The Birds Who Gossip by eShakti

Hello folks! I thought I'd share a recent purchase with y'all. This was my 2nd eShakti purchase and for the most part I'm pleased. The fabric is polyester and really soft, the only problem is the dress is too tight in the bust and the waist. The measurement on their size chart was perfect, but it ended up being tight. It's perfect everywhere else, so I fear going up a size would create different problems. I hid a bulging button with a backwards belt which seemed to do the trick for now. That being said, I really love the dress. The print is perfect, it's very well made, and the fabric seems like it would be great for all seasons. I think I'll be getting a lot of wear out of it. My favorite thing about the dress are the sleeves! I'm NEVER without a cardigan, mostly because I'm arm self-conscious. We all have have a part of our body that we're ugh about and my upper arms are mine. I'll get over it in my own time. Well, anyway, with this dress I feel comfortable exposing them to the world. Hello world it me, Brooke's arms! The little ruching and covered buttons add the perfect amount of sweet feminine charm. I'll shut up and get to the photos...

Outfit Details:

Dress: eShakti
Belt: Torrid
Tights: Avenue
Shoes: Target

Oh, and I finally bought comfortable shoes! They are from Target and I love them! Plus, they're only $20, so if you're on a budget and want some cute comfy shoes then these are a winner.

Don't forget to enter my 100 Followers Giveway! Just a week left!

Our Halloween Tradition

Hello Hello and Happy Early Halloween! Oooohhhh! Scary. My husband and I have a long standing Halloween tradition of getting Chinese take away and watching a variety of spooky flicks.  Our little tradition also gives me a chance to bust out films from my extremely vast B-Movie collection. We're talking hundreds. Last year we watched my all time favorite, film the fantastic Young Frankenstein, but this year we opted for a trio of our favorite classics.

We started our evening with the environmental thriller/cautionary tale, Frogs, which features a sexy young Sam Elliot.

We then transitioned to Trog, one of our favorite B-movies. Let's just put it this way, it was Joan Crawford's last film where she teaches a Troglodyte how to love. Let me repeat that...Joan Crawford teaches a Troglodyte how to LOVE! Ha!

Finally, we finished with a wonderful (and heavily rotated in our house) classic, The House of Wax. As a life long Vincent Price fan this has always been one of my top 5 favorite of his.

The husband took a couple of photos to commemorate our special night.

My treasured Vincent Price life cast, taken shortly before his death, bought directly from the artist

I couldn't write this post without including the trailers to these fine films, so if you have the time do take a look!

Frogs!!!!!

Trog!!!

The House of Wax!

Just a quick reminder, if you haven't had a chance to enter my giveaway, you can do so HERE. I'll pick a winner on Friday Nov. 5th.

100 Followers Giveaway!

Hello folks! I just recently realized that my little ole blog has reached 100+ followers! I wanted to say thank you to all of you lovely people that follow Pretty Penny Mae by doing a little giveaway. I've been enjoying making yarn wreaths so much that I thought I'd make one specifically for this giveaway.

The giveaway winner will receive...

Handmade Yarn Wreath

3 Rosette Hair Clips

All you have to do to enter is...

Be a follower on Google Friend Connect and leave a comment (with your email address) that you are.

Additional Entries:

Blog about the giveaway. Leave a comment letting me know that you did with a link to your post.

'Like' Lovely Little Lois on Facebook. Make sure to leave your Facebook name and an extra comment to let me know that you did!

It's that simple. A winner will be selected by Random Number Generator on Saturday Nov. 5th

Good Luck!

65 Years

So, I thought I'd share a happy time in my family's life with y'all. Today my grandparents celebrate their 65th Wedding anniversary. So I just wanted to publicly say Happy 65th Anniversary Mimi & Papa! I love them so much and am incredibly happy about the life they've successfully shared together.

We got them a really special gift that I just adore. We had an AMAZING felt artist turn their black and white wedding photo into a colored felt portrait. It turned out PERFECTLY, literally perfect. She captured them so well. It could not have been better. Check out her shop. It's wonderful!

In person it has a very 3 dimensional quality that a photo just can't capture. I love it so much that I wanted to keep it for myself, but alas, I had to let it go. I am absolutely going to have her make one of Nathan and I. Isn't it just lovely!

New Dress

Hello everyone. Today I wore my new dress which I just love. It's from Torrid and was an unexpected purchase for me. I had gone in to buy a pair of jeans, because my only pair recently went to the great jean shop in the sky. Unfortunately they didn't have the pair I loved so much, but they did have a great dress sale. Let me start off by saying this blog could be a fashion on a budget blog, because I NEVER pay full price for anything, which means I don't often buy dresses from Torrid. I don't know about y'all, but they are way over priced for most of their dresses, so I try to avoid them. However, this dress was marked down from $68 to $30 and after trying it on I just couldn't pass it up, even though it was still more than I usually spend. I'm glad I did and have zero buyer's remorse. It fits really well and I just love the colors. It is my first bubble hem dress and I'm still not really sure if I like it. Luckily you can't really tell and it would be really simple to just cut out the lining and hem it like normal. I'm just not sure it's really worth the effort.

