My Style Diary - 4 Year Anniversary

Heya :)

I was planning on having an early night tonight, but for some reason I've just been really in the mood to get things done, and now I'm a little too hyped up to sleep. I figured a blog post might relax me, so here we go...

These photos were taken on Tuesday, just before Tom and I went out for dinner to celebrate our 4 year anniversary. In some ways I can't believe it's been four years, but in others it feels like it's been so much longer :) 

Anyway, Tom was so sweet, and surprised me with this beautiful rose gold watch from Calvin Klein that I've been eyeing pretty much all year. I've walked into the store so many times (just to look at it), that most of the people working there started to recognise me! It was such a lovely surprise to receive it from Tom, and I think it makes it so much more special as well! So thank you so so so much Tom Tom (not just for the watch... for everything... but you know what I mean).

Moving on... (I don't want this post to become soppy!)

I think this outfit is actually one of my favourites out of everything I've posted this year. It's simple and classic, and the sparkly top adds a special touch. Even though I like getting all dolled up in dresses, I really am a "Jeans and T-shirt" (Ok well, in this case sequinned top) girl at heart. As you can see, I had to wear my new watch straight away, even though I haven't had a chance to adjust the size yet! 

I almost forgot to mention my new haircut. I've been meaning to get around to getting it cut for ages, but last Friday I just snapped and decided "I have to get it cut TODAY!" (I was in a bit of a frenzy). I managed to get an appointment on the day at Headstrong Hair Salon in Subiaco, and for anyone living in Perth, I'd definitely recommend them! My hair feels so lovely and bouncy now, and so much healthier. It's amazing how a new haircut can make you feel don't you think? :)

I hope you're enjoying your Friday night. I do feel much more relaxed now, so it's off to bed for me. (I'm such a Grandma!)

Goodnight

Lauren

xxx

Top - Forever New

Jeans - Forever 21

Shoes - Forever New

Bag - Jigsaw

Watch - Calvin Klein

Christmas Gift Ideas - For Her

Hello :)

I get a little overexcited when it comes to Christmas shopping and I wanted to share my excitement by putting together a little guide for gift ideas - one "For Her", and one "For Him". I've been meaning to write this post for a few weeks now, and seeing as I've just spent most of the evening wrapping Christmas presents, I thought this would be the perfect time to finally sit down and get it done. Hopefully this gives you a little inspiration if you're stuck for ideas!

Clarins Face and Body Gorgeous Getaways Set

 Clarins has a whole range of beautiful gifts sets available this year. It's one of those brands that has universal appeal - even my Mum who isn't into beauty products at all really loves Clarins. This set is perfect because it mostly contains the basics and nothing too "fussy" which she wouldn't use. I'm sure whoever is lucky enough to receive a Clarins gift set would really appreciate it.   

WillowTree Sculpture

 I've been fortunate enough to received a couple of these gorgeous hand painted sculptures as gifts from my parents. They're so beautiful in their simplicity, and each one represents an idea, (for example, the ones that I have are "Love" and "Happiness", and the sculpture in the picture above is "Abundance". I think they make lovely, meaningful gifts. Here's a little snipped from the

website.

The sculptures are rendered so as to suggest elegance, simplicity, peace and serenity. Forms reveal their expressions through body gestures only... a tilt of the head, placement of the hands, a turn of the body. Emotions are left to the viewer to discern, which makes them personal and powerful. Willow Tree is an understated line that speaks in a compelling way.

Photo Frames

I personally love photo frames 

and this set of four frames from

Kikki.K

would make a lovely gift for someone who likes home decor. They'd look  great hung up as part of a gallery wall (which is on my list of "Things to do in my future house one day"). Another good place to look for frames is

Country Road

- they have a great selection!

For a really personal gift, you can't go past a beautiful framed photo of you and the person you're giving it to. (As you may be able to tell, I really like sentimental, meaningful gifts). 

Diary

For this one I think you really need to be close to the person you're giving it to, as they may very well have already picked up a diary by the time Christmas comes around. If you're sure they haven't,

Kikki.K

has some really cute (and functional) diaries.

A beautiful candle

There are so many different candles to choose from!  

