DIVA!

My beautiful BFF Chelsea and I decided on a whim to enter a competition to find Australia's Favourite BFFs, run by the most excellent costume jewellery company - Diva.

The prize was an all expenses paid weekend in Sydney to shoot Diva's  'BFFs Before Boys' collection.

We entered the competition with a photo from a shoot we did together for our wonderful friend Tarsh's graduate collection from QUT BA Fashion.

Natashya Manfield "Lovers Lane' collection shot by Jason Paparoulas

20 finalists (10 pairs) were selected from the amount of Facebook 'likes' each entry received. Amazingly, even though we entered late in the game, we got through - all thanks to our helpful Facebook friends.

We then had to make a video about our friendship. Luckily Chelsea had met a lovely chappy called Romesh, who is in the business of film and offered to help us out. I can't say I was particularly articulate in this video - I tend to waffle on and poor Romesh had a hard time chopping anything I said into bite size pieces, so we just used Chelsea's gems and managed to make it into the top 5 of the competition.

A frame from our little video

After a few days of anxious waiting, it was time to announce the winner and .... Ta-daaa - It was us!

I actually still can't believe we won, I never win anything, so this was a nice little change in fate.

The next Friday morning we were on a plane to Sydney. We were chauffeured straight from the airport to the photoshoot (which was fabulous, everybody was fantastic and we managed to smash it out in about an hour and a half instead of the expected 4 hours), then back to our hotel, then to dinner at Sydney Point Tower (the revolving restaurant) (apparently spinning - even at a stupidly slow speed - does not agree with me. For the first time in my life I abandoned an almost full cocktail! Egad!)

walking into the amazing Sun Studios, inspiration sheets, freebies, morning coffee, having a bit of a pose, our hair and makeup done by the fabulous Jody Oliver

The next day we were treated to a shopping spree at Seduce. Chels and I had a fabulous time playing dress ups. The hardest part was having to try on and choose everything we wanted in less than two hours (I know, poor us...don't worry, we managed).

(p.s I ended up getting the first divine rust coloured dress and the third delicious caramel coat)

After our little spree we were taken over to Crows Nest for a fabulous facial (not the namby-pamby type facial but a full on medicinal facial, complete with electrodes!) and received some great makeup to take home by the salons brand - DMK (really good coverage makeup by the way, they have a much higher pigmentation ratio so are excellent for covering up any mishaps you may have on your face).

Then we were back into the city to get our hair blow-dried at John Azzi's salon. Although it started off a bit shaky...  Chelsea was abandoned, then when they remembered about her they got a brush stuck in her hair and joked that they'd have to cut it out (a warning to all, never joke to Chelsea about her hair) and then just took a super long time to finish her hairstyle so I had to reschedule our dinner reservations. Anyway, my blow-dry was drama free and both of our heads looked spectacular upon completion.

So Shiny!

We then rushed over to Coast restaurant on the harbour (absolutely beautiful restaurant, even though it did take us about 20 minutes to find the damn place... perhaps that says more about our direction skills/lack thereof than the location of the restaurant though...) for some delicious food and were treated to a beautiful fireworks display right outside the restaurant on the water. (We were in Sydney for Mardi Gras festival so everyone was celebrating.)

After dinner we attempted to go out and join the festivities. Alas, it was cold, we were tired, there were so many creeps out and about so we just decided to go home and get some sleep before our early morning flight the next day.

Fast forward about a month and our posters are finally up over all Diva stores in Australia and New Zealand. Chelsea and I are planning a lunch date this week so we can actually not eat lunch but instead take our photo with our posters like the gigantic nerds we are. Weeeeee!

xxxx

you are my cuppycake gumdrop schnookity schnookums you're, the apple of my eye!

I made these cupcakes a few weeks ago for my lovely friend Marnie's hen's night. Darling Safa organised a beautifully themed high-tea party and we sipped champagne from teapots and ate these little cuties all afternoon before surrendering to the inner bogan and heading to the surf club for a round of vodkas and pokies.
xx

this week.

i don't want to feel lost anymore.

 I am possibly the worst Valentine ever. Which is funny to me, because I tend to think of romanticism as my forte. I'm starting to think now that this was only because in the past I've been the one making the effort, so obviously nothing compared to something seems like a lot and therefore any faux pas could be excused. But now that the level of my own romantic tendencies has been measured against those of a gentleman well versed in the ways of heartfelt gestures, my personal ranking seems to be slipping.

Of course my valentines folly was unintentional. Terrible time management skills and an inclination towards procrastination, coupled with what I am now concerned may be fits of narcolepsy are the real culprits. If Valentines day was judged upon how much you adore your beloved, or how well you wanted the day to go, or how grandiose the plans in your head were; then there would be no blog post today and I would be basking in the afterglow of my most favourite Valentines day yet.

As it stands, I am racked with guilt for being an hour and fifteen minutes late for my date, turning up with a very sad excuse for a cake and then promptly falling asleep once dinner was finished. This is clearly terrible behaviour and I would fully expect to be punished by the love gods for my misbehaviour if this were any ordinary day and any ordinary date. But when my misdemeanours fall on Valentines day - the one day you're supposed to get it right on, and when the boy on the receiving end of my folly has put days of effort into making everything just right,  lets just say that I will not be surprised if February 14th will from here on out will mark the death of romantic gestures in our relationship.

To give you a feel of the amazing night that was prepared for me, here's some pictures...

Delicious Quebec French toast with thickened cream and berries

                                             My attempt at Bakerella's cake pop candy box

My make-up dinner. Read: pathetic grovelling.

Before + After

Veerrryyyy interesting methinks. I don't particularly think either is better or worse, just interesting. Food for thought; next time you're feeling shitty while flicking through a magazine... you just never know what the original photo actually looked like to begin with. How many tattoos/birthmarks/freckles/spots did they pay someone phenomenal amounts to remove...?

last week.