Happy New Year/Memory Jar

Happy New Year!

So I haven’t posted in around three weeks, which gives you enough time for 2013 to kick in.

I spent my New Years Eve at my mum’s cousin’s house and we watched Pitch Perfect (for the 5^th time) and once the clock struck midnight, I literally said “Is it midnight already?”

The sad thing is that I actually meant it and didn’t know that it was already 2013.

Anyway, for 2013, I’ve planned to start a memory jar.

You’ve probably seen the picture with the instructions on it floating around Facebook and Tumblr, but here’s my memory jar and instructions to make your own – I guess.

So first, you’ll need an empty jar. It can be a coffee jar or a large jam jar. It just needs to be big enough to hold around 365 folded up pieces of paper.

I customised mine because I got kind of bored one day and attempted to be creative.

I basically put scotch tape on the jar and painted blue and red, respectively twice.

A good thing with a coffee jar – the one I used was from Moccona – is that under the lid, there’s some plastic that you can remove but is there so the jar can suction close.

You can remove that and put in little keepsakes, like shells or beads or petals or something. I put a row of beads that I arranged into a rainbow, two fabric flowers in there and a locker rental ticket that I got when I went to the State Library of NSW for the first time. 

So what you do then is write down a good thing that happened to you that day on little slips of paper, fold it up and put it into the jar. One of mine is like “Stayed up until midnight with Sharmin and laughed endlessly at reaction pictures”.

Then at the end of the year, you can read through them and remember all the awesome stuff that happened to you.

I also like to date them, because I don’t write only one thing, I write all the good things that happened to me because I always focus on the negative. So the more good I write, the more I reminisce and smile.

You can choose to do that or just let your mind wander and remember the memories, dateless but nevertheless great memories.

Here's some photos of my jar. 

I may have done this post really late, but if you have a great memory or a social networking account you update frequently – you may be able to start this on the 1^st.

To add to the coolness, you can write them on coloured paper like I did. I can’t wait until it starts to fill up and I get more keepsakes for that section of the jar. 

Hope you and everyone you know had a great New Years.

Here’s to cooler, kickass and more posts in 2013.

- Yasmin x

My Instagram Year in Review: 2012

So 2012 is finally over and I am not ready to step into eleventh grade.
I'm still extremely lazy and totally crappy with my studying and everything.



Lets take a trip down memory lane, shall we?

6th of January: From when we went to Bangladesh in December/January, last summer. At my aunty's dad's bungalow in the countryside.

4th of February: Moving houses from Quakers Hill. Clearly pissed off here.

11th of April: Visiting the One Direction store the day after they were on Sunrise. Good times.

14th of April: Failure of my dip dyed hair. Lets not go into that.

22nd of April: First time I had made face to face contact with my friends aka Vanessa and Emily, from Quakers Hill.

6th of May: Swimming in comic books. Thank God for Free Comic Book Day.

14th of May: First Lush purchases. It was here that the obsession began. 

28th of May: Last sports carnival. Ever. And the tears stream, down my face.

17th of June: Sydney Supanova dressed as a school girl - kinda. Booyah though.

22nd of June: Meeting fouseytube/Yousef Erakat after the I Came So Far Sydney show with Noura, Sharmin and Rameen.

24th of June: Born This Way Ball with the family. I have no idea what made me dress like this, but my first concert was flipping crazy.

10th of July: Getting my kickass birthday presents from my friends. So great to be honest.

14th of July: SMASH with Ayesha and Sabrina. Free photobooth!

21st of August: School Eid Festival with Sabrina and Ayesha. Probably the most symmetrical photo you'll find of me ever.

25th of August: First sixteenth of the year themed fire and ice. Happy Birthday, Ayesha! xx

9th of September: Second sixteenth of the year themed masquerade. Happy Birthday, Sabrina! xx

6th of October: Fourth sixteenth of the year themed 50s fashion. Happy Birthday, Baby Payne! xx

13th of October: Cirque du Soleil with the family. Flipping great.

19th of October: Volunteering with Sabrina on Pink Ribbon Day in North Sydney. I got the worst ballet flat tan ever.

