by Carla Louise | Jun 14, 2014 | carlalouise |
My lovely uni friends Cat and Mark got married at the end of May, on a beautiful early summer’s day in Syon Park.
Here’s what I wore… it was quirky, it was extremely me, and it made me really happy. And what better excuse to get dressed up than a wedding?!
Dress by the ever-amazing Contrariety Rose. You can buy your own version from her – it’ll shortly be listed on her Etsy shop.
Petticoats in navy and white by Hell Bunny from Tiger Milly.
Shoes (which were commented on all day long by guests of every age, and were just as amazing as I thought they’d be when I bought them) by Irregular Choice.
Hair colour by Directons, a combination of Midnight Blue and Atlantic Blue.
Jewellery, by me, sort of. I bought the black pearl neckace on holiday in Wells-next-the-Sea, and my bracelet was a birthday present last year from one of my best friends. The anklet came from Dubai and I have plans to customise it over the summer.
What’s your go-to outfit for wedding season?
by Carla Louise | May 23, 2014 | Adventures, carlalouise, Memories |
I’m happy to be home with my kitties, but I miss the freedom and warmth of being on holiday. So here’s me with extremely blue hair in the world’s largest shopping mall (so it’s said), the sunset in Wivenhoe the day I arrived home, my best attempt at being a unicorn (and keeping my hair out of the pool), the excellent Brick Lane curry house in Dubai, and my unicorn being reluctant to climb out of the suitcase and return to everyday life.
It’s just as well I’m releasing my Everyday Magic email series soon, isn’t it? If you’d like to be among the first to know when it’s released, pop your details in the form below.
Unicorn love and sparkles on a surprisingly light Friday night,
Carla xx
by Carla Louise | Apr 24, 2014 | carlalouise, Gratitude and goals, Life Magic, Personal Development, Unfurling Your Wings |
It’s been a long journey of wanting, wishing and waiting, but in February this year, just after my 28th birthday, I finally booked an appointment to have my hair dyed blue.
Several hours of bleaching, foils, and inadvertently making both of my hairdressers look like they’d been busy murdering Smurfs, it was done. Eeek!
But because my hair doesn’t hold anything (colour, curls, shape), I found myself having to re-apply the dye twice in the first week. At £9.50 per tube for the (admittedly pretty) Fudge blue colour, this quickly became unworkable. So I did what I always do when I have a problem, and asked the internet for help.
This pretty much summed up everyone’s advice from all over the internet – try Directions. It’s also, as far as I can tell, vegan, which means the lovely Annastasia at Not The Vegan Police will approve!
So I trooped into town, bought a pot each of Atlantic Blue, Midnight Blue and Lagoon Blue, and proceeded to re-dye my hair.
The results:
Atlantic Blue is by far my favourite, and caused more than one colleague to exclaim “Carla! Your hair! It’s SO BLUE today!” which I think can only be a good thing.
Lagoon Blue, while much lighter in colour, has actually lasted almost three weeks and has faded to a bright turquoise, which is absolutely acceptable and will probably be my summer colour of choice.
Midnight Blue I’ve not yet been brave enough to try, as I’m scared it’ll be too dark – but I’ll give it a go soon.
I’m yet to master decent lighting for photos, but here are a few:
I’m over the moon with my new hair – and it was summed up best by two of my friends. Josh told me it was “mermaid hair”, and Naomi’s is still my favourite comment – “it’s the hair you were always meant to have”. That’s definitely what it feels like!
by Carla Louise | Jul 4, 2011 | Uncategorized |
Wigs. They seem to have popped up in conversation a lot recently… people wearing them, buying them, talking about buying them, talking about wearing them.
I have been in love with the idea of blue hair (electric blue, not halfhearted blue) for years now, but have never been brave enough to attempt bleaching my very dark brown hair light enough to cope with electric blue. Then I got my current job, in which blue hair probably equals no job quite quickly!
So after asking around I had a look at Lulu’s wigs on ebay. They were very reasonable and had some fantastic colours, so I ordered one. I originally went for this one:
When it arrived,it was lovely, but I realised I should have gone for one which was the same length as my own hair, otherwise it’d be super-obvious. So I went for the longer blue – they have a fantastic policy of exchanging your wig as long as it hasn’t been worn. And I fell utterly in love as soon as the longer one arrived!
