Jessica's Style: Worky Monday

Thought I'd try something a little bit different for todays post, no particular theme, just an outfit style I thought I'd put together. Something that I kinda feel like wearing today while running around working.

I'm loving round neck sweatshirts at the moment, with a collared shirt and short skirt and some unique accessories. In Auckland right now we're having some fickle weather. I've found it's best to layer, always take your sunglasses and a brolly. Top knot for the humidity and wind, a bit of colour with a rose lippie and a beautiful leather satchel for all the worky stuff.

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Weekend Tunes: Wild Bill Ricketts

Eery weekday I listen to Charlotte on her Morning Glory show while I work, I get a lot accomplished in those 3 hours! I think I can attribute that to the excellent music she plays! I heard a beautiful track from Wild Bill Ricketts and just had to investigate further. Do you recognise the vocals on this track? It's Mara TK from Electric Wire Hustle, someone needs to bottle that man up — such amazing talent.

Have a listen and be productive.

Pretty As A Picture

Get an eye full of these gorgeous photographs from A Couple of Night Owls featuring Amanda and her husband Jeremy from Here Comes The Sun blog! Wearing some beautiful clothing and accessories courtesy of Foxes.

Clothing featured: Crowns Clothing Flora dress, Kute Kiwi bow necklace

Jessica's Style: Come Dine With Me

One of the defining moment in my 'grown up' life was when I bought my first table and chairs. No longer was I destined to eat all my meals on my lap from the couch like I did when I was flatting. No, no. I was now able to eat from a table, at a chair, specifically designed for this purpose. A whole new world had opened up; I could have people over for dinner, brunch, afternoon tea and well, any other meal.

The table I purchased was ridiculously large. It was a 1.5m x 1.5m table that would seat EIGHT people. I quickly discovered that this was unlikely to ever happen and it was more of a nuisance than anything else.  I listed it on an auction site and it was gone a few days after, but replaced with my current set that I still love.

I love dark wood combined with beech and accents of chrome. I find the dark wood combined with modern, clean lines really lovely. You can accent your table easily with interesting chairs; and of course, nothing every has to match.

Here are some of my favourite picks in my style.

My dining chairs (and cat, Leo)

Love the subway tiles and the chairs (P.S. those lights! That bench! *sigh*)

Bench seats work really well for fitting in extra guests

Even a little dining nook can look great

Brilliant use of a small space

Simple table with interesting chairs

Love the legs and style of the chairs

Weekend Tunes: The Paper Kites

My lovely friend Dane of Tornadoes & Tigers told me about this really lovely band that he had recently seen at this years Parachute Festival. Based in Australia, they're pretty much a local group, right? I love the video, reminds me of Where The Wild Things Are...

Some whimsy for your Saturday

S A L E

Hey wonderful Foxes Folks! I'm very pleased to announce that Foxes is having a wee sale! The very first one since our launch way back when. There is a whole section of goodies with 10% off, guaranteed to find something that has been lurking on your wishlist....

Weekend Tunes: Pen Pals

This weekend I thought I'd post about something a little different! My good bud Alana, from Fancy! Design Blog and I have quite similar music tastes in that, they are both excellent (if I do say so myself) we're both quite partial to hip-hop i.e. it features as a good 80% of what we listen to and when we were having a good Skype catch up a few months ago decided we should send each other mix cd's. Take it back to 98.

Image borrowed from here

I used to love making mix cd's. In the olden days, before everyone had iPods and MP3 players, we only had cd players in our cars (or tape players with these annoying tape like things you'd put in then connect to your discman) and had to either buy our music from a physical shop or burn a new disc, running the risk it would crap out right at the end and you'd have to start all over again. This would happen to me a lot. Before that it was tapes, and that was just a lot of stopping, starting and using a pencil to fix things.

The trick with making an excellent mix for a friend is not only track selection, but order too. It has to flow, compliment the track played before and not stick out like a sore thumb. Don't just bung it on there in alphabetical order, put some time and thought into it. Clearly, I take this too seriously.

Here is a list of the tunes I put on Alana's Mega-Mix of Awesome, pretty much some of my all time favourite tunes...

Deep Concentration Gangstarr
So Far To Go (instrumental) J Dilla
Kick It To The Beat J-Live
If You Only Knew Jurassic 5
Couching Writer LEGACY
Brown Sugar Mos Def
Round of Applause The Nextmen feat. Dynamite MC
Keepin It Live People Under The Stairs
Trippin A The Disco People Under The Stairs
(Pimp) Strut Pete Rock
Miscellaneous Phife Dawg
The Web The Roots
Let The Spirit Roots Manuva
The Way You Do It Little Brother
The Get Up Little Brother
Joy Talib Kweli feat. Mos Def
A Charmed Life DJ Jazzy Jeff
She Was So Flyy DJ Jazzy Jeff

Fancy having a go yourself? These awesome USB stick mix tapes are a good place to start! Go on, go make one and post it to a friend.