Meow KiKi Clothing!

Finally, some time off to chill & relax, and of course, to write a new blog entry!

I met Heather, the one woman that does it all at Meow Kiki quite a looong time ago, when I was still buying on eBay, and she was still selling there. How I came across her? I'm sure it was through somebody's About Me page that had her link in there, and as soon as I checked her clothing, I was in love!

Heather is not only an amazing seamstress & designer, but also a cutie and total sweetheart to boot! Through the pair of years I've known her we've become not just seller & buyer, but actually good friends! She's one of my compulsory stops whenever I manage to take a trip to the US, she has to take me for yummy sushi dinner!

Her love for Anime & Japanese culture shows in her clothing, that has a very unique & kawaii style of its own, and the top quality of everything she makes shows in each one of her pieces!

I own TONS of her clothing! You only have to look at her customer gallery on her website to see that there are a bunch of pics of lil ol' me wearing Meow Kiki originals!

I started following her auctions on eBay, and then when she made the move to Etsy, I couldn't be happier! I now watch out for her new listings either on Etsy itself, or the thread she will start on DIYscene to let us know she has new awesome stuffs available. Or, I can beg and plead for some custom made piece of clothing, as she takes custom orders now and then.

I was planning on taking a pic of ALL my Meow Kiki goodies spread out in my bed, but the thought of searching through both my closets and THEN having to put everything back in there scared me a bit, so I decided to just show a few of the pics I have wearing Meow Kiki clothing!

The last of my purchases from her (for now) is a gorgeous gorgeous slouchy style dress, with a fantastic shiny & holey fabric, that I still haven't managed to take a pic wearing it, so this pic showing it flat will have to do (or you can check some modeled pics here) and you can also see one of the necklaces that Heather also offers in her Etsy shop, and one of the things I love when I get one of Heather pieces: the care sheet! You always get a lil care sheet for your piece, with the name of the piece and the recommended care instructions. You can punch a hole in it, tie them all together and hang it in your closet, so when you're going to wash your Meow Kiki piece, you only have to look it up, and see which one is the appropiate care for it!

As of late, Heather has been focusing on offering a new look to her line, so she has been working for photographers & models to have a bigger variery of looks in her clothing line, but personally (and I know some of her old time customers do too) I miss having her modelling the clothing, cause it's the look & face I instantly recognize, but if it helps her line & sales grow, I'm all for it!

Oh, and Heather, if you end up moving to Japan, DON'T stop making clothes!!

Headless Tess DIY

Yesterday I got not just one but two packages, one from Hope, and one from yet another of my favourite sellers AND friend: Lex.

Lex or Lexie (aka Headless Tess DIY) has not just become one of my favourite sellers, but also an amazing friend. I first saw her listings on eBay, but was a bit unsure about her necklaces, I was not sure of the size or how they'd look on a person... even so, I bid on a pair of her necklaces, but was outbid. In one of those weird coincidences I got a friend request from her on myspace, and we started talking. She was so nice and helpful! I asked for a custom request of an Alice in Wonderland necklace, and she was amazing during the whole process, and the necklace exceed all my expectations!

I then bid on another of her eBay necklaces, the Kittyfly (a butterfly with a Hello Kitty head) and won it. Lex sent it right away, and it wouldn't arrive... I checked with my post office, and apparently it had left the post office to be delivery during a week where a new postwoman had been covering for my usual one... so I suspected she had kept it, cause it never arrived... I told Lex, that already worried about it not arriving, and she decided to make me another without charging me anything extra... I offered to pay for shipping at least, and then decided to order another custom, so at least she could get some more cash, even if she didn't want me to pay for the second Kittyfly. These two necklaces were my first Headless Tess originals, but they were only the beginning!

The weirdest thing ever happened after 3 months... The original Kittyfly arrived!! It had a sticker that said she had been sent to Colombia, in South America!!! So, now I have TWO Kittyflies!! I really felt horrible, cause I made Lex to work extra, when the Kittyfly was just taking a vacation, you could say...

After that, I haven't stopped getting more necklaces from her, either from her Etsy store, once she did the move to Etsy, or getting more customs, cause any necklace you can dream of, Lex can deliver, and she will surpase herself every single time! I've got Hello Kitty as a nurse, two Maiden necklaces, a pair of Nightmare Before Christmas...

