My Style Diary - Saturday Afternoon Strolling Around Fremantle

Good morning! 

I'm sitting here bright and early on this lovely Sunday morning with my cup of tea, ready to get stuck into blogging. 

These photos are from last Saturday (just quickly snapped on my phone) when Tom and I spent a lovely afternoon strolling around Fremantle. For some reason we rarely get to Freo, but when we do I always love the chilled vibe it has. The old buildings, walking through the markets, popping into second hand bookstores, and just leisurely exploring, really can make you feel like you're on holiday, even if it's just for a few hours. 

Outfit-wise I was wearing my Country Road jeans and one of my favourite (very brightly) printed shirts, with my navy cardigan thrown on for a little more warmth (we seem to be heading into autumn a lot more quickly than usual, what happened to our endless summers?!)

These are all staple pieces in my capsule wardrobe that I've worn time and time again and won't be going anywhere anytime soon!

The bag I actually stole from my Mum (she wasn't using it so I thought I may as well give it some love!) and it's become one of my favourites. It's a lovely soft leather, the tan colour goes with almost everything I wear and it's the perfect size. Cross body bags have always been my favourite style, and they're particularly great for days like this one when you're wandering around exploring (and pretending to be on holiday).

Speaking of holidays I have SO many photos from our Europe trip to share but I just haven't gotten around to sorting through them yet! Making time to sit down and write posts/edit photos has been hard lately as I feel like there are a million other things I should be doing and my poor little blog always gets put on the back burner. 

I do really want to make this more of a priority though as it's something I love doing and truly makes me so happy.

 I have so many ideas floating around in my head for fun, creative posts (not just style diaries!) and just random things I'd like to share, but I do still have this mental block that my blog is just this "silly, frivolous thing" so I have trouble making it a priority. Even after four years of blogging I don't talk about it with people in real life and the thought of people I know reading it still makes me squirm! I know it's ridiculous and I really do just need to get over it, but it's much easier said than done!

Any tips on getting over this silly fear? They would be much appreciated! :)

Anyway, that turned into a bit of a ramble didn't it?

I hope you have an awesome weekend!

Lots of Love
Lauren

xxx

Top - Sportsgirl

Jeans - Country Road

Cardigan - Pull & Bear

Shoes - Roxy

Bag - Country Road

How To Care for Orchids

Good morning!

I hope your weekend has been off to a lovely start!

For today's post I thought I would share some of my tips and tricks for taking care of orchids. Now I'm not an expert (I feel like I preface everything I say on this blog with that!) but I have had a reasonable amount of experience and luck caring for my little orchid collection (all of mine are Phalaenopsis). I've been able to get a second life out of all the orchid's I've had so far and one particular plant has has actually bloomed three times already and is still going strong!

So here are my simple tips - hopefully they will help you out!

1. Make sure your orchid gets lots of bright, indirect/filtered light

When we first moved into our apartment I had one orchid that I kept on the windowsill. It did fine in winter but when summer came around the light became way too harsh and actually ended up leaving a burn mark on one of the leaves. Now I like to keep them on my desk or dresser - close enough to get enough light, but far enough away so the window doesn't turn into a magnifying glass and burn my poor orchids to a crisp! If it's a really hot day I'll pull our sheer curtains over the window to filter the light.

2.  Water your orchids using a spray bottle or the ice-block trick if you're a beginner

Apparently one of the most common reasons that orchids don't survive is because they are overwatered, which is why the trick of using a small handful of ice blocks (around 3-4) once a week is so popular. When I first started out with my orchid's I did this and it worked really well for me but after a little research I've noticed there is some conflicting opinions on whether this is really the best method - take a look at this article if you want to read more. Despite this I feel that if you're a beginner, watering with ice-blocks is a good place to start.
I've actually switched over to using a spray bottle to give my orchids a good watering roughly once a week, and sometimes a little more frequently if I notice the soil is looking really dry. You want to give it a reasonable drenching so the soil is nice and moist, but leave enough time for it to dry out properly.
It's also important not to get water collecting in the centre of the plant on the leaves so I always make sure to spray the water under the leaves right onto the soil.

