Blog

This morning a block of Whittaker’s Peanut Butter Chocolate appeared in our office kitchen. I’m not quite sure whose it is, but slowly throughout the last few hours people have been making excuses to go to the kitchen “just putting the jug on” “just counting my slices of bread” and the block of chocolate has become smaller and smaller.

I was apprehensive having had Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups in the past and not enjoyed them. However, I broke one square off the Whittaker’s and was blown away. It was all my wildest dreams come true. All those childhood years of putting peanut butter and Nutella on toast.. here it was in a block.

My only wish would be that Whittaker’s would release a crunchy peanut butter block, just to add another element to the whole experience. But this smooth peanut butter is just a dream. Oh Whittaker’s, once again you have improved my day with your creamy goodness.

New Zealand's Hottest Home Baker

We love food and we love watching people stuff it up. Chelsea New Zealand’s Hottest Home Baker is a fight to the death in the kitchen. Cake mix is flying across the room, icing is melting on to the floor.. and we get to sit there in the comfort of our homes saying “I could do so much better than that.”

Chelsea New Zealand’s Hottest Home Baker airs Thursdays at 7.30 on channel TV3

 Feijoa Season

  Feijoas are everywhere we look at the moment, but all kiwis know that they are only here for a short amount of time so we must make the most of it. Put them in crumbles, eat them while you Skype your friends abroad (it may make them cry), you can even preserve them so you can enjoy them year round! But our favourite way to ensure having that unmatchable feijoa flavour, even at Christmas is by getting FEIJOA ROCK CANDY from Crazy Candies! They’ve been boiling sweets since the 30s, so they sure know what they are doing.

 Kowtow Clothing

 Another exciting thing about this season is getting to wrap up in snugly clothing! Kowtow Clothing is a locally run and owned business who make the most amazing garments from fair trade materials. GOSH do we love them! Kowtow have a way of creating the most elegant yet simple styles that can be worn in so many ways. Check out Kowtow Clothing here.

Congratulations Wellington Fashion Week, you’ve really made a lasting impression on the capital, and we look forward to next year!

Photos By Melissa Butters on thread.co.nz

Wellington Fashion Week will make it’s debut tomorrow (the 18^th) and we couldn’t be more excited! This festival has been highly anticipated- with articles in many publications, twitter posts keeping us updated and beautiful advertising adorning the back of Go Wellington buses. It’s time to show the world how talented the coolest little capital really is!

We are sure Wellington Fashion Week will live up to all the hype. Some of our favourite shoes will be paired with amazing garments from Starfish, Nouveau by Pixel Ink and our dear friend and Mischief alumni Hermione Flynn.

Massey University are a major sponsor, and the event will be running in conjunction with the inaugural Wellington Young Designer Awards which is a great chance to show what our capital’s up-and-coming designers have in store for us.

Wellington Fashion Week will bring overdue celebration of our local designer talent in an industry that will continue to blossom thanks to this long awaited festival.

If you haven’t heard already, we have just opened a brand new Mischief store in Milford Shopping Centre! We just love it here! Our shop has been creatively furnished with beautiful wooden crates, which adds to the element of its earthy feel with the smell of wood and fresh leather hitting your senses when you walk through one of our 2 entrances.

The store is surrounded by other fabulous shops like Witchery, Storm, Moochi and Veronika Maine. 

We’ve absolutely loved our first few weeks at Milford and are enjoying getting to know all our new customers on the North Shore of Auckland. We have been getting so many great responses to the fact that we sell Clarks shoes and Converse sneakers, and have been warmly welcomed by the other local businesses.

Pop your head in and have a look, say hello or try on some of our wonderful footwear!

Conditions:
+ Full price footwear only. No laybys.
+ Offer valid for 24th, 25th and 26th March 2012.
+ Three prizes will be drawn 28th March 2012.

Shoes are a very personal thing; we spend a lot of time in them, they are a reflection of ourselves, they protect us, they are molded to your foot and no one else’s…

To lend our shoes to someone it is almost as though we are lending a part of ourselves. It takes a lot of trust to lend a friend shoes and they must take on a lot of responsibility when borrowing them.

