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We wandered across the Chinese New Year parade, featuring lions! I think these are way more adorable than the Sunnybank Chinese New Year lions of my youth

Dumplings from the Camy Shanghai Dumpling House – so delicious and cheap too!

A raspberry amandine from Choukette. I love that place!

A white-cheeked gibbon at the Melbourne Zoo. She was my favourite animal there because she was so intriguing.

Cocktails at 1806 – you must go and have a few historical cocktails. It’s educational and drunkening! I can’t speak highly enough of the staff, they were absolutely joyous to watch at work and looked after us superbly.

The Carlton Club is also great for a few drinks. Check out the fancy decor! We also went upstairs to the rooftop bar and had an awesome time with Melbourne buddies.

Some other stuff that’s good (clockwise from top left): card from the Peta Pledger brooch I bought from Meet Me At Mikes; Shanghai Dumpling House card; bag from Koko Black that contained four delicious chocolates; vege2vo card; Corky St Clair card (fantastic jewellery & screenprinted stuff); the actual Peta Pledger love birds brooch; card from Babushkas; card from Cafe Rosamond; our tickets from the Tram Museum; and the brooch I bought from Babushkas.

I’m sorry I missed out on the Friday Fance this week, but there are a few sad things going on in my family at the moment and I’m also very busy with my commissions. I hope you can forgive me.

The weekend means mystery flowers from the market! The sign in the bucket said “Lizzies $5 or 3 for $10″, so I bought three for a very plump looking arrangement. I did a bit of a google for Lizzy/ Lizzie flowers but the image search results turned up some flowers that didn’t look like these at all. Apparently Lizzies are part of the Impatiens family, and there are quite a variety of flower heads within the genus so they could well be Lizzies… who knows?! Do you?

Here’s a closer shot so you can have a look at the buds and flowers.

The other week I was introduced to the wonder of kumatoes: small and round tomatos with a brown or striped skin. They taste crisp and sweet, perfect in salads if you want something crunchy and fresh in summer!

I love colourful foods, they make life so much nicer.

These muffins look better than they taste unfortunately. I didn’t have any buttermilk and I forgot to whisk the egg. ALWAYS WHISK THE EGG! It makes things much fluffier.

And now… I must do laundry. Fancy’s on weekend

I’ve been enamoured of anything Victorian in recent months, but at the same time I’ve also had a lot of Asian influences in my life because I live in Australia and I’ve lived most of my life being surrounded by Asian culture and art. When I was a young girl, my auntie Katrina gave me a cassette of Cyndi Lauper’s "She’s So Unusual". From the moment I looked at the cover, I knew I had to have a red wedding dress.And then there are other things, my love of pattern, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and absurdity in general! So, by all these influences combining, I get my very odd desires for the whole schematics of our wedding in April next year.

I’ve spent some time searching the internet for things that I want to include in the very dramatic and theatrical performance that will be our wedding. Read Full Post