Friday 29 September 2017

Vintage Portraits - Bikini Patterns


Hello Friends,

This week I’m returning to vintage themes with a link about home sewn beachwear.

During the Industrial Revolution of the 19th Century, ready-made clothes start appearing on the racks of department stores. However, working class women continued making clothes for their families, because it was a cheaper than buying them.

Fast forward to the 1960’s, 1970’s & 1980’s, and more paper, dress-making patterns were available for home sewing. Timeline.com has posted a collection of vintage bikini designs, which are fun and stylish.

Vintage women didn’t just sew their own bikinis for the trip to the beach, they also made cover-ups like shirts, pants, skirts, dresses and coats. It was do it yourself fashion with couture designs for the middle class.

Follow the link to see the bathing suit designs from the vintage years.

Enjoy your weekend, 
Ashlyn


♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
More  Vintage Portraits


Some vintage photographs are beautiful with their soft colors and fashions of the day. But it’s not always possible to find out information about the people who posed for the studio portraits. The images remain a mystery from another age. This week I’m featuring the lovely, vintage photographs of Madame Scavizzi...

Friday 22 September 2017

"Forty-Two Year Old Women Don’t Have Adventures" by Linda Stasi



Forty-two year old women don’t have adventures.
She’d just be more appealing if she were thinner, taller and younger.
We’ll buy it if you made her 25 and sexier.
Female protagonists should NOT be flawed..
Why does she eat so much? And that wine—seriously?
Can’t you…
No I can’t and no I didn’t.

--- Linda Stasi, reblogged from Women Writers, Women's Books website

Hello Friends,

Author, Linda Stasi, has posted about her story of an adventurous, older woman and the manuscript rejections she received from agents and editors, because her protagonist didn't fit their expectations. Her first novel, a religious thriller, was eventually published and hit the Amazon Top 25 list.

Follow the link below to read about her struggles to sell her story, how she persevered through the judgements, and resisted making her character into a plastic, victimized pansy.


Have a happy weekend, 
♥ Ashlyn


♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

More Posts




Older romance heroines…

“Are they too old or too serious to be shagged senseless by a debaucherous Duke or a sexy billionaire or a ruggedly ripped farmer?” Woah, the hot questions need answers.

Friday 15 September 2017

Movie - "Girls Trip"



Girls Trip is a comedy movie to watch with friendly company. Share the laughs at the very, raw humor and good times. The onscreen chemistry between the 4 actresses, and movie best friends, Queen Latifah, Jada-Pinkett Smith, Regina Hall and Tiffany Haddish was excellent.

I wanted to hang out with the women as they shrugged off their everyday responsibilities for a weekend together in New Orleans. 

Each girlfriend had problems to overcome in their lives.
There was a single, working Mom, control freak.
A successful author with a cheating husband.
The social media personality who needed a celebrity scoop to keep the cash coming in. 
Finally, the office worker who was sacked for assaulting the man who deliberately stole and ate her lunch. Have you ever worked at a place where your colleagues help themselves to the contents of the refrigerator?

The women renew their friendship during their madcap, getaway weekend. They get rid of fake, and get real about their lives. There are crazy, drunk times, dance-off challenges, full bladders and riding the flying fox above the street (I couldn’t stop chuckling here), grapefruit and sex.

You might never do some of the things the movie girlfriends do, but you can be entertained by them. Lighten up with some girl time, and smile.


Here’s the movie trailer.



Enjoy your weekend, 
Ashlyn

Friday 8 September 2017

Light and Easy Romance Read



Hello Friends,

This week I’m featuring a light and easy romance read called—“Back In The Italian’s Bed” by Annie West. It sounds like a hot title, hey? The short novella was tasteful and well-written by an Australian author. 


The location of the story sweeps from Venice to Rome to Tuscany, and I enjoyed the armchair travelling. The Italian, Fabrizio Armati, is handsome, rich, and passionate. The hero has all of the qualities that romance readers have loved in stories for decades.

While the heroine, Jenna, is a woman who knows her own heart, but she doesn’t sacrifice her self-respect to stay with Fabrizio, she walks out of his life. The main story of the novella is the couple’s second chance at love.

The couple are reunited in a business boardroom in Venice and the tension between them had me flipping pages. Afterward, Fabrizio plots his revenge on Jenna, but will he succeed? Love-making changes everything, but, is there passionate reunion the biggest mistake for both of them? Jenna leaves Fabrizio a second time and goes to her guesthouse in rural Tuscany. Love happens…(I don’t want to give too much of the story away).

The BLURB
No woman walks away from billionaire Fabrizio Armati's bed. No woman except Jenna MacDonald. Now he'll stop at nothing to get her back, and keep her there.

It's love at first sight for Jenna when charismatic hotelier Fabrizio Armati sweeps her off her feet in Venice. That chance encounter sparks a sizzling affair that lasts until she discovers Fabrizio sees her as no more than a convenient, expendable mistress. Then her world falls apart.

Six months later Jenna tells herself she's moved on. Until Fabrizio walks into a meeting to find her working for his greatest rival. She's about to discover just how far he'll go to get her back in his bed.

When revenge turns to passion, will surrender be on his terms, or hers?

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
Annie West is USA Today Best-Selling Author. “Back In The Italian’s Bed” is the first novella in a six book series.

The Kindle Book is 86 pages long and priced at $0.85 US
Amazon Book Link  Amazon.com

Annie West website  Annie West.com

Have a good week everyone.
Ashlyn


Friday 1 September 2017

Happy Father’s Day for Sunday, 3 September 2017



Hello Friends,

The first Sunday in September is Father’s Day in Australia and other parts of the world. It’s an opportunity to remember Dads for being wonderful guys in their children’s life.

source: Pinterest
Say thanks to the Dads for their love and affection, support and care.

Source: Pinterest

“My father said there were two kinds of people in the world: givers and takers. The takers may eat better, but the givers sleep better.”
–-Marlo Thomas, Actress, born 1937

I found a video featuring protective Dads who have lightning fast reflexes. Guys who act on instinct to save children from harm or worse. Some of the near-accidents had me sitting on the edge of my seat, like the young child who was seconds away from sinking and drowning when they fell over the side of a canoe and into the ocean. My favorite scene was the man confronted by a rally car driving sideways into the spectator area. The guy decided to move in the opposite direction to the rest of the crowd, and the child was unhurt as a result of his judgement.



Any man can be a father, but it takes a special one to be a Dad. 


Have a happy weekend everyone. 
♥ Ashlyn 


More Father’s Day Posts

2016



Hello to all the fathers!
It’s almost time to celebrate Dad’s special day of a year.
Fathers like jokes, there's so many of them on the internet that tell me so.
Let’s have a laugh together and remember our special Dads...



2015


Hooray to all the fathers, dads, pops and pappas, young and old!
Thanks for the love and for keeping the world going around.
Enjoy your special day and every day with your closest and mostest!

I’ve collected together a small tribute to celebrate the Fathers...




Take a rest from the mayhem of the world for a few minutes. 
Here’s a story about a man who hit rock bottom and found a way to claw his way out of unhappy narcissism. Instagrammer, Topher Brophy, adopted a puppy, a shaggy Aussiedoodle who had a lot of love to give...