Hi!
I'm in serious vacation mode and can't understand how the days seem to be disappearing a whole lot faster than normally.
There HAVE been days though, the photos in my iPhone tells me so, and when looking through them today I thought it would be nice to take a little peek at what's been going on these past weeks.

Light testing in the Sandberg/Losten household looks a little bit like this.

One day my sister came to Gothenburg and we spent a big part of the afternoon in this park with flamingo showers. My niece and nephew are cuter than possible.

My new sunglasses arrived! The golden shades are a little bit too shiny but the black ones are fantastic.

My dear friend Fia who lives in South Africa is in Sweden visiting family and friends. She came to Gothenburg for a few days and it was absolutely wonderful to see her! Fia is the one in the middle, hugged by Kristin and me. The little cutey on the ground is Fia's daughter Moya.

Fia's husband Christo and little baby Moya again.

David helped me make my video for This Growing Collection. This is from the first of two days of filming, during the wonderful golden hour.

I worked hard on getting everything ready for launch last monday.

Took a break to catch the last rays of sunshine in my hair.

As a rule my hair seems to look the best when it's time to go to bed.
Here you can clearly see my anger and frustration at the entire situation.

Last week I cut my hair for the first time in about 15 months. It was about time.
As always the hairdresser insists on flattening my hair to the point of ridiculousness. It looks sort of nice in this photo but in real life it looks weird. Like I haven't got any hair at all. I have really thin hair but the natural waves makes it look a lot thicker and I just don't understand how hairdressers can't understand that flat and shiny is not always a good thing.

One morning we were out of coffee filters and I do what I always do when that happens (Yes, it's a reccuring thing).
Toilet paper!
I have the character Lelaina Pierce in the wonderful 90's movie Reality Bites to thank for this useful tip.
Yep, it works surprisingly well and only tastes a little papery...

And here's a glimpse of how it is to be married to David.
You'll get a drawing of a cat pushed under the door while you're on the toilet.
Who needs a cat when you can have a David?

The day after I released This Growing Collection was a slow and tired kind of day. Didn't do much more than take this self portrait.

David and I went to Österlen for a few days.
On our way to the family house we always drive through this wonderful beech forest. This time we decided to go back there to take some photos and explore a little.

What we found though was a fairytale forest right next to all the beech trees!

We loved it so much we had to go back the day after as well.
I got an idea during the night and the last thing I said to David before I fell asleep was "We need to go back to the forest again tomorrow!" So back we went.
I took a lot of photos and hopefully I can show them to you soon.
Both of these photos are taken with the self timer app TimerCam and edited with Snapseed.

An evening walk in a painting.

On saturday my mother, David and I went to the garden cafe Kaffestugan Alunbruket. Such a beautiful place!

Astor the cat was adorable as always.

On our last evening in Rörum for this time David and I took a walk through the little village and talked about creativity, film ideas and autumn arriving.
I can feel it in the air, summer is almost over. The best season is coming.

It's time for me to release what is This Growing Collection!
I have worked so long and hard on this and I'm so happy to finally be able to show you all!
This Growing Collection is the name of my collection of leaf necklace pendants inspired by nature's very own jewelry pieces.
As the name suggests, this collection is growing; more leaves will join in and every single one of them will be absolutely one of a kind. Like every single leaf ever grown.

When I started working on This Growing Collection I got the idea of making a little video for the release. A little glimpse into how I see the work that I do.
And also, I've come to realise that all my creative sides mash together and that is how I want it to be. This little video is a combination of many things I love to do.
And you get to hear me sing.
I admit, I'm a bit nervous about that because it's something I've been wanting to do for a long time. Not sing per se, because that I've done all my life (both in shows and in my shower), but put my singing in video form on the internet just for the joy of it. I've never done that before.
I very much hope you like it.

And here are some photos from my photoshoot with the wonderful Ida-Lisa.

You'll find all these leaves, and many more, in my etsy shop and, as I mentioned earlier, more will come over the weeks.
I'm also open for custom orders if you see a leaf in the right shape but wrong colour, or if you want beads on a leaf that are without them. Just send me a convo on etsy or email me at lottalosten@gmail.com and I'll make the perfect leaf for you.

This Growing Collection is officially RELEASED!

Happy dancing
/Lotta Losten

Hi!
One evening, a couple of weeks ago, when David and I were at Österlen we went for an evening walk around the village of Rörum. They have a Waldorf School there with the most wonderful school yard. That's where we headed, because you never get too old for playgrounds, right?
But first, let's stop and look at the wildflowers.

Walking on a tree trunk laid out across and over the stream.

And then you can use this swing to get across the water.

Like this!

Or you can walk over the wobbly hang bridge.

Fairly magical surroundings.

David found another rope he had to try.

See! The lonely house in the field!

I wish my school yard looked like this when I was a kid. Instead it had this weird, red, spiky asphalt that you tripped and scrubbed your knees on on a daily basis. If a playground has the possibility to hurt you it should at least be fun before you get hurt, right?!

Then we found a cableway! David is test person as usual.

And off he goes!

Wiiiiii! Look at that happy face!

After that we walked by the local football field.
David and I hate all sorts of sports and we've visited a football field together only once before. That was in our home town when our relationship was new and we were walking around town when the rain came. It was pouring! We ran towards one of the booths next to the field (I'm sure there's a proper name for it...) and sat there for at least thirty minutes making out in the rain in the middle of the night and it was absolutely wonderful.
So that's our entire experience of football fields prior to this.

Since we were completely alone there we took the opportunity to imagine a scenario where we were football parents to kids playing in opposite teams. The Away team seemed to be having a tough time...

...but the Home team were very happy.

Then we found a ticket window. David tried to look stern and authorative.

And we end this post with a photo of me trying to hide in the bushes.

By the way: Today it's one week until the release of my new jewelry collection 'This Growing Collection'! I'm so excited to show you all! I've got lots of fun things planned and much to do before august 11. Can't wait!

Until next time:

Tjingeling!
/Lotta

Hej!
We are in a creative flow like no other!
Today David and I uploaded a new little horror short, and let me tell you, I am so incredibly proud of this one! We are both in this little film, so you get to see a little bit of David this time too!
It's quite different from our previous films in the Apartment trilogy but not less scary. Just different.
It's called Not so fast and it's not even two minutes long.

I think it's awesome, If I may say so myself, and I hope you think so too!

As usual David and I made the movie without any other people involved. That makes for some really interesting behind the scenes clips, so we thought we'd show you exactly how it looked when we filmed this, just the two of us.

This also explains really well how David made all the lights and equipment we used to make this film. Really worth the watch!

I hope you enjoy the fruits of our creative flow!
See you soon.

Tjingeling!
/Lotta