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My skin is oily and prone to cystic acne, and I have tried so SO many things to “fix” my face but nothing works. As I am coming to the nice round age of 30 I’ve relaxed quite a lot about my “flaws” and learned to make peace with myself (most of the time, I’m not a superhero!) A few years ago I had a series of glycolic peels before my wedding, and the beautician who treated me was quite a revelation. She told me that in her experience healthy skin comes from reducing anxiety, and that I shouldn’t feel ashamed about my oily skin because it means I won’t have so many wrinkles in years to come. (To be honest, I kind of like wrinkles!) We spoke about how the beauty industry focuses on things like oily skin to make people feel bad about themselves so they buy cosmetics – it’s just insanity!

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!

My birthday is five days out from Giftmas (December 20) and (get out your little violins) my celebrations are usually overlooked because people have engagements and stuff to buy. So it usually ends up with me having a pity party and eating worms. Allow me this one indulgence: to compile a list of the awesome things I’d love to receive for my birthday!

⇒ “The Galileoscope™ is a high-quality, low-cost telescope kit developed for the International Year of Astronomy 2009″ – alls I know is that I’ve always wanted a telescope, and this one costs USD$20! Bargain! Science! The Cosmos! All of these things could be mine!

⇒ A few years ago I used to wear Gucci Rush everywhere, but switched scents because it reminded me too much of a particular period of my life. An assistant at Myer showed me Flora and I was in love! It’s soft, sweet and summery and suitable for every day wear.

⇒ I would dearly dearly love a pair of scalloped pinking shears. These ones are from Japan Woodworker and they are quite spendy but would last a lifetime!

⇒ Look, I have to be honest. I didn’t pay much attention to the make or model when I chose this – I just want a DSLR. I’m not interested in the Canon vs Nikon thing either! I just want a DSLR so I can take lovely photos

⇒ Now I have a beautiful cedar display cabinet, I can start my tea cup collection in earnest! (With your kind tea cup gifts!) This photo is by nhearon2003, by the way.

⇒ There are SO many books I want. It’s ridiculous. My Amazon wishlist is here!

⇒ I’ve heard friends rave about these brush pens and I’m so keen on trying them myself! This is an Akashiya natural bamboo brush pen with silk case from Jet Pens.

⇒ Lomography is still pretty trendy, and I want in! This Diana+ film camera might be the end of Proper Photography For Serious Photographers or the beginning of Fun for Natalie, Eff the Haters

⇒ I’m a fan of tools, they help me make things! I have had a niggling desire to get into pyrography, or woodburning, for a few months now and a Dremel 2000 VersaTip would allow me to burn my doodlings into wood perfectly.

So let’s forget modesty or entitlement shame – what do you really want right now?

I wasn’t sure I’d get the Fance up today because I had a bunch of stuff to do, coupled with some stuff I forgot I had to do. I’m not one of those organised bloggers who has posts queued up for weeks… noooooo. This is genuine off-the-cuff blogging magic, right here. I took my carrot cupcakes out of the oven, flopped into my seat and thought about all the fancy things I’d seen this week and thus… cobbled together this barely passable collection of whimsies!

⇒ I have always loved these collars! Love Maegan has put up a tutorial on how to create this ruffly collar, which can be wrapped and pinned different ways. If I can find any lightweight cotton fabrics I’m totally making this for summer.

⇒ Henrik Simonsen’s Midnight Garden is so gorgeous. It reminds me of a cyanotype, or sunprint. I’ve been googling them madly for the last week… I desperately want to buy a bunch of the special paper and have a sunprint party in a park with my friends.

⇒ The First Man of Fance, Matt Preston, has such a way with words! *swoon*

⇒ I am so in love with this tattoo! How could I not be?

⇒ When I am rich and fancier I’m going to have a chandelier, a painted fresco (one? why not 10?!) and moulded ceilings. Go check out the photos from the Chateau de Versailles on NOTCOT… dreamy!

⇒ Laurie Lipton’s pencil pieces are bad ass fance.

I am addicted to Google Reader and the treasure chest of inspiration it offers me, but with so many fabulous blogs out there in internet land, it’s very easy to get congested and overwhelmed. I recently did a massive purge because I was finding it very difficult to keep up with all my feeds however when I came across these blogs, I couldn’t resist adding them to my Reader. (And I haven’t regretted it!)