The one in the picture above is from Country Road and has a lovely fresh, subtle fig scent. Other places/brands that have really nice candles include

Tigerlily

,

Bed Bath and Table

(my favourite is the Vanilla Bean Candle by Ecoya), and

Archipelago

which you can find at Kit Cosmetics in Myer.

Frankie Magazine Calendar

I'm giving this to my sister this year (I'm pretty sure she doesn't read my blog so hopefully it's safe to say that!) 

Frankie is her favourite magazine, and this Calendar has some beautiful prints which I thought that she could maybe save and frame one day. 

New York Cult Recipes Cook Book

Another gift I'm giving my Mum. My parents recently went on a trip to New York,  so I thought this book would be nice to add to her collection, and to remind her of her trip. It has some really tasty looking recipes that are a bit different to what you might find in a typical cook book.

Clarins Luscious Lips Christmas Gift Set

Another Clarins gift set. Now, I'm not a lipgloss fan (too sticky and troublesome), but I seriously love the Clarins Instant Light Natural Lip Perfectors. They feel so lovely and moisturising, smell (and taste) like vanillarly, chocolatey goodness, and add just a subtle natural shine. Perfection!

Jo Malone

I've become a little bit Jo Malone obsessed since discovering the brand when I was in London last year. Their scents are so beautiful and unique and would make for a very luxurious and special gift. I'm so happy there's now a Jo Malone Counter in David Jones! They have a whole range of products - Colognes, Candles, Bath products, and they package everything so beautifully. Fragrance can be a tricky thing to buy as a gift, but if you have a general idea of what the person likes, I don't think you can really go wrong with Jo Malone. 

They are expensive, but if you're looking to treat someone, this is where I would go.

Anyway, I hope this was helpful, and if not, hopefully you just enjoyed the pretty pictures! I love reading these kind of posts/watching gift guide videos, so this is just my little contribution! :)

If you go to my 

polyvore page

, there are links to where you can find most of these things (although I'm not sure all the prices are exactly right). 

I hope you're having a lovely night! Part 2 "For Him" should be coming soon!

Lots of Love

Lauren

xxx

Reminiscing and Rambling

Hello :)

Today it's been exactly one year since I finished uni, and I'm feeling a little nostalgic. Not nostalgic for my uni days (I don't think any dentist ever wishes to be be back at dental school), but for that feeling of absolute freedom I had when I'd just finished. It was a day we'd all been counting down to for ages and I 

can't believe a year has already passed!

* * *

My group was down in Bunbury on our rural rotation. After seeing our last patient's,  we filmed some clips for the Final Year video - dancing to Gangnam Style - but with the lyrics changed to "Gum Numb Style". It was a pretty hilarious and very memorable way to end the last day of an extremely long and hard 5 years!

I then headed down to Margaret River where I was meeting up with my family. We had an absolutely perfect weekend... probably one of the best of my life because I just felt so... free. Lunch at Aravina, one of the beautiful wineries, relaxing at the house, bush walks, and walks along the beach. It was perfect :)

* * * 

Anyway... I just wanted to write a little something about that weekend because just thinking about it makes me smile. It also makes me think about how different this year has been. It's been great not having to study and I've had so much more free time than I ever have (even when working almost full time), but I kind of feel like I haven't taken full advantage of it. 

I haven't been very productive.

While I was still at uni, I had big plans for what I was going to do afterwards. Learn Italian... get fit... get back into dancing again... pick up my cello, just

do

stuff... 

But I feel like I haven't really accomplished all that much, and not for lack of time.

All my life I've always had some big goal that I was working towards, and lately (well, this whole year), I've been feeling a little unmotivated, lost even, because I don't know what I want to do next. So I've just been floating and letting life pass me by. I keep flitting from one idea to another, not taking any action and actually just getting started with something.

I think what it all comes down to is that I still haven't found "my passion", the thing I really love doing.

Part of my problem is that 

I have this idea in my head that once I start something, I absolutely have to finish it. I can't decide "I don't like this/want to do this anymore" and just quit.  I've always been like that (it's how I managed to get through dentistry even though there were many many times when I considered just giving up and doing something else), and being persistent is probably a good trait, but it's also been holding me back because I'm reluctant to try something if I'm not certain I will enjoy it.

