After much deliberation we have a winner of the Golden Ticket to come to The Stylist Says Workshop at Melbourne Spring Fashion Week with me.

Brand New Armour for this comment:

Dear SKM,
I’d love to come, mainly because I want to justify all of the hours spent looking up wonderful vintage blogs at work, and to revamp the daily outfits I wear to try and brighten up all of the dreary days as a glorified secretary!
I’d like to think that an afternoon spent in the presence of the ‘Oscar Wilde of our time’ (dapper, alluring, witty and damned charismatic), would be a present not just for me, but for our whole work place, as dressing well surely rubs off on those around us!
Thanks too for your great blog, which has sparked many a vintage-secretary inspired fashion moment.

Congratulations and let the dress ups begin!

*P.S: I am currently flat out preparing all sorts of Fashion Week treats and events, so bare with me on the slow posting. Fun in store!*

*This post is sponsored by Nuffnang and Panasonic*

Sometimes my life is a little crazy; well actually it is a little crazy all the time! But the other week I was given a great opportunity to capture it all for you.

Thanks to Nuffnang and Panasonic, I was sent the brand spanking new Panasonic Lumix G2 12.1 mega pixel camera.  It is half way between a point and shoot and a DSLR.  I’ve had the old point and shoot camera here for quite some time and never find I can get the result I wanted, so I switched to a big DSLR. I haven’t had any spare time to really learn how to use this yet, and find I always have to mess around quite a bit. And while those shots are lovely, carrying around a whole camera bag full of equipment does rather cramp my style.  The sorts of events I get around to aren’t really the type of things where I want to be schelping around extra bags.  So I’ve been trying to figure out the perfect solution for something that would fit into my handbag, but still do a cracking job at capturing my moments no matter what the conditions.

When it comes to taking photos I may have an eye for composition, but I certainly don’t have any technical knowledge. In fact when someone asked me the other day what aperture speed I’d used to capture an image (after seeing it on the LCD camera screen), I blushed and said, “A good one?”. Yep, no technical knowledge whatsoever. I went home and told Mr.SKM this while he had a very good giggle at my expense.

Funnily enough, while we were watching TV the other night, a commercial came on with a guy showing an exhibition of his photography, being asked similar questions and giving similar answers to mine.  Mr.SKM and I were both laughing going, “hey that’s you!” The extra funny bit was when at the end of the commercial, we saw it was for the Panasonic Lumix G2 – the exact camera they had just sent me to assist my novice ways! This is the ad here.

Okay, so this new camera arrives looking like a baby SLR, all black, fancy and miniaturised. Of course the first thing I did was to experiment with which handbag was the best fit for it before even taking a shot.  But I’m not going to bore you with technical details I don’t understand, instead I’m going to take you with me on my weekend and show you how the Panasonic Lumix G2 captured it along the way.

*(None of these photos have been altered in any way – they are RAW, straight from the camera)*

On Thursday I had a bunch of errands to run including a little ‘research’ at Chapel Street Bazzar.  The chaps there were kind enough to let me photograph some of my favourite things as I went along. I hadn’t had the time to experiment much with the camera, so this was a great opportunity to check out how it would handle close ups, things behind glass and to mess around with all the auto artistic photo settings.

Then it was on to a quick cup of tea with Violet Le Beaux before dress fittings for Friday night’s big event.

Come Friday it was time to hit the town for Miss Burlesque Australia. I was privileged to be a part of the judging panel for the Victorian heat, watching the girls get their spangles on.. and off… for the title. Given that it was held in a nightclub it was quite dark, so it was time to see if the Panasonic Lumix G2 could capture the ambience without any flash or me having to worry about ISO stuff. I just set it on auto and shot. Did I mention the camera has an articulated LCD touch screen? This fantastic feature meant I could angle the screen to make sure I could get my friends and myself into those arm length shots! I can just touch the screen to move the focus area and make sure it is all working, even while still in front of the lens.

Saturday morning I was up early for another big day, heading out for a radio interview first up. I had about two seconds to get an outfit shot before heading out the door, so I handed the camera to Mr SKM to snap my favourite new vintage dress.

