Shoe Addiction?

I went out looking for a dress for an upcoming wedding party, but came home with shoes instead ;P But there are so pretty and cost only 20 euros! They are real leather and just the type that my party shoe collection was missing. The laces were frazzled, but my other half was nice and burned the ends to make them neat. I added little non-slip stickers on the soles.

And Möttönen had just enough time to squeeze into the picture ;D

I hope I'll find a dress too, the wedding has a dress code wishing for grey, white or blue, which are not really a part of my wardrobe. Ideally I'd want a second hand dress, it would be silly to buy something new when it might be that I don't wear it more than once. The best dress would be something that I could wear again! My current plan is to keep stalking eBay, I just lost an auction on a pretty blue dress but there's still lots of time, luckily.

Pole Dancing Pictures

On Thursday my friends Niina and Jukka were heading to the pole dancing studio to take some pictures just for fun. They asked me to tag along and naturally I went! I hadn't been to the studio before while they free practice, where you basically can just rent a pole and practice by yourself. At home my pole is in such a tight spot that it's hard to do spins without kicking something, so I haven't been able to practise as much as I'd want to. I was a bit doubtful of how the pictures of me would turn out, since I had just done a tough practice the day before and I think every muscle in my body ached. But I'm glad I tried, there were nice pictures and I got to train :)

Here are the best shots, thanks again Jukka!

I'm super concentrated when trying to find a pose.

This was called a plank. Maybe one day I can take my hands off the pole in this one ;D 

I've been stretching a lot, since it's so easy to do at home while watching the telly. 

Spinning!

A figurehead pose.

The reflection is nice in this one :)

I think I really need to get a cropped top, now this is my only one and I just roll it up for moves where you need to have grip with the sides, back or belly. I'm so happy that I found this hobby, I'm not very sporty and my background in dancing is limited to drunken disco dance, but I feel like I'm progressing fast. I'm always eager to see and feel changes and get frustrated easily if I have to keep doing something without knowing what I'm doing wrong, but with pole dancing I feel like I'm always a tiny bit better each time. And I can actually see muscles in my arms now!

Sugarpill Sale and Other Black Friday Sales!

Heads up! Sugarpill is having a Black Friday sale from 28.11. to 2.12. All items in stock are -20% to -50%, there's no word yet which discount will apply to which items.

I'm really a big fan of Sugarpill, I like their pressed shadows and loose ones too :) I haven't tried their new neon shadows, but other than that, I've tried and been happy with everything else. My orders have always shipped and arrived fast.

For other Black Friday shopping, have look at Luna's post at Toxid-Lotus for a good list of most indie sales. I'm keeping an eye on Darling Girl and made a small order to Coastal Scents (they have everything on -50% sale, what a deal!).

Note to Finnish people! The postal services are on a strike so it affects all deliveries, so keep that in mind when ordering! More info can be found here: Tilannetiedote - Itella.

Diamond Eyes and Subterranean Look

I had trouble taking pictures of this look! Subterranean is actually a mossy green, but I couldn't get my camera to capture it that way, the camera is convinced it's blue. So just try think of the blue as green in these ;P I did a simple smoky look wit just Subterranean on the whole lid and Diamond Eyes, a shimmery white, on the middle of the lid. The white gives the look depth, but very subtly, which I like the best about this one :)

Tender Loving Shoe Care

I've been super busy reading for an exam (and going to a pre-Christmas party ;P) but since my new shoes arrived, I took the time to polish them and my favourite other pairs as well. It's pretty calming to just concentrate on rubbing the cream in and polishing, a great way to let your mind relax a bit.

All of my babies lovingly polished! The New Rocks both are my favourites of the shoes I wear often. In addition to them I have yet another pair of NRs, little wedges from Spirit Store and my grandmother's old winter boots for the time when it's super slippery and lots of snow.

Shiny! I've already put my Lita's in the closed to wait for the spring or special indoor occasions. It's
so wet outside that I don't dare to take suede shoes outside. On the Reactor sole New Rocks you can
see how the salt used to keep the ice at bay dyes shoes, it leaves a white "water line" on the sole and
doesn't want to come off.

