The New York Times, baby.

Last week we got on email with the subject: "Hello from The New York Times" and we almost didn't open it, we just assumed that it was junk mail. Luckily for us, we did open it and were pretty shocked when we realized what it meant. They found our blog while researching Wes Anderson-themed parties/weddings/decor because of this post on "how to throw a Wes Anderson themed party" and then they went through our blog and found photos of our homes and wanted to include them in todays' paper! We did a slightly terrifying phone interview and are thrilled with the end result!

The article is an homage to Wes Anderson, and our focus was on the decor of our homes! We are so honoured to be featured, and quite frankly are in shock!

Pick up a copy and check out the home section, or you can read the article online here. Make sure you scroll through the slideshow to see all of the photos.

XO, Erin & Stef

OSL features on Modcloth and Concrete & Cloud.

A few weeks ago we were contacted by one of our favorite websites, Modcloth, to write an article for their blog and we were over the moon with excitement! We have been huge fans of Modcloth for years now and being asked to write a blog post for them is literally a dream come true! Since the Oscars are today we thought it would be fun to share how to host an old Hollywood themed Oscar's party complete with cheesy fondue, fancy cocktails and a killer retro music playlist. Be sure to check out our full article over on the Modcloth blog here!

 

www.blog.modcloth.com

A local friend of ours, Meghan Zahari, did an interview with us for our recently launched blog, Concrete & Cloud, about the how Instagram effects the success of businesses. We were so honored that she thought of us and are so pleased with the sweet article she wrote! Be sure to take a peek at the full post over on the Concrete & Cloud blog here.

www.fordreamersanddoers.com

A big thanks to everyone that thought of us for these articles! We really appreciate the opportunities!

XO, Stef & Erin

Hot off the press.

Hi ya pals! I hope your Thursday is off to a good start! Things have been pretty crazy over here this past week trying to prepare for our upcoming trip, getting things in order at the shop. We leave in 12 days and I (Erin) have two trips before our actual trip! Tomorrow I'm going to Calgary, Alberta for a wedding and then I am off to Fargo, North Dakota for a family reunion the weekend after that, so it'll be a crazy next two weeks. 

We realized that we never showed you any sneak peeks from our photoshoot that we did with our dear friend Brittany Hildebrandt in September! We have yet to see all of the photos, but everything that girl touches is pure magic so we're sure they will be pretty fantastic. Here's a peek.

We also noticed that we haven't updated our press page in awhile, and if you haven't checked it out, you can do so here.

A couple of weeks back we were contacted by Cosmopolitan India to be included in their latest print issue so we thought we would share it with you!

We were also included in a round up of dreamy campers over at Buzzfeed a few weeks ago which was pretty neat!

My phone bookends made it onto a round up of 25 fun DIY's chosen by Jan of Poppytalk over on Babble's site. I've been a huge fan of Poppytalk for years, so that was a pleasant surprise!

Well, I'm off to get our shop re-stocked and cleaned, so that's all for now. Hope you have a lovely day.

XO, Erin

Market Burger.

Back in March we were contacted by a well-known radio host here in Winnipeg named Ace Burpee to see if we would be interested in helping him with a special project that he had in the works. He was in the process of opening up a restaurant and was wondering if we would be interested in helping with some of the interior design. We had never done anything like this before so it seemed a bit intimidating, but once we heard the concept and found out what the restaurant was all about we were totally on board. His idea was to open a restaurant that served fancy burgers with all of the ingredients sourced locally, so that would mean that the meat, cheese, buns, vegetables and everything was all home-grown here in Manitoba. He also wanted different people in the community to help him design different elements of the restaurant so that not only would the food be local, but so would the designs and ideas. We were really into this idea and very honored to be asked so we totally jumped at the opportunity! Thus Market Burger was born!

We were in charge of designing the women's bathroom and we had free reign to do pretty much whatever our hearts desired! The only guidelines we were given was to ensure that everything was sourced locally (where possible, of course.) and to make the bathroom an interesting space for the ladies that would be totally different than the rest of the restaurant decor so it would be like the girls "secret space." We put our heads together and decided that we wanted to make this space a 1960's oasis for ladies. We wanted it to feel like when you opened the door you stepped back in-time to classy restaurant bathroom from the mid-sixties. (Think: Mad Men and the type of restaurants that Don Draper would be found drinking an old fashioned at.) So we wanted to create something less kitschy and more polished. We made that idea our jumping off point and as soon as we found this stunning sixties wallpaper our vision really began to take shape. We sourced a few more pieces like the hutch, chairs, lamp, and starburst clock from a local estate sale and the big mirror above the vanity was also thrifted locally. We added a few cozy touches in the form of vintage vases with plants that were from our shop and dim wattage bulbs in all of our vintage light fixtures so the bathroom has a soft, warm glow. It is a small space so we didn't want to overload it with too many little knick-knacks and take away from the gorgeous focal wall.

