Crabtree & Evelyn Hand Lotion

Today I went out to get hand lotion. The temperatures became freezing last week and I've been doing a lot of laundry, so my hands are super dry and I found out I've run out of hand lotion. There was one tube, but it smelled funny, and I wanted something nicer!

So this is what I chose to pamper myself :)

Crabtree & Evelyn Pomegranate, argan and grapeseed ultra-moisturising hand therapy.

I went to Kicks cosmetics store to sniff at the fancy lotions they had on display, and finally settled on this one. It smelled nice and was packed in a cardboard case with very pretty graphics. Also, it didn't have any alcohols very high on the ingredients so I hoped it would be very moisturising.

I got home and instantly tried the lotion, and so far it's great! It sinks into my skin fast and smells super good. Crisp but a little sweet, just perfect for me!

Fake Plugs and the Indian Ocean

I ordered new fake plugs through Etsy some time ago from here, and they arrived on Monday. Since I'm a scatter brain when I'm a bit stressed, I didn't remember to pick them up until Wednesday ;P But I love them!

They are made of wood and cost me around 13 dollars including shipping. They feel nicely warm to the touch and are just light enough to be worn comfortably.

Here with ModelsOwn nail polish called Indian Ocean!

And here's a small pic of the nail polish I showed you a few posts back, Indian Ocean by ModelsOwn. I was very unsure if I'd like it (can't remember what drew me to order it!), but I got many comments telling it's a awesome colour. And guess what, you guys were totally right ;D The polish is a light, sheer turquoise-blue, and has a distinct red shift (it's more peach in natural light, but very red under yellowish bulbs). I'm wearing only two coats, and you can see how the white part of my nails shows through a bit. I think a third layer would have hidden it, but since the colour is so light it doesn't show much.

In other news, me and my other half finally got an apartment! We are signing the papers on Halloween, so it's our very own Halloween Home :) I'll take pictures when we get the keys so I can show how awesome the place is!

Where I'm Coming From And Where I'm Going

This challenge was in many blogs, so I decided to do it too :) I copied the questions from Misantrella's blog! And kept her added length, because I'm pretty old ;P I used some old pictures from the blog so it wouldn't be super boring.

20 years ago...

I had just started school and our family had moved to a new house, I had left all my friends and a nanny I liked behind.
I liked to draw and paint and dreamed of having a pet.

15 years ago...

I got an aquarium and put some guppies in it! One was named Jafar after the villain in Disney's Aladdin.
I read Lord of the Rings and Hobbit and really fell in love with the world of fantasy.
I was bullied in school and found solace in books and drawing.

10 years ago...

I was seventeen, listened to the Sisters of Mercy and used to spend weekends drinking wine with my friends.
I decided to get good grades for my abitur (ylioppilaskirjoitukset), and did it (with lots of hard work)!
Got my first Pennangalan boots with money I saved from mopping the floors of a local supermarket. I still have the boots and used them just last summer :)

5 years ago...

I was studying graphic design.
I had just ended a long relationship and hopped on to a new one, but what I really would have needed was to spend some time with myself.
I started my career in the games industry by getting a trainee position in a mobile games company.

3 years ago...

I had just bough an apartment and put up the fanciest wallpaper ever with the help of my brother!
I was living alone and single, really getting to know who I am and what I want.
The company I worked for was dissolved and I moved on to work with a new, small games company.
I got my first leopard gecko! Got her from a pet expo, where I promised myself I could look at the snakes on sale and wouldn't buy any. They had one gecko at the table too, so that wasn't a snake and I bought her ;P

1 year ago...

I was living with my other half, we had moved in together a few months ago.
I had been at my current position at work for a year and really liked it.
I dyed my hair purple from the cotton candy pink I had worn for some time.

The past year....

I've gotten rid of some stuff I've lugged around for far too long.
Got the sofa of my dreams!
I started a blog.
I've dreamed of a new kitten, but my other half is kinda right that five cats is enough. Kitten cams are a good substitute ;P
I've been working hard to get closer to people, I'm so used to tackling everything alone that I seem to push people away. I think I've done very well so far :)

Yesterday I...

Made an offer for an apartment (well, not I, but we because my other half will own half of it!)
Ate a delicious sushi lunch! The sushi buffet next to the office is going to be the death of me ;P
Put up posters for the upcoming Samhain party.

Today I...

Will not go to the sushi buffet, but be a good girl and eat the lunch I brought from home.
Am hoping we will get a response from the real estate agent, the best thing would be if the seller would accept our offer!
Hope I have the time to make some stuff for the Samhain party, decoration is almost done (thanks to my lovely friends who helped!), just a few finishing touches and nice envelopes for the dress competition prizes.
Have a yoga class in the evening. I hope I'll do better than last week, because the push-ups they added to the sun salutation are really tricky for my spaghetti arms!

