Happy New Year! I hope you all enjoyed your festivities.

This is going to be a short message to merely say farewell.

Over the last few months I have been thinking long and hard about the blog and about other things that I want to achieve.  It has not been an easy decision, and one I have pondered for many weeks. I have decided to stop blogging, at least for the time being.

There are exciting projects ahead of me that I really want to be able to put 100 per cent into.  The reality is that as a busy wife and Mum I have a limited amount of time and I’m not the kind of person that can do things half heartedly. The time I currently use blogging, which is substantial, needs to now be used elsewhere.

What am I going to be doing?  Well, there are a few things in the pipeline. They all include online activity and writing so if you hang around my normal online hangouts, mainly Facebook and Twitter, then you’ll know exactly what I’m up to when I’m up to it.  I am also loving Instagram so feel free to follow me over there as I share my world in pictures.

I’m sorry to say goodbye as it’s been an amazing two years here at Lottie Loves. I started writing Lottie Loves as a way to document a life after surgery which I hoped beyond hope would become the life I had always wanted with love, fun and adventures away from the constant pain of the disease that brought me down for 10 years.  I have documented more love, fun and adventures than I ever thought I would or could.  Life in the last two years has taken a full U turn. Something that I could never have predicted.  2011 was without doubt the happiest year of my life and for that I am incredibly grateful.

Blogging has been a massive passion for that entire time, encouraging and driving me forward with my various interests, passions and obsessions. I have loved sharing it all with you and getting to know many of my readers, some of whom have become offline friends for keeps.

I’m not going to drone on and on as it’s time to move on to the next chapter. Be in no doubt that there is a next chapter and be sure I will be sharing it with you all somewhere.

Adieu mes amis,

Lottie -x-

Those of you who follow me on Twitter will know that I have recently picked up my knitting again and have been going at it like a woman possessed . Truth be told, I may not be possessed but I am definitely obsessed now.

Every evening after school I hang out with a group of Mums whilst our older kids do their after school sports activities and the younger ones play.  We got bored of just sitting there chatting so we all decided to bring our knitting. We now have a lovely little knitting club of 5-10 ladies meeting up every afternoon for some knitting and chit chat. It’s fabulous.  We have taught out friends who couldn’t do it before how to knit and they’re coming on leaps and bounds which is amazing to see. My own knitting is benefiting from the help and advice of my more advanced knitty friends and all in all we’re having a jolly old time with our needles.

Here are the projects I’ve worked on since we started five weeks ago:

I actually started this project almost exactly a year ago, from my book Vintage Patterns for Modern Knitters. I finally finished it and love it.  It’s been a hard going project but I’ve learned loads from it. It’s a 1958 pattern but I altered the collar slightly and I didn’t make the collar and cuffs from separate pieces, instead choosing to knit them on as it’s much easier. It’s not perfect but I made it and it’s wearable.

These would have been much nicer in the suggested mohair yarn but I can’t wear mohair so stuck with a sparkly, easy wash acrylic/wool. The pattern is from the book Glamour Knits . My first ever gloves. They were so much fun to knit and won’t be the last pair I make.

I knitted this without a pattern for my Mum. My first foray into circular needles and I loved using them.  They make knitting so much easier. This took me just one day, about 4 hours of knitting (I knit in front of the TV too)

Knitted without a pattern.  It changes to a snood as in the top picture.  I’m not sure I’ll get much wear out of it around here as it’s super warm but I love it and no doubt will benefit from it in England one day.

I’m now working on another pattern from the Vintage Knitwear book.  If you click on the link to the post above, it is the last picture on that post.  I’ve nearly completed one side. I can’t wait to finish it.

So, what do  you think?

Lottie -x-

This weekend we did what we think of as a traditional American thing – we cut our own Christmas tree. Granted that in our heads this involved a long, cold trudge out to a field of snow laden trees, wrapped in scarf and gloves with red noses and the feeling of ‘why didn’t we just go to a DIY store for our tree?’.