Here are a few photos we snapped at the soft opening party for you to take a peek at:
(It's tricky to capture the colors and mood accurately because the lights were quite dim, but at least this will give you an idea!)

We are very pleased with how everything turned out, and are especially in love with the wallpaper wall! We really loved the idea of having a feature patterned wall in the bathroom because we all know how much girls love to take a quick selfie photo in the bathroom. ;)

We were so proud to be there for the big unveiling during the soft opening party last week! It was a beautiful evening and we sat on the rooftop patio and enjoyed wine, mojitos and of course sampled lots of delicious burgers! Our favorite was definitely the butter chicken burger, we highly recommend it! Mmm... 

Our friend Andrea McLaren was also at the opening party and she snapped this beautiful photo of the delicious spread (apparently we were too busy eating to remember to do that, oops!) Thanks for letting us use your photo girl! Be sure to check out Andrea's fantastic instagram feed for more lovely photos (username: @a_n_d_r_e_a___)

We feel so privledged to have such an amazing opportunity present itself to us and look forward to maybe dabbling more with these type of projects in the future. If you are a local be sure to stop by Market Burger on 645 Corydon Avenue and try a burger! You won't be disappointed. 

XO, Stef & Erin

*Footnote: For those of you curious, the wallpaper was actually the only thing that we didn't find locally, we bought it from this website and there are tons of gorgeous vintage styles to choose from. If you are looking for a fabulous vintage wallpaper, I highly recommend checking here.*

Oh So Lovely featured in Flare Magazine!

Our very good friend Andrew Chipman (of the blog Pullteeth) is the Winnipeg correspondent for Flare Magazine, which is a big fashion magazine here in Canada, and he contacted us about possibly running a feature about our mobile shop for their July 2013 issue! Of course we were totally on board with this so he pitched the idea to them and we were super psyched when Flare contacted us because they were interested in publishing the story! How exciting! This is such great publicity for our blog and business.

They did a fantastic little spotlight on our trailer letting people know that we will be hitting the streets and setting up shop around Winnipeg this summer! Flip to page 32 to check out our feature:

Here is a closer look...

We want to say a big thank you to Andrew and Flare Magazine for sharing the love and supporting our business! You guys are the best. We really appreciate it! This issue is on newsstands now so next time you see it on a rack in a super market be sure to check it out!

XO, Stef & Erin

MTV full colour: LAST CALL!

Today is the last day to get your Instagram entries in for our "Instamission" collaboration with MTV Canada and Sony! In case you missed it before, here are the details:

Our mission is 'Full Colour" so basically we are looking for people to find inspiration in the bright colourful beauty in everyday life and capture it on Instagram. Be sure to hashtag all of your entries with #MTVfullcolour and at midnight today we will pick our favorite entry to win a brand new Sony Xperia Smartphone as well as a $4,000 travel voucher to use for an adventure of a lifetime! Woo!

Please note: all participants must be Canadian residents. Also don't forget to add the "u" when spelling colour! For more rules and regulations check out: www.mtv.ca/instamissions 

Also, just in case you missed our promo video before we thought we would share it with you one more time for good measure (and also because we really really love it!)

INSTAMISSIONS with @ohsolovelystef & @ohsolovelyerin from Free Agency on Vimeo.

Alright Canadian lovelies, be sure to take advantage of this incredible opportunity! Happy picture taking! Good luck! 

XO, Stef & Erin

Our MTV Instamission: #MTVfullcolour

Wow, you guys!! Words cannot express how blown away we are from your overwhelming show of support for our project with MTV Canada & Sony Xperia that we announced yesterday! Thank you so much! We seriously have the best readers! Now it's our chance to give back to you! If you participate in our Instamission you are automatically entered for a chance to win a brand new Sony Xperia Smartphone as well as a $4000 travel voucher! Woo woo! Curious? Here's the low down:

It's pretty simple really. MTV Canada and Sony Xperia teamed up to create a series of fun Instagram Missions to inspire people to be creative and have fun with Smartphone photography. Our mission is "Full Colour" so basically we are looking for people to find inspiration in the bright colourful beauty in everyday life and capture it on Instagram. Be sure to hashtag all of your entries with #MTVfullcolour and at the end of this three week project we will pick our favorite entry to win a new Sony Xperia Smartphone and also an amazing $4000 travel voucher for an adventure of a lifetime! Yay!

Pretty rad hey? For more details and rules and regulations be sure to check out: www.mtv.ca/instamissions.

