The Canteen Nailsworth

The other day I took my mum for a manicure, it was a little bit of a late birthday present becuase we've both been too busy to fit it in. Turns out it was the first manicure she'd ever had, so I'm really pleased I got to take her. Part way through the lovely lady at No 6 Beauty said she thought we were really close, which was really sweet.

It turns out that at about 4:30 on a Friday afternoon it's quite hard to find somewhere to get coffee and cake anywhere, Hobbs House (run by TV's Fabulous Baker Boys) was shut, we walked over to Williams Kitchen and saw my lovely and talented chef friend Wesley Birch (who has all sorts of exciting ventures coming up), directed us to The Canteen, as Williams was shutting for the day....and it was such a good call on his part!

We had the white chocolate and macadamia nut brownie to share and the place looked like this....

I think you might see this place again....it is super cute and a great place to shoot!

A R T F L E A

I live in a lovely little town called Stroud, it's extremely pretty, set at the bottom of the Cotswolds or the top of the West Country (it's not really west country but around here we like to pretend it is so we have an excuse for excessive cider consumption). Despite how rural the place is, it also has fantastic links to Bristol, London, Birmingham etc and all sorts of other exciting places. Because of this there's a wealth of art, and art related events and such here. One of which is the Site Festival, this combines open studios, talks, exhibitions, events and such.

Picture thanks to www.cotswolds.info

Lady K Loves has been asked to take part in Art Flea a 2 day event with an artistic sale/summer fair on Saturday 18th and a Art Booty on the Sunday, with sellers selling quality items rather than standard car book tat.

The idea is you have a stand and sell and show of your self in a more inventive way than a normal fair, so you provide items to buy and are a part of the entertainment too.

So what is Lady K Loves doing.....? Well me and a team of beauties will be a in attendance in a sort of fashion show with a very fun twist....Part of me really want's to tell and you and part of me know's that it's far more fun to give you a bit of a tease, not tell you and just show you pictures afterwards. So below are a few clues, I'd love to hear what you think it might be!

Pleasentville

Pleasant isn’t a good enough word for it! This is a lovely little indie film from the late 90’s, with a very sweet looking Reece Weatherspoon (Jennifer) and super young looking Toby Miguire (David). They’re twin brother and sister, she’s the coolest in the school and he couldn’t be more of a nerd. Sucked into his favorite TV show, they’re transported back in time to an idealized 50’s small town called Pleasantville, where everything is black and white, and peachy perfect. Until Jessie hits town. 90s girl cool is not the same as 50s perfect and her bad girl ways start to spread……as they do, the world becomes technicolour. It becomes increasingly hard to hide their knowledge of the outside world.

  The cinimatorgraphy is beautiful, the clothes are stunning and it has some really beautiful moments to it.

If you get the chance to watch it, do and if you don’t make it happen!

Model Behaviour

Now, I don't want this to come across as mean, unnecessary, rude or ungrateful. I get to work with some wonderful, fun and beautiful models via Lady K Loves. Photoshoot are most definitely one of the high lights of my job, that and seeing people out and about wearing some LKL. I also use facebook a lot, (potentially an unhealthy amount, I work by my self for the most part of the day in the studio, facebook can provide company and a place for advice from other friends in the industry.) I also really like the new feature where you can send a message to a fan page, it's helped fan pages be able to interact more with the fans......

However, personally I don't think it is the place to approach a company you would like to model with, certainly not as the first contact. I've had a few too many models recently sending me what comes across as a hastily dashed out facebook message, requesting I take a look at their page and that they'd love to work with Lady K Loves. It's even less convincing when I can see they've only just 'fanned' the page.

So, rather get all bitter and twisted over it, here's my advice to anyone wanting to model for Lady K Loves or any other business on the 'scene'

1. Make first contact via professional e-mail as stated on the web site. This comes across as so much more professional. You are applying for a job, be it shooting for clothes, a loan of clothing, shoot for pictures, etc how would you approach any other potential new job?  Do the same here please.

2. Check and double check. Make sure everything in your e-mail makes sense, there are no spelling mistakes, the grammar is correct, what you've written is to the point. There are a lot of up and coming new models out there after work, make sure you stand out in the right way, rather than being one who gets instantly dumped in the bin becuase you don't bother to use a capital for i. Yes, I know we're considering you for your appearance in photographs, but I will refuse to work with you if you can't manage to hold down the shift key while typing, it's that simple. (I'd also like to reiterate I'm dyslexic here. My spelling is not always as good as it should be, but I write and double check things, and when it's really important get my mum to check it, becuase she's really good at that sort of thing).

4. Hit the right tone. 'Hiya doll! I <3 your brand and would love to model for you! i've done a couple of shoots.... :) ' ending with kisses and including emoticons are a big fat NO for me. When you know me sure....once we've worked together a few times and have a friendship I love that sort of thing. But please, please, not when you're sending something which is supposed to give me a good representation of your ability to represent my company.

