Hej everybody!
It feels like this has been taking forever (which is probably true) but I’m finally ready to show you my new web shop!
As a lot of you probably know I used to have two Etsy shops that I closed when we left Sweden for Los Angeles in 2015. One for my jewelry and one for my photography. I couldn't keep them open when I didn't have all my things with me, and it was such a new adventure that demanded my entire focus.
Since we are staying here for the unforeseeable future I wanted to get my work going again, but I wasn't completely happy with how I used to handle my shops and everything about them. I needed to feel excited about a possible return to my creative work, and that has been tough. I needed to start anew.

So I have been thinking and planning and thinking and procrastinating and planning.

And this is what I’ve come up with:

A brand new shop for all my creative work! I can’t keep them separate because they tend to mash together in different ways.
I also want to expand my ideas for my art and I just felt constrained by the two previous shops.
So this is the place for everything I create without any other rules than that it has to be made by me.
I’m moving from Etsy to Big Cartel- a fresh start and a place to make my own.

So let’s take a peek at what you can find in my shop right at this moment!

My book Alone in LA. A self portrait magazine style book, filled with photos taken all over (and around) LA during the year that Lights Out went from Short to Feature. I was alone a lot and decided to discover LA through walking and the self timer on my phone. Shop and read more about it over here .

A whole bunch of prints from Alone in LA, printed on hard paper for an affordable and easy way to get some art in your home. See all of them in my shop.

And my jewelry!
So far I've got a few cage necklaces, some splinter pendants and earrings. More will be added soon!

All my jewelry is made by me, completely by hand without any templates or tools making every single piece completely unique! They really are pieces of art to wear on your body.

Shop jewelry here.

And then I've got a few of my best art photographs. There's more of these to come, as well. They are more expensive since they're taken with my Nikon, printed on wonderful Kodak paper and, most importantly, are lovely pieces of art.

Shop my photography here.

Like I mentioned earlier my intention is to expand what I create to include other things than the photography and wire jewelry I have right now, and I feel very excited about the opportunities this give me.
I’m just not one to limit myself, so here’s to a new home for all art sprung by the hands of Lotta Losten.

Say hello to my new shop everybody! HERE

Hej!
Today I took my Nikon D7000 camera and went for a walk. I had no real plans, I just decided to walk upwards and see where I ended up.
I found Hiking Gold, that's what I did.

But let's back it up a little. The walk started in cute neighborhoods.

I mean, look: Cute.

Buildings in LA can be super boring, but up in the hills it's fun to look at every single house.

Some have medieval knights (?) on them...

And some hide behind dense vegetation...

And other ones want their place to be seen as much as possible.

And one looked like the entrance to an enchanted garden.

And then I reached Sunset Ranch, where you can rent horses and go for a guided ride up in the mountains. It was also okay to just walk through so that's what I did.

But before I show you the horses and the views, let's take a cactus pause:

Aah, cactus!

I found a small path up a hill and tried that one.

And it lead me to horses!

Hullo!

(Read in very strong British accent for most humorous effect)

After chatting with the horses for a while I went back down the hill, and found another path where other people were walking too, which is alway a good sign. I turned around and saw another sign (Hö Hö. Or He he in English, but Hö Hö is like a combination of He he and Ugh and is clearly much more fitting for stupid punny jokes).
Around here I began to realize this was a popular hiking spot and PROBABLY it would lead closer to the Hollywood Sign.

Look at this silly cactus/coat rack!

Anyways: The view was fairly spectacular.

See the horse ranch down there?
Also: HOW COOL IS THIS BLACK AND WHITE EDIT I DID?!?!

It's like Gotham City!!!

Where are all the moody broody super heroes?!?

And then I came really really close to the sign and it was cool!

SELFIE MOMENT!
This one and the rest of the photos were taken with my iPhone.

Because I had to take some self timer photos!

Jumping Pippi Longstocking style infront of the LA Skyline that was so pretty today.

And then I was SO HUNGRY and walked home.
That was one lovely 2 hours and 15 minute hike!

/Lotta

Hej!
I wrote a list of ten things about me, because I love reading those kind of random facts about other people.

Soooo, hopefully you enjoy lists like that too, because here's 10 random things about me!

1: I have a tattoo on my toe. It’s a very simple labyrinth. I got it when I was 16 at a place that did the tattoos the old fashioned way, no machines just a needle with ink in it. You can get a glimpse of my tattoo in the end of our short Not So Fast.

2: I have never dyed my hair. I was bullied for my red hair when I was a kid and my reaction was to LOVE my hair and always be proud of it. It is slowly fading and getting grey so I might have to dye it in the future just to feel like myself.

3: I decided I wanted to become an actor when I was eleven and joined a amateur kids theatre group and fell completely in love with acting.

4: David I were a couple when we were 11 (a lot happened when I was eleven apparently). We were together for 6 months which is like a life time at that age and I used to joke all through my young adult years that my best relationship was back when I was 11. In 2006 we found each other again (that’s another story) and this winter we’ve been together for 10 years.

5: I love popcorn and always bring my own when I go to the cinema. Because theatre popcorn taste like fart.

6: I collect vintage teapots and have 10 in Sweden. I brought one of my favorites with me to LA in my hand luggage.

7: I hate doing things I’m not already good at. That’s why I don’t do sports.

8: I have a big birth mark over my left eye that people sometimes mistake for a part of my eyebrow. I love it and refuse to cover it up.

9: I had epilepsy when I was younger. I’ve been seizure free for many many years and am considered cured but I still cover my eyes when movies flicker too much. And if I’m in a club and the stroboscope is going for too long I tell the dj I have epilepsy and they get super scared and turn it off. He he.

