Shopping Part 2 - The Thrift Edition

So I mentioned yesterday that my friend and I hit a few op shops (thrift, charity, what have you). My purchases have now all been washed and dried, and photographed for your viewing pleasure! So without further ado:

Purchases 1 & 2: I am a cardigan addict and never leave the house without some sort of cardigan/bolero/shrug, no matter how hot the weather. Most of mine have long sleeves so I was pretty happy to find these short sleeved ones, which will be a little more comfortable to wear in the constant heat where I live. I've grouped these two together because they're actually the same brand and style, just in different colours. The brand is called Master & Margarita, which I've never heard of before, but they feel like good quality and both are in really good condition. The black one cost me $5 and the mustardy yellow one was $3.

Purchase 3: Another cute little bolero I found was this this black one. It has a lacy trim and ties up in the front, so its a little more delicate and feminine than the other two I bought. Again this one is very light and feels like it will be comfortable in the hot weather. The brand is Jacqui E and the cost was $3.

Purchase 4: This dress is definitely one of my favourite buys. Its a brown floaty layered dress by Jacqui E. It fits really nicely, except that the shoulder straps have been stretched out, but I can easily take them in. I love the light, flowy fabric and cinched waist. I don't know how much this would have cost new, but Jacqui E isn't cheap, so I was thrilled when I saw the price tag on this one was only one dollar! That's right, $1. Simply because the straps are all stretched out so it needs a little sewing. Awesome score, I think!

Purchase 5: I love this top. Its in perfect condition and is so pretty and feminine. I've been on this kick of wanting everything to be delicate and floaty. Maybe I just want fabric that flies in the wind when I go on bike rides lol. In any case, this is another light, flowy item that fits the bill. I love the lace and the little buttons. I love dainty little buttons, they're a weakness of mine. The brand is Target and I got the blouse for $5.

Purchase 6: A tablecloth. Stay with me. I've been looking at online tutorials on how to make circle skirts, and  found quite a few which make them from old sheets, tablecloths or whatever else you may have available to re-purpose. With this in mind I kept my eye out for such things while shopping, and saw this gorgeous tablecloth. Its already circular, so that saved me some time in cutting it to the right shape, and it had this gorgeous little detailing on the edge that I thought was perfect.
I'm not much of a seamstress, my sewing skills are pretty much limited to fixing the occasional fallen hem and such, so I was pretty nervous (but super enthusiastic!) to start this project. I stayed up much of last night finishing it and I think I did a decent job for my first attempt. There were a few problems, the first of which was that the waist hem (where I cut) was fraying more than I had hoped. I'm going to get some ribbon or something to trim the waistband so prevent further fraying. Secondly, I finished sewing in the waistband, tried the skirt on and it was too long! So I'm going to need to unpick all the stitching in the waistband and sew it down lower to shorten the skirt. This will actually work out well because then there will be more fabric to gather around the waist and I think that will look nicer. Its just so much work! I should probably mention I don't have a sewing machine so all my sewing is done by hand. CHORE!
Anyway, I'm still pretty proud of myself for doing it, and I'll be prouder still when I shorten it and actually have a wearable skirt!

Sha-sha-sha-shopping! :)

Today I went shopping with a friend and our daughters. She's studying beauty therapy and gets industry discounts at the warehouse stores, and when I go with her I do too! So once every month or two I'll go with her to stock up on essentials like bleach and shampoo, and get some treats for myself too. In addition to the beauty supply place, we also went to a discount store and a few op shops (also known as charity or second hand stores, we call them op shops here). I forgot to take photos on my second-hand treasures before I put them in the washing machine, and now they're all wet (but clean!), so I'll share them tomorrow.


Firstly, I snagged this OPI nail polish. It was on clearance and only $6.50, so a freaking bargain compared to their normal retail of around $20. The shade is called Goldeneye. I  have quite a few glitter polishes, but I didn't have a gold so I'm pretty pleased that this one was on special!








