by Carla Louise | Oct 9, 2012 | Uncategorized |
Smiled about cuddles with a pug puppy on the way home one night
Met lovely new people at the fabulous Sophia & Jon’s wedding (no photos, forgot my camera, but it was a gorgeous day)
Loved rehearsing for next weekend’s cabaret night with some of my favourite girls in the world
Took on a project for my Dad in exchange for which he will write off the money I still owe him for Poppy – aren’t parents brilliant?!
Met new, wonderfully like-minded people through Escape the City
Worked on business plans, proposals and prices in response to a few exciting conversations I’ve recently had
Got tickets to the Free Range Festival (run by Free Range Humans)
Tried to resist buying enormous feathered showgirl headpieces
Bounced ideas, plans and worries off my completely amazing friends and family
Entertained at home – I’d forgotten how much I love cooking for people and having friends over en masse
Rode my cousin’s new horse for the first time (she was fabulous. I am no longer riding fit!)
Saw two burlesque shows (Proud Cabaret and An Evening of Burlesque)
Went to a tea party held by a dear friend and a hen party for someone I’d never met (both were fabulous)
Got Poppy through her MOT and service on time for the first time since owning her
(technically in October, on the 1st) Quit my day job! (for another one, which I think is much more aligned with my skills and what I want out of life. And isn’t in London.)
So yes. Despite illness and a lot of emotional wrangling, September was pretty amazing. Let’s see if October lives up to it, shall we?!
by Carla Louise | Sep 21, 2012 | Uncategorized |
I’ve had such a mad few weeks, I haven’t done a Happy Thursdays post for AGES. However I have been keeping my eyes open for small things that make me smile during the long and sometimes relentless weeks. Here are a few:
Perfect cupcakes before the Hurly Burly show, with Wendy. Gorgeous Sunday – cake, burlesque and one of my best friends, what more could a girl want?!
A truly spectacular moment on the way to the pub after rollerskating with Caroline, and planning our cabaret performances, her website, her new house and my future. It was glorious, and felt like a proper summer evening.
Lunch at the Folly with Lou. Full review coming soon (possibly on Project Pin Up) but I loved that they gave us our bill in a seed packet. It was fabulously quirky, suited us down to the ground AND there was a fashion shoot going on at the same time we were there.
Spotting an old but rather beautiful Maserati outside my parents’ new house. Sadly not theirs.
Deckchairs and screens provided in the middle of the City for workers to watch the Olympics and Paralympics on. Lovely, no? 
There are more, but I’ll leave you with those for now. I am off to get some sleep, finish recovering from this horrible virus I’ve had, and hope with all my heart that Poppy sails through her service and MOT tomorrow – it makes me unreasonably nervous!
by Carla Louise | Sep 8, 2012 | Books |
Goodness, how the weeks are racing past!
I am about to put on a headscarf, put Poppy’s roof down and race off to Helen’s Mad Hatter’s Tea Party… very excited! This morning I had breakfast out with Simple Things magazine (I love it – it could have been written for the life I am now actively working towards), then came home, spring cleaned the living room so I can actually see the floor (it has been doubling as a photo studio for some time now) and went through the catalogues and brochures we brought home from last weekend’s trade fair, for the secret project… which will be revealed very, very soon! We have some final touches and tweaks to make to the website tonight and tomorrow, and our survey and tweets will begin from Sunday/Monday 🙂
So do keep your eyes peeled – I know lots of you will love it!
Life has been very busy but rather lovely recently, not counting a day of illness. Last night I was out at Proud Cabaret with girls from work – most of them had never seen burlesque before and I’m still not sure they’re convinced, but I had a wonderful time and stole some costume ideas too 🙂
I have a whole stack of blog posts drafted, waiting to retrieve photos from various bits of technology to go with them… perhaps that should be tomorrow’s job. With a cup of tea, in the sunshine… yes, that sounds like a way to spend a morning!
Until later, lovelies – I would linger, but there is cake to be eaten and tea to be sipped!
xx
by Carla Louise | Jun 15, 2012 | Creating, Food & Baking, Personal Development |
Bit of a mish mash, wordy, linky post, as I’m having one of the busiest weeks ever and am running around like an entire flock of headless chickens. And then some. So here goes, stuff that has made me happy this week…
– Discovering all over again that I actually have the best friends a girl could ever possibly wish for. I am very, very lucky.
– Fluffy white bread for the first time in ages and Ben’s cookies from a colleague at work
– Emily coming round and cooking for me – this was the most luxurious thing ever, quite aside from the loveliness of seeing her
– Exciting snippets of other people’s news – new chapters all over the shop
– That feeling you get when opening a brand new document in InDesign and knowing you can create almost anything you want
– Planning outfits, shoes and accessories for the boudoir shoot next weekend
– Discovering a Bauhaus exhibition, which we hope to go to tomorrow, to assist the lovely Lou with her research for an application she’s doing
– Business course with Startup Saturday tomorrow, WordPress course on Wednesday for work and plans for my future
– Making lists and feeling a bit more in control of my workload, finances and life
– Plans for blogger meetups with Annastasia, a PPU store (more of that later) and expansion of Ducking Fabulous (more of that later too), among other things
– Unexpected commissions – and selling a necklace to my director, which was a very weird but very nice feeling! Unfortunately I neglected to photograph it, but will recreate it for the shop soon 🙂
– Val telling me that she saw an advert for a burlesque show and immediately thought of me, “just like when I see horses and ducks”. It’s becoming a part of me in a way I never expected, but I love it!
