Tunes Tuesday

Soooo looking round the blogging world, I noticed that quite a few people have a post that they do weekly, usually on a certain day haha, so here's mine...introducing *epic drum roll*  "Tunes Tuesday" , which will be all about sharing what I'm listening too at the moment!

So at the moment I'm all about Noisetrade, which is a site featuring heaps of musicians, most of which are artists/bands just starting out. How it works is you get to download their album for free (score aye!! and its completely legit!) and in exchange you let noise trade post on your Facebook or Twitter that you downloaded that particular artist, so it gives the artist a bit of a free promo. There is a bit of not so cool music on noise trade but there is also some music that is absolute gold!

One of my most favourite albums I have ever got from Noisetrade is called "Love and War and the Sea In Between" by a guy called Josh Garrels. Very beautiful acoustic music and also amazing lyrics! LOVE! Check out the song below...one of my faves. 

I also went to Parachute on Saturday and bought the album "The Anthem" by Aaron Gillespie , who used to be be in the band Underoath. This is his worship album.  I haven't had a lot of time to listen to it yet, but I'm quite excited bout it! 

Scott, Davy and Myself at Parachute

Can't remember this guys name..awkward. 

The Almost

Coffee Muffins

This coffee muffin recipe is a favourite in my family, as well as with my friends. They are just waaayyy too yummy! The kids in my brother's class at school would always be like "Get your mum to make coffee muffins oi!" whenever there was a class shared lunch. The awesome thing about them too is that it is one of those chuck-everything-together-in-a-bowl-and-mix recipes. So today went to make them and discovered I had no cup-cake liners  or instant coffee. I figured I'd just make a really strong plunger coffee to substitute, but it didn't work as well. This must be the one time in life that instant trumps plunger. As for the cup-cake liners, I decided to have a go at making my own out of baking paper with a few hints I got from here. 

3tsp of dry instant coffee

1Tbsp of hot water

125g of Butter

2tsp of vanilla essence

3/4c of brown sugar

2 eggs

1c of flour

1tsp of baking powder

1/3c of milk

1/4c custard powder


Dissolve coffee in water, combine in a large bowl with the butter, essence, sugar, eggs, sifted flour, custard powder and milk. Beat until all the ingredients are combined and mixture is smooth. Bake in a moderate oven.  

D.I.Y-ness

A couple of years ago I bought this dress from Dotti (i think...) and I wore it a few times but not a whole bunch, mainly because i felt quite awkward with the top part of it not fitting very well over the boobs. Its been in wardrobe for quite a while because I haven't had the heart to get rid of it because it cost me $60 (which is quite a lot for me to pay for one dress, coz I hate paying full price for stuff.) Anyways today I decided its about time I did something with this dress, so I turned it from a dress into a high-waisted skirt. 

Better much? I think i'm gonna get heaps more wear outta this thing! 

Op-Shop Bargains.

I am a lover of a good op-shop bargain! I guess I just love bargains in general, but I always get so stoked when I find something cool at an op-shop. Te Aroha has three op-shops, so last week I went and had a little look and here is what I found...

Cute peep-toe brown wedge heels...look like they have hardly been worn
$2
If you find cool shoes in your size at an op-shop its meant to be. 

Leather (i think?) bag. ok so this wasn't so much of a bargain.
$8, but I liked it. 

3/4 sleeve navy blazer. Looks cooler in real life then in this photo haha.
Buy of the day , 50c!!

Memories

I haven't used my camera in about 6 months and when I decided to make a blog, I decided to dust my camera off. I found some photos on my camera that I hadn't even uploaded to my computer yet, so it was fun to get to look at some memories from early 

2011..here are a few.

View from beautiful Orama

Swimming with a pod of dolphins!

Sunset on a plane flight

Our first flat!

Te Aroha Wetlands

View from Kaimais-on our way to Tauranga

Car rally -take a photo on a swing. 

Te Aroha soda water geyser. 

mac for life yo! haha birthday cake I made for Stephen.

Old Literature

One day a wee while back, I was on facebook looking at someones wedding photos (you know how it is, a friend comments on one of their friend's photos and it comes up on your homepage, and all of a sudden you find yourself looking through the album of someone you don't know at all! stalker much haha). Anyways, in the photos of the reception I saw that they had used old books tied up with lace as decorations and I thought this was super cute, so decided to give it a go as a decoration for my own room. I hit the local op-shops looking for old books, and found these beauties. Four for two dollars. Bargain. Then I bought some lace from the craft store. It cost me four dollars for 2m (I needed all of it). When I got home I realized that the white lace looked too "new" for the old books, so i dunked it in a cup of tea to stain it a more antique looking colour. So pretty much you just tie the lace around the books like you would tie ribbon around a present. Sweet, a cheap and cute decoration.