Baked Peach & Apricot Pavlova with Honey & Pistachios.

And just like that Christmas has been and gone. The back end of this year had me powering through life that I didn't have the time to get as excited about Christmas as I normally would have and now having some time off, and the luxury of retrospect, I wish I had of been more festive! Christmas really is my favourite time of the year. I love having our family all together and having the whole day to spend with one another without any time restraints. With age I am really starting to enjoy giving gifts more so than receiving them and of course, Christmas Day means we pull out all the food stops for an incredible lunch to share together.

Alas I bottled up all of that unused excitement in the weeks prior to Christmas to deliver quite possibly the best pavlova ever on Christmas Day. Three days on I am still super chuffed with it! Little does anyone know it's actually a Jamie Oliver recipe from this years Christmas edition of Woolworths' Fresh magazine. It was sweet, but not sickly, soft but with delicious crunchy bits from the meringue and the pistachios and slightly sticky from the honey - an unexpected yet very pleasant delight which was met with raving reviews from fellow family members. What more could you want on Christmas Day?!

An afternoon in Darling Point, Sydney.

Some mementoes from my first ever trip to Darling Point last weekend. What a dreamy suburb - a mix of heritage homes, art deco entranceways, crispy orange leaves on the ground, bare branches in the sky and lots of soft shades of pink. This girl was in love.

Diner en Blanc - Sydney, 2014.

Wearing ASOS dress

Photos by myself and Matt Wilms.

Diner en Blanc was one of the most amazing nights of my year. I remember reading about the original Diner en Blanc a few years ago before my boyfriend, his sister and I set out to have our very own "White Days" (see post one here and post two here). To be offered the opportunity to go to the real 'white day' was like a dream come true. From the last minute running around to make sure you have everything you need to the suspense of getting on the bus and seeing what surprise location it takes you to was like a roller coaster. Only to arrive and forget about all of the preparation that had gone in to the day and live completely in the moment surrounded by 3000 like minded people all dressed head-to-toe in white. The whole experience felt so surreal yet so natural at the same time - like it was all meant to be. We decided to keep things simple and easy food wise opting for cheese, fruit and dip platter with some delicious homemade blueberry and white chocolate pastries. This was all washed down with beautiful white wine and a gorgeous sunset.

The DJ set the tone for the evening but when he played one of my favourite songs, Paris by Friendly Fires, I felt like I was living in some dream like heaven. The sparkler moment was a real highlight. Looking around in the dark of the night to see everyone holding fiery gold sparks was breathtaking. 

The only way I can sum up this night is with the word "magic". It was every sense of the word and more. A truly unforgettable experience that I'll remember forever... Or until we do it all again next year!

CJ Hendry Exhibition, Surry Hills.

Last weekend we visited the CJ Hendry exhibition in Surry Hills, Sydney. It was held in a private home on a very busy Sydney street. On a first approach it looked like your average warehouse home but once you stepped in the door and on to the black and white marble tiled foyer it was a whole different ball game.

CJ Hendry is a Brisbane based artist who works mainly with pen and ink to create large scale hyper-realism  images of iconic objects. From afar her work look to be nothing more than big black-and-white photographs but on a closer inspection you can see the labour of hard work that goes into each piece with every stroke of her black pen. I've read that some of her works can up to 200 hours to finish and go through more than 40 UniPin pens! 

Her first solo exhibition was housed in a converted warehouse home with features such as an indoor pool, nightclub area, smoking area, dj booths upstairs and downstairs (!), a specially made white bedroom pod, flooring made from leather belts, glass ceilings, multiple courtyards and an immaculate metallic kitchen. Though the home is incredibly extravagant it was even more pleasing to see that the small details, joins, finishes of all of the different areas have been well considered. The building was huge and there was so much space, yet it never felt like there was too much space. Everything just fitted in, where it was meant to be, perfectly. 

The house, the art, the floral arrangements to accompany both, was nothing less than amazing. It might have been someone's home, it might have been an art exhibition, but more than that it was an experience. So much so that we left and then came back two hours later to make the most of it.

Bikram Diaries.

Image from Pinterest

Summer is just around the corner here in Australia and it's time to get serious about getting into shape for bikini season! I usually train twice a week at a class at my favourite gym, Spudds. It's an intense 45 minute workout that combines cardio, weights and boxing. This coupled with my weekly netball game keeps me pretty active.

A couple of weeks ago my work friend received an email about a 31 day Bikram Yoga Challenge at the yoga school across the road from our office. She was keen to do it and asked if I wanted to join. I said yes and the next week we signed up, paid our money and committed ourselves to 31 days of one and a half hour yoga practice in a 40 degree room. Just typing this out make me wonder what the heck I was thinking when I said 'yes' to this madness. But not one to shy away from a challenge (yet), I am determined to stick this out.

Walking into the carpeted hot room for the first time in a long time I was hit by the wall of heat and instantly felt like a wilting flower. Half way through the first class sweat was dripping from my body and coming out through my hair. I paced myself through all of the poses and recognised the ones I needed to improve. By the end of the first class I felt proud of myself yet totally overwhelmed by the prospect of going to another 30 classes!

