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Hello my little darlings! This article could’ve also been called “from me to me”, since it’s possible to give gifts to yourself too, even in this time of crazy weather. So yes, I’ve been talking about the weather a lot lately but I’m convinced that my mood is directly correlated to the weatherman. As soon as a ray of sunshine peeks out between two hail storms, I glue my nose to the window, literally blinded by the intense light, I’m happy, although I can’t see much but I don’t care. Truly addicted to UVs...

In current news, next Sunday is the celebration of love, unless you live in a cave, you can’t miss it... Even if I know it’s just a commercial holiday aiming to liquidate stores’ stocks of ‘Sweethearts’ between Christmas and Easter, I love February 14th. It’s nice to say we love each other and give each other a pair of pink fluffy handcuffs and take care of the relationship we’ve neglected the rest of the year. People are so sarcastic today! No but seriously, I really like Valentine’s day, I don’t quite know why, but I really like the idea of tacky stuff being tolerated for the day: pink, red, listening to “La vie en rose”, wearing frilly underwear, eating ginger, whispering sweet nothings... I like to do that the rest of the year but I don’t know, I love going all the way for a day, a little like Mother’s Day.

I love my mother every day of the year but it’s a given that everyone must declare their love for their mom once a year. And even if she says she doesn’t care, she loves getting bouquets of flowers and macaroni necklaces. So we might as well do the same for our significant others... oh you’re single? Same thing, celebrate yourself, glory be to you, give yourself some presents, go out with friends, and you can be in love with your friends too... Sunday, treat yourself! I don’t remember where, but I read something great: “in a relationship with being single, until love do we part”... Anyways, February 14th is the day of love.

So today I’d like to give a second life to some Wear Lemonade boxes by making a Valentine’s Lemonade gift box. You just have to download the files to customise it, cut it out, and let yourself be guided by Barry White’s suave voice, grab a few markers and color in the drawings on the box! And as for what’s inside, it’s nothing difficult, promise!

• A white mug with a spraypainted ombré effect, the technique is the same as in this tutorial
• A UO lock wrapped in a brown paper box, the tutorial is here
• A disco globe made using a regular globe found here and a disco ball (it’s important for it to have a styrofoam base)
• A book of love poems, Froth on the Daydream, Wuthering Heights or Love Letters to Josephine... take your pick
• A Monoprix candle customised with our sticker to declare your love (huhuhu)
• A special lipstick message on a mirror...
• A mini cactus, to spice things up
• Favor tickets found at Tiger

0. Hugs and kisses, I hope that this year we’ll have at least one sunny afternoon, I’ll take care of the frills!

Hello, darlings! I hope you’re doing well, sewing your Wanda trench coat! As for me, I’ve been feeling down, I’m really missing the sunshine here. These gray Parisian days literally make me want to hibernate. But heads up, after being away for a whole week, I think the sun is coming back to Paris’s sky! It better last, otherwise I’m going to start thinking about moving the Lemonade Studio down South. If you have any tips to re­energize when you’re lacking vitamin D, I’ll take ‘em!

Today I’d like to tell you about Crete, which was the second part of our honeymoon! We stayed for three days near Plaka, Elounda which is a little intro to this magnificent island! We loved the little fishing villages, the really fresh local cuisine, and the peaceful atmosphere all around, a real haven that almost made me want to convert to the “slow life”. But the more I think about it, the more I believe that Greece and it’s surrounding islands are the ideal place for a true vacation because it isn’t too far, there’s only one hour time difference, and it’s really a dream spot to relax and refresh yourself...

We got there with a speed boat from Santorini, it’s really easy to reserve it by internet. I took care of it a couple months ago, in less than two hours we were at Héraklion. There are also domestic flights that go back and forth several times a day but to be completely honest with you, we’re not big fans of heights! So here we were in Crete, which was really different from the little Cycladic islands. It’s barely smaller than Corsica, but it’s still big for an island... So we left the volcanic landscapes of Santorini for the mountains of Crete headed for the Blue Palace, aka paradise on earth alias “never going back to the city”.

