A VINTAGE and gift shop in Fladbury has been awarded this year's Readers' Homes Award in the Period Living Magazine.

Lottie & Friends, owned by Lottie Ooi, is set in a former village bakery and shop and came first in the creative conversion category.

"I am really chuffed with this particular prize, because my enterprise is all about creative living," said Dutch-born Lottie. "Indeed it was called Lottie's Creative Living before I took on the shop at Craycombe Farm. It's a style that relies on creative ingenuity rather than on big spending, and therefore is affordable to all who will make time to think and play."

In her studio, Ms Ooi teaches Annie Sloan chalk painting classes and Revamp your Lamp workshops to ignite people's creativity.

"Painting furniture is a dramatic tool to making over an interior and to creating your own style," she added.

She, has been a decorative artist for 25 years and is one of Annie Sloan's longest-serving stockists.

Her passion for vintage encompasses her entire lifestyle from the Morris 1000 parked outside to the sound of the bell in the Victorian till, " I have loved old things for as long as I can remember," she said.

She also sells plants grown locally and has gift wrap which she has printed on site.