We adore a pop-up book, and one of our favourites is Royal Palaces of London by the super talented UK illustrator Nina Cosford. If only the real world looked this good! Nina’s painterly style is whimsical and saturated with colour, and we swoon with envy at her clever talent! Read more about Nina here, and bask in her glorious work below. 
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Chinti & Parker organic top, YSL reversible suede & leather tote, Isabel Marant Bekket sneakers, Victoria Beckham reflector aviators, Rag & Bone jean jacket, See by Chloe wide-leg jean, Richard Nicoll wool sweater, Lulu Frost bamboo and resin bangles.
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For those of us with substantial eyebrows, Cara Delevingne’s (and that of her thick, luscious eyebrows) rise to fame has been a facial hair triumph.
God knows we have hung onto our eyebrows by the roots through every phase known to womankind - from bleached and non-existent to skinny and sparse to arched and straight. Now thick again! Cara, we and our thick, unruly brows salute you!
We could write a post on how to hedge your own eyebrows to perfection, but that would be plain irresponsible and a potentialy hairy situation. Any woman worth great eyebrows knows that the only one wielding a pot of wax near your face should be a Brow Expert!
Here are some of the best people to take yours to for their monthly pluck, tint, wax and brush.
SYDNEY
Sharon-Lee - sharon-lee.com.au
MELBOURNE
The Brow Bar - browbar.com
PERTH
Matt Yuko - mattyuko.com.au
BRISBANE
Blow Salon - blowsalon.com.au
LONDON
Blink Brow Bar - blinkbrowbar.com
NEW YORK CITY
Dr. Ronald Sherman/Trish McEvoy Skin Care Centre - trishmcevoyskincare.com
]]>Want to give it a go? Here it is…
The 7 Minute High Intensity Workout
Exercises are performed for 30 seconds, with 10 seconds of transition time between bouts. Total time for the entire circuit workout is approximately 7 minutes. The circuit can be repeated 2 to 3 times.
Taken from the study HIGH-INTENSITY CIRCUIT TRAINING USING BODY WEIGHT: Maximum Results With Minimal Investment. Read more here.
Image via dailymail
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So you’ve worked out your menu and figured out your tipple of choice. Now—how to take your table from midweek mundane to a whimsical weekend special? Quite simply, flowers.
And you don’t need a large budget either – save all those glass jars you’ve been throwing out, wrap them with our doilies and twine (below), and fill with flowers from the garden, or even bunches of woody herbs like Rosemary. This will instantly transform your table, and the low height lends an added bonus of still being able to see your guests across the table. Unless you really don’t like them of course, in which case a large arrangement of hydrangea should do the trick. Candles are also a sure-fire winner for ambient lighting (simply pop a few tea-lights in those glass jars you’ve been hoarding), but perhaps save the Diptyque scented candles for the entry way or bathroom. Considering we ‘eat’ with all our other senses first, the heady aroma of jasmine mixing with the slow-roast pork might not be the best start to your fine dining experience.
We are FFFing loving the return of the darkly diminutive Winona Ryder. Once Gwyneth Paltrow’s BFF (read about their Frenemy Feud here), she is the polar opposite of the tall, blonde and waspish Paltrow. Ryder is a pocket sized Elizabeth Taylor—all raven tresses, magnetic eyes and ample bossom, with a complicated past to boot.
But she’s back, and all her troubles are forgotten. Her new movie, The Iceman, is a period piece set mostly in the 1960s and ’70s that stars Michael Shannon as Richard Kuklinski, a real-life contract killer for the mob in New York and New Jersey who is said to have murdered more than 100 people. Early talk is that Ryder, portraying Kuklinski’s wife, is not just good—she’s brilliant. Check out the trailer here.
Maybe she and her true love Johnny Depp will come full circle, he’ll re-ink his ‘Winona Forever’ tat and they’ll waltz off into that Hollywood sunset together. We can hope… in the meantime, check out these stunning shots from Interview magazine. You can read the full story here.