It made me smile to read your comments about staying here for your honeymoons when I posted this photo of our room on Instagram. At that moment I knew that we were exactly where we should be! The hotel is huge, there’s even a funicular that goes down to the private pretty gray pebbled beach facing the Spinalonga Peninsula. I had never been to a hotel as incredible as this one, extremely well decorated with a very polite staff. You should check it out!

Even on Wikipedia they say that Spinalonga is the main activity on this part of the island. It was a fortress island built by the venetians in the 16th century and it’s incredible that it’s still in such good shape, I’m not even sure that you could call it remains everything is so well preserved. You can go to Spinalonga on a little boat that heads out once every hour from the little village of Plaka, right next to the hotel. I suggest going for a walk in the little fishing villages too to get a real feel for the local life, and to go grab a bite of seafood on the Elounda port...

We didn’t really explore the surrounding area, going places was always a bit of an adventure since we didn’t have our driver's license. These three days gave us a marvelous sneak peak and we’d love to go back now that everyone’s told us about the heavenly Balos lagoon and the village of Loutros that was just next to the place we were staying!

Here are a few treasures from Crete that I found in a tiny shell shop in Elounda! If you have any recommendations for Crete, please share them in the comment section! I’ll let you go, I’ll be back next week to write about the end of this trip with a special article on Athens! Until then, see you tomorrow!

Hello to all you little lemons! First of all, wow! What a nice welcome for this new collection, it really warmed our hearts! We were questioning a lot of things these past few days but that’s the way we work, and it’s difficult to imagine doing it differently, so it’s great to read such positive feedback! This year we’ll always launch new items in two rounds, since in the end we have so much to tell you, I thought it would be best for everyone and make the fun last!

So get out your sewing machines, the flowy Wanda trench coat is here! This model isn’t particularly difficult, it’s like the Nina except it uses a lot of fabric. I mean, it’s not always easy to handle so much fabric for your first sewing project, but that’s the only bad thing! It’s a great piece to work on and the results show very quickly! There’s no lining but only some bias, meters of bias... the reason why there isn’t a lining is so that your trench coat has a very loose, stylish look, but this doesn’t mean that the interior finishings should be forgotten! Polish off the insides of your trench with colors or motifs so that each time you wear it will be a party! The wait is over, here’s this new year’s step­by­step, remastered video!

Here are several things about this pattern:

• You can buy the sewing pattern in its beautiful packaging with the instructions booklet and its little tag here for 14,90 euros.
• You can download the PDF version of the pattern for 2,99 euros with the sewing booklet now included! Take a look here to see the page layout. The pattern can be printed on A4 or US letter size paper.
• The difficulty level of this pattern is: “don’t worry, be happy”, you won’t be alone, I promise
• For this trench coat, plan on using 3,5m (for the biggest sizes) of fabric that’s 1m40 wide (the classic width for a bolt of fabric). A little bit of thermo binding interfacing for the four parts of the collar. We suggest you make this coat with cotton gabardine or a heavy crepe fabric, or wool for the end­of­winter weather or even in a light canvas denim fabric.
• Lots of bias, have fun choosing something that contrasts with the fabric!
• A little reminder, because it’s always good to take note: in all the Wear Lemonade patterns, the sewing value is included in the pattern, and the value is: one centimeter!
• And if you’re having a problem, please don’t hesitate to write Laure, the queen of patterns at l​aure@makemylemonade.com

 

And like at home, we haven’t stopped wanting to perfect things all the time, we’re thinking of how to improve our sewing booklet, so if you have any comments, now’s the moment to tell us everything because it’s also for you, behind your computers and sewing machines, who are doing all the work! Starting next month I think you’ll be seeing some big surprises on the site, especially for those that love sewing... hugs and kisses, let us know what you think! Translated by Whitney Bolin

t’s here! Today the new Wear Lemonade collection is available for pre­order! This month, as we were saying yesterday, we want to do things differently. For this collection, we’ve decided to make it available for pre­order for 15 days in order to perfect our production process and to better meet your needs, because yes, we now size up to XL! This is a big step for us, even if it should seem normal to clothe all shapes and sizes, we’re a small business and any changes can be a huge mountain to climb! So you can now order* starting today and get in two weeks your trench coat, sweatshirt, or scarf (or go crazy and get all three) in your mail box, perfect for the upcoming warmer weather! This is a very special event since these are the pieces that will define our production for the rest of the year.