3. Repot roughly once a year (once the flowers have died off)

I delayed repotting for ages as I was terrified I would kill my orchid by doing this, but it's really quite simple. This video by Chicago Botanic Garden on youtube was the most helpful I've found. Once I repotted I found my orchid started growing really well and flowered very quickly afterwards! I used a potting mix made especially for orchids that I picked up from Bunnings.

4. Remember to fertilise your orchid

Some sites I've read recommend fertilising every few weeks whereas the directions on the fertiliser I use recommend every 6 months. I use this Osmocote fertiliser and have used it roughly every 6 months  and so far it seems to be going well! I guess it really depends on the specific fertiliser you're using.

These are the tips that have worked for me so far! I hope they're helpful if you haven't had much luck with orchids in the past. It really is such a great feeling when an orchid starts to flower again. Let me know if you haven any suggestions or extra tips - as I said I'm not an expert so I'd love to hear any extra advice!

Have a lovely weekend whatever you're up to!

Lauren
xxx

Experimenting With Our New Camera - Olympus Pen EPL 8

I'm diving into my photo archives once again for this post. There's no particular theme to this one - just a few cool photos I took while experimenting with my new camera that I wanted to share!

Back in November, I finally decided to take the plunge and invest in a new camera. I've been using my little Sony one for years and I figured it was time to step it up a notch. After doing a lot of research, I finally settled on the  Olympus Pen EPL-8. I wanted something that was fairly compact but that still had the option of using different lenses, so this one seemed perfect. 

After much discussion with my photographer uncle (it was so handy getting advice from him although his recommendations were definitely on the very expensive side - which I guess is to be expected), I decided to skip the kit lens that it usually comes with and instead invest in a few prime lenses - the  17mm f1.8 and  45mm f1.8. They were pricey, but they are really really nice lenses that I will use for years to come. I've been blogging for 4 years now and have been using my same little camera this whole time, so I decided it was finally time to just take the plunge.

These also seem to be the lenses that a lot of fashion bloggers use, so I figured they would probably be perfect for how I plan to mainly use them! I do also want to add a zoom lens to my collection at some point - it would have definitely come in handy while we were travelling!

I won't go into all the details about the camera because I am no photography buff, but I am really enjoying playing with it and (very slowly) learning how to use all it's different features.

This year I'd really like to learn more about photography so I can make the most out of my new camera. I'm happy to say I'm no longer shooting solely in automatic mode but I still have a long way to go!

So that's it for today!

Hope you're Sunday is off to a great start! I'm just about to do some  Yoga With Adriene now!

Lots of Love

Lauren

xxx

The Foodie Post - Breakfast at the Margaret River Bakery

A visit to the Margaret River Bakery is always a must whenever we find ourselves down south, so after deciding spontaneously to take a (very) short trip with my family this weekend, of course we had to stop by!

It's such a cute, quirky little place with mismatched furniture and an eclectic mix of colourful crockery, fun table numbers and of course fabulous food!

While they have a great selection of pies, rolls and yummy sweet treats, their breakfast menu is always my favourite. I was torn between choosing a number of the items - like the Avocado smash (which my mum had and loved), the Canadian pancakes or French Toast, but ultimately settled on their Granola with greek yoghurt and berries, which was not only delicious but also had the added benefit of being particularly photogenic ;)

Their Mango smoothie (that was actually green) was a winner too and my little sister Bella had the breakfast smoothie which she thoroughly enjoyed. My Mum tells me their Kermit Green Smoothie is also a good'un.

Tom had a long black (which was "okay but nothing to write home about" - although do note that Tom's a bit of a coffee snob!) and a pepper steak pie (their pies are always delicious!) 

Delicious food, a lovely relaxed atmosphere and getting to spend time with some of my favourite people - a pretty good way to spend a Saturday morning :)

If you've never been before, The Bakery is definitely a place to add to your list (just keep in mind that they're closed on Sundays!)

Hope you're having a great weekend!

