༺ Currently: Full Steam ༻

‘Currently’ posts are a series of memoirs, featuring snapshots of events that are occurring in my day-to-day journey. These episodes feature photos from my Instagram, do come and say “Hi!” if you are around. ♡

READING:

I don’t really have time to read… But I always come back to Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere sagas for an absorbing universe of fantastical adventures. 

WONDERING:

I have managed to have a spare moment or two for wondering if we will make it through the process of purchasing a house in a relatively smooth way or not at all!

It’s been a journey, as it is with most any decision of that magnitude, and I’m looking forwards to it being over so we can truly start to settle in. There have been more than a few houses that we’ve looked at, and the puzzle of figuring out what we really want and what we can live without is always a bit… fun. Plus, living in a house sit with a family of five is an adventure all of it’s own, and not one I’d particularly recommend. There’s just no room! *ahem*

… Translation - we have a lot of stuff.

FEELING THANKFUL:

That we might have found ourselves a house to live!

EATING:

Coffee, coffee, and more coffeeeeeeeee…

WATCHING:

Big Bang Theory. I’m a decade behind the trend, but eh.

WORKING ON:

Finding a house, buying a house, rehoming my horse, setting up Teacup Girl for Australian production, our first release back here in Australia ~ Autumn Days, our next release slated for October ~ Galaxy Dreams, Christmas, kombucha, and all of everything else that needs to happen... It’s going to be an insanely busy end of year for us. 

LOVING:

Friends. Coffee. Organizational systems. The wisteria over the deck. Sunshine and walks to the local shops. Gum trees and the refreshing scent of eucalyptus after the rain, as there is nothing else quite like it… Spring. Doing my nails ~ for some reason that has been super satisfying currently. Baths. My most favourite thing of all ~ working on samples and seeing new designs come to life! Um, did I mention coffee? Yah…

ATTEMPTING:

To get through the end of this year without physically and mentally wrecking myself. I’m not gonna lie, moving back has been exhausting, and I think it’s taking me a while to recover. Plus, I keep getting colds and flue bugs, as well as with all the work I’m trying to stay on top of ~ my body is super sore and tight at the moment. It’s been a whole thing.

WANTING:

To finish buying the house, find a new home for Copper, to ride my horse again as it’s been almost two years now since I’ve last ridden and I’m not  okay with that… It’s been the longest I’ve ever gone without riding since I was twelve! I’d also really like things to go smoothly over the next two months, but I might just be dreaming. I guess we will see…

DOING:

All the work. Everything for Teacup Girl is just go-go-go at the moment. Trying to push the business back up and running after being on hiatus since March is proving to be tough. But I sort of expected that, so I’ve just gotta keep moving on ~ full steam ahead.

xox,

bonita

༺ ♡ ༻
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༺ ♡ ༻
My Business:

Teacup Girl
Instagram | @teacup.girl
Facebook | Teacup Girl Official FB Group
YouTube | Teacup Girl

༺ Currently: Shifting Shores ༻

‘Currently’ posts are a series of memoirs, featuring snapshots of events that are occurring in my day-to-day journey. These episodes feature photos from my Instagram, do come and say “Hi!” if you are around.  ♡

READING:

.. A. M. Sohma – KM Shea’s alternate pen name, under which she writes Lit RPG. Now this might sound like a totally weird genre, but the old adage to not judge a book by it’s cover completely applies. It’s a well written story and the characters are so interesting. I really enjoy it so much!

WONDERING:

How I’m going to cope with the freezing cold and why we ever thought it was a good idea to move back to Canberra in the middle of winter!!

FEELING THANKFUL:

Thank I can enjoy a few more days of warm tropical weather and a lovely swimming pool.

EATING:

Singha Spicy Seaweed. It’s a crispy seaweed sheet snack and it’s so freaking delicious ~ I’m totally obsessed!!

WATCHING:

Not a lot of Netflix, but YouTube. Global Playlist has some really great k-dramas, and I love watching a ton of artists on YT for serious creative inspiration!

WORKING ON:

Packing up and moving back to Australia. And trying to fit in all the adventures I’ve been too sick or too busy for before we head back!

LOVING:

Spicy Seaweed. The POOL. Exploring Chiang Mai. Thunderstorms. Sleep. Filming videos for my Teacup Girl channel. Sketching. Faber Castell Polychromos Coloured Pencils. Watercolour Brush Pens. Summer Soda Iced Coffee. Sukishi ~ Korean BQQ. Kai Kah Cafe. Getting shakes with the kiddos at my favourite local coffee shop. Looking out my window and seeing lush green tree tops in flower. Kitty cuddles with the cute little grey stripy stray that’s adopted us. Sunshine. Blue skies. The heat!