If you’ve ever seen the film In Her Shoes you will know that some people are precious with their footwear, and others are far less careful. But should we be shoepersticious? Surely a friendship isn’t guaranteed to end when a friend borrows shoes, we just need to take the following into account:

+ Look at how your buddy looks after her own footwear- does she keep them clean? Does she put them in a safe place at night instead of kicking them   off  anywhere?

+ Is your friend hygienic? Does she shower regularly and take care of her feet?

+ Have you lent anything to her before? Has she returned it?

+ Does she have a tendency to go on spontaneous muddy bushwalks after a night partying in her own heels?

The general consensus here at Mischief is that if your friend is trustworthy, it can be appropriate for her to borrow shoes however lending casual shoes is far less common than lending shoes for special occasions. If your shoes go perfectly with her cocktail dress and you know she will look after them, go for it. However if you feel that you have doubts and are precious about your heels, keep them in the closet.

“Claudia, when did you get that handbag, how much did it cost!?”

“What are you talking about, Honey, I’ve had this for months!”

 Are you Claudia? Are you constantly buying, feeling guilty and then lying to your spouse? Well, to be honest, most of us do it, so I won’t judge you. Instead of judging you, I will help you in your quest of hide and no seek.

 First we should ask ourselves why we feel so guilty about our purchases. Do we deserve them? Do we earn enough to pay for them ourselves? Can we pay our rent after the purchase? If you answered no to all of those questions, put the credit card down, Claudia and back away from the store. However, if you answered yes to those questions, then why not? If your family can still eat for the week and you aren’t saving for something vital, then why can’t we treat ourselves?

 So you’ve gone out, you’ve bought the dress, the handbag and the matching lipstick. How are you going to hide these purchases?

• Get rid of the bag from the store, and instead try putting the items in an old plastic supermarket bag - this will make it seem as though you have had them for a long time and had left them at work, or that you had brought them at the Salvation Army for $7.

• Hide your receipts in a place your partner won’t look - in a file at work or the bottom of your makeup draw.

• Buy them a present also. This will take the light off you and make them feel special - you could also say you were given a discount off your purchase because you’d bought something for them at the same time.

 Or, the all time, no fail trick of the trade is this line:

 “I’ve had this for so long! That shows how often you take notice of me! Do you think I am not attractive anymore? Oh gosh I feel so dowdy!” (etc, etc)

 This line will bring on apology after apology followed by dinner out and possibly a new pair of shoes for you.

In the last year or so, people have become obsessed with “coupon spending”- a movement led by websites like www.grabone.co.nz, and www.treatme.co.nz. These sites offer major discounts at restaurants, day spas, hairdressers, stores (including Mischief Shoes) and much more.

I am always looking for a way to save a bit of cash, but am known for splashing out on silly things like novelty chopsticks or pot plants that hang upside down (that then later die due to me not watering them).

After browsing through today’s treats online, I decided to see if I could spend my entire weekend restricting myself to eating and shopping at places I had vouchers for only.

Friday: After finishing work, I met up with my partner for a three course meal at Voodoo – a restaurant on Manners mall. We used a voucher which cost us $49, and we ate about $120 worth of food- BARGAIN! And the food was amazing; we were unable to move after we got home.

Saturday: I got up early and drank three coffees with my voucher I purchased for Café Neo (12 coffees for $25). Caffeined up to the eyeballs, I made my way out to Lower Hutt to get a wax and eyebrow shape at Ataahua Beauty Spa for $35 (44% off the usual price!).  So feeling all beautified and (very) awake, I made my way back to the city, pumping my car with petrol with a Pak’n Save voucher, saving 4 cents per litre (wooo).

When I arrived home I had lost all my energy and went and hired a movie with a coupon off the back of a supermarket receipt - (three weekly hires for $10) and ordered 2 large pizzas from Dominos for $25.

Sunday: After downing three coffees at Neo (I didn’t learn my lesson) my partner and I went for a wind surfing lesson, which cost us $60 for the two of us, which is a 50% saving. We have both established that wind surfing is not the sport for us and that we would have been better sleeping (not that we’d be able to with the amount of coffee in our systems).

So, how was the coupon spending? Well all up, I saved myself around $200 this weekend, and did things I had never done before, which was great.

HOWEVER

I spent $250 this weekend, when usually I would only go through around $50. My recommendation is to only purchase vouchers on things and places you already do and shop at. I will now spend the remainder of the week eating two minute noodles and cutting “the good bits” off my block of Edam.