The next three nail polishes were purchased at the discount store we visited. I haven't tried them yet so I don't know how good the quality is, but I use cheap nail polishes all the time with very few problems.
This one is a really nice browny nude, kind of like the colour of very milky tea. Actually I might even call it that! These ones only have numbers for the shades and not names. The brand is one I've never heard of, Tips and Toes, and the shade is 05.





Onto much brighter shades! The Tips and Toes brand also had a few neon shades. I'm not really a neon kind of person, but I thought I'd grab a couple anyway because they were so cheap, and I love adding to my nail polish collection. I like to have a lot of options and hate when I decide on an idea for nail art and then find I'm missing a colour. Fortunately as my collection grows, I'm finding that happens less often! This is a neon orange, the shade is number 81.





What? More nail polish? Yes. I have a problem, okay! Another Tips and Toes one. These were all only $2 each by the way. This is the only other neon I bought, although they also had blue, pink, purple, yellow and maybe others.









I thought the ends of my hair could benefit from some sort of treatment to help smooth them and make them feel a little stronger and healthier. I use De Lorenzo for my shampoo and conditioner and have been really happy with them, so I decided to give this product a try. Its called The Ends and it claims to "seal, strengthen and protect stressed out ends". I'm going to put it in before I set my hair each night, so I'll let you know how it goes.





Perhaps the least exciting to read about is the purchase of my regular toning shampoo. However, I'm sure you can understand my excitement when I tell you that usually in a salon or retail store, a 250ml bottle of this shampoo would cost around $30. I got this 500ml bottle for only $18. WHOO! I love this shampoo. I even use it as a leave-in toner when my hair is too yellow after bleaching. I just lather it onto dry hair, pop a shower cap on and leave it for however long suits me (usually at least an hour). I don't know how "good" this is for my hair, but it does a good job when I'm out of proper toner and works out a lot cheaper.



So I had an incredibly productive day. I'm very pleased with the beauty supplies I got and equally happy with my op shop purchases (can't wait to share!). I'm buzzing from the retail therapy and had a lovely day out with the girls. Hope to do it again soon!

Games are Glorious

I love playing games, so I feel its only fair to dedicate an entry to a very important pastime of mine. Its hard to know exactly where to slot myself on the gamer scale. I get crazy into games, but I play on and off, so I definitely don't fit in with the hardcore gamers. However I think I play too aggressively to be on the casual end of the spectrum, and in any case "casual gaming" summons to mind commuters playing Angry Birds on the morning train and housewives playing Draw Something in the loo.

I go through fits of addiction, sometimes they last weeks, sometimes months, but I never really stuck with a game constantly for a long period. Circa 2007 I was absolutely addicted to this MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role playing game, yes, its a mouthful) called Crazy Tao. It was awesome, it had adorable scenery and characters, pets that fought with you, a really fun system of improving your pets and items. Then they introduced currency you could purchase for real money, the in-game economy went nuts, I persevered. Until my partner at the time convinced me to join some guild. Suddenly it was all drama and bullshit and dealing with other people. Being a fairly high-ranking player and guild member, I couldn't log on without being hassled by someone to do something. It really just ruined the experience for me. So I left. I still logged in occasionally for several years after just to see what was happening, but nothing made me want to play again. Then the game shut down completely. I was super sad about that, even though I no longer played. It was so enjoyable while it lasted for me.

Some screenshots of Crazy Tao. So cute!

Another game I got really into was World of Warcraft. I started off playing the trading card game, but decided to give the MMO a bash. I loved it and found it really fun and engaging. The problem with WoW is that once you get to a certain point, you really need to play cooperatively with other people in order to progress, and for me, playing games with a bunch of random strangers just isn't fun. I logged in today after not playing since probably 2010 or 2011. I reactivated my account to try and help my son defeat a boss to get some mount he wants. I found everything cumbersome and difficult to get back into after a long period away. It seems to have changed a lot and I honestly can't be bothered investing the time needed to learn everything again. So as much as I loved WoW, I think we're over.