Of course, I couldn’t photograph myself while I was on air, so again I passed the camera across to the studio assistant and asked her just to press the GO button. Easy peasy!

I raced off from the interview to the shops where I had to pick up food and a very special cake as Saturday was also Miss Three’s big birthday!  Time to capture some colour, action and festivities. Because the Panasonic Lumix G2 has Intelligent Auto Mode, which means automatic light, shutter speed, focus blah blah blah.. I only needed to worry about playing with Miss Three and not spending all the time playing with the camera settings. Oh and because it also captures HD movies I didn’t need to go and find my video camera as well. It was all there, at my fingertips, ready for those classic birthday moments.

After all that there was still Sunday to go. I’d been asked to come and perform in a friends Tableau Vivant gallery evening – A Doll House. Time to break out the super huge hair, massive lashes and work it as Dolly Varden! Again, I had little time to take photos and so the twisty LCD touch screen came in handy to snap away and get some shots of the wild hair and makeup creation.  I often find that taking photos indoor of an evening can create really harsh shadows and be difficult to light. So I wanted to see how the Panasonic Lumix G2 would handle these conditions under pressure. Once again, I set it to Intelligent Auto Mode and tis is what happened. Not bad hey?

The best thing about all this playing around is that I managed to get all these great pictures while on the run, without extra bags, without lots of messing around and with very little knowledge. (I have to admit I didn’t read the whole manual) So what this means is that I know I can get fantastic results with little effort, but that because the Panasonic Lumix G2 has so much of the functionality of a DSLR too, I can spend the time to play around and learn at my leisure.

So, how would you like one of these all for yourself? You would? Well, thanks to Nuffnang and Panasonic you have the chance to WIN one for yourself!

All you have to do is leave me a comment telling me how the Panasonic Lumix G2 would make you a better photographer! Make sure that your comment is linked to your blog, twitter, email or some other contact method.

Worth $1200.00 RRP this is one Fantastic prize!!

The Panasonic G2 retails for $1299 with a 14-42mm  (which is what I was using) or the Twin Lens Kit $1599 with both a 14-42mm & 45-200mm Zoom Lens.

The competition is open to Australian residents only, (sorry guys, I have something else great coming up for my international readers before the end of the month) and there is one camera to give away between the nine blogs hosting the contest.

All the T’s & C’s can be found here.

Melbourne Spring Fashion Week is fast approaching and I have so much to tell you about that in the next day or two. However, today’s big news is that Celebrity Stylist Philip Boon, is hosting an exclusive workshop featuring a panel of industry heavyweights.

And I have ONE GOLDEN TICKET to give away! Who wants to be my date for the day?  Just leave me a comment letting me know why you’d like to come along to this exclusive workshop with me, and you could be rubbing shoulders with some of Australia’s fashion heavyweights for the afternoon! And yes, you’ll even be hearing all about where vintage fits in in 2010.

You can find out more about the workshop here or register to buy tickets for whole groups if your keen.

So LEAVE ME A COMMENT TO ENTER NOW – and come along for a Very Fashionable Afternoon!

* FYI, I approached OSIM about their products for Relaxation Month ’cause I loved them so much. They were kind enough to send me something special to write about and share with you.*

The schedule I’ve been keeping for the last few months has left me a bit weary. In truth, actually very weary and possibly with a hump… I’m suffering from a lack of sleep, not eating properly, running out of clean washing and I think one shoulder is almost touching my ear from mouse induced cramps.  High time to call a “Time Out” I think.

While I can’t put my life or my business on hold, I can make a concerted effort to change my ways for a while and so I’m calling in a Relaxation Month. A week to re-group, to get to bed early without guilt, to find those things that will restore the balance in my universe. And I want you to come along too.

So to kick off the week I decided to do something that had been on my list for a very long time. Find myself a personal masseuse. Oh the luxury! But reality is that the cost of getting a masseuse to rock up to my lounge room each night might just have put me into the poor house, and I’m not sure that they do 1am call outs.  Although perhaps this guy does..

It was then I had one of those “well duh!” moments, and remembered checking out the OSIM store and all their at-home massage products last time I was in Singapore.