So today is the moment to adopt the Wanda trench coat, the Polka sweatshirt and the Dalida scarf! Oh yes, three different items! Never fear, you aficionados of DIY, the Wanda pattern will be online tomorrow at noon, the pattern packaging, the downloadable PDF, and the step­by­step video! I’ll start by introducing you to the Wanda trench coat. We designed it following our craziest dreams, because it’s been awhile since we’ve been looking for the perfect fit for a good, flowy basic in vibrant colors. You know how much I love blue, but I wanted to take a risk with a beautiful, audacious, deep red: our “bouche mordue” red. I’m a fan of heavy fabric, that makes a sound when you put it on and I love its long (but not too long) length (all you petite sizes out there know what I’m talking about). It has a shawl collar and is fully lined with a matching bias. It’s made in Lyocell and cotton, a mix that you may know as Tencel. It’s a very soft and flowy natural material. If it gets wadded up in your suitcase, just hang it up for a few hours and it will be good as new. What more could you ask for?

And then the Dalida... we’ve been wanting our own scarf for a while, but not just any scarf: we wanted it made out of the best materials and most of all to be XXL, because as you know, we think big, so it’s a silk 140cm x 140cm square! In an exclusive print pattern on a silk selected with care. This last little item is soft and light as a feather, and will help you with even bolder hair styles (there maybe some tutorials coming up?) but it could also be worn around your waist to knot your Wanda trench coat...

To sum it up:

Hello my lemons! The time has come, tomorrow part of the collection will be available for preorder on the Wear Lemonade e­shop! I obviously can’t keep it a secret anymore, I want to talk to you about this collection that’s so special to me, to us. It’s the first collection of the year and because of that we want to do things differently. For this “Can’t take my eyes off you”collection, we wanted to choose noble, soft, beautiful materials. To really focus on the fits and details in order to provide different clothing that you can’t find elsewhere, that you know where they come from and how they were made.

Thinking about it, I realize that I’ve never told you: we work directly with our manufacturers, there isn’t a middle man between the hands and hearts that create the design and you that wear them... Well, yes, we still are actively taking part, taking care of photos, quality control, trying the products and preparing your orders. Cutting out the middle man is also the reason why we can offer you different styles, that aren’t found everywhere, inexpensively, because between us and you clothes, no one charges the price on the tags. Today we are, and plan on staying, the only distributor of Wear Lemonade.

Why am I telling you this? Because this year, we only want to work with the best materials and to select only the fabrics that we absolutely love. So that when you hold them at home, you’re happy. Of course, it will have an influence on the price but once again, I think it’s important to keep in mind that we aren’t textile industry giants and that in addition to charging fair prices, we carefully choose the materials used and that conditions in which your clothes are made.

Even if we’re like a little fish in this industry’s big pond, I’m positive we can inspire changes. I think it’s very complicated to make 100% Green fashion, because as real lovers of “Fashion” at the Lemonade Studio, there are materials that we love but are very difficult to trace and check up on their origins. Even if we use organic cotton, the carbon footprint to transport it to our factories would be huge, so unfortunately I’m afraid that things aren’t always perfect AND affordable. They will nevertheless still be made with love through a process the most fair possible, for you as well as our partners.