Lots of Love

Lauren

xxx

My Travel Diary - Vlogging in Berlin!

Hello Hello!

Firstly - Happy New Year! I can't believe this is the first post I'm doing in 2017 - somehow time has run away from me! (I'm always saying that aren't I?)

Tom and I had a lovely start to the year as we were still away on holiday, and we've just been settling back into "real life" over the past week or so.

I was planning for my first post of 2017 to be something about New Years Resolutions/Goals, or at least a bit of a recap of the past year (I always love reflecting on all the highlights), but I haven't quite gotten around to sitting down and really planning that out yet so instead I'm sharing a few of the vlogs I made while we were on our Europe trip! - starting off with Berlin!

There will be plenty of photos and Travel Diary posts to come, but it's going to take me a while to sort through all those photos so I thought I may as well share the videos here on the blog in case anyone happens to be interested! 

To be honest I do cringe a little at the thought of people watching these, but I had such a fun time filming and editing them and it's great to be able to watch them back and remember what we got up to and what an awesome trip we had. 

I figured I should just suck it up, try not to worry about what anyone thinks and just put these out there! Especially seeing as my word for this year is "Confidence" - this is a good start to putting that into practice!

1.

Off to Berlin

2.

Berlin Walking Tour and Christmas Markets

3.

Mauerpark Flea Market and East Side Gallery

4.

Tiergarten and Christmas Markets at Schloss Charlottenburg

Have you been to Berlin before? I'd love to hear what your favourite places to visit are as Tom and I really enjoyed exploring this beautiful city and would love to go back one day!

One of my absolute highlights (which I didn't actually vlog) was meeting up with a friend that I've made through youtube - Jenny Traumerin. It was so fun to be able to meet up and connect with someone who has so many similar interests to me and that lives on the other side of the world!

The internet is a pretty amazing thing really!

I was also lucky enough to meet up with the lovely Rachel from A Nesting Nomad while I was in London too! (So Rachel if you're reading this - thanks so much for taking the time to meet us!) Her travel blog is amazing so you should check it out if you haven't seen it before!

Meeting up with these online friends really reaffirmed to me that I should keep up with this little hobby of mine. I feel like it fell by the wayside a little in 2016 so hopefully I'll be able to put a little more love into the blog this year as it's something I really enjoy!

Hope you're having a great night (or day!)

Thanks as always for stopping by! 

Lots of Love

Lauren

xxx

Merry Christmas!

Heya :)

It's been a little quiet here on the blog lately as we've been having a lovely time exploring Europe

(so far we've been in Berlin and are now spending Christmas in Prague).

I wanted to pop on quickly though to say hello and to wish you a very happy and safe Christmas!

There will be plenty of travel photos coming to the blog soon, but if you'd like to see a few sneak peeks you can check out my Instagram ;)

Happy Christmas!

Lots of Love

Lauren

xxx

My Style Diary - Anniversary Celebrations at Meeka Restaurant

Good morning and Happy Sunday!

As usual I'm up at a ridiculous hour for a Sunday (but  I love it) and I'm sharing with you photos from last night. Yesterday was Tom and my 7 year anniversary - seriously how has it been seven years?! - and to celebrate we decided to do our usual thing and go out and eat! We had been meaning to try out  Meeka Restaurant for ages (the menu has been up on our fridge to remind us for months) and we figured our anniversary was a perfect excuse to go out for a lovely meal. 

I wore one of my favourite dresses; white and floaty, this Zara number is always a winner in my books, and as it was a little chilly, threw on this relaxed boyfriend-style blazer. I love the look of blazers but rarely wear them as they tend to make me feel too dressy, but tonight the oversized look of this one felt perfect paired with the feminine dress.

Tom also dressed up a little, wearing a checked shirt from Trenery. I love the colours and it's nice to see him in something other than a t-shirt every now and then ;)

We definitely weren't disappointment when it came to the food (see below for photos). The restaurant is middle eastern/Moroccan style and everything we ordered was absolutely delicious. 

