1. Have a Garage Sale, and spend the money I make from it at other garage sales. Preferrably on books, clothes and cat ornaments.

2. Volunteer at the local op-shop. Half out of selfishness, because I would love to have the first pick of donated clothes — but also because giving back makes you feel amazing.

3. Start a novel. I might as well give it a go. If I end give up, at least I can say that I tried.

4. Have a facial / massage. You might find this hard to believe, but I’ve literally never had a professional massage. Or facial. And I want one! Hence this being on the list.

5. Go to the beach. I’m really not a beachy person.. I’m really white, so I burn really badly. I also don’t like the tasting salt the whole time I’m there, orthat sand lodges itself just about everywhere. However, I live on the Gold Coast, a place renowned for it’s beaches, so I’m going to try it again! Hopefully it works out. The photo above really makes it seem a lot more appealing.

6. Journal Regularly, about the wonderful holiday I’m having, thanks to this list!

7. Make a list of books to read, and finish each and every one of them. I might actually steal the BBC top 100 book list, to make things easier. Or, perhaps I’ll type up a list on here, and get suggestions..

8. Visit a zoo. Because the last time I went to a Zoo I was 10-ish years old.

9. Learn yoga. Because I need mental clarity!

10. Vist a fortune teller.

11. Go to a concert / festival, because I haven’t ever been to one before.

12. Send random letters to random people with obscure messages. I read somewhere that Zoeey Deschanel used to fax people random pictures just for fun, and it actually made me laugh out loud just thinking about it. Mind you, letters are slightly creepier… I have no idea how to fax though. Maybe that can be another thing on my list. What a hectic holiday activity.

13. Go to a drive in movie, just because I’ve never been to one and have wanted to since I saw grease.

14. Do a complete summer clean out of everything — meaning my clothes, shoes, books, papers, ornaments, everything!

15. Go rock climing, because when I was little, I loved it.

16. MAKE a christmas present for everyone in the family. Embrace my inner craftyness that has yet to show itself.

17. Find the best coffee place in the whole entire world. With deliciously delicious chaii lattes!

18. Fall in love with a new artist / band.

19. Make my family dinner! I’m an awful cook, but I need to practice on someone.

18. Blog blog blog! Don’t Procrastinate! Blog!

* each and every beautiful photo featured is from pinterest

First Row — 1. Vintage 50s CRANBERRY Red Fur Collar Coat — Maries Vintage 2. 70s Teal Wool Maxi Cape with Pointy Collar — Tarantulasisters 3. 1950s cranberry red wool coat — dirtybirdiesvintage

Second Row — 1. 50s HEATHER TAUPE Fur Collar Coat — MariesVintage 2. 1950s mohair WOOL cream and RED mink — tractordog 3. Vintage Mohair Coat with Leopard Print Collar — LookatLily

The writing

Excellent examples of how not to write a YA novel are (predictably) Twilight and Eragon.

Intertextuality

References to modern culture. Eg. “I listened to Lady Gaga’s latest song”. You never know, Lady Gaga might do a Charlie Sheen in the next two years. No one will take that line seriously then. Plus, it makes the 40ish-year-old author look like they’re trying to be ‘hip’ and relate to teenagers.

Unnecessary Descriptions

Indepth paragraphs about a characters clothing. For example, in Darkfever (Karen Marie Moning).

“What I had on was a luscious gauzy skirt of nearly every pastel hue on the color wheel that hugged my hips and kicked frothiliy at my ankles, a form-fitting rose sweater with silk trimmed cap sleeves and a plunging silk edged neckline that made much of my bust and dainty pink high heels that laced around my ankles. The color went stunningly with my sun-kissed skin and dark curls.”

To me, that outfit sounds ridiculous — which is the first reason why authors shouldn’t explain outfits. Also, no one wants to read an extremely descriptive paragraph about what a character is wearing. It’s boring unless it’s somehow related to the plot. “a fitted black dress” would be enough to satisfy my imaginination.

Boring Characters

No one likes, or can relate to a Mary sue. Flaws are what make a character interesting!

