The story of Little BU

We asked Patricia Haimes, founder of Little BU nail polish to tell us a bit about what inspires her, what her typical day looks like and a few of her favourite things.  

What inspired you to start Little BU?

As a true city girl growing up in New York, manis and pedis were always a weekly ritual to relax and catch up with friends. On one occasion, I started to realize there was an influx of sweet girls having their nails painted with traditional nail salon polishes. Their faces would light up when their colour was applied, and I thought I could replicate this experience with a safe, non-toxic alternative that also offered them lots of fun and trendy colours.

What's a day in the life of Little BU?

As a new mum I’ve learned how to organize my personal and professional life so I can enjoy both. On a typical day, I’m greeted by my son’s beautiful smile at 7:00am and I get him ready for his day. By 8:30am I’m already working until I take a break to exercise and clear my mind to manage stress. The day takes many turns but there are typically vendor meetings to review the latest product developments, sales calls to secure retail outlets and creative meetings to brainstorm new ideas. By the end of the day I make sure I have some special time with Grayson before he goes to bed. Then I do a bit more work in the evening.

What's your favourite Little BU nail polish colour?

I love Little BU in Sofia, a rich purple with a touch of magenta shimmer, which is a part of the debut collection. I also have a soft spot for it because it was named after my eldest niece! 

What's your secret to choosing the colours of polish?

The creation of our Little BU colours is based on the seasonal runway trend reports coupled with instinct. I’ve worked in the beauty industry for over fifteen years and I’ve had a tremendous amount of experience with colour forecasting. However, the most important ingredient to our creation is that each shade has to be reviewed and approved by the girl it’s named after!

What's your favourite thing to do when you're not working?

I’ve always been a kid at heart, and since the birth of my son, Grayson, I’ve been able to tap back into the little girl inside. When I’m not working, just spending time with him playing, exploring and going on adventures is such a pleasure!

What would you have done in another life?

I’m already happily living another life as leaving New York three years ago and moving to London wasn’t on the original life path I had planned! Now I have a life I hadn’t initially dreamt which includes my main focuses: my husband, Grayson, and Little BU. I’m just excited to see how it all further develops!

Little Bu will be providing polishes for our party wear launch party goodie bags and we will be running an online competition with them that weekend to win a 'Little Bu trio' for ilovegorgeous customers. We will let you know more about that very soon... 

Don't forget to book your free tickets to our launch party weekend for you and your gorgeous girl soon as they are going fast. 

Junior Magazine's top picks from our autumn/winter collection

We asked Linda McLean, Fashion Director at the children's style bible Junior Magazine, for her favourites from our new collection and here are some of the pieces she picked out. 

You can see all her top picks in our Junior Loves section.

"ilovegorgeous really come into their own for the Christmas season with all the parties and events that happen. 

Firstly, there are all their gorgeous coats which really make a statement and fur collars to add for great party styling like the red fur collar below.

Every little girl will love these party dresses to dance and twirl round in and will want to be wearing them all the time. The shapes are flowing and the fabrics have shimmer and shine.

The neon pink jeans are also a great buy as neon is one of the top colours for the coming summer season and they're perfect for a more tomboy party girl. I also love the new satchel in pink to accessorise with them."

We are running a competition with Junior Magazine to give away five free subscriptions. All you have to do is post a photo of your gorgeous girl wearing something from our new Autumn collection on our Facebook page by next Saturday 15th September. Five photos will be selected at random to win a free subscription.

If you're not one of the lucky winners, they are also offering all ilovegorgeous customers a special subscription offer of 3 issues for £1.

The inspiration behind our new autumn/winter collection

by Sophie Worthington, ilovegorgeous co-founder

Every time we sit down to design a new collection, Lucy and I come to the table with a hotchpotch of loose ideas and inspirations that will eventually work their way into the collection and become the basis for our themes and colours. We never use trend forecasting, we prefer to just go with the flow of what we are feeling and what we fancy, the things we like doing, seeing, designing and ultimately what we would love to see your gorgeous girls wearing as well as our own…

We started work on autumn/winter 2012 in June 2011. The sun was shining and our last winter collection had been quite muted and subdued. We were loving colour and so we took our first major inspiration from the sights, sounds and colours of the Amazon Rainforest with lovely butterfly and bird prints realized in bright, vibrant colours – hot pink, emerald green, petrol blue and a softly contrasting mothy cream butterfly print.

As well as nature, we’ll often dive into the world of fiction and fantasy for ideas and for this collection it was Alice in Wonderland and the Queen of Hearts. The Queen of Hearts Dress combines a loosely interpreted Alice in Wonderland style dress in a geometric heart print.

