March Meet The Maker

How often do you shop local? 

When was the last time you bought something or availed of a service from a local business? When was the last time you visited the website, Facebook page or Instagram page of a local business? When was the last time you recommended a local business? Are you having to scratch your head and ponder these questions?

OK, so there is no denying that the Internet makes shopping much more accessible and easier to compare prices. I hear a lot of people using the excuse that shopping local is "too expensive" or "harder to find" than buying from a High Street store. Considering most small businesses have their own website these days saying that it is difficult discovering local businesses is just plain laziness. And in addition, if you are handing over your money for something that is hand-made, with many hours of work put in and personal to you, then it's not "too expensive". Believe me, that small business owner will bend over backwards to make sure you receive your item in perfect condition, on time and with a note to say how appreciative they are for your business with them. In my opinion purchasing something from a designer/maker/artist/illustrator/shop owner should be a habit we all should practice every now and again! After all, when was the last time you spoke face to face with the owner of that mega bucks High Street chain and asked their advice on something? There are plenty of reasons why it is worth shopping local and Northern Ireland has some absolutely fantastic small businesses. If I can promote and make other people aware of these businesses right at our doorstep, I damn well will! So enjoy a little snippet of the talent our country has to offer and I hope you check out these excellent artists and designers who I will be chatting about!

So you may have noticed posts popping up on your Instagram feed throughout the month of March with the hashtag #MarchMeetTheMaker. This brilliant hashtag was created by the designer and maker Joanne Hawker in 2016 and stormed Instagram in a huge way! Basically the concept is to tell your small business story and to show the side that people don't usually get to see, to show that small business owners are not all faceless brands and are just normal people creating beautiful things by hand! This hashtag allows us to see the process, hard work and effort that goes on behind the scenes of your favourite local businesses!

So number one on my list of #MarchMeetTheMaker is the red-headed human and owner of Debmon Design! You may recognise some of her work from a previous blog post I wrote way back in 2015. My good friend Debbie started her business designing and making greetings cards in the comfort of her bedroom. Fast forward three years and a whole lot of robots later she now runs her own website and Etsy store. Her creations can be found in shops all over Northern Ireland and she is selling her work worldwide! Her business keeps on growing and growing! I absolutely love all the work Debbie creates and seeing her strive and flourish makes me want to start up my own business one day! I was even privileged enough to become one of her Robots! (See below) I have added links to the images of Debbie's work below so get clicking and discover the world of Debmon Design! 

 

Next on my list of makers who you should definitely be hinting at a loved one to buy your next birthday cake of is Lily Pink Bakery. I first became aware of Lily Pink Bakery many years ago when I visited St Georges Market in Belfast. Claire, who is the owner of the business, has her own home-based bakery located in Belfast and specialises in buttercream celebration cakes. She had her own stall set up every weekend at the market selling the most delicious cupcakes you have ever tasted! A few years later and she was designing and making my wedding cake and she did the most incredible job. I was so happy with her design and of course it tasted beautiful! Having met Claire and corresponded with her over e-mails and messages when deciding on ideas for my wedding cake, it was obvious that Claire knew exactly what I wanted in a wedding cake and she is the most down to earth and nicest girl to speak to. Oh! And she has the cutest dog ever, called Lola! Go follow her on Instagram! Again I have added links to the images below so get clicking! You know you really want that unicorn cake!

The next maker who I only just discovered last year is Emma and she is the owner and founder of Little Daisy Crafts. She specialises in bespoke wedding stationary and her designs are absolutely beautiful! Have a look on her website and you will see how professional and easy it is to browse her gorgeous collections online. Emma also offers a fully custom-made service, catering to all individual needs. And where possible she even hand delivers orders to ensure it arrives at its destination safely. You don't get that very often! If I hadn't have designed my own wedding invitations I would definitely be contacting this lady. Definitely check out Little Daisy Crafts Instagram page and be wowed by Emma's creativity and expertise in wedding stationary! Once again links are below.

 My final #MarchMeetTheMaker is Roberta Marina. Roberta is a self taught maker and specialises in fibre and embroidery. She has her own home-based studio located in Belfast and runs her own Etsy store. I love Roberta's intricate embroidery designs and as you can see below of her designs, not a stitch out of place! Reading all her reviews on Etsy it is no surprise all are positive feedback and her customers clearly were delighted with their pieces of art. Looking at her Instagram page she has definitely perfected the art of a flat-lay which enhances her designs even more! Can you please teach me Roberta?! I will definitely be contacting Roberta for my own personalised embroidery hoop very soon! Get clicking those links!

The Importance of Being: Housebound

Right, let's be honest, we were bound to have heard at least one of these remarks in the past week:

By Jesus it is cold alright

It would cut yee in two

It gave it on the news to be cold

It would skin yee

That's a day for the pub

God of almighty it is a holy tarra

You'd be glad of the coat that day

It is friggin' baltic!

You would think it snowed last week....