– Reading proper chick lit again – I’ve read nothing but non fiction for a couple of months and it was very good to lose myself in a couple of Fiona Gibson’s novels (go and read them if you haven’t already, they’re funny, poignant and I identify with the characters so much – even the ones I’m not yet!)
– Planning the 100 day challenge, or a version of it, to get a bit of stability back into my finances (thanks to Sophia at Tattooed Tealady for the inspiration)
– Boutique Baking and Jamie’s Great Britain– I am so looking forward to choosing things to make and bake from these books
– Deciding, after last Sunday’s #bbloggers chat, that my blog is a place for me to indulge my many passions and hobbies and loves – it might get more readers if it was more focused, but I prefer it to be a true reflection of my character and personality – chaotic but lovely!
Tomorrow I’m with Lou in London, planning for the future, and Sunday hopefully collecting my new bike (squeee) so more posts to come!
by Carla Louise | Jun 4, 2012 | Creating, Personal Development, Photography |
Rediscovering my pointe shoes…
Makeup trial for the wedding (done by me) – this is look one, neutral eyes with sheer-ish red lips. Shocking phone photo and my glasses obscure my eyelids, I know. More of these to come before the actual wedding. Skin’s looking clearer though – Nars illuminator is magical stuff!
Challenging myself to sew something for the Popular Crafts Union Jack swap… here’s my finished needle book 🙂 Will be posted with a treat and a cross stitched card!
Munching the cake I bought for a friend’s BBQ that was abandoned due to rain. I suspect the diet will be back on when I’m back at work, I’m maintaining weight but there’s so much yummy food involved in this week… lol! These cakes, stocked in our local Wyevale (Colchester Stanway and Braintree) are my favourite fallbacks if I don’t have time to bake, they taste homemade!
Sorting bookshelves and installing a ballet barre *cough perfect height clothes rail cough* in my living room – if I’m going to be ready for this burlesque cabaret in October, I need to strengthen my long-neglected dance muscles and improve my flexibility. Removing my glove with my foot is, as expected, somewhat trickier than it looks on stage! My intention is to try to do 10-15 mins of stretches and barre work each day even if I manage no other exercise. Combined with burlesque each week and hopefully cycling when my bike eventually arrives, plus skating which I do whenever I can but usually once a week, I should be trimmer, fitter and more flexible in no time. Yeah. I live in hope. But I’ll at least enjoy myself in the process!
Also managed to paint my toenails (my feet are not fit for photographing so here are the colours I used) and ogling the Pashley Poppy on the front of this month’s Homes and Antiques. Cannot WAIT for mine (it’s the blue, rather than the pink, version) to arrive – hopefully in a little over a month. Squee!
Footnote: I’m aware that wearing pointe shoes while not a trained dancer can damage your feet; I’m also aware mine should have ribbons attached for support. They’re mostly decorative and I intend to wear them for a photoshoot. I doubt I will ever again dance that level of ballet!
by Carla Louise | Apr 26, 2012 | Uncategorized |
My to-do list is growing endlessly. I have a hilarious selection of tasks on it (ranging from ‘buy feathers’ to ‘washing up’ – the glam life of me, hey?!). Every time I cross something off it, I add three or four more things.
However, in the meantime, things that have made me smile in the past few weeks:
Earmuffs that are also headphones. These have transformed my cold early mornings! (and yes, I realise I’m really slow on the uptake)
Discovering the CycletoWork scheme and choosing this gorgeous machine to get to work (well, to the station) and back on – now waiting for admin to go through.
An Alice in Wonderland bike ride through London, which I am desperate to try and go on. A little more here.
These glorious saddle bags for bicycles (can you see a new obsession developing here?!) based around saddles. Yep, horse saddles 😀
The concept of a coffee and cake bike ride in London – will be keeping my eyes open for the next one! (Might even start a Colchester version…)
My first Etsy sale to a stranger. Appropriately, it was ducks!
Dressing up as a parrot and celebrating a special birthday, and meeting some fabulous people in the process.
Burlesque class! I love, love, love it – the people, the dancing, the dressing up. It’s a fabulous excuse to see several of my friends on a weekly basis, but even more than that I’d forgotten how much I missed dancing.
Dreaming I had mastered backwards skating and spins. I shall test this theory at the weekend.
Finding out that the company my Mum works for built the fans that power the life size Stonehenge shaped bouncy castle that is touring the country.
And also, continued weight loss. I’m still not enjoying it, and I still don’t feel any different, but I’m wearing a skirt today which hasn’t fitted for months, and the scales indicate I might fit into the dress by July – result!
All images link back to original sources.
