"The best day of your life is the one on which you decide your life is your own. No apologies or excuses. No one to lean on, rely on, or blame. The gift is yours - it is an amazing journey - and you alone are responsible for the quality of it. This is the day your life really begins"

This has for a long time been one of my favourite quotes that I live by. I truly believe that everyone is stuck living this 'normal' 9-5 everyday life, doing that same thing over and over again. But never really living - myself included. We are given the gift of one lifetime, to live it however we truly want to. But its only ONE life. You only get one chance to live out your dreams. You can't bring back yesterday, it been and gone, so why spend today worrying about it? Move on. Go out and see the world, explore your surroundings, and question EVERYTHING!

Below are some more of my favourite quotes.

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover" 


"Run from whats comfortable. Forget safety. Live where you fear to live. Destroy your reputation. Be notorious"


"Don't waste your time with explanations, people only hear what they want to hear" 


“There’s no need to be perfect to inspire others. Let people get inspired by how you deal with your 
imperfections”


"Life begins at the end of your comfort zone"


"If today were the last day of your life, would you want to do what your about to do today?"


"No one can make you feel inferior, without your consent"


"Nothing is impossible, the word itself says I'm possible"


"The problem is not the problem; the problem is your attitude about the problem"


"Live everyday as if it were your last"


"Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something else is more important than fear"


"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands but seeing with new eyes"

What are some of your favourite quotes that you live by? 

For my final Uni project at the end of last year, we were asked to design and make our own mini collection. I thought I'd (finally!!?) share with you my two pieces that I'd made for my graduates bridal collection.....

Photography Unknown

Winters Rose

Winter’s Rose is an A/W ’16 collection inspired by the historical Marie Antoinette era – concentrating on decorative architecture and the graceful mood from this time. It draws design inspirations from the tastefully carved ceilings and beautiful staircases. Winter time was also a strong inspiration for this collection – the contrast of the soft light snow and hard, sharp ice inspired a lot of my designs. Such as the structured and embellished jumpsuits paired with the soft floaty organza skirts that are shown throughout the collection.

Winter’s Rose showcases clean and precise design details, demonstrated through the neckline cut outs, cigarette pants, and strong structured peplum skirts. The garments also include a lot of feminine aspects throughout the collection with the use of beading, lace applique and sheer panels.

My collection incorporates the use of silk satins, organza’s, chiffons and beaded laces in the colours of mainly whites and ivory with hints of blush, and dusty rose and incorporating highlights of silvers and rose gold’s throughout with trims including pearl beading, fringing, and cotton floral applique.

The garments in this collection were designed for celebrities and VIP’s who are going to appear on red carpets and significant high class events where they are looking to make a statement. The wearer is someone who appreciates the contrast in these designs and the strong design details of my collection.

Photography Unknown

Photography Unknown

Photography Unknown

Photography Unknown

Photography Unknown

Photography by the wonderful Powerful Petticoats

Photography by the wonderful Powerful Petticoats

Until Next Time

Bree

xx

Its that time of the month again.... not that time.... :|

Its monthly favourites time!!

This month will be my first monthly favourites post and I have some amazing beauty bits and pieces I've been loving this month to share with you guys. So without further ado lets get into my first item:

Maybelline BROWdrama Pomade Crayon - Dark Blonde

I've only recently started using this product in the last couple of weeks, after seeing on the stands at work (I work in pharmacy). It does look quite terrifying at first, I mean who in their right mind would actually want to draw their eyebrows on with this huge crayon...right?

But curiosity got the best of me in the end and I decided to give it a go. I mean it was only like $8 or something, its not like I'm going out and buying a Mac product thats going to cost me a fortune. Im so glad I ended up getting this, it is an absolutely amazing product. I use an angled brush to apply this straight to my brows, similar to using a dip brow pomade - because theres no chance I'm going to just draw it on with the actual crayon. It goes on smoothly and evenly and I find that it last all day long and doesn't rub off or loose its intensity throughout the day like some products do.

Highly recommend.

My Organics Restructuring Fluid Potion

New favourite hair oil!! This stuff smells soon amazing! Its rich and caramel-y scented - If you've ever been into Peter Alexander you will know the scent. It smells exactly like the candles they burn in Peter Alexander. 

Put the amazing smell aside and this product actually leaves your hair feeling smooth and lush without leaving an oily residue. You only need to use a tiny amount throughout the ends of your hair and you're left with soft shiny hair. 

Rimmel Match Perfection Foundation - 100 Ivory

An old-y but a good-y. Isn't it amazing rediscovering great products?! 

