Happy New Year!

What a year it has been! I'm eager to welcome the next one with high expectations, if it's even half as good as the previous one, it will be great!

Here's a few silly snaps with bat wing headband and crazy edits, just because :)

I hope the next year has lots of travelling, great photoshoots, good friends and excellent projects in store for me! I don't make any new year's resolutions, I'm way too lazy for going to the gym or trying to eat healthy. The only thing I might try to be better at is making new friends and getting closer with old ones. I'm pretty protective and tend to keep people away, but I'd love to have more close friends in the future. Wish me luck!

Christmas Dress

I've got a new dress I want to show you! It isn't technically a Christmas present, but I kinda. My other half and I were visiting his mother during the Christmas holidays, and among other topics, we discussed sewing and I mentioned I've been planning to make a historical dress now that I've stocked up on fabrics. My other half's mom said she had once sewed an Edwardian dress as a part of her studies, and that she might still have it. After some rummaging in the closet she pulled out a wondrous dress made of black and purple striped fabric. She told me she had no use for it any more, and I could have the dress if I wanted to. Naturally I did, it's gorgeous! And it fits me perfectly, lucky me!

I had some trouble with the lights, so these are not the best possible pictures of the dress. I'm planning to do a photoshoot with it outdoors when I find the time. I know just the place with a neo-Gothic mansion that's the perfect backdrop for this dress. Thank you so much, Marja!

The dress a a turtle neck, large pleats on the top and medium leg-o-mutton sleeves with beautiful black rose buttons on the cuffs. The hem has corded appliqué work, but the picture doesn't show it well, and I guess the dress needs a little bit more ironing. There's also a separate collar, which I didn't remember to take photos of, and a belt.

I don't have proper underwear fit for Edwardian styles, so a petticoat in the right shape might make the dress even more awesome. Or a corset, but then again the Edwardian silhouette looks like it might not benefit much from a corset. The big sleeves make posing a bit of a challenge, but I'm sure I'll find poses that work. The sleeves have a lovely shape, they just tend to look like one big lump with the bodice, so I need to find ways of keeping my arms quite far from my body.

Here's the belt too. It has a bow in the back and is made of black satin.

And the cats always want to participate ;D This is Tirri!

Outfit of the Day

Today I mainly lounged on the sofa at home, but also popped to a friends' house party for a few hours. Good food and board games, just my kind of party! It's so easy to get around now that we have a car, I usually hated going anywhere for just a short time, as it meant spending almost as much time waiting for the bus and on the bus. Henna the car works like a charm and gets me around.

I'm not a Christmas person and I'm happy that it's almost a year until the next one. One of our kitties needed to be taken to the vet on the 23rd, so we spent most of Christmas tending to him. He had a cut that had been infected, so nothing serious, but lots of bad tasting antibiotics to feed to the cat who would much rather not eat them!

Cowl neck dress - Seppälä

Belt - Infinity belt by Fox & Owl

Tank top under the dress - Cubus

I'm enjoying my Christmas vacation, it's great to be able to just rest, eat and play games. I've done some sewing, played lots of Mass Effect and watched so far 4 out of the 6 Harry Potter movies. I've had a crazy year, so some rest & recreation is good!

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

Moth Dress

I did the neutral look for this quick photoshoot, as I needed a less formal picture for an interview and felt like I didn't have good ones in store. I bought the dress some time ago, it's a Dark Moth vs. Play With Me inside out dress from Black Milk. On the other side there's a creepy doll print, so it's basically two dresses in one, and that saves money, right? ;D I can't wait for summer, as the dress is pretty and very nice to wear, but too thin for winter time.

My tattoo moth and the dress match!

And the realities of taking pictures in an apartment that has cats. Here you can see a gorgeous shot of Nana's impressive tail, with some blurry mess in the background.

Neutral Spectrum Palette Look

Can't get enough of the Spectrum palette! Here's a neutral look done with it :)

I used these shades:

Daybreak

Burn

West

Protest

(Sugarpill Tako for highlight and inner corner)

I started by patting Daybreak, they lightest brown in the palette, to the inner part of the lid. Burn is in the crease and on the outer edge of the lid. To darken the crease, I added West on top of Burn and blended carefully. West is also on the lower lid. At this point I was pretty much done, but decided to add something non-brown to the mix. My choice was Protest, an olive green, that I put in the middle of the lid. It makes the look a little like camouflage patterns which use the same shades often. I think it's a nice effect!

I added Corrupt pencil, a dark brown, for the waterline and a little of it on the outer lashline.

Autumnal Photoshoot

The snow just fell, so it was just the right time to get some finished pictures from the photoshoot I did in the autumn. These were taken at a friend's summer cottage. I was super lucky and it was a very warm day, despite the autumn weather, and there was almost no wind at all. I was expecting to be cold but was pleasantly surprised! I love the autumny, witchy feel the pictures have. I bought the wig from Gamescom last summer and this was the first time I wore it, and it seems just perfect for a neutral, long hair look. I predict you'll be seeing it a lot more in the future!

Photographer: Helena Pahaoja
Model, styling: Me