Distillate is an Australian blog that covers design, craft, food and living stylishly. I know there are a bunch of blogs that cover this “niche” but it’s nice to read an Australian blog on an internet that assumes everyone is American!

I’m not sure how I ran across Lauren Rae Holtermann’s blog “Holtermonster“! It covers her own illustration practice as well as her take on the world, and I often find myself cracking up at her posts!

I’m going to be honest with you, I’ve been following OutsaPop Trashion for a long time… but I don’t think I’ve ever declared how much I love her blog! Ms Outi posts tons of fashion inspiration and her own “trashion” tutorials. Trashion is all about reclaiming “trash” materials and turning them into fashion, and she’s absolutely inspired me in my own use of reclaimed objects to make accessories!

Lauren is the Pocket Rocket, a sassy blogger covering fashion for plus sizes. I love that she not only reviews plus size fashion but also straight sized fashion – even though plus sizes can’t buy lots of stuff off the rack, doesn’t mean we can’t be influenced by OTR or haute couture trends!

Spokes ‘n’ Daggers is a gorgeous (Australian!) blog written by Gaby and Jane featuring utterly beautiful things like photography, fashion, movie stills and design. I’m always surprised and enamored of every post!

Pimp your favourite new blogs in the comments, or on your own blog! (Feed my blog addiction, go on!)

ETA: Oooh! If you use Google Reader, add me on there! My shared items are here – I’m not entirely sure how it all works, but if you add me I’ll be able to add you back

Saturday was a big day, with a Tupperware party and two footy games on the big plasma tv at my sister’s. I’m not really into footy, so I decided to kick into frou frou mode for the Tupperware party to spite the cloying masculinity of the day, where I was recruited into holding one of my own so Michelle could get free stuff. It’s what sisters apparently do!

Top: Bonds
Dress: Evans
Tights: Now (Kmart)
Shoes: Target
Headpiece: Made by me

I’ve been working hard on a bunch of little accessories made out of reclaimed materials. This headpiece was originally a tie! In addition to headpieces I’m working on moustache necklaces as well as other leather and lace pieces, but I’m not sure where I should sell these. Etsy? Big Cartel? My own little web shop? I don’t know, help me please!

One last thing – if you take photos of your outfits, or you want to start, you should join weardrobe.com. I’m over here!

This week I’ve been seeing some fantastical floral headpieces, so I wanted to spotlight the fanciful world of flowers-on-people’s-heads! You don’t need to be a bride to plop some flora on your noggin either – every day is an excuse to be fancy.

⇒ I wish I could tell you where this headpiece came from, or who the model and photographer are, but like a lot of posts on tumblr this was uncredited. Still, beautiful!

⇒ I adore Grandiflora’s flowers-as-headwear! This is from a shoot in Vogue Australia.

⇒ This stunning photograph was taken by inverselive.

⇒ My gorgeous friend Zoe sporting a floral headband by my other talented friend Kiki! She’s just opened up a store on madeit.com.au under Elastic Wasteland. I’m waiting for Kiki to put up some of her headpieces so I can buy one!

⇒ Combining two of my favourite things: paper and flowers! Katsuya Kamo styled this headwear for Chanel’s Spring 2009 Couture Collection.

⇒ DIY some fancy: Grosgrain Fabulous graciously posted this tutorial on making felt poppies. I think you could easily turn these into an incredible headpiece. I’m going to attempt it in the next week!

I have been making jewellery today after stressing that I didn’t have a long silver chain to wear with the dress I bought for tomorrow night’s exhibition opening. The dress I bought was way too expensive (oh, my rant about poor quality and overpriced plus sized fashion is for another day!) and is a paisley printed chiffon. I didn’t mean to do it! Paisley is “the trend”, apparently (which means it was a real trend like two years ago overseas) and pretty much everything was paisley print in the shops I went into the other day!!

So I cut two paisley shapes out of leather and attached them to this long contraption as a joke, and I’m not sure if people will get that I’m being facetious!

Anyway, I started making a ring out of one of my precious leather buttons and couldn’t stop there, so I made two more.

eta:

AND THEN EVEN MORE!