ATTEMPTING:

To fit in all the things. Of course. Because it’s not me if I don’t have a million things I decide I MUST DO before a deadline….

WANTING:

To see all the things that we can conceivably make time for. And to stay on track with my schedule so that’s actually possible.

DOING:

Most of the the things on the giant To Do List, including but not limited to: packing, deep cleaning, clearing out, decluttering, preparing for the flights back, in between times playing Best Fiends on my phone, exploring, taking all the photos, organizing the Teacup Girl schedule, working on backend products and procedures for Teacup Girl, last minute shopping, sorting out timelines, etc… but I need more sleep to make sure it keeps happening that’s for sure!

 

xox,

bonita

༺ ♡ ༻
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༺ Teacup Girl ༻

If you follow me on social media, I’m sure you have well and truly heard this by now ~ but I still feel like I really have to make an official announcement on my blog as well!

I’ve been hinting at it long enough, and the day has finally come… We are launching our very own business ~ Teacup Girl!

Teacup Girl is an acrylic accessories brand where we handcraft wearable pieces of art to bring a touch of whimsy for your days. ❀

It’s been one and half years in the making, one and half years of agonising over designs, colours, materials, packing, shipping methods, samples, tools, stock photographs, work stations, storage equipment, suppliers, and mistakes… Oh, the mistakes!!

You know that saying “You don’t get an omelette without breaking a few eggs?”

…There where many eggs.

And not all of them stayed in the basket…!

So to say that it has been a journey and a half would really not be an understatement. To be honest, I sort of feel like I’ve been through the gates of Mordor to the foot of Mt. Doom and back again!

There has been a ton of stuff to figure out, and I know that I absolutely have so much more ahead of me to learn. I feel like even though I have learned a lot, I’m really only just beginning ~ like I’m in the first semester of the first year of school, and have a whole education still in front of me to go.

I don’t mind learning new things, though I do struggle to keep a positive outlook on the mistakes. I can be very hard on myself, and I’m all too willing to label something that’s not gone the way I planned as a total failure and the absolute worst, most stupid decision ever.

But one of the most crucial mindsets an entrepreneur needs to have is that mistakes aren’t failures ~ they are an opportunity for learning.

Yes, plans don’t always {actually most of the time tbh ~ it’s only varying in degree as to how badly they don’t work out!!} work out the way you think they will, but now you know what doesn’t work so you can keep trying to find something that does!

This is a new way of thinking for me. I’m a grade A perfectionist and I absolutely hate things going wrong!

But I’m learning to breathe through it all, and view those times as another stepping stone forward. Because they are ~ you can’t go forwards if you don’t know what doesn’t work!

It has, without a doubt, been amazing to go through this process. I mean logically, you know that starting your own business is a lot of hard work and takes a long time, but then there’s the actual fact of going through the infinity of To Do lists, and the mountain of jobs that seem never ending… Then to arrive at the other side, at a point where you can say “Wow! Look how far we have gotten!'”

It’s just so unbelievable...!

I have been working towards the dream of creating and sharing my art ever since I was a teenager. So to me, it really feels like this launch is a day that has been seventeen long years in the making! It’s a monumental event for me, I can’t really describe how it feels to see a life-long dream begin to be realised…

It’s overwhelming.

It’s immense.

It’s the moment when you watch the sun rise, or a epic thunder storm roll away…

When you reach the top of the mountain.

Seventeen years of reaching for that dream ~ not just a year and a half since we decided as a family to start our own business creating whimsical acrylic accessories…

I’m so excited!

And nervous.

And eager to see where else this journey may take us!

I hope you will join us at www.teacupgirl.com, visit our Instagram at @teacup.girl, or come say hi in our Official Teacup Girl Facebook group.  I can’t wait to see you all there!!

xox,

bonita

༺ ♡ ༻
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༺ Currently: Busy Bee ༻

‘Currently’ posts are a series of memoirs, featuring snapshots of events that are occurring in my day-to-day journey. These episodes feature photos from my Instagram, do come and say “Hi!” if you are around. Also, if you would like to participate in this feature yourself, please feel free! I’d love to read your posts, so don’t forget to leave a link.  ♡

But first ~ can you believe it’s almost a year since the last ‘Currently’ update? Eek! I guess we are crazy busy… So let’s jump right into it.

