Happy New Year

Hope you all have a great one whatever you have planned. As for me the hubby and I are having a quiet one with some Cosmopolitans for me and Gentleman's Jacks for him!! We're going to laze around the house self-indulgantly and watch the countdown on TV! Bliss!

2010 - The Year In Review

2010 was a busy year for the hubby and I. We had visits from my Mum and Stepdad, My older sister and her boyfriend, The hubby's Dad then very shortly after the Hubby's Mum so it feels like we've only just reclaimed our house.

Although we both worked hard (the hubby doubly so!) and I recently got a new job we still took time to enjoy time out together. This year we went to see:
♥ Nation
♥ Westside Story
♥ The Australian burlesque Festival
♥ Stephen Lynch
♥ Fame
♥ and most recently Bon Jovi

This year I concentrated on learning new skills and expanding my knowledge:
♥ I learnt dressmaking thanks to my lovely Mummy who helped me make this fab skirt
♥ I learnt about digital photography thanks to the hubby's dad who gave me an SLR camera and taught me how to use it.
♥ I also learnt about photoshop from the hubby's Dad
♥ I expended my childcare knowledge by reading up all the Purple fairy's notes from her TAFE diploma

Although we didn't have the time or money to travel this year we got a new car which meant we could explore a little further afield in our local area and we also finally set the date for our wedding in Fiji next July!!

We also welcomed our great-niece baby Amara to the family in 2010 and she is just beautiful!

I hope 2010 was a great year for you all dear readers and 2011 will be even better!

Santa Came!

Yes dear readers Santa made a stop at our house this year and I must have been a good girl because I did extremely well this Christmas. I got this gorgeous Art Deco crystal glass dressing table set from my Mum and Step dad. They're sending it out in bits due to the exorbitant UK postage so I only have the pots for the time being but there is still the candlesticks, ring holder and tray to come. I can't wait to get the whole set and once I do I will photograph it again.
From the hubby I got this gorgeous new handbag and although its not vintage it reminds me of this one on Etsy that I also might have to snap up. The hubby also got me a DS game, a Buddha candle holder to turn out bathroom into a zen sanctuary and the first Vampire Academy book by Richelle Mead. He knows my love of all things vampire and its turning out to be a jolly good read! The hubby's mum got me this gorgeous red shoe necklace. She knows how I love shoes and all things red!

Way back in September when my older sister came to visit she bought me a white cotton maxi dress with bird of paradise flowers on. Its not my normal vintage style but I saw it and fell in love with it! I imagined myself wearing it while sunning myself on Fiji when we go in July to get married! I'm sure to do an outfit post in the future wearing the dress so you can all see it then.

My little sister (who also put in for the maxi dress) also got me a couple of books: How to Keep Well in Wartime and 101 Things to do in Wartime which I've yet to read but once I do I will be sure to post reviews.

What Emma Did - 26th December 2010

Yes dear readers its the last 'What Emma Did' of the year. So this week I have been:
♥ Snuggled up with a warm cuppa watching Christmas movies with the hubby
♥ Eating a yummy Christmas dinner and plum pudding despite the 28 degrees heat!
♥ Taking my nephews their presents and having breakfast there on Christmas morning
♥ Having a continental Christmas by cheating and opening our pressies on Christmas eve
♥ Recovering from what my doctor suspected to be whooping cough but turned out to be just a bad cold!
♥ Trying to spot the lunar eclipse through the Sydney cloud!

Merry Christmas

Wishing all my readers a very Merry Christmas! I hope Santa brings you all you wished for and more!!

Work Uniform Woes

As I may have mentioned a few weeks ago I have a new job. It's at my local Austalia wide bakery business (not mentioning any names but I'm sure my Aussie readers can work it out!) and whilst it is not exactly inspiring work it is still very exciting for me mostly because of the extra money that it brings in. I'm already planning all the retro-inspired and vintage clothes and shoes I'm going to buy!

However I was mortified when I was supplied with a white polo shirt, beige (ick ick!) shorts, beige cap and burgundy apron as uniform. Not only have a never owned anything beige in my life but the uniform does not match my tastes and leaves no room for personal style. I am neglecting to post a picture of me in uniform here because its just too ugly but here is my personal redesign of how I would chose to wear it given the option:

Bakers Delight Uniform by emmerv featuring vintage tops

What Emma Did - 19th December 2010

This week I have been:
♥ Doing the last of my Christmas shopping
♥ Making cross-stitch Christmas cards for the girlies
♥ Baking up yummy ginger bread cookies
♥ Going out to dinner with the family
♥ Waving off the hubby's mum at the airport
♥ Enjoying having my house back to myself
♥ Rocking 80's style when we went to see Bon Jovi!

