A love of all things houses

I don't know why or where this love of houses and decor has come from, but it's simply something I love. Looking at photos of houses, designs, furniture and decor gives me hope that one day I'll have enough money to put a deposit on my own house. Rather than being "flashy" like many girls my age can be, I love a bit of character. Cute and chic is more me, so when I found these photos on we heart it, I had to post. 

In bedrooms, I totally believe less is more. This bedroom uses such cute colours (and I'm loving this pale bluey/greeny at the moment) AND look at the size of that BED. I can only dream of having a bed like that, let alone enough room in my little flat to put it. 

 Love these shelves and the baskets used for storage! When I buy a house and renovate it (this is my absolute dream!) Storage like this will definitely be in there somewhere. 

The colours in these last two images are soft and light, which makes a room look so inviting. So, these are just a few things in homes that I love, more soon xx

I'll admit...

I'm one of those annoying people who take photos of my food. Everything that's yummy. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert.. Just pure yumminess. I know this frustrates people but we all do it, we want others to know what we're eating. Why? Who knows. Weird. But here's a few of my food photos which have been uploaded to Instagram. 

Lunch yesterday with mum. Potato, bacon and poached egg salald at Cafe Fresca.

I craved these all day last Wednesday, went out, spent $11.50 on six large donuts (for me and a friend) then ate one and felt sick. Over rated. 

Thai Village restaurant, sizzling beef and chicken & cashews!

Last nights baking in the flat, chocolate crunch.

And lastly, an amazing dessert at The Woodbox restaurant. Kind of like a chocolate brownie with sauce oozing out the middle -delisimo!

Who's on Instagram?

Instagram seems to be the latest craze at the moment - which is why I was so excited that Instagram for Android came out. I could finally be part of the photo community that it is! You can find me here or follow me @livvjohnstone. 

Are you on Instagram? Who do you follow? 

A few of my faves.. (Celebs/bloggers/journalists/photographers)

Chantelle Ellem - fatmumslim 

Jessica Alba -jessicaalba

Kate Robertson - katerphoto

Lauren Conrad- laurenconrad

Monica Ava - monicaava

Rhiannon Fish - rhiannonmfish

Kendall Jenner - kendallnjenner

Kylie Jenner - kylieejennerr

Kirstin Payton - kirstenlpayton

Check them out and feel free to follow me xx

Organised chaos

This is me right now.. Organised chaos I call it. Am trying to get some photography done so I don't have to play catch up when it's all due in a few weeks time. I worked till 12 so I'm having a break (this means take photos, blog, eat) 

 Sitting here in front of my photo wall gets me excited though, I just want to take photos and add to my collection. But tech work is taking over (even though it's a beautiful day outside) so once I get all this done, I can enjoy the sunshine. 

I stayed up late last night trying out different looks for my blog, so am not 100% happy with how it is at the moment, I'll get there, one day. Enjoy the sunshine xx

Look what I found..

DAISIES! In my lawn! Who knew that an unmown lawn could be so gorgeous right? I don't have photoshop yet, (something on my list to save up for) so instead, I use an online tool called iPiccy. Have only recently discovered it, but it seems to do a good job so far. Worth checking out. Here's my daisies for today - edited very quickly sorry, - house to clean. Source: My very self. 

50 shades of what?

I read it. 50 Shades of Grey. Just the first book though, and that's probably as far as I'll go. Why did I read it? Curiosity was killing me, and I had to see what all the fuss was about. Everyone was reading it so when I was in The Warehouse, I made the $20 purchase. (I went to buy a wall planner and an exercise book but didn't get that far!) 

It took me about two weeks to read, simply because I didn't find it that exciting and it wasn't one of those books that I just couldn't put down. I thought we were moving into a society where men don't have as much dominance over women as they once did, but this book contradicts this. Love that Anastasia Steele is a journalist though, that made me smile. 

I assumed it would be a gorgeous love story with quite a lot of sex added to the mix, and it failed on the gorgeous love story bit. Maybe I'm too young and don't understand the background of it all. My mum is reading it (ew - I know, but I'm over it) and she has found it quite interesting. What? Interesting? Different backgrounds, different ages, and at a different stage of our lives are all things that affect how we all interpret something. 

Thoughts are that they are making a movie of it, and Ryan Gosling and Henry Cavill are the actors who are in the running to be Christian Grey. Who would you prefer? 

