Miss Kitty Heart has MOVED

Dear readers and followers,

As announced on Instragram and Facebook the Miss Kitty Heart blog has now been moved to THIS address.

No new posts will be posted here anymore and in a few weeks I will delete this blog as a final closure from my blogger adventure.

Thank you Blogger community for all your help and support over the years but it was time to start something fresh.

Miss Kitty Heart is on:

DIY Hair flowers to perfect your pin up

Hair flowers have always been a great way for me to style my hair and just finish off a look but I've also always been one of those girls that would rather spend my hard earned money on a new piece of clothing to add to my wardrobe than to buy accessories such as earrings, bangles and hair flowers. Since I need a good solutions for this problem and since I don't always find good hair flowers in the right size or with the right colours I decided to make them myself. 

Making your own isn't that hard so it doesn't really require you to be quite the handy woman. It is a great way to be creative and match the pieces to the clothes that you already own or to create some diversity into your up dos. It takes a bit of time and getting used to but once you get the hang of it you'll be done in no time.
All you need for them is:

- Bobby pins, single/double pronged clip or duckbill clips depending on your personal preference and style you wish to go for
- Fake flowers and petals of all sorts
- Felt
- Glue, I prefer to go for a heavy duty glue that is water resistant so there is no risk of that they will fall apart after a few uses or a hot glue gun, which I sadly don't own yet.
- Precision cutter or scissors
- Wire cutter
I just bought a new bouquet of fake flowers so I started of with cutting all the flowers from the wired stems and sorting them in bags so I can store them easily later on in my box, I like to be very organized when it comes to these things, and I left out some petals and a rose. 
To start with choose the size and desired clip. I choose a double pronged clip since I like the stability that they provide for the felt and flowers. 
To make a good base for the flowers to be glued on you'll need the felt. I choose green since this, in my opinion of course, best represents the stem and leaves of an actual flower. You'll need to cut two circles or other geometric shapes out of the felt depending on how big and what shape your piece will be. I went with rectangles that are close the size and shape of the clip itself.

Place one of the felt rectangles between the clip and add glue in the center of the felt also covering the clip. Place the second rectangle on top of the first so the clip is glued in between them. 

This will your base to glue the flowers on. 
Since most fake flowers come with a fake stem, you'll have to remove it. You can't glue this on a clip with much stability unless you use a glue gun. Don't throw away these plastic bits yet since you can also use parts of this for stability and to make sure the flower has the desired shape. If there is no way for you to glue the flower on without it loosing its shape then you can also glue a small piece of felt on the flower and then glue this piece on the clip so it has a firm base for the glue to hold on to.
I actually took apart the entire rose and glued it back together piece by piece. I did this because there were several heavy plastic pieces between the petals that I didn't want to use. I also chose to wait a few hours halfway the process of putting it back together so that the glue had enough time to dry and harden. 

I usually choose the colours and flowers that I want to use up front but make my composition as I go but you could do it differently of course. 
When you're done clip the beautiful piece that you just made on a piece of cardboard so it can stay upright until it is completely dry and ready for use. I usually wait around 12-24 hours to use it. 

Voila, your own unique hair flower made with love! 

Miss Kitty Heart is on:

Dressing vintage/ pin-up on a budget

I've put a lot of thought to this post before I even started writing it but I thought it would be good to talk about dressing vintage/pin-up with a smaller budget because let's face it vintage reproduction clothes or true vintage items are rarely cheap or easy to find.

I remember the moment when I first started to get into vintage fashion with the wonderful polkadot swing dress from Hearts & Roses when I was about 18 or 19 years old and started looking for other items to purchase, I was instantly set back. I was used to buying clothes from mass production stores such as H&M, ZARA, Primark and so on and those clothes are usually pretty cheap but still good enough to last for a while if you treated them right. Having to pay over 50 euro for a dress or skirt was something entirely new to me and since I was only working during the weekends at the time it was really hard for me. 
Over the years I finished college and started working so now I have a monthly budget to spend on vintage or reproduction clothing, accessories and so forth. This was probably the best thing that I ever decided to do since it was very hard for me to maintain a balance in what I wanted and needed. It made me think about the items that I bought and the different ways in which you can combine them because just with a few staples you can create more outfits than you probably think.
Before I bought anything I always went to my closet and wrote down all the combinations I could see with the items that where already there. If there where 3 or more than it was a good choice since with 3 outfits the week is already midway and you could switch up some of those pieces with another piece and so forth. But do invest in some great reproduction clothing items that are high quality and will give you many years of pleasure, one of my biggest tips is probably that you can do great bargains during sale periods on TopVintage Retro Boutique (my go-to online vintage store), Collectif Clothing and so forth and look for items that never go out of style.