Tomorrow I...

Will be sore from the yoga ;)
It's Friday, so we will have some pastries in the office. This week it's my duty to pick them up!
I'll maybe go and have a beer or two somewhere, or just watch Star Trek at home if I'm feeling lazy.

The day after tomorrow I....

I have to check if I have any plans! My iPhone decided to call it quits, so I don't have my calendar and really can't remember if I have anything on Saturday ;P
Will stop by the flea market.
Maybe take some pictures outside if the weather is nice.

In a year I...

Hope me and my other half have found a nice apartment at a good price.
(If we get the one we are bidding for now, I hope we have had the money to renovate the kitchen)
Might have a new cat.
Am better at yoga!
Hope I'll continue in the same job, working on some new, exciting project.
Want to be as happy as now :)

Halloween Crafts!

Last weekend we had a ladies craft night and made decorations for the upcoming Samhain club. We followed these instructions and made fake dripping candles from toilet paper rolls and hot glue. Naturally everything was painted black ;P

Battery operated tea lights and toilet roll candles.

This is what they look finished!

I happened to have a pile of battery operated tea lights stashed away from my birthday party decorations last year, so they were just painted black and given new batteries. The toilet rolls were covered in hot glue drips in several layers, and painted black. I added some white highlights today and they came out great! The all-black versions look really nice, but since they are going to be used in dim nightclub conditions, I opted to do highlights to make sure they won't look like black blobs in the end.

ModelsOwn Cosmetics

The British company called ModelsOwn was having a sale a few weeks back, so I went ahead and ordered a few things I had had my eye on. The shipping fees were humongous, but I really really wanted some glittery nail polishes, so I got them anyway ;P

The package arrived in under a week. I really liked the packaging, everything came in a white box with a cardboard sleeve printed with the company logo in glossy ink. Every item was wrapped in bubble wrap, so there was no danger of things breaking. Really nice!

I was quite impressed with the packaging!

I got four items, three nail polishes, a lip and cheek tint and a bronzer. I generally don't do bronzers, but this one was matte and looked really light, so I wanted to try how it would do at contouring.

Nail polishes and the lip and cheek tint!

The nail polishes are from left to right Magenta Divine, Indian Ocean and Mixed Up. I've only tried Mixed Up so far, but it looks just like Sugarpill Stella eyeshadow and my heelless shoes, so I'm in love ;D Magenta Divine looks like the perfect colour in the bottle. I'm a bit unsure about Indian Ocean, it's pretty but I rarely wear blue, so it's still in the shrink plastic wrap waiting for me to make my mind up whether to keep it or not.  The last one, in a similar bottle, is a lip and cheek tint. I haven't found a good way to apply it to my cheeks, it tends to leave dots or streaks, but looks nice on the lips. It doesn't last long, so this one might be a miss.

Bronzer in Natural Bronze. Looks too dark in the pic!

The bronzer was a pleasant surprise. It's really light (the picture doesn't do it justice) and both shades work on my skin. I've used it so that I apply it to my jaw line and the sides of my nose with a big fluffy blush brush. It's subtle but I think it makes my cheek bones more pronounced. That's really hard to catch on camera but I promise I'll try!

Right now I'm planning a no-buy for next month, I have to save some money because the tax office sent me some extra to pay. Not fair! But the last no-buy I did made me really dig into my makeup collection and come up with new combinations from my closet, so it can be a good thing :)

Blue and Orange Look

My contacts expired, so I decided in the morning rush to use the pair of blue one-day contacts I had lying around. I didn't have time to do my make-up, so in the evening I decided to try how to get the most of the blue contacts.

Since blue and orange are complimentary colours and I happen to like Fyrinnae's Rapunzel Had Extensions very much, I went for an orange look. Here are the results!

Notice my stylishly cathair covered blouse ;P

I used:

Fyrinnae Rapunzel Had Extensions (light peach with gold shimmer, on the whole lid)

Fyrinnae Electro-Koi (bright orange, in the crease)

P2 100% Black Waterproof Gel Eyeliner

Catrice Red & The City lip stain

I also wanted to show the fake plug I got a while ago! It's made of dark wood
and I think it's really pretty :)

My Piercings

I currently have 6 earrings and three piercings. I've had five piercings at most, and I think the hole below my lower lip is still open, so that might qualify for half a piercing ;P

From top to bottom: Bridge, Medusa and the hole for a Labret.

I took my first piercing when I was nineteen (that's eight years ago!), if I remember correctly. Nineteen or eighteen. I had a nipple pierced and everything went fine, I just should have known better than to look ;) I don't like needles, but piercings haven't been any trouble, since it's over in a heartbeat.

The next one was the bridge a year or two later. I had it done on a hot summer day and it bled everywhere, and continued to do so for a few days at awkward times. Like making pancakes on a frying pan.