 I realise that is silly though - how are you ever going to find out what you do/don't like if you don't give things a go? So I've been brainstorming and setting out some goals for myself. I'm still working on it, but I'm feeling much more positive and excited about life now!

One of the things that I am pretty happy about is the fact that I actually started this blog! It's been a fun hobby, but I still feel uncomfortable telling people about it. That's another thing I need to work on - not caring so much about what other people think! Ah well... baby steps... I'll get there eventually! :)

I'll leave it at that for tonight. This post actually turned out to be a lot longer and more rambly than intended... but it's kind of been therapeutic, actually writing my thoughts down! (Well done if you managed to get this far)

Anyway, I hope you're having a lovely Saturday night!

Lots of Love

Lauren

xxx

Beauty Bits - Purple Champagne Makeup Look

On Saturday I had a bit of time and was in the mood to play with make-up, so I thought I'd do a (very subtle) purple eye look, as I was off to watch the Dockers play in the AFL Grand Final. As I said in my last post, I am not a football follower, but thought I may as well jump on the Freo bandwagon, and it was an excuse to have a bit of a play with colour.

It's a very simple look with a champagne colour all over the lid, purple eyeliner smudged along the lash line, and a browny-plum colour in the crease. It's very subtle, and perfect for those like me who are a bit too scared to wear a full-on coloured eye look. 

I realised when looking at these photos that I could have done it all with just the Naked 2 palette and purple eye-liner, but I was having a bit of a play with my make-up stash, and ended up using the MAC Illustrated Face Kit as well (you can read my post about it

here

)

Here's a quick run-down of what I did

1) Maybelline Colour Tattoo in "Barely Branded" all over the lid as a base. 

2) "Booty Call" from the Urban Decay Naked 2 Palette on the inner half of my eye

3) "Plum Reduction" from the MAC palette in the crease. 

3) Purple

 eyeliner along the upper and lower lash line

4) Champagne eyeliner on the inner half of the lower lash-line (mine is from Shiseido, but has sadly been discontinued)

I smudged and blended it all together, added some mascara, and that was it!

I also used MAC blush in "Dame", a Revlon Balm Stain in "Crush", and painted my nails with Essie's "Bangle Jangle" which is a really pretty lavender colour. 

So that's it!

I'd love to hear how you like to incorporate colour into your make-up look :)

I hope you're having a lovely day

Love Lauren

xxx

PS - I'm sorry for the extreme close-up!! :p

On The Weekend - The Perth Upmarket

A few weekends ago I headed over to UWA to check out the

Perth Upmarket

 where 

I spent a lovely afternoon wandering by all the stalls and feeling very inspired. There was a huge variety of things on sale from candles to cupcakes, and of course plenty of jewellery.

One stall in particular caught my eye as it had some gorgeous and very unique jewellery pieces made out of Polyclay. 

If you haven't heard of polyclay before, it's basically like plasticine which can be moulded into shape and then hardened by baking it in the oven. 

My best friend and I used to spend hours making jewellery and a range of other things (ie: props to use when playing with our Barbies - think mini teapots, cupcakes, pizzas etc), so seeing all this gorgeous jewellery at the stall made me quite nostalgic. 

The business is called Clay and Clasp and all the piece are hand made by a lovely lady named Lucy. There are some really cute, quite whimsical pieces, that are something a bit different to what you'd usually find. Although I was very tempted to pick up one of the Macaron necklaces, I ended up settling on a long pendant necklace with a bunting design in gorgeous pastel colours. If you like slightly quirky, unique jewellery, I'd definitely recommend checking out her

website!

As you can see from the photos above, I also picked up some macarons for my family to share. Just looking at the bright colours makes me smile, and they were really delicious... I might have to try making them one day, although that could go quite badly as I'm not the best at cooking! (particularly baking... it never turns out for me!)

One more photo - I just thought I'd share a picture of these earrings that I made out of polyclay when I was in primary school. I think they're really cute, although I wouldn't really wear them now. They're a nice reminder of fun times though :)

Anyway, I hope you're having a lovely Saturday!

Lots of Love

Lauren

xxx