Listening to: Too Lost In You – Sugababes (Love Actually Version)

Watched this week: Love Actually (and again); the last 4 episodes of Dexter. It really ramped up on episode 9 and the finale had me shaking and in tears; Ice Age 3

I’m loving:

• Tattoo!! There will be a proper post on this on Giftmas day. At the moment it’s a scaly scabby mess. I think it was too moist the first couple of days as it was weeping quite heavily and that’s what caused it to scab. It seems to be ok on the bits that have already peeled so hopefully the whole thing will look ok in a couple of days! At least I have movement of my arm back, getting tattooed right on your bicep affects the use of your arm for a couple of days.
• Breaking 300 subscribers. You guys are amazing! Hi to all the new followers. It was only a couple of months that I was exceptionally happy that I made 200 just before my blog anniversary and now there’s an extra 100 of you. Come out of the woodwork and say hi! (Or I have this formspring thing, maybe you could share your thoughts or questions anonymously.)
• Seeing the internet get a lot quieter in the space of about 3 days. I feel better about slowing down and not posting when it’s like this. I’ll be trying to enjoy family and friends for the next 3 weeks so blogging will take a back seat (if you’d like to guest post over the holidays please get in touch :])
• Holiday!! I’m officially on leave from sending jewellery for the next 3 weeks. I just finished packing the last 7 orders for the year! (I’ll still be taking orders and helping customers but there will be no shipping deadlines to deal with for a bit. Yay)
• Drinking with some of my favourite Twitter ladies and then going to see some comedy.

I’m loathing:

• The bitchy comedienne that told us to shut up when we were good naturedly heckling one of comedians about Twitter, and the MC that called everyone at our table a slut because we were heckling. WTF dude, uncalled for and says more about you than it does about us!
• Having mail returned labelled ‘insufficient address’ when the address is correct! Way to waste my money mail chimps.

Favourite photo:

Listening to: All of the Glee songs. Particularly the Young Girl/Don’t Stand So Close To Me mash up which has been my favourite since I heard it.

Watched this week: Love Actually (yes again) I have a feeling I’ll be watching it next week too; Constantine; Wedding Daze

I’m loving:

• Finally beginning to get our holiday timetable sorted
• Adventures with friends in the middle of the night
• Tattoo nervousness
• Knowing there is only one week of orders left and then I can take a break!
• Free alcohol
• A very thoughtful gift of liquorice bullets all the way from Canadia thanks to the lovely Ela. Thanks so much! Ela knows the way to my heart. :]

I’m loathing:

• The Boy finding a grey hair on the back of my head today!
• Superglue on my fingers
• Grandad still being in hospital. I hope he can gain back the weight he lost and get out for xmas.

Favourite photo: Black & White Belton Buck

I’m reading: Son of a Witch by Gregory Maguire

Best buy: Two coats – A Golf Punk jacket $75 down from $150 and a long cute coat with a little fish tail and green and black polka dot lining $61 down from $200. Love these sales! Wellington is jacket friendly all year round.

I’m loving:

• Catching up with my family. Even though the circumstances are not ideal, even though there have been tears, it’s still great to see everyone while they’re reasonably well. I got to spend a few hours with my Grandparents and it was great, just being able to sit with them.
• The sun! The warmth! (despite the sweat)
• The food I’ve eaten this week. It’s been equal parts amazingly decadent and cheerfully cheap.
• Seeing my friend Kezz doing well. We only get to catch up a few times a year, but now she has internet at her house we can see each other on facebook. She’s much happier in life these days after a rough couple of years. It’s great to see.


Me and Kezz
The pink tights I got last week
Grey skirt I scored at the PPP clothing swap
Unicorn t shirt from 1-day tee
Ghost necklace from the shop

I’m loathing:

• The family of starlings that have taken up residence once again in Mums roof. They come every year and they’re right above the room we’re staying in. The incessant squawking that starts in the early hours of the morning has me wishing bad things about the poor little birdies.
• Feeling bad for neglecting the blog this week! Family and sleep has taken precedence. I admire those of you that have busy full time jobs, busy social lives, and still find time to blog. I’m home again on Sunday, with a realisation that I really will need to schedule posts over the holidays.
• Packing for winter. I’m so used to the Wellington weather that I took 2 hoodies, 2 cardies, and a jacket on our trip and I’ve hardly needed a single one of them!

Favourite photo:

http://rottenindenmark.vox.com/

I’m reading: Son of a Witch by Gregory Maguire

I’m listening to: Sonata Arctica – The Day of Grays. I have listened to this album on repeat a ridiculous number of times now. I didn’t listen to anything else this week!