20th of October: Citybound day out with Rameen, Ayesha and Sabrina. First visit to American Apparel and lots and lots of fun.

27th of October: Alexa Chung. Enough said.

4th of November: My Alexa Chung outfit. Beanie from Rubi. Clubmasters from ASOS. Dress from Cotton On. Knee highs from Country Road. Shoes from Rubi.

7th/8th of November: Last gala days. Ever.

9th of November: Formal day with Noura! Dress from ASOS.

29th of November: Coming back from the last day of school to this. First pair of Doc Martens. Hells yeah.

7th of December: Kreayshawn following me on Twitter was a pretty big deal, okay?

13th of December: The day I cut my ombré off. Thank God for that.

25th of December: Matthew Mitcham for Christmas. Oh yeah.

26th of December: The Easy Jean is in my possession. Boxing Day!

29th of December: Westfield Miranda with Sabrina. Free tea from T2 and Moochi!



So that was my year in review.
Pretty eventful year and you got to finally see my face.

I guess I'll see you guys next year, but before I leave, here are my two favourite triple j Like a Versions and a recording of my Born This Way Ball show. Just for fun.

Settle Down (Kimbra Cover) by City and Colour

Sing It Back (Moloko Cover) by Last Dinosaurs

Born This Way Ball, Sydney, 24/6/12

Happy New Year!

- Yasmin x

December Lush Haul

So yesterday I went to Westfield Miranda with my friend, Sabrina, and managed to spend 25 bucks at Lush. I do not regret my purchases just so you know.
I managed to make Sabrina spend around 20 bucks too.

If you're wondering, Lush Miranda still has a lot of discontinued items/Christmas stock/Halloween stock to sell and their service is great so if you pop in, they're pretty helpful.

So here's the haul:

Bûche de Noël cleanser, Imogen Rose Gorilla Perfume atomiser, Captain Bubblebeard reusable bubble bar, Jungle solid conditioner, Candy Mountain bubble bar

Not a lot, but I'm calling five items a haul.

I tried the Bûche de Noël cleanser and it feels great. At first, the smell kind of reminded me of the cranberry-flavoured medicine I had to take because I was either vomitting or had a sore throat. 
But when you smell it more, it doesn't all smell like that. It does indeed have cranberries in it, but it also has ground almonds. 
It helps a lot if you have oily skin, but it works for any skin type just to keep it hydrated and soft. 
The Imogen Rose perfume atomiser was pretty light at first, something my mum was looking for, and I think I got it mixed with Orange Blossom, which is a bit more sweeter. It does smell strongly of roses, when I say strongly - I mean strongly. I don't think my mum will be using it as much, but it's nevertheless a nice smell. If you plan to buy a perfume from Lush make sure you have multiple arms to try it on. 
I bought Captain Bubblebeard because I really really wanted it and Candy Mountain smells absolutely divine. Reminded me a lot of Snow Fairy,same kind of smell - lollies. 
My mum bought the Jungle solid conditioner after seeing it in Sabrina's bag of goods. We coloured our hair a lot and now it's kind of dry, so we're hoping the solid conditioner will make it look a bit better. Thinking to pair it with my Godiva 2-in-1 shampoo bar that I got when I won a competition which resulted me in getting the Shower Power gift set, which I haven't told you about yet. Oops. 

I should be using one of my numerous ballistics/bubble bars on New Years Eve/New Years Day and I shall tell you how that goes. 

See you in a few days because I will definitely post on NYE! Yay! 
- Yasmin x

Boxing Day Baby Haul

So in my fifteen years of existence, not have I once went to a Boxing Day sale.

If you don't know what Boxing Day means for us Australians, it's basically one big after-Christmas sale that goes on for like two days. If you know where to look, you can find lots and lots of awesome things to buy.

I normally go shopping at outlets and haven't been to my local shopping centre since forever, so I'm generally one to flock to a sale and Boxing Day sales are definitely my kind of pie.

So my sister, my mother and I left for the city at like 10:30am and headed to the train station to catch a pretty packed train to Town Hall, which was also really really packed.

