Another Favourite Thing

pendant3

Years ago I scored this gorgeous mosaic mother of pearl pendant via the TVSN jewellery clearance area for less than $15. I wrote about it on the blog, here – Mosaic Kingdom.

They sometimes have amazing bargains in the clearance areas on TVSN. I check them every so often for new stuff. I’ve scored some bargain outfits that way, as well as other stuff. The bargains can be especially good at change of seasons time..

I also keep an eye on the Ezibuy clearance area. Some of their stuff you can find in David Jones for 2-3 times the price, especially the Sara brand which I like. They often have gorgeous tunics on there for $15 and they keep sending me free delivery codes, so I’ll keep shopping there.

Is there anywhere you shop online?

Any places you find to be awesome? ;)

jewellery, NaBloPoMo, NaBloPoMo 2014, shopping

Blingtastic Bling!

bling3

So yesterday we were talking about one of my favourite things – Bling. Let us take a closer look..

blingy

Watches, brooches, bracelets, oh my!

brooches

It occurs to me I have quite a few reptile brooches – here you see one lizard, and two turtles. Obviously the turtles originated in Hawaii, turtles are a bit of a Thing over there.

You also see my favourite Peacock Crystal Flower Pin which you can read more about on my Headless Fashion post, and there is a dragonfly brooch, and the Heaviest Brooch Of All Time. I never met a brooch I did not love, they are my kryptonite.

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My ring collection.

watch

My blingy watches.

Do you wear any jewellery?

If yes, what kind?

About Snoskred, brooches, jewellery, NaBloPoMo, NaBloPoMo 2014, shopping

Favourite Things – Bling!

Over the past few months, we have been working on de-cluttering, tidying, and making our house more of a home.

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When I was working, I created this blinged up box – which I would use to take all my “stuff” to and from work. I am a high maintenance girl. I need stuff, during the day. So the box is pretty large – it is 15 litres and measures 40cm x 28cm x 19cm.

What kind of stuff do I need when I work? This box – without the lid – used to carry the following to and from work –

– A box of tissues
– A roll of paper towel.
– A bottle of Soda Water.
– My plastic cup for the day.
– An apple, a plastic Ikea plate to cut it up on, and a decent knife.
– A 2 minute noodle snack with a container to “cook” it in, and a fork.
– Hand sanitiser
– Lip balm
– Hand cream
– My handbag would sit on top of the “stuff”.

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Now, it has become a home to my bling. The lid keeps the dust off and the bling shiny!

Please to note, none of my Bling is expensive – the most costly item here is likely my Michael Kors watch at just under $200. The other two watches were less than $100. Everything else is below $30. They are doing some amazing things with crystals these days.

More on my BLING tomorrow.

Do you have bling?

If yes, where does it live?

About Snoskred, jewellery, NaBloPoMo, NaBloPoMo 2014, work

A Cup Of Tea

cupotea

Do you like a cup of tea?

Snoskred loves a cup of tea. Bizarrely, her favourite brew was invented by Kevin Rudd, former Prime Minister and foreign minister of Australia. Dude can’t delegate work to others or run a country without getting backstabbed by his own political party, but boy can KRudd blend a tea. He won a competition back in 2011 for his tea blend..

Originally meant to be a limited edition for just 12 months, the Australian Afternoon Tea proved so popular that it is now a permanent member of the Twinings range.

I am not a fan of KRudd at all, but I love this tea blend, and I recently picked up 100 bags for an insanely low price which will last me quite some time.

When and why?

I do not drink tea daily. On a day that I drink it, I will usually brew a cup mid to late afternoon. Rainy or cold days are more likely to result in a cup of tea.

What else do you put in it?

I like honey in my tea as the sweetener. Something magical happens when you combine honey and tea.

For some teas like the Australian Afternoon Tea and various forms of black tea I will use a dash of cream if I have some, milk if not.

For teas that are more herbal in nature like the Madame Flavour range, Cinnamon and Orange, Lemon Ginger, green tea or fruit flavoured teas I will only add a touch of honey and no form of milk or cream.

Here are some of the teas in my tea cupboard –

teas

Overseas readers – want to try the Australian Afternoon Tea?

Shoot me an email to snoskred {at} gmail {dot} com or contact me via the Contact Form with a postal address – don’t leave it in the comments for safety reasons – and I will send you a sealed Australian Afternoon Tea Twinings tea packet, from their range where you buy 10 foil sealed teabags in a box! Make sure to include your blog address if I don’t already read your blog, so I can add you to my feedreader.