She even made us a pair of matching keyrings, for me and Gaurav, with a pic of us, as a surprise present! It was such a lovely surprise, and I absolutely love it! I don't use it, cause I think it looks better hanging in my room, where I can look at it, and won't get damaged!

I love sporting my HT necklaces every occasion I get, but since I can't really wear them everyday at work, working at a hospital, hygiene rules are strict, even more when working with patients in protective isolation, so I go crazy wearing my HT necklaces on my days off or while on holidays!!

Take a lil look at a few of the necklaces I've worn during my last holidays in India:

First of all, Hello Kitty as a cupcake!:

Also, a lovely blue cupcake!:

And two more gorgeous necklaces, a custom Maiden one and a gorgeous Saphire butterfly!:

I have a huge and wonderful collection of her necklaces, and truth be told I haven't counted them! I had never been a girl to wear much jewelry, but with Lex's necklaces, I just can't get enough!

Going back to yesterday's package (the reason for this entry!).It was, as usual, an amazing one, even more so this time! I got three necklaces for myself, and also three necklaces I'm one us as presents for friends of mine, since I've got asked quite a few times about them! I even got an extra treat! Lex also makes clothes, though doesn't usually sell them, and she sent me the CUTEST Hello Kitty tube top! Let's take a look at all my goodies!:

First of all, the cutest Wall-E & Eve necklace everrr!:

An absolutely lovely necklace, with one of my favourites scenes from the movie, when Wall-E is trying to wake up Eve sharing with her a lovely sunset!

Secondly, a oh sooo cool and sexy Dr Who necklace!:

As you can see, the Doctor, also know as Barty Jr, is featured here with the beloved Tardis! I feel the need to sing and/or hum the series theme everytime I look at it!

And last but not least, the one I'd say has become my absolute favourite of all the necklaces Lex has made for me, like ever:

This is the Tree of Life as it is depiced in an amazing movie by Darren Aronofsky, "The Fountain", starring Rachel Weisz and Hugh Jackman. A wonderful movie about love & life.

Gaurav and me loved the soundtrack before watching the movie, and fell in love with the movie, so I really wanted this as a necklace, and Lex did an amazing job with it!

And last, but not least, not at all! A shot of all my loot of today! My three necklaces and my Hello Kitty tube top! :

Excuse once again the flat pic of the top, but the bf is in India, and I'm no fan of the myspace angles and taking self pics, so this'll do!

Farewell, my friends, until we meet again!

Label of Hope

Today was a good mail day! I got a few packages, so now after taking some pics, I have some good material to write a blog entry (and another one for tomorrow) about one of my favourite sellers!

I first found Label of Hope on eBay, and I loved her originality and uniqueness!! You identify her clothes so easily, cause she has a style that it's so very hers and hers alone! I bid on a few of her tops, got a few and was outbid on tons of them! After a while I found her webpage http://www.labelofhope.com/ and though she only offers tops there very now and then, I snatched there one of my most loved tops from her!

I was gathering quite a collection, but nothing as big as it has become when Hope decided to forsake eBay and join Etsy... Since I've always preferred the Buy It Now way, I've got a LOT of her tops, all uniquely designed and all awesome indeed! Also, since she joined Etsy she has been, on occasion, doing some custom orders, that I have very much jumped at the occasion!

One of my all time favourite of her styles is the kimono style top! I bought a gorgeous one on Etsy, and also get another custom one made. The one I got from Etsy became almost instatly one of my most favourite tops from her, since it was not only gorgeous, but comfy & classy at the same time! During my vacation in India with the bf this September I wore it a lot of times! After returning from Goa to Delhi I thought the poor top needed a bit of a proper washing, and gave it to the maid... what a mistake... my poor top got completely ruined! Not only there was some running of colours in the sleeves, but there were some really strange stains all over the body of the top! Lesson learnt, I should have done the handwashing myself, and used some salt and cold water in the first washing to avoid the running of the colours... This has been the first time that one of my LoH tops has been ruined, and I was quite upset I must say.

