I have a shop!

Well hello there! Can't believe how long it has been! In fact I can't believe August is pretty much over, I have no idea where it went. It got lost in all the excitement which I shall try bring you up to speed on now :)

The biggest news is I'm opening my own shop! It's in Glasgow's West End and is shaping up pretty good if I say so myself. If you want to check out a couple of progress pictures check out the Miss Lottie Lou Facebook page as I shall be updating quite a bit over the next week. It's decorated with beautiful old furniture (more on that in a minute) and is going to be stocked with my own Miss Lottie Lou clothing, Flossy and Dossy knitwear and vintage jewellery from Vintage Inspirations. It's all too exciting!!

The beautiful furniture I mentioned is actually a matching bedroom suite. It is a big double wardrobe, a man's wardrobe with the cute labelled shelves and a big dressing table complete with huge mirror. Now don't hate me, but just like the last matching bedroom suite I got, it was all free off of freecycle! The original ad I replied to just mentioned old wardrobes but when I went to view it I saw the dressing table and nabbed that too. There were also some old green arm chairs in the rubbish 'pile' so I asked what was happening with them and I nabbed them too! So now my shop is kitted out in the finest vintage furniture woohoo! The shop isn't even finished yet but I already want to spend all my time there :)

Another amazing thing that is making this August by far the best month I've ever had, is that I bought some industrial sewing machines for super duper cheap off of a design studio that was moving. It was a first come first served basis and boy oh boy was I pleased I turned up early! They now take pride of place at the back of my shop so I can sew and sell all day long!

And to round off this unbelievable month I got 2 swallows tattooed by the awesome Spaniard David from Forevermore Tattoo Parlour . I love them :D They are my birthday present (which was August 14th) from my parents.

Please excuse the terrible bathroom photo! But there they are and I love them :) And not as painful as I thought they were going to be thank goodness!

Rightio I think that is you all up to date now :) I'll do a proper a shop update when it's ready for opening. Wish you could all come to my opening night!! I know I know that's not possible but it would be awesome!

Hope you're all well. I do still take time out to read all your blogs but I've turned into a bit of a lurker as I don't remember the last time I left a comment anywhere so I'm very sorry about that :(

I'll be back soon!

Lottie x

Photos!!

Hello! How are we all? As promised here are some photos :)

This was my stall at Granny Would Be Proud in Hillhead Library. Was a slow day for everyone but had good chats with fellow stall holders :)

Close up of my 'model', buttons and headscarves

My super duper amazingly awesome Trunk!! £15!!

Inside

Hangers and drawers

Fold down compartment

Now for some photos of fabric :D Yup I'm still buying absurd amounts of fabric, it's so addictive! I could open a fabric shop! Sometimes I think that would be ace...

To see more of my fabric head on over to my Facebook 'fan' page: www.facebook.com/misslottielou

Next blog entry will be Rockabilly Rave photos :D

Till then,

Lottie x

One thing after another....keep it coming!!

Hey everyone :)

I've been having some rather exciting times recently! First there was Made In The Shade, then secret plans were made with Carrie from MITS (more will be revealed in due course), now I have a dress order from London fashion journalist Jas Tang who writes for Pretty Things magazine whom I met on Saturday and I'm now part of the Granny Would Be Proud family!! So you can see Miss Lottie Lou on 8th May in Hillhead Library :) Would be swell if any of you are around the Glasgow area and popped in to say hi! I'll blog more information on Granny Would Be Proud soon, but their Facebook page seems to be down at the minute.

Miss Lottie Lou is also doing the costumes for a local theatre company who's show this year is...dum dum duuummmm......High Society!!! Another very exciting development! I had my first production meeting on Monday and I got the show director's email through today for what she envisages the costumes to look like and so far I'm loving her vision and I have so many ideas :D

I also jumped on the Twitter bandwagon. I'm still unsure about it. Does anyone have any opinions on Twitter? Maybe once I'm up and running properly I'll like it and find it useful and what not but right now it's so bare and boring! If any of you have a twitter, leave a link to it so I can follow you! Next bandwagon I'm thinking of jumping on is Flickr. Again any opinions?

Other than that I have so many photos to show you of my latest fabric, clothes and shoe buys. And for some reason another addiction to add to my list is furniture. It's been creeping up on me for a while but I finally acknowledged it when I saw the cutest little art deco piece in Glasgow on Tuesday, dreamt about it that night, and then went up first thing on Wednesday to buy it! I have nowhere to put as of yet but it's beautiful! And totally worth the bruises I got lugging it round Glasgow with me!