5. Include pictures. But only about 3, make sure they are relevant in terms of style. What does the company do? What do their pictures on their site or facebook page look like? Try to send things which have the right look and feel. Remember this is an introduction, so a flavour and taste of what you offer is what is necessary here. I would prefer to see a beauty shot, full body shot and something which helps give an idea of what you either love doing, or do which works for my company.

6. Your stats. This is so important, the best introductions I've had have this information in and as such they are the people I will look at using. How tall are you? What shoe, dress, bra size are you? Sorry if that feels a little personal but I'm not looking at you like a hungry boy thinking you're some prime girl steak! I'm thinking, 'what size in my clothes does she wear? what's her figure like? I know I have someone I'm working with who is slim/hippy/curvy/miniature/Amazonian, and I need someone who is the opposite right now'

7. Location and availability. Where do you live? Where can you get to? How can you get there? Do you work week days or weekends? Can you switch your day's off around? Take holiday? Because if you're in Ireland and are asking a small company in Italy if you can shoot with them that's a bit of a cost to the company before even taking a bunt on you. Particularly if you work a 9 - 5 job and can't really take a day off here or there and then want them to work the weekend, but they do shows and festivals over the weekend you could accidentally lead them on a bit and create a bad name for your self.

8. Terms. Do you want paying? If so how much? Is travel and travel time included in that? Will you shoot for clothes/shoes/underwear/accessories/pictures/puppies/fairy dust/whatever. Because if they're going to use you over other people they have worked with before they need to know what they're getting and what they're giving.

Don't be discouraged if you don't hear back, some people and companies have the girls they work with and aren't looking for more, some scott out girls at shows or events, some run competitions, some use 'normal' models. It's not the end of the world becuase there will be someone out there who is interested if you keep putting your self forward to a variety of things. Be polite and gracious, nothing is better than a girl who's just really lovely, that ALWAYS makes me want to shoot with them more/again/at some point.

And that is probably it, rant over.......If you've taken offence to this I am sorry, but it does drive me crazy!

Adding a lot of cheer!

So, we're into April, after a brief spell of maybe 2 - 3 day's I've just walked to work in gentle snow again.....AGAIN! It's not right! I'm bored of being cold, wearing big coats has lost it's glamour and appeal and I'm sat here with my coffee pouting.

For a couple of other reasons it's been a bit of a flop of a week too. So today I followed my rules outlined here..... to add a little cheer to my day. Though in jeans and not a skirt because I just love trousers. But it's not worked. I'm still all lame feeling. So here is a little addition to the previous post.

1. Buy or wear new underwear. Personally I tend to pick up a few little bits here and there in the sale, or just check the sale rail frequently for precisely this reason. So when I'm having a down day, I can wear new pants, and feel much better. Wearing nice underwear is your own little secret, unless you want to share it with someone. 

 

Photo - Photoshot Live

2. Drink coffee - Again this is as daily as red lipstick for me, but it works, I love it. If you're dehydrated alternate between water and coffee....be it by the glass or by the mouthful.I'd think tea could do the same, I don't know becuase I don't drink it, but a warm caffine hit can work wonders. 

3. Music - Once Upon a time I wasn't very happy, for a long time. My life was like looking in the window or maybe more accurately, looking out of the window. At this point I really couldn't hear music properly, but sometimes it's just that you need something new to listen too....Spotify can be great at helping you find new music, as can youtube, facebook groups and pages often share music, there's things like soundcloud, mixcloud and no doubt a whole list of places to share music, or you could just ask one of your friends, get them to lend you their new favourite cd, click on that link and see if giving it 3 minuets of your life helps you find something new to love and brighten up your day.

4. Exercise - preferably to music, and possibly after drinking a little coffee! 5 - 10 minuets dancing, get your self outside and have a walk, even hoovering (earphones in) can help. Get those endorphins racing around your body.

5. Look on the brightside - Yeah you've got loads of reasons to feel down and all sad and like the world sucks and hates you. But what's good? What have you achieved in the last week, month, 3 months, whatever, What is better than it was this time later year? Concentrate on that, make a list, re-read it, make it pink, green, glitter,, whatever you love. 

6. Watch something funny - In my household, it's You've Been Framed, pretty rubbish, yet clips of cats falling in to baths, babies punching daddy, people falling over will make you laugh, I promise! 

This clip is from adventure time, it's a fire wolf pub being looked after by a snow creature, who's feeding it milk, from a cow, everytime I think about this I crack up!

So, not quite instant fixes, but hopefully, you've had a dance about to Mickey and Syliva, laughed at a fire wolf pup and are about to put the kettle on and sit down and make a list of why life is awesome! GO YOU!