Lavender & Twill : my story

Showing posts with label my story. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 2, 2019

༺ That Sea of Time ༻

Oh, it’s this time of year again… Although it may not be everyone’s cup of tea, I love the rite of sitting down and remembering all the things that happened in the last twelve months. Especially as I don’t always get a chance to record those thoughts or events in my actual journal.

It was a very quiet year here on the blog, but that’s not so surprising. We’ve had a busy year ~ spending the first half of it in Australia, then coming back and really getting into the hard push to start up our own business…. But let’s leave the rest of the reminiscing to the post shall we?

As always, if you wish post these questions for yourself, please do! This was a great way to look back over the year. Here’s how 2018 went down at Lavender & Twill! ♡

1. What did you do in 2018 that you'd never done before?

I wish I could say “Started my own business” but that’s not true as I’ve started and run a few successful businesses previously ~ in fact, I first started my own business when I was 12 with an odd job service called “Helping Hands” where my sister and I worked to together cleaning, walking dogs, pet sitting, washing cars, etc…

So… Hm.

I can’t think of anything! Haha!

2. Did you keep your New Year's resolutions?

Yes, I kept some! One was to start Teacup Girl, so I definitely did that.

I also kept my resolution to take better care of my health. While this is still a work in progress as I do need get much more consistent with going to bed on time {I’m a chronic night owl and really wake up when it’s 9:30pm but it’s so bad for day after!}, and exercise, in the meantime I’ve discovered that intermittent fasting has really helped my body handle my tummy issues and thyroid problems a lot better so I’ve been making sure to stick with that and it’s been giving me some great results.

3. What countries did you visit?

Thailand and Australia. Nowhere new this year.

4. How many different places did you travel to in 2018?

As above ~ a bit boring this year compared to last!

5. What would you like to have in 2019 that you lacked in 2018?

More organisation and forethought. I spent a lot of time playing catch up this year ~ I’d make plans and if they went smoothly everything would have been fine, BUT… Surprise, surprise, things didn’t go to plan, and I spent far too much time scrambling and I don’t want to be doing that at all this year.

6. What date from 2017 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

September 14th, when Teacup Girl launched.

7. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Oooh…. You are all going to get so bored of me saying this… but launching Teacup Girl! And getting Theo to the point where he can read quite well, Belle is starting to read and we’ve almost got Lottie completely potty trained, and I’m so happy see those as achievements too.

8. What was your biggest failure?

Being aware of the timing of things, or just being aware of time full stop! Half my problem is I just don’t know what the time is or how fast it’s going and that causes various issues throughout the day which will build up and become a problem for the week, and the overflow just keeps piling up!

9. Did you suffer illness or injury?

Food poisoning was the most notable illness ~ I ended up in hospital for three and a half days in October, and in bed for another three after that with the worst food poisoning I have ever had. It was dreadful.

10. What was the best thing you bought?

Things to help with…. Teacup Girl… Lol. I was seriously excited about my rolling drawers and divided containers though!

11. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

Finally seeing one of my life long dreams turn into reality!

12. What do you wish you'd done more of?

Taking the children to fun places. I feel like we spend so much time just doing the everyday stuff, but I don’t want to miss out on the opportunities that living in Chiang Mai offer, and I really want to show the children the fun of exploring, so we need to get out and just do it!

13. What do you wish you'd done less of?

Aimless wasting of time… I spent too much time mucking around.

14. What was your favourite tv show?

Nothing, I didn’t really have a show that stood out. I liked watching Sugar Rush, Zumbo’s Just Desserts and Project Runway for downtime though.

15. What was your favourite film of this year?

I don’t have one, but I have high hopes for 2019 as I’m so looking forwards to the final instalment of How to Train Your Dragon! It’s my most favourite movie ever.

16. Where were you when 2018 began?

In bed, but awake this time! I think I was talking with the Mister and drinking tea.

17. Where were you when 2018 ended?

Out on our balcony peeking at the fireworks and lanterns floating up through the tree tops, in Chiang Mai Thailand.

18. Who were you with when 2018 started?

My family.

19. Who were you with when 2018 ended?

My family ~ the children were snoring away in their beds!

20. What was the best book you read?

I really haven’t had time for reading this year!

21. What was your greatest musical discovery?

BTS and BlackPink, and to a lesser degree, EXO. I have loved exploring K-Pop this year.