This January we went as a lemon delegation to Macedonia and Portugal, to check up on our productions and meet the makers of your clothes. Our factories were recommended to us and accepted to be our partners because our productions are made in very limited series. But I’m convinced that our models are fun for them! It really was an incredible experience to meet these people, to see the family business with Rudy and their children, Andrej, Vladimir, Persida and Tiago, Anna, Marlien and of course all the men and women that make it possible.

Here’s a sneak peek of the new collection and the pieces that will soon be up on the e­shop! I’d like to thank Pauline Darley for continually accompanying us on photo shoots, it always makes our day! Thanks to Nelly from Make My Beauty and Patrice Delaroche from l’atelier 21 for having done up the lovely Anne Lise. Thank you, Olitax for this amazing video, and for his aerial bravery. Thanks, Rudy, for being our guide and thanks, Tiago and Anna, for your warm welcome. And a big thanks goes to Laure for her perseverance. A big thanks to The Nodz for the music and to Made.com for the rug!

Hello my darlings! It’s been a crazy race against the clock, I can’t believe all the things we’ve gotten done in such a short amount of time! This Saturday, the new Wear Lemonade collection will be released and I think the Lemonade Studio never before been so proud and happy! I won’t give anything else away, I’ll tell you more about each item tomorrow, with a detailed behind the scenes ‘making­of’ and the official collection photos! I’m also here to tell you the news: January, Saturday 30th, the Wanda trench coat, the Polka sweatshirt and the silk Dalida scarf will be online at www.wearlemonade.com​ at 12 o’clock sharp! I’m stressed out like the night before the first day of school and I can’t wait to tell you about it tomorrow, the process, behind the scenes, and I can’t wait for Saturday to show off more of the Wanda trench coat! Hugs and kisses, save the date!

Hello my little lemons! As promised, here’s the entire abc’s t​hat we made for the Etsy training program I was telling you about earlier this month! We had a lot of fun making up this alphabet! Here’s just a quick peek since we’ve posted all these letters over the past seven days on Instagram. But as we know you don’t all have Instagram, I wanted to show you the final product here! If you would like to take a look at all the letters one by one, check out our Instagram account and click on each letter to read all the definitions and mantras that inspire one’s hectic life as their own boss. I would like to use this post to thank Lemonade Studio’s Charlotte and Olitax for their patience, their expert eyes and hands, for going along with me despite my increasingly twisted ideas... Thank you to Billy and Nadir for their “Q” made out of concrete, and for helping us out with the “J” and “C” which were a little hard. Thanks to Alexandra B, my sweet friend for her craziness and help will our letters “L” and “O” in modeling clay. And a big thanks to darling Noémie from Radioooo for the delicate “B”! And for your dirty minds when it comes to the “T”... Hugs and kisses, see you tomorrow!

Happy Wednesday, darlings! So today I’d like to show you how to make DIY hair bun jewelry! You might say that we won’t stop at anything... I’m a huge fan of alternative jewelry, in thin, delicate metals in a minimal style. I admit that lately I’ve surprised myself, doodling earrings and other jewelry in the corners of my notebooks, I miss designing jewelry! I think there may be some upcoming jeweled DIYs!

More than anything, I love putting things in my hair... I just realised that six out of seven days of the week, I wear a bun high on my head! Why not make it a jewelry bun! To your pliers and scissors, have fun and don’t forget to share your photos with us!

To start, cut all your leaves out of the brass paper. For their form, imagine two leaves facing each other, like a reflection, leaving a good 0,5cm seam between them.

Go ahead and cut out about thirty leaves, of different sizes. We didn’t make up a pattern for them since they don’t have to be identical, diversity is good my friends! Now you can go ahead and emboss the leaves with a pencil if you like, as if you were drawing the leaf’s veins.

Now take the handle of the hole punch or pencil and gently roll the leaves around it to give it a nice curve.

With the help of your punch, make a hole at the seam of the two leaves, but not too little nor too big!

Do the same to all the leaves, you’ll need about thirty to make this jewelry. Take your wire and cut off 35cm.