To get you inspired we thought we would share a few behind-the-scenes shots from our weekend filming with MTV:

As we said earlier we had three primary locations for shooting the film, one of which was at my house! The timing was a little bit tricky for that because I had already packed up my entire living room in preparation for my move, so everything had to be unpacked and re-set up the for the shoot but hey, you do what you gotta do! (especially for MTV!) All of the film that was shot in my house turned out so amazing so I am definitely glad that it worked out!

Next we did some filming with our trailer which was brought out of hibernation for the first time this year! Awh, we missed our little Olive. We picked some of our favorite vintage pieces from our personal collections to make the shelving displays (so no, unfortunately those items aren't for sale!) Thankfully the weather co-operated with us so we were able to get some great shots both inside and outside the trailer. 

And last but not least, of course we did some filming in our vintage shop! We had the store closed for the first half of the day so we could tackle our interviews without any interruptions but by mid-afternoon we opened up to the public and got some really great footage of the shop in action. Whew! It was a total whirlwind of a weekend but we had the greatest time working with all of the MTV Crew. They were so relaxed and fun that it made shooting a total breeze! 

photo by Andrew Chipman

Just in case you are still a bit unsure of what type of photos we are looking for with our Instamission, our good friend and fellow blogger, Andrew Chipman, got together with us and made a great post for the MTV Fora blog about what it is like to live in Full Colour. Be sure to read his lovely how-to post!

photo by Andrew Chipman

Alright friends, now go out, have fun and be creative! Best of luck to you! 

May the brightest and cheeriest photo win!!

XO, Stef & Erin

Our video on MTV!

While we were on our last trip in Thailand, we were contacted by the wonderful people of MTV wondering if we would be interested in doing a video collaboration with them and Sony Experia! Until this, we had never done any kind of work on film before, so we were super nervous about how it would turn out, but we honestly couldn't be happier with the results! We spent two days shooting the video and had the best time doing so! We shot at our shop Rhymes With Orange, as well as with our trailer Olive, and at Stef's house. We are over the moon with excitement and are so thrilled to finally share it with you guys! We will be giving you more information about the contest tomorrow, but for now watch the video, or go to MTV's website to see a wider version of the video! Eep! We're going to be on cloud nine all day long!

INSTAMISSIONS with @ohsolovelystef & @ohsolovelyerin from Free Agency on Vimeo.

Rhymes With Orange featured on A Beautiful Mess!

Our brick-and-mortar shop, Rhymes With Orange, was featured on A Beautiful Mess today in their lovely At Work With... feature! We were so excited when we were contacted by Katie to do the feature right before we left for Thailand and are glad that things have finally settled down so we could participate! In the feature we shared a peek into our daily work lives and what it is like to own your own business.

Hop on over to A Beautiful Mess to take a closer look at our feature and read our full interview. A big thanks to Elsie, Emma, and Katie for supporting our vintage shop! You gals rule. Also a big congrats is in order because these extremely talented ladies just launched their new app which we are totally loving, so if you haven't already, be sure to check out #abeautifulmess on iTunes.

Psst... speaking of Instagram, if you like what you see in our vintage shop but aren't a local we also just re-opened our instagram shop so be sure to check out @thelovelycloset for lots of vintage and vintage-inspired gems! We will also be adding more pieces today!

Lots of love, Stef & Erin
XOXO

Frankie Magazine Interview.

A few months ago I was contacted by Australian magazine Frankie to do an interview about my house and decorating style for their Homebodies feature. If you haven't read Frankie before, it is an amazing magazine full of gorgeous photographs and artistic layouts all printed on beautiful matte pages. Needless to say, I was beyond honored that they chose my home to feature. Here is a peek at my interview in the March/April issue that just hit newsstands last week:

(click here to read text.)

(click here to read text.)

I want to say a big thank you to Frankie for writing such a lovely article and also to my friend Rosie of Simply Rosie Photography for so beautifully capturing my home.

XO, Stef

A little update.

Despite the crazy cold temperatures (-40's (Celsius) all week long) we managed to stay warm and have a pretty fantastic past week! Now that things are slowing down a bit after Christmas, we've had a bunch of time off, and have spent it baking, making pots of soup and organizing our homes! Here's a sneak at what we've been up to...

We finally got our front window replaced at the shop, so we had a lot of fun re-doing displays, and jazzing up the shop! We added that white cabinet for our housewares, and just changed everything up, and it feels great!

In other news...

We were over the moon when we got an email from H&M, one of our favorite stores contacted us to be featured on their website! You can read the little blurb over here on their lifestyle section.

Not only were we featured over at H&M this week, but our shop, The Lovely Closet was featured on one of our all time favorite magazine's website-Frankie! You can take a closer look over here!

Also, a few weeks back we booked our flights back to Bangkok for April! 10 more weeks until we leave!
What have you cats been up to lately? 

xo

Erin & Stef