Essie Sew Psyched and Merino Cool swatches, Floriade and target.com jewels!

I know when I did my Essie Collection post I mentioned that I was looking forward to getting the Fall 2010 colours - but of course it's spring here (hooray!) so we probably won't be getting them for a while. Just like the OPI summer flutter collection has only just been released here, when I bought those overseas in June! Note to self, make travel plans for the American summer next year. Actually I'm thinking about going to New York next year... so this may be a reality! Anyway I'm impatient and eBay is a wonderful thing. So I shopped :-D

Sew Psyched was first on my list. The daylight swatch below is two coats:

Today is a dark and gloomy 'spring' day in Canberra. So this colour suited me well.

Flash swatch above. I also picked up Merino Cool:

Another two coats for this one although it appeared slightly sheerer than Sew Psyched.

This colour is a little darker than it appears in the bottle. Copying Chanel's trick I'm sure :-P

Off topic though, I have been very patiently waiting for my hopshopgo order to be delivered. If you haven't heard, hopshopgo is one of those online shopping sites (by PayPal) that allows you to buy from US websites that don't ship internationally. Which is fantastic because you could get your MAC, Macy's, Nordstrom, Saks stuff whenever you liked and since the dollar is fantastic right now, this is the time to do it. So I decided to make a small order and test it out. I really missed not being able to get to a Target on my last trip so I made a target.com order - using their 'buy for me' option. I got some sterling silver jewels :-D

The great thing is that you can make as many orders as you like then bulk them up into one big international shipping delivery. As your order arrives at your 'US address', it will stay there free for 30 days. So you have time to make additional orders and ship them all at once. You have to be careful of shipping though, it's calculated by dimensions and weight and I know that international courier fees can be expensive. I think that's why I went for jewelry :-P Anyway, it's shipped by DHL express and once my order was shipped, it arrived quickly. Something worth checking out if you can't wait for the latest MAC collection to get here or if you're like me and want random stuff from target :-D

Off topic again, I thought I'd mention something nice about Canberra since I'm always whinging about the cold gloomy days. If there ever was a reason to visit Canberra, it's for Floriade. It is almost over but I went last weekend when the weather was absolutely perfect: sunny warm and still. The best day this year to go to floriade. So basically it's this massive flower festival (I have no idea how many flowers there are but it feels like thousands), usually with a different theme each year. I've gone every year since I moved to Canberra (2005) and I just love it. And look there's a ferris wheel.

I didn't capture any photos this year that really shows you the sheer volume of the flowers, I got distracted by the pretty:

And the miniature:

And random weird things. Last year I believe there were Chinese lanterns in the trees?

Spring is finally here!

And while I was distracted taking pictures above, the bf found what everyone was hovered around:

Baby swans! So darn cute! Oh and if you're not tempted by thousands of brightly coloured tulips or cute baby swans, at least go there for the Vienna nuts. I get the Macadamias every year and scoff the lot in one go :-D