Do you like a cup of tea?

Leave a comment to let me know -or write a post on your blog and link to this post. :)

About Snoskred, Aussie Culture, food, NaBloPoMo, NaBloPoMo 2014

Asian Laksa

laksa1

Last month our household got hit with one of the most evil flu viruses we have experienced. It was *awful* – neither of us had the energy or talent to cook.. :(

I keep some chicken noodle cup-a-soup in the cupboard for these kinds of situations, as well as cans of baked beans, spaghetti and cheese, some other canned soups and pasta bake in a jar just add cooked pasta, chicken or tuna and bake type things.

On this occasion though, we ran out of cup-a-soup. When we went to Woolworths to stock up on this and a few other things.. I discovered Asian Laksa cup-a-soup.

I’m sure it has been on the market for ages and I am just late to find out about it. I bought a couple of packets of this Woolworths version as well as a Hot and Spicy Continental version.

hotnspicy

The Hot And Spicy version cleared my sinuses out so fast, it was amazing but be aware, the Hot and Spicy is exactly that – Hot and Spicy. It is nice to have this as another tool in my sinus clearing cupboard though, as I usually use Wasabi for that and I only like to eat Wasabi with Sushi, which means a drive to the shops to get Sushi, and that isn’t possible at 3am.

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The plain version is very mild and yet flavourful. For those who steer clear of Laksa due to not liking the taste of coconut, there is no need to worry here, there is no lingering coconut flavour and checking the ingredients list there does not seem to be any coconut in here. The flavour that does linger is vegetables.

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Snoskred verdict? Look how many of them I bought when they were on special for $1, this might be a clue that I absolutely love these cup-a-soups.

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I am fairly confident the Woolworths and Continental cup-a-soups are made by the same people, but I could be wrong. I’ll be buying whichever one is on special.

I was not sponsored to say these things, I just really like this stuff. :) You’ll find me talking more about the Woolworths Select range over coming weeks because I have found some products I really love in that range, including their amazing Salted Caramel Dessert Sauce.

I have a story about how I almost set the house on fire trying to heat it up in the microwave.. stay tuned for that one!

cooking, food, shopping

The Final Costco Post This Trip.

Costco can be great value. To get the most out of Costco shopping, you need to know your prices, and you need to know when something is good value.

The numbers thing is pretty easy for me due to the Aspergers, I have a decent memory for numbers especially when it comes to fruit and veg – I can tell you how much I last paid for avocadoes or potatoes or strawberries.

At Costco they had 1.4kg of super decent looking strawberries for $9.99. I had recently given up buying strawberries here for the most part, after opening too many ok looking punnets to find the middle was mouldy.

Then they had 4x avocadoes for $9.99 – I last bought 6x avocadoes for $6.99 at Aldi, so I passed those by.

costcocoffee

Coffee Mate –

I use these for drinking tea because it keeps the drink hot but still gives you the creamy flavour of milk added.

teas

Tea Bag Set

These tea bags are pretty expensive in the supermarkets. I have the orange and cinnamon one and love it.

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Pork hot dogs

The very same ones you will find at the food court.

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Tony Romas Pulled Pork

I know some people love Tony Romas – I have never been, but if you have a craving for some of the pulled pork you can get it here.

seaweed

Seaweed Snacks

snakes

A Massive Bag-O’-Snakes

dettol

Dettol hand wash – they had foaming too

hairskinnails

Hair, Skin and Nails –

Vitamins are incredibly good value at Costco. I’ve paid this price for 60 capsules or tablets before.

multivitamin

Multi-Vitamins

These multivitamins are excellent as well. Just a very large tablet. These are larger than the Aldi ones – I did have some trouble but you can always cut them in half if you wanted.

For Costco to be good value, you also need to be able to say no to things, which I usually fail at but on our most recent trip we had a budget of $500 and we came in $25 under it.

Do You Costco?

I would love to hear about your experiences. :) Leave a comment!

Costco, shopping

Shoe Sunday – Adidas Climacool

climacool1

Wow, it has been several weeks of Shoe Sundays and this is the first ever sneaker post!

My Adidas Climacool sneakers are somewhat special to me, for a lot of reasons. The first and most important is that my bestest US friend Sephyroth has a pair as well, and we bought them together on Oahu!

shoes2

Our feet presently reside on entirely different continents, but they were together that day. I remember Get Lucky by Daft Punk was playing in the Adidas store at Waikele where we bought them, we were dancing around in shoes we were trying on, and Sephy discovered his feet were an entirely different size to the size he had believed them to be. Plus, there were so many shoes, in so many colours, to look at. It was a stunningly colourful shopping event.

