On our last day in Melbourne, I had the extreme delight of meeting magical blogger Violet LeBeaux. I can’t remember how I came across her blog for the first time, but I instantly fell in lurve with her cute, girlie style, and her commitment to creating DIY tutorials for maximizing the cuteness and prettiness of life on a budget. To be honest, I’m pretty sure I totally fangirled over her on Twitter, and the rest is history.

Apparently we both got the memo that it was White Cardigan Day. And p.s. she made her dress!! Here are some examples of her tutorials: how to sew cute overall shorts,  poufy curly up-do hairstyle, how to make cardigan clips.

I tried to take a few outfit snaps in the hotel before our meet-up, but the light was really dark in our room.

Afterward, Hairy and I wandered about Melbourne a bit more and ended up in the library, upon Bei’s recommendation. But it was Sunday and filled with students doing actual studying, and we felt kinda bad just poking around! There was a gallery filled with portraits and busts of random old guys, so I thought it would be another fun opportunity for an iPhone outfit snap!

That night, we walked down to by the river and ate dinner at Guiseppe Arnaldo & Sons trattoria inside the Crowne Hotel, and everything was super duper yummy! Especially the chocolate pot de creme for dessert!

We rented a car in Melbourne today and drove out to Phillip Island to visit the Koala Conservation Centre. There was another park nearby where I think you could get closer to the koalas and pet them and stuff, but we decided to check them out in their natural environment, minding their own business, doing koala things. It was kind of like a game of Where’s Koaldo, craning our necks up at the trees, spotting little fuzzy dumplings napping on branches. My photos are terrible since they are from my iPhone. We’ll have much better photos and video from the other camera, but for now, you get a teaser!

There’s a story about these two. One is a mama and one is the baby. The baby is old enough to be independent, but is still learning about how to be his own koala and have his own house, so apparently, these are some difficult teenaged koala times.

 You kinda just walked around amongst the trees, and all of a sudden, there’s a koala or two or four. It was really neat!

Most of them were napping and swaying in the wind (it was super windy). We found one koala who looked somewhat more active and was kinda looking at us. Then she started dropping some poos, which was really exciting for me, cuz it was like, NATURE!!! SO NATURAL!! And THEN, she PEED!!!!! And then she pooped some more! And then she scratched her rump a few times. And then she tucked in for a nap. It was amazing. (I’m just going to assume now she was a ladykoala because I read that they don’t keep as many boys in the center to avoid fighting.)

And then there’s the random take-a-picture-of-my-outfit-in-the-koala-park outfit shots that you always need to have, even if your outfit is not that exciting. I travel in comfort!

We have one more day in Melbourne, then we’re flying back to NZ for one night and heading home!

My new free pattern is up now at Michaels.com: Veggie Pen Cozies! You get the patterns for the asparagus, lettuce, and carrot! They work up super quick and are a fun stash-buster for all your veggie-colored yarns. We did some lettuce pens with green and purple that were really fun! Edit, June 4, 2014: Please find the pattern here on my blog. Michaels.com is currently re-vamping their pattern/project section, and the above Michaels.com link is disabled for now.

I’ll need to sharpen my green thumb and get a whole new wardrobe, but I just wanted to let you guys know that we visited Hobbiton, and I’m moving in!

After spending a few days in Auckland, living the city life, Hairy drove us down to visit Hobbiton and the LOTR/Hobbiton movie set, which is in the middle of a giant sheep farm filled with cute sheeps whose job it is to look adorable and munch on grass all day.

I believe our tour guide said that there were like 4o hobbit holes on the premises, some big, some small, depending on whether they wanted to film a human or a hobbit next to it.

There’s not really stuff inside of them. They are all mostly facades, and any shots from the inside of a hobbit hole were filmed in Wellington on a set.

It was really super cute there, but what really struck me was the care and attention to all the gardening. There was a central vegetable garden with actual chard and squashes and herbs and all kinds of veggies and things. I live by the ocean where there is no sun, but I felt super inspired to grow food because it just looks adorable aside from being edible…!

You also get to visit the Green Dragon for a free beer, cider, or ginger beer! (Oops, no photo of that yet…!)

I’m not even a really gigantic LOTR fan, but I thought that visiting this place was really fun. Time to redecorate my house!!

I took more photos and TOOOOOONNNS of video, but we are off now to find dinner in Wellington!

Here’s a tiny snippet of what we did today: took a ferry from Auckland to Waikehe Island, went on a tiny hike….and then it started to rain!

Classic me: I complain if I’m hot, I complain if it’s windy, and I complain if it rains!