Guest Post // James' Vintage Tips - Part 1: Charity Shops

Vintage clothing and paraphernalia has been a love of many people over the years, though in recent years the adoration for it is not only cross generation but cross gender too!
This overwhelming demand for old goods has made now made it widely available within chain-stores, hence raising the price of what is merely second hand goods.

Generally there is more vintage clothing available to women, whereby hoards of attire usually inundates the modest male selection in shops. Let this not deter the males searching for exquisite clobber, there are a few good tips i'm going to share...

Charity Shops:
An obvious one, but if you don the metaphorical monocle while meandering around you may find something of high caliber. Patience is of importance, you cant expect to find something good every time but if you persist you often do. Also, try to ignore any clothing labeling ie: Men/Women, although you may feel a little odd looking through the female racks, you always have an excuse... 'Im looking for a top for my mum, honest!' or something along those lines.

I have realized recently that clothing in a many cases is unisex, high street fashion stores that retail vintage have a labeling system, though I've seen many jackets in males sections what were obviously women's.

So, ignore the system, just go with your instinct, watch out for stitching round the breast area, thats usually a good sign. Even if you buy fashion faux pas, at least it only cost you a couple of pound, or less!

Hints and tips to getting your vintage collection of odds and sods:
1. Strike up a friendship with a worker whom you see regularly (don't get pally with the guy/girl who is on work experience who isn't a permanent member of staff)
2. Once you are on first name terms try to drop a hint of what kind of clothing/item you are generally after.
3. Give them a form of contact, email, phone or telegram (depending on how old fashioned you are)
4. Voila, If something comes in, you will be notified! Hopefully even before they put it/them out on the shop floor!

I've got a good couple of friends who work in one of the charity shops on town, and they are always on the lookout for me, kindly enough. Here are some of my finds from local charity shops...



A burgundy blazer & candy striped short sleeved button down shirt in an unusual colour combination of yellow, orange and baby blue, destined for the beach! Both purchased for under £6.00!


Nautical, fish eye mirror with a brass frame - a wonderful, vintage find at only £4.00!


Vintage peacock coloured 60s coat, dashing with curved lapels and gold buttons (which I might get round to changing for dark blue, velvet buttons!) Bought for £7.00.


A beautiful, almost indian paisley with intricate detailing and unusual colour combinations - well worth taking the time to search out!
Thanks to the girls at She Dressed in Black for letting me share part 1 of my vintage tips, keep a look out for part deux where i'll be sharing another useful insight into expanding your vintage collection on a shoe string.
Cheers, James Fables of History

Guest Post // Chris' Eighties Challenge

Hello, my name is Chris. I've been mentioned on this blog a few times, visiting Twee Towers, enjoying the cocktails and carefully designed buffets.

My main job is as Graphic Designer in the same place with LP. We have fun, doing doodles, making calendars more fun by sticking print outs of celebs on animals, usual stuff. There is some work too. But that is far too boring to discuss. Occasionally Lauren presents me with a challenge, I don't like turning down challenges. Usually starts with "bet you couldn't..." then I end up on some kind of quest. I'd be awesome on the Crystal Maze. I understand a lot of people who read this will be unfamiliar with the popular game show/team building exercise of the early 90s. So, here you go.


This particular challenge was to listen to every single UK number one record since 1980 to the present day. Sounds like fun, really isn't. I hate you Madonna, I hate you. She pops up every couple of years completely different to how she was before. Like a flipping (not allowed to swear) Timelord. Nevertheless I took on this quest, here I shall list the highlights, of which there are few. One thing I will say to give you an insight into how depressing this challenge was. Around 2:15pm on a rainy Wednesday, this comes on. Almost gave up because of this guy.


UK Number one. I don't care if it's Christmas, if that was a real man he has a horrendous disability and needs to be treated with some kind of respect. Like trousers, trousers are the start of respect. He's so drugged up he can only do one expression, you could say that's jolly. Personally, look behind those eyes and that's the look of a crying man. "Blobby blobby blobby" roughly translates to "please, I can't take this anymore, just give me some pants." That bit when he tried to do all the maths with Carol Voderman then just blobbied out. Makes me sick.

The UK has produced some amazing music over the course of forever and those little chunks of good stuff are what kept me in the game. 1980 was when Ashes to Ashes got to number one. I love Bowie, who doesn't love Bowie, or doing a Bowie impression, you just have to sound as if you're always on the edge of a cliff, bit of a wobble but I'm ok! I could show you Ashes to Ashes, but I won't. Here's Flight of The Conchords.