22. What did you want and get?

A new business. \ ^-^ / woo!

23. What did you want and not get?

To see my family for Christmas… To ride my horse.

24. What did you do on your birthday?

I had a lovely evening out with the Mister! We had a date and we went to the Monsoon Tea House, walked around Nimman, ate Vietnamese for dinner and finished off with a lovely ice-cream sundae!

25. What kept you sane?

Drawing and making art. But I’m really starting to feel stressed and anxious as I haven't had much time to catch my breath and decompress and it’s beginning to be a bit much.

26. Whom did you miss?

Copper. *whaa* I reallllly want to ride my pony! Ugh, I need to get back in the saddle… I just miss Copper’s calm presence and how the things that bother us really don’t matter to horses. I miss the peace and quiet of the silent communication with your equine partner, and the openness of the paddocks. I miss the feeling of being grounded and at the same time, challenged by the complexity of working with another living creature that doesn’t use many verbal cues. It’s all about reading the signs, and there’s something in that exchange that calms my soul and brings me rest like not much else can.

I do also really miss my friends and family. I think it’s starting to get a bit lonely after not really being able to talk to anyone for so long.

27. Who were the best new people you met?

We’ve met a few people from our Moo Baan so that’s been nice, but mostly I’ve loved meeting new people through Teacup Girl! It’s been so amazing the conversations and connections you can make when you are talking to so many new people.

28. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2018:

That you need to leave double the time that you think you will, and then double it again because nothing goes to plan so start way earlier than you even should to be regularly early!

29. What are your plans for 2019?

To created the most efficient systems for Teacup Girl that we can so we maximise our productivity. We also are working at applying that to everyday life so that we are not running around like chickens with our heads chopped off!

30. What are your New Year's resolutions?

1. Make Teacup Girl sustainable

2. To be mindful of the time I use

3. To not procrastinate so my plans actually have a chance of running smoothly!

xox,

bonita

༺ ♡ ༻
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Friday, December 28, 2018

༺ Rose Gold ༻

It has been a very quiet Christmas for the Vear family this year. We weren’t able to fly back home to be with our friends and family ~ and I must say, it really put a damper on the holiday celebrations for me.

So many of my favourite things about Christmas ~ and pretty much all of our holiday traditions centre around being close to, and spending time with, the ones we love. Playing table top games, making gingerbread together, driving around the neighbourhood to see Christmas lights, going to the carols ~ all of that is done with our family…

Not being in Australia for Christmas was hard.

But there were things we got to do and see that we did enjoy, so all was not sad!

There has been giant pink Christmas trees, delicious food for our Christmas dinner, sleepy days at home, Lego building, decorating with carols blasting and the whole family dancing as they put up lights and baubles, plus smiling Thai friends wishing us Merry Christmas, even though they don’t celebrate Christmas ~ and can barely pronounce it!

I also really, really loved the chance to do something different with our tree this year.

Usually I go for a traditional tree, as pine tree-like as a fake tree can look (!) with loads of wooden and folk style decorations. This year I wanted to satisfy my pastel princess and go for a more 1950’s atomic pastel explosion!

We bought a white tree ~ the last one in the store. It was on display, and I waited for half an hour while they found the box out back and packed it up for me!! Absolutely worth it because I love it so much.

Then the girls wanted pink decorations, and I was definitely happy to oblige. There were some “pinker” coloured baubles, more like a bubble gum pink, but I loved this peachy rose gold colour! So much that we got a ton of those, and I accented the peach with ice blue decorations and some yellow gold for nice contrast.

We even found wrapping paper to go all matchy-matchy our pastel aesthetic. Some of it was actual Christmas wrapping paper, and some of it was cupcakes and macaroon paper ~ neither of which where particularly Christmas-y, but you know, matching aesthetic for the win… Haha!

I wore my specially purchased Christmas skirt ~ I knew I wouldn’t be able to make anything for my Christmas ensemble this year, and paired it with a sheer net blouse, bow belt, and hair flowers that I’d found while out shopping in Malaysia, and local Thai markets and shops.

I had saved my Christmas Pavlova Wreath brooch from Fancy Lady Industries especially for the day ~ I knew it was so fun that I just had to wear it. And when I unwrapped a Peppy Chapette Christmas Angel from the bestest Mister ever, it was a pairing made in heaven! My Christmas angel now had a Christmas dessert halo!