OOTD Details:

Dress: Torrid
Cardigan: Cardigan
Belt: Target
Leggings: LB
Snazzy, Sophisticated Flip Flops: Walgreen's
Earrings: DIY

Yellow, Gray, and Beige

Hello folks! I'm finally starting to slow down a bit in my marathon work schedule and not really in a good way. I'm tired. I had a feeling that I was going to start to burn out a few weeks in and sure enough it has started. It's okay though, because I have a steady paycheck to rely on for the next few months and I'll be able to put some money back, which I haven't been able to do in years. Plus, my husband has really stepped up and helped me out quite a bit. Today he took the lovely Penny to get her nails clipped and they look beautiful. I swear that dog has the prettiest little paws.

Anyhoo, other than working a shitload, nothing else is really going on at the moment. So, let's get on to what I wore the other day.

OOTD Details:

Skirt as Dress: Target
Cardigan: Old Navy
Leggings: LB
Belt: Torrid
Shoes: Target
Necklace: DIY
Earrings: DIY

As y'all have probably noticed, I'm a sucker for the whole skirt as dress thing. It's just so easy and comfortable. I wore this outfit the other day to the museum. I did throw a skirt underneath it in case I needed to bend down, because this "dress" is very short. Oh, and on a side note I LOVE this cardigan. I'd wear it with everything if I wasn't afraid of getting it dirty. The print is just great.

What a week.

This week has been fraught with ups and downs. Great wonderful news then heart breaking news.

To begin with my very best friend in literally the entire world won a prestigious painting award. The wonderful Nick won the Visitors Choice Threadneedle Prize. You can see him and read all about it here and I encourage you to. He is an extremely talented painter and an amazing person. I am so so proud of him!!! Here is his winning piece...

I am a proud owner of one of his big beautiful paintings. The one below is about 5ft high by 4ft wide. It traveled with me from London back to Texas and pissed off quite a few flight attendants along the way. Probably because it was my 5ft long carry on.

My very own painting by Nick

I also received some heart breaking news this week. On Sunday, my long time London flat mate and sister-like friend's mother passed away. It's so upsetting. She was an amazing woman and I would do ANYTHING to be with my friend right now. I'm having a really hard time processing the news. As an only child, she's the closest thing I've ever had to a sister and I hate that I can't be there with her, to give her hug and a shoulder to cry on.

It's times like these where the 5000 miles between my best friend and "sister" seems particularly far. I want to be there to share in the joy and the sorrow. It's really hard not to physically hug the people you love to show them that you are proud or sorry. It feels as though we've been cheated.

I saw this little write up a while back and copied it to my computer because it resonated with me so. I think it's particularly suitable at the moment.

Yarn Wreaths!!!

I've been working hard making new pieces for an upcoming craft show I'll be attending in November. I finally have some of the pieces up on my Lovely Little Lois Etsy shop. I LOVE making yarn wreaths, so if you happen to want a custom one made I'd love the challenge! Let me know what y'all think...

Dolly Parton!!!!

Last night my mother and I went to see the wonderful Ms. Dolly Parton! It was hands down, the BEST concert I have ever been to. She played and told stories for 3 hours and it was beyond fantastic. As a southern girl who was raised on Dolly Parton and old country music, seeing Dolly Parton was like a spiritual experience. I might have cried a little, as did my mother, so no shame there. It was an unusually cathartic experience. With everything going on in our lives right now, we needed this, plus it was amazing to hear her actually say "It takes a lot of money to look this cheap" in person.  It's hard to describe why I have always felt so connected to Dolly, but I venture to say it's because of my Grandmother. Dolly Parton has always reminded me of her. In fact, 1970s Dolly is a spitting image of my Mimi at around the same time. How she walks, her accent, and her features is just so much like my Grandmother. We had so much fun. I LOVED every bit of it despite the fact that I was way too tall for the seats, in fact I'm pretty sure everyone 6ft + left the concert in pain. I actually have bruises all across my knees and shins from it. Totally worth it through. I couldn't get very good photos, but I did get some really great videos. So of course I'd like to share it with y'all.

Of course I had to buy a t-shirt.

 

Check out my Dolly brooch. I got it from a great Etsy shop called My Aunt Debbie. She was wonderful enough to rush ship it to me. I did change the charm on the bottom of the brooch with no disrespect to the maker. I switched out the little charm that was originally attached with one of my Grandmother's earrings. I wear a piece of her jewelry everyday and I figured she'd want to go along with us to the concert even though she couldn't physically be there. So it's my little nod to her.

Momma and I watching Dolly!

Here's a video I took of Dolly singing Jolene. She sounds better in person than she does on the radio and albums. Also, we were closer than it looks in the video. I don't know why we seems so far away.

 

Sneak Peek!

New pieces coming soon to Lovely Little Lois...

I'm in Love...

Hello! Today I missed my one of my favorite things to do in the whole world, the Round Top Round Up Antique Fair. This thing is MASSIVE. Thousands of vendors line up in tents for miles down a back road in Central Texas. It's overwhelming, it's time consuming, and it is the most glorious thing on the planet. I did a previous post on the fair before and how much fun it was. This time I had to work, but my folks were still able to go and came back with quite possibly one of the most glorious things I've ever been given. It's a Folmer Graflex Multiple Camera and I love it.

I'd like you to meet the marvel that is my new love...

Isn't it beautiful?! It needs a lot of work and is missing a few pieces, but it's found the perfect home with me because I will conserve it and restore it to the best of my ability. It may never be truly functional again, but it will forever be a historic piece that I will admire.