Halloween Photos!

I promised the full body photo of my Halloween/Samhain costume and here it is! We had the lovely Eliza Rask Photography handling the photo booth and the results are awesome, as usual. Go and check all the other costumes on Facebook via this link! The outfits were gorgeous!

I'm home alone for the first time in ages. My husband is having his ankle operated and will have to spend a couple of nights in the hospital. Then some weeks in a cast and finally the ordeal should be done with. He broke his ankle almost a year ago and it didn't heal properly, but hopefully now everything will be fine. Send us good thoughts!

Satan's bride. The dress is second hand as is the veil. The tiara is a necklace
I attached with wire on a headband and the horns are plastic costume horns from eBay.

All the DJs of the evening! Aren't we terrifying? ;D

Halloween Dress Up!

You might easily guess that I'm a fan of Halloween! I like dressing up, I love masquerades and theme parties, anything that gets my creative juices going. This year I didn't have much energy to prepare, so I opted to re-use an old costume. When I have a blood-drenched wedding gown in my closet, I very much intend to wear it as often as possible!

As usual, I was organizing the Club Underworld and Bella Morte Samhain party. This might be the last time with this team, but maybe then there's something completely new next year! This was the sixth party, so our team has done more than our share making sure that goths can enjoy Samhain in a beautifully decorated place with good music and company :)

A huge thanks to everyone who attended! The costumes were fabulous, as usual, and the burlesque performances by the gorgeous Bella von Wolfkill seemed like the perfect addition to the evening.

But yes, my dress! In 2013 I found a very nice old wedding dress at a charity shop. It had HUGE puffed sleeves, a mermaid silhouette and tons of beading, sequins and lace. So the perfect base for some fake blood! Here you can find pictures of the original dress.

So I spattered tons of fake blood on it (and our bathroom) and the dead bride was born. The dress came with a medium veil, which also got a spattering of blood. The first time I wore the dress, I accidentally glued it to my skin with the fake blood and had hell of a time trying to get out of it when I got home in the early morning hours ;D After that it's been easier, as I have not added any more blood but just let the old fake blood dry and kept it as it is. I also learned that I really, really want to buy the non-sticky fake blood in the future!

This Samhain was the third time I took the dress for a spin, and it worked perfectly. It's just the right length on me with my favourite heels, not too hot to wear, and even though it's a tiny bit snug on my bottom, the top fits very well (I actually took it a bit in when I first got the dress, I don't know how the original owner has been able to move without toppling with that kind of boobage ;D). I came up with Satan's Bride in 2014 and went with that again. Horns + upside down crosses + dark makeup = awesome!

Photo by Ari Rantanen

I don't yet have the photo booth pictures, but these give a good general idea of the costume. Samhain/Halloween is a tricky time to get decent pictures of outfits, but that is why we arranged for a photo booth for guests, so they can document their awesome creations!

If you want to see more pictures of the evening and the guests, here's a link to the event's Facebook album.

Bachelorette Look

I had my bachelorette party a couple of weeks ago! We did things in a non-traditional order: first getting married, then having the wedding party over half a year later, and then after the wedding was my bachelorette party. I can recommend this order, much less stress! I don't think I could have enjoyed a bachelorette party fully before the wedding, as there was so much to do.

I didn't know beforehand what we were going to do at the party, so I just my makeup and chose comfy clothes.

Pastel look done with Sugarpill Sparkle Baby palette. Brows are OCC Black Dahlia lip pecil.

I was amazed at what wonderful things my maids of honor had come up with for the party! We ent to a burlesque dance class to improvise little performances, then to a room escape game and afterwards had a great dinner. I really enjoyed all the activities, and just meeting people who I had not had the time to talk to for a while was nice. Just eating, drinking and chatting, the most basic fun there is!

And I absolutely have to try out more room escape games, that was fun! The concept is that you have a team of people, go into a room and the goal is to find the clues hidden in the room and escape it within a time limit. I like games, and having a physical puzzle game has it's own charm.

Check out my new earrings from H&M Halloween selection ;P They say "Witch Please"

Next I hope to show you my Halloween costume! At Club Bella Morte x Underworld Samhain party we had a professional photographer set up booth to allow guests to get pictures taken of their outfits. I had some extra time (usually I just run around all night long, as there's always something that needs to be done) and got my picture taken too. Can't wait for the result!

Gothic Night Look

I promised to DJ at a new event in Bar Bändäri. They were having a Gothic Night first time ever, and I'm so glad I got to be part of it! Many people came, the music was good and the antique sofas of the bar were soooo nice and comfy and pretty. It's always great to see an event do well!