Remember that you also don't have to buy reproduction or true vintage items to look vintage. I have learned over the years to shop items in other stores that, with the right other pieces, can create a gorgeous look with an authentic feel to it. A simple sweater in a good cut that fits you well with a full circle skirt or pencil skirt can look just as authentic as the real deal. It's an easy way to look the way you want but probably for less money. Retro/vintage bloggers and instramgrammers also do this so they are a great source of inspirations as well.
Accessories such as belts, bangles, earrings, hairflowers, shoes and handbags can finish a look even if it doesn't feel that vintage without them. Hairflowers are pretty easy to make yourself, I will post a tutorial in the future on how to make your own, and bangles can be bought in bulk often on ebay. Search and search well and you will find them.
My last tip is to browse facebook and other social media for second hand/ buy-sell-swap groups. These groups often provide people that have bought an item in the wrong size or just don't wear certain pieces anymore. They often sell them at lower prices than the original and in ninety percent of the cases everything is still in great condition. It's not only a good way to get some items cheaper but also to perhaps, in the future, get rid of some of your own items. Some people even swap clothes so it's definitely worth looking into.


My last words for this post:
Stay true to yourself and feel good in whatever clothing you are wearing. Don't think that your style isn't as good as the great vintage/retro bloggers. It will come, with time and patience. Collections will grow and change, it will always be a learning process of what is your style and what is not. 





Miss Kitty Heart is on:

Ahoy Tiki Sailor!

I have always been a girl that has worn tight fitting pant, wether it be jeans, pedal pushers or cigarette pants. Everything always had to fit tight around my waist and legs. I have always admired those who wore glamorous swingpants and one of my colleagues convinced me that I absolutely had the right body and length to pull them off so along with my quite big order of Collectif Clothing items I also bought a pair of 40s swingpants from Dancing Days by Banned. 

I must say that I love them.. A lot!


The Stay Awhile Swing Trousers spoke to me out of a vast collection of trousers available on Topvintage because of the buttons that are applied on them. The anchors are just a subtle navy touch and I have to say that I am quite the sucker for such subtle details. When I saw those buttons and the fact that the pants are black I was sold almost immediately.

They are made from a polyester blend and are incredibly soft to the touch. It almost feels like wearing pyjama pants, that is how comfortable the fabric and fit is. The trousers are supposed to be tight around the waist and stomach and then travel freely in a straight line downwards. 
For these photos I combined the Stay Awhile Swing Trousers with this cute Pineapple Hibiscus Tie Blouse from Collectif Clothing. This beauty was on sale during the Collectif Clothing sale from Topvintage to celebrate their 7 years of friendship and I just had to have it. 

The blouse is made of 100% viscose and is heavenly to wear at the moment in the hot weather Belgium has been seeing in the past few weeks. The embroidery of the pineapple and hibiscus flowers is just absolutely beautiful. The only downside that I have found to this blouse it that because of the fabric you can easily see through it. So I recommend wearing a top or white bra underneath it to make this more subtle. I wore a white bra underneath it for these pictures and you can still see it peeping through. 
Both items are easily combined with other separates because of their colourscheme and adaptability with other pieces or accessories, which makes them both also great staples for any gal that is just starting to build a vintage/retro closet. 
I know that I wish that I had them both when I first started buying reproduction clothing. 
I am wearing the trousers and blouse both in size S. The blouse is a great fit for me. I can still choose to wear it a bit looser so I don't feel like I am being strangled at my waist while sitting down or stretching out my arms to grab something. The trousers where quite doubtable in this size for me since they fit me so well when I comes to length and around my hips but they were too big around my waist so I had to get out my sewing kit to take them in a few cm at the back. I cleverly used the appliqué on the back, which is also a great touch to the pants, to hide my stitching. 

The trousers are available from size XS to XL for €39,95 and the blouse from size XS to 2XL for €44,95. I purchased both items on the Topvintage Retro Boutique online

Full Outfit Details
Shoes - Second hand, Gabor

All pictures where taken in the comfort of my own home with a lot of help from my husband, which I am very grateful for. 




Miss Kitty Heart is on:

SS17 wishlist - part one

I love scrolling around for new retro inspired clothing and as the seasons change wonderful new collections pop up eveywhere. So you could call this a Bi-Annual post from now on. Without further a do here is my Spring and Summer wishlist of 2017.

For this wishlist (all parts) I browsed around on TopVintage Retro Boutique Online, Collectif Clothing, Hell Bunny, Lulu Hun, Royal Vintage Shoes and B.A.I.T. footwear. The list is long and already has grown since I started writing this post so I am going to divide it into multiple posts but also try to update them regularly.

Let's start with some gorgeous dresses for this first part. Collectif Clothing has brought out quite the line up for this season and I love almost every piece of it. I wish I had the money to buy the entire line.

1. Caterina Plain Swing Dress in mint green by Collectif Clothing (available for purchase on Collectif and TopVintage) / 2. Jade Plain Swing Dress in light blue by Collectif Clothing (available for purchase on Collectif and TopVintage) / 3. Chloe Candy Gingham Swing Dress by Collectif Clothing / 4. Maddison Floral Swing Dress by Collectif Clothing (TopVintage)

5.Laneway Swing Dress in blue and orange by Dancing Days by Banned (TopVintage) / 6. The Chérie Dress by Vintage Diva by TopVintage (TopVintage) / 7. Lillian Floating Daisis dress by Emily and Finn (TopVintage) / 8. Rhiannon Polkadot Swihng Dress by Hearts and Roses (TopVintage)


Miss Kitty Heart is on:

* DISCLAIMER: All pictures in these collages are owned by TopVintage or the respectable brands that make and sell the dresses. 
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