travel // copenhagen

27 May 2012


2012_05_05 Copenhagen day 1 copy

2012_05_05 Copenhagen day 1 copy

2012_05_05 Copenhagen day 1 copy
I'm going a bit post crazy today! Or as Kanye would say... cray. I've finally gotten around to posting about my long weekend in Copenhagen from the start of the month and it's over on my travel blog here.

friends // laura k covers one direction




My friend Laura K has done a totally ace cover of One Direction's What Makes You Beautiful. She's been getting comments like "I actually just enjoyed a One Direction song". I still think people don't want to admit their songs are catchy. Go Swedish songwriters.

shopping // present and correct

26 May 2012


Present & Correct is one of my favourite online stores and blogs. They have amazing vintage and no-so-vintage stationery and gifts and style every product brilliantly. Their blog is full of stationery and design related gems from old prints to cards to furniture. In other words, just go and check it out! I've bought washi tape and maps of NYC from them before.

bake off 2012 // letizia cup

23 May 2012

2012_05_19 Bake Off copy
My competition cake - the Battenburg.

Ahh, that time of the year where everyone bakes three cakes in a day to bring to someone's house so everyone there can judge them on their cakes. Sounds awful right? Nahhh, the bake off is always fun, but I feel a little baked out now! I also came crashing down after the world's biggest sugar high. Eating that much sugar is just like having a hangover, except you skip the fun-woozy-drunk bit and just go straight to the feeling-awful-and-needing-lots-of-water bit.

I came second after Craig who must have won some serious points for the "originality" category (one that I failed to remember because I would've come up with something a little more inventive than a lemon and lime tart) with his apple pie baked into a cake.

2012_05_19 Bake Off copy
Seth's Battenburg

2012_05_19 Bake Off copy
Craig's Battenburg

CITRUS
2012_05_19 Bake Off copy
Seth's 3 layer lemon cake

2012_05_19 Bake Off copy
Craig's orange white chocolate pecan cheesecake

2012_05_19 Bake Off copy
My lemon and lime tart (that did win overall in the "taste" category)

FREESTYLE
2012_05_19 Bake Off copy
Seth's chocolate sheet cake

2012_05_19 Bake Off copy
Craig's apple surprise cake (aka has a baked apple pie inside)

2012_05_19 Bake Off copy
My s'mores cupcakes - biscuit base, chocolate cake with a peanut butter filling and marshmallow/meringue icing

blogs // the beauty department

17 May 2012



Admittedly I was never much a fan of The Hills, but I am a big big fan of Lauren Conrad's beauty blog that she runs with celebrity make up artist Amy Nadine and celebrity colourist Kristin Ess. Just about every time they post something new, I pin it on Pinterest, but I've just discovered they have their own Pinterest so now I can repin to my heart's content!


books // interiors by martyn thompson

16 May 2012


If it's possible to be in love with a house, then I'm definitely in love with this one. I could imagine myself living in Thomas O'Brien's house very happily. These photographs are by Martyn Thompson and are included in his book Interiors - a gorgeous interiors book full of people's houses and amazing, well, interiors! It's inspiring me a lot to nest at the moment... not a great thing when I'm moving countries in a few months!









Interiors by Martyn Thompson. Published by Hardie Grant. £30.00 Hardback.

a week of theatre and zach braff

11 May 2012

One of the perks of living in London is definitely cheap theatre tickets - much better than New York when I was there a few years ago anyway. I booked a lot of shows a while ago and they just so happened to all fall in the same week. 

WEDNESDAY
Gross und Klein @ Barbican
My week of theatre kicked off with Gross und Klein (Big and Small) starring Cate Blanchett. She was phenomenal and such a joy to watch on stage. The play itself was quite confusing and we were lucky enough to have bought tickets for the performance that included a Q&A with the cast afterwards. Cate told her friends who were coming to see the play to "just let go and don't think too much about it". I wish she'd told me that beforehand too! The Q&A proved very interesting especially when a lady said the playwright was a racial supremacist and why was the cast endorsing his views by performing it around the world. Cate's answer was very diplomatic but she found it curious that the lady had travelled across the world to see the play again and ask the same question as she did in Sydney. It really irritated one of the other actors though - he took the mic from Cate and responded quite angrily in favour of the playwright. Controversial!



