HAPPY GIVEAWAY: Your perfect party outfit

Maxabella loves... Population: 1000.

Cue even more dancing in the streets than usual (or is that just me?).


So, we're going to need a celebration, right?


I couldn't figure out a fun way to have a party on a blog... but I do know that a dazzling party needs a dazzling outfit, so I thought why not supply the outfit and maybe the party will happen?


So I got in touch with three labels that I absolutely adore and that I have raved about on my blog before (because I want them to like me). Guess what, they like me and they were only too happy to provide us with our perfect party outfit.


Cue the marching brass band!

Up front on’ fabulous frock’, we have none other than...

Leona Edmiston

I’m a big fan of this label’s ability to make me want to flaunt my curves rather than hide them.  The winner of our giveaway gets to choose a Leona Edmiston Ruby dress from the fabulous online store. There are so many gorgeous frocks to choose from and stock changes monthly, so you’re sure to find something you love to bits and pieces. I absolutely love that Leona Edmiston has been kind enough to allow our winner to choose the style that suits them best, so it really will be the perfect party dress.

On amaaaaazing shoes, we have...

Shoes of Prey

Seriously, how cool is it that these guys allow you to design your own shoes? Hello Manolo! Shoes of Prey is absolutely amazing and I am saving up to make my perfect pair of leopard print flats. But our winner won't need to save up as they will receive a $220 voucher to put towards designing the perfect Shoes of Prey shoes to match their Leona. Did I just see a duck that was looking particularly fortuitous walk by?

And providing the high notes we have...

Elk Accessories

I adore my Elk Accessories necklaces and pendants and I never fail to get complimented when I wear them. I am very happy to hear that they are launching a ‘Mr Elk’ in August sometime. It’s my dream come true: LOML and I can match! (Just kidding. No, really!)

Anyway, I managed to persuade Elk to contribute a pair of Silver Birdie stud earrings (of course they’re birdies!) to our darling party outfit.

They are go-anywhere-and-look-beautiful earrings, but they will look particularly glam when accessorising your designer party outfit.

So, that's dress, shoes and accessories all taken care of - dazzling indeed.

Won't you look sensational?

______________________________________________________

How to enter

One lucky winner takes all. 

• One Leona Edmiston Ruby dress from the online store.
• One $220 voucher from Shoes of Prey
• One pair of Silver Birdie stud earrings from Elk Accessories

Winner selected randomly from comments left on this post by 14.7.11 / 5pm Sydney time (winner announced 9pm Sydney time on 15 July). Please make sure you have an email address attached to your comment profile or included in your comment to win. Oh and because this celebration is all about the following, you need to be a follower of Maxabella loves... to win.

There are lots of ways for to gain entries (just make sure you leave a comment for each one!):

• For one entry, just leave a comment on this post revealling what your perfect party outfit looks like.
• Tweet this post for one extra entry (leave me a separate comment to let me know you tweeted, oh and I'm @Maxabella2 but I'm a hopeless tweeter so don't get excited).
• Facebook for another one (leave me a separate comment to let me know you’ve faced). 
• Write a post about the competition and you'll get three extra entries (leave three separate comments to let me know you've posted, one with a link!).
• Put my giveaway button up on the sidebar of your blog for two extra entries (leave two separate comments to let me know you’ve done this, one with a link to your blog)

<div align="center"><a href="http://maxabellaloves.blogspot.com/2011/06/your-perfect-party-outfit-giveaway.html" title="Party Giveaway at Maxabella loves..."><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr_50A8YQSMiIheXYmIml1E5yYGFctLahJrhiuTsZxIubjmFLp3lzz2RAaAq6rwQg0HJ0YNciw0OiKGHkqE9vvBXrO6LTYsBiDa94keYfZuLF66jWmQIMGrkosR6vKcPI0cu2se4ncqLQz/" alt="Party Giveaway at Maxabella loves..." style="border:none;" /></a></div>

Good luck and have fun checking out the collections at Elk Accessories, Shoes of Prey and Leona Edmiston. Thank you from the bottom of my heart to Prue from Leona Edmiston, Ziba from Two Birds Talking for Elk Accessories and Jodie from Shoes of Prey for not laughing at my random email and being a part of my blog sort-of-kind-of party. Enjoy yourselves!

[Party image found here. Please let me know if this image is yours and sorry I butchered it to make my giveaway button!]

