taryn k.

I'm not one to usually purchase anything from Portmans - I think it's all a little too grown up and polished for me - but I must admit, I am absolutely loving the accessory line for A/W11. Little miss lovely, Abbey-Lee Kershaw, is the face of the campaign, so I suppose that's not hurting their sales either!

I love the neutral and military-inspired colour palette they're using for this season. The last bag reminds me of one of my favourite bloggers, Marianna - although, she would probably wear it in black. Love it, would make a fantastic casual evening bag. Might be the item I end up purchasing.

Man, I am pooped. I just went to a Body Pump class at the local gym, and I'm quite out of practise (I've only been once since my accident in November). I can tell I'm going to be sore tomorrow (and likely, for the rest of the week), but I do feel like I accomplished something. Pump is my favourite workout class - I tried Body Combat, a cardio class based on boxing movements, which I hated (I don't think I'm aggressive enough) and I did Zumba for a little while, which I found to be a complete waste of time and money. I think I hated both those types of classes because I am just not very co-ordinated. Pump seems to not require such co-ordination.

I want to find a good yoga class or dvd as well. I used to do yoga during school but haven't really practised in the past five years and I miss it. My flexibility has suffered a fair bit, although I can still touch my toes - yay! - but it's not as easy as it used to be. I'm really (really) not a morning person but I swear, one day I will get up early and do some yoga to start the day. Maybe I could alternate yoga and going for a jog on my treadmill first thing in the morning.

See, doing Pump puts all these idea's into my head. I suppose it's all those endorphins kicking around up there. Just watch, tomorrow morning when it all wears off I'll be like, "Who the HELL gets up this early?!? I mean, 6:30am, jeez!" and I'll roll over and sleep for another blissful hour.

Now I just have to find the motivation to get on the treadmill at some point over the weekend and I'm sure that'll be all I need to get back on track.

My favourite go-to site for interior decorating inspiration is Stylizimo.com. I've spent the best part of this lazy Sunday just going back over post after post, practically drooling over the gorgeous pictures of the Scandinavian-style homes Nina has posted about over the last few months.

I love how everything looks so clean and fresh, the mixes of white, beige, grey and mauve tones, the different textures and the homey feel. These are not all from the same home - but they give you a general feel of Nina's taste and the look of her lovely blog. She also has a lot of DIY tips and how-tos (although I haven't been game enough to try any of the out). Slowly, slowly I think this is how I'm being inspired to decorate our home.

On Valentines Day I painted my nails red with my ring fingers white with a red heart. It was adorable. I left it on for days. And I neglected to photograph it. Fail.

This week I went for Essie. I love Essie. I don't know what it is that makes me love it so much. Maybe it's the fact that they have a lot of murky, in-between colours.

The first was "Angora Cardi". Now, to be honest, I am always so disappointed with the way this dries - in the bottle it looks also maroon, but it dries a plum colour. The plum colour itself isn't bad, but it's never what I'm expecting when I pull the bottle out of my nail polish box.

At the moment I'm wearing 'Soiree Mauvee" - I LOVE this colour. The funny thing is, it's almost identical to Angora Cardi, but it's so much better. It's a little bit more on the 'greige' side. In the bottle it actually looks a lot more of a rosy pink, but I much prefer the colour it dries to.

I'm going to a Rubik's Cube themed 21st birthday party tonight. In case you haven't heard, the idea of a Rubik's Cube party is to arrive in all the colours on a Rubik's Cube (white, blue, green, yellow, red and orange) then, during the night you swap clothes with other guests until you are dressed all in one colour. It should be a lot of fun. A lot of daggy fun, haha! I'll make sure I take a few photos to share, but for now, here's a preview of my stunning outfit for the night.

January was a month where, once again, I did barely any actual shopping but did my fair share on online shopping. I swear, online shopping makes me feel like everything is extra special. Especially when it arrives by courier to my workplace - so much excitement. The packages have started to roll in now, so I'll have a few hauls for you in the coming days.

This month was my first experience with CheapSmells.com. Fleurdeforce on YouTube did a video a little while ago about the online stores she uses for discount beauty products. Cheap Smells was one of the sites she mentioned, and the site that stuck out most for me, so I decided to give them a try. There were a few perfumes I'd sampled over the Christmas period that I had asked for as gifts, but not received in my stocking. Then after the sales passed all the prices jacked back up and I couldn't justify paying full price when I knew how cheap they were during the sales. So I conceded to wait.