Best buy: Pink tights from Jay Jays!

I’m loving:

• The amazing weather in the Bay of Plenty. I’m not much one for sitting in the sun, but just being able to see it cheers up my mood.
• The flat landscapes of the Te Puke and Papamoa area. Such a change from the Wellington landscape. Every time we come up here I long to be able to snap photographs as wide as my field of vision, and with as much clarity. It’s pretty stunning.
• Tay Street Cafe. We went there for dinner last night and everything from the food, to the location, and most of all the service was stunning.
• Seeing my family tomorrow! :D
• Finally receiving my initial tattoo sketch and not absolutely hating it. I’m SO fussy when it comes to designing anything that I intimidate myself. I provided the artist with a whole bunch of pictures I kind of liked the idea of and gave him a basic premise and he managed to come back with something that was different to the designs I provided that I actually like. Amaze.
• Hair clips. I finally got my hair and fringe trimmed and the clips provide the perfect amount of cuteness to pull the long bits of my hair back. My fringe is very blunt once again and combining that with the long darkness on either side was making my face disappear.
• Grass; vines; an expansive house to sprawl in; being domestic and helping to make aioli, a modern twist on the prawn cocktail, orange cake, and crumbed fish all for one meal; not being pinned down by my laptop for hours on end. All things I’m enjoying at the start of my week away.

I’m loathing:

• Constant fear of sunburn. The absolute worst thing about being so pale you’re practically translucent.
• Having to sleep.
• Spiders!

Favourite photo: Snowy Dock at CMS

Watched this week: The Matrix

Wishlist: I am so in love with this plaid skirt from Etsy seller PINaR ERIS. I really like plaid, and ruffles, and I’m actually really starting to like yellow. Perfect.

Best buy: My first tattoo! More to come on that next week when it’s more healed and I have better photos.

I’m loving:

• Tattoos!
• Brunch with my Dad
• Amazing new friends from the internet
• Pink helium balloons
• The huge number of compliments I get on my red Nikes
• Clothes swap/beauty treatments/food and fun at the Pretty Pretty Pretty party. I Scored a couple of great skirts and tops. I wore one today, I know that’s so not cool – to wear second hand clothes without washing them first – but I’m pretty sure no one died in it so I don’t care.
• Buttery salty couscous. I have eaten so much couscous this week, it’s delicious!

Favourite photo:

Listening to: Citizen Cadre, The Feathered Friends.

Best line:

I love and treasure individuals as I meet them, I loathe and despise the groups they identify with and belong to.

-George Carlin

I’m loving:

• If you follow me on twitter you’ve probably heard my excited squeals this week. We got our first big wholesale order from the good people at ModCloth. I’m actually going to be busy this week!
• My birthday this week. :D Dinner is planned with 18 or so of my closest friends.
• Talking to Mum on the phone for the first time in a while (we usually text).
• Fun filled weekends.
• Asking a chick at a bar if she’s someone I know online. Turns out no, but she gets asked if that’s her ALL the time.
• Amazing suppliers that send you what you need really quickly. Makes life SO much better!
• Pictures of cute goats that poke out their tongues. I never knew goats could be adorable.

Favourite CC photo:

Listening to:The Searchers, The Everly Brothers, and Sonata Arctica.

Watched this week: Fight Club; all the new season shows, Grey’s Anatomy! Dollhouse! Gossip Girl! Heroes!

Wishlist: Some motivation to go to bed at a reasonable hour please. I’m not tired but the black rings under my eyes tell a different story. I haven’t had black rings under my eyes for a long time.

I’m loving: Playing spider solitaire, hearts, and freecell; sugar filled weekends – I got through 2 and a half 3 bags of candy, and half a cheesecake; sport that is fun to watch; eating dinner at someone elses house two nights in a row; anticipating the holiday break and seeing my family (yes, already); realising that my life has been a perpetual weekend for almost 4 months!

Favourite CC photo:

Guess what!? CupcakesandMace.com turns one on Friday. This little blog has come a long way in a year and my life has changed quite a bit. I know I have a bunch of new subscribers so I’d like to give you the opportunity to come out of the woodwork and ask me anything. Why I make jewellery, what my favourite site is, if I really eat that much cake, why isn’t your boyfriend txting you back.

And on Friday we’re starting a whole new competition! :D Don’t forget to come back then and enter.

Watched this week: Quarantine.