Our Californian reality was a blissful trip to a beautiful farm in the Santa Cruz mountains, a slight chill in the air but bright blue skies and a beaming sun lighting a field of beautiful green Christmas trees of many different varieties.  Our ‘trudge’ was in fact a brisk walk in a field bathed in sunlight causing us to gradually strip off our layers of clothing. The ritual of cutting down a tree somewhat lacked in the effort we had anticipated as the reality is that it took less than five minutes to achieve and involved minimal effort. Christmas trees saw surprisingly easy.

The boys have a go at sawing the tree

He the man!!!! The Magician cuts down the tree

Cor blimey, what a whopper! (7ft tree)

We LOVED cutting down our own tree. After the boys had done their bit, I did mine:

Our tree is a decorated with hand me down decorations and then every year we buy a decoration for each of the four of us.  When the boys are older they can have their decorations to start their own Christmas Trees.  I also make decorations every year that signify a special event or a project that the children and I work on. I then make the bows from  my ribbon stash.

My Iphone pics via Instagram and Decopic (@lottieloves1)

*big church voice* Oh Christmas tree, Oh Christmas Tree, how sparkly are your branches!

This is a decoration made from the corks collected on my recent girly weekend in Napa. A fantastic idea to preserve the memory courtesy of a tutorial featured on the blog of @athriftymrsUK over at her super helpful and lovely blog A Thrifty Mrs

My first foray into soy candle making for Christmas gifts

The Christmas Wreath I made from free pine trimmings I collected with the tree, pine cones from a massive stash I collected two years ago, some old baubles and berries and left over ribbon from my stash, florists wire from my stash and all on a wire frame $2.99 from Michaels. The Christmas Tree is a decoration from Target, 3 for $1. Total cost $3.99 and an hours worth of effort.

We’re almost ready for Christmas now and I’m SO excited! How are your plans going?

Lottie -x-

PS – I finally got round to taking pictures of my recent knitting projects.  I’ll publish them tomorrow

My boys with the new Google Icecream Sandwich Icon

Change is afoot. When you enter into the world of blogging and reading blogs you have to expect that things will likely change more often than you would prefer.  Whilst this can often be irritating it is the nature of the beast. Blogging, is after all, reliant upon technology, and technology advances at a rate we lesser techy humans are steadfastly learning to adapt to.

What’s prompted this reflection? Google my dears , that’s what.

Regardless of the fact that I am now in the heart of Google land I have for many years been a big Google fan using iGoogle with Gmail, Calendar, Reader and various other nifty tools. However, Google are bugging my little bloggy pants right now.

My fellow Google users will have noticed that Google has been undergoing a few interface changes lately and frankly they’re driving me nuts.  I hate the new fonts, the new reader is difficult to read with its tiny font, the new Gmail is just plain annoying and frankly none of the changes they have made appeal to me in the slightest.  But then they wouldn’t would they? Technology isn’t here to give us what we like it’s to give us what we never knew we needed. Right now these things drive me batty but no doubt in a few weeks I’ll be positively rejoicing the genius of those icon changes. Technology’s like that, blogging is like that, life is like that. Change is good for the soul, it keeps us on our toes and stops us from giving in to our dull desire for monotonous routines.

Aside from these niggly changes Google has also gone and rocked the blogging world of which I am part. They’ve gone and cancelled Google Friends Connect (GFC) which as of March 2012 will no longer exist other than on Blogger hosted blogs. If you’re not sure what this is then look at the icon to the right of my blog which shows little pictures of my fabulous followers.

Whilst I like the visual of seeing those beautiful vintage ladies on my site I am personally not sorry to see GFC go. I’ve always felt its display of popularity doesn’t belong on blog pages. A weird comment I know, given the raging social networking fiend that I am BUT I don’t write my blog to be popular and have always been a little uncomfortable with the very public displays of popularity on blogs. They’re also far from a true measure of who is ACTUALLY reading a blog.  Often people just click on the connect widget and never look at the blog again. I know this because I have done it. I know, I’m sorry, it’s a dreadful thing to admit but as much as I might LIKE to read that blog I don’t have the time. Truth be known I read only a handful of other blogs (is this a burn at the stake type admission?) not because I’m not interested in what my fellow bloggers have to say, I am, I really am, but I really don’t have the time as writing this blog takes up enough of my free ‘off duty Mum’ time. Reading of anything time is a luxury I just don’t have and I know I’m not alone.