Awkward Talents

I dont know if this only applies to me, but main characters that write ‘poetry’ or otherwise meaningful pieces of text, make me want to kill myself. Especially if the poetry’s bad. Eg. Generation Dead.

Sex, Drugs and Alcohol

Teenagers being sucked in to the party scene with repercussions such as; death, general tragedy, mental asylums, prostitution, etc are overdone. Someone who doesn’t read often might find the story interesting, but any avid teenage reader will have read at least 3–4 books with a very similar storyline. Eg. Go Ask Alice (I get that this book is written by Beatrice Sparks, and isn’t ‘an anonymous autobiography’, but it was still aimed at young readers)

Bad endings

Stupid endings are stupid. An author needs to tie up all loose ends, and answer every question originally asked before ending a book. If anyone has read the Wake series by Lisa Mcmann, (Don’t read the next few senteces if you haven’t, spoilers) the way Mcmann let us grow attached to the main character, only to find out that (in the end) she’s faced with a future of potential blindness/disabilities and doesn’t find any cure, seems pointless. It just leaft us unfulfilled, with way too many questions about the future of the characters.

Tension

Building tension between characters needs to be done right for the whole relationship to not look petty. No intelligent teenager is going to accept professions of love between characters after a week of meeting.

Book Genre

No more books should be written about vampires in the near future, unless they’re completely unrecycled and have no relation to twilight in any sense. Same applies to books about angels. Angel books are nearly always too religious, lame, white and fluffy, etc.

Your hair strands become porous and ‘spongy’, meaning that they soak up water easily. So, after water enters your hair strands, it exits with the dye molecules that give the hair it’s color.

Also, dying your hair can make your hairs surface rough, which in turn effects how it works with light. The uneven surface of your hair can make a vibrant shade appear dull and faded.

More importantly is what you can do about fading hair dye.

Tips for Keeping Hair Dye from Fading

1. Washing Your Hair

   Firstly, don’t wash your hair every day. Hopefully, you have the kind of hair that doesn’t get oily after missing one wash, and you can skip days during the week. Take advantage of it, if thats the case! Washing your hair fades hair dye.

   If you can stand it, try to only use cold water to wash your hair. Hot water opens up the hair cuticles, letting the strands color fade more easily.

   If you’re determined, I’d suggest buying a shower cap and only taking it off when washing your hair (with cold water).

2. Use the right products

   Secondly, the quality of your shampoo and conditioner is reeeeally important. Cheap hair products have chemicals that strip color (Eg. sodium laureth sulfate, sodium lauryl sulfate).

   The more high end products that are specifically for retaining hair color don’t have the chemicals that make dye fade, or, if they do, they have the right amounts!

   Redken Color Extend Shampoo, Loreal Color Vive Gentle Shampoo for Color Treated Hair, John Frieda Color Renew Tone Restoring Shampoo, Pantene Pro-V Midnight Expressions Shampoo Color Enhancing and Ojon Shine and Protect Shampoo are all raved about anti-fade shampoos.

   Also, get yourself a color protecting deep conditioner to use once a week. They’ll usually come in the shampoo/conditioner sets.

3. Keep your hair away from heat

   Keep your hair out of the sun! Wear hats, and buy a UV color protection hair spray, do whatever you can to keep your locks out of the heat. Especially if you’re a brunette, as the sun tends to turn brunette to brass.

   Stay away from straigteners and hair dryers as much as possible. They’re the spawn of satan if you want to keep your color. If you can’t go without them, use a hair protection spray to minimise the effects.

   DON’T use hot oil treatments. Just don’t.

4. The dyeing Process

   Before dyeing your hair, don’t wash it for two days, as natural oils will then be present when you dye it, and the dye will penetrate your hair better. When you do dye it, wash it out with WATER, using no shampoo, and don’t wash it ‘properly’ (with shampoo and conditioner) afterwards for two days.

5. Products to avoid

   Avoid volumizing products — they open up the cuticles of your hairs, making it easier for the colour to seep out.