OSIM make those massage chairs that are the rolls royce of at home relaxation indulgence. Sitting in one of those to try out in store elicits an almost indecent response from its occupants. But I’d forgotten until recently about all the other goodies they make. So wanting a champagne experience on my beer budget, I hunted out the OSIM uPapa Hug to fix my back and shoulder woes.

The uPapa Hug is built kind of like a shawl type arrangement. It goes over your neck and shoulders and is weighted to stay put and create the best contact with your body. Inside it are tiny little men with great big hammers that give your shoulders a total work out. (They may be motors or something but I prefer to think of the little men in there).  It is a simple plug it in to the wall and press the button to go, type of system. You can choose a Relaxing program or a Power program depending on what you feel like, but you don’t have to set anything complex or strap it down to a chair.

Unlike other at home massage products on the market I tried, it doesn’t rely on electronic muscle stimulation which I actually find rather exhausting in itself. It feels exactly like someone standing behind you giving your shoulders either a gentle or vigorous pummelling. As it cycles through its program you can feel the whole area warming up and your muscles melting into a softer, smoother release. Like giving a big sigh.

The other thing that sold me on the uPapa Hug, is that you can move it around all over your body. Down around your lower back, over your thighs, heck even wrap it around your butt if you’ve been doing too much stair master! I’ve been trying for a while to get my back and shoulders into shape as all this time at the keyboard is doing me in. $130 for each physiotherapy appointment (eek!), $90 an hour for a professional massage and even $45 for half an hour at one of those shopping mall massage places…. At those prices I just can’t give my back the constant attention it is so sorely needing.  So coming in at $288 RRP, the uPapa Hug was going to pay for itself it no time at all!

With all this in mind, and leaving their store mightily impresses, I contact OSIM to tell them about my plan for Relaxation Month and to see if they might be able to offer my readers something to help us all take a load off this August. They kindly offered to be a sponsor for Relaxation Month, and sent me my own uPapa as well as one to give away!  And not only that, they are offering 10% off for each and every one of your who’d like one of these for your own.

So if you’d like the chance to WIN your own uPapa Hug all you have to do is go here and register your details to be in with a chance.

And if you want one all for your very own self (or even to share with all the family) you can get your 10%off voucher here. Just register here and your voucher will be sent directly to you.

Make sure you leave me a comment letting me know you’ve registered (to help me keep track) and also with any of your favorite relaxation tips! Over the month I’ll link back to you and you favorite relaxifying treats!

If you’d like to check them out in store and give them a thorough trial for yourself, you can find a list of Australian OSIM stores here.  They have locations in Victoria, NSW and QLD or the online store has loads of options and information.

Over the rest of August I’ll be writing all about my journey for a bit of rest and relaxation in true Glamour Girl style. How I’m managing to do it or otherwise, and re-charging those batteries to keep creating. Yes, there will still be Daily Outfits and lots of other updates, but also lots of hints, tips, trick and recommendations to help you beat the mid year slump that we all too often fall into. After all, one can’t keep their groove without their mojo!

It has been such a huge weekend here, and it began for me on Friday with the Victorian heat of Miss Burlesque Australia where I was privileged to be a part of the judging panel. It was a night to see some of the up and coming Burlesque performers of Victoria work their shimmy and vie for the crown of Miss Burlesque Australia.

I did take a few photos at the event, (not many though as I was pretty busy), but I shot them on my new secret camera. I’m saving them to reveal all those details at the same time.

Given that I was there to specifically assess the entrants based on their styling criteria (amongst other things), it was only fitting that I wore something rather special myself. The evening’s gown is a 1930’s bias cut velvet gown, courtesy of Circa Vintage Clothing here in Melbourne.

I just adore this dress. I’ve been fortunate enough to model it a few times for different parades so I already knew that it fit like a glove. So much so that I’m planning to take a pattern from it and have it made up in several shades… too divine not to!

Outfit Details

Dress – 1930’s bias cut velvet, courtesy of Circa Vintage Clothing

Heels – Silver satin with diamonte detail, by Nina from NOVO

Earrings – Original 1930’s diamonte screw in posts, leaf design

Bracelet – Reproduction deco design by Fifth Avenue

Lipstick – Boots No. 7 Moulin Rouge

Nail colour – RED from The Face Shop