Best.

Christmas.

Brooch.

Combo.

….EVER…!!

The tiny roses I clipped in as a band/crown across the top of my head were also a lot of fun, and felt very 1940’s in style to me even though the rest of my outfit was totally more of a 50’s look. I don’t know if it was because of my outfit, but I had a couple of random strangers taking my picture that night when we went to look at Maya’s gigantimungous pink Christmas tree, and even had someone jump next to me as her husband snapped a picture!

So random! But I think because Christmas isn’t celebrated in Asian countries that it is funny to see people dressed up for Christmas! Mind you, my outfit would still be considered “dressed up” in Western countries too, so there’s that.

Having the chance to view the pink tree was really delightful, it felt very Christmasy and festive! I enjoyed it a lot. Plus, dinner was soooo good. We went to The Duke’s, which is an American style Chiang Mai chain restaurant. We like to go there on special occasions, as it’s the perfect place to celebrate. If you can’t celebrate with family and friends you might as well celebrate with a super delicious meal!

So Christmas was really different this year, but it was a good one. As we go into the beginning of 2019, I want to wish you all a joyous holiday season, a belated Merry Christmas and a very happy New Year!

xox,

bonita

Tuesday, October 16, 2018

༺ Versailles Roses ༻

Tropical vintage spring with Hell Bunny | Lavender & Twill

In case you couldn’t tell, this is one of those posts where I had a lot of trouble whittling down the amount of photos to put in… I know. I know. I didn’t do a very good job… Ooops!

Also, sorry not sorry for the second Hell Bunny post in a row. I just had to share this lovely skirt. It just arrived in the mail the other day, and I couldn’t wait to wear it as it matched perfectly with my new handbag and Lyn Around handbag charm.

I really love how the charm reminds me of gumnut leaves and gum blossoms, I have been missing Australian spring with the wattle and gumtrees in bloom!

And even though this isn’t the most vintage-styled outfit ever, I still really love it. The tee is so soft and silky to the touch, it’s a great top to wear out and about. Comfortable, but looks nice at the same time! And the colour palette of this ensemble is so my aesthetic, even with the tiny touch of black accent.

The Parisian print with the pink roses matched so well with my Peppy Chapette mirrored swallow brooch, and when I paired my mint Miss L Fire Juarez Heels, it was just perfect.

I love to have soft tones everywhere, so I end up falling for anything in baby pink, baby blue, mint or white. Throw in some gold accents, and I would happily live forever in a Marie Antionette, Rocco inspired house.

And while this spot I found to shoot at isn’t quite as extravagant as Palace Versailles, I was thrilled to find this gorgeous location that is only 15 minutes away from us! It’s a very cute, whimsical restaurant that is called the Floating Restaurant. It’s kind of a jetty over a miniature lake {or a large pond?}, and there’s a playground for children, all these lovely flower arches, and so much space!

When I arrived there was no-one around at all, so I asked the owner if I could shoot some photos and they were happy to let me which was so great.

I really want to go back and explore more in that area as there seems like there was a lot of amazing places to photograph. I love exploring, and it’s great to find reliable shoot locations close by to our house finally! There’s a whole city, but it’s not always practical to drive 30 – 40 minutes for a shoot when you have to run out quickly while the children are napping!

Anyway, it’s my birthday today and isn’t weird how birthdays make you want to think and reflect deeply on passing time?

I guess it’s natural to start pondering the year that’s gone by, and to contemplate the path you are on. I’m beyond glad that we’ve been able to start this adventure ~ despite all the challenges and difficulties. First we’ve been able to enjoy living overseas, and now the opportunity to begin our own business. I have been really loving working on Teacup Girl. Even all the business side of it is really fun to me! It’s something I enjoy ~ although the art & design is my favourite for sure.

We talk about it a lot ~ what we want to achieve with Teacup Girl, what direction the business should go in ~ and I have sooo many ideas outside of brooches that I have to save to do some R&D with.

It’s so exciting, and I really can’t wait to see where the next year takes us!

xox,

bonita

༺ ♡ ༻
Find me:

Tuesday, May 15, 2018

༺ A Decade of Style Challenge ༻

I’m in the middle of a very fun challenge on Instagram called “The Vintage Fashion Challenge”. Created by Carla of Tiny Angry Crafter, Jenny of @jenni.lee.knits, Sara of Canteen Cowboy and Mena of @makethislook, it’s a really great way of connecting to the vintage community on Instagram!

