11 Days in the USA - Part 1

I recently returned from a fantastically delightful holiday in the United States of America with my bestie Kirsty. I wanted to document a little of what we did every day, for others, but mainly for myself - we fit so much in to the holiday that I'm bound to forget if I don't write it all down while it's still alive in my mind.

So, away we go! (P.S. I've skipped out all the days we were flying...I'm quite happy to forget all that)


Day 1



People aren't exaggerating when they say Disneyland is the most magical place on Earth. I'd recently been to Tokyo Disneyland, so I was prepped for all the wonder that the original had to offer, but that still didn't change the fact that this place is just so......AMAZING MAGICAL WONDERFUL HAPPY FANTASTICAL BEAUTIFUL FUN etc

I feel as if every theme park ever is just ruined for me now, I've been to Disneyland, I've seen how a theme park should be, and I don't know if anything else will compare. Everything is SO well thought out, everything looks perfect, the people are all lovely and the rides are SO FUN! Here in Australia most of the rides our theme parks are known for a thrill rides - quick, super fast jumps to get the adrenaline going that are over within a minute. Disneyland's are worth the line up's, the rides have substance and are created in a way that you can forget that you're at a theme park and just let your imagination go.

Take Space Mountain for instance. In theory, it's just a rollercoaster in the dark. But to that, add that the lineup takes you through a space station where a large ship is deploying small capsules. Once inside one of these capsules, you're zipped through that space station, onto a belt surrounded my lasers and lights, ready to deploy you out into the galaxy. As you slowly gain power, you see glimpses of the outside universe, millions of stars sparkling in the vast black. And then, you're out there! There are no visible rails, you can't see what's making all these stars shine, all you know is that some awesome music is playing, you're moving fast, the space wind on your face is cold and most of all - you're having so much fun you can not stop laughing.

My face was sore afterwards from smiling so much. That right there is one reason why Disneyland is so fantastic.






I could also go on and on about the Indiana Jones ride. But I won't. Just know it is all underground, there's a giant snake, the rolling boulder, lots of fire, poisoned darts and about 3 million funs.






Day 2

I love everything about Disneyland. But if I had to pick one highlight, it would be World of Colour. It's hard to explain how much it affected me...there was a lot of sobbing....as an example, this was my face afterwards.


Super pretty huh?


Lights and hundreds of water fountains choreographed perfectly to Disney songs while images from all the best films are projected on to fans of water might not sound like it should have caused that face, but it was just so....perfect. We saw this all three nights we were there, and it never failed to make my heart break and have it burst with happiness simultaneously. It was most definitely one of the most beautiful man-made things I have ever seen.






Day 3

You can't be a cynical person if you really want to enjoy Disneyland properly. Yes, I know that none of the princesses are real, I know they're just very lucky performers in beautiful dresses.....but if you just let that go, it makes it pretty exciting when you get to have breakfast with them all hehe.







Where else but Disneyland could a girl go straight from eating breakfast with princesses, to building her very own lightsaber?








Finally, it wouldn't be a very Lauren-ish post without some mention of food. We ate an assortment of food stuffs in Disneyland - pizza, pasta, churros, waffles, chicken nuggets, salad....Mickey Mouse Pretzels.



But my very favourite meal was at the Big Thunder Ranch Barbecue. We waited nearly an hour as we didn't make a reservation, but it was absolutely worth it. Once we got seated our lovely waitress brought out a bucket of ribs and bbq chicken, followed by grilled corn, coleslaw, baked beans (the BEST baked beans I've ever eaten)and delicious buttery corn bread.




So. Good.

Coming soon - Part 2! San Francisco!

No Good Deed

A commission for my friend Jess, who is utterly obsessed with Wicked: The Musical.

As a fellow Wicked lover, she gave me free reign to illustrate whatever I wished, as long as it included Elphaba - The not so wicked Witch of the West. 'No Good Deed' is one of my favourite songs in the musical, and is a very dramatic and powerful scene.

True, in the musical, she doesn't spurt green glowy magic from her fingertips, nor is she crying...but I couldn't resist making it that extra bit dramatic!

Bake Bake Bake

This week has been incredibly bake-heavy. I was asked to make a few little Christmas treats for a church function, but as usual with food, I went a bit overboard. I decided we'd have Black Forest Parfaits, Christmas Tree Cupcakes, Pecan-Pretzel-Caramel Treats and Gingerbread Snowflakes.