So I love RPGs and I love being able to play with friends, but I really don't like the free for all that is the MMO. So moving away from all that kerfuffle, I was deeply in love with Morrowind back when it came out. I have a terrible attention span for gaming, but this one I couldn't stop until I finished. The gameplay was complex and very open. You could follow the main story, which itself was interesting and compelling, or you could focus on doing side quests. I spent a lot of time running around for the Mages Guild, once my lawful good compulsions had been satisfied I also joined the Thieves Guild and the Morag Tong and sneaked my way around Tamriel like a boss. It remains one of my favourite games, and one I look forward to replaying at some point. Although its in early stages, the Skywind project,  which is a venture to rebuild Morrowind using the Skyrim engine, has me incredibly excited.
So obviously loving Morrowind so much, I was eager to get into Oblivion when it was released. But it just didn't do it for me. I really hated travelling into the Daedric planes and dealing with all the crap in there. I didn't find it anywhere near as immersive and I didn't give a toss about the story. Oblivion is loved by many, but I just didn't get into it. I had lowered my expectations by the time Skyrim was released, but despite trying not to get my hopes up too high, I was still super excited and pre-ordered it so I'd have it on release day. Skyrim, while still not as good as Morrowind, was an improvement on Oblivion. Unfortunately before getting too far in the game I moved out of my ex boyfriend's place and left my saved game on his Xbox harddrive. I recently got around to getting it for PC and playing again, and I really do enjoy it. Again, I don't find the storyline quite as compelling as Morrowind's, but the plot is reasonably interesting and there's plenty of other things to keep one occupied.

"I know! Let's ditch the brown theme and make Skyrim black.
That'll screw with people wanting to make a collage, HA!"

There are a heap more, but I could go on all day if I were to describe each and every one. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (only Vice City for some reason, the others just don't do it for me), Titan Quest, King's Bounty, Diablo 3, Folklore, Eternal Sonata, Portal, Prince of Persia. I don't really have a "type", there just needs to be something about the game that grabs me and pulls me in.

On the more casual end of the scale, I've been terribly addicted to the Professor Layton games. They're so much fun. I do love a good brain teaser, and having a cute little mystery story to go along with it lets me unleash my inner Velma Dinkley, searching for clues and solving puzzles. Tiny Bang Story is another puzzler, quite short, but very sweet and fun. Rock of Ages is amazing. I'd never have thought that rolling a boulder down a hill could be so much fun, but holy crap it was! And seriously we can't really move past this section without mentioning my oldest love, Pokemon. Yes its an RPG, but its not terribly in depth or complex and I would very much consider it on the casual side of gaming. It is a wonderful game that keeps me coming back time and time again.

Top row: Professor Layton; Middle row: Pokemon; Bottom row: Tiny Bang Story

I freaking love playing games, my kids love playing games, its a pretty integral part of our family life. So now that we've covered that, if I burst into song about a new installment of the Elder Scrolls, now you'll understand why :)

I wanna be the very best, like no one ever was!

Nail Art

Something I'm not terribly good at or experienced in, but I enjoy nonetheless is nail art. I started a few months ago just trying to do something a little different and fun. I was feeling a huge urge to paint some Warhammer miniatures, but I didn't bring any up to Darwin with me as I only had room for essentials. So I decided to give nail art a bash.

I don't have a terribly steady hand and I'm not much of a painter, so its all very amateurish stuff compared to most people who do it. But I still have fun doing it and I like having nails that are a bit more interesting and conversational than just painting them one colour.

I tend to spend very little on my nail polish. I think about $6 is probably my maximum for one bottle. I'm sure better results could be achieved with expensive brands, but I simply can't bring myself to spend $20 per colour.