When I came back from the holidays, I decided to contact Hope and ask her if she had any more of those fabrics, or something similar, so I could get another kimono top done; she was extremely nice and looked all over for the fabrics, but as it happened, she didn't find them. She found a similar fabric in pink, and hence my pink Kimono top was born! Also, she made another gorgeous kimono style top with cowl neck that I quickly snatched too, that I will be wearing for this year's Hospital dinner!

All this brings me now to the main point of this blog, that is, I received another gorgeous LoH top in the mail today! With a cowl neck with a decorative tab with buttons, extra long sleeves (perfect for those that get their hands cold easily, like me) and a kanga pocket!

Excuse the not too good picture, but my trusty TZ5's battery had died, and despite my boyfriends insistence I haven't got myself a spare one yet; I had to use my old Canon Exilim. And I'm not too good at taking pics of myself, nor am I too keen on the myspace style pictures, and since my personal photographer is in India... this one will have to do!

Every package from Hope comes inside a lovely pink bag with a thank you note and care instructions! (Just in case, I always recomend to wash all tops on their own the first time and with cold water to ensure no running of the colours).

I've always gotten tons of compliments when wearing Hope's tops, and I've given the link to her etsy shop to a good number of my own co-workers, so if you, like them, want to know where these gorgeous designs came from and want to get your own, go to http://hopee.etsy.com/ and take a look around! She usually posts new designs once or twice a week!

Happy hunting! (ooops, I meant, shopping!)

A long time ago, in a Galaxy far far away...

Did I mention I'm a huge Star Wars geek? No? Well, I am! And no, it doesn't have anything to do with the topic of this entry, I just happen to like that quote a lot for referring to the past... Bear with my geekness.

I thought it would be proper to give an introduction as to how I got into the shopping handmade world, so here goes: It all started with an Iron Maiden concert and Ebay.

Let me elaborate; there was this upcoming Maiden concert in Barcelona I was going to, and I wanted to find a more girly (can I use the word girly next to Maiden?) t-shirt, since I didn't want to wear one of those baggy guy t-shirts. I was linked to a few eBay listings, all by The Dark Queen http://shop.ebay.com/merchant/the-dark-queen_W0QQ_nkwZQQ_armrsZ1QQ_fromZQQ_mdoZ all really great, interesting reconstructions, but I was so unsure of the whole internet shopping, the use of credit cards online... I ended up going to the concert without a t-shirt, and buy one in the stands at the concert. But, I had liked those tops so much I decided to give it a try, so I decided to create a eBay account, and a Paypal account... and that was the beginning, I ended up getting 3 or 4 tops from her, a dress and a top from another lovely seller http://www.re-vamp.net/ ... Also Obskura and Madfoxes... There started my eBay obssesion, looking for amazing Maiden tops, and it soon extended to other types of clothing... So, lil by lil I found other sellers like Meow Kiki, Label of Hope, Bunny Massacre, Vivifromage, Poppyswickedgarden, Mylittlemonster, Turtlemaggie...

I started adding most of those seller's myspace page, and started talking to them online, which meant I already became friends with some of them. That made me realize how different buying handmade things directly from the sellers is from buying from any chain shop in a mall. I've also found other sellers through some sellers myspace page, and through them some seller's website like AngryGirl Gear, Dungaree Dolly's bags & Headless Tess DIY!

I found Etsy through one of my friends from the SW forums, that had started a shop there. I started an account there, started looking around and found some amazing sellers there, like Spa Therapy Works, my favourite B&B shop, and other many great sellers!

I found Etsy to be a much more personal and friendly site than eBay, so I decided to switch to it, and nowadays, I barely use my eBay account. I was never really a huge fan of the bidding system, as I'm no fan of haggling in markets or the like, so the more simple "buy for a fixed price" is much more to my liking!

From Etsy I was link by some of those sellers to this wonderful & addicting forum called DIYscene! I found and met many more sellers and discovered many more talented people, that despite me not being "one of them" hence a crafter, I was welcomed, and my opinion greatly appreciated! If you want to meet and greet amazing & talented sellers, you need to join!




You'll be meeting all my favourite sellers and their products through future entries in this blog, hopefully starting tomorrow itself!

May The Force Be With You, and all that jazz!