A sad farewell, a learning experience and some celebrating!!

Happy Friday LHITFG fans!

I hope you are looking forward to the weekend as much as I am.  It's been a busy week and I am certainly looking forward to getting off my feet and relaxing a little this weekend!

Sadly this week we farewelled the hugely talented chanteuse Amy Winehouse.  I remember the first time I listened to her second album, Back to Black.  I was instantly in love with this little lady's huge voice and amazing Billie/Ella-esque sound.  The CD stayed on repeat for a long time,  Me and Mr Jones and Tears Dry On Their Own were hits for me - for a listener to be able to experience raw emotion through music is the mark of a truly talented artist.  And that is what I hope that Amy is remembered for.  Not for her battle with addiction or her slurred performances or public meltdowns, but for the amazing musical gift that she shared with the world.  RIP Amy.  You will be missed.     

So!  Because LHIFTG is all about celebrating everything YOU! meaning that we are all about what makes us women celebrate being just exactly what we are and what we love, it was decided that our new billboards for this year should show that.  On Monday night, I dragged some of the team and some friends down to a local studio for a photo shoot!  And I tell you what, I will never again criticise models or think that modelling is easy - it's absolutely not, it's really hard!  We all stood up in front of the big lights and just froze, what exactly are you meant to do, how are you meant to pose?  How do you stand?  There is much more to it than meets the eye.  So much thanks has to go to the fantastic Jenna Hitchcock from Beautique Photography, it was only with her art direction that we managed to get through it!  Here's a sneak peek from the night:

I've been on a mission in the last week to get healthy again after a few weeks with a cold.  I trudged out last night to try Power Plate Vibration Training.  Has anyone else tried it?  It is a very basic 15 minute workout - you do sets of exercises or stretches on a vibrating plate, apparently this amplifies the exercise, meaning you get much more benefit in a shorter amount of time.  I was sceptical, of course.  But I am happy to say I am definitely feeling it today, especially in my abs!  I've got 5 more sessions to go, so let's see if anything comes of it. 

We had a great YAY! moment in the office this morning!  Our beautiful event manager Bonny got engaged last night to her man Bijan!  It was a very romantic proposal, dinner followed by a "fake falling over" moment.  When she bent down to help him up, he was on one knee with a beautiful sapphire sparkler!  Ah love and congrats to you both from the team!  It's been a pretty big engagement/wedding/love news week in the world, Carey Mulligan and Marcus Mumford, Jesse James and Kat Von D split (right after she tattoo'd his face on her ribs....oh dear) and New York councillors narrowly voting to allow same-sex marriages be performed in the state (hooray!), which saw one officiant preside over 100 marriages in a 24 hour period!  

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend, see you next week!

LHIFTG Team xxx

Inspiration from you inspiring women!

Hello LHIFTG fans,

We have been running our new Facebook promotion for just over a week now and we have been overwhelmed by the response!  I can't keep away from our Facebook page, I love reading you winter pick-me-ups, in fact I find them absolutely inspiring.  Your words have really got me to thinking about inspiration and motivation, where that comes from and what is inspiring in life.

Many of you talk about spending time with family on Facebook, which I am sure is a hot topic for all of you with school holidays in full swing!  Keeping those active bodies and minds occupied, while still keeping the cogs of everyday life turning is an absolute mission. I find Mums truly inspirational, especially their innovative ways of amusing the chidlets during the holidays.  Here are some cool ideas that some of my friends have come up with for school hols activities:

• Sidewalk Chalk - you can buy the large sidewalk chalk buckets for as little as $8 from Warehouse Stationary.  Find a big piece of sidewalk, wrap the kids up warm and let them go a little Michelangelo! 
• Make A Hut - even I used to love doing this as a kid, move the couches to make walls and use an old rug as a ceiling.  Seriously, you won't see the kids for hours as they play in the pirate lair/castle dungeon/secret cave!
• Homemade Playdough - for the littlies, here is a recipe to make your own Playdough.  Get them to help you mix it all up, then watch what they come up with!  Keep your Playdough in an airtight container to keep it fresh.
• Weird Science - for those with kids 8+, do you remember making a volcano when you were in primary school?  It's so much fun, quite a big project as well, which will keep them occupied in a hands on way for a couple of days.  Or try some of these ideas.....make a bouncing egg, some static electricity or a wormery!

I find stylish women really inspirational.  Jackie O, Audrey Hepburn, Gwen Stefanie, Alexa Chung - these beautiful women all have the gift of being able to put an outfit together, an outfit that suits them and that is on trend.  But it's the women that manage to do it on a budget that I really, truly admire.  Check out this blog:  http://whatiwore2day.blogspot.com/.  Recommended to me by a workpal, I haven't been reading her blog for long, but I find her style so inspirational.  Fashion isn't about how much you paid, what it says on the label or where you got it from.  Fashion is about expressing who you are, in clothes that fit your body and that you truly love.  This blog is an inspirational read and definitely makes me closely regard how I am spending my money on clothes. 