READING:

Nothing right now – I have read a bunch of great novels by K.M. Shea recently though. She’s quickly become one of my favourite authors with teen lit that is quirky and funny, but also has great story lines. She writes a lot of fantasy based stuff – A Chicago Urban Fantasy collection, Timeless Fairy Tales which are fabulously re-written versions of the old favourites, The Snow Queen series which is in a similar vein, and a lengthy series that I would say is for an older audience – King Author and Her Knights. Yes, you read that right… ;) 

WONDERING:

I don’t have time for thinking. That’s probably a bad thing, but, … life…

FEELING THANKFUL:

That we get to experience this adventure. Yes, life in Thailand has settled down to a fairly steady routine, but I still love that we get to do this and be where we are right now. It’s fun.

EATING:

The best Thai food! Currently loving spicy fried rice, mango shakes, caramel buttered popcorn, and cashew chicken.

WATCHING:

Project Runway, Trollhunters: Tales of Arcadia, Voltron: Legendary Defender, and The Disastrous Life of Saiki K. – all on Netflix.

WORKING ON:

Shhhhh! Top secret business stuff. And teaching my son to read and write, my daughter to do numbers and write, and my youngest to potty train. Busy.

LOVING:

Iced coffeeeeeeeeeee. BBQ chips. New York New York Hair salon because they can actually cut my curly hair!! Kombucha, I’ve started brewing my own and it’s really helped with my numerous tummy issues. Divine, and insanely cheap, fabric. Exploring. Swimming. Cute shoes – particularly my Starstruck Flexiclogs.

ATTEMPTING:

Well, you'll find out. Oh, and to fly back to Australia for five days all by myself. It’s going to be a crazy quick trip and I’m going to be rushing like a mad thing while I’m there. We literally booked the flights this morning, and I’m leaving on Saturday. Gulp!!

WANTING:

To succeed. All this work, time and well – let’s be honest here – tears… It needs to happen.

DOING:

Packing for that flight that I am on in a day’s time!

xox,

bonita

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༺ Autumn Lane ༻

First world blogger problems….  I have too many photooosssss and I don’t know which ones to choose!

Well obviously I did actually choose something, but it was hard… I had to leave so many good pictures out… *dramatic sigh*

And actually, in all reality, I shouldn’t be sitting here writing this post. We leave for Sydney on Thursday, Thailand on Friday and it’s Tuesday as I type. Wow, that’s coming up fast!!

There’s not a whole lot to pack, although there is a veritable butt-ton of cleaning to do. I really don’t want to leave half of my Mum and Dad’s house looking like a nuclear waste zone, but I’m procrastinating. I think tidying up when there’s no real good place to put things is the utter worst.

So I sit amongst the mess and just tough it out until it’s all sorted.

Coffee helps.

A lot.

Until it doesn’t anymore and you wish you could replace your coffee with a glass of wine… Haha!

It’s really hard to gather my thoughts together, as I’m feeling very scatter-brained at the moment. Trying to think of all the things I guess!

I really did like how this outfit came out though. The dress is another great 40’s inspired Hellbunny piece. I paired it with my favourite vintage chestnut straw hat, a cute little canvas purse, and a fab pair of spectator heels from Chelsea Crew.

These shoes are new to me and I can really recommend them, I think they look good, they are quite comfortable for heels and I really like the details. They feel quite authentic to me, which of course, I love!

In this look, I wanted to play on the autumn theme and thought the caramel and chestnut brown accents where perfect with the cornflower blue of the fabric and those bright scarlet apples! I’m also wearing a cute enamel coated vintage apple brooch that I’ve had for ages. It sort of disappears in the fabric, but I can’t resist a good matchy-matchy moment.

Luckily, we found the most amazing carpet of golden leaves to shoot with. I just love how the yellow glows in the late afternoon light ~ it’s a breath of magic to transport to you to a fantasy land for just a short moment.

And l know all the autumn stuff is a sudden 180 turn from the last outfit I posted, but the weather has done exactly the same thing here in Canberra. We went from 30 (86 f) degrees sunshine to 15 (59 f) degrees wind, rain and grey, grey skies in the space of a week! Insane!

Winter is no longer coming… It is here.

And we’re leaving for Thailand. Yay! See you on the other side!

xox,

bonita

༺ ♡ ༻

1940’s vintage Chestnut Boater | Instagram sale
Vintage Apple Brooch | Love Vintage Fair
Blue Apples & Daisies Francine Dress | Hellbunny
Canvas Satchel Purse | E-Spirit, Old
Tan & White Giselle Spectator Heels | Chelsea Crew

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