by Carla Louise | Sep 1, 2011 | Uncategorized |
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A man stopping (not just slowing down) to let me get off the train in ridiculous shoes without hitting an unwary commuter
Watching a man walking through Broadgate in London with his nose buried in a really old-fashioned, proper leather bound book
Meeting my girlies for dinner and feeling human again 🙂 (and pigging out on ribs and cocktails, hehe)
Sunshine on the first day of September
A beautiful mint green vintage-style bicycle spotted on my morning walk to work – what a way to commute that would be.
A girl in Tesco saying she was inspired to skate after seeing Jess & I carrying ours.
Our second weekly Hyde Park skate – it was fab!
Mum and Dad keeping roast dinner for me even though I nearly didn’t come home to get it and was a stroppy, overtired moo when I did go and see them. Blush.
Lots of people wearing polka dots – they’re my favourite thing, and I’m half hoping it’s some sort of key A/W11 trend so I can build up my collection of dotty clothes, and half hoping it’s not in fashion at all or the world and his dog will be wearing the.
Ellie and Lee, Sar and Sarah, Lou and Paul and Cate all moving house – I can’t wait to visit!
Caitlin and Sedge going to uni in September – two more exciting places to visit, yay!
Cadbury Twirl Bites
Successfully wearing red lipstick (actually Sleek Pout Paint, my new favourite thing, but more on that later) to work (phase 1 of Project Pinup)
Standing my ground when challenged by a colleague about my weird eating habits (it has taken me years to get to this stage, I’m actually rather proud)
by Carla Louise | Aug 26, 2011 | Uncategorized |
Successfully trimming my own hair – I’ve never taken scissors to my own hair in my life, and I’m (I think justifiably) proud of the length and condition of my hair… but it was desperate for a trim and I have neither the time nor the money to go to a hairdresser. Soo, with the help of Lily (@beautysbadhabit) Lizzums (@talei), whose conversation I was eavesdropping on on Twitter, I did it myself – and it looks ok! 🙂
Seaside happiness – a large chunk of my extended family went to Mersea for the day last weekend, along with my cousin’s boyfriend’s two sisters, so I could meet them (are you following who is related to who closely? There will be questions later :P) It was gorgeous – I relaxed and walked and photographed and chatted and played and caught up. And it was so lovely to be around someone (one of the sisters, Sarah) who understands my book obsession (that’s a whole post in itself!).
Sweet treats – lunchtime hot chocolate and gossiping with a friend.
Skating in Hyde Park. It felt like I’d come home – although I’m still pretty wobbly at times, so many other people there were on skates that I felt completely normal 🙂 Was lovely to spend some time with Jess away from work too, we can never chat properly in the office! This will, weather dependent, be a regular thing from now on.
Lovely comments from lovely Naomi about my blog *warm fuzzies*
My Twitter friends – they’ve been fabulous this week and made me smile when that was the very last thing I wanted to do.
Eating outside – it was Dad’s birthday on Monday and the weather was so nice, we BBQed and sat outside instead of going out for dinner, it was too nice an evening to waste indoors. A lovely week – only slightly marred by being at work instead of at home having fun, lol!
by Carla Louise | Aug 18, 2011 | Adventures, Collecting |
Despite the rain and the dreariness of being back at work after nine days off, I have found some happy things this week…
- The rally car has a name and is beginning to take on a personality 🙂 Rusty McLusty has very nearly no paint on her bonnet, a roof full of random stuff and a shed load of stickers to be applied.
- Finding Breyers at a car boot sale for the first time EVER – I haven’t bought any model horses for a couple of years, and these were just waiting for me to take them home. I’m not sure Rob was that impressed… but the little girls I bought them from seemed pleased!
- Bristle-and-nylon hairbrushes like this one – I now own two and they’ve changed my life and my hair drastically for the better.
- Lie-ins – I went out for dinner with work people last night, and stayed at my ex-housemate’s new flat in Marylebone. Which is close enough to work that I was able to get up at HALF PAST SEVEN this morning and still be at work just about on time. (As opposed to my usual 5.30am alarm followed by staggering out of bed at 6am and running around like a headless chicken).