I went to the hairdressers the day before the event to get my hair dyed and to try out a hairdo for the wedding, so I still had the curls the hairdresser put in. When loose, my hair looked kinda eighties, which is cool! I usually wear larger curls, but this is a fun look too.

Bolero - Artifice Clothing

Dress - Lip Service

Earrings - Kill Star

I just love the different shades the hairdresser put in my hair! There's sections of purple, bright pink and more muted pink and purple. All done with Elumen so my bathroom doesn't look like a massacre after shower and the colour lasts a long time (in hair, not on bathroom floor ;D).

Femme Fatale eyeshadows, some Sugarpill Tako, a pink from Urban Decay Spectrum palette, and glitter lips. I did the lips so that I lined them with a liquid to matte Sephora lipstain (it's actually a lipstick, I don't know why they call it a stain), then added some Urban Decay Jawbreaker to the middle and a bit on top of the stain, then padded on loose glitter. Works like a charm! Thanks to the liquid to matte the lipstick doesn't bleed on smudge at the edges, but the traditional wax based lipstick in the middle is a lot more comfortable to wear. And the glitter just makes everything amazing.

Petrol and Glitter

For the second day of Lumous, I wore my new latex dress. I had thought of commissioning a new dress, but when Tiina Rikala posted that she was ordering special latex from Yummy Gummy, I knew I wanted some. Galaxy latex, glitter latex, colour change latex... all their products looked wonderful! In the end I settled on a colour changing glitter latex and a hi-lo hem dress pattern.

As always, Tiina did an excellent job! The dress has tiny sleeves, a reinforced waistband for extra slim silhouette, cups and the most wonderful hem ever (which I forgot to take a picture of)

The colour changing glitter latex is simply to die for. In natural, cool light it's more petrol and leans towards purple under more yellow indoor lights. It looks metallic and the glitter shows very well when the dress is polished. Tiina made me a matching hair flower too, which was just what the outfit needed!

And as I'm a sucker for all things petrol, I did my make up with the same shade and even had a matching lipstick ready. The hair is just straightened to keep things nice and simple. I happened to have Jeffrey Campbell sandals with an oil slick finish in my closet, so those were a natural match to this dress.

The dress is quite heavy, but because it's made for me, it fits like a glove and is effortless to wear. I like the feel of latex, and the usual problem of having a wide hem go every which way when it's windy is eliminated as the latex is too heavy to fly in the wind. I'm so happy with this dress!

I've scheduled a photoshoot to get better full body pictures of the dress, but it will take a few weeks until it happens. Meanwhile this is the only full body shot, taken by Tomi Vitikainen Photography at Lumous. Take a look at his other pictures, they capture the atmosphere of the festival.

Photo by Tomi Vitikainen Photography

Finnish Game Awards 2016 Look

My gala look! I quite like latex, so I had a dress made by Tiina Rikala who has years and years of experience with the material. Tiina usually makes fetish clothing, but wasn't scared of gala dresses, so this chocolate brown baby was born! I wanted something not black, but don't feel comfy in bright colours. The brown goes well with my hair, and was more appropriate than my second favourite shade of latex, metallic purple. I asked Tiina to emphasize my waist, so she built an awesome system of thicker latex around the waist area to cinch me in a tiny bit. Comfy and good looking!

Sorry about the ugly socks ;D I originally wore a panty hose, but it didn't work well with the dress, as latex is meant to be worn right next to skin. So I bought socks while on the way to the gala and the only skin tone ones I found were a tiny bit too short.

If you want to take a look at more of Tiina's latex works, here's her website! Latex may sound like a weird choice for a gala, but it's actually quite nice to wear and you don't need to have it done in fetish style, it also works for normal dresses just fine. My dress cost a little under 200 euros, so compared to fancier off the rack dresses, latex is not even exceptionally expensive. I have to say I fell a little more in love with the material, and already planned another dress with Tiina. I also learned that glitter latex actually exists. I have to have it!

Oh, and our game did awesomely! Cities: Skylines is the Big Screen Finnish Game of the Year, the Finnish Game of the Year and also got the Kyöpeli award from Pelit magazine. Yay!

Pink in Wonderland

Over the top? Me? When I noticed a friend's b-day party my other half and me were attending had a Wonderland theme, I immediately got inspired! I had 8 meters of pink taffeta stashed away just waiting for an idea. Originally it was supposed to be a Lady Lovely Locks cosplay outfit, but the hair and flattening my boobs kinda sounded uncomfortable. So in comes Wonderland!