So I thought today I might share a few examples of the styles I've done so hopefully someone other than myself can enjoy them. Please excuse the mess around the nails. I often take pictures before I bother doing a proper clean up of stray nail polish. Bad habit, I know.

This one was meant to resemble a night sky... but I failed lol. It was one of my earliest attempts so I suppose it isn't too bad. I used a silver base, then sponged a royal blue over it, then black on the tips. Finally I put a coat of silver glitter over the top. 

 This one was meant to look like little shirts with peter pan collars. I decided to alternate colours just to make things a little less uniform. I really liked the way they came out, even if they were a little messy.

These were another attempt at sponging and getting a gradient thing happening. I'm still not very good at that. These have a silver base, with purple sponged on top and then pink lightly sponged over that.









These ones turned out pretty messy! I went for a criss cross pattern but I had nothing to keep the lines straight. It was all freehand and I'm quite bad at that. Purple base with pink lines and silver dots.

I decided to try something a little more complex, but very forgiving for those of us not great at fine detail. I did galaxy nails and loooooved them! There are quite a few steps involved with this one, so I used a tutorial instead of just winging it. I used this Youtube video for guidance. The voice over is a little dramatic, but its a good tutorial anyway. Mine didn't come out quite as perfect, but I think they still looked pretty cool.

This design is really simple, but still fun and eye-catching. I did a base of blue then painted one side black, and alternated various geometric patterns down the centre as a divider between the two colours. By now you're probably noticing I'm a big fan of blues and purples, but I think this would look great in any contrasting colours.









I really liked this design and wore them to death. It was my first time experimenting with decals and stencils. I used grey as my base, then did a stripe of baby blue on most of my nails. On either side of the baby blue I painted a fine white line to outline it. Then I started adding my stencils and decals. I like my nails to match without being the same, so I tried to keep the designs unique.



This last one was my most recent attempt at something interesting and special. Its definitely my favourite so far. I felt so girly and feminine. I alternated bases between a soft purple and a mint green. On top of that I did white stripes on some of my nails, and dots on a few others. Again, I wanted variation in design, but still have them be tied in to one another. Once the stripes and dots had dried, I used a light salmony pink and a darker browny pink to create the roses. I used a dotting tool to splodge on a rough shape of a rose, then with a fine brush, I painted some rough lines to create the look of petals. I did each rose one at a time so the light pink was still wet when painting on the darker petals, this helped them blend in nicely.

Treasures and Trinkets

My best friend's parents got back from an overseas cruise recently and today I took the kids over to see them for the first time since they got back. They gave me several lovely little souvenirs and I thought I'd share them on here.

I'm pretty sure its mandatory to bring keychains back from any overseas trip. I don't think customs will let you back in the country until they confirm you've returned with a sufficient amount of keychains to cover all of your loved ones. This was mine from Holland.

From Antwerp they brought back this lovely little charm bracelet. It features, an anchor, a sail ship or boat, a heart, the statue of Brabo, and what I think is the Cathedral of Our Lady.









In all the flurry of keeping track of the gifts being given to myself and my kids, I missed the story on this bangle. I think its from Israel, however I could be wrong. I'll check next time I see them! In any case its very cute. Also you can see my little skull guy poking out, he's not part of the bangle, but he does live on my favourite bracelet :)






One of my favourite souvenirs was this adorable little porcelain figure. I have a little kitty in this same style that I bought from a Turkish store in Melbourne a few years ago and I love it. So I was thrilled to get these cute little guys to match. This one is from Amsterdam.








From Egypt they brought me two souvenirs, the first being this Cleopatra headdress. I'm really not sporting the best hairstyle to wear this with, but its really cute and makes me want to have a flapper costume party lol. I think it would be a great accessory for that! (Also, as an aside, I think the headband curls are looking pretty good!)



The second gift from Egypt is also another favourite of mine. Its this gorgeous painting in the style of the ancient Egyptian artwork. It combines my love of kitties, ancient Egypt and GLITTER!