I’m not participating strictly, as I really just want to do this for fun and not because I have too, but so far I’ve managed to post for 4 of the 6 days from the first week. I’m basically picking my favourites to post about. :P

Along the way I had to look up a bunch of photos for Day 5 – “Style Evolution”, and I had so much fun I decided to create my own blog challenge based around that concept. Because of course I had too many photos and far too many words to fit it all in an Instagram post…!!

“A Decade of Style Challenge” is exactly what it says ~ the challenge is find pictures of your style over the course of ten years and have fun seeing how much it can change! Write about it if you want too, or don’t. You can also participate on Facebook or Instagram if you aren’t already doing The Vintage Fashion Challenge over there and would still like to join in. Anything goes, interpret this challenge how you will!

As I went with the “photo-dump-and-lots-of-words-to-explain” type of post, let’s jump right in…

It was definitely tricky for me to find photos from 2008 as I would never have thought to take a picture of my clothes. In fact, I had only just gotten my first digital camera so up until then I just didn’t take very many pictures at all!! Luckily, my sister and I went traveling in Europe for six months and we took a few pictures while over there, as you do!

The first two pictures were taken in Scotland, the wall at Inverness, and in the Natural History Museum in Glasgow. The last picture here was in 2010 – so we skipped a year as I had nothing for 2009 that I know of. I had been reading the Modcloth blog during the month of June 2010, and was fascinated by this thing called fashion blogging.

I have always adored clothes and “dressing up” for as long as I can remember, and on this particular day, I thought I’d try and take a mirror shot of my outfit to see if I could blog that way. I loved the thought of fashion blogging but was petrified to ask anyone to take my picture as I was afraid I’d be considered super vain if I wanted photographs of my clothes to post on the internet!

I quickly realised that there was no way I’d be able to blog with just a mirror, and I was actually very disappointed. This was something I really wanted to do, but I just didn’t know how I could do it. It took me a bit of time to work up my courage, but I think that day or the next, I nervously asked the Mister what he thought about fashion blogging…

He thought it was a really weird idea, but that if I wanted to do it ~ why not. So that day I brought my camera with me to family dinner, and asked my youngest sister to take some pictures of my outfit! My family all thought I looked like a librarian. I didn’t care. Haha!

I think it was my sister who snapped the first few outfits for me, but it wasn’t long until I plucked up my courage and asked the Mister if he could take some pictures as it really wasn’t convenient for my youngest sister to help out when I needed pictures.

He was willing to help, although he still thought it was a weird idea!

My style was definitely all over the place at this stage… I was heavily inspired by Japanese Gothic Lolita and skater style as teen ~ I loved wearing cargo pants and skater shorts as well as vests and fedoras and flared jeans ~ paired with black lace and cute jewellery. I never wore skirts or dresses ~ like ever. I liked being a tomboy, very active and as “street” as a white 18 year Aussie girl could be in the early 2000s.

So through the years of 2010-2013 my style was undergoing a lot of change. For the last half of 2010 I played with the idea of vintage, but I would also drop into Hime, Dolly, or Lolita inspired looks a lot.

I had also spent the last five years straightening my hair, so it was weird to embrace my natural curls again. I was very inspired by Liz of Delightfully Tacky, and chopped a heavy bang to match her look.

I soon realised bangs didn’t roll into victory rolls very well and as that was the only true vintage hair style I knew of, I promptly started to grow it out!

It was 2011, and I was also pregnant with our first child by this stage, so also had the added trouble of dressing a baby bump. I didn’t do a lot, but I did have fun trying to go as vintage as I knew how! Boy, I had sooo much to learn…

2012 and our Theodore was born and that’s when I really started to get into the swing of vintage style.

I turned back to sewing with my very limited beginner skills and determined to learn to sew vintage dresses so I could wear the styles that I couldn’t afford at that point. {If only I knew how expensive vintage would get!! I thought $80.00 including shipping for a detailed 1950’s dress was way too expensive back then… For real..!! I’d only buy them if they were under $50.00. I have no idea what I was thinking…}

I was busy learning all I could about vintage style ~ I read all the blogs I could find, trawling through post after post. I didn’t really have a lot of vintage resources, but I was obsessed with the few things I thought would create the perfect “vintage” outfit. It was all about those Bakelite bangle stacks, Victory Rolls, and red lipstick for me in the beginning days!