I used this foundation a couple of years ago and completely forgot about it until recently. When I ran out of my usual Max Factor CC Cream, and decided to pick a new one of these up instead. The product goes on evenly and blends well into the skin. It leaves my skin looking dewy and well hydrated - which I love! (Not a fan of the matte finish on my skin) 

Will continue to use this throughout summer spring and summer I think.

Tommy Hilfiger Pear Blossom EDP 

I recently picked up this fragrance, as I've been needing to get a new scent. It has a slightly sweet pear-y smell with fresh undertones. It perfect for spring and summer. Im not 100% sure when this fragrance came out, probably awhile ago, and I wish i'd discovered it earlier as its been my everyday scent this month.

Nude Nail Polishes

I've always been a nude/neutral nail polish kind of girl. And, this month has been no different. (She says, while sporting deep red nails....) My top 3 colours for September have been:

Maybelline Super Stay - 130 Rose Poudre

Rimmel 60 Seconds - 500 Caramel Cupcake

Mavala - 84 Tallinn

Too Faced Chocolate BonBons Palette

Marcus brought me this palette for my birthday back in May and i've been loving it ever since. However this month I feel like i've been going for it more than usual as i've been loving using the more neutral/pinky tones on my eyes. My favourite eyeshadows in the palette this month have been: Satin Sheets, Almond Truffle and Cashew Chew. These three combined make a great everyday look (let me know if you'd like me to film a tutorial on this look.)

Origins Ginzing Refresh Scrub Cleanser

Both myself and Marcus have been loving this cleanser this month. Its refreshing and smells great. The little beads add a great gentle scrub to the cleanser as well. It doesn't leave my skin feeling tight and dehydrated like some cleansers do. Its been a fabulous evening cleanser to really remove all my makeup and oil from the day. 

Thanks for reading guys, I'd love to hear what some of your favourites are in the comments?

Until next time

Bree

xx

With always working a lot and never really getting to spend much time together, Marcus and I decided to take a weekend away down to the Mornington Peninsula.

 So, we hired a car (Which I crashed..... more on that later) and made the short 1.5 hour journey down to the beautiful Peninsula.

Our first stop was for lunch at the beautiful Paringa Winery Estate set in the beautiful slopes of Red Hill. We had lovely 2 course meal, with a delicious duck breast for main. Afterwards Marcus did a tasting of Paringa's best wines, and brought 3 of his favourites 

Aylesbury duck, braised leg and hazelnut brick, wild onion, umeboshi

Next stop for Day 1 was a short visit to Red Hill Brewery. Marcus tried a tasting paddle of 5 different beers, and I enjoyed a latte .....Because P plates..... :(

Marcus left with 10 different beers to take home.

Beverage count: 13

Getting out of Red hill and back to our Airbnb in Rye was quite difficult... my iPhone had died and Marcus's Samsung gps was playing up, so as you can guess we got lost for little while finding our way back.... We ended up finding ourselves at a cute little Goats Cheese farm and there were so many adorable little goats. We got to pat and feed a few which was nice. 

We left with two of their best cheeses, one being a seasonal only cheese as it is left to mature for quite awhile.

After leaving Main Ridge Dairy farm we decided we would make our own dinner back at our airbnb because we had already spent a lot of money that day, so we went down to Safeway and brought some seafood and all of the snacks. We had a lovely night in, and enjoyed some Kilpatrick oysters and Pork belly for dinner.

Our little Airbnb bedroom

Day 2, we made our way down to Sorrento for a little shopping and found some amazing sales in Country Road and Ternery. We had a pie at a little local bakery in Sorrento and then made our way to T'Gallant Winery where Marcus tried MORE wine and left with 4 of their wines, including a sneaky Moscato for me. ;)

Beverage Count: 17

Next we drove 200m down the road to Ten Minutes by Tractor and Marcus tried even MOOORREE wine, and left with a single Rose'.

We decided to travel home at this point as we both agreed the boot of the car was filled with enough drinks to last us for at least a few weeks!!

Final Beverage Count: 18

....Car crash time...

After arriving home, we still had a couple of hours before we had to return the hire car so we decided to head down to Ikea to find a wine rack for all these wines we had just brought. 

Driving to Ikea was all fine, arriving at Ikea was fine.... But, just as I was pulling into a carpark, I underestimated my turning and scrapped the front of the car up against a pole in the underground park *Insert screaming/crying face here* Now, I should mention both Marcus and I suffer from mild anxiety, and if you also suffer from anxiety you can imagine how we were both feeling at this point.... 

I called the hire car company the next day and explained what had happened, and the lovely lady on the other end reassured us everything should be fine as we had paid the daily insurance on the car (thank the heavens above!) So in the end it wasn't as bad as we anticipated, all I had to do was fill out a claims form and pay a $75 admin fee. 