And finally, a bonus gift the my awesome best friend bought for me! For ages I've been wanting one of these shimmer sprays from The Body Shop, but I always felt I just couldn't justify spending the money on it. But she surprised me with one today ^_^ Now I can leave a magical cloud of pixie dust wherever I go! Thanks bunches Snow White!!! :3

If You Insist, Let's Talk About Sex

Have you ever heard the story of Snow White and Rose Red? Their story isn't as important to me as their characters. They were a pair of sisters who loved each other dearly, but were opposites in almost every way. They remind me very much of my best friend and I. We share many interests and agree on a lot of things, but we are just such different people, and frequently have rather heated discussions about life, the universe and everything.

Tonight we were chatting online while she watched Sex and the City, and apparently in this episode redhead and her boyfriend were discussing sexual partners. My best friend's reaction was "WTF Red head has slept with 42 people and her bf's number was more than 60, HOW IS THAT NORMAL lol"

A moving and thought-provoking quote from my dear friend

This got us onto the topic of sex, which is one of the many things we feel differently about. Compared to me, she's a prude; and compared to her, I'm a slut. She tends to only sleep with people she envisions having a future with, whereas I'm okay with sex simply for enjoyment's sake. I said that given the age of their characters, she's average 2-3 partners per year since the age of 20, which really isn't that much.

I think people should be free to sleep with as many people as they like without it being shocking or shameful. My thoughts are that someone who has been around and explored a lot of options is probably sexually healthier than someone who has only had one or two partners.Variety is the spice of life, and having numerous partners opens up more opportunities to explore yourself and experiment sexually. Personally, I have a pretty high sex drive, and I know that I'm happiest when I'm having that urge met. Having sexual desires and sating those desires is a healthy thing, and I'm tired of seeing sex represented in such skewed ways. I think that much of the world has a very warped view on sex. Its either being buried under the rug and not mentioned even in hushed tones, or its being thrown in our faces. I'm not exactly sure why sex can't be fairly represented for what it is rather than glorified or demonized. Sex is a healthy expression of attraction, its the uniting of two (or more) bodies for the purpose of pleasure and satisfaction. It can be a meaningful display of love and devotion, or a purely physical response to the most basic of needs.
In any case, I think that it should be treated as a positive and natural thing. There are many studies which suggest sex has many health and mood benefits, though more research needs to be done. But why should anyone feel they need be excluded from enjoying the benefits of sex. And yet, there are many people who would wish sex to be an extremely limiting experience, advocating for abstinence until marriage, filling people with guilt for giving the slightest heed to their biological urges. I find this attitude completely disgusting. While sex may not be mandatory on the list of requirements for survival, it certainly makes survival more enjoyable.

It saddens me to think of all the people stuck in sexually unsatisfying relationships, because they were discouraged from testing the waters before committing to someone, or because they discovered a certain fantasy or fetish and felt unable to talk openly with their partner about it. Without the taboos surrounding sex, more people would be able to find sexually compatible partners, and have happier, more satisfying relationships. Now I'm not saying you need to go jump into bed with the next person you see. I'm not encouraging recklessness or frivolousness. I'm simply saying that what happens between consenting individuals should be their own business, and not something of which they should be ashamed or for which they should be made to feel guilty.

I don't believe that every person who has had 50 partners must be extremely sexually healthy and happy, nor do I believe that every person who has had only one partner is deprived or frustrated. But logic would dictate that those who have had more partners have likely had a more diverse range of experiences, try new things, and find a partner who can push all of your buttons.

Now jumping to the other end of the scale, I can't even tell you how many times I see women's magazines with cover stories trying to teach women "how to please your man". Usually sandwiched between other eye-catchers about how to lose weight and what new beauty product I can't live without, some dolt is shoving their sex tips down my throat. And there's an overwhelming focus on satisfying men, not so much on increasing your own pleasure.