We walked for a bit, passing stores with queues and an actual pile of Myer bags with a tired-looking woman resting herself against it, and as soon I saw Lush, I literally went "mum, I'm going in".
I asked Lush two days before on whether they were having a sale and on Christmas night I found out it was 50% off on all their Christmas products.
So I went in and it was so so busy. I walked over to the bath bombs and picked out the last Golden Wonder (which I soon found out wasn't, but I took it anyway) and a Party Popper and made my way to the fairly long queue.
Because those were half price, I asked my sister to pick out something, preferably The Comforter, which was also on sale, but there was none left.
While I was waiting, one of my friends found me and we talked for a bit, Natasha Beddingfield's Unwritten played which made half of the store sing and I figured out why Lush QVB is always fun to go to.
I figured out that the Popcorn lip scrub was on sale, which was what I was going to buy the week before, and bought it.
So all in all, I spent $11, which would have been $22 if it wasn't for the sale.

After that, we made our way to Myer which we knew was going to be crazy busy, and it lived up to its expectation.
I can't fathom how packed Pitt St, let alone Myer was. It took us 10 minutes to get onto the escalator that leads up next to MAC and took us another 20 minutes to get to the escalator to get to level 2.
I needed to get to level 4.
That journey alone took another 15-20 minutes, which wasn't bad comparing it to entering the actual store/touching first base.

Once I got to level 4, I made my way to what I needed.
The American Apparel Easy Jean.
I literally picked out a black pair in extra small and held it and didn't let go. I kind of wanted a pair in indigo, but they didn't stock my size.
Buying my jeans took another 25 minutes and once we got out of Myer, we made our way to 1D World which we didn't buy anything at because everything there was pretty much a rip off and it wasn't as exciting looking as the NYC store.

We spent the rest of the day at Market City, shopping and having Chinese for lunch.

It was a good day nonetheless.



Here is my haul!

American Apparel Easy Jeans, Popcorn lip scrub, Golden Wonder ballistic and Party Popper ballistic from Lush.

$92 from Myer, saved $24. These jeans actually fit really nicely and are really flattering, but as I'm kind of short, it does bunch up at the end.

 Finally.

$5 from Lush, $5 saving. I'm not actually kidding this tastes like popcorn and it's so beautiful.

$3.50 from Lush, $3.50 saving. It actually rattles. There's actually something inside it. Oh my god.

$3 from Lush, $3 saving. Party in my bathtub soon. Woo!




That was my day and my baby haul.
I hope you guys got some great things from after-Christmas/Boxing Day sales! I think that some of the stores are still doing sales, I know Lush are still 50% on Christmas products until they go out of stock.

Ciao!
- Yasmin x

P.S. Digital camera quality. Sorry! 

Merry Christmas!

Well, my Christmas was pretty interesting.
After waking up from a pretty topsy-turvy night - not fun, to be honest - I played Subway Surfers in the bathroom for half an hour so I could prolong my little sister giving me my present, because she does this thing where all the wants to do is kiss my cheek and ugh, lets not.
I eventually got off my butt and my sister picked a gift from the back of this huge pile of gifts underneath our Christmas tree my sister made (we don't really celebrate Christmas, but gifts to each other and extended family are fun so makeshift tree ftw)

And then handed it to me and it had this awesome ass card with the Fantastic Foursome on the front and... actually, here are some photos from my card.

Fantastic Foursome on the front, Kickthestickz in the middle with some annoying Comic Sans greeting and then two answers to two questions I asked Dan Howell once on his YouNow, my reply from Chris Kendall and my reply from Matthew Mitcham.
My Christmas card was pretty cool, but to be honest, the Christmas card I made for my sister was better. Haha.

My present had this on the front too. A reference to the TAI TV Christmas episode - aka one of my favourites.

Anyway, here's my fantabulous gift that my sister and mum bought me.

I love Matthew Mitcham! He's funny, adorable and always positive on life. I'm so excited to read this. I've only gotten in a few pages because I've been a bit busy, but I'll read this for sure. Ah!

