A belated birthday gift from Heartbreaker Fashion

I love vintage clothing. Just about all my favourite items of clothing are vintage. I also love vintage re-creation, which is all about flattering cuts and fun fabrics that you don’t see on ‘fashionable’ clothing. Unfortunately, re-creation vintage can also come with a price tag that is out of my tight budget range.

However, a couple of years ago I found Heartbreaker Fashion, a vintage inspired clothing company founded by a Californian mother and daughter team. Their clothes are simple, comfortable and flattering. Unless you order from the ‘fancy’ ranges, the dresses are 100% good quality cotton, well made and perfect for the Queensland climate. Best of all, they are very reasonably priced. A friend and I each treated ourselves to two dresses as a ‘test run’ and are still happily wearing them a few years later.

My previous purchases; 

Super Spy Dress Anita in Black. Made of cotton knit, it is perfect for evenings out in Brisbane.   
Aimee dress, colourful and comfortable cotton. Mine is a different pattern.

 Images courtesy of Heartbreaker.

So when a good friend gave me some money for my birthday to spend on a ‘nice top’ I knew just what I wanted. I had seen this photo on the Heartbreaker website a few weeks before and been completely seduced. It was exactly how I wanted to look!

 Ella top in Turquoise Cosmic Dot. Image courtesy of Heartbreaker 

For good measure I threw in the same blouse in leopard print (because who doesn’t love leopard print) and I was very tempted to get this super-cheerful daisy top as well, but I chose to be restrained. 

 Ella top in Hip Kitty and Springfield.

They’ve only been around a couple of days but I am really happy with them. They are great for work and casual and are a great fit. Downside is I (theoretically) have to iron them, but I can cope with that in exchange for looking adorable. In fact, I can get away without it. Which I always will, if I can. Ironing sucks.

Me in my two new purchases, with appropriate shoes; leopard print on the left and turquoise frilled leather BCBG Max Azaria on the right. The latter bought at Retournez-vous second hand shop in Mooloolaba

The only negative was that it took 7 weeks for my two blouses to arrive. They ask for 7-10 working days to make the order, which is fine. But then the package was dispatched from the US and I watched in horror as the online tracker told me it had left the states, arrived in Brisbane, two attempted deliveries were made within 15 minutes on the same morning and then the package was on its’ way back to the states! WHY?!  

When it arrived back at Heartbreaker it was dispatched back immediately, first class. It still took 2 weeks to get here but nevertheless, it arrived on my desk safe and sound.

The delay in arrival was not the fault of Heartbreaker, rather the Postal Services, but that doesn’t make it any less irritating and of course the only people I could whinge to were Heartbreaker. They always responded politely to my emails and did whatever they could to fix the situation, which truth be told isn't a lot when the package is somewhere in transit over the Pacific.

Anyway, the package did arrive and I am delighted with the contents. So much so I rather want more of the same. Particularly as there is new one with a bee print on it.

Provided you don’t need anything in a rush, I would heartily recommend Heartbreaker for fun flattering summer dresses, simple vintage-inspired cocktail wear and now, cute blouse tops. 

Check out the Heartbreaker Fashion website or if you like them on Facebook, you can see latest design, what's cooking in their test kitchen and of course, sale items!

Trivia at Kettle & Tin

Kettle & Tin may be less than a year old but they are already a Paddington institution, alleviating the weekend brunch stress on Anouk and going that step further with wine tastings (such as the Rose Revolution one I attended last year) and a pretty smashing dinner menu.

In March 2013, they launched once monthly trivia nights, then it was once a fortnight and now trivia is held every Tuesday night. It's free to participate, there are prizes for every round and $10 dinner specials.

Last night I and two girlfriends tried it out. I booked us a table and we arrived promptly at 6:30 for some brain-warming wine and food. The two $10 specials were whitebait and chips and bacon and truffle macaroni cheese. We immediately ordered the macaroni cheese, which a waiter informed us was 'outstanding', accompanied by confit duck nachos (which I have been wanting to try for weeks), the house terrine and orange and walnut salad, washed down with a couple of glasses of Merlot. All of it delicious and the macaroni cheese really hit the spot on a slightly chilly night.

Bacon and truffle macaroni cheese with a side of Penny's Hill Merlot.

The house terrine; pork and pistachio with gluten-free bread.

 Orange and walnut salad

Confit duck nachos

The trivia, now, if we'd been the full six person team I'd booked for, we might have stood a chance. But between the three of us and particularly with our limited (utter rubbish) musical knowledge we were not the best team.