FRIDAY
Matilda the Musical @ Cambridge Theatre
Mel and I took Tammie for her birthday and we went the week it won a bunch of Olivier awards. It was a great musical! The girl who played Matilda made her West End debut that night so I think she was pretty nervous and maybe didn't perform at her very best. The music (go Tim Minchin!) and set and choreography was fantastic and the cast of kids singing and dancing together were amazing! The littlest boy was Asian and just so adorable I almost cried everytime he was on stage from his cuteness. They must have had a large budget for the set because it was amazing from the start. The whole stage was surrounded with coloured canvases that looked like books (see dodgy photo). The guy (yes, guy) who played Miss Trunchbald completely stole the show and was absolutely hilarious! Instead of being terrifying like she was in the movie, she was slightly paranoid with outbursts of anger and comical bodily ticks.



MONDAY
All New People @ Duke of York's
This is a pretty exciting one. I didn't know Zach Braff had written and would be starring in a play until I started seeing posters for it on the tube. It was funny, but deeper than I expected it to be, but then again Garden State wasn't exactly a flat out comedy. The play was about Charlie (Zach) who was trying to commit suicide by hanging himself in a beach house. He's found by another character and eventually joined by two more to make up a cast of four. Throughout the play a big screen would drop down and a short clip would play as a flashback to one of the character's lives. It touched on religion, life and death, and some why-are-we-here kinda stuff. Lots of swearing, drinking and drug taking too, but I really enjoyed it. Zach has a pretty booming voice when he's performing too! 


It was Laura's birthday and I'd been saying for ages that we'd go to stage door and meet him. Some of us didn't seem that enthused to wait around but I insisted we should give it 5 minutes and then Zach came out and we all got really really excited. He stood up on his tippy toes and waved to everyone, then announced "And now I sign shit!" He was such a nice guy, very humble and grateful and was outside signing/taking photos for about half an hour and he did it after every show. We all managed to get something signed and a photo with him except Laura! She got a bit shy and just as I was going to ask him, he said he had to go and dashed off! But it's okay because I did some photoshopped for her. I must admit I was pretty gleeful because he gave me lots of eye contact (gotta admit his eyes are SO blue and pretty. Could I fangirl any more right now?) and there's a photo where he looks a bit in love with me and touching my shoulder (see below). He started signing my program and I felt like I had to say something so "it's so nice to meet you! I've been such a big fan for ages" and he said "thank you!" We got a photo and my 20 seconds of interaction with Zach Braff was over.



THURSDAY
Singin' in the Rain
This is only my favourite musical of all time. I can quote it and I do believe I know all the words to all the songs. We had seats up in the very heavens but it was still brilliant. I'd love to see it again closer to the stage to see some more of the fancy footwork and costumes. The big dance numbers were so good and Adam who played Don Lockwood was amazing. He played adult Billy Elliot in the movie which is why I recognised him - he was only in it for a couple of minutes but my brain is great for retaining faces I've seen in movies or television. Like when Tammie and I spotted one of the actors from the BBC miniseries Songbird at Leicester Square tube after seeing Matilda.



FRIDAY
Naked Boys Singing
This was a present from Craig and Jon and totally hilarious. There were songs about circumcision, masturbation and trying to hide erections in the boys change room in high school and then they all got their kits off and sang/pranced around nude, hahaha.

coffee in copenhagen

9 May 2012


Just a quick post with one of a photo from my long weekend in Copenhagen. I'm still editing photos as I tried shooting everything manually (thanks to some skills I've picked up at my photography course) and as a result I have 100s of images to sort through! A big big photo post will be coming on my travel blog - universal traveller.

links // link it

4 May 2012

Photo by Max Wanger

A quick links post before the long weekend... I'm off to Copenhagen so won't be blogging for a few days. I've got some ideas for posts lined up for when I get back, so you'll be seeing a bit more of me!

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