Black Lace Nails

I've been having fun with nail polish now that I finally mastered stamping. Currently I'm wearing nude nails with black lace stamps that I'm especially fond of. This lace is from a Hehe 018 plate, but I got so excited I ordered a few more lace plates to get more variation ;P I like how simple and elegant this Hehe lace is, and the pattern is large enough to let the colour beneath show nicely. I mostly own dark polishes, but I think I might need a few light shades that would work well the lace. Or I could stamp the lace in white on top of dark shades maybe, so many options! I see my nail polish collection in a new light now that I can use them for stamping too.

GinaTricot Puff Powder as the base and Konad black stamping polish on the patterns.

I keep having problems with Seche Vite top coat yellowing in a few days. Has anyone else experienced this and can something be done? Nude nails start looking nicotine yellow after 3-4 days of putting on polish and I don't like it.

Everything is Kupfer-Orange!

I had a rare day when I had absolutely no meetings or events in my calendar. I used it to start a sewing project, which I hope will result in an outfit for Lumous festival that's next month. I bought ten meters of reasonably priced taffeta and took to finding out how the Fan + Friend bustle skirt was constructed, so I could make my own version.

I love the black bustle skirt, but it so dark that some of the lovely details are lost and don't show up in photos well. That's why I decided to go for material that's something else than black. First I was thinking about red, but I rarely wear red and don't think it goes well with my pink hair. After some thinking I settled for a gorgeous kupfer-orange or copper orange (that was also only 4 euros per meter). It seemed like a fairly unique shade, something that would work well with accessories I have, and it should work with pink hair too.

The Fan + Friend skirt worn by a dress form for closer inspection. Notice the
authentic German dust on the hem ;P

I looked at some Truly Victorian patterns, but the skirts didn't appeal to me, so I decided to go without and just try to mimic the Fan + Friend skirt that fits me well and seems to have all the qualities I want. I put it on my dress form and did some measuring, and cut the copper orange taffeta based on the measurements. I'm still missing a zipper and the skirt is missing the top layer that has the actual bustle and a apron part, but I think it's looking quite nice even now. My picture doesn't do it justice, but the pleats are looking really nice and the skirt fits over a petticoat and a bustle cage just like it should, which makes me happy.

Having a simple, non-bustled base skirt make it so much easier to make sure the bustle will stay in place, and that I can use plenty of fabric to do pleats and drapes on the top part of the skirt, and the hemline pleats will make the bottom look nice and finished.

View from the back, the base skirt with no bustled top part yet. The dress form is wearing
a tulle petticoat and a bustle cage so I can see how the skirt looks on top of them.

I spend most of yesterday evening by ironing the neverending pleats. There was nine meters of fabric before pleating, so that's a lot! But I think it looks really good, and the front side of the skirt will have the apron part so that the pleating will show nicely under it, so I think it was worth it. Now just the zipper, a button at the waist, gathering the bustle in the back and pleating the apron in the front. I think the hem pleats are the most time-consuming part of the project, so most of the work is done. I bought a Truly Victorian pattern for a separate bodice, but I'll do a mock-up first to see how it fits. It's a fairly complicated piece, but I'm pretty sure I can master it. If not on the first go, there's plenty of fabric for a second version, so I think I'm safe.

So. Many. Pleats.

Magnus was ecstatic over the long hems, he dove right in under any and all skirts I put on the dress form!

I'm excited to continue with this project! If I have enough time, I'll make a matching hat or a fascinator too. I'm going nest week on a trip to Tallinn with some lovely ladies from our craft club, we will raid all the fabric stores, so then I will have the zipper I need ;D

Reds and Pinks Look

I'm heading out to have ladies night with friends, so I took the time to play with eyeshadows a bit. Something drew me to use just reds and pinks and to go for nude lips, but all shades go surprisingly well!

I used:

Sugarpill Pastelle (super sparkly pastel pink)
Sugarpill Charmy (sparkly peach)
Sugarpill Countess (metallic dark wine red)
Aromaleigh Flying Flower (medium pink)

Lips: Essence Cool Nude

Outfit of the Day

I've not been very frugal lately, I think WGT has this effect on me when I see all the awesome and lovely outfits people where there ;P But when I got home from Germany, I ordered a dress from KillStar and a few corsets from Restyle.