Attach one end of the wire to the base of the bracelet, wrapping it firmly around it with the help of your flat pliers. Slide on the first crimping bead and flatten it with the help of the same pliers, about 2 cm from from the attached end of the wire.

Slide your first leaf on the wire, then another crimping bead, crimp it to block your leaves on the wire.

Continue to do this all over the base frame, forming little bridges every 3⁄4 cm, rolling the wire around the base.

You can continue by going around it several times, with wires of varying thicknesses. You can also slide on little golden beads to make them look like flower buds! Finish it off by tightly wrapping the ends. And Ta­Da!

Hello fellow sewing girls (and boys)! As temperatures are cool right now, here’s a short article on a fiber that’ll be your best friend: wool! So, what is it? It’s none other than the fleece of sheep or another animal. It can be alpaca wool (an animal related to the llama), angora (from a rabbit or an angora goat, not a cat), or even a camel! It’s important to remember that fleece only comes from harvested "hairs”, the animal is not killed, and for sheep it’s even a good thing for them, helping rid them of hair growth (just like when you go to the hairdresser for a trim). These fibers are normally soft and made into a thread that can be knitted, woven or felted. The peculiarity of this material is that it absorbs very little water and in addition to being insulated from the cold, it regulates body heat. How can it be recognized? As always, you can burn it. The smell is not very pleasant, like burnt hair with very black ashes. To the touch, it is fluffy and plush. What does it do? Of course, it is the ideal material for winter. Wool coats and jackets keep you warm and slightly absorb the rain and snow (now, I’m not suggesting you go outside when it’s raining cats and dogs). Very fine and worsted, it makes great suits. It’s naturally slightly elastic, especially when it is not worsted. What weave to choose? As a thread, you can knit it. For weaving, you can make jackets, coats, suits, dresses, skirts ... Pay attention to its name and appearance! A puffy, carded wool will be very easy to work with, perfect for a beginner making a coat. For a much more insulating and waterproof material (for example jackets, skirts, or hats) felted or boiled wool is THE answer. Felted or boiled mean that the fibers are stacked in layers, moistened or steamed, so that they clump together. Once the "mattress" of fibers are dry, the fibers won’t fray or pill. Worsted wool has a very fine and tight weave that’s perfect for suits, or winter dresses, but beware, it’s not at all easy to work with, I recommend it to advanced users. Before you go, some names should be explained:

• Virgin wool means that it is a wool that has not been recycled
• baby wool comes from the first fleece of the animal, often a baby
• Super 80's to 250's (based on the number), it is the fineness of the yarn, the higher the number, the thinner (and more expensive) it is
• Overall, the long fibers are the most popular and most expensive, here are their names: cashmere, angora, alpaca (vicuna).

A couple of last tips for sweaters or coats that collect pills: consider buying a "razor" which will cut the pill off rather than pulling on it which removes the material. Dry clean your clothes, sweaters too, or hand wash using a mild shampoo in cold / warm water and dry flat, without spinning. Keep warm, see you very soon with our new collection! Laure

Hello everyone! Every time I talk hair with you, I feel like it’s a topic that makes crowds go wild. I already told you about all my hair incidents in a previous post: remember (I look like I’m 14 in this picture!). I’ve already done everything possible, or almost everything, and my last mistake was to color my hair twice in a row with a cheap supermarket dye... When it was time to color it again, it fell out, split at the root. So I wasn’t looking too good, like a Chia Pet.

Since then I haven’t dyed my hair much, only with Fred and the number of times that’s happened can be counted on one hand. So I wasn’t really up to doing it myself, at home, where I had several not­so­fun memories in mind. When Casting Crème Gloss asked me to collaborate on a project with them, I was ready to let loose on one condition: that Christophe Robin, the brand’s hairdresser, would show me step by step the joys of coloring your hair at home. And he said: yes! Oh happy day!