 If there had been more questions about food we might have scored a little higher.

Not that we cared. We were having a great time and were getting reasonable scores, considering this was proper trivia and we were all a little out of practice. We were pleased we knew 'Name the three letter word for where oysters reside' (bed); 'What gas that yeast produces causes bread to rise?' (CO2) and 'What number is Aluminium on the periodic table?' (13).

Asked to name by sight Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift albums, the name of the Professor who once featured in Cadbury ads or the science of moving liquids and we were, frankly, stumped.

Our end score sheet.  Not the best scores but not too poor either.

It was a fun night. Three rounds of Trivia ran from 7 - 9pm, food and drink were quick and tasty and the whole room seemed to be enjoying themselves. Next time we go, we'll be taking a bigger team with at least one person who really knows their music.

If you're interested in partaking of some K&T trivia I recommend booking. The restaurant was packed and I think a few people had to be turned away.

McLaren Vale; an ideal location for a cross-continental catch-up

McLaren Vale is a small township 50 minutes south of Adelaide that has lent its name to the surrounding wine region and it was where I spent my second Australian-wine-region holiday of 2012.

An old travelling friend who lives in Perth and I decided to have a wine-infused holiday and we chose McLaren Vale because it was roughly halfway between our two cities. Flying in on Friday night, we motored down to McLaren and found our carefully selected cottage; a compromise between proximity to town, price and quaint wine-country-cottage; and quickly opened the complimentary welcome bottle. Getting up the next day, I was metres away from my own cellar door / café overlooking a garden and vines. Not a bad start to a trip.

McLaren Vale is small but fruitful wine-making region. There are 88 cellar doors in a region enclosed by the sea to the south and Adelaide and the Clare Valley to the north. If you had enough time, you could easily spend a fortnight visiting the Barossa, Clare Valley and McLaren Vale and taste hundreds of wines.

Artwork outside d'Arenberg, the very first stop on our McLaren Vale trip. 

The great advantage of how small the McLaren Vale region is, is that you can get up late, take yourself out for coffee and breakfast and still make it to four vineyards before lunch. There are scores of wineries within a 10 – 12m drive of the town, so you can skip from one to the other on a quick easy circuit.

McLaren Vale is known for its Shiraz, Grenache and Chardonnay. The first vines were planted in McLaren around 1838 and wine producers such as Hardys have been producing wine from the region since 1850. It is a real treat to be able to drink Shiraz from vines 50 to 100 years old.

 

Sculpted vineyards and twisted vines.

Just as with my previous trip to Margaret River, though I tasted scores of the region’s iconic drops, I found myself loving the range of Tempranillo, Sangiovese and the heavier Cabernet blends. My friend, a mad keen Australian wine taster and amateur connoisseur had to taste every Grenache on offer and there were plenty for him to sample. I tried my hand at Chardonnays, reasoning that if any region was going to change my opinion of them it would be this one but no. I came away with a better opinion of Australian Chardonnays but not a convert.

Shiraz and Cabernet vines.

 

We mostly stopped at smaller wineries that we were not at all familiar with. They have so much more personality and passion and I found it easier to engage with the staff behind the bar and learn about their wine and the region. My favourite winery was Hugh Hamilton, partly for the delightful set-up but mostly because I could happily have bought a mixed dozen and enjoyed every drop. 

The selection at Hugh Hamilton. Greatly enjoyed.

Alcoholic volcanos and layers of leis

A couple of weekends ago I threw a birthday party with two of my favourite people and fellow February-babies Caz and Kirst.

 Kirst in Gorman and me in Kitten d'Amour.

We’ve thrown joint birthday shindigs for a few years now. First at Alloneword, then at Limes and this year’s venue of choice: Alfred and Constance.  All three of us have had some good times there, so with the considerations of a Tiki bar, Queenslander decks, good food and a very helpful events coordinator, it was a pretty easy choice to make.

 

Bar drinks and decoration

 
Waking up on the day or your birthday party, if you’re looking forward to it, is a little like a second birthday. It felt like by special day all over again, but this time on a Saturday so I got to sleep in!

The party started early and our friends faithfully turned up right on the button to help us celebrate. There were beers, mojitos and bottles of wine to wash down platters of devils on horseback and bowls of thick salty chips.

Celebration time!

Over the night I got to catch up with so many old friends I now seem to see only at our annual bash. A triple birthday is one hell of an excuse to get people together. In amongst all the updates, we managed to down some Zombies (only one each), Jamaican Divorces and Kava Bowls.

 
Pina Coladas and Kava Bowls.