I would do my best to thrift vintage appropriate pieces from the op shops, but that was fairly challenging in itself as I was still learning what silhouette, fabric prints and colours would work in a vintage wardrobe.

I also got really into sewing. I started with a dress from all old vintage quilt cover, and then I drafted a circle skirt, and made it extra complicated by making it reversible. End of 2012 and I was pregnant with our second child. I had another go at dressing my bump vintage style, but never really quite got there. I stopped sewing over that time period because funnily enough, it’s really hard to sew for yourself when your body is changing daily {if not hourly…!}

After Isabelle was born in 2013, I bleached my hair blond and dyed it pastel pink for 6 months or so, but you aren’t getting any photos of that because 1. it looked terrible :P and 2. I stopped blogging during that time as I really couldn’t handle blogging and adjusting to a toddler and a newborn.

Sometime before she was born I really started to embrace my love of pastels. I’m not sure if it began around the same time as my love of florals, but the Swirl dress below was my first ever pastel pink item of clothing in my wardrobe and I adored it. I also had no idea what a “Swirl” was and how desirable a 50’s Swirl was when I bought for it for a staggering $50.00 including postage. FIFTY DOLLARS FOR A SWIRL! I’m shaking my head at how times have changed, but I digress…

Baby number three came along in 2014, and I was lucky as I had managed to pick up a few vintage maternity items by then, my absolute favourite being a 1940s lilac maternity frock. It was most definitely the cutest maternity item in my wardrobe.

In 2015 I continued down the path of all the pastels, and discovered my love for hats and wicker purses. And I also figured out that vintage reproduction shoes where really a good investment for a vintage wardrobe. Modern shoes can sometimes fit the bill if they are in a very classic style, but when you really want to finish an outfit off, you can’t go wrong with matching accessories, a hat, gloves and a pair of really good vintage style shoes!

I did buy my first pair of actual vintage shoes when I was pregnant with the third bubba, but never wore them as my feet ended up growing a whole size {almost a size and a half!!} by the time I was done with the three pregnancies. I was sooo glad that my feet didn’t grow any further as I could juuuust squeeze into most of my shoes, but quite a few have bit the dust since then and I’m not so sure that wasn’t thanks to the feet growing. Literally one of the worst changes from pregnancy. Just saying…

After Charlotte was born I spent the rest of 2015, 2016 and 2017 battling with Hypothyroidism and all the tolls it takes on my body. I have briefly touched on that in a post before, but it remains hugely relevant to my style changes.

My chronic illness has meant that I have gone up multiple sizes, sometimes two or three in a year – depending on how badly I was swollen and bloated. I was a solid size 10, and yes, while pregnancy changes your body drastically, I know hypothyroidism has also played a major role in my size 16/18 curves. It has been difficult for me to loose more than 90% of the true vintage that I’d collected and loved over the years, basically all that was left to me were the gloves, purses, hats and other accessories… Which has absolutely led to my obsession with brooches for the last two years, and also cost us a lot of money when I’ve had to buy a whole new wardrobe several times over…

But I think that’s a post for another day, so I will leave it where we are now: living in lush, tropical Thailand!

The tropical environment has definitely focused my wardrobe to breezy sundresses, strappy sandals and loads of wild, naturally curly hair {thanks humidity}. While this summery, casual fashion is not the closest to my favourite vintage aesthetic of a glamorous, tip to toe vintage looks from the 1940s or 1950s, it still feels like a fun, beautiful style to wear. Vintage on vacation if you will!

So I hope this post wasn’t too crazy long of a read, and if you enjoyed it, I want to pass the challenge on to you! #adecadeofstyle to share on social media, and please tag me if you do it! I would absolutely love to see what your take is on this challenge, and hear all about your own fashion journey over the last decade…

xox,

bonita

P.S. ~ This could also be a “Watch My Photography Improve” post; yeesh…! Some of those early ones are shocking! Haha!!

༺ ♡ ༻
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Wednesday, January 2, 2019

༺ That Sea of Time ༻

Friday, December 28, 2018

༺ Rose Gold ༻

Tuesday, October 16, 2018

༺ Versailles Roses ༻

Tuesday, May 15, 2018

༺ A Decade of Style Challenge ༻

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