I'm super tired now from all this excitement so I best get myself to bed. Tomorrow I'm making a super cute tie top for Miss Amelia ready for our Saturday night out, more on both of them tomorrow.

Hope you're all doing well :)

Lottie x

Photos!!

Rightio here is a photo update about my new love and obsession...the free furniture! Well apart from the £45 van hire.

Bedside cabinet

Check out the 'secret' drawer!

Dressing table with a sneaky look at one of the dresses I'm working on in the corner

They're all really deep drawers apart from the one in the middle, that houses my headscarf collection!

The beautiful wardrobe that started it all :)

Inside the wardrobe

Inside there are 2 rails and hook thingy for ties, but I'm using it for bags!

The phone table which I think I'm going to use as part of my set-up for Made In The Shade, but after that I'm not sure where it will go

The bookcase...please excuse my Dad, we took this photos to send to friends as we're not keeping this as we have no room whatsoever so we're giving it to our friends Aaron and Ellie who are just moving into a new house ready for their first baby coming.

So there we have it, my best find ever! I'm going to email photos to Bruce (the husband) and just show him their new home. I seriously can't believe how much I'm in love with furniture!

Lottie x

ps photos of the headscarves I made yesterday are up on the Miss Lottie Lou Facebook fan page

Vintage furniture to house my vintage clothes

My goodness what a week!

I'm a member of the Helensburgh Freecycle on Yahoo Groups, where people post up unwanted things to give away to people for free and one day last week while I was scrolling through one just said various furniture. So I clicked on it and in amongst the 1970's cupboards and what not what was a 1950's wardrobe! There were no photos but I emailed the lady right away asking about it. She said I could meet her husband at the house and have a look for myself. Well my heart was racing when me and my mum got to the house! He took us upstairs and showed me the wardrobe...and matching dressing table....and matching bedside table!! They're beautiful!! I had to take all three because it would be sad to split them up after all these years. He then showed us around the rest of the house and said if there was anything else that I saw I could have it...so I also came away with a telephone table and a bookcase, all 1950's and free!

I couldn't take anything there and then as I had to convince my parents first of all that I needed it all and couldn't go on without them, and secondly that it would all fit in my bedroom/studio! So I spent the next couple of days clearing out my room and palming my Ikea furniture off onto others and drawing up plans to show them that it would fit. Then they said yes!! So I booked a removals van and enlisted my Dad and boyfriend to move all the furniture. I had the best time organising all my vintage clothes into my vintage wardrobe :D I took some photos to show but my camera is making them look a gross yellow colour so I'll need to borrow someone else's camera before I show you as I can't taint it's beauty with a rubbish photo!

Then as if that wasn't all exciting enough for one week, The Affordable Vintage Fair came to Glasgow!! I was a tad disappointed that there wasn't more home stalls and more 40s and 50s things but don't worry I did buy a dress! It's a sleeveless red one with buttons down the front of the bodice. And the stockings and tights stall was amazing! And the lady who ran it was just lovely and a delight to talk to. I had never seen such an amazing range of styles, brands and colours! Me and my mum spent a fortune so she threw in 4 free pairs for me! I got some Jonathon Aston stockings and tights; all nude, one with a red seam, one with a black seam and one with a red and white polka dot seam, three pairs of plain nude Christian Dior stockings, one pair of white Mary Quant tights with a white seam with white bows at the ankles and another pair of Mary Quant tights but black with black seam with a black feather at each ankle. I think that was all of them, I can't remember now! I also got a kitten brooch and a vintage dress pattern and my mum got a jumper and various tights and stockings too.

Then we headed down to Byers Road for another vintage fix! I got a 1950's red swimming costume. It is beautiful!! And I don't mean to toot my own horn but I look fabulous in it! It's red halter-neck with a low scoop back and it was only £10 out of Vintage Guru. I can't wait for summer or some sort of beach party! I'll wear it with seamed tights, wedges, flowers in my hair and matching red lipstick!!

I also bought so much fabric, it's an addiction I tell you!

Photos of everything will follow shortly, as I can't wait to show you all everything!

Today keep your eyes on The Made In The Shade Blog as they are announcing the Glasgow Springtime Jamboree. One of the names will be mine!! Still can't quite believe it!

My plan for the day is to get cracking on all my lovely fabric and take photos for you all to see.

Have a good day,

Lottie x