If you’ve found this I must have learnt how to correctly load it to my website which is still a work in progress..!

Little Birds has been open nearly 8 months now.. it was this time last year when orders were starting to arrive and I wasn’t able to find a permanent home for my store. It was really difficult to find a space that was affordable and cosy, I couldn’t find it after months of looking, so last year I had two pop up weekends from my house. They were great fun, but I knew in the new year with more deliveries arriving I had to find a proper space.. and here it is!

 

Nice hey?!

Anyone whose been in knows it doesn’t look like this..! This was how it looked when i signed the lease.. 

It’s a old building that needed a lot of love.. thankfully my dad was a builder and my mum is incredible with interior projects so I picked up enough to be able to do the reno. It took around three weeks, luckily I had great help! 

It didn’t take too long before it started to take shape, tho the sawing absolutely terrified me!

The ceiling was for me the hardest part.. three days of looking up whitewashing the pine boards! 

Next up was the wallpaper, the fun part! 

I was amazed at how quickly it changed, with a lot of hard work and a little bit of money it was nearly finished (tho not sure a old building is ever finished!)

The lights are IKEA, the wallpaper Designer's Guild, the floor from a local company called LL Flooring. The rails are all chrome bars from Lowes, cut to size, and then chrome chain to suspend them from the ceiling. A really reasonable way for hanging space, much cheaper than the metal hanging rails!

My logo is designed by a wonderful calligrapher called Betty Soldi, here’s a link to her website, I adore her work and knew I wanted her to design the logo, she’s incredibly talented and a wonderful person.

www.bettysoldi.com

and here’s the sign when it was first up! Now the door has been painted dark blue tho.. 

The store doesn’t look like a traditional store, no big windows to be able to use for display. I wanted typography to be a feature somewhere. In my head I wanted big windows to be able to have messages to passers by as part of the window displays, but that wasn’t to be! So I popped this up on my entry way wall.. one day I hope to have a window for displays, but right now this makes me happy every time I see it.. 

 

I then filled up the inside up pretty quickly,

As you can see! 

It’s been a whirlwind 8 months, a steep learning curve too! I choose every item that comes in, I travel to Europe to bring back brands that are sustainably made, fantastic quality and pieces that I hope you will love and wear for a long time. 

I spent the past 7 years in America with my children (the store is named after them because i used to call them my little birds when they were babies!). I wanted a space where people could come and meet and chat and connect, goodness knows we need that after the past few years.

At times it was super lonely being at home in a new country, I met great friends for sure, but I felt something was missing. For me to come to the store every day and meet wonderful people is a dream come true, the clothing and the lines I carry are important of course, but its really about meeting again. 

I guess it still feels like I’m dreaming a little, but I am really glad I dreamt a little bigger last year and found the perfect home for me. 

Sending love xx