I already had a little teacup hat I made a few years ago for another party with the same theme, and I wanted to try if I could alter the robe d'anglaise pattern I got for hybrid between it and a robe a la francaise. The francaise has a stomacher instead of the hooks and eyes front closure of the anglaise, and francaise usually has large back pleats and a hidden lacing in the back. All of those pleats and lacing sounded like too much work, so I just sliced the anglaise pattern to have the same back and a stomacher in the front. To save even more time (and nerves) the stomacher attaches to the dress with snap tape. I'm thinking that this way I could make interchangeable stomachers for different looks, and even alter the waist circumference a bit to suit different corsets underneath.

There were some tricky parts, like running out of matching thread even though I bough a hundred meter spool, and pleating all that hem to fit the bodice, and then the blasted ruffles! All the ruffles had to be sewn by hand and I absolutely hate that. At least this time I didn't poke myself with the need and leave bloody finger prints all over the dress, but I still hated it. I think I cut the ruffles too narrow, which made them bunch up impossibly so that attaching them to the bodice was slow. The ruffles wanted to twist and I had to be extra careful to make sure everything was the right way around. Then again I doubt it would have been obvious even if the ruffle had so twists here and there.

The dress with pannier hoops. Sorry about the too long petticoat hanging out!
This was the first time I got to wear the ensemble and see how it came together.

Here the dress is worn with a white undershirt (for modesty ;D) on top of a correct corset, and a tulle petticoat,
no pannier hoops.

The cute little muffin earrings are made by a friend. Thanks Anniina!

The "polonaise" top skirt is actually floor length, I just gathered it up with ties and two
safety pins to go with a short skirt instead. I don't have enough fabric to do a long skirt with
the same pink, but maybe I could find some more of the fabric.

For the stomacher I wanted to do decorations with ribbons to avoid having to do something
slow, like embroidery. I originally wanted to have matching pink ribbons, but the local haberdashery
shop did not have anything matching, so I chose a complimenting olive shade.

I got extra ribbon to use as a bracelet, necklace and to tie some in my hair and on the sleeves.
There no olive ribbon actually sewn to rest of the gown, so I can change the colour scheme
if I feel like it. 

All. Those. Pleats! I was losing my mind with pleating the skirt, and it's not perfect, but close enough!

The teacup got some olive ribbon and a few slices of the pink fabric, finished with pinking
scissors.

The teacup hat is a  actual teacup glued to a hairband with epoxy. I had glued some rhinestones
on the last time I used it, but those came off easily, so I just used ribbons for decoration.

The party was great, lots of people and delicious pastries! It was along day as my other half and I came back from Helsinki and stopped by to change summer tires to the car and help clean out my family's summer cottage. I beat the sofa pillows with a tennis racket (there was no carpet to be found) until I had blisters on my hands, but boy where those pillows dusty! So we did just a quick, few hour stop at the party and headed home to catch some sleep. I was glad to see I wasn't the only one who likes theme parties, people had awesome outfits!

Club Infektio Celebrates Fifth B-Day!

Club Infektio is hosting a great party on 15th of April to celebrate their fifth birthday. That's an awesome age for a club, well done!

The theme of the event is "Party like it's 2085!" and I know I sure will! I've been an avid cyberpunk fan for ages, it's my one of my favourite roleplaying settings and I've read everything by William Gibson and loved it (well, except for Spook Country which I didn't like, but maybe I'll get into it one day).

So how does a party with Grendel, Synfactory and a house full of cyberpunk goths sound? Good? Here's a look I did to fit the event and then some! (For tickets, visit Infektio's page)

Top - Dane Cyber Clothing (second hand)

Skirt - Artifice Clothing

Boots - Fantasy Shoes (second hand)

Purse - Kreepsville

A fairly simple cyber look, but I absolutely needed to do the purple theme! The corset and boots are matching purple glitter material, and the rest of the items are silver and black. The skull bag is new and I love him! I named him Phteven, because he looks like he can only mumble. That and Morte, best names for bodiless skulls! The Dane corset is so short on the sides that I paired it with an underwear corset that makes sure there's no muffin top effect. The front panel is boned and stays flat, but the sides have just mesh that might have lost some of its strength. 

The make-up: HUGE false lashes (mine are Heiress by Sugarpill), black smoky effect on top with a matte shadow (Sugarpill Bulletproof) but for the lower lid I used a purple that matches the corset and boots. This one is called Flashback, it's from the Urban Decay Spectrum palette. Purple lipstick was naturally in order, so I did my lips with OCC Pagan and Technopagan. I have to say that I wish Technopagan would be a bit more red and less blue, but the metallic effect is so gorgeous that I'll use it anyway!

I did my brows really high for an out-of-this-world look and used ColourPop gel liner to make sure they can last through an evening of sweaty dancing. For the final touch I applied a small black and silver bindi on my forehead.