The main inspiration for shopping just these items was reader of the blog I briefly met during the Solstafir gig at WGT. She was wearing this same dress and a lovely corset, and looked just fabulous. I didn't catch her name, but who ever you are, thank you for being so gorgeous! :)

Dress - KillStar Sorcery Hood Dress

Corset - Restyle Dark Raven Underbust

Purse - Rogue by Tiina Ulkuniemi

Boots - Unif High Trench

I wore the outfit to go and listen to Musta Paraati, and old Finnish goth band that's making a comeback. I was a bit unsure of how they would sound after all these years (they were making music before I was even born!) but they were wonderful! The whole band had great energy and everyone seemed to give their all on the stage.

I have to say I'm really impressed by the quality of the Restyle corsets! This one cost less than fifty euros and is very sturdy and quite comfortable to wear. I also like the design, it's very pretty. I think this means that I absolutely have to hunt down a second hand cat skull corset Restyle used to sell, because I though about buying it but never got it, fearing that cheap corsets would be too uncomfortable to get any use in my wardrobe. But this one proves that at least Restyle ones give you plenty of bang for the buck!

Nail Stamping

On my latest trip to Helsinki I did some nail polish shopping at Cesars Shop. One of the things I got was a set of nail stamping plates and a the tools to go with them. I've tried stamping once before was totally sucked at it, but I thought I could try again with better quality equipment.

I had some trouble getting the stamper to work, it needed some buffing before it would pick up the polish from the plate at all, but now that I got the hang of it, I'm super proud! I also naturally had to try out almost all of the polishes I bough ;P

From top to bottom the polishes used are Zoya Julieanne (x2), F.U.N Blessing and Picture Polish Peacock. The stampings are done with Konad black and white stamping polish. Zoya Julieanne is very much alike to my all-time favourite nail polish, Daddy's Girl by Sinful Colours. Daddy's Girl is very hard to find so it's great that I found a dupe!

And here's the best shot I could get of the other hand, that has a cool lace stamp that I'm very proud of. The base polish is Picture Polish Peacock.

Outfit of the Day

Once more a regular work outfit! Today I went to Helsinki for a meeting in the morning, and was lucky to have some time before my train back left. I visited Lush and Cesars Shop, that sells nail polish and other nail care and accessories. It was a true nail polish heaven and I went a bit wild! But more on that later, when I have some decent pictures of the polishes I bought, now I want to show you the gorgeous top Tiina of Rogue gave me for my b-day/graduation present!

It's a soft, loose cropped top with the moth motif I designed for the jewellery collaboration we did. I never want to take this top off again, it's so comfy, just my style and the shade of grey is perfect! I paired it with a simple black top underneath for some warmth and a pair of high-waisted Bik Bok jeans.

Cabals: The Board Game

I used to work for Kyy Games before, and currently they have a very interesting project going on. They have a digital card game, called Cabals, that's set in an alternative 1930's universe and quite popular. Now they are working on a board game version of Cabals and have a Kickstarter campaign.

I met with their game designer during Ropecon last month, he's an old friend of mine and we got the idea that I could design a card for Cabals. I was working on the project when the world for the game was created, and I simply love it! Think of Hellboy, Kult the roleplaying game and Neil Gaiman, alternative, magical realities, that's definitely my thing! The art on the cards is often based on photos, so I could even be on the card itself.

So after some planning, here's Frya Karolina, a medium of the ancient Frisian goddesses!



The final picture will be one of this set, but painted over. The imaginary Frisian goddesses were the keepers of an eternal flame, much like the Vestal virgins of Rome, so I chose to have a lantern as a prop. The lantern is originally saved from a bin at our last apartment, I've held on to it since it's so pretty! The headdress is new, from WGT, by a company called Videnoir. The dress was a last minute find on the flea market table at Ropecon, I thought it would go nicely with some sort of steampunk outfit, but it worked quite nicely for this shoot too. The colours are a bit interesting together, as I just collected things that had the right shape and size, and counted on the wonderful artists at Kyy Games to handle the colour palette. Lets see what they come up with!

In the mean time, take a look at the Cabals Kickstarter campaign!

UPDATE: The Kickstarter is currently closed, but will be back later this year. I'll keep you posted!