After a Christmas shower with some Snow Fairy, I went to my mum's cousin's house and had lunch with my Filo family. We watched Pitch Perfect, my third time and I'm not stopping, and at the complication, we went downstairs to open some presents.
I got a wallet, a notebook, a pencil case, chocolate and ten bucks. Pretty coolio, in my opinion.

After watching UP and playing Subway Surfers for an hour and a half - never trust a Filipino when they say half an hour NEVER - we left for home.


So now I'm here, writing this, recapping my day. I was going to take a Christmas selfie, but I changed and I'm not changing back.
All in all, my day was great and I can't complain.

I hope all you guys had a fabulous Christmas and got all the presents you wanted and more!

Merry Christmas, everybody!
- Yasmin x

P.S. Sorry for all the crappy iPhone-quality pictures! My dad went overseas a few days ago and took the camera. For the next few weeks, my digital camera is probably the best quality you'll get. :(

2012 Summer in the City Playlist

So basically, I have been waiting for this moment for most of the year and have been delaying it since forever, but here is your 2012 Summer In The City playlist filled with everything from the iTunes’ top 100 downloads to triple j’s Hottest 100 to Yasmin’s most played, with annoying commentary that I chose to write because I have nothing to do while I’m at my mother’s workplace.

So to start it all off, one of my favourite tracks of all time. Literally my ringtone for half this year, as well as my dad’s work phone ringtone – yeah I love this song that much. But hey, the title is pretty self-explanatory and is pretty much the reason why I opened the playlist with this track.

Holidays (ft. Alan Palomo) by Miami Horror

I think this was my jam for some of 2010 to much of 2011. I know this accompanied my Klaxons phase in 2010. I literally loved this track to bits and often danced to it in the bathroom before and after showers.

 Sunlight (ft. Dan Black) by the Bag Raiders 

Here’s a track I found while doing math on Australia Day and tuning into my first (yes, my first) triple j Hottest 100. I was doing my math in a five subject binder book and as I was probably doing some stupid question on quadratics, I jotted this song down in the margin, along with some other songs I’ll probably end up chucking into here. Carefree, light and quite tropical – your third track.

 Zimbabwe by New Navy

Thanks to my little sister’s growing liking for the Australian music sometimes being played on triple j, I grew to like the artist to my next tracks. She downloaded the whole album which they came from and I synced it onto my iPod. As I began to use my iPhone, I lost them and only very recently, as I was watching the Arias, did I rekindle my likening of this artist. These two tracks make it really hard to not tap your foot – the main reason why I put these on this list.

Run Alone by 360

Just Got Started (ft. Pez) by 360

Unfortunately, I’m going to change the Australian mood of this playlist and chuck in a song I was pretty much obsessed with from March last year. This song was played in so many places, causing me to sing the tune under my breath or to start a one man rave party. Brought to you by your favourite indie, somehow pop, band who sung that “annoying” song about that high school massacre; here’s your sixth track to your summer playlist.

Call It What You Want by Foster the People

Let’s bring this playlist to current times with this tune. Initially thank you to Gold Fields, who posted up a photo and had this song with an interesting title at the top of the page. Soon after, I found myself sitting on the couch watching The Loop and seeing the music video of this song pop up. Not too hip hop to do a full cat daddy, but enough to do a bit of a dougie? I don’t know, but it’s hella catchy. About a hipster’s paradise with some profanity, your next track.

 Thrift Shop (ft. Wanz) by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis

I don’t know but I think I may have a thing about Sweden. Ikea. ABBA. Alexander Skarsgard. Oh and this group. You’ve listened to them before, trust me you have. Mind Your Manners by Chiddy Bang – yep, that was them on that track. I couldn’t match up the voices, and I don’t think I have yet. But this track is so much more cooler and just so much more dancey than that one. It’s already on the charts but I’m so sure this will be everywhere soon. 

I Love It (ft. Charli XCX) by Icona Pop

I think this year was this next artist’s year. This song was pretty much everywhere. I’ve known this artist since I heard her other song, Hollywood, and kind of fell in love (learnt all the lyrics a few days later). I forgot my love for this artist existed and when I heard this song, I was like “I KNOW THIS PERSON”. There was this one time when I was sitting at the computer and my mother was cooking dinner and all I heard was “PRIMADONNA GIRL!” and guess what? My mother was singing the next track. Whole chorus and all.