And lastly, but definitely not least....the people that I find most inspiring are my friends.  So I would like to dedicate this blog to friends - the friend who drives 5 hours to come to your party, the friend who tells you the truth when you put on that dress that is really too tight, the friend that listens to you gush about the new guy in your life (on and on and on), the friends at work that you spend 8+ hours a day with.  Without friends, our lives would be grey.  Thank you for being so inspirational!   

"Wherever you are, it is your friends that make your world" - William James.

See you back here next week!

LHIFTG xxx

Win with us!

Hey girls!

We are running a Facebook competition for Let's hear it for the girls this month.  Like us on Facebook here and you will go in the draw to win a fabulous Pamper Package for Two!  The prize includes brunch and bubbles at Arborio Restaurant, a cut and blow wave from Misse Hair Boutique, facials from the fabulous Beautiful Hush and acrylic nails and a gelish toenail treatment from Mystique Nails!  Double your chances by writing on the Let's hear it for the girls Wall and tell us what your favourite winter pick me up is!  I hope you win it! 

Love has been in the air (or on the wind) this week.  And lots of different types: weddings, loving thy self, friendship, family, a most loved article of clothing.  It seemed that no matter where I went there was something that made me think about love and its huge impact on us and our lives.   

"When you are in love you can't fall asleep because reality is better than your dreams." - Dr Seuss

I was watching E! Channel recently and managed to catch an E! Special on Wills and Kate, their love story and the wedding.  It was very easy to get caught up in the hype of the wedding at the time and I have to admit, like so many of us now, I had totally forgotten about their love story.  It was kind of cool to revisit their courtship (when we called her Waity Katie) and remember that these two aren't "royal love by numbers".  They have a true-to-life love story that has really stood the test of time, under such intense scrutiny by the public.  Here are the beautiful couple, hobnobbing it with the stars at the 2011 BAFTA Awards.  Even Jennifer Lopez looks starstruck!

The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart - Helen Keller 

Loving Thy Self - I have to share this article that I found on sheknows.com!  This is the Top Ten WTF! Beauty Rituals and I have to tell you, the lengths that someone women will go to achieve whatever it is that they believe beauty is, are rather terrifying and completely hilarious!  Imagine smearing bird poo on your face as a facial, like some women do in Japan!  It really did make me think about my beauty routine and how I really love doing just the small things, just for myself.  Like putting on lipgloss or using my favourite face scrub.  Giving yourself little treats doesn't just have to be beauty related either.  It can be as small as just making someone at work a cup of tea.  Here is 81 little presents you can give yourself, try and do one today! 

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage - Lao Tzu

Don't forget to check out the Facebook competition!  Until next week.

Love from the LHIFTG Team x

Escaping winter in more way than one....

Hi there! 

Hot topic in the LHIFTG world at the moment: supermodel Kate Moss’s wedding to Jamie Hince!  If you haven’t caught up with the goss, Vogue Australia have all the pictures and a blow by blow account of who was wearing what, for what part of the amazing three day wedding.  Kate looked absolutely stunning in her vintage inspired Galliano dress, with the designer himself making a surprise appearance at the nuptials.  Her handsome groom looked sharp and polished in dusk blue Yves Saint Laurent.  Check out all of the photos here. 

With the shortest day behind us, it’s still a little while until we can start looking forward to warmer weather (and wearing ethereal dresses a la Kate!).  Colder weather means inside activities, so I went off to the movies to see "Bridesmaids" a tale about Annie, whose messy personal life threatens to destroy her best friend's wedding plans.  I was really looking forward to this movie, my friends who had seen it absolutely raved about how funny it was and I was definitely in the market for a big laugh-out session.

The movie didn’t disappoint.  But it didn’t really wow me either.  I spent a large portion of the movie cringing into my hands as gags were overly drawn out.  I’m no script spoiler, but the aeroplane scene was just painful, with the inevitable outcome easily seen by the audience many minutes before it eventually came.  Megan (played by Melissa McCarthy) was my favourite.  Brash, rude, outspoken, she definitely had all of the jokes and gags that I found funny.  All in all, it was a good movie for a cold night.  Would I see it again?  No.  Should you see it?  Yes.

Speaking of the colder weather, a lot of conversation has been had within the Let’s hear it for the girls team about how to keep warm in winter, yet still look fabulous and chic.  There is definitely a tendency to exit the house looking quite like a Michelin Man.  While many will argue that your best and most stylish defence against chills is a beautiful coat, while I don’t disagree, I think I might have found an even better answer.  A longline slip, like this one here from Ezibuy, has been my winter saviour!  It goes under every dress, leaving a sleek silhouette.  But the best part, the slip is like a second skin, keeping you super toasty without all the excess layering!  Even wear it as a mini, teamed with a loose top, scarf and tights for a casual brunch look. 

Keep warm and see you next week!

The Let’s hear it for the girls team x