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The second reason is because they are green, which is one of my favourite colours. They are several shades of green, so these shoes match in with a lot of green tops I own..

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The third reason is because they are extremely cooling to wear due to the Climacool technology. This does mean they are NOT a wet weather shoe. Step in a puddle, and your feet will be soaked through to the socks.

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My sneaker haul from Waikele.

These shoes have been a lot of places with me during the 11 months I have owned them, and yet they are almost as pristine as the day I bought them. This is partly because I do look after my shoes – yes, even having something like 50 pairs, every single pair is special to me and I want to make sure they have long, happy and clean lives. Also, because I do have so many pairs, I can optimise when they are worn to their best advantage – shoes that can handle wet weather are chosen for days that are wet, and shoes like these with Climacool technology are worn on hot days when my feet need cooling.


Shoe Linkup, shopping, travel

Costco Part Four

ruffles

Now for some random bits and pieces –

There are really big bags of chips.

cheezels

And huge bags of Cheezels!

peanuts

Peanuts – 1.13kg for $10.38

Peanuts are not a part of the Paleo diet, which is one reason for all the other nuts listed on the previous post, you can make those into nut butter. ;) Let me just say these Costco peanuts are huge and soooo delicious. ;)

apple

Preshafruit Apple Juice -2 litres for 4.79 great value

bacon

American Style Bacon –

Canadian bacon is much more awesome. Costco stock all kinds, including turkey bacon.

calamari

Massive Calamari bags, yum!

cheese

Sliced lite cheese 3 x 500g packets.

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Tasty cheese – even better value.

cheesypots

We love these cheesy pots.

They are frozen, so you can pop a couple into the oven when baking chicken or while you cook up some steaks etc, and have a potato side. There are 10 in a box, so it works out to $1.08 per potato.

cholula

Cholula Hot Sauce

cocoa

Cocoa Butter

Costco, shopping

Shoe Sunday – Oprah Said So.

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I love Oprah. I just adore the woman, hate on me if you will. :) For me Oprah was incredibly influential and important in my upbringing in so many ways. She was the first female non-stick-thin person regularly on my teevee as a child turning into a teenager.

So, when Oprah told me in 2006 on her shoe that Cole Haan shoes were super comfortable, I wanted me a pair of those shoes SO BAD.

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The Cole Haan “Gilmore” Ballet Flat
Some colours are still available on Zappos for $99.99 a pair

I first spotted the Cole Haan store in Hawaii in 2011 but I had shopped up a storm by that point and was low on funds. My mother would not even go into the store, she said it looked too fancy to her. And I said But MUM, Oprah told me to shop here. If Oprah shops here, you can shop here too! But my Mum, when she gets a notion, that is how things are gonna be.

We are talking about my mother, the same woman who refused to go to David Jones in Adelaide because they had a live piano player and that was far too fancy for her liking.

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When planning our 2013 trip, I was determined. I am getting a pair of Cole Haan ballerina flats, no matter what happens. I even budgeted for it. To buy them here in Australia is crazy expensive, and I did not want to spoil myself for the experience by looking at the shoes online before we went, so I budgeted $500 for one pair.

Imagine my shock when I tried on a pair to find out they were just $120 USD. I was so thrilled I bought two pairs. This is one of them. Somewhat hilariously, Gilmore is the electorate that I live in! Clearly it was meant to be.

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Imagine my complete and utter NON shock to discover they were the most comfortable shoes I ever put on!

Oprah told me they would be.

Fashion, Shoe Linkup

Costco Part Three – More Nuts.

Now, more nuts. People love nuts, right! :)

Lets take a look at the Almond to begin with.

almondmilk

Almond Milk – Costco – $2.47 per 1 litre pack.

almonds

Whole Almonds – 1.36kg for $18.99

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Dry Roasted – 1.13kg for $19.49

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Smokehouse – 1.08kg for $20.99

almsliv

Slivered Almonds – 1kg for $16.49

flakedalm

Flaked Almonds – 700g $11.89

cashews

Cashews – 1.13kg for $20.89

mixednuts

Mixed Nuts – 1.13kg for $22.48

mixedunsalted

Unsalted mixed nuts – 1.13kg for $24.68

pecan

Next Monday, assorted Costco pics that have not found a home in other posts yet.. ;)

Costco, shopping