Whew. Hope I’ve helped! I’ve gathered all of this information over time, because my hair dye used to fade literally two weeks after I got it done. Now, after learning to baby my hair, my dye stays in for at least two — four months. Even though that sounds like a advertisement, it’s true. You don’t realise how big of an effect some things can have until you try them!

Inexpensive / Reasonable (Mostly Under $100)
Market HQ

Princess Polly

God Save The Frock (Emerging fashion label, selling from facebook page)


Little Vintage Store

General Pants


Bird Motel

Frock You


American Apparel


About A Girl


Apple Tree Boutique

More Expensive (Mostly $100+) 

Maximillia

One Teaspoon

Seduce

Frock Shop

Zendie


AAustralian Flavour


A Little Left Of Centre

Misa


Gorman


Mrs Press


Style Society

More to come – I’m working on a list of Australian Etsy / Ebay vintage clothes sellers.

Materials

• Piece of material, 26cm X 20cm
• Piece of (matching) material, 10cm X 3.5cm
• Iron
• Matching Thread
• Needle
• Hairclip
• Hot Glue Gun (Optional)

Tutorial

1. Face rectangular 26cm x 20cm fabric piece the wrong side up on your ironing board. Iron both 26cm sides inward by roughly 4.5cm

2. Iron the shorter sides in towards the centre, making sure that they overlap by at least 1cm

3. Make a gathering stitch down the middle of the two overlapping sides. Try to make it as straight and directly in the centre of the fabric as you can.

4. When you’ve gathered the fabric to the extent that you want it, push the needle back through the gathered material. This may be difficult, depending on the material you are using. If you cannot push the needle through, I would suggest using nail clippers to pull it. It sounds a bit stupid, but it works! It hasn’t broken any needles I’ve used before… After this, wrap your thread around the gathered area a few times. Tie it off with a few knots.

5. With your 10cm by 3.5cm piece of fabric, fold both 10cm sides inwards so that they overlap considerably. Iron, and stitch down the middle to hold in place.

6. Wrap this piece of fabric around the gathered area of your bow. Hand stitch your material together so the it is tightly wrapped around the centre of the bow. Make sure that where you stitch the ends together is on the side of your bow that you don’t want to be seen.

7. Cut the overhanging material down to a smaller amount, about 5mm.

8. Stitch the overhanging material to your hairclip.

9. Some of you might find that stitching is enough to keep the bow in place, but I like to top it off with some hot glue. I realise that this looks a bit messy, but I figure that if no one see’s it, it doesn’t reaaalllyyy matter.

Finished! Please feel free to comment if you don’t understand anything in the tutorial It was a bit rushed, so point out any mistakes that you’ve spotted.

Thrift Stores

How to find thrift stores — Google Maps, Google, Yellow Pages. Also, when you purchase your items , ask the volunteer if they know of any other op-shops in the area, they’re usually more than happy to help!

How to go about thrift shopping — Guide to Thrifting

Positives - It’s Cheap, Supports charity organisations, and it can be fun — if you’re in to that sort of thing.

Negatives - Sometimes can be disappointing, you have to deal with op shop smell (which isn’t so bad, when you’re used to it), involves LOTS of rummaging, which can get frustrating.

Yard Sales

How to find yard sales — Most newspapers will have a classified section which will list of all the garage sales being held the coming weekend. Usually, there will be a list of the things they have for sale (Lookout for those that list ‘vintage clothing’ and make sure to visit them first!).

How to go about garage ‘sale-ing’ — Get there EARLY, so that you get to things first! Be nice to the host of the garage sale for easier bargaining and cheaper prices. A lot of my tips for thrift shopping apply to shopping at garage sales also.

Positives — Cheap cheap cheap! Cheaper than op shopping, even. You meet new people! Alsooo, you can haggle.

Negatives — Can be filled with baby toys and cheap ornaments.

Estate Sales

How to find estate sales — Classifieds in the paper. Also, there are a lot of websites that are ‘estate sale finders’, mainly for places in America. Try typing in ‘estate sale services’ accompanied by the name of your city.