Primadonna by Marina & the Diamonds.

Earlier on this year, when I went overseas, I picked up a copy of triple j magazine, mainly because Foster the People was on the front (AH YAY), and planned to read it on the plane to Bangkok. I got through it, sadly, within two hours, and I actually read all the articles. I saw the advert for either the album or gig of this next artist, with the slightly iconic album artwork, which is making the rounds of Tumblr being plastered with CLICK FOR HIPSTER, SAD DEPRESSED TEENS and LOVE SOFT GRUNGE AND B&W??? THIS BLOG IS 4 U. Never looked into this, but thanks to Jared Harley for this kick-ass track, which you should definitely all enjoy. 

Amor Fati by Washed Out

I haven’t been a fan of this next band for long, but this next band brought back a few memories when I went overseas. Strangely enough, the opening of this was used in every HBO India promo. I literally saved the tune on Soundhound every single time it played, so that I could search every single one of them up, when I got Wi-Fi back, and find the tune. Their new album came out this year and it’s so beautiful. Anyway, I decided to put this song in because of the calming nature it, and the band behind it, emits. Enjoy.

Sunset by the The xx

After touring with Miami Horror, I had a feeling this band was probably pretty cool. It was by coincidence that I got this song free on iTunes last year and never really got sick of it. I literally can’t get sick of this band’s songs. All their tunes are amazing and really deserve a check out. But in the meanwhile, here’s the song that I got free on iTunes and firestarted the likening for this band.

Moves by Gold Fields

I’m going to stick in one of my favourite songs from 2012 in here. I am 300% that this artist will hit it big. She’s so tongue-in-cheek and so different from everyone in the music industry now. The music video for this song is literally one of the main reasons why I love this song so much. Another reason why I love this song is because of the nineties feel behind it. Who doesn’t love some nineties love?

1991 by Azealia Banks.

The next song I’m putting in this playlist is that song that’s behind every single Vodafone advertisement that was made in 2012. I don’t find it annoying, but I do roll my eyes every time the people in the advert talk over the music. Found this tune from the triple j Hottest 100 and further on watched the music video including a wide-eyed younger version lookalike of Joseph Gordon-Levitt. You can’t go wrong with a frontman like that, can you? Cheeky sounding and way too catchy.

Awkward by San Cisco

Now the last track to my playlist is a song that I found while Shazaming a beer ad. Yeah, you know which one. It's the one down below, so click the song title to listen to the full track once you're done reading this babble. I knew the band in this ad sounded way too familiar and instantly fell in love. As a cover of The Lovin’ Spoonful, it brought an upbeat and lighthearted mood for everyone to enjoy. The actual song isn’t bad either, but for the actual summer season, this song is it. This song will forever be one of my summer anthems and will be my ringtone until summer ends. And for some reason, I’m definitely sure you’ll enjoy this song as much as I do.

Summer in the City by Gold Fields

So there you have it, 15 tracks for your summer soundtrack. The title should have given the best track of the playlist away. It took me a few days to figure out what to chuck on this playlist and I’m pretty happy with everything on here, even if half of the tracks are from 2011. I guess this is an outlook on what I really listen to. If I think it’s suited, I’ll put a playlist on this blog and this will be it.

I think I may be posting up a playlist about some songs that remind me of some awesome stuff that went down this year. I’m not sure if I will though – we’ll see if time allows me.

This whole playlist will be on Spotify too. Just search up 2012 Summer in the City and it’ll come up or click here and it'll come up (if you have Spotify). Subscribe to that to have easy access to it!

Leave some comments on your summer anthem this time around and what tunes are on your playlist!

- Yasmin x

P.S. Here are a few honourable mentions that I think are worth a listen to – 

It’s been on every party playlist I’ve made and the music video totally rules. It’s a remix of my favourite song of this artist – I say it’s my favourite because it’s literally the only one you can dance to without looking semi-possessed. I’m not a huge fan of her music anyway, but this song is great. 