Emma aime in the Kitchen - Gingerbread Cookies

This year we have been so busy with house guests and the like that Christmas has snuck up on me and before I realised it we were a week before Christmas and I had no gift to give the UN girlies at our annual Christmas get together. Then a flash of inspiration hit me and I remembered these super yummy and easy to make cookies that I first made in 2007 when the hubby and I hosted a family Christmas.

Ingredients:

6 oz flour
2 oz butter

2 oz brown sugar

1 tbs golden syrup

1 tsp ground ginger

Method:

Preheat the oven to 190 degrees centigrade

Melt the butter, sugar and golden syrup in a pan

Add the ginger and flour and stir until a dough is formed

Roll out to 3mm thick and cut into cute shapes and place on a greased baking tray

Bake for 5-7 minutes

What Emma Did - 12 December 2010

This week I have been:
♥ Waving the hubby's dad off at the airport
♥ Doing the last of my Christmas shopping
♥ Taking the hubby's mum out to lunch
♥ Going to a psychic party and getting a very accurate reading!
♥ Having the hubby's mum to stay
♥ Going to my nephews end of year 10 graduation
♥ Going to my brother in laws 40th birthday party
♥ Watching the new Narnia movie (which was awesome) in 3D (which is even more awesome)

Way We Wear Vintage Fair

This weekend is the 9th The Way We Wear Sydney Vintage Fashion Fair. At the Christmas Fair there will be approximately thirty four dealers with antique, designer, men’s wear. retro and vintage clothing, jewellery, fashion accessories, millinery, buttons and bows, fashion art, linen and lace, fashion ephemera and boudoir items. Everything for the Sydney ‘fashionista’.

While you shop, on Friday night and also on Saturday and Sunday you can experience the sounds of the fabulous Sydney theatre organ that is housed at the venue. You ain’t heard nothing yet until you hear this organ playing.........!

In the foyer, take a few minutes to look at the exhibition that features something that no woman can really do without in her wardrobe - a little black dress. There are some stunning examples of the ‘lbd’ spanning some 150 years.

Wear a ‘lbd’ on Friday, Saturday or Sunday and be in the running for our hourly prizes of ‘bubbly’ for fashionistas with a ‘lbd’ on............

Venue: Marrickville Town Hall, Marrickville
Times: Friday 10 December 2010 6pm - 9pm
Saturday 11 December 2010 10am - 5pm
Sunday 12 December 2010 10am - 4pm
Entry: $12

What Emma Did - 5th December 2010

Its time for a very late What Emma Did. This week I have been:
♥ Trying out my camera at a trip to Sydney Aquarium
♥ Making a birthday cake for my nephews 12th birthday party (I'll post the recipe in the week!)
♥ Welcoming a great niece into the world - I haven't seen her in person yet but from the photos she looks absolutely gorgeous!
♥ Attempting to finish the nappy stacker but having a falling out with my sewing machine
♥ Planning a Port Hacking river cruise and arriving at the dock only to find the boat had been chartered for a private party
♥ Trying my hand at cross stitching my own Christmas cards

Sydney Aquarium

Yesterday was a very rainy day in Sydney, so rainy in fact that it reminded me of the first day of an English summer not an Australian one! In an attempt to keep the hubby's dad entertained and stay dry we decided to go to Sydney Aquarium. The Sydney Aquarium was opened in 1988, during Australia's bicentenary celebrations, and is one of the largest aquariums in the world. It is regarded as one of Sydney's premier tourist attractions with over 55% of its visitors each year coming from overseas.

Going to the aquarium gave me a chance to try out my new camera. So here's my pictures from the day:

Montly Muse: Ava Gardner

Its the beginning of December which means its time for another monthly muse and this month it is the divine Ava Gardner.

