Op Shops, a decorators heaven

Lately I've been spending a lot of time reading the blog of Lady Melbourne. I particularly liked how she buys most of her cloths from op shops and still manages to look fabulous. I'd always just assumed that people who shopped at op shops were a bit "quirky" and not terribly fashion concious, but Phoebe Montague (Lady Melbourne) smashed that stero type for me.

So over the weekend I decided to check out my local Salvos Store. I pilfered through the racks of cloths trying to find something i could see myself in, but alas i could find nothing. To be honest, i've tried op-shopping before and found my self to be a bit useless at it.

Just as I had given up and was deciding to leave, I thought I'd take a quick look in the Bric-a-brac section of the store. It was then that I saw the bright glowing light of opportunity that I'm sure is similar to the one that shines for Lady Melbourne when she enters one of these stores. I seemed to have stumbled upon and un-tapped treasure of home decor items that got me so excited. sure they were all muddled together and displayed in an un-orderly fashion, but easch item had a beauty and purpose of its own.

In the end I purchased several items; 2 vases and 1 tea light holder. One of the vases was hand made glass, which normally retails for around $75, the other vase was Maxwell Williams RRP $30 and the tea light holder would normally retail for $15. And all were in perfect condition.

So how much did I pay? $9 for the glass vase, $7 for the Maxwell Williams Vase and $6 for the tea light. All together I made a saving of around $98!

Beautiful Flowering Cactus's

Just before I left Brisbane last year I took some photos of this big beautiful flowering cactus my mum has in the backyard. It is so amazing I just couldn't leave without capturing it. I wish I had my own.

Melbourne is beautiful!

Last October I moved from sunny Brisbane to sunny/windy/rainy/sunny (all in one day) Melbourne. Don't ask me why, because now when I think back to my reasons for doing it, I just see a blur of craziness. But when I took these photos it became clear to me why I've begun to fall in love with this city.

As part of my self induction to being a Melbourne local, I entered my brother and I into the Run For the Kids charity run next month. Mebourne is so lovely in the late afternoon so I decided to take my camera on a training run and hence my bro stars in a couple of the following pics.

Running into the sun made for a nice effect, not sure about my vision though.

Personal websites are over rated for your average over dreamer

Hi there, my names Jessica, I'm a Graphic/Web/Designer/Developer from Mebourne Australia. I used to have website, but for about 10/12 months it was completely useless. I had such big dreams for my website, it was going to be not only a showcase for my portfolio but a website where I would blog about everything from new design trends, internet marketing, great books I was reading to cooking recipes I had found and baked myself. Oh it was all so daunting whenever I thought about having to do anything to that website, I'd set myself such big goals in a small amount of time without sketching out some sort of plan on how I was going to achieve it. And then a few weeks ago I received an email or should I say, an invoice for the next 12 months hosting...

It was at this point I questioned myself..."do I really need this website for what I'm using it for?" The answer was no. So I've scraped the daunting, over achieving website and started with baby steps, which in good time and patience will one day turn into giant leaps...but for now let's focus on the baby steps.

That brings me to this point in time. I've ditched the website and moved to the trusty free blog. What am I going to do with this thing? Well I'll tell you one thing, it will not be a place of expectations, but a place to grow and nourish my ideas...no pressure! It will be a place for me to entertain and inspire my creativity and i hope anyone who cares to read will be too. So please stay tuned over the next indefinite months because this place is set to become my creative lair.

Peace Out. <3 J