I’m loving: That people love my jewellery enough that they trust my decisions when creating custom pieces for them, I don’t know if I’ll ever stopped being amazed by how great customers in this industry are!
The amazingly positive response I got from the invisible illness post, thank you for caring enough to read.
Planning my tattoos. I haven’t decided on a design for my first one yet, but I have bookmarked so many amazing tattoos and artworks to use as inspiration.
The Boy has come around to the idea of me getting a tattoo. I remember probing him about how he’d feel in the past and he wasn’t too keen, if I had really wanted one then that wouldn’t have stopped me. But now that I am SUPER keen on getting some The Boy has gotten used to my changing personality and actually likes my ideas, he’s even agreed to help me design them.
Getting a postcard from Hell Pizza for a free desert pizza and realising how ironic it was that I was reading it while eating Dominos Pizza. I tweeted the irony and got a reply from Hell saying they were about to knock on the door to take it back. They then proceeded to quote my least favourite song of all time at me. They really are the devil.

Best line: [Walking up the street we both smell something horrible, it smells like rotten fish, I screw up my nose and ask what it is.] “Oh the windows are open at the brothel” – The Boy
Note: Prostitution is legal in New Zealand, we live near a brothel that has been in the newspaper a bit because of its residential location. We don’t actually think that little of prostitutes*, but living near one is easy fodder for jokes. Also it’s a bit scary walking past it at night when there are obviously seedy men waiting around outside.

Favourite CC photo: Pink Tree

*I don’t however understand the people that pay for sex.

Listening to: Moonlight Flit and Mercury Crowe. I hadn’t listened to live music for a while, but last night a friend/ex bass teacher/The Boy’s sister in law’s brothers band Moonlight Flit finally had their album release party for their first album, Road to the Outside. It has been years in the making.
The show was great despite a few technical problems and the artwork on their album is beautiful.

Watched this week: United 93 – Around the time when people realised they were going to die and started saying goodbye is when my eyes went as wide as saucers fixed on the screen and I began to cry; Stranger Than Fiction; Road Trip; The Young Victoria.

Best Buy: Lots of pink acrylic plus four new colours! The factory that makes the pink frost burnt down (0_0) so we made sure to get enough to hopefully last us the next couple of years while it’s rebuilt.

I’m loving: Cake, baby clothes (so tiny and cute!), cocktails, sunny days, planning my first tattoos (finding it hard to think about anything else), tumbling, light at 6pm (summers coming!).

Best line:

I love working with Havi on projects. Why? Because I get Havi’s people! If you think to yourself, “Why would Naomi hook up with the Havinator? They’re so different!“, well, congratulations. You fail at business.

Naomi – IttzBiz

Favourite CC photo:

The first anniversary of Cupcakes and Mace will be here in a few weeks and I want to celebrate! I just don’t know how. An opportunity for you to ask me every and any question with a promise I’ll answer them all? Another competition? A collaborative craft project? Something else? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Watched this week: The Crow, finally! I decided to look up Brandon Lee’s IMDB profile and was questioning if he was actually that bad in the movie that he really hadn’t been hired for another part since The Crow, and then I noticed a thread asking how they finished the movie after he had died. That’s how little I knew about this movie. Didn’t know he was Bruce Lee’s son, didn’t know he was shot during the filming of the movie.

On my wishlist: Super funny awesome blogger Winona from Daddy Likey is publishing a book! It’s called Closet Confidential: Style Secrets Learned the Hard Way and is released on the 9th of November.

Best Buy: Sterling silver earring findings. I ordered a few hundred dollars worth of chains and earrings from the US. It is SO much cheaper to get them from there, even with shipping and the fact the NZ dollar is worth nothing in comparison!

I’m loving: Cooking foods other than bread in the breadmaker (seriously considering creating lazy girls cookbook!); a great week of sales (just need to recreate it on a loop); realising I am doing my own thing and have far more friends and it makes me all very happy; “Extreme moisturising. HARDCORE.”; great parties where everyone is approachable and cool, no ones being obnoxious, and good times are had; yum pie and curly fries with friends; candy from overseas (maple syrup lollies! thanks Amy!); a fantastic week of sales; new ideas for jewellery continuously flooding my brain :D; finding clothes I thought I’d lost 6 months ago.

I’m loathing: When someone asks what your favourite movie/book/band is and when you answer they give a kind of ridiculing half laugh half sneer. I’m so sorry that Fight Club isn’t abstract or arthouse enough for your tastes.

Another thing I have an unnatural dislike for: Keno – When the numbers are read out on screen at night I have to change the channel or at least mute it. For some reason it makes my skin crawl. Weirdo.

Favourite photo: