Happy Birthday Miss.

Happy Birthday Rosemary! What a sweet miss you are.

xx

Vintage birthday card from Zero Disciplines flickr.

Another lovely Kraftbomb.

Alex with the stall.

After another very successful Kraftbomb yesterday, I had lovely 10 hour sleep and am now enjoying a breakfast of tea and left over cupcakes. The best start to another week anyone could ask for I think!

Although Kraftbomb wasn't quite the mad house it was the first time round, it was still such a great day and our stall did pretty well. We also made sure we didn't miss out on Fred's lemonade this time which was just as delicious, if not more, then everyone told us! Karla and City also organised a bake sale this time to raise funds for the advertising for the next Kraftbomb (which will be in the bigger hall!) and we enjoyed snacking on these delightfully nutrious skull biscuits. Those are some yormy rasin eyes!

Alex joined Jess and I on the stall this time, with her lovely button necklaces and they were a hit.


A great day indeed. The Cardboard Box zine launched too with great success. I picked up two copies- one to keep fresh and one to read. Hope that's not too odd. And we made it into the blog review! With a little help from Jess I must admit but was lovely to see us in print anyway.

My favourite thing of the day would have to be Trixie Delicious' leg and arm draft stoppers. I didn't manage to snap a picture sorry!

Kraftbomb.

Don't forget tomorrow! Jess, Alex, Rosemary and I have got a bunch of pretty new things to see. xx

New things.

Since Swonderful will soon be stocked full of amazing new things we thought it was about time we update our shop too. Finally we've got the hedgehogs up and a whole lot of other fancy treats. Visit our shop here for a good old nosey.

We also just posted off these two precious owls in the hope they will be stocked in a new place opening in Auckland. Come on little owls, charm the pants off them!

On the move.

So our favourite store Swonderful is on the move. But they're not going too far, just from Brooklyn to Downtown. Into a lovely place at 95 Victoria Street. And with the move comes new stock!

Because Fran and Ginny are so delightful, they saved me from sporting a bare bottom at my graduation at the begining of this year, with two days to spare they whipped up a gorgeous dress which I've worn weekly since! Now the dress has made it in store in the most amazing yellow. The perfect summer dress and I'm now pining after one of their new seaside tops! To see the rest of their new stuff you best hussle along to the opening of the new store on the 11th of October- as I have a feeling this pieces won't be around for long!

Here's me in my very own Grad dress. Ignore the naff cape!

Going Crabbie.

After a full on weekend volunteering at ANZFW I am now left with more than a few things on my must try on myself list. Of course everything looked amazing on the models but could they look so lovely on me? I will endevour to find out.

One of the models, Derya, had on a pair of these pants from Miss Crabb, I managed to wiggle my way through the crowds of models in the Designer Collection show (there was over 120 changes in this show!) to ask her where they came from, I had my fingers crossed they weren't 'vintage' as they looked like the could have been. But alas the accessible Miss Crabb on Ponsonby Road. Wish me luck! I'm hoping my pins look as good as hers in these babies.

And I nearly forgot to mention. I finally wore the lace dress! Rosemary kindly took it up for me and it was a hit.

Part Two.

We are into the second month of Kraftbomb. Hooray. The next one is coming up on this Sunday, the 28th. Same place and same time, and Jess, Rosemary and I will be there on our stall again too. Hope to see y'all there if you're free! Time to get our crafty fingers to work once more.

Love hearts.

Chelsea Thorpe

Last night I was lucky enough to get to see two ANZFW shows. Chelsea Thorpe's splendid collection and Stolen Girlfriends Club's, Pretty Vacant. The shows were complete polar opposites.

I loved Chelsea's colour palatte, predominately black and cream with splashes of limes and moss greens. The photo's of the show I've seen don't quite do it justice. The colours were much more vibrant in the flesh. The velvet pieces (yes, I never thought I'd say it) and her silk layering roughly chopped we my favourites and I'll be definately tracking some of it down come next winter.

The Stolen Girlfriends Club show was much more laid back, held off site in the DHL warehouse in Morningside and the collection was well suited to the venue. An abundance of tartan, tulle, raw edges, beanies, doc martins, barbwire, safety pins, lace and hearts. Although it might take me a while to come round to their heavily punk themed goodies I did find a heartshaped tartan and lace bodice quite tempting.

The show was particulary special to Rosemary and I this year, as our crafting fingers went to work on the Pretty Vacant love hearts pinned to the garments. I felt like a proud mother watching them go down the run way and it quickly became a game of spot the hearts. I particulary loved the crotch placement of one and one of the dresses was covered in them.

Our handwork before sending them off.

Runway reporter Chloe de Ridder noted "They also got worked up on love (hearts were huge)". After the shows we were let loose on drinks served in jars and from an upturned mini, while The Tutts played out the side of a DHL truck. My middle week shaped up quite nicely.

Jess and I are volunteering for the rest of the week and weekend. Can't wait.

You can see most of the collection here and Chelsea's show here.

The Clingstone House.

Lately I've found I'm really drawn to houses. Is this called growing up? Is it part of some kind of natural progression, like some kind of clucking for real estate? We went to Manly Beach this past weekend an found a place I would die to own. I even started to calculate what I would need to do in order to afford it. Alot it seems, as the place was beach front and enormous, part bed and breakfast, part home. My heart, though, is set on it.. or was until I saw this place.






The Clingstone house.

A 103-year-old mansion in Rhode Island's Narragansett Bay. The house is owned by Mr. Henry Wood, a 79-year-old Boston architect who bought the house with his ex-wife Joan in 1961 for $3,600. It has an incredible 23 rooms and 64 windows. This place is beautiful but as it's not the most practical of homes it's only used two weeks of the year. It reminds of the house on the cliff in Lemony Snicket's A Serious of Unfortunate Events. Magnificent and the beautiful photography of Erik Jacobs helps too.

Photographs are Erik Jacobs' for The New York Times.

A View To Grey and Green.

More colour collections from A View To's blog. So oddly beautiful. These would make wonderful prints I think- these are my favourites, I love the bunny and the whistle in the grey and rosette-type badge in the green.

There are many more for those of you curious on A View To here.

That lace dress in the dress up's.. it really must come up for air. Loving her look but not completely sure I could pull it off quite as well!
Image from Lookbook.

Happy Birthday Gin and Swonderful!

You rock. I hope you have a swonderful day in swellington! xx

A View To's Collections.

A View To has been doing some visual posts this week of what I think are her personal collections. In small colour blocks they are definately worth a look. This black and white collection is my favourite so far- I'm hoping there is more to come.

Feeling Pretty Spoilt

I thought I would show off some of the lovely gifts I recieved for my birthday. I was pretty spoilt this year and apparently I still have gifts to come! The BF has something especially secretive coming in the mail and I have an inkling it's something from Etsy, eek! Cannot wait.

A beautiful owl print from my good (and very talented) friend, Jess. And a batch of delicious cupcakes from Trace, mint and chocolate. Yum, yum, yum!

A super special bat necklace from Catalina's new collection! Cat sells her gears through Endemic World and her new collection is showing at Fashion Week this year too. And below some very helpful (and pretty) travel books for the future (thanks Steve!). Thanks so much to all who have spoilt me this year with messages and gifts. xx

P.S. The Rio one of these is really good!

Birthday Girl.

It was my birthday yesterday and what a day it was.

After some very enjoyable pre-birthday celebrations on the weekend, I caught a nasty cold and conjunctivitis! Ew. So yesterday was spent off work and the morning in bed feeling rather sorry for myself. But thanks to an overload of birthday wishes from good friends and a delicious lunch and hand picked flowers courtesy of the BF, my frown turned upside down.

Thank you to all my friends, y'all made my day.

Lily xx

Kraftbomb

Jess and I setting up, I'm looking particulary goofy!

The stall all ready to go.

Kraftbomb was a complete success! A great day indeed. The first few hours were ridiculously manic and the last hour was lovely and quiet- so a note for next time, don't come right at 1 cause you will get lost in the crowds! Unfortunately in all the rush Jess and I were both cameraless so no pictures to show from us but there are some great ones up on the Kraftbomb blog and City's flickr (that's where I snuck this one of our stall from, thanks City!).

But thank you to everyone who came to visit and I hope you all came away with something great. I finally bought myself a Birdspoke necklace! It is an all native birds one and I will photograph it asap. I think the fact they're birds from home will be nice when Rosemary and I head off overseas, or maybe that was just the excuse I came up with to buy it.

I also go some of R.W Scissors brilliant braille tags and a greatest Geek Freeks magnet for the boyfriend who was at home nursing a sprained ankle.

The next Kraftbomb is at the end of September if you missed out this time. Can't wait!