And once I get going with cyberpunk looks, things will not stop at glitter and PVC! The background picture is from a friend who visited Hong Kong, (thanks Patty! You are the best!) I saw it on Facebook and asked if I could use it for these pictures. The glasses I borrowed from my other half, a pair of Wiley X Saber Advance protective glasses. The air soft gun in the last pic is also his. I happened to have some EL-wire in my stash and thought it would work well in these pictures, but it kinda gets lost in the noise and it doesn't look very bright on the camera. But I'll bet it look awesome at a dark club when I finally take the time to sew it on to something!

Party like it's 2085 in Hong Kong! Background picture by Patty Toledo.

Background picture by Patty Toledo.

Don't worry, it's not a real gun! I utilize my other half's airsoft
gun collection when I have the chance ;P

Crystal Tiara

For yesterday's Club Underworld I wanted a simple look, but then came across a tiara I just bought from Lumissa's Purple Octopus. Change of plans, it was now the focal point of the look! My fringe is now long enough to be held to the sides with hair clips, so I pulled it aside to hide the tiara'a band. I think the result is excellent! I paired the hair do with one on my favourite Lip Service dresses and a pair of stompy New Rock boots. The lipstick is Black Dahlia by OCC, which I recently found when cleaning out my lipstick drawer. The things you find when shopping your stash!

These days I use Mac Nightmoth lip liner for my brows, as the Aromaleigh pink loose shadow seemed too bright after I dyed my hair ombre style. Nightmoth is a very good match for my hair, the tone is spot on, and it's just a little bit lighter than my roots. I would have thought a lip liner would perform badly on brows, but it's actually a very good product for this purpose. On the lips, the main thing is to keep the lipstick from bleeding, so the pencil does not bleed on brows either.

I'm thinking of getting acrylic nails done again, as the winter has been harsh on my natural nails. The break super easily, are thin and soft and peeling, all at the time! I use nail oil and it used to help, but now it seems no amount of oil does anything. I've gotten so used to having nicely done nails that I feel a bit naked without them.

Fyrinnae Snow Leopard as a light smoky eye, OCC Black Dahlia on the lips.

Club Underworld was a great success, thanks to everyone who came and I hope you had a great time! It seems we may need a bigger venue in the future, but I'm a bit attached to the one we currently use. Luckily there's plenty of time to plan for the next event!

Bella Morte Notes from the Underground IV

On Friday my fellow club organizers and me spend the evening entertaining people at the latest club Bella Morte. There were more people than usually on Friday's, which was great! I had a fun night and got to play just the type of music I like, gothic rock. I tend to be so busy at work and home that I don't put any music on, but I definitely should listen to music more. Everytime I prepare my DJ sets, I remember why I love the genre and just how good it all sounds!

My other half did my hair with great results. The rest of the outfit I put together to compliment the gorgeous curls. The corset is made by me (with a ready-made base corset I modified and added the scale mail on top), the skirt is by Lip Service, and the necklace and earrings are by Lumissa's Purple Octopus. Pictures by my husband, Arttu K. (Yes, he took my last name :>)

Oh, and if the lady who asked after the Pohjola albums is reading this, if you didn't get one at the event, please send me an email and I'll mail one for you! I was supposed bring a box of cds to be given out for free, but forgot. I didn't find you at the club after fetching the cds, but I want you to have one as you asked so nicely!

Samhain Costume

I just noticed I had not shown you my Samhain party costume! I planned to be Maleficent, but the silly horned hat I ordered would not fit over my hair ;P So I did a different version with my favourite horns.

The top and corset are by Artifice Clothing. I really like the corset, many longer corset can be uncomfortable, but this one is so short it sits on your waist very comfortably, even when tightly laced. The collar I bought at WGT last summer, it's made by Videnoir. I sewed the skirt myself from the cheapest taffeta I could find. It will work well with many outfits, and it's so wide I can fit as many petticoats under it as I want! For this costume I donned on a fluffy tulle petticoat to make the skirt flare out and accentuate the tiny waist the corset gives me.

I also finally got to wear the cute little tiara I bought at a goth flea market event!

I just bought a serger and a huge amount of fabric from an outlet. Looking towards plenty of sewing projects in the future!

Photos by Eliza Rask

Samhain Activities!

Are you in the Tampere area or near next weekend? Want to see awesome costumes or have one to show off? Come to Laterna for the Bella Morte & Club Underworld Samhain party! We have a costume contest with great prizes, a pole dancing show and a photography service so you can document your costume easily :) I'm DJ'ing, so song requests are very welcome.

Here's a link to the Facebook event with the most up to date information: Release the Bats IV