We are nibbling our nails-down in anticipation for the upcoming release of The Great Gatsby!
Stepping into Mia Farrow’s shoes as the new Daisy Buchanan is the chic and gamine, Carey Mulligan. Her personal style is flawless and quietly elegant, favouring frocks with simple lines and minimal embellishment. Her go-to designers are Lanvin, Bottega Veneta, Prada and more recently, Victoria Beckham. We think these looks personify her star style to a T!
pics via imnotobsessed.com, graziadaily.com, redcarpet-fashionawards.com, marieclaire.com, instyle.com, zimbio.com
We’d all love to eat organic produce all the time — or better yet, food picked from our own lush vegie patch a la Meryl Streep in It’s Complicated. But a lot of the time you have to make do and slum it with the standard supermarket offerings. Either way, it’s essential to give your fruit and vegies a thorough clean before you eat them … even those packets of spinach that are ‘washed and ready to use’!
So why not clean up your act with this wash for squeaky clean vegies…
Hi FFFers! Our resident sexoligist Nadia Bellis has red penned our weekly shopping list! These two added and recommended mood enhancers are super delicious when teamed together and guaranteed to give every dinner a happy ending.
Dark Chocolate
Chocolate—the ultimate mood enhancer—contains phenylethlyamine (PEA) also known as the ‘love chemical’, released when you are in love and strangely enough when you eat chocolate [duh cause we’re all in love with chocolate!]. This love chemical stimulates the release of hormones dopamine and in turn oxytocin; the former creates feelings of sexual euphoria and desire and the latter is released upon orgasm and promotes trust and bonds couples and mothers to their babies.
Chocolate comes from the Theobroma Cacao tree which literally translates to ‘fruit of the Gods’, the magic that is cacao is transformed into the smooth, velvety texture of chocolate that we obsess and feel guilty for consuming. As long as you eat over 70% cold pressed organic cocoa with no added sweeteners or dairy, you can quash the choccy-guilt, especially since it contains tryptophan the building block of serotonin, which makes us feel happy and is linked to desire and arousal. To top of the long list of benefits dark chocolate provides is arginine responsible for increased blood flow to the genitals resulting in stronger erections and enhanced genital sensations. Researchers have also found that chocolate contains cannabinoids (think THC), a little bit of caffeine for an energy kick and may regulate women’s sexual functioning – Fruits of the Gods indeed!
Red Wine
We all need a little lowering of our inhibitions and a confidence boost now and then to help us engage in intimate acts of the sexual variety with a long-term partner or a new date…and hey – a little alcohol content never hurt anyone! In fact research has found that one to two glasses of red wine a day improves a women’s sexual desire. Packed with antioxidants specifically resveratrol, sexual arousal is enhanced as increased blood flow and sensitivity to erogenous zones, sends our naughty parts singing- red wine, feeling fine! Add some clove or spices to your wine for added aphrodisiac effect.
Image via topnews
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Now that you’ve planned your menu or have dusted off all your fancy cookbooks (it’s a start, well done you), it’s time to talk drinks. So pour yourself a single-malt and consider this: checking to see if you still have wine in the cupboard really isn’t enough. Especially if your ‘cellar’ consists solely of corporate-gift cleanskin bottles from last Christmas. Cellar forever. In a bin. Or use in a recipe, but try it first—remember, if it’s not good enough to drink, it ain’t mysteriously going to transform into something good enough to cook with. Fact. Even better, have a little fun creating a signature cocktail—the type you can serve in a jug and create a mini bar station prepped and ready to go so guests can help themselves. This will work even better in a garden party scenario when you can experiment with some punchy summer flavours. Think Rosewater and Watermelon martinis. A jug of Pimms crammed with mint & cucumber = heaven. Have some of our vintage striped straws ready and use our mini chalkboards to label your drinks. Hey presto—you have yourself an instantly fabulous mini-bar!
xMiriam
PS… if you are doing a sashimi & tempura starter—you’re officially fabulous.