Florals are a recurring theme in our collections and we find them in all sorts of wonderful places. This season it was a piece of vintage wallpaper found on Portobello Market and a much-loved Disney film. The tiny flowers that carpet the woodland floor in Bambi were brought to mind when we were creating the Bambi print for pieces including the Pippi and Winter Daisy. We were so taken by this idea that we asked our lovely stylist, Mary, to create a woodland scene for our winter shoot – which she did beautifully, carpeting the floor with twigs and pine and tiny red and white spotted mushrooms and even going so far as to procure an owl, some flying ducks and our very own Bambi. 

Memories always influence our design. The Rae and Julia dress (named after Lucy’s parents) was inspired by a 1970’s dress that Lucy recalls her mother wearing (her mother, Julia, is pictured on the left). The Ken Market Dress is based on our memories of working in Kensington Market as jobbing students in the early 80’s and the kaftan style dresses that were so popular back then. The Sid Jumper, Nancy Skirt and Chelsea Dress were all inspired by the gorgeous and glamorous Debbie Harry and NYC in the early 1980’s. The Oscar Dress came about because we wanted to design a proper red carpet dress and the 4.46 Dress was so named because that is exactly the time that it was when we finished working on the dress and needed to give it a name…

We like to think that every collection we work on is eclectic, diverse and interesting. We love what we do, we love the new collection and we hope that you will love it to…

A fabulous holiday project

© Rachael Glanfield 2012

Not long ago, a fabulous surprise popped into our inbox. A lovely lady from Australia, Rachael Glanfield, sent us a wonderful set of drawings featuring our entire Spring/Summer '12 collection. Not only had she hand drawn each garment and reproduced the fabrics so beautifully, but had also illustrated a couple of little models who could wear the collection. It whisked us back to our childhood, what little girl didn't love cut-out paper dolls with their tabbed clothes?

Rachael explained that as a child she spent hours designing clothes, recreating historical costumes and carefully making little paper dolls to wear her creations. And she gave us some advice on how to make the project successful: "What we always did with the figures themselves, was cut them out loosely as far from the outlines as possible, glue them to a thin sheet of cardboard (usually the cover of an old exercise book), then cut them out properly when they dried and make a stand for them from plasticine, blu-tack or just by clipping a spring clothes peg to the side of the base so they stood up."

We were amazed and thrilled to see such wonderful drawings - we're sure you will be too! Click on the link below to download a document to print out on standard A4 printer paper. And have fun! Download the full set by clicking here...

A summer of fabulous family festivals

Coral Festival Dress, reduced to £58

Festival time is upon us! There is a whole host of family fun on offer at this year's festivals. From the ultimate family friendly fest at Camp Bestival, 26-29th July at Lulworth Castle in Dorset to smaller, local festivals like Deer Shed in North Yorkshire, 20-22 July. Among our favourites to recommend this summer:
Latitude at Henham Park close to glorious Southwold in Suffolk, 12-15 July
Port Eliot  in Cornwall with its eclectic mix of music and culture, 19-22 July
Just So festival, 17-19 August, masses of fun to be had in this award-winning festival in Cheshire.





Festival Kidz is a great site to find out all about the season, there are so many festivals to choose from - read review, enter competitions, read guest blogs and even buy essential festival gear.

Check out our sale for some great savings on groovy festival wear:

Mini Mallow skirt reduced to £35.50, Palm jumper reduced to £34.50

Goa Print Festival Dress reduced to £58

Goa print Pom Pom Headband - reduced to £7

Plimsolls, £25 (not in sale)

Red Rose head dress, £15

Return to the circus... and read this book!

Remember our Giffords Circus competition in May? Victoria Hunter won a family ticket with her winning caption and had a wonderful time at the circus on 1st June. She sent us these fab pictures of their exciting time...

And while we're talking of the circus - can we recommend a wonderful book? The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. We guarantee by the time you to read the 'Anticipation' at the start of the book you'll be completely enchanted!

And finally - did you know our summer sale has started? Visit our website to take advantage of some great seasonal savings.

Is your girl a Daddy's Girl?

This Sunday is Father's Day, and what better way to say "I Love You Daddy" than with a hand-made card or gift.

A great source of crafty ideas, clip art and templates, MarthaStewart.com has lots to offer for Father's Day. Have a look at some of our favourites...

Cufflink card

Spinning picture card

And why not take a look at these fab ideas?
Father's Day Card
Printable Daddy's Girl button badges
Retro Father's Day printable labels

Father's Day button card

All pictures thanks to MarthaStewart.com