[Oh, and I used this Code Generator to get the code for my button - it was super easy so I really appreciate it.]

My family was shot by Tim Coulson

So, as promised, here's the Maxabellaland family as seen through the masterful lens of lifestyle photographer Tim Coulson...  And, yes, that's me. So, I guess my days of pretending to be a petite, classy, blonde are over, but at least you know what I mean when I blog about things like my hair taking over the entire world.* It's all completely true. It could actually happen.

I was supposed to wait until Tim sent me the CD with all of the images on it before posting, but he's been teasing me with posts over on his own blog all week. I just couldn't wait any longer to share on mine!

Tim shoots 'documentary' style - families 'doing what they do'. So we had breakfast, dressed the Tsunamis and ourselves, played outside on the swing and trampoline for a while. Typical Saturday morning stuff (the image above, for example, is me consoling Cappers because she had a melt-down (an annoying meltdown) after I called her... annoying. I know that's not a nice thing for a mumma to call her daughter but... she was!)

What do you wear to a 'doing what you do' photo session? I didn't want us to be matchy-matched (the white t-shirt plus jeans uniform springs to mind) or too stagey-staged (everyone wearing red). Otherwise, it had to be clothes that we would typically wear on any given Saturday, although I banned myself from my signature-noncolour black and I made sure none of us clashed! Seemed to work okay.

Tim just slotted right in. From the minute LOML opened the door to his smiling face, he was just part of the family. His easy, confident manner is crucial to the style of photography he does - he was both present through his excellent company and invisible in the way he blended in. At one point a pillow-fight broke out and you could just tell that Tim was itching to put down the camera and join in! Fortunately, he stayed on the tools and got some great shots for us.

We spend many a weekend at a fave, little-known spot, and that's where we took Tim next. We tromped around playing in the playground, walking along the paths and skipping stones. I kept forgetting that Tim was taking photos, to be honest. The resulting images are some of my very favourites.

Oh, the joy of having this record of our family doing what we do. What a wonderful morning we had with Tim and, aside from his magic with the lens, it was an honour to meet him. I mentioned on a post on his blog that I always thought that good photographers had an ability to capture light that the rest of us don't have. But now I know that it's because they carry that light around inside them. Tim just shines, I tell you!

I know that images of my family are far more exciting for me, than for you, so I thank you for your endless patience. And please do stop over and say hi to Tim... he's very nice and his blog is lovely. I'm off to look at my photos once again... can't stop looking... will never stop looking!

* Not to mention my butt... does the camera add 5kg or 55? And please remember, I look completely different to this in my head.

[All images by Tim Coulson]

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Western Electric

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Further reflections on word verification

At the risk of becoming the web's foremost commentator on word verification, I just had to share this one.

I blog a lot from my phone. It drives me nuts, especially with the whole auto-correct thing making me say things like 'farmed' when I really wrote 'farked'. I end up writing really deep comments like "wow, you should just tell them to farm off" and "The world is really farmed up". Makes me sound like I'm overly supportive of our hardworking primary producers when all I really want to do is use the world's most common adjective to express my distaste without actually writing fuck.

But I digress.

I blog a lot from my phone. It drives me nuts. It takes ages to type out a comment in the tiny little box and then you hit 'send' and the random (but is it?) word verification rolls up. The other night, after struggling along with my one finger typing on the tiny little virtual-keys and trying to read what I wrote in the tiny little font and writing a really long comment because I just can't shut-up even in a tiny little box, well...
This is the word verification that rolled in: hytzyqwbd.

Or was it hytqzybd?

Or hbzyqwmk?

Either way, I just stared at that tiny little mother farmer and thought what the farm?

All that effort and now I have to spend 10 minutes trying to type out the indecipherable word verification while that stupid auto-correct sees you typing 'hbzyqwmk' and suggests things like 'he thinks' just because it's stupid and can't? It's bad enough when you get a word veri with vowels - but what's with these lengthy odes to the constanant? What's wrong with 'cat' or 'sat' or 'mat'? Could a robot read 'cat' and type out 'cat'? Could it?

Aah. So glad I got that out.

Come on, hit me with some word verification stories and perhaps an auto-correct or two?