The dishes are designed to be shared so we started with a few plates of Mezze; Pumpkin hazelnut falafel pockets, Hummus 3 ways with Meeka mixed breads, and Dates stuffed with goats feta, candied walnuts, lemon rocket shallot salad and toasted pepitas. The dates were my particular favourite - you had the sweetness of the dates mixed with the savoury, slightly salty cheese, and then the textures added a whole other dimension. The chewy dates were wrapped in a sort of crispy noodle type thing (no idea what it actually was) that added a lovely crunch. Every bite was just. so. good!

We then shared a vegetable Tajine served with Couscous and finished off our meal with a pretty awesome dessert; Meeka Doughnuts stuffed with salted caramel, cardamom sugar, chocolate hazelnut caramel swirl ice cream, hazelnut praline, macaron and rose petals. It was a good as it sounds. The only part I wasn't a huge fan of was the Persian fairy floss which was perched atop the icecream. It looked beautiful, but there was something about the flavour/texture I just couldn't quite wrap my head around. (This was a very minor thing and Tom seemed to enjoy it so it's probably just my weird taste buds!)

In addition to the lovely food the restaurant was beautifully decorated and atmospheric and the service was top notch too. If you're in Perth I recommend checking this place out - we'll definitely be back again. 

So that brings me to the end of todays post. I hope you have a beautiful Sunday!

Lots of Love

Lauren

xxx

My Outfit:

Dress - Zara

Blazer - Zara

Bag - Jigsaw

Heels - Country Road

Tom's Outfit:

Shirt - Trenery

Jeans - Calvin Klein

Boots - ?

How To Make A Flower Crown

Today I'm sharing with you how to make a flower crown! Perfect for a wedding, fancy dress or just as a beautiful headpiece to jazz up an outfit.

I originally planned to wear this crown for my wedding, however as this was my first go, it turned out a little bigger than I'd intended (I got a tad carried away adding more and more flowers!) so I'm probably going to make one that's a little more delicate for the big day. 

I'm not an expert, but I'm pretty happy with how this flower crown turned out, so I figured I'd share with you how I created it!

I've made a video (see below) to go along with this post too if you'd prefer to watch rather than read :)

What you'll need:

1)  Florist Wire 

2)  Florist Tape (I used a mixture of the paper and parafilm kind)

3) Flowers (artificial or real) 

4) Greenery of some kind 

5) Wire Cutters

Step 1

Start off by creating a circle with the wire that fits nicely on your head. I was using quite fine wire so I twisted a few pieces together to give it a little added thickness and strength. I then used floral tape to wrap all around the wire so I had a neat base to work with.

Step 2

Position the greenery and start wiring it piece by piece onto the crown, overlapping as you go so that the base of the crown is fully covered.

Step 3 

It's time to start wiring the flowers. I've seen tutorials that say you're supposed to stab the wire through the top of the flower stem and then wrap it around the stem, however as my flowers were artificial, I had difficulty stabbing it through (and a few of the flowers, didn't even have much of a stem to wrap around), so instead I just looped the wire through the little hole at the top and then twisted it down so I had something to work with when attaching the flowers to the crown. It's difficult to explain so if you're confused you can check out the video and you'll be able to see this step more clearly.

I then used the florist tape to wrap and cover the wire

(I didn't want to be stabbed in the head with wire while I was wearing my crown so I may have gone a tad overboard with the tape!)

Step 4

Now comes the most fun part of positioning your flowers and wiring them to the crown.

For me there was definitely a bit of trial and error in this process!

Make sure to keep placing the crown on your head and checking in the mirror as you go, because the crown looks really different once you have it on your head!

This is particularly important if you're using bigger flowers as you want to make sure you're orientating them the correct way. It's also a good way to check that the wires are reasonably well hidden.

Because I wanted the flowers to be on the back of the crown, I just make sure to take lots of photos with the self timer on my camera as I went along to make sure it was coming together the way I wanted!

... and there you have it! :)

I hope it was helpful and I would love to see your creations if you give it a go!

Happy flower crown making!

Lauren

xxx