These writers seem to forget that sex is a two way street, and enjoyment for both parties is equally important. Rather than encouraging women to try various tricks given to them by some faceless nobody who writes for ridiculous, trashy magazines, people should be encouraged to talk openly about their likes and dislikes without fear of being judged. I've been in some wonderful sexually open partnerships. The kind where I could ask in the middle of sex "want to try this?" or spark up a conversation over dinner about fetishes. I never felt judged, and we gave each other plenty of room to express ourselves and find our comfort zones. Many women's magazines seem to be all about sexual liberation and female empowerment, but then they plaster the above kinds of stories on their cover, completely ignoring the wants of the woman in the bedroom. Perhaps they've confused empowerment with being a stepford wife, perfect in all ways, including sexually. Well bugger this. Meanwhile teens being taught "abstinence only" sex education while simultaneously being bombarded with hyper-sexualized media, society is CRAZY about sex.

Once I get started on a topic I could talk all day, but this has already been long-winded enough. At the end of the day, I don't understand why sex can't simply be treated like any other biological imperative. We like to go out to nice restaurants and enjoy the food we eat, its not necessary and could be considered needless and decadent, but no one seems to care when we relish in our food. But suddenly when we want to embrace our sexual urges all hell is going to break loose.

Lets all chill out and have a good, safe time ;)

- Rose Red

Red Lipstick and More Bikes

Seriously, I am so tired. Went shopping with the kids tonight to buy my oldest daughter her new bike. The majority of the assembly took about 2 hours, then we encountered a problem with the brakes. I won't bore you with the details, but after several more hours and countless expletives, she now has a working bike.
Again I didn't finish assemble until it was almost dark so unfortunately a family bike ride wasn't possible today. Its on the cards for tomorrow though.

Now, onto other fun things! The other day I decided to buy two cheap lipsticks, and some matching cheap lip liners and test them out. I've been looking for "the perfect red" on and off for years, but never found anything quite right. My taste has changed a little since I started my search and now I'm comfortable wearing brighter, more orangey reds than I would have been previously, so that has helped widen my options. Anyway, I thought I'd share my finds with you, because they really are great value for money for those not wanting to spend much.

First, the lip liners:

Essence lip liner - Femme Fatale

Brand: Essence
Shade: Femme Fatale
Cost: $1.95
I got this to match one of the shades of lipstick I bought, but tested it alone. I'm sure these aren't the best lip liners in the world, but they're great for the price. They applied nicely, not terribly creamy, but fine, obviously if you find it dry you can apply it over a lip balm. There was little to no feathering and it lasted well. I really liked the colour, especially when paired with lipstick.

Essence lip liner - Red Blush

Brand: Essence
Shade: Red Blush
Cost: $1.95
Much like Femme Fatale, its pretty damn good for 2 bucks. I've used quite a few Essence products now, including blush and nail polish, and they're decent. I really like my Essence blush, and the nail polishes tend to chip fairly quickly but they have a great range of colours for an awesome price. Back to the lip liner! It applies pretty well and has some staying power. Its a nice browny red colour.


Lipsticks:

Beauty Attitude - Racing Red

Brand: Beauty Attitude
Shade: Racing Red
Cost: $3.00
This lipstick looked quite bright in the tube, but came out a little bit darker than I expected. It applied quite smoothly. As far as longevity goes, this one rubbed off the fastest, but wearing it over a lip liner would probably go a long way toward helping it last longer. It goes pretty well with the Red Blush lip liner and should be modeled with duckface for best results!

Beauty Attitude - Dragon

Brand: Beauty Attitude
Shade: Dragon
Cost: $3.00
This was my favourite. I never used to be a fan of these sorts of shades, and when I first put it on, my immediate reaction was "whoa, that's bright!". After wearing it for a few minutes though I found I really liked it and it now lives in my handbag and is getting regular wear. It isn't very creamy or moisturizing, but that's easily fixed by applying balm first. Its has a nice matte finish and looks awesome with the Femme Fatale liner.