When I typed 50 Shades of Grey into Google, here's a few images of what came up.

This is definitely what Christian Grey looks like in my mind. 

Not so sure about Anastasia Steele?

And there's thousands of these. Some of them to rude to go on here, but I wonder if this works for anyone?

Have you read any of the books? Thoughts? Ryan Gosling or Henry Cavill as Christian Grey in the movie? Although I say it wasn't the best of reads, any publicity for the trilogy is good publicity. They'll make a movie, and I might even watch it. It intrigues me as to why someone would write a book with such graphic scenes, but E.L James, I suppose you have done well, and  it seems to be taking the older generation by storm.

Here's some daisies

And that is all. Sunday night and i'm trying to get some work done before my full day at tech tomorrow. Oh life. Hope you all had a fantastical weekend x

Daisy a day

A few weeks ago, I said I would do a photo a day for August, based on fatmumslim (not fat muslim as I read it) and her gorgeous blog. However, my little android doesn't take very beautiful photos (thinking about getting an iPhone 4s so I can do everything from my phone) sooo.. It was a disaster, and I gave up after three days. 

Not getting me down though, i'll do a daisy a day instead. Made this one up myself, how original huh? I just think daisies are such cute little innocent flowers and make for perfect photographs. Being the middle of winter in NZ, it's a wee bit hard to find daisies to photograph, that will be a plan for summer. So in the meantime, most of the photos I use are sourced from "We heart it." 

This was just to cute not to post! 

Have just finished reading the crazy book 50 Shades of Grey (my Mum is reading it too - ew at the thought) and have a few things to say about it so that'll be the next blog. 

Thanks for reading, much love x

Why wear it up?

Something I just don't understand at the moment is why guys wear a collared shirt and do their buttons up all the way to the top. I understand that it must be some "fashionable" thing to do, but due to my little knowledge in the world of fashion, I'm a little bemused by it. 

I see my guy friends out on a Saturday night and most of them look reasonably smartly dressed, until they get to that little top button that they do up. SUCH a pet peeve of mine that I do not find slightly attractive.

Obviously, this post it based solely on my personal opinion, but does anyone out there find it unattractive? Or did I miss the memo about it being the thing to do? Who knows, but when I was having a rant to the family about it last night, Dad did this, (in his farm clothes) and it had to be on here. 

Things that take up my spare time #2

Photography
..This is technically something that has to be done for one of my classes, but still, it takes up spare time and I get a little bit carried away sometimes. I've always loved photography and did it throughout school. So when I realised a core journalism paper was media photography, I was just a little bit excited. One of our assignments so far have been to do portrait photography. A fabulous friend of mine, Amy is my model (and was at school - great gal) Here are a few photos of what I've done so far..

Donations made easy

Donate your desktop is a new application (117 days old infact) which you can download at http://www.donateyourdesktop.co.nz/ It gives you a new desktop background for your computer every day. And what's awesome about it, is that advertisers pay to be on your screen, and the money they pay, goes to a charity. 


You can choose out of Oxfam, Breast Cancer Society, Starship Hospital or WWF. As poor students, this is a fantastic way to donate to charity! 

Things that take up my spare time #1

My favourite tv show this last month: The Block NZ
Wednesday and Thursday nights are my fave since this programme is on, and although it's all about renovating homes, it's got a bit of drama as well, which I love. It's even more exciting to watch a programme that has people (friends/family of friends) I know and who are from Hamilton. 

So, obviously Sarah & Richard are my fave. Someone has to represent Hamilton and they do it pretty well.

Libby and Ben are my second fave (simply because Ben is such a babe, and he's SINGLE. AT 31. Someone help him out..) and they're a pretty cute bro/sis combo. She seems like she knows her colours/fabrics too.

Rachel and Tyson really annoyed me to start with, but now, they are hilarious. Anything that comes out of his mouth is funny and he seems to cope very well with her. 

And lastly, Ginny and Rhys.. Not much to say really, I find she needs to pick up her bottom lip sometimes but who am I to judge.. Bit ho hum about them. 

Such a good show to watch though, even if you aren't interested in those home renovating shows, I highly recommend you watch it next week! 

If you are reading this and you aren't following me on blogger, please do. The more the merrier and I will try my hardest to make this as interesting as can be. 

Olympics finals to watch, back tomorrow xx

Photos source: http://www.tv3.co.nz/Shows/TheBlockNZ/Couples.aspx