What to do at an estate sale — Get there early! Obviously, try to go to estate sales that are in ‘upper class’ areas. Haggle, but not so much that you come across as disrespectful.

Positives — Can get good bargains on antique items, depending on the seller.

Negatives — Usually expensive in comparison to thrift shopping and other forms of vintage hunting.

Vintage Boutiques

How to find vintage boutiques — Vintage boutiques can be found by typing your city in to google / google maps and accompanying it with phrases like ‘vintage boutiques’ ‘vintage clothes shop’ ‘retro shops’, etc. Also, try searching the yellow pages.

How to shop at vintage boutiques — Vintage boutiques are much like normal shops. You might be able to haggle, but usually prices are set.

Positives — The owners of vintage stores do all the hunting for you, and stock a heap of good quality genuine vintage.

Negatives — The only drawback is that they’re some times over-priced. Some think it’s worth it, because it saves a lot of much time. Also, may not have what youre after, as some boutiques concentrate on clothing from certain periods of time.

Markets

How to find vintage markets — Look around your council’s website, or do a search for vintage markets in your area. Where I live, there are a few vintage markets held each month that any one can attend.

How to go about shopping in vintage markets — A lot like shopping in boutiques, although the sellers are usually more open to haggling.

Positives — Reasonable prices. Good atmosphere. Heaps of variety.

Negatives — CAN be overpriced, usually isn’t. Shop owners might be unprofessional. Only held once a month / fortnight, etc.

The Internet

How to find vintage online — Online vintage stores are easy to find. Obviously, you have the more well known websites like etsy and ebay, but if you google online vintage, it comes up with heaps of results.

How to shop online — You can use paypal, however, it’s always good to have a card that allows for online shopping. It’s a simple process, you pay for the item + shipping, and they deliver it to you within a specified time.

Positives — Huge range! Easy to browse through. (Usually) Reasonable prices. Saves time and money for gas.

Negatives — Can be overpriced. You can’t try the items on. Fraud may occur. Currency differences can be frustrating.

When you start decorating, you should decide on a colour palette. Shabby incorporates softer colours, with plenty of off-white and pastels. Mint green, pale yellow, lavender, pastel pink and faded grey are all colours that are well suited to shabby chic. You can get a few ideas on the colours you’d like to use by looking through the photos in this post.

Fabrics are an important part of the shabby chic look. On your bed / lounge (depending on the room you’re decorating) you’ll want a floral or plain white (preferably with some detailing) covering. To achieve the right look, you’ll want lots of throw pillows. They don’t necessarily have to be matching, as long as they have the same shabby style to them. If you have a piece of furniture that doesn’t go with the appearance, just cover it with a floral / white sheet, or a lace tablecloth. If you’re having trouble locating fabric, head to your local thrift stores and hunt around.

The furniture in a shabby chic room should almost all be white wood. You can use other colours, but white is always the safest. Its easy enough to find wooden furniture at thrift stores and just paint it a distressed / worn white. A tutorial on this can be found here, but there are many other tutorials available for different distressed appearances. Don’t go to overboard with furniture – lots of space can look wonderful. You don’t need objects taking up every bit of free space in the room.

Small accessories can be what makes a room look inviting, so be extra careful with what you pick out! Shabby chic rooms can always do with items like chandeliers, flowers, candles (with interesting candle holders), silver trays, vintage books, interesting clocks / paintings, vintage curios, etc.

In my room I have silver trays holding all of my hair things on top of my vanity table, as well as a cake stand holding my perfume. On my desk I have silver candle holders, and a few pictures of Audrey Hepburn. I have a cork board that I’ve painted and distressed, with pins holding all of my jewellery. My wardrobe has all of my little vintage curios that I’ve collected sitting atop it. I think all of those little things are what makes my room interesting!

Over all, try to have fun with it! Don’t stick to what everyone else instructs – make sure that your room suits your own taste.

I love love love peter pan collars! If anyone is reading this… and has facebook, feel free to become a fan here.