Gratuitous selfie
Dragon lipstick over Femme Fatale liner with a touch of gloss to finish

And some mess :)

Biiiiiiiiiiiiiicycle

So my Reid bicycle finally arrived. I'm really glad to have it after long weeks of waiting and numerous phone calls to find out what was going wrong, but overall I have to say I was underwhelmed.

When I first opened the box, it was a mess. I wish I'd taken a photo, but in my enthusiasm to get the bike assembled I didn't think to do so. The bike came in several pieces. The frame had the rear wheel attached, but the handle bars, front wheel, front mudguard, pedals, seat, and rear rack all needed to be fitted. It doesn't even sound like a big job, but the bike comes with no instructions, so looking at all these parts left me feeling a little overwhelmed. However, once I got the front wheels and handle bar on, everything else was much more straight forward, albeit fiddly at times. But all in all I managed to get it assembled without any major dramas.
I have zero experience assembling bikes so I'm definitely no expert, but I'd say this was a two person job. Technically its probably possible to do it alone, but there were so many times when having an extra set of hands was so incredibly helpful, especially when it required one person to hold whatever part in place and the other to screw it in.

There were quite a few problems along the way. One of the first things I noticed was that one of the spokes on the front wheel was extremely bent. I called up the Reid customer service team and they told me they would sent a new wheel right away. I've attached the bent one in the meantime as I don't think it will affect the structural integrity of the bike or make it unsafe to ride. The brown seat that it came with simply wouldn't tighten enough to stop it swiveling side to side. Fortunately I had ordered a black seat and that arrived shortly after the bike itself and I found the black one tightened up easily. Both the front and rear mudguard sit extremely askew. I've straightened them as much as I'm able but they simply refuse to sit straight over the wheels. There were numerous little nicks and chips in the paint, which was probably the most disappointing thing to me. When you buy anything new, at least part of the reason you choose to buy new rather than used is so you can have that perfect shiny thing all to yourself before it starts getting banged up and worn, so when I noticed the chips I was pretty sad. When I finally had the whole thing assembled and thought I was ready to go, I wheeled it across the room and heard a god-awful grinding. Upon inspection, I found that the chain guard was actually touching the chain. The metal is very light and easily manipulated, so simply bending the chain guard out in the relevant spot fixed that problem. Yay, off I go! What, more grinding? This time it was coming from the rear of the chain and wasn't as easy to spot the problem. I had to turn the bike upside down before finding a small piece of metal the clamped around the mudguard was the culprit. It was not sitting snug against the mudguard and was sticking out rubbing on the wheel. Again, this was thin metal and easily folded inward so it was sitting as it should be. This solved the issue of the awful noises and now the bike seems to run smoothly and quietly.

Some examples of the flaws in the paintwork and frame

SO, I finally have a bike! I haven't taken it for a proper test ride yet, as it was nearing dusk when I finally finished the assembly, but I think I'll take her out for a spin tomorrow. I did have a very brief ride across the yard, but there's literally only about 10 metres of space so it was just a roll along rather than an actual ride. I'm looking forward to taking it out though. Hopefully the weather tomorrow is accommodating. Overall I'm happy with it. There were some less than wonderful factors, but in their defense, I paid $200 for the bike. If I'd been willing to pay $400 or more I probably could have gotten something higher quality but I wanted a vintage style bike on a tight budget. I do think its really pretty and it felt comfy on my test roll. I guess I won't have a final verdict until after I've had a good ride, but it is a really cute bike for an awesome price. I also have to say, for all the hassles and delays in getting the order out to me, I still had some great experience with their customer service team. I still really wish I'd gotten a perfect paint job though!

One ruined manicure and 3 hours later... TA-DAAAAAAAAA

Her name is Betty :)

Headband Curls and No Bike!