Then I took the labret, and was a bit pissed that the person doing it paid no heed when I said I bled a lot last time and asked him to give me some paper and be gentle. The labret didn't bleed, but I didn't go to the same place again because I felt the piercer should have listened to me better.

The Medusa was taken on a whim almost two years ago, I wanted something new and had already dyed my hair turquoise ;D Got the idea when leaving from the office and stopped by the nice piercing place to get something done. I went back and forth between a medusa and a septum, but finally went with a medusa. It swelled up horribly, but was better in a few days. I changed the ball to a small one my self, I think it looks really nice.

As for earrings, I wear titanium piercing jewelry on my helix and three other holes on the same lobe, and leave the lowest holes for regular earrings. I took the labret out about a year ago, since my other half and I had to take turns who wears what jewelry. He has a labret too and wore a ring on it, and since I liked to have a horseshoe ring on mine, we could get stuck kissing. Fun and romantic on maybe the first time, but a bit cumbersome most of the time ;P I tried to put in a small stud, but it didn't feel good against my gums so I just took it out. The hole is still there, so I might put something in it sometime.

I've also had one piercing in the "nether regions", it was a gift and I liked it, but sometimes it was in the way so I took it out (there's nothing quite like riding your bike and noticing something's gotten tangled with your underwear!). I was planning on getting the other nipple pierced, but the one that has a piercing isn't as sensitive as the other one, so I opted on having one nipple with feeling ;)

None on the piercing hurt much, it's such a short time to put the needle through, but the crunch I could hear when the bridge needle was pushed through still gives me the shivers. I heal well and haven't really had any problems with any piercing so far. I've had all mine done in respectable piercing parlours with hygienic tools. Putka in Tampere is my favourite place.

An Old Picture

This is from Lumous Gothic Festival 2010, I think. There was a photographer documenting gothic culture and taking lots of pictures of people, but I can't remember his name and a friend posted the picture to me later. I think it's pretty nice, although a bit over exposed.

I had blonde hair with the tip of the fringe dyed magenta and Colinette wool extensions I made my self. I still have all the clothes, the top and skirt are from Lip Service and the corset is most likely by Burleska, a nice basic pvc-corset. The shoes are from New Look. The tiny hat is either from Seppälä or H&M, both stores sold hats when it was time for pre-Christmas parties and I always stock up then! And yes, I know you can see my undies ;P The skirt is see-through, but the flash makes it much more obvious!

Painting and Painting

I read a blog by Kartanonrouva Elise, and she challenged all her readers to do a painting. This was a while back, but I was inspired! I measured an empty frame I had and did a quick sketch while watching Star Trek ;P I documented the painting stages, so here we go!

The lighting wasn't perfect, but this is the original sketch done with
pencils on watercolour paper. I like drawing and painting faces!

This is the painting after the first layer of watercolours. I felt it was a
total failure at this point, the paper wouldn't stay straight (I taped it to
the table and that should work, but the tape kept loosing grip) and I couldn't
find my old watercolours so I had to do with the basic colours I found, and
they were missing one shade of blue making it impossible to blend warm
browns. Luckily there's was a tiny piece left on an old palette!

After a second layer of colours and details. The painting really came together
at this stage and I was happy!

The finished painting in the frame I painted it for.

I'm so happy I did it, I haven't painted anything in years! I had even lost my watercolours (they might still be buried in some closet), but it was a good thing in the end, I had to think more of how to combine the ones I had. Cats drank from my water cup and there was hair on the painting and I scratched the surface when trying to pick them off. The painting and the frame combined are a bit busy, but I just couldn't see the magnificent frame with a minimalistic painting! All in all, I'm happy with the painting, it's not my best piece but it was fun to do and the result is nice.

Maybe next time I'll whip out some pastels or even my set of oil paints! I've been working with markers for long and they are just too easy and boring, traditional techniques are messy and offer more surprises :)

Halloween Swap Loot!

At the Meep Moo make-up community in Facebook we did a Halloween swap. There were only two participants at the international swap, but that was just enough! I like swaps, I love putting together packets and carefully picking out stuff I think my swap partner would like, and I get so excited to receive something selected especially for me.

This time the packet came from Canada and was HUGE! So much stuff inside!

Look at the pile!

And that's not even all, I saved the best for the last! I got perfume samples, body butter samples, four eyeshadows, hairclip and cute spider earrings.

The hairclip

Shiro shadows. I haven't tried Shiro Cosmetics before but I've
wanted for a long time!

The Shiro shadows and Femme Fatale shadows. Another brand I've wanted to try!

Spider earrings! They are small studs, very pretty :)

Haunt's mystery scent with a cute note.

Purplecat Creatives' mini body butters. These all smell fabulous, I've
already tried one as a massage oil and it worked well even for that!