And here is me, wearing it…
Please excuse the shocking self-portrait – I’m planning a proper shoot with it soon but am short on time till mid-September 🙁
A hairdresser now working at MAC in Reading recognised it as a wig, but did ask if it was colour or a wig and said he loved it *grin* and I’ve worn it out a couple of times and think it’s realistic enough… obviously people who see me regularly realise I don’t have bangs all the time lol! But it’s fantastic fun and it’s a great way of boosting my confidence on those days where you just aren’t quite in the mood to be the life and soul of the party… 🙂
If any of you guys wear wigs… I’d love to see the results!
by Carla Louise | Jun 19, 2011 | Uncategorized |
I’ve had a lovely celebratory weekend so far – Friday night out with Lizzy for her 21st, wearing my blue hair… which was really fun! Then last night a group of us went for dinner and to the theatre to see the Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, put on at the Chelmsford Civic Theatre by Springers . I didn’t quite know what to expect, but it was FABULOUS! Had so much fun – in the words of a friend, “I had a ridiculously good time tonight” 🙂
Definitely think I’ll be hunting down the film to watch, and it’s made me want a corset and frilly knickers even more than I already did – lol!
Today I’m off to Colchester Zoo with Mum & Dad – it’s Father’s Day, and Dad said he’d rather like to go to the zoo and visit Mum’s meerkat (a 60th birthday present from her office) so I’m taking my camera and crossing my fingers the weather behaves!
In crafty news, I’ve rejoined Crafter…oo! and am determined not to let life get in the way of me being active on it this time – likewise with a couple of other forums I’ve drifted from recently.
Right, best go and wrap Dad’s pressie and get ready for them to pick me up – pics tomorrow!
by Carla Louise | Jun 9, 2011 | Personal Development, Thrifting |
Ok, so I’ve missed a couple of Thursdays… this week I’ve been ill Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and off work Tuesday and Wednesday, so have had more time than usual to scribble stuff down that makes me happy.
- Weddings. I love wedding blogs, I love helping to plan my friends’ weddings, I love going to friends’ weddings. They just make me daftly happy!
- Inspiring business planning with Lou at the weekend – I think between us we might do the kick starting we’re not really managing alone while working full time and juggling all our other commitments.
- Skating – see previous post, I think I have a new addiction!
- Daft girlie films – Legally Blondes, Aquamarine, Glee…
- My blue hair had its first outing and got lots of compliments, this made me happy 🙂
- Slapa 2! For those not in the know, Slapa was lovely Les’s car (yep, an MR2, how did you guess?!) which sadly met her demise on a corner in Tuscany… she rolled. Les and Anne got out unhurt but Slapa is no more. This made me incredibly sad, but yesterday they posted that they’ve found a new Slapa, she’s silver and can have the plate transferred – so they’ll be at CAE with a ‘2! 😀
- Christina Perri. I have a bit of a (unrealistic, as I don’t do tattoos lol) style crush and I love Jar of Hearts. Which I very much wasn’t expecting to! Adore the dress she’s wearing in the video as well!
- The Pinup Body workout. I’ve not been to one of these yet, but Naomi happened to mention it and it looks amazing! Definitely on my to-do list 🙂
- A new member for Etc Collective, on the strength of our exhibition – can’t really put into words how happy this makes me. However this also means the pressure is on to find a new exhibition space!
- My vintage duvet cover – it’s absolutely gorgeous! And fits my floral/vintage room perfectly… and is so much better quality than I could buy new. And has withstood three hot washes without shrinking or damaging or fading. Perfect.
by Carla Louise | Jun 7, 2011 | Uncategorized |
So after a lovely inspiring weekend with Lou, I sniffled my way through a dreary Monday at work (it rained, I’d forgotten my umbrella, it was rubbish) and have spent today curled up indoors with an entire box of tissues and what feels like half of Boots. I’ve drunk at least a bottle of some concoction which tastes foul but is helping the spiky feeling all down my throat. Yeurgh.
In other, happier, news, Lou and I bought some exciting books which should arrive the same day, so we can give each other a kick when we lose motivation. This is a Good Thing. Lots of plans for vintagey goodness going on, for sometime next summer… but these things take time to plan!
I also took my blue hair out for its first proper public outing on Sunday, just for a wander round Reading but got some lovely comments and approving looks – it beats going out with unwashed hair, that’s for sure! Only downside is that I keep doing double takes every time I catch a glimpse of it… it’s very blue!
I made it slightly more normal with a headband – but def think I’ll wear it again! Also bought some purple dye for my pink corset – that’s this weekend’s task, so I have a corset to wear for the Fling 😀 Then I just have to work out what I’m wearing to Heather’s wedding and I’m sorted!
🙂
