Heel yeah!

My inner 70s child keeps smiling at these shoes! I think I need to get my feet into a pair of these impressive heels.

Lyrics with heart and soul

Nothing moves me more than music. When you hear that new favourite song for the first time and it makes the hair stand on the back of your neck and then your eyes glaze over, it is an amazing feeling. Your body instantly fills with emotion from head to toe. I've always found music a natural release of tension, particularly to pick up a guitar and have a strum. For years I played my favourite songs on the guitar never really knowing how to churn out some original material. I had a little google around on how to get started on writing your own songs and wallah, within hours I had my very first song! This quickly became an amazing experience in my life, I spent hours, weeks and then months writing song after song, I couldn't get enough! If you get any joy out of playing a tune with a lyric on an instrument and haven't given song writing a crack, I would strongly recommend doing so. It was one of the happiest and reflective moments of my life. Check out the following website for some song writing guidance to get your creative juices flowing! http://www.robinfrederick.com/write.html

A life quote for you

"Most of the shadows of this life are caused by our standing in our own sunshine." ~
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Create your own happiness and keep smiling everyone xo

Amber and me

Me and my Baltic amber, I'm head of heels for Baltic amber! I've adored this stone for many years and have lots of jewellery featuring it. For those that don't know, amber is actually fossilized resin from trees. Baltic amber is a little different in that it is found only in northern Europe and accounts for some 80% of the known amber in the world. Between 35 and 50 million years ago, sap oozed out from a forest in a region now covered by the Baltic Sea, and eventually solidified into clear lumps. Shoved around northern Europe by glaciers and river channels, lumps of genuine Baltic amber can still be found today as it regularly gets washed up on the eastern coasts of England and Holland, throughout Poland, Scandinavia and northern Germany and much of western Russia and the Baltic states. The clarity of Baltic amber is beautiful, I can pick it out over any other amber in a shop. I love the fact this Baltic amber comes from these prehistoric forests far beneath our oceans and still gets washed upon our shores today. It's like your own little piece of history that you can wear (and looks stunning at the same time!). If you don't have a piece of this amber then go get yourself one!

Alexia Sinclair

Alexia Sinclair is an amazing Australian Fine Art photographer and digital artist with her very own beautiful style. Sinclair travels the world photographing locations and models and then constructs imagined worlds through the combination of her photographs and hand illustrations. I was captivated by Alexia when I had the pleasure of listening to her speak at the 2010 Semi-Permanent. Check out some of her stunning finished work and then the pics of the detail she goes to in just the make-up before the photos and illustration even begins! I'm gob smacked, what a talent!

Pina Colada Cupcakes

Just found this recipe and haven't had a chance to try it out yet but still thought it best to share this as the picture just looks so delicious! And how could you go wrong with a cocktail inspired cupcake!! I'm going to give this recipe a go for sure - let me know if you beat me to it, would love to know how yummy they are.


Pina Colada Cupcakes
Makes 12

Ingredients
2 eggs
fresh whipping cream
1/4 tsp of vanilla essence
3/4 C caster sugar
4 pineapple rings, chopped
1 1/4 C standard flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt

Frosting
This makes enough frosting to cover 12 cupcakes if spreading it on with a knife. Make twice the amount if piping.

50 grams softened butter
1 Tbs Malibu
1 C icing sugar

Method
Break eggs into a cup measure and fill to the top with cream.
Pour into a large mixing bowl and beat on high with electric beaters for 1 minute.
Add vanilla essence and caster sugar.
Beat for another 3 minutes.
Stir in the chopped pineapple. (You could try adding in coconut essence or syrup from the tin of pineapple into the batter to strengthen the taste.)
Sift in standard flour, baking powder and a pinch of salt.
Fold to combine taking care not to over mix.
Spoon into 12 cupcake cases (you can make a few extra if the cases are over 3/4 full).
Bake for about 15-18 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius until a skewer comes out clean.
Remove from tins (they can be quite fragile for a few minutes after baking) and cool on wire racks.
To make frosting, whip the butter until light and fluffy using an electric beater. Slowly whisk in half the icing sugar. Add Malibu and whisk well. Keep whisking in small amounts of icing sugar until you get a good fluffy frosting.