So, is everyone who’s clicked on GFC reading my blog? Of course they’re not. I would like them to be but I know otherwise. I felt quite a lot of blogging pressure to add the social networking opportunities to my blog to prove that others really are reading it and that YOU must read it because, well, Mrs A and Miss B are and therefore you just wouldn’t want to miss out. I’ve always had utmost respect for those blogs that show no popularity contest tools subscriber numbers on their blog. My assumption is always that they’re just so damned popular and well read they don’t need numbers.

‘There’s a big hole in all of this Mum!’

Well, these here pages are well read and I don’t need numbers so HAH!!!! Take that GFC!!!

I’m removing GFC and all the other ‘I have this many people reading my blog’ widgets. I’d like you to be here because you want to be, because YOU enjoy reading my posts, not because you feel you should enjoy reading them because Mrs A and Miss B read them therefore you must. If big numbers turn you on and you want to be following me because I’m popular then head over to Twitter. I’m simply oozing popularity over there with my 2000 + followers – the fact most of that number never interacts with me is irelevant isn’t it?. I’m also doing fairly well in the popularity stakes on Facebook so do feel free to head on over there. As for Google + well over there I look positively Prom Queen. The fact I never ever go on there would appear to be irrelevant *frowns*

So, my gorgeous, fabulous readers. You know who I am and I know you’re there so carry on reading and I’ll carry on writing regardless of whatever changes in the techy environment we’re part of and regardless of how ‘popular’ I am. If you do use GFC for notification of my blog updates then do switch to using an RSS reader or following me via Facebook and Twitter, both of which I post my latest posts on.

Lottie -x-

PS – I KNOW you’re there but a few comments now and then woudn’t hurt x

Many of my readers are British and therefore don’t know what Thanksgiving is about so I thought I’d explain a little.

Thanksgiving in some form has been celebrated in America since the Pilgrim Founding Fathers who celebrated the first Thanksgiving with the native Indians in 1621. They had suffered a terrible winter during which half of them had died.  With the help of the Indians they ended up with a good harvest the following year for which they were all grateful and celebrated accordingly with turkey and other harvest foods.

After this time Thanksgiving was celebrated in most states but on different dates. In 1863 it became a national US holiday by President decree and the date of the last Thursday in November was set.  In 1941 it was finally made into law as a national holiday but on the fourth rather than the last Thursday of November. I still find it so fascinating that American history is that recent.

Elvgren Pin Up

Thanksgiving is a celebration of the end of the harvest season and Americans traditionally celebrate with a big turkey dinner surrounded by family and friends.  It is very similar to the Christmas dinner we have in the UK with turkey, cranberry sauce, potatoes and all manner of side dishes. This year we will be spending our first Thanksgiving with American friends and I can’t wait to experience some of the ‘sides’ I’ve heard talk of including sweet potatoes (often with marshmallows – yes, really), green bean casserole and of course the obligatory pumpkin pie.  The side dishes are definitely not foods we eat in England but they’re all pretty good from what I hear – I’ll let you know!

I love these pictures of Marilyn Monroe and Judy Garland dressed up as Pilgrims with the obligatory turkey

This Thanksgiving we will be joining 14 other families to spend the morning playing football (American) and supposedly I will be expected to get on the field and run with the ball. Mmmmm……completely unimaginable I know but I guess I’m game (she writes hesitantly). We’ll then be headed to an American friend’s house to spend the day with her family and another British family where we shall be found eating, drinking and no doubt laughing, a lot.

A significant part of Thanksgiving, that I love, is that it’s a time to reflect on what we’re thankful for, to be grateful and appreciate what we have.  I feel that this holiday is a particularly great lesson for children, especially for those, like mine, who will be spoilt for Christmas in a few weeks time. Teaching them appreciation is so important.

