So, I don’t buy very many beauty products at all these days; just cleanser, moisturiser and a select few make up products. I do have a bit of fun concocting DIY treatments though! I was chatting with my friend Kathleen about the beauty products she encountered on her recent trip to India, and I noticed that many of them contained turmeric. I have a big bag of lovely turmeric bought from the markets, and thought “AHA! It’s time for a DIY face mask!”

And how! It looks like I have plunged face first into cake batter. Here’s the recipe I used:

2 tblsp besan flour (chick pea flour)
1/4 tsp turmeric
Add milk & honey slowly to make a paste
Apply to face with the back of a spoon and chill out for 10 minutes.
Jump in the shower to wash it off with warm water – requires some gentle rubbing!

Fresh out of the shower, wrapped in a towel I promise! (Even if I wasn’t, what are you gonna do?!) Some people had warned of the turmeric staining my skin, but I have zero staining. Any yellow you see on my face is my actual skin tone (I’m a combination of pink and yellow). My skin feels very soft and most of the redness in my skin has calmed down a lot.

I was pretty impressed with this face mask, and will be doing it again! If you have any DIY beauty treatment recipes, I would love to learn about them. It’d be kind of fun to get some friends together for an afternoon of putting all kinds of crazy batter on our faces!

I just had a look on etsy and found these!

Horah cephalopods! By CosmicFirefly.

I don’t think the Keep Calm meme has been thrashed quite enough! By bambina.

I like the holes cut into the leather on this one. By LucyBlaireCreations.

Another leather pouch, but simple and beautiful. By sakao.

My favourite, a gorgeous wooden box! By Elegant Wood Boxes and more.

Have you seen any cool business card holders? Let me know.

After going to TEDxBrisbane and seeing Dallas Clayton’s video on publishing “An Awesome Book” I have been feeling inspired to self publish a book. I’ve also been reading a few old zines, the FaT GiRL zines from the 90s in particular, and I thought I’d start out by publishing a zine on body image – your body image.

So, I put up a question on a Google Form: Tell me about your body in 10 words or less.

Lots of people have contributed their statements already! Some of them are sad, some are funny, but all of them speak to me of honesty and struggle.

So, how do you feel about your body? You can contribute too. You don’t have to put your real name, but a name is nice because I can illustrate your words and then attribute those words to you. The end product will be an A5 sized zine – I am yet to figure out the details, but I hope to have enough interest in the book to have it colour printed. I will also make the zine available online for free.

If you’re interested in a printed zine, please let me know so I can start figuring out numbers!

Ingredients
1 cup self-raising flour, sifted
1/3 cup caster sugar
2 small lemons, rind finely grated (you can substitute any citrus on hand, really)
60g butter, melted, at room temperature (I used olive oil spread)
1/2 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 egg (replace with apple sauce to veganise)

Sauce
1/3 cup caster sugar
1 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (again, substitute this for any citrus on hand)
1/2 cup boiling water

Instructions
You’ll need a microwave-safe bowl with at least a 6 cup capacity. I use the big bowl from my Tupperware red stack cooker set.

Combine flour, sugar and rind in the bowl. Whisk together butter, juice and egg in another small bowl then stir into the flour mixture until well combined. Flatten the surface with the back of a spoon.

To make the sauce place sugar, juice and boiling water into a microwave-safe jug and stir to dissolve the sugar. If the sugar hasn’t dissolved, put jug in microwave for short bursts and stir until sugar dissolves. Pour sauce over the back of a large spoon to evenly cover pudding.

Put pudding in the microwave and cook, uncovered, on 50% power for 8 to 9 minutes or until a skewer inserted around edges comes out clean but centre is still a little sticky. Cover tightly with foil. Stand for 5 minutes or until centre is no longer sticky.

Serve with ice-cream, yoghurt or eat it plain and enjoy the tarty bitterness!

(You’ll notice that the bowl I served it in is also Tupperware, I am such a Tupper-tragic!)

In a culture where negative self talk is actively encouraged most of us have days when we feel like we don’t measure up. This practice of comparing ourselves and our bodies with others rarely produces good outcomes. It’s such a damaging culture that even those with high self esteem aren’t immune. Even those who are activists, advocating for fat acceptance, aren’t safe.

When I find myself in these moments where I compare myself to others and despair at the ways I am lacking, I try to remember this. Some people are surprised that I can fight for size diversity, human rights and self-love so fiercely yet still be afflicted with bouts of crippling low confidence – but I’ve got to tell you right now, this is proof of our self-hating culture.

Margaret Cho, someone more eloquent (and hilarious) than I, says it really well.

Copy and paste this in a txt file, or make it your desktop. Read it all the time and remember it.