Monday was making cherry jelly, dark chocolate mousse and vanilla macaron shells for the parfaits (note: baking at midday in QLD very close to summer is NOT conducive to perfect macarons) and then baking hordes of litle gingerbread snowflakes and once cool, dipping them each individually in royal icing. Time consuming, but v. delicious.



Tuesday night was for cupcake baking. Wednesday morning was for icing said cupcakes.



Wednesday evening, with one hour between getting home from work and getting to the church was for making a batch of delicious Pecan Pretzel snacks.We're going to call them Christmas Yertles, as they were made with the same recipe as Katherine used here but with a red or green M&M stuck on with chocolate to make them festive.



You'd think that after all that I'd use my Thursday off work for something not realted to baking, however, you would be wrong. As it was my wonderful friend Rachel's birthday the next day, I decided a cake should be made. Now, years ago Rach and I had glorious plans for a rainbow cake, but if I recall, it sort of ended up as a delicious but distinctly greyish mess. I also had some problems with a layer cake last year (note: it slid around everywhere and became a cakey puddle) and I never really got over it. This was my chance to fight again, regain my honour and emerge victorious. And I have to say, I was very happy with the result, if I was using battles as a metaphor, I was totally Legolas, coming out of the great war victorious and feeling sassy and stylish while I did it. To top it all off I coated this bad boy in icing made from melted down musk sticks (Rach ADORES musk sticks). It looked impressive (if not slightly off balance) when it was just pink and tall, but the suprise rainbow was pretty great, and it was a lot of fun to make.






P.S. I've rediscovered my love of the Hipstamatic App for my iPhone camera..could you tell?

For those left behind...

It feels like I never have time to draw anymore. This isn't true, as I am still getting some done, and compared to most, I'm drawing A LOT. But it still feels like I'll never have enough time. Time to finish commissions (sorry Jess, I'll get there eventually!)Time to finish my watercolour and ink series inspired by Panic! that I absolutely adore and yet never get round to. Time to draw new and wonderful things, or draw more mermaids because I now have a fabulous fish book. And in with all those projects, there's all the half finished, hardly started pictures, or other that only need the smallest amount of effort to be complete and yet they are forgotten or pushed aside.

This post is to have them on display in an effort to remind myself for when all that drawing time I'm hoping for becomes readily available....here's hoping









The cool thing about doing this was I actually found one that WAS finished! Ha!

Ye Olde (and totally awesome) Medieval Tournament

Last Saturday was the Abbey Museum Medieval Tournament and like last year, it was absolutely fantastic!

My lovely friend Stacie and I spent many many many hours making our dresses (at least three full days, I'm talking 9am-11pm sewing...with food breaks of course!). It made us think how much work it would have been in Medieval times....weaving your own fabric, hand stitching everything...gah! But I think our efforts paid off, we felt like very pretty ladies in waiting (next year we're going to try and climb the class system and be queens!)



It was a beautiful day, and everyone looked so good! Observe, the Tregenza clan of Cornwall.





Things I learnt?

1) Keeping up with my nieces is far more difficult than usual when wearing a 3kg dress



2) A pig on a spit takes almost all day to cook through, and makes me hungry



3) Medieval food is amazing



4) Dancing with big sleeves is a lot of fun

Oh if only dreams came true...

I had the most wonderful dream the other night....

As I stepped in to a local art gallery, I saw some beautiful white marble stairs leading down around a corner. I saw in wonder that they led down in to a pool of glowing aqua water, where people were just walking around, no need for air apparently. Just as I was about to walk in, some scientists pulled me over and asked if I would be a volunteer for the new wetsuit they'd created. I'm so glad Dream Me accepted, because the wetsuit turned out to be an amazing full body mermaid tail. I could breathe underwater like all the others but no walking for me, no sir, I was living the dream (inside a dream - oooo Inception!)

I woke up needing to draw it. Unfortunately I didn't spend much time on it, but I wanted to show you anyway. And though the hair and eye colour match my own, the similiarities really end there...call it artistic license...or maybe Dream Me really did have that tiny a waist.



Oh and that green light to the right? That was the room where the green air was able to be swum in and Emmy Cicierega showed me these little silver globs that inflated in to giant metallic pillows on impact with the wall.