 The tracking website which has the details for the delivery of my new bicycle had an ETA of today, so I was really hoping it would arrive. Around 8:30 this morning I called up the courier company and asked them if it was likely to arrive so I could make sure I was home. They told me their shipment from Adelaide was still being unloaded and took my details to call me when they were done unpacking.
By about 12 I was getting anxious. As I mentioned briefly before, there were a lot of problems trying to get my bike delivered, so I think I was justified in feeling nervous. I called them back again to find my bike is indeed there! However the address only lists my street number, and not the number of the unit I'm in. So delivery has been delayed another day :( But at least its in the right city now!

Last night I decided to try headband curls. When my hair is longer it changes its mind daily about whether to be straight or wavy, but I very much prefer it wavy. My hair is short at the moment however, and sits almost dead straight and I hate it. So I've been experimenting with various ways of curling my hair. It gets bleached and coloured a lot, so I try and keep heat off it wherever possible. Thus, I've been looking into heat-free curling methods.
Because my hair is layered, pin curls can be a bit of a pain, so I decided to try the headband curls and see how they went for me. They turned out alright. They certainly hold well, but I wasn't thrilled with the shape of them. I think that could probably be remedied though with either a different headband, or better rolling technique. Most of the tutorials I've seen have people with longer hair, so I took some pictures to share the process and result in case anyone was interested in seeing it in short hair.

Stupid straight hair

Here's the 'before' pic. Please excuse the panda eyes and lack of makeup. As you can see my hair is quite straight and sits just on my shoulders. It had been freshly washed and I allowed it to air-dry.

Left side done

So, I only took a couple of pictures while I was putting it up. Its pretty easy though. You just slip the headband over your head  and begin looping the hair over and inward from where it sits below the headband. If you're not quite clear on what I mean, here's a Youtube tutorial that shows you exactly what to do. My only advice in addition to the method in the video is to bobby pin as you go. My shorter bits would try and escape when I was tucking in the next section, so bobby pins helped keep everything tucked in. Here's my head half done.

Ahhh, that's better

Oh no! Can't Seeeee!

So once I'd gone all the way around my head, I still had my shorter fringe bits out. I didn't think they were long enough to get a decent curl by tucking them around, so I just chose to pin curl that section. One roll did fine.

Rear view

Looking not at all ridiculous

So now I'm ready to sleep in it. I read a few different tutorials before going ahead with this to see what people recommend. Some people suggest only leaving it in for a few hours rather than sleeping on it (if possible) as the curls tend to be too much if left in overnight. I decided to try overnight mostly because I wouldn't have time to wait for it to set the following morning, but also because my hair tends to dislike doing what its told so I thought it could do with the extra time. I found the curl held all day without any problem, so people who have and easier time with their hair may find a few hours is plenty. I'd suggest giving both a try if you have the time. Just try whatever you can and see what works for you.

Oh god, what have I done?

Now, fast forward to the next morning! I did my makeup and stuff first because the headband was already keeping my hair out of the way, so I figured why not.
When I first took out all the pins and removed the headband, I had some very tight, kinked curls. They did not look very pretty!

Looking a bit like a clown wig lol

Fluff!

To the left is how my hair looked after loosening all the curls and giving my hair a brush through with my fingers.

To the right is the result of brushing it properly. I know it still looks weird, but I'm actually kind of fond of the fluffy curls.





I spritzed it with a little water to help tame the mane, and this is how it looked after the water, a little finger styling, and allowing it to relax for awhile. Although they didn't quite turn out the way I'd hoped, I think I can definitely improve it. I'm thinking next time I'll wrap my headband in t-shirt material to fill it out into a rounded shape, and also take more care with my technique to ensure the hair isn't kinking under the headband. I think I may also need some type of serum or styling something to put in my ends to help prevent frizz. There may be better curling methods out there, but I really love how quick and easy this is, so I'm going to keep working at it to try and perfect it.