Being an artist and particularly one with a wrist injury, I think a lot about my hands and how useful they are (also how awful it would be if I lost use of them). For years I’ve never really been into decorating my hands with polish because it seemed like a waste – nails are for keeping short and clean so they don’t catch on delicate things or mark any of my projects. The other thing is that I have weak nails and nail polish never seems to last more than a couple of days before chipping off and making me look like a grungy 90s teen.

Recently I’ve been reading Super Kawaii Mama and Violet LeBeaux’s entries on nail art and have been inspired to give it a go. While the 3D stuff is highly impractical for me, 2D techniques using pens and dotting tools are really appealing.

I bought a white Sally Hansen Nail Art Pen the other day, and have experimented a little bit with it but I have a lot of practice to undertake! I think I’ll also try to find and buy an actual dotting tool so I can use the nail polish I have on hand to create designs.

The pen I have is only really good for drawing dots, but I’ve played around with drawing other things and even tried using a toothpick and nail polish. The results weren’t that great, and even using bottom coats and top coats my polish was still chipping after two days! I’ll keep playing around with my nails and I hope one day I happen across the solution. I really want to be able to doodle on my nails the way I do with pen and paper!

Last week was pretty overwhelming and I’m still coming to terms with the death of my Uncle Pete, so I feel like I have just been putting on clothes in the dark. It’s made me think though, personal styling isn’t always about presenting the most fashionable or on-trend you at any particular time. It’s more about presenting the most you you at that moment. It’s been raining every day for a week, and I have craved comfort and simplicity, so the first thing I wanted to do on Friday night was put on one of my husband’s shirts. It felt good, but more importantly it satisfied my need for solace. So the next morning I woke up at butts o’ clock to attend TEDxBrisbane, and I thought I’d do it again except I wore a lighter coloured shirt of Nick’s. My grief had found a uniform, a consistency I was sorely lacking.

Shirt: Husband’s
Vest: Target
Skirt: Yours Clothing
Leggings: Kmart
Shoes: Crocs
Bag: Dangerfield

Laura La Rayna, a performer particularly noted for her aerial ring prowess. Laura worked with Brisbane institution the Vulcana Women’s Circus and now lives in Melbourne.

I have known Lilly Piri as an online friend for a few years now, which is funny considering she used to live just a little bit away from me! She’s now in Heidelberg with her husband and fellow awesome illustrator Heiko.

Sarah Hickey’s work is new to me, but I was instantly drawn to the bright colours and the clashing textures in her work. This piece in particular is very Mucha-esque but a lot of her work is inspired by Catholic iconography.

Matt Huynh is a Sydney-based illustrator who self publishes comics. I really liked this piece in particular because it evokes a sense of panic and loss of control within me. Not a particularly fancy theme, I know, but it’s illustrated beautifully.

Ahh Kat Macleod, I will forever envy your loose yet elegant style! Kat is one of the luminaries of the Australian illustration scene in recent years, and has done an incredible amount of really fabulous and consistent work.

Go check out The Colour – you can collect your favourite images and even contribute Australian creative talent yourself. I think it could be an amazing local ffffound-like resource!

Goodbye Pete, I had fun getting to know you. You were an excellent uncle. You supported me at times when others wouldn’t and I’ll always remember sharing cheeky jokes and ciggies, especially when you came back to Brisbane. As the third most elderly grandchild, I will make sure to keep an extra eye out for my cousins even though they’re awesome and probably won’t need it, but they will always be in my heart. When I think about your love for Sue, I want to cry. It seems so cruel that you should meet each other and put your lives together (creating Jack in the process) only to be denied the smug joy of growing old together, when you’re a couple who would grow old together so well.

Pancreatic cancer is desperately underfunded, if only because patients rarely survive more than five years and prognosis is generally grim. Avner’s Fund is trying to reach $1 million in order to carry out clinical trials research into pancreatic cancer. If you can donate, it would be greatly appreciated by my family and many others.

Yesterday was a big day. I set off early to visit my grandmother down the coast with my sisters, but we had to come back shortly after lunch because one of my uncles is very sick in hospital with pancreatic and liver cancer and it’s not looking good. It was a pretty sad day, and the rainy weather matched my mood perfectly.

Tshirt – www.yoursclothing.co.uk
Dress – City Chic
Shoes – Crocs (don’t hate)
Umbrella – no idea, but I’ve had it for years!
Brooch – Babushka’s, Melbourne
Bag – Dangerfield

I’m sending out much love and support to my uncle, aunty and cousin at this sad time. I’m sending out much anger to pancreatic cancer and how poorly funded and supported it is.