If you live in Melbourne, or plan on traveling down this way - I highly recommend checking our the Mornington Peninsula. Especially Paringa estate, we both agreed this was our favourite winery.

As always,

Bree

xx

PS. Feel free to follow me on my other social media platforms:
Insta: @breebailey
Twitter: @BreeJBailey
Youtube: Bree Bailey

I was recently 'window shopping' on Sephora and came across this brand Just Herbs and have fallen in love. First of all, this brand is all natural and organic, and as stated its just herbs!!! 

If you wouldn't put it in your mouth why are we putting it on our skin? 

The skin in the largest organ on the body and we often don't think about what we're putting on our skin and all the chemicals we're actually absorbing through our skin. 

I once watched a video on youtube and it actually made me think how we all eat organic and chemical free, yet we're still smearing chemical filled cosmetics and skincare onto our bodies, I myself am guilty of doing this and I'm trying to use less products that contain those nasty chemicals.

So as you can guess I was so excited to come across this brand, and I am very impressed!

Here are some of my favourite products from their range:

Fairever Protein Fairness Pack - Mask

This mask is literally my new holy grail of masks, (Im actually sitting here wearing one as I type this post, I'm not even lying) It comes out a really scary dark brown colour and looks like, feels like and sort of smells like mud. I use a flat foundation brush to put my masks on, because lets be real.... flat foundation brushes are terrible at applying foundation. 

I let it sit and do its magic for about 15-20 minutes (more like 30-40 minutes right now...) then wash it off in the shower. It leaves my skin feel smooth and super clean, without having that weird tightening feeling your sometimes get with mud masks.

Facial cleansers

These facial cleansers are to die for. They have a natural floral scent to them, and feel gentle on the skin. They work well at removing all the impurities and pollution from the skin, without stripping the skin of its natural oils. I like to alternate between the two in my morning cleanse before applying my make up.

And lastly the Fagel moisturiser

This product has the weirdest texture and sort of looks like wobbly jelly in a pot. It smells amazing and goes on nicely, quickly absorbing into the skin. I like to use it at night time as  I find my day time makeup doesn't like to blend into my skin as well with this product.

Until next time

Bree

xx 

Spring has sprung and I'f you're anything like me you're preparing for the summer months and set on getting that bikini body you've always wanted. You've probably already re-joined the gym, cleaned all the junk food out of your pantry and brought those really expensive trainers that have been sitting in your saved section on ASOS.

One of my favourite things in the warmer months are smoothie bowls/nice cream. I love having these for breakfast or lunch in the warmer months, they're quick to make and so satisfying. You can add literally whatever toppings you like, such as, fresh or frozen fruit, nuts and seeds, chocolate squares, superfoods, cacao nibs, homemade sauces.... Literally whatever you like.

Start by freezing some bananas the night before, I usually use 2-4 per bowl.

In the morning (or whenever you're planning on eating your smoothie bowls) all you have to do is put your frozen bananas in a blender with a splash or two of coconut milk (or milk of choice) and blend until smooth. Blending will take a little bit of patience as you are blending mostly frozen food with little liquids. But its totally worth the wait.

Once the bananas are smooth you can leave it at that or I sometimes like to add carob or cacao powder, fruit or super food powders to my bananas for added flavours and goodness!

Add the banana mixture to your favourite bowl and top with all of the toppings in your pantry/fridge and enjoy!

YUM!

Until next time

Bree 

xx

Kelapa Organics

skincare

I was recently very kindly sent a couple of product from Kelapa Organics to try out and I was not left disappointed.

Kelapa Organics products are hand crafted with all natural ingredients designed to suit all members of the family. The products are created using organic coconut oil of the highest quality and other incredibly nourishing ingredients such as Aloe Vera and Rose Hip oils.

Kelapa Organics Cream Cleanser 200ml

This cleanser is very gentle and doesn't strip your skin of its natural oils like many cleansers do. I have combination/oily skin and for me I didn't find it suited my skin type as well as other cleansers do. However, my partner Marcus does have very dry and sensitive skin so this cleanser suited him perfectly. He found it was gentle on it skin and didn't irritate him. It was nourishing and very moisturising. 

Kelapa Organics Face Moisturiser 

Unlike the cleanser I absolutely loved this product, it was unlike any moisturiser I have ever used. The texture is truly unique - its like a really whipped mousse texture that melts into the skin when applied. Its not oily or too much for my skin and left me feeling really nourished and hydrated. I currently still use this product as my nightly moisturiser.

Thanks for reading lovely!

Until next time

Bree

xx