- Getting locked out of Julia’s flat and sitting on her stairs having the most random conversations while we waited to be rescued by her housemate
- Living on my own. I miss Jules, but it really is lovely having all this space to myself, and when I came home on Sunday night and let myself in, it really felt like home 🙂
- Jess’s skates have arrived! Which means we can go skating in Hyde Park next Tuesday… assuming the weather picks up and becomes more like actual summer.
I promise I’ll kick myself into gear and do more posts with photos soon – I have loads drafted of stuff I want to share but haven’t been able to get the photos sorted (either haven’t been able to take them in daylight, or have them but have had no time to edit them!)
Hope your weeks have been as full of happy things 🙂
by Carla Louise | Aug 4, 2011 | Uncategorized |
Well, this week’s been a bit bittersweet as my bestest friend and lovely housemate moved out on Tuesday 🙁 I love that I now have my own flat, and am working on creating a proper studio to craft and sew and photograph in, but I miss her lots! (On the plus side, she’ll be back here on Saturday, woo yay!)
Things that have made me happy this week –
- a perfect car boot sale trip with Naomi last Saturday. I bought TWO typewriters and various other goodies
- homewares – I’m addicted to buying pretty things for my house
- dinner with Jules and the first chance we’ve had for ages to actually talk to one another
- lunch and girly giggles with Jess on payday… I have a friend at work!
- buying and reading Vintage Life magazine – always makes me daydreamy and happy
- discovering other people I know in real life blog… is weird but exciting!
- ‘accidentally’ buying pretty makeup on the way to work one morning, and being able to pay on my Boots card
- my squashed-malteser cupcakes going down a treat with my new colleagues
by Carla Louise | Jul 28, 2011 | Adventures |
This is really all about CAE – the happiest weekend I’ve had in a very long time.
Meeting up with old friends and making new friends
Swimming and hot tubbing at daft o clock in the morning
Laughing – I giggled so much last weekend
Driving with the roof down
Driving to the weekend in convoy and chucking jelly babies between the cars, while singing at the top of my voice
Having my best friend in the car with me for lots of the weekend
Driving with the roof down in convoy with 30-odd other cars filled with some of my favourite people in the world
Realising I’ve achieved a lifetime ambition of having waist length hair
My new vintage-style swimsuit from Floozie
And then after the weekend…
Buying a car for the rally – we’re definitely,actually, really going! It’s a 1996 Laguna – squee!
Impromptu shopping trips with Julia to buy exciting stuff for our new flats (well, mine’s the same flat, but you know what I mean)
Work is improving – I feel less out of my depth and more like I belong.
by Carla Louise | Jul 17, 2011 | Uncategorized |
Happy Thursdays notes I’ve found in my notebook and on my phone – that I can’t remember if I’ve already blogged about!
- a man in a bowler hat and gloves showing people into a venue in London, on my walk home one evening. He was like a caricature come to life!
- Supportive Twitter friends
- Sunshine at last (yeah, not so much now it’s chucking it down every ten minutes)
- different coloured toenails
- magazine stand at whitecross market
- a girl with an Amy Butler bag in the same carriage as me on the train
- a man using a fountain pen on the way home from work for random notes
- Hotel Chocolate giving me free chocolate to taste whenever I go in
by Carla Louise | Jul 14, 2011 | Uncategorized |
This week has been tinged with a great sadness – I lost a dear family friend who was like a second dad to me in the early hours of Tuesday morning. However, although I am desperately sad, there have still been things that have made me smile this week. It is, however, a very wordy Thursday because the internet here won’t let me upload pictures 🙁
- Heather and Steve’s seaside wedding last Saturday. Honestly one of the most wonderful weddings I’ve ever been to – and I must have good taste in friends because my close friends always make the most superlatively radiant brides! Post to come.
- Brunch after the wedding with Janine and Sean. Although they live the closest of all my friends, I don’t see them nearly enough and it was lovely to have a lazy brunch-lunch the morning after the wedding.