Well, the beast from the east reared it's ugly head and caused just a wee bit of havoc on this emerald isle. Supermarkets were littered with people fighting over bread, the battle of the snowmen commenced and an 86 year old lady was having the time of her life sledging down a hill with her grandson. Definitely my highlight of the week! Last week's events could have easily been taken from an episode of Father Ted. Some of us (including myself) were lucky enough to have got a few days off work or school as well! Ah the joys of the snow. 

So, on Thursday and Friday of last week I was housebound. With all this time on my hands and being confined to my house my days usually went like this:

Should I build a snowman?

Am I too old to build a snowman? 

I wish I was building a snowman with those kids outside. 

Eugh! Those kids are stealing the snow off our garden for their snowman.

Am I too old to make snow angels?

Should I go outside and measure how many inches of snow we have?

Meh, only four inches..

Do we have enough food in the house?

I'm down to my last creme egg, can I make it stretch? 

Oh, so-and-so across the road is braving the roads, good luck to him.

And when I got a wee bit bored of the snow...

What would it be like to win the lotto?

I'd definitely book a holiday.

When is my next day off?

I need to light more candles.

Do I need to buy more candles?

Can I watch the whole of Netflix? 

My skin is going to look great after two days of wearing no make-up!

Should I hoover?

Nah.

Should I clean the bathroom?

Nah.

Is it finally time to tackle the messy spare room?

Nah.

I need a cleaner.

I need more storage in this house.

Should I go and build a snowman?

I did eventually decide that I did want to build a snowman and no, I wasn't too old to do so. But as I excitedly ran out into our hallway I slid and fell like a sack of potatoes and consequently have a very large bruise on my hip. So, yep, you guessed it, no snowman was built. 

The treacherous weather was the perfect opportunity to stay indoors and practice some mindfulness and self care. These days we rarely have the time to just sit and read, listen to music or chat to someone with no phone in our hands, distracting ourselves. Our phones are practically glued to our hands. And although our hand-held devices are wonderful for many things, we just need to take a break and breathe from time to time! I'll admit I'm no saint and of course I still had a scroll through Instagram and the odd flick through Twitter. And I may have succumb to some online shopping. I got sucked into the marketing ploy that was the 'snow deals'. Did any of you fall into the trap? Yes, I hang my head in shame. But I am now the owner of a very nice pair of snazzy dungarees.

The great snow of 2018 provided me with the opportunity to re-charge. Who knew the advantages of being housebound for a few days could be so beneficial? Apart from all those thoughts and musings I had that wasted a small amount of my time, the rest was filled with a lot of reading, listening to podcasts, drinking many cups of tea, going for snowy walks, napping and most importantly talking to close family and friends. It's amazing how a bit of snow can bring communities together!

Sunday Style Inspiration

London Fashion Week landed last week and with it came an array of flamboyant street style looks! Personally I prefer browsing the web searching the street looks for some originality and creativity. I feel like the style and the clothes these women wear are much more accessible and real that the looks on the catwalk, and I always love seeking some wardrobe inspiration and discovering the new trends of the season! So this blog post is going to be a very short read. But! I will be throwing quite a few photos into this post as I thought I would dedicate it to being a photo diary of the street style looks that took my interest at fashion week. So enjoy scrolling and maybe you will gain some inspiration for yourself! Oh! And my favourite gal group Haim make an appearance somewhere down there! Did anyone else get tickets to see them play in June?! I'm so excited to see them play live! Have a great week everybody!

Nothing to Wear

To be honest I was struggling this week to come up with a post that was going to be engaging to read and an issue that was something I felt strongly about. But Monday morning came and having wrecked my brain all weekend, when I opened my wardrobe doors the issue in question was basically staring me right in the face. Clothes.

So we all put some sort of garments on our bodies in the morning, women and men alike. We can't really go about our day without having something to wear, even if it is just a pair of Harry Potter pyjamas. The words 'I've got nothing to wear' escape my mouth on a weekly basis, as I'm sure you are all too familiar with. Even the men out there, I know that you know the struggles as well. Luckily I have a work uniform that I wear most days of the week or I would be always battling with my clothes to come up with new outfit ideas. Up until recently I was constantly fighting the urge to buy new clothes all of the time. Social media, in particular, adds massive pressure and a need to always have something new to wear. I will hold my hands up in saying that in the past I would have never wore the same outfit two days in a row. I mean what if someone passes remarks that the exact dress you wore yesterday, you are wearing today. But who actually cares?

As I was dressing myself on that Monday morning I tried on four, yes, FOUR different outfits as I knew I wanted to take a few photos for this blog post. After taking off the tenth piece of clothing and throwing it onto the floor, the red mist started to descend. Most women should be familiar with this red mist when trying to pick something to wear. Oh and a few choice words slipped out as well. But! After 5 minutes of some gentle breathing, I caught myself on. Is this really worth it? So I put on the same pair of boots and jeans I wore in my last blog post (shock horror) and threw on something I liked and not something that I think you might like. After all, the boots cost me £90 and I'm bloody well going to wear them to death. It's sad that, God forbid any bloggers out there wear the same outfit in a blog post!