And these are the new ones! They are Trench High boots by Unif. I was browsing similar styles but totally fell in love
with the large zippers, and I like my shoes to be real leather when possible.

Look at the size of that! The zippers are not just for show, so I don't have to open the laces when putting these on.

I've only worn them for one night, but they are just the right size. They might take some time to be broken in since
the leather is fairly stiff, but I'm sure it will be worth it :)

Kitties.

My other half tucked in the kitties and they looked super cute!

I'll Move That For You Look

Shiro Cosmetics I'll Move That For You and Femme Fatale Faerie Fire on the inner corners. I should have lifted the outer wing of the shadow even higher, it made me look a little bit tired.

For some reason the eyeshadow looks very blue, but in artificial light it's a more red based purple.

Sugarpill Cold Chemistry Palette

I finally ordered the Cold Chemistry palette by Sugarpill from Karmaloop when they had sale. I've been trying to save money, but a -40% sale was a decent excuse to get this one ;P Here are my first impressions immediately after trying the palette for the first time!

The palette comes in a protective cardboard sleeve with the same picture as the actual palette. I love the graphics!

My picture looks a bit washed out

Palette open. From left to right: Soot & Stars, Diamond Eyes, Elemental Chaos and Subterranean.

Soot & Stars with flash. It's a black shade with lots of shimmer. On my skin it looks like it has mostly silver sparkle.

Diamond Eyes with flash. A warm, shimmery white.

Elemental Chaos with flash. A dark shimmery purple.

Subterraen with flash. A dark shimmery green, just the right shade to go with Elemental Chaos.

Subterranean without flash. My pictures are a bit dark, but I think they depict the shades well.

Elemental Chaos without flash.

Diamond Eyes without flash.

Soot & Stars without flash.

All the shades seem to work together great. Soot & Stars is darker than the purple and green to make it excellent for creating depth to the crease. Diamond Eyes does not lean to blue or seem too cream coloured next to the other shades. And Elemental Chaos and Subterranean are just my kind of colours: dark but shimmery, dramatic and go well on my skin tone.

The palette looks like it could get dirty easily, but then again my previous Sugarpill palettes which have a black matte area around the shadows have done fine and are easy to wipe clean. The palette closes securely with a magnet and you can use the cardboard sleeve for extra protection. The mirror is big and the landscape shape is good for doing eye make-up. I feel the design looks very polishes, down to the use of gloss finished areas that really pop on the matte black surface. Having the names of the shades next to them is a nice change, on the previous palettes they have been on the bottom of the palette.

I did a quick look with the palette to see how it performs. I used Lime Crime Eyeshadow helper as a base. The inner corners are done with Diamond Eyes and it's very lightly applied on the brow bone as well. In the center of the lid there's Subterranean, and above it Elemental Chaos. Soot & Stars is applied lightly to the crease. Subterranean is used on the lower lid. The pictures are taken with a flash and I corrected the contrast a bit, but I think they show the colours pretty much like they would look in natural light.

 

The camera decided my hair is blue ;P I'm still learning to use the white balance, but the green-blue of my hair is very tricky to capture!

So far I'm totally in love with the palette. It looks great, seems sturdy and the shades are totally me. I'll try other looks with it once I'm done with reading for the next exam and have time to do better looks!

Outfit of the Day

I finally managed to take some outfit photos before the darkness fell! This time of year the sun sets before four o'clock, so the only times I see sun are through the office window and on weekends. It was very windy, which looked great in pictures since I still had the curls from Thursday's photoshoot!

Jacket - Juunappa

Top - Kreepsville

Leggings - Bik Bok

Boots - New Rock

Ocean Gypsy Photoshoot

I named these Ocean Gypsy because upon seeing the pics I immediately thought of the Blackmore's Night song. These were taken at the photo meet, the set was first used with regular lighting but then Jukka came up with a strong blue light which really changed the mood of the pictures!

These are not edited, it's just the blue light that changes all the colours, and together with the warm light from the candles it creates interesting shades and shadows.

I believe these lighter ones were taken with a flash to give extra light.

The darker pictures only have the blue spotlight and the candles.

All pictures by Jukka!