What am I thankful for?  A great many things but particularly thankful that we’ve had the opportunity to enjoy the most amazing year of our lives here in California and that we find ourselves, a year on, with wonderful friends with whom we’re truly looking forward to spending Thanksgiving with.

Happy Thanksgiving my American friends.

Lottie -x-

Natalie Wood is another of those most vital and beautiful actresses that lost her life in a tragic, unexpected and controversial manner. On November 29th 1981, aged only 43, she died, apparently at that time, by accident, drowning off the Santa Catalina Island, California.  That evening she had spent on a boat with her husband Robert Wagner and her Brainstorm co-star, Christopher Walken.  At the time it was claimed that she and her husband argued which lead her to leave the boat on a dingy and consequently drown.  New witness testimony means that, this weekend, the case has been re-opened by the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department.

It’s now been 30 years since that fateful day and whilst it’s important that any wrongdoing is uncovered she deserves to be remembered for her life rather than the mystery of her death.

Her life started as Natalia Nikolaevna Zacharenko on July 20th 1938 in San Francisco to Russian parents who eventually moved her to Los Angeles so she could pursue acting.  Aged 4 Natalia began her acting career and her name was changed by the studio to Natalie Wood. Most of my readers will have seen Natalie Wood as the little girl in Miracle on 34th Street.  If you haven’t seen this delightful Christmas classic then surely make a point to watch it over the next few weeks.

She made many films as a child but then successfully moved from child acting to take on adult roles, something that many child actors struggle to achieve.  Aged 16, in 1955,  she starred alongside James Dean in Rebel Without A Cause for which she received her first Academy Award nomination, for Best Supporting Actress. As with many actors of this time Natalie Wood then found the studio typecasting her, in her case as a teenage girlfriend. After a decade of roles she found tiresome she starred opposite Warren Beatty in the 1961 Splendor in the Grass and earned her second Academy Award nomination, this time for Best Actress. Her career blossomed again from this point.

During this time she met and married Robert Wagner, an actor she had watched and had a crush on for many years. He was 8 years older than her. Supposedly she conspired to meet him by signing with his agent. Their first date to a premier, on her 18th Birthday, was to start a love affair that saw them marry a year later in 1957, divorce in 1962 and eventually rekindle their love and marry again.

In 1962 she made my all time favourite film, West Side Story. I first watched this film aged 14 and have since watched it many, many times.  Aged 15 an old friend gave me one of my greatest treasures, the West Side Story Cast Album on vinyl. I have no means by which to play it any more but knowing I have it gives me great pleasure.

Natalie Wood played Maria in this Romeo and Juliet, wrong side of the tracks story of forbidden love. It fills me with disappointment when I watch musicals of old with fabulous actresses who I then discover did not sing themselves (think Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady).  Marni Nixon sang Maria’s part in the film which is a shame as Natalie Wood could actually sing, as she proved in her next film Gypsy. However, Natalie Wood’s acting and charming presence on the screen made the film an enormous box office success. I have since watched many on stage versions of West Side Story and none match the energy and charisma of that film. I LOVE it.

Natalie Wood received her third Academy Award Nomination in 1964, for Love with the Proper Stranger opposite Steve McQueen. This lady had some FINE leading men!

In 1969 she was married to British Producer Richard Gregson. In 1970 they had a daughter, Natasha Gregson.  Soon after the birth of their daughter they separated and were divorced in 1971. Quickly after Natalie Wood reconciled with Robert Wagner.  They remarried in 1972 and had a daughter, Courtney Wagner in March 1974. They remained married until her death in 1981.

In total Natalie Wood starred in 56 films and although she never actually won an Academy Award and received limited critical success, she made an impact on the screen for many years and is surely one of best actresses of her time. I very much hope they resolve the mystery surrounding her death and are able to let her rest in peace.