[Image from here]

Last Call

Natalie Wood

Susan Strasberg

Angie Dickinson

Simone Simon

Mylene Demongeot

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Recovery for the young*

Ever reminisce about those 'work to play to work' days? The ones where you would go to work, hit the bar hard-baby straight after, dance the night away, walk home in the light of a blushing sun, take a quick shower and go to work?  Hell, you might even have managed to back up the next night too. Yeah, those days... ah, those days... hmmm, yes, those days...

How long does it take you to recover from a big night out these days?

For me it's three days, maybe four. Oh, okay, I'll be honest, it's at least 3 months.

These days a 'big' weekend involves scheduling more than one thing across the entire 48 hours. I panic if someone invites us somewhere on Sunday afternoon because there isn't enough 'recovery' time before work on Monday. And that's just a family afternoon out with the kids - don't even get me started on the meltdown that an actual night out night out involves.

I don't know when I got to be so feeble.  The urge to 'punch through' just left me sometime in my mid-thirties and has never been seen again. It wasn't even because I had children (I nursed many a hangover for a good few years after that). I just got sensible and who can blame me? Being sick this week reminded me of how annoying it is to be off your peak - it hurts, yes, but even worse, you just can't get anything done.

So nowadays (should that be nowanights?), the idea of a boozy bar, loud music and actual dancing (ie, public dancing) just makes me squirm. All that drinking, all that posturing, all that yelling. By 10 o'clock I'm practically running out the door home to the joy of peace and quiet and a warm, loving man.

Does this make me old? I don't think of it as old, I think of it as clearing the way for today's feisty young folk. Yes, well. God knows, when I was one of the feisty I used to freak out to the max whenever I found out someone was at a bar and forgodsakeforty. Seriously, you're still out? Get a life, dude. So, it was always my ambition to not be that person and just look at me now - I've achieved my goal!

Am I old? Am I sad? Am I normal?

Are you still out painting the town red?*

* At heart, obviously.
** But I will warn you, red is such a nineties colour... 


[Image by Jaz Marsh]

Slave Children in New Orleans

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Snaps for the snaps

We've never had 'professional' family photographs taken, even of the Tsunamis. And definitely not of me. I even shied away from having a typical wedding photographer. I'm just so... shy... who me?... having my picture taken. I get stressed, or act the ham or my hair just threatens to take over the entire world. I just never look the way I think I look in my head. Reality check needed, anyone?

Anyway, you can imagine how nervous I was at the thought of snapper-extraordinaire (and soon to be famous given the love he is deservedly receiving in our blogging world) Tim Coulson coming over to our place yesterday to record our family 'doing what we do'. You mean, like, reality? You want the 'real' us? Really?

Oh, why not? I suddenly thought. Why not?

So glad. So glad I just decided to go for it. Tim put me at ease within about 5 seconds of coming in our front door at 8am on Saturday. We were all in our jamies. The porridge was threatening to bubble over on the stove. I was baking disastrous-looking (but not bad-eating) cinnamon scrolls. In he came.

So glad. We spent the most terrific morning showing him around our place and then taking him to a little spot that we love to go to as often as possible. It was just so wonderful when he loved everything we love almost as much as us. Snap snap snap away he went and I wasn't nervous or silly or hammy at all. I was just me. I have no idea what the majority of the photos look like yet, but I'm loving the sneak preview Tim has posted... and I will do a 'big reveal' post in the next couple of days to show you more of the good stuff.

So glad. Tim does a different sort of photography. He really does just capture a family doing what they do. No posed, awkward, matchy-match shots. Just 'a day in the life' stuff and a beautiful record of home and family life as we know it. It felt like a lovely morning with a lovely friend and I'm hoping that the resulting images capture the beauty of the day. Can't wait to show you more.

Have you had professional shots taken of your family before? 

(If you've blogged them, share a link as we'd love to take a peek.)

Do you like having your picture taken?

[Image by Tim Coulson]

Eric Morley, the creator of Miss World

Eric Douglas Morley (26 September 1918 – 9 November 2000) was born in Holborn, London, England. He was the founder of the Miss World pageant. He was married to now head of the pageant Julia Morley from 1960.

Eric Morley, the creator of Miss World, noting down some important vital statistics

Eric Morley helping with a jammed zipper in 1955

Eric Morley checking no contestants had big hips in 1955

The first Miss World at the Empire Rooms on Tottenham Court Road, 1951

All the contestants of the 1970 Miss World pageant

Miss Selfridge girls dressed and made up the same and no doubt contemplating that capitalism can only go backwards