Then, a parcel arrived the other day. Shiny black box with a silver ribbon was full of tampons and pads. Duh! I do remember sending a postal address to someone at a PR company in the East. I didn’t expect to receive a box full of tampons and pads though.

That made me think about other ‘free stuff’ I received as a blogger until now. To be honest, I rarely get anything for free. If anything, I spend so much money shopping around visiting cool shops, spend hours sorting photos and posting them online.. okay I do all this because I like doing it not because someone is paying me to do it. Fortunately, I never have to write stuff that I don’t feel right just because I receive some gift.

The very first freebie I received was a Pilgrim’s bracelet with a alligator charm from Elaine of Behind the Monkey.

Then there are times when, as a blogger, I get the same kind of treatment as regular media people. That means I get media kits which sometimes contain goodies. Franc Essential serum was really part of a media kit.. and I’m loving them. Megan Parker from Petals in Disarray also gave me a logo printed tee which I love.

Do all these freebies make me change my opinion on things? Actually, no. If I don’t like something I’d say nothing. I want to still own my ‘space’ here and I’ll say what I want when I want. That was the whole point of not having any adverts and not doing any paid posts. People may well give more freebies in the future hoping that I’ll just say nice things about their products or businesses. It’s a tricky business I know. It will be a balancing act. So this has been my little disclaimer as a blogger.

Now, back to the instigator of this post. I will not do an in-depth review of U by Kotex, thank you very much. All I can say is I’m partial to easy to use products and the new U by Kotex Platinum gets my vote for ease of use. Twist opening for tampons is a must for me and pads that only require ‘one peel’ is a great thing. There are pads with multiple sticky things that I needed to peel three different things to stick it on.. not good…I have been a U by Kotex user anyway. That’s all I’ll say.

Now, I’m off to a couple of events tonight.. full report maybe tomorrow. Ciao.

Let’s first talk about the location. It might be a little far if you’re living far North of Swan river. Good thing about living in South Perth is that almost all places are quite easily within reach and Guildford is no exception. After a 20 minute or so drive I was in Guildford very closed to Swan Valley. Raw by Nature is nestled in a very beautiful part of Guildford in aN old building which you will see in this photo.

Let’s now talk about what Raw by Nature is. If Ici et La was ‘South of France’ in North Perth, Raw by Nature would be ‘Colonial Africa’ in Swan Valley. I was blown away by the bold colours, patterns and richness of all things African and ethnic. I simply went there to find out what it was all about but I returned with two nested wooden tables and an Ecuadorian necklace. You can guess then how excited I was with that place given that I don’t ‘shop’ necessarily when I get invited to ‘events’

Jude Taylor and Leanne Bray

Let me talk about the actual event ‘Mix it up a bit & go wild’. Leanne, the owner and artist of Raw by Nature found Jude Taylor, textile and print artist. When Leanne saw Jude’s wildflower prints she knew that she is off the hook of getting herself organised to create something with Australian wild flowers. Jude was doing just that so she decided to incorporate Jude’s textile into her creations. She mixed it up a bit and went wild as you can see. It’s great that two very creative and beautifully minded people got together to form a relationship and created beautiful things.

We actually loved the area so much so that my guy and I decided to spend our wedding anniversary weekend together in that area – dinning in wineries, visiting the Chocolate Factory and, of course, more shopping at Raw by Nature. If you like what you see here check out more photos from the shop in the flickr set.

RAW BY NATURE
112 Terrace Road, Guildford, WA
Tel: 9377 0545

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There was more excitement to be had at RAW BY NATURE as I finally got to meet Willem Heyneker and saw his latest creation around Chantal’s neck . Willem’s pieces were showcased with Almond Tree during STYLEAID 2009. That was a total blast. Almond Tree would have looked less than spectacular without Willem’s pieces. Willem’s creations couldn’t have found a such perfect ‘partner’ to show how his amazing jewellery could actually be worn. Thanks to Elaine from Behind the Monkey! Hopefully, I’ll get to show you more of his new collection soon.

Then, we had Paper Skye. It was good that I got to see the designs beforehand as the lighting for that show wasn’t matching with poetic (what I thought) designs by Kirsten. Having said that, garments did look much better on models than on a dummy.

S2 was interesting. I liked the dress worn by Bec (short blonde). The hair and make-up I thought was spectacular without being ‘huge’. It worked well for the design and I like that slightly messy hair – I’d like to call it controlled messiness.

Interestingly, Flannel had the same problem with the lighting. What I call a problem would have been just a case of making the fashion show more interesting for the lighting crew and the audience. I seriously doubt if fashion conscientious people would have appreciated the funky blue and purple lighting. Anyway, I definitely didn’t like the harsh lighting for the delicate and elegant designs from Flannel. I’ll let you be the judge of that anyway. If I were you I’d just head over to my interview with Flannel’s Kristy Lawrence. There, you will have more of relaxing Flannel experience.

It was arranged so that the makeup and the dressing were happening in two separate locations. I don’t know whether that was deliberate but it worked out quite well. While the make-up and hair crew was busy prepping models with quite a bit of mess, the dressers were able to calmly prepare the garments and props right behind the stage (as calm as it can get under such circumstance) away from the flurry of activities with noise/smell/make-up dust.

Simon Hill, one of the models, organised music. I’m not talking some ipod and speaker set up here. It was a proper ‘DJs equipped with a mixing deck’ kind of set up so there was plenty of energy and fun to be had in the makeup/hair room. That’s where I started my day covering StyleAid 2009 which was a total blast for my part and a great success for the WA AIDS Council.

While I was nosing around I recognised a few names. Hair for Skatt, Makeup for M.A.C., shoes for Betts and Zomp, and most of all Willem Heyneker’s Why Creations. Well, the latter was a bit of surprise. You see, I get to know who the participating designers are beforehand but I don’t always know where other props come from until the day of the show. I won’t tell you where his spectacular pieces were used just yet but I can say that Aly May (Creative Director and Producer of Styleaid) is a great stylist. She picked those out from an exhibition at Behind the Monkey.

Of course, I spotted familiar designs in the dressing room thanks to my preview interviews. I placed most of photos in Flickr as usual but some of them are also available in Facebook for your tagging pleasure.

Next week, I’ll start the runway coverage. There will be a little break on Wednesday though as I’ll be at the exhibition opening for the Central TAFE Fashion and Textile design students titled ‘Glimpse‘. You will soon find out that you can’t find anything about this opening. It pays to know people doesn’t it?