All the stuff! Except for...

The gorgeous hand-made scarf! It's purple, black and has metallic sparkly
purple in it. It's also very warm and goes perfectly with my leather jacket :)

Even Nana loves it!

I want to thank my swap partner again, everything was so lovely, thank you! I hope you will like your package as much!

Tea for Two

I like tea. I think I've hoarded over twenty different types in the kitchen cupboards and drink at least one cup a day. Still, I couldn't resist when I came across tea flowers; green and white tea leaves tied together with a dried flower. The leaves and the flower open up in hot water and you have a wonderful flower in your cup while the tea brews.

I set out cups for me and my other half, and some milk chocolate covered
banana flakes to go just because they are so delicious!

I can take this opportunity to also show off the cute PiP Studio bowls I got a few weeks back! I've had their cups for some time and found these new, smaller bowl with pretty flower motifs. I've got both pink and light blue versions, but skipped the beige ones because they looked boring. I'm also happy about the ceramic kettle that my other half bought when our last one broke down. It's pretty goth ;P

This is probably not the pretties of tea flowers, but I was still excited!

The taste wasn't anything special, but still good. I'm a visual person and like to have pretty things around me, so the tea flowers are like made for me :) I might get some with different flowers once I've gone through these.

Outfit of the Day and a Party Look

This is from Saturday! Me and my other half went to a friend's birthday party. The weather was horrible, raining all night long, but the trip to the party was worthwhile. Many friends and some new acquaintances, good music and delicious food. I hope the party boy liked our present, we gave him a bottle of organic red wine and two bags of hand-picked frozen yellow foot mushrooms.

Dress - H&M

Body jewellery - GinaTricot

Pantyhose - Sokos, maybe? Can't remember!

Boots - New Rock

And here's the make-up look I wore, it's done with the stuff I gushed about in the previous post, sent by Meeow from Germany!

I used:
P2 stay colored! eye cream in 060 polar white
P2 stay colored! eye cream in 080 dramatic moon
Scaredy cat eyeshadow in Arctic Royale
Madd Style Cosmetics eyeshadow in Fabby Lala
P2 100% Black gel eyeliner
P2 eye catcher 2in1 mascara + eyeliner in 030 bamboo garden

I applied the cream shadow just a bit too thickly, so the shadow flaked a bit during the evening and looks uneven in the pic, but nothing dramatic. The cream intensified the colours very nicely and I just love the turquoise mascara and eyeliner!

Package from Germany

Meeow, who won the 200 readers giveaway a while back, contacted me a while ago and suggested she could get me a few things I missed during my last trip to Germany. Naturally I was very happy for the offer and instantly took it! I got her some cosmetics that were only available in Finland and got this awesome package in return :)

It came wrapped in very pretty paper, golden leopard spots are über cool!

And with a lovely note!

This is what was inside, almost like Christmas ripping those packages open ;P

All the stuff!

Meeow sent me a P2 Stay colored! cream eyeshadow in 060 Polar White (I got the purple one last time I visited Germany and was surprised I liked it), a P2 Eye Catcher 2in1 mascara+eyeliner in 030 Bamboo Garden and a P2 100% Black waterproof gel eyeliner. And as a surprise I got some orange-vanilla black tea and little heart-shaped raspberry and vanilla candy, so delicious! I ate the candy already and even tried the tea, I'm so happy with everything :)

Here's a small picture of the cosmetics in action!

I naturally wanted to try everything instantly, so I did a look to wear at the birthday party we were heading for in the evening. There's Polar White on the inner corners of my eyes and just a touch on the brow bone (I put some Scaredy Cat Arctic Royale on top), some of the purple cream shadow on the outer parts of lids topped with Fabby Lala from Madd Style Cosmetics. I first put some black mascara on and then added Bamboo Garden on top, and used the eyeliner too. It's a gorgeous colour! I put a hint of the 100% Black liner below my lower lashes and put some Bamboo Garden liner on top to bring out the colour. The turquoise mascara is my absolute favourite!

Thank again, Meeow, I love everything! Meeow not only packs awesome packets, but has a gorgeous blog too, check it out :)

Outfit of the Day

This is my outfit from yesterday, when visiting the Ateneum art museum! The exhibition was great, I really enjoyed it, and it was so nice to be able to meet an old friend while there. Thanks for the company, Sirkku!

I took pictures in a different room, but Möttönen still felt obliged to join me. Too bad I had to cut her to keep the picture small enough, but she looked kinda fat anyway ;D

Poncho - Second hand

Bolero - Queen of Darkness

Belt - Only

Dress - H&M

Leggings - ReStyle

Boots - New Rock

On the Train

Helsinki is the place where I was born, and today I'm heading back for a super short visit to check out the Schjerfbeck exhibition in Ateneum. Riding a train is fun with a good book and just painted nails!