OK, so I'm sure you are thinking, "Orlagh get off your high horse and stop the preaching." I just want to clarify that I love clothes. I always have. I love following trends. I love scrolling Instagram and seeing how other people put outfits together. I love seeking inspiration from Pinterest. And I love seeing the delivery man coming with my recent clothing purchases. Have we established that I love fashion? My degree was in fashion design for flip sake, so I'm not going to say that I suddenly don't enjoy fashion and not buying clothes. Because I do.

But after listening to a podcast recently called 'Girls with Goals' my perception of fashion and clothing consumption has changed slightly. The episode titled 'Change is coming' discusses ethical fashion and the Repeal the 8th movement, with Aisling Bea and Angela Scanlon; two women I urge you to follow on social media. I'll not ruin the specifics of what is debated in case you want to give it a listen yourself, but it basically outlines how we all need to be more conscientious about our fashion choices.

So some of you may disagree with me when I say that females are the drivers of fashion in this world. I think it's pretty much a given.  Our vast consumption of clothes is a female problem. The amount of female fashion bloggers out there is proof of that. And we don't realise the extent of how clothing is a huge polluter, almost equal to food wastage. In today's age we are so tuned into where our food comes from and how we can help the planet and ourselves by consuming the proper foods. But do we actually take into consideration where our clothes come from? It is predominately other women who make our clothes and we need to question why that Primark jumper costs £7. At university I have sat at a knitting machine hours on end in the comfort of a nice warm room listening to music, taking breaks whenever I like. Somehow I don't think those who are making some of our clothes have that luxury. 

There is almost a snobbery in this country when it comes to buying clothes. A great example is the dilemma faced when attending weddings. Don't look now but the fashion police are out making sure you aren't wearing the same dress you wore a few months ago at Claire's wedding. It's a bit ridiculous. However on the other side of that there is almost this code of honour that we don't spend much money on clothes.We have all uttered the words 'it's from Primark, only cost me a fiver'. We are almost proud of the fact that we purchased such a bargain!

I want to stress that I haven't wrote this blog post to make you feel guilty about how we think about clothing. I am very much guilty of a lot of things discussed here. I wanted to write about something that affects us all, but mainly women, and to try and change our attitudes slightly towards buying clothes. I'm not saying I'm the queen of reusing and recycling my outfits. I'm a massive hoarder. I have four bin bags of clothes in my attic I don't wear to prove that. I'm not saying that we should stop buying clothes, because that would be no fun. I love the buzz of buying something new.  I just wanted to try and bring more awareness to our buying habits. It's taking the time to love the clothes you have bought and wearing them 100 times until that blue sweater is turning a nice shade of grey. It's also about taking the time to be more aware of what other high street brands are trying to do help with this issue.

If there is one thing you take away from reading this, it is not to necessarily change your opinions but to be more aware of this worldwide issue. I hope that this blog post will make you more mindful of your buying habits, specifically when it comes to buying clothes. And maybe you will take some time to discover our countries independent designers.
                 
                                                                                            Orlagh x

I'm Back!

                                                                         Well, hello there. Long time no see.

It might be a little bit of an understatement to say it has been a long time since I typed a few words on this blog. Let's be real here, it's been a ridiculous amount of time since Life NI Style has been in my life! Two years to be exact.Yes, I know! I can't quite believe it myself.

So, OK. I've went over in my head a hundred times how I would begin this blog post or whether I should even get back into blogging. But I'm grabbing the bull by the horns and I'm just going to see where it takes me....again. But before I begin, please forgive me if I am a bit rusty on the writing front. I'm no professional writer.

So two years has passed and holy moly how life has changed in that small amount of time. I started this blog in 2015. I was 23, still living with my parents, working in New Look part-time and in a relationship with my boyfriend. Fast-forward to 2018 and I have now flew the nest! I am now 26, working full-time in an interior business and I'm married to my then boyfriend. I'm still finding it weird to say that I have a husband. I'm an actual wife for flip sake!

As I write on my sofa on this Tuesday evening, with 'Friends' on Netflix in the background (what a wonderful time to be alive), I think about how blogging has changed over the years. Even back in 2015, especially in Northern Ireland, the term 'blogging' was something that was not really regarded of as being a serious job and a source of income but instead, more of a hobby or past-time. Well, how times have changed. I'm not even going to get started on my own views of how blogging has changed right now. I'll leave that for another blog post down the line.

So this is me, Orlagh Laverty (a Murdoch no more) giving this "blogging" thing another go. Life NI Style, Take Two, you might say. I'm going to try and be as genuine as I possibly can. I'm going to write about the topics that interest me, and some of you might not like it but hopefully a lot of you will! This time I'm not going to apologise if I haven't wrote a blog post in a month because, let's be honest, there's more things to worry about. I'm not going to be annoyed if a photo doesn't look Instagram perfect because no matter how much you comb the shit out of your fringe, your bangs will not play ball. Shout out to the fringe people out there! I feel your pain.

I really hope you all enjoy reading what I have to say and maybe you will join in on the conversation. Just be nice because no-one likes a smart ass.

 Here's to a brand new start in the blogosphere....again.

Orlagh x