Ava Lavinia Gardner was born on December 24, 1922 in Grabtown, Johnston County, North Carolina. She was the youngest of seven children to Mary Elizabeth ("Mollie") Gardner (née Baker) and Jonas Bailey Gardner. Her parents were poor cotton and tobacco farmers but the lost their property when she was young so her father went to work at a sawmill and her mother as a cook and housekeeper.

When Gardner was 13 years old, the family decided to try their luck in a bigger town, Newport News, Virginia where her mother found work as a boardinghouse manager. Ava's father died when she was 15 of bronchitis. After Jonas Gardner's death, the family moved to the Rock Ridge suburb of Wilson, North Carolina, where Mollie Gardner ran another boarding house for teachers. Ava Gardner attended high school in Rock Ridge and she graduated from there in 1939. She then attended secretarial classes at Atlantic Christian College in Wilson for about a year.

Gardner was visiting her sister Beatrice ("Bappie") in New York in 1941 when Beatrice's husband Larry Tarr, a professional photographer, offered to take her portrait. He was so pleased with the results that he displayed the finished product in the front window of his Tarr Photography Studio on tony Fifth Avenue.

In 1941, a Loews Theatres legal clerk, Barnard "Barney" Duhan, spotted Gardner's photo in Tarr's studio. At the time, Duhan often posed as an MGM talent scout to meet girls, using the fact that MGM was a subsidiary of Loews. Duhan entered Tarr's and tried to get Gardner's number, but was rebuffed by the receptionist. Duhan made the offhand comment, "Somebody should send her info to MGM", and the Tarrs did so immediately. Shortly after, Gardner, who at the time was a student at Atlantic Christian College, traveled to New York to be interviewed at MGM's New York office. She was offered a standard contract by MGM, and left school for Hollywood in 1941 with her sister Bappie accompanying her. MGM's first order of business was to provide her a speech coach, as her Carolina drawl was nearly incomprehensible to them

Gardner was nominated for an Academy Award for Mogambo (1953); the award was won by Audrey Hepburn for Roman Holiday. Her performance as Maxine Faulk in The Night of the Iguana (1964), was well reviewed, and she was nominated a BAFTA Award and a Golden Globe.

Other films include The Hucksters (1947), Show Boat (1951), The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952), 1954's The Barefoot Contessa (which some consider to be Gardner's "signature film" since it mirrored her real life custom of going barefoot), Bhowani Junction (1956), The Sun Also Rises (in which she played party-girl Brett Ashley) (1957), and the film version of Neville Shute's best-selling On the Beach, co-starring Gregory Peck.

In 1966, Gardner briefly sought the role of Mrs. Robinson in Mike Nichols' The Graduate (1967). She reportedly called Nichols and said, "I want to see you! I want to talk about this Graduate thing!" Nichols never seriously considered her for the part, but he did visit her hotel, where he later recounted that "she sat at a little French desk with a telephone, she went through every movie star cliché. She said, 'All right, let's talk about your movie. First of all, I strip for nobody.'"
Gardner moved to London, England in 1968, undergoing an elective hysterectomy to allay her worries of contracting the uterine cancer that had claimed the life of her own mother. That year, she made what some consider to be one of her best films, Mayerling, in which she played the Austrian Empress Elisabeth of Austria opposite James Mason as Emperor Franz Joseph I.

She appeared in a number of disaster films throughout the 1970s, notably Earthquake (1974), The Cassandra Crossing (1976), and the Canadian movie City on Fire (1979). She also starred in The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972) with Paul Newman and Jacqueline Bisset, The Blue Bird (1976) with Jane Fonda and Elizabeth Taylor.

Her last movie was Regina Roma (1982), a direct-to-video release. In the 1980s she acted primarily on television, including the miniseries remake of The Long Hot Summer (1985) and the prime-time soap opera Knot's Landing, also in 1985. In 1986 she appeared in her two final projects, the TV movies Harem and Maggie.

After a lifetime of smoking, Gardner suffered from emphysema, in addition to an autoimmune disorder (which may have been lupus). Two strokes in 1986 left her partially paralyzed and bedridden. Although Gardner could afford her medical expenses, Sinatra wanted to pay for her to visit a specialist in the United States, and she allowed him to make the arrangements for a medically-staffed private plane. Her last words (to her housekeeper Carmen), were reportedly, "I'm so tired," before she died of pneumonia at the age of 67. After her death, Sinatra's daughter Tina found him slumped in his room, crying, and unable to speak.