Lippy Lou Creations

My Nine West Heech wedges arrived yesterday! Yah! I love them. The leather is super soft and they are quite comfortable in so far as I have worn them around the house for half an hour this morning. It will take me a little time to get used to them and to find the right outfits to pair them with but I really love them! Now lets see if H likes them too. He has strong opinions about shoes - what he likes and what he dislikes - and he is quite vocal about them!

Excuse my chipped toenail polish - I need to fix it but its just been too cold!!!
Weeeeee.....

I've been having a quick look at a few fashion blogs of late rather than sewing/crafty ones. I really really like Camille from Childhoodflames and have just today discovered Strawberry Kitten who is a gorgeous German girl called Nadine. She looks fabulous in almost every single outfit she blogs about and I love how she mixes vintage, preppy, rockabilly and classic fashion styles to put together a truly unique look. It helps that she is very beautiful and tiny to boot! Oh and both Nadine and Camille sew too!

I guess I look at these blogs for much the same reason as I look at crafty blogs, for inspiration. I can't identify with Nadine and Camille too much as both seems to be tall (well taller than me with longer legs!) and very slim whereas I'm short and short-waisted and rather curvy and athletic to boot. I hope, however, to gain a little bit of insight from these girls about being adventurous in my fashion choices and to not stare at the wardrobe in dismay with no clue how to put together an outfit and also to not be afraid to define my own style! I do have a slight problem in that I feel my outfits look best when I wear any of my wonderful heels but in my day to day work I can't wear anything with heels as I spend most of my day standing in a lab or a bakery where wearing heels would be an occupational health and safety no no. Not to mention that apart from a few pairs of boots and wedges I can't wear heels for very long or walk far in them because my wonderfully bunion-ed feet leave me crippled! Sigh.

Anyway I often find myself thinking of ways to put outfits together and then get dismayed when I put it on only to find that it looks ridiculous or hideous. So lately I have been trying just to play around with stuff a little bit. Its winter and very cold here at the moment so I am working with layering which I have never felt I did well and am enjoying it more and more. I have some burgundy opaque tights on and a black jersey dress, a little black long sleeve t-shirt over that and a long line charcoal woolen cardie with my flat riding boots. I think I look OK but don't expect me to start posting pics like those wonderfully photogenic and confident young ladies :)

Before I go today let me just tell you of a few things I am contemplating purchasing right now.
I am considering the following American Apparel items:

*Tri-blend Pullover - Nice for layering. Will need to go up a size I think after a few ladies on Vogue mentioned it is a bit short through the body.
*Uni-sex triblend t-shirt -I might just go into cotton-on and get a couple tees from them rather than spend at AA for a simple tee.
I'm not going to get them, however, until American Apparel refund me the money for a return. I bought an interlock wrap dress that just didn't fit right so I sent it back. Refunds take 6-8 weeks according to their website which is totally insane! anyway I am having an email debate with one of the customer service people about it currently.

I did successfully buy this skirt from them in all black. Its the high waist interlock pencil skirt and its a great everyday skirt. Made from a thick stretchy jersey I wore it on a trip to Noosa recently. Because Noosa got a little cold I simply added some footless tights a tank and a cardi to the skirt and I was dressed for cool Queensland weather. Here at home where it is a trifle colder (!) I team it with opaques and a couple of tops and a woollen cardi and bob's your mother's brother!
I like the look of the AA high waist interlock mini too - which looks to me like simply a shorter version of the skirt I have - but it comes with an unfinished hem which I think is lazy. My skirt has a hem and its not cheap to buy it from AA in Australia. So I figure if I can find a nice bit of jersey fabric at Spotlight there is no reason why I can't make it myself!

I fell in love with the Nine West Heech wedges that Camille has been wearing with some outfits on her blog ChildhoodFlames. As soon as I saw them, I had to have them. They are reminiscent (ie. pretty much exact copies but with a wedge rather than a heel) of the Balenciaga gladiator sandals seen on the feet of MK Olsen here. I bought these nine west ones off US ebay in black (I am eagerly awaiting their arrival),

and now I wondering whether the tan might be useful as well! But I must admit that I really don't like the flat version of any gladiator sandal! I think these wedges will be part of the Nine West Australian Spring collection due for release any week now but will probably retail for about $160 and I'm not about to pay that for a pair of wedges!

Another lemming of note are the Nine West Tenant booties. They were on sale on the Nine West Australian website last month for $100. Last week they were on sale for $79. But wouldn't you know it they had sold out in both Melbourne and Sydney!!! So I had a quick look on the internet and found them at Amazon.com for US$34.95! Of course Amzon won't ship to Australia so I have used a package forwarding service which will end up costing me about US$30-40 more and they will still turn out cheaper that buying them online from Nine West Australia! God I love the exchange rate at the moment!!!

Oh and don't you just love the collage below. I used Polyvore. Pretty nifty.

So here it is...my new logo!


I had better start creating something! I am about to purchase this Alannah Hill embroidered cotton fabric. All up the piece is 2.7 metres or so. Should be enough to make myself a skirt. Perhaps I will practice a little first.

I am also hoping to get the spare room at home sorted out in the next month or so. We live in a 3 bedroom townhouse. Obviously we use the main bedroom. H uses the next biggest room as a home office and the third bedroom has a spare single bed, my tall boy drawers, my computer and a built in wardrobe. My computer is newer than H's and so hopefully we will move all of the business bookkeeping info etc etc onto my computer and move that into the home office which should give me some sewing room once I have rearranged the furniture. H is already using my monitor because his died a few weeks ago so I can't really use my computer right now even if I wanted to! At the moment I am using the dining table as a sewing area and this does not lend itself to creativity unfortunately!

A few weeks ago I had a request on my Myspace to add as a friend someone called LogoBanana. Normally I just refuse new friends but for some reason I checked this person out. Turns out the request from a company called LogoBanana who design logos for businesses and had already designed one for an etsy seller that I had viewed. I was interested because the initial design would only cost US$10 and included one revision. Then it would cost US$25 to get the logo (without a watermark) in many different image formats sent to you with one more revision. I jumped on board!

Here is the initial logo design sent to me;
I love the lettering on this logo but my revision was to remove the art deco-esque loop and replace it with something similar to the spiral and leaf motif on the header of this blog design.

The company returned the following;
This is nice too but I feel that the leaves are just far too big. So I had a bit of a play with the logo and sent them back this revision as my final logo;I really do love this design and from now on I can use it on labels and tag of the things I make.