The early 80s was actually alright, Blondie was there, The Specials released Ghost Town, I enjoyed that. In '82 The Jam were at number one with Beat Surrender. All is good in popsville. I can put up with Kajagoogoo. I'm a reasonable man. By 83' Billy Joel was at number one with Uptown Girl. That's a proper wedding song. I love a good wedding, so when a song like that comes on, I'll be on the dancefloor, in my head it's like the video, but in reality the Bridesmaids really aren't interested in my shoulder shuffle.

"That pint isn't a wrench....you're not Billy Joel and this isn't a Kwik Fit" :(

85' we all got a bit power ballad, Foreigner, Jennifer Rush. I wasn't born in 1985 but I'm pretty sure everybody looked out of rainy windows, thinking about lost loves. Bring on 86', Europe, The Final Countdown…

"We're heading for Venus and still we stand tall! Cos maybe they've seen us!!"

I can't decipher this line. Who's seen who? Why are we going to Venus, I thought we were still counting down? Who knows.

I realise I've missed out loads of stuff. But you know, it's a decade, and I'm only doing things that went to number one. I can't keep up with everything, just following the tunes. Sorry Spandau Ballet.


'88! Year of my birth. Belinda Carlisle was number one in January with "Heaven Is A Place On Earth" I'm glad that song was number one when I was born. It's an 80s anthem. Sorry to all the people who had to be born with Orinoco Flow by Enya as their birthday song in '88. Unless of course they are Elves off of Lord of the Rings, then they might enjoy that. I bet Elves love Enya.

Ha, we're imposing a new rule... one must always end a post with a picture of an elf. Thanks for a great post Chris!

Much love,
L&R xx

Reels of Cotton & a bundle of nerves...

Ahh, does anyone else find it so daunting to make a definitive start on projects that you have been dreaming up for so long? It's time to finally make a start on our first girly Spring/Summer collection of attire and we've got to admit, we're starting to bite our nails a little bit.

The ideas come thick and fast...one of our first nights living in Twee Towers we stayed up to the early hours bouncing around ideas and we've been working on them ever since. We set ourselves an objective to start the project this month, and we've certaintly organised, prepped and re-organised enough to allow us to start but when it comes to the actual cutting and sewing of fabric, the deadline has been pushed back... until the first lot of fabric arrives... until the second lot of fabric arrives... "wait, we can't start yet... we don't have zips!"

We've launched ourselves head first into everything else, our sewing school projects (making the cutest DIY fancypants & our take on patchwork chevron cushions), the blog itself materialised after a couple of hard-working weeks planning (and the help of our fab designer Zoe!) but with our dress collection, we've been so much more precious with it! So, tomorrow is THE DAY! The day that fabric meets scissors and catches up with our old friend the sewing machine. If you see either of us procastinating on twitter, watching this on repeat, debating the difference between arial and helvetica or anything else we might try and do instead, please feel free to shout! And hopefully, we'll have something pretty to share with you soon :)

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Nom, we want pistachio green sewing machines!

Sooooo that we've got absolutely no more excuses not to crack on with getting the collection made, we have the most wonderful collection of guest posts lined up for you in the coming week . Kicking off this week, our lovely friend Chris will be sharing a hilarious insight into a musical challenge he was set, whilst James will be contributing some really useful tips for charity & vintage shopping! As well as all that, we'll also have some super fab guest posts from a host of our favouritist bloggers and friends! We treat you well here at Twee Towers ;)

So please excuse us whilst we hibernate in our beautiful little studio for the week and we'll be right back with our usual features and some exciting sewing school projects for you to try to!

Anyway, it's the weekend, go and enjoy yourself kitty cats!

Much love,
L&R xx

Mini DIY // Wizard Statues

Hey Sweets,

We'd like to introduce you to two charming new additions to our household...







When we found the above kit in a local shop, we just HAD to buy it... Making our lovely magical busts was such fun, especially with a little She Dressed in Black customisation at the end...







Mix the plaster according to instructions and fill the molds...





And then you will have two rather beautiful mini statues...





Paint them up all pretty, gold befitting of a hero like severus... Voldy we decided needed a fresh new look, something to soften his intimidating demeanor a little perhaps...






A quick doddle with a felt tip and voila. Doesn't be look dashing?



Finally, finishing Severus up with some of the left over fabric from the He Dressed in Black collection... and there we have some pretty special additions to Twee Towers.
Thinking of reusing the molds to make some fun Easter chocolates too! You can get the kits from amazon, but shop around as we picked ours up for just £4!

Much love,
R&L xx