Wearing Handmade Wednesday: Meow Kiki!!

Cloudy Wednesday over here, and even if that shouldn't be at all related, it caused today's Wearing Handmade Wednesday to be slightly delayed!

Wearing my Meow Kiki baseball top at Lodhi Gardens

I've already talked in one of my first blog entries about Heather and her amazing Meow Kiki brand and the huge amount of her clothes I own, so it was only fair I did a Wearing Handmade Wednesday featuring her! Not only she has all sorts of clothes for all occasions but also has some start of the art fashion pieces!

All in all, wonderful shop that all of you need to check!

Looby Lou Crafts!

Inspiration for a blog entry doesn't always come when you want it or have the time for it, so whenever it comes, you have to work with it, even if it means using the draft feature now and then!

I found Looby Lou Crafts while doing a search on Etsy. What was I looking for? I wasn't really specific, I've always liked oriental styled things of all sorts and this time I just typed Japanese and started looking at all that the Etsy search engine was offering me, and let me tell you, it is indeed a way to find some gems in there, if you have the time and patience to look through a bunch of pages!

I saw one of her Obi belts, loved it, hearted it and went on looking through the pages. Then, later that week I went through my favourites, and decided to look closer at the Obi belt and her shop. I did my regular thing, read the profile, shop policies and feedback, as well as a bunch of the listings themselves. She doesn't only offer Obi belts, but also headbands, bags, purses and hand muffers! All of them in beautiful Japanese/Oriental fabrics.

I was absolutely in love with her shop, and with a particular Obi belt in a green butterflies fabric, so I decided to send her a convo and ask her if she could also make me a matching headband, and if she shipped to Spain (since she's in the UK I thought she would, but better to be sure, too many sellers don't ship here). She was really nice and helpful, and really willing to work with me. She set up a custom listing, and after a pair of days, my Obi belt and matching headband were completed and on their way! When the package got home, not only it was really nicely wrapped (that always makes me feel like I'm getting a present, even if it's from myself to me) but left me speecheless on well made, well stitched and constructed both the Obi belt and the headband were!

I was so absolutely in love with both things that I decided that:

1.- I needed more things made in that same fabric (I got a custom Meow Kiki dress and a Dolly bag)

2.- I needed more of her headbands! They don't fall off you head (not even when I get my hair straightened) and since the fabric placement is different on both sides of the headband, they're fully reversible and look like a different headband.

The Obi belt looks absolutely gorgeous to give another look at my custom Meow Kiki dress, and it would look perfect also to give some colour to a full black dress, or a combination of black shirt and black pants.

I finally got me another three of her headbands, taking advantage of a combined listing of three headbands she was offering in a her shop a few months later. They are thin headbands, though she also offers thick ones, and I had such a hard time choosing just three from all the gorgeous prints she offers in her shop! Finally chose my three, and once again, custom made for me, in a pair of days sent, and another pair of days, and they're here! Gotta love Royal Mail!

Here you can see all of my headbands & the Obi belt together.

And here you can see a pair of the headbands happily sported by me, both in Spain and India!

All photographs courtesy of Gaurav S.

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!!

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!