Spectrum (Say My Name) – Calvin Harris Remix by Florence + the Machine

I first heard this and shrugged it off, but while I was looking through the Top Lists on Spotify, I found this and actually kept playing it. If you know me, there are always those ten or so songs that you wouldn’t expect me to know lots of lyrics to. On that list is Rack City by Tyga, Turn All the Lights On by T-Pain/Ne-Yo, Mercy by Kanye West/Big Sean/Pusha T/2 Chainz, Dance (A$$) Remix by Big Sean/Nicki Minaj, N----- In Paris by Jay Z/Kanye West, Beauty and a Beat by Justin Bieber/Nicki Minaj, Starships by Nicki Minaj – basically all the Nicki songs you hear on the radio – and this song. I didn’t even know I knew that many song lyrics… oh god. Sure to be a summer hit this year – I can feel it.

Scream & Shout (ft. Britney Spears) by will.i.am

It literally took me like five Soundhounds to find this track and it became one of my favourite songs. As a triple j Unearthed competitor that has their debut album A is for Alpine  at 48 on Spotify, they are worth a listen. You will fall in love. Their kooky nature that reflects in their music videos and rhythms in their songs is amazing. 

Gasoline by Alpine

I first heard this DJ duo when I was going through someone’s Tumblr and watched the quite scandalous unofficial video to their song What’s In Your Head, on their 2012 EP The Face, which is a pretty good party song other than some bits you may be surprised to hear. It’s a good song but I’m warning you that there’s some… stuff. I’ve fallen for this duo again and they’re right outside the top 20. Here’s something slightly more G-rated for you to listen to, but the video is still a little NSFW. 

 Latch (ft. Sam Smith) by Disclosure

It’s a shame this trio’s journey had to end and I didn’t even get tickets to their last tour. I literally feel all mushy every time I listen to this song. To end your honourable mentions, another amazing tune from a certain Swedish group that you may know.

Don’t You Worry Child (ft. John Martin) by Swedish House Mafia

December Dangerfield Haul

So on Sunday, I went to Dangerfield and picked myself up a lot of stuff.
And when I say a lot. I mean quite a lot.



Here's the stuff I bought (in an attempt to be somehow artistic and original)-

The shirts on a portable clothes rack in the hallway. An attempt to be artistic.

Donut. T-Shirt. Not mine. My sister's taking this one. 

Unicorn Sandwich. Baseball shirt. I don't care what anyone says - this one's mine.

Retro Boom Box. Baseball shirt. Definitely mine.

Peace Hand. Baseball shirt. Mine too.

News Cat. T-Shirt. Sharing this one because it's kinda cute.

Three new pairs of stockings... YAY! (the last pair of stockings are kind of unclear, scroll down to see what the stockings are ooooooooooh)

U.S. of A. One leg is the stars and the other leg is, obviously, the stripes. I told my parents that these are for my future Telephone Lady Gaga costume - but they're actually for the days I feel like I want to go all Americano. Whatever.

 Love Me Spotty. The patterns on these are actually grippy - like they feel like rubber, which means that when I use them I can't slide around on the tiles or whatever, but they're cute. I really like them.

Wingdings. Oh my. I'm so excited to use these. Saw them and may or may not have told my mum I was planning to get these until I got to the counter.

They're not out of the inner packaging because my mum would tell me off because I have lots of stockings lying around. ):



Some totally crap photos that I took like two hours ago because I felt that I really needed to get a post on here. I was supposed to actually do a miniature clothing photo shoot outside, but it started raining and it was windy and it was really bad.

I'm proud of everything I bought. I love buying stuff from Dangerfield because, other than Cotton On, who stocks all my basics, and sometimes Dotti, this place has way too much awesome stuff. It's quite expensive but I got all this on sale (BONUS) so booyah!

The shirts are all Pulp Kitchen and so are the stockings, except for the Love Me Spotty ones, which are Coo Ca Choo.

The female Dangerfield website is linked here. Dangerfield stocks for males as well and is definitely worth a look at.

x Yasmin.