.

 So, the plan was to turn the dress into a skirt, because it was tiny. I'm pretty sure it was made for a child. I recently started setting up my sewing room, and finally got around to chopping it in half and making it wearable! Yay! This is how it turned out...

I look super tall or something here. I assure you, I'm not.

Skirt: Vintage: Re-fashioned by me
Blouse: Op-shopped
Shoes: Old bus depot markets

Please excuse my empty book case. I haven't got round to moving my books in yet.

So basically, I just separated the bodice from the skirt and made a waistband out of the bodice fabric, attached it and re-inserted the zipper in pretty much the same spot. I probably could have used more interfacing to stabilize the waistband but it turned out pretty well I think.

Hope your week is going well!

Ciao Lovies

Hair cuts and police hats

So, 4 days ago an important decision was made. One that will change my life for the next 2 weeks or so.....I got a hair cut! Its now quite short. My hair is outrageous and grows like mould in the shower (really quickly) so its not really a big decision. If its doesn't turn out well, it will only be a short time until it returns to half decency. It turned out OK. A little hard to pin curl, but i rag curled it the other day and it turned out OK. I need to make my sections bigger so it doesn't frizz as much.

Anywho, moving on from my hair, one of Harry's friends is moving to Melbourne to join Victoria Police, so last night we went out on the town. It was super exciting. Filled with unique and fascinating bars and people, oozing with zing and pzazz.....well not really. One can dream. It was a bunch of dudes, me and another WAG Hannah. It was fun. The boys are entertaining. Hannah is a cool chic, she's also a chic and she doesn't talk about guns and trucks and she uses words, not acronyms (the boys are all in the Army, hence never knowing what they are talking about).

We went to a bar that specializes in foreign beers, particularly German and the likes. The also have awesome food. I drank most of a giant beer and donated the remains. Ate a chocolate hazelnut calzone, and drank an incredibly strong long island ice tea, hence my headache this morning. 



The original Glamour Couple! 



Anywho, this is what I wore, I finally caught up with like 2007 and got an iPhone so sorry about the grainy photos. I'm really bad at blogging and always forget my camera lol... 



Outfit:
Top: Cotton On like 3 years ago (after my bag got left behind on my flight to Big Day Out)
Skirt, scarf, cardi: Op Shopped
Belt: Gift from Mum
Shoes: Vintage, One Legged Jockey
Bag: Vintage, from a fair, don't remember the name.



 So, I hope you are having a good weekend. Keep up the good work!

Toodle pip!

Nana in suits

I love a good suit. It says "I mean business". Even if your just on your Sunday walk.
As i said in my last post, I spent Christmas in Melbourne with my Mums family. For Christmas, my Mum got this mini scanner thingo of my Dad, so while we were there, we had a field day scanning old photos that belong to my grandparents.
One recurring theme with photos of my Nana is suits. She loved suits. When I travel back in time I'm telling her to keep all her clothes for her awesome future grand daughter because she had style!

So, without further ado, here they are, my Nana in suits!

Suits and babies...also telling her to keep that pram how sweet is it!!!

Just out walking in the countryside, in a suit

Toodle pip lovies,

Sam

xoxo