Lottie -x-

If you enjoyed this post you may enjoy my other Screen Siren posts

Today is the turn of my lovely sponsor Lotty Blue. Lotty Blue is a one woman business which sells beautiful vintage inspired homewares including a fabulous range of festive lovelies from the Gisela Graham range,  perfect for every whimsical vintage lovers tree and stocking.

Not forgetting the beautiful selection of aprons

There’s much to be found at Lotty Blue and Lottie Loves readers have been offered a fabulous discount of 10 % off anything in the entire store as well as free UK postage so do pop over if  you use the code lottieloves1.

Enjoy shopping!

Lottie -x-

On Friday I was lucky to be invited to a friends Diwali (dee-var-lee) party. Diwali is the Indian festival of light. It is celebrated by most Indians with a day of rituals including house cleaning, the lighting of clay oil lamps called Diyas, new clothes and lots of delicious sweets.  Diwali falls on the one new moon night between mid October and mid November.  This night was actually two weeks ago but as my friend enjoys Diwali with her family she held her big party for 200 family members and friends on Friday night.

As soon as I received the invite I knew I wanted to wear Indian dress. There was only one person to help me with this and that was my sister.  She lives in Leicester, England and has married into an Indian family. She would know exactly what I should wear and have access to the stores to buy the appropriate garb.

We spent a morning shopping together which was fun.  It meant she shopped, texted me photographs and I yay or nay’d them. I highly recommend this method of shopping!

I’ve never worn Indian dress before, which is shocking given my sister’s family and the many opportunities I have been given over the years. I didn’t have the confidence to dress up until a few years ago. Hard to believe eh?

So, she sent me over my beautiful outfit and I enjoyed wearing it SO much. I rarely feel as beautiful as I felt that night and wish I had better photographs to show off. Unfortunately limited time and darkness didn’t give us the opportunity to take pictures.

I wanted my hair in a 60′s up do and my friend, Nicki (red dress below) obliged by giving me a beautiful beehive, which is quite a feat as my hair is still only chin length.We spent all of Friday, the Veteran’s Day holiday, with 8 children running around whilst we coloured, straightened and styled hair in preparation for the evening. I say ‘we’ as despite Nicki being the trained one we were all involved. I’m learning a lot about hair and even straightened the lady herself’s hair (very nervously I might add!). Later that evening we all stepped out looking beautifully Bollywood.

Another triumphant up do from Nicki

We had a great time at the party. Actually, truth be told, I had rather too much of a good time and 3 hours after arriving was taken home more than a little worse for wear and a tad less ladylike than I would prefer. I paid a heavy hangover price and shall NOT be doing that again for a while.

Yet another little adventure I shared with my lovely girlfriends here in California. We have some fun don’t we?

Lottie -x-

It’s coming up to Christmas again, can you believe that?  I swear the years go by faster and faster the older I get. Once again it has crept up on me sneakily and I’m not remotely ready. Living in California where the weather is so mild doesn’t help. My brain struggles to recognise time without the seasonal changes I’m used to in Britain. That said, I LIKE this mild weather. A lot.

However, it’s time I got round to thinking about gifts and part of that, for me, is to check out what my sponsors have to offer. Over the next few weeks I shall be pointing out my favourite Christmas gift ideas from the wonderful people who choose to advertise on Lottie Loves.

First up is the One Stop Pamper Shop.  This is a small business run by a very busy and super lovely Mum of 5, yes, 5! She’s bonkers, clearly, but this little business is full of wonderful stocking fillers, or as they call them out here (which always makes me giggle), stocking stuffers!

Here are my favourites, and some I’ve already purchased but shhhh, don’t tell anyone.

I love these giant tealights which can be personalised with any word you like.  You can even have names put on them to make beautiful place settings for your Christmas table.  At £3.00 each or £10.00 for 6 they’re a bargain.

This beautiful set of 12 Days of Christmas Candles in beautiful festive scents such as Christmas Fruitcake and Marzipan £19.99

A beautful Candy Cane candle in Marzipan scent £4.00

These are crayons for kids! Aren’t they fabulous? £4.00 for 5

There are so many fabulous gifts at One Stop Pamper so do head over and take a look.

Lottie -x-