- Brighton and Lou. Spending time with Lou is always inspiring in all sorts of ways, and I always come away fired up with plans and schemes and ideas. We spent a day ambling around Brighton looking at vintagey things and came away with some fabulous treasures and inspiration as always. Post to come.
- The seaside. The golf course we’re staying at backs onto the sea, which was lovely anyway, but when I got the call from Dad on Tuesday morning, I needed to be by the sea. Being here, rather than stuck in London, meant I could escape for a long, long walk along the seafront to get my head together. I also snuck in a long skate along the seafront earlier in the week, when it was still sunny, which was fab but resulted in sunburn. Oops.
- Finally reading The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society which I have been meaning to read for ever. It’s utterly gorgeous, along a similar premise to 84 Charing Cross Road which is one of my favourite books, and I adore it.
I’m sure there have been other things, but as it’s also been a sad week, I’ll leave it there for now. Hope your weeks have been full of wonderful things!
by Carla Louise | Jun 23, 2011 | Uncategorized |
- a lovely colleague bringing us all rock from Brighton. ROCK. So summery!
- getting the giggles (proper ones) with people in the office – maybe I do fit in a bit, after all
- sitting in a roofless Poppy, stretching my legs after a skate, watching the sunset on summer solstice evening
- Caitlin’s email which brought an actual smile to my face after a day of hell
- Pink, purple and turquoise fountain pens for work, so they don’t go walkies (boys don’t like writing in pink, haha)
- Theatre and dinner with my girlies on Saturday – completely gorgeous if a little bit bittersweet, I’d managed to forget how much I miss them
- my accidental blue scarf – realised on the train my dress was much too low-cut, Sar suggested a scarf, I found a perfect one (blue paisley) in the sale at the station and it worked beautifully with the blue dress I was wearing!
- unexpected drink and chat after work with a colleague/friend who made me feel so much better
- a revelation about a postcard
- my MP3 player is working again after a prolonged sulk – the music on it is a bit out of date but I can block out the pesky commuters!
- I entered a competition to win a classic Pashley bike – crossing everything to win, I adore them!
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 | May 22, 2011 | Uncategorized |
Stupidly late this week, and in two parts – here are some of the things that made me smile this week 🙂
- making a lady’s day by telling her (truthfully) her dress looked fab on her
- crocheting in a golf club!
- the entirely unexpected beauty of the Pitt-Rivers & Natural History museum in Oxford
Just look at that ceiling.
“I’m late! I’m late!”
- Mollie Makes magazine – I treated myself to the first issue after a particularly tough day at work and it transformed my journey home into an hour of pure happiness!
- Visiting my old school briefly, and realising just how far I’ve come since those days
- Strawberries and Cornish clotted cream. In individual portions. In the Tesco next door to my day job. Win.
Lunchtimes don’t get any better than this.
Part two on Tuesday (yes, I know, that’s more than halfway to NEXT Thursday) when I’ve had a chance to get the pics off my phone – I’m using it as a photographic notebook more and more these days!
by Carla Louise | May 5, 2011 | Uncategorized |
I’ve been drafting these posts for months now and never get round to posting them… I’ve noticed there are lots of things in my life that make me smile or make me happy. Some are big and some are really small, and I thought it would be lovely to record and share them each week. (Actually, at the rate I’m going, it might be the only post that gets written every week but hey, one step at a time!)
So, this week…
- Roof down, loud music, sunshiney driving – with someone else in the car! (I usually prefer to drive alone)
- The blackbirds I see most mornings on my walk to the station
- Teaching myself (with Naomi in my head) how to crochet flowers
- Getting up at daft o’clock on the bank holiday to watch and photograph the sunrise on the beach
- Relaxing, really relaxing, for the first time in months, away for the weekend with my girlies
- My spotty skirt
- Wearing bows, flowers and ribbons in my hair at work
- Half price Easter eggs everywhere
- Vintage treasures from a car boot
- My gorgeous necklace from Normal for Norfolk
- Sandcastles and beach silliness with some of my favourite girlies
🙂