10: When I was a kid I first wanted to be a singer, then a dancer and after that I settled for actor. I still hope to sing in a band or make a record someday. I apparently have a tendency of wanting to make my hobbies into professions. I did it with my jewelry and photography too. I just can't see myself having a job that isn't creative. Dancing is mostly for fun though.

And that was ten things about me.

/Lotta

This post could also be called Tulips, plants and a dinner table in various states of tulips and plants.

Oh, Hi!
In January we moved in to our very own apartment. Well, we rent it, but it's our lease and it's not an airbnb like the other apartments we've lived in here in LA up until January.
We've obviously lived in apartments in Sweden but this time around it feels different because we don't have all of those things that you collect over the years just by living. You know, the pots and pans you get from your parents when you move out of your childhood home, the chest you got from your friend's parents because they were going to throw it away but thought of you, the cute chair you bought at a flea market in the tiny village where you studied theatre and then had to carry over your shoulder through the entire said village to your student room, the bed you bought from the family friend who moved to another country and you rented an apartment from. I really could have written "I" through all that block of text, right?
But you get what I mean, a home is built by so many weird and random things you put in it over a long time.
This home is built from scratch though. And that feels SO strange and new and INTERESTING.
Let's talk a little about that, and mix it up with a bunch of photos, okay?

We moved into this place with no furniture but two director's chairs with our names on them that we got from the Lights Out production. David was alone here for the first two weeks because I was in Sweden packing down all our things in our apartment there, so he bought a mattress and stuff for his home office. And stuff like pots and pans and plates and pillows and sheets- from IKEA.
We didn't have money for more than that for a while so for a couple of weeks we ate all our meals in the guest room/office on our director's chairs, or on the empty living room floor.

Love how the large living room window has two palm trees outside but all you can see are their waists...

After a couple of weeks we bought a dining table. We have a Pinterest board for our apartment where we pin things we want to buy/are inspired by, and we had searched high and low for the perfect dining room table. We wanted it to be large and rustic and not cost a million dollars. I'll let you know that it's harder than it sounds to find a table like that. But one day we found it at Nadeau, a place we had no idea existed that we stumbled upon when looking in a super weird furniture store across the street where they sold RIDICULOUSLY expensive and ugly furniture. We couldn't believe our luck when we found our dining table at this random place, and it was super affordable and exactly what we wanted.

The chairs arrived a week or two later. And the rug is our latest addition. Because we have been taking our time with the furniture we really love the stuff that we do buy. We have a clear idea of how we want the place to look and its so AWESOME to see it come to life. David has never thought himself interested in these things before, but now it's like he has understood the fun of it. I think it's because we have thought it through for a long time now, adding pins to our pinterest folder and trying to imagine what things we want, and for every piece of furniture we add it gets clearer and clearer that it's turning out exactly like we wanted it.

I want our home to be filled with plants and one thing that I did in Sweden was to plant seeds I either found outdoors or came from fruit I ate. I think that makes the whole indoor gardening thing more interesting! I had a Mango plant that I loved so the first thing I did in our new American home was to plant a mango seed. They grow insanely fast.

At first the leaves are a purple brown color.

But then they turn green and strong.

I love my mango plant!

This is a little lemon plant.

So far I use the ugly cardboard boxes as plant stands, but the idea is to get a long bench underneath that window. It's not easy to find though, most benches are too low and too short. I'm thinking of making one myself instead.

A window made for people watching.

If you follow my instagram you've seen my hashtag #LottasOverambitiousWaterDrinks where I share photos of what's really just pimped up water in pretty light. I go through quite a lot of citrus fruits...

The blood oranges really turn the kitchen counter into a murder scene (Also: Tiled kitchen counters, America? Are you stupid? It's IMPOSSIBLE to keep clean).

Pretty colors. Water, blood orange and fresh mint.

One day I bought a big fern because I've always wanted one and they remind me of when I was a kid and my parents had one that was huge.

The pretty secretary desk you can see a little of here is my office. I sit at the dining table and work and keep all my stuff in this desk. We found it at an antique store and I LOVE it. It's from the late 50s and it's Swedish, funnily enough.

The vintage tins are actually from my collection in Sweden. I brought them with me filled with jewelry making stuff and other things I didn't want to live without. I've collected old tins for years and these are some of my favorites.

I've gone cuckoo for tulips this spring. It's partly because of this dream of turning our home into a jungle but until I have all the plants I want I'll just fill it out with fresh tulips.

Kitchen window still life. Tulip in glass bottle, hair tie and a jacaranda seed pod on a jar lid.

And then the tulip died and I documented that too.

I probably should throw out these tulips now...

...but it's like confetti on our table!

Last sunday we bought the big plant to the left. I think it's some kind of Schefflera. It's bright and happy!

And then this morning. Too much stuff on the table, a sweater hung to dry on a chair, and now we really do have a jungle on the table. I have bought so many plants online. Mostly on Amazon. It's actually really good plants! I have two Monstera's, one Rubber plant, two Schefflera's, one Prayer plant, one heart fern, one Fiddle Leaf Fig and some other plants I don't know the name of that we bought on a flea market.

I really enjoy documenting the journey this apartment is on. All these photos were taken with my Nikon D7000 over the course of four months. We've lived here for quite a while now without a lot of furniture and it makes the changes we do to the space feel bigger. Think of this as The Slowest Interior Design Program EVER.
I'll probably be back in a few month with an update, so I hope you enjoyed this little peek into our home.

/Lotta