Cocktail appreciation time.

There were some great parts: everyone went nuts on the cocktails and the oddly 90s music. Being outdoors significantly lowered the temperature on what was one of Brisbane’s only clear Saturday nights this year. The bar staff were charming, the food as good as expected.

 

  

Downsides were that we had been lead to believe we’d have a small roped off area for a few hours which would then be opened up. But when we arrived, there was a rowdy blow-up doll-toting hen’s night in process on our little deck and they were not to be moved. Also, the place seemed to be much busier than any other time I’ve been to Alfred and Constance. Good for them, but it bums me out when I can’t reach a bar laden with pina coladas.

 

 

Nevertheless, a great time was had by all, and I would recommend Alfred and Constance for functions or for just a nice, relaxed evening out.  There’s something just so right about the combination of wooden deck, novelty cocktails  and fake turf carpet that really makes a night out. 

Thank you to all my wonderful friends who helped make my night!

 

Five for Friday

First big announcement, one of my favourite people has made a return to blogging! Another Brisbane local girl, she and her own blog partner talk about 20-something life, bars, beauty, fashion and fun on Adventures In Colour.

Do we need a new punctuation mark?

It's not often that I genuinely lust after an H&M collection, though I do desperately wish we had the chain here in Australia, but this collection, I WANT!

I adore discovering new, accessible food blogs and here is Tales of a Truffle Pig. Sure, the writer is based out of Sydney but she posts about food and eating all over the country and even from Brisbane, I can enjoy her opinions on beer and recipes for zucchini and bacon slice!

Jennifer Lawrence is tied with Emma Stone and Meryl Streep as the person I want most to play me in a movie about my life. So this week I was thrilled to not only discover a new sarcastic gifs tumblr, but one that went nuts with Jennifer Lawrence gifs post-oscars. She's known for being rad in interviews, so there is an internet-library of potential material.

Happy Birthday to me!

Last week was my birthday. It wasn’t a hugely significant one, but it was one *one of* the last of my 20-something years.

I’m not going to write about life and time creeping up on me and all the things I haven’t yet achieved because that’s not going to be cheerful to read at all.

Instead I’m going to spend the rest of this page being smug and pleased with myself for how good my birthday was and how excellent my friends are for all the effort they put into making my day special.

For many years now, I have held joint birthday parties with a close friend who is also a February-baby. If you’ve never held a joint party before, I can highly recommend it. Halves the stress, doubles the chances that people will show. 2011 we celebrated at Alloneword, 2012 we partied at Limes. This year we have decided to get all our friends together at Alfred and Constance. That’s not for a few weeks, but organising it seemed to take up all my birthday-planning-bother. So until last weekend I was doing nothing and had no plans for my actual birth-day.

Fortunately a good friend rode in and took charge and so come Sunday night I was chauffeured to a super-secret location (my friends’ house) for a dinner with friends.

I didn't drive...

For a few years I did not enjoy my birthday. Or rather, I preferred quiet birthdays that centred around eating rather than socialising. I still don’t like the pressure of organising a birthday party by myself. Now, however, I am quite happy to pass over the reins of organisation and lap up the loving care and attention of not cooking one micron of a delicious three course meal, being plied with Mumm and Shiraz and getting to dictate my dessert of choice. Berry Clafoulis for anyone curious. Any dessert that involved berries or stone fruit is an instant favourite. Except Summer pudding, which is just red soggy bread. Serious, so unnecessary.

No birthday cake as such so I blew out candles stuck into toblerone.

 Meringues with mint-chocolate, fresh berries and cream.

 Cutting my 'cake' and a pile of delicious desserts.

 Monday morning I walked out to this on my kitchen bench;

...which is a pretty great way to start the day. Especially when you have two slices of it for breakfast. 

The rest of the day was silly gifts – including Pixar DVDs and magic bubbles – lunch at the pub, chocolates and flowers. In other words, just what a birthday should be about.

This was the first time in years I worked on my birthday. It’s sort of a personal rule to not work but rather spend the day doing all your favourite things. In 2009 I took the day off, ate raspberry tarts, drank champagne, went to see a musical and fed squirrels. That was a good birthday. However I absolutely had to go to work yesterday. Fortunately, my work colleagues made the day worthwhile and I felt very special.

 Beautiful flowers, a birthday gift form my boss.

Rounded off the day with the traditional family celebration dinner.

As with just about every situation in life, it’s the people around you that make all the difference.

A big thank you to all of my friends and family who went to so much trouble to make sure I had an excellent birthday.