After browsing the site for a bit and checking out the exchange rate and delivery rates, I worked out that yes, it would be far cheaper for me to purchase my smells on this site (at least for the time being). I remember sitting at my computer with my mouth hanging open, then sprinting to find my debit card.

So I got Hugo Boss Orange 75mL EDT, Burberry Brit for women 50mL EDT and Intimately Beckham Night for Her 75mL EDT. They came all together in a medium sized box, each perfume boxed in their original packaging with cello-wrap, and plenty of packing filler - mostly tissue paper in this case. I ordered my package on Thursday 27th of January and received it on the 7th of February - that's 7 working days! From the UK to Austalia, I'm damn happy with that. Standard postage was GBP14.35, which I believe is calculated by weight. This does sound a little pricey, but once you take into consideration the heavily discounted products, it seems quite reasonable. Excitingly, for you UK residents, shipping is actually included in the product price!

The site also offers discounted makeup, skincare, haircare, bath and body products, as well as fragrance, cologne and aftershave. I had a bit of a peruse through the makeup section, but couldn't find anything that really jumped out at me. From what I can tell, the stock changes regularly, so I'll be checking back from time to time to see if any gems pop up.

So the CheapSmells.com online store gets a big thumbs up from me - especially with the exchange rate like it is at the moment. Let me know if you've had any experience with this store and how it worked out for you. Id be interested to see how shipping times differ country to country.

By the way, my sister gave birth to her brand new little girl the day after the baby shower! Such amazing timing! I can't get over how beautiful she is, and I'm so proud of my sister and her fiance - I know they'll be fantastic parents, and little Caitlin Taryn is so lucky to have chosen them to be her mum and dad.

Today was finally the day of my little sister's baby shower. I played host, but since I am no master chef in the kitchen I asked my friend Amy, who has recently started up a small events catering business, to help with the food. Amy's business, Simply Delightful Events, specialises in themed dessert tables - we opted for an owl theme, pink because I'm going to have a little niece.

The food was delicious, the table setting adorable and everyone seemed to have a lovely time. For more on Amy and Simply Delightful Events, you can visit her blog and facebook page.

I also did a little bit of shopping this weekend. I got a few random bits and pieces - the most exciting of which is my very first bottle of Moroccan Oil. Yay!

I opted for the Light formula - for fine or lightly coloured hair. I'm sure you've all seen this before, it has been all the rage with beauty gurus on youtube and in the beauty blog world for a little while now. Basically you apply a small amount on clean, damp ends and lengths. I've used it once so far, and I must admit there was a noticeable different. Could it be the worth all the hype? Time will tell :)

I also picked up the Maybelline Falsies Volume express mascara. I'm not sure how I feel about this yet - I used it today at the shower and didn't really feel it was any more lengthening/thickening than, say Loreal Telescopic (the best drugstore mascara I have ever tried).

I usually prefer the plastic bristled brushes. This one is quite large and curved, different from my usual mascaras. I'll see how this goes, I didn't find it by any means bad. I also find it usually takes a week or so for a mascara to really 'break in'.

I LOVE these. Love, love, love them :) I've wanted a pair of these ankle detailed sandals all summer but could never find the perfect ones - and here they are :) The perfect tan colour, not too orange, not too pink; itty bitty heel; t-bar buckle detailing; gold hardware. What's not to love?

Remember last week how I said I couldn't show you my third colour because I still had ink all over my hands? Well this is the polish in question - Butter London's Pink Ribbon. This came as a freebie with a Madison magazine (I think) several months ago (I believe I blogged about it at the time). It's not a colour I would generally pick up and actually pay for, so I'm glad it came as a freebie. I'm not a huge fan of this colour against my skin tone, it's soooo sheer I had to use four coats (four!), but I feel like it would be a good pink for a french mani.

I suppose it is a nice creamy baby pink, but like I said, I hate it against my skin tone. Something isn't quite right. Haha, can you see the ink still left over on my middle finger?

The next polish I chose for the week is Jesse's Girl Magenta. Really not sure why I felt like I would like this colour as I'm not usually a fan of anything glittery. I found the red too blue (I know that sounds a little weird). It also chips like a biatch. So bad. But I suppose I shouldn't really complain since it only cost me around AU$3.00.

I just had a look at the website and it looks like they're no longer selling this colour and everything has been repackaged. Shame. Hopefully they've improved the formula to include some anti-chip technology ;-)

And lastly, my fallback colour. I must admit I love this polish - it was my very first OPI polish, so it will probably always hold a place in my heart (and collection). OPI's Tickle My France-y. I must admit, it was the adorable name that suckered me in, but it turned out to be the perfect neutral colour for me.