Christophe Robin is so nice and such a good teacher who can tell you about DIY coloring better than anyone! I’ll admit... I kind of fell in love with this guy and his openness... I admitted I was hesitant and afraid to choose the wrong color, since I’m far from being a beauty addict, but he picked out a warm color, Chocolat Ganache (reference 525) that brightened my natural color that’s been a little dull this winter. What won me over in more than 20 minutes of setting is the really natural look of this color.

Hallelujah, I think that this has awoken a capillary monster inside of me, I’m trying to be good but I think I already want to change styles for this spring, stay tuned! Translated by Whitney Bolin

Happy Friday darlings! I’m just passing by to say hello, I’m writing you from Portugal with Laure. We’re creating a little ‘making­of’ behind the scenes for the next collection and to take back some prototypes to do a photo shoot this weekend! I can’t wait to show you. I think it’s one of the coolest collections that we’ve come up with so far, I can’t wait for it all to be online! You’ll see, style changes, but I think that we grow up too and we’ve tried to make different difficulty levels available, I think there will be something for everyone!

So today I’d like to show you the “I love Paris” outfit. Okay even if its gloomy out, I wanted to share a “Parisian or Die” look... The other day I went in a Levi’s store and asked for a straight legged jean, for a “Inès de la Fressange” style. They knew exactly what I was talking about... ankles rolled up with a pair of ballet flats, a loose striped shirt, a trench coat and loose, messy hair of course...

Today it’s also a Happy Friday special on hair, don’t raise your eyebrows at me like that! It’s been a while since I haven’t let my hair down, I think that the last time was for my wedding... In these pictures I just had my hair done by Cut By Fred, and I have a brand new color thanks to Casting Crème Gloss, done by the color genius, Christophe Robin. Clash of the titans on my head over here. The dream. Tomorrow I’ll show you the video about it, but until then I won’t say anymore... see you tomorrow!

I’m wearing a H&M striped shirt, a Comptoir des Cotonniers trench coat, Levi’s 501 jeans refitted at Taylor Shop des Champs, a pair of Louboutin flats, a vintage belt, and my hair is colored with Casting Crème Gloss color “525 Chocolat Ganache”.

Happy Wednesday, everyone! Today I’m here to tell you a little about my crazy habits. A few months ago, Tagada contacted me. Now don’t start picturing a big strawberry covered in sugar coming to a meeting at the Lemonade Studio... they asked me what my idea of ‘disconnecting’ was. It’s true that when we eat candy, we get out of control, we go crazy, we crack, we’re 6 years old again... Anyways, I feel like we’re crazy over here to the rest of the world 5 days of 7... so I thought about how I personally turn my brain off. And well go figure, it’s when I’m tidying up and doing something meticulous, my brain goes into almost a meditative state and works on its own. Now you must be thinking that I’m crazy. Oh well, maybe. Instead of working on an urgent project, I’m cleaning up my desk...

I found out that that being meticulous and cleaning up helps make space and helps you be more efficient in the end. A few months ago, I read Marie Kondo’s book “La magie du rangement” (“The Magic of Cleaning”), and well, she’s on a completely different planet, Marie. She urges readers to throw everything out and only keep the essential (even those skis in the buried in the hallway closet) and she suggests only keeping what makes us happy when while touching it. After that, you have to find a place for each object and only surround yourself by things that make you happy... Amen. I did it at my house and I’m telling you, it’s a lot less chaotic, messes are easily fixed, and there aren’t any more inflatable mattresses that might knock you out when opening the closet door. But at the office, that’s another story.

That’s why for this Tagada project, I wanted to create some kind of “mandala/kaleidoscope” for the office. When I’m on all fours on the floor in the process of organizing a box of beads, I forget everything else, this is where I disconnect. Said like that, it seems like a really lame activity, but I promise you that once everything is in its place, everything is already better because it often allows you to find the solutions to your mental blocks and you know exactly what you have.

I stumbled across a great article on this blog that talks about the method of the five “S”s, invented by a famous Japanese car manufacturer. Oh, the Japanese are so smart! Here’s what they said: