Oh man, look at this dude! It's like don Juan made a baby with a vampire.

And since I have some great news I thought "who could be better suited to be the bearer of good news than this guy? NO ONE!
David and I are relocating to Los Angeles for a few months! Woop woop!
We leave tomorrow so be sure to pop in here often because I will surely be posting about the adventure here on the blog.

Until next time!
/Lotta

I've talked about it before but I love clothes.
I love clothes and the possibility of expressing myself creatively through what I decide to wear every day.
I have always been a fan of second hand shopping and going to flea markets is probably my favourite hobby of all time.
For one thing: it's like a treasure hunt; you never know if, when and where you'll come upon some really great find. But also: it's cheap.
I have never had a lot of extra money to spend on expensive clothes, and because of that I have started to find ways to have an awesome wardrobe with what I can afford.
Besides shopping affordably I also treasure and save the clothes I have for a very long time. Forever if they hold for it.
I often get comments on my diverse wardrobe and, yes, I do have a lot of clothes, but I also use the same things in a lot of different ways to make it look like I'm not wearing the same outfit every day.
I think of this as a superpower that I need to share with the world.

When I feel an urge to shop but don't have much money to spend, here's a few things I do:

SCARFS!

At thrift stores there's almost always a pile of scarfs. Search through that.
A scarf is the most versatile piece of fabric ever.
A pop of colour or an interesting texture can do wonders to your outfit.

Tie it in your hair. Wrap it around a ballerina bun on top of your head. Trow it casually around your neck or secure it tightly with a knot.
The possibilities are ENDLESS!

And BELTS!

Every thrift shop has a bunch of belts hanging close to the cashier.
Look through them! Closely!
They always look crappy when bunched together like that. Search for a nice colour, thin or wide style, a cool belt buckle. You can find really nice belts for almost no money at all!

Save RIBBONS from gifts you receive. They look cute in your hair! Or even as a belt with a bow at the side of your waist or with the ends hanging loosely.

The forest green, wide ribbon on the top is from when I was maybe 9 years old. I had it for the school photographs in third grade.
It is still a very pretty and useable ribbon.

And for the extra brave: HATS!
Well, I obviously don't think hats are for brave people only, but many seem to be scared of wearing hats. Stupid.
Hats are AWESOME! And you can find a lot of really cool hats at flea markets and thrift stores.

I mean: Look how great hats are!
Both of these hats were found at flea markets. The red one cost me 10 kr (1.1 USD) and the brown was 40 kr (4.5 USD) if I remember correctly.

And don't forget to ACCESSORIZE!
Brooches for an example are super versatile. Put them on your jacket sleeve, sure, but you can also secure a brooch to a cardigan that doesnt have buttons to make sure it stays closed. Or put them on your hat, on a bag, or hang it in a thin ribbon and wear as a necklace.
You get the idea? Versatile!

Also:

Do you have tights with large holes on the foot part? Cut it off and make leggings! Pair with a sock in a different colour for a nice contrast.

Now I'm going to reveal one of my best secrets. It's not really a secret though, some of you might have noticed already, but I have a skirt that I wear almost daily.
It's a black velvet skater skirt from Black Milk Clothing. The brand or style doesn't really matter but what DOES matter is that I like it, I think it's comfortable and it goes with a lot of the clothes I already own.
And THAT is how you wear the same skirt every day for more than a week without getting bored.

Need more proof? Well, here you go:

Now for the getting dressed part.
If you have a black dress or skirt/tank top think like this: what colour can I wear around the dress. Think of the dress as the middle and surround it with a theme, like a colour.
Some days I first decide what socks or tights I should wear.
So a pair of wine red tights go well with mustard coloured socks. Then I can add a scarf or a ribbon in wine red to my hair and then something that picks up on the mustard too. A belt maybe?

And then you have a really nice outfit!

And now for an example.
This outfit contains the following:
One long sleeved shirt bought in a regular store seven years ago. It has a few holes in it that is hard to mend so I only use it underneath other clothes nowadays. No reason to throw it out yet!
The sleeveless dress is a thrift find and cost me 70 swedish kr (8 USD).
Underneath is a mini skirt I bought maybe five years ago at a cheap Swedish retail store.
The leggings are tights from We Love Colors that I cut away the foot part when my toes managed to create holes large enough for them to peek through.
The belt is another thrift find and cost 30 kr (3.4 USD).
And then there is lipstick from Aromi on etsy.

I walked around the apartment yesterday looking this fancy. Baked Pretzel Rolls and took photos for this blog post. Sometimes you don't need a party to look smashing!

Hope you liked this little guide to budget shopping, that you feel inspired and maybe got a few new ideas for your wardrobe!

By the way: Today marks exactly one year since Lights Out went viral! HURRAH!
We will always remember march 16 2014 as the day when our lives went bananas in the most amazing/weird/wonderful/crazy way! Thank you internet!

/Lotta

Hey!

I didn't forget!
This months Screensaver Still Life comes in the nick of time because I've been recovering from a horrible cold that after more than a week still has me tired and a bit wobbly. Today is the first day in a week that I'm wearing real clothes and even have put on some makeup to force myself into feeling everything is absolutely great and I'm so fresh and healthy. Yep!
This month I wanted my Screensaver Still Life to have a clever edge and I really like what I came up with.
My ambition for this photo is to give a sense of both future and past. A little time twister, so to speak.

And in more exciting news! Have you sen how pretty this site looks now?! (If you see no difference from before press ctrl F5 to refresh.)
New tabs with new info and a whole lot more up to speed than it was before. It was very much overdue and since I love this place to bits, and spend a lot of time and work here, I really want it to mirror me perfectly.

Have a look under the tabs My Work, Lotta and Contact for all the new info.

I'm still not completely finished and will be doing a lot of work on my photo albums next, but I'll show you all of that in due time.

What ya sayin'?
(Uh, I so can't get away with writing like that. It sounded cool in my head but I'm so not cool enough to shorten words like that. What I meant to say is: Do you like it here now when it's all spring cleaned?)

Hope you have a great week! I'm hoping to get a lot of stuff done and really just bask in this glorious feeling of being back to health.

Until next time:
Tjingeling!
/Lotta

Hey!
I've been dancing again!
This time I actually returned to the very same forest where I shot the last (and very first) installment of A Lotta Dancing but these two photos carry an entirely different mood.
I'm madly in love with the first one. It took a lot of tries to get the cape to move that way, exactly when the camera shutter went off. But it was so worth it, don't you think?

Rotvälta means uprooted tree and is pronounced a little bit like rootvelt-ah. Haha, so hard to try and spell how it might sound to non-Swedes.

Free style dancing to the humming in my head.

I actually have another installment in this series ready, taken this last summer so I might show you that when the longing for green nature is at its strongest. So very soon, I guess.