For the last month bikram yoga has been my second priority to work. Setting a 5am alarm to get up and go to class each day (I chose to do it first thing in the morning to avoid not wanting to do it after a long day at work), packing my clothes, showering, getting dressed, washing my clothes and doing it all again was a constant and sometimes exhausting cycle in itself.

Having now finished the challenge, successfully (!!!), I can look back on those days when it was all too much and know that when you put your mind to something and you perservere, through the good and the bad, you can do absolutely anything. For me personally the mental benefits of completing this challenge have been far more rewarding than the physical. Yoga teachers say some pretty wise things and one saying that I now think in my head almost every day since is "mind over the matter". Something might be really frustrating you, whether at home or at work, and you can't help but stew on this one thing - this is when you need to put your mind, and all of the amazing energy and power it has, to forget about the pesky problem and move on to the next thing.

Life is full of highs and lows. Whether you look at the highs and lows of each day or week or month, they happen to everyone. Knowing how to focus on putting the lows into perspective, to focus my mind on pushing through them with positivity and sometimes taking a step back from things that are out of my control has made me feel like a much balanced person... now I understand what people mean when they want to be "balanced".

I'm not sure if I will ever do another 31 day bikram yoga challenge but I can safely say that I will continue with at least regular classes and look for new types of yoga to practice and would definitely encourage anyone and everyone to at least do a few classes to reap some of the lifelong mental benefits!

Crafty: Dipped Cans DIY.

Cleaning up after a recent Mexican fiesta affair, aka nachos for dinner, we had a few empty cans ready for recycling. The next morning I was on Pinterest and spotted this pin which inspired me to rescue those empty bean tins and get crafty! In a similar vein to the painted pots I did last year, the steps are really easy and simple. Besides empty and clean cans (with labels removed) all you need is some masking tape, paint and a paintbrush. Put the tape around the can where you wish and paint below making sure not to get any paint above the tape. Do one to three coats and when completely dry remove the masking tape and you will have the finished product. Super easy, super quick.

I used blue, pink and yellow acrylic paints that I had lying around however I diluted the colours with white so they would be more pastel like. I was pretty chuffed with the end result and in turn took my little cans to work to give my desk some much needed organisation. 

What neat DIY projects have you tried?

Summer Bay.

Wearing: Top, Sunny Girl, Shorts, Tigerlily (old), Hat, Seed Heritage, Sunglasses, Le Specs, Shoes, Windsor Smith

As a new Sydney-ite I have been out and about exploring the town but last weekend I decided to really get out and visit the northern beaches, in particular Palm Beach, that little beachside town that is otherwise known as Summer Bay. Ah yes, I am a Home and Away fan from way back and then some. My mother is a devotee whose 7pm to 7.30pm time slot is always reserved for that precious television show! Of course, like mother like daughter and up until my uni years I too was a Home and Away tragic. Not so much any more though.

Walking around Palm Beach, or as I called it all day Summer Bay, was a very surreal experience. It felt like I was walking around in an episode, going to the beach to meet up with my love interest or grabbing a smoothie from the Surf Club to talk things over with Indi and Dex. What I wasn't surprised by was how beautiful the area is. It is everything that it looks like on TV but even more stunning in real life. Those original set researchers sure made the right decision!

We spent most of the time on the beach which was surprisingly empty for its beauty and then ventured to the other side of the Bay to The Boathouse Palm Beach for lunch and a sweet - which I believe is used as an outside shot for The Diner... The Boathouse was an amazing choice for lunch. There were bunches of fresh flowers and floral arrangements everywhere, bowls of fresh fruit and citrus and not to mention fresh and tasty food! I had an yummy meringue and huge ice coffee which was just what I needed to get me through the two hour bus ride back to Sydney!

Halloween.

I have always been a bit festive. I love holidays like Christmas and Easter, or any occasion with a theme. Whenever Halloween would roll around when we were young my sisters and I would watch back-to-back special Halloween episodes of all of the shows on Disney Channel. We would live out our Halloween fantasies through the TV shows because it is not widely celebrated here in Australia. One of the benefits of living out of home is being able to do what ever you want - in last night's case it was celebrating Halloween! I made a black and orange tassel garland, covered the chairs in fake cobwebs, made these cute jack-o-lanterns from plastic cups and Donna Hay's jack-o-lantern pizzas! After dinner we took our food comas to the couch, ate some candy and watched our favourite Halloween movie The Haunted Mansion. It was the perfect spooky night in.

DIY: Jar succulents.

I make no secret of my love for Pinterest. It's inspiration, ideas and everything in between keep me coming back almost everyday. Recently my friend Megan re-pinned and told me about the cute mason jar succulent DIY she had made. It wasn't until today when I was out shopping for another project that I found this jar in a two-dollar shop and remembered the aforementioned DIY. I headed to Bunnings to pick up a succulent (as well as that cool pink cactus) and some pebbles before making my way home to put it all together. First put a hand-full of pebbles into the bottom of your jar, add some wet soil on top of the pebbles and then your succulent in its soil on top. If you keep the soil wet then it will stop it from falling down into the pebbles. Give your succulent a spritz of water every now and then using a spray bottle. And that's all! Cheap, easy and effective way of adding some greenery to your bedroom, living room or kitchen!