Decorated with some dessicated coconut and yellow sugar.

Booty call

Don't step on my grey suede boots! A recent bargain purchase and I just love these new ankle boots of mine. What makes these boots with heels even better is that they are so comfy to walk in ALL DAY! These look great with black leggings, skinny leg jeans or a little mini. Just lurvin' ankle boots right now. www.paylessshoes.com.au/showcase/boots

If ears could smile: the temper trap

If ears could smile then that's what mine would do everytime I listen to The Temper Trap. It's been over a year since they released their album 'Conditions' and I still can't get enough of the tunes from this playlist. I love indie rock and these guys just came along with some refreshingly great beats to add their mark to the rock world and my ipod! There ain't a song I don't like on this album but to name some favourites you can't go past the crowd pleaser 'Sweet Disposition' but I also have a soft spot for 'Resurrection' and 'Fader'. There aren't many albums that I could just keep on rotation start to finish and start again and I just love it when I find one.

Some interesting facts about the band, they were original called The Harlequins and then they changed to Temper Temper. They were signed by a label and discovered a punk/emo band by the same name at which point they changed a third time to become The Temper Trap! They were once asked in an interview if The Temper Trap was a person what type of person would it be? Their response: "I think it would be a four-headed being from the planet nebular. It would be quite strange to look at as there would always be some type of heated discussion and it would have a very bad case of tourettes syndrome."

I'm still holding out for these guys to put a gig on near me but if you're lucky enough to be going to Splendour In The Grass festival then be sure to check out their performance there. http://www.thetempertrap.com/

Harlow can you go

I spied on miijo.com some amazing House of Harlow jewellery. House of Harlow, aka the creative line of jewellery driven by celebrity Nicole Richie, is a breathe of fresh air, so different to anything else I own. The collection is comprised of loud colours, vibrant prints and chic bangles. I fell in love with this striking necklace and with a nudge in the right direction my beautiful hubby bought this for my birthday. A great man he is for buying such a stunning necklace!

Everyone has a price, mine is chocolate!

Life without chocolate... don't even contemplate it! There is no doubt that I have stumbled across the most amazing chocolate cake recipe that my lips have ever set upon. This chocolate mud cake is seriously delicious. Ten out of ten rating on muddiness and the ganache icing is like a 2cm layer of soft milk chocolate, seriously yum scrumptious! And just so you don't feel completely guilty here is the good news, it is gluten free! I never would have expected such heavenly goodness from a gluten free recipe but trust me on this one, best ever! The picture from the website doesn't do it justice, mine was much thicker and I covered the entire top of the cake with a punnet of chopped strawberries, it looked amazing! Check out the recipe here http://aww.ninemsn.com.au/food/cookbooks/814148/moist-flourless-choc-nut-cake

Pink heavens

The priceless pictures that nature continues to surprise me with send tingles down my spine. Yesterday I saw an amazing pink coloured sky on my way home from work, just stunning. I love that nature's wonders continue to find me in a fast paced city life.

I heart art

Some art pieces just melt me from the inside. I adore these Kelly Smith pieces that I purchased from her etsy store. I put a simple black frame around these gems and hung them on the bedroom wall. I'm in complete envy of such a beautiful illustrator. Check out some of her other pieces at http://www.birdyandme.com.au/

Turn that frown upside down

This is it, the first post. 'A place to smile' will be my piece of cyber space where I can share all the ups in one little life. I often wish I could stop to take in the little things that put a smile on my dial and now I can appreciate this blog for being that stopping moment, moments I can now share with you.

"Today, give a stranger one of your smiles. It might be the only sunshine they see all day." ~ H. Jackson Brown, Jr.