Revealed Look Again

A lighter and darker metallic shade from the Coastal Scents Revealed palette were used to create this look. It's proving to be just what I wished, a palette with easy everyday neutral shades that work well together. It's maybe a little bit dark when used with my complexion, but I still like it a lot!

Outfit of the Day

A friend is getting married, so I travelled to Helsinki for her awesome bachelorette party! The weather turned cold and finally there's snow on the ground, so I wore lots of things ;P We had such a great day and night, I hope everyone loved it as much as I did!

We went pole dancing, bathed in a black sauna and painted some butts, ate at a viking restaurant and had a few drinks afterwards. And wore cool little hats while doing everything (except for the dancing and sauna ;D)!

Scarf - by my sister

Coat - H&M

Skirt - Lip Service

Boots - Unif

Wavy Hair?

My antique crimper (made in the early nineties perhaps?) claimed to have exchangeable plates that make waves. Well they don't. They just make a slightly bigger crimpy pattern, but I tried it still. I combined the weird hair with heavy eyeliner since it sort of reminded me of Egyptian reliefs.

The pictures didn't want to come out how I wanted, so I added a moustache and some kitties.

The perfect style ;D

Möttönen is coming to join me, if she only dares to jump.

After the effort of actually jumping after a lot of meowing.

I rewarded her with some sweet talk.

Then she pulled a super mean pose ;P

I'm washing the crimps out tomorrow, but wanted to document them since the effect was so funny!

Little Hattie

I've been in a hat making mood lately. This one I made for an upcoming wedding that has a blue/white/grey theme. I spent ages looking for a dress, since my wardrobe doesn't really have any of those colours. When I finally found a nice light grey dress, it was too long, but I bought it anyway and decided to shorten it. So from the leftover fabric I made a hat to match the dress and an ascot tie for my other half so he can just use his black suit and still have a dash of the theme colours.

The hat has a tail of two tones of grey tulle, white fabric flowers (from H&M, they had some flower hair clips for sale so I got a ton of those, the flowers are easy to use for crafts and I can use the clips for hats later on!) and some paper and wire twig-thingies with white berries. I also glued some petals on the twigs to make them look like flower buds, the petals are cut off from the white flowers to get different sized flowers.

I made the base my self, it's white thick felt starched with sugar.

The dress is pretty plain, just light grey organza with a silver fabric underneath, so I felt a simple fascinator would compliment it well. I got more excited about the hat business and finishing the hem of the dress is still a work in progress, but I'll take pictures with the dress and the hat when I'm finished.

New Year's Look

On New Year's Eve we went out to eat with some friends and then spent the evening at our place. Fun and easy! I even saw some fireworks from the balcony ;P

I got this hair band ages ago but wore it for the first time. It's from Janine Basil Etsy store and so neat! They carry coloured versions now, too, they look cool :)

For my eyes I tried some Darling Girl eyeshadows that arrived the very same day. I used way too many colours for this look. I was first going for a simple neutral eye, but got wild! There's watercolor paint pot in Falling Light (shimmery champagne) as the base, then a layer of My Three Witches (medium metallic taupe) and a dab of Persuasion (lavender with a cold golden sheen) on the inner corner. Then I added some London Calling (dark blue with red glitter) on the lower lid and decided the crease was too light and darkened it with Black Moon (dark taupe with a hint of olive and green and red glitter).

After putting a ton of stuff on my lids I decided to even it out with a bright red lipstick, which I think worked nicely ;P

Lumissa's Purple Octopus Earrings

Back in the late summer I checked the stall of Lumissa's Purple Octopus at the marketplace in Tracon. She lovely bat-shaped earrings, but only in a few colours, and I told Tiia the owner that I'd immediately purchase a pair if they came in purple.

When she and her boyfriend were visiting us last month, I had totally forgotten about the earrings! She gave me a pair to experiment with and now I finally have purple bat earrings :)

With two coats on OPI Ink they are perfect!

The earrings are small studs and the bats are made of resin. Tiia suggested using nail polish on them, so when I had the time I took one of my favourite purple polishes and gave it a go. OPI Ink is a bit on the blue side as purples go, but I figured it would work well with the warm pink base colour the bats had.

Before, just look at all that glitter!

The polish hid the glitter, but it has a nice sheen of its own, so I'm not complaining, I think they came out great! I'm wearing the pair even now, they are easier to wear with knitted scarves that the dangly earring I usually prefer. Dangling ones tend to get stuck on scarves or my hair from time to time. Perfect earrings for the winter!

New Year's Review

I grabbed a list of questions from Ida's blog and modified them a bit. After a nice Christmas and a wild New Year's eve I like to look back on the past year.

1. Have you done something you've never done before?
Started pole dancing, visited Iceland and dyed my hair teal.

2. Have you been in (a) relationship(s)?
Yes, the same one still ;)

Us

3. What are your best memories from the past year?
I loved seeing geysers in Iceland and visiting the Völkerschlachtdenkmal in Leipzig. I'm really fondly remembering Anniina and Jani's wedding, I was really happy since my other half and I had talked of big things and came out seeing eye-to-eye. And the venue and the party were great!

4. Have you changed a lot in the last year?
I'd say I've grown as a person. Maybe not too much, but I'm happy with myself and my life, so I don't feel an urgent need to grow in any direction.

5. Have you learned new skills?
Yes! Everything dance related.

6. Have you gone to the movies alone?
Nope, I did plan it but never found the time. I'm not even sure if I've been to a movie at all last year...

7. Did you get a tattoo or a piercing?
No, but I have been dreaming of continuing my half sleeve some day now.

8. Which countries did you visit?
Germany (twice, Leipzig in May for WGT and Berlin later for just a holiday) and Iceland. Iceland was awesome, but going there in January wasn't the best idea, it was always sleeting and dark ;P

Iceland

9. What do you hope from the year 2014 that you didn't get in 2013?
Less drama and more happiness! And a trip to the Stonehenge would be great.

10. What's your biggest achievement in 2013?
Making a plan on how to finish my studies and starting to exercise more by going to the dance studio once a week.

11. What's your biggest failure in 2013?
Can't say, I don't think I failed much. I'm usually pretty careful and go through risks before doing things. Or maybe I'm just forgetful ;P I did get a fail on one exam, but I'm still trying to get it re-evaluated, because the grade just doesn't seem fair. But at the moment, it's a fail!

12. Did you suffer any injuries?
Nope, can't remember any. I did burn my finger with the glue gun and had plenty of bruises from hitting my legs against the dancing pole, but nothing major.

13. What was the best thing you bought?
I can't think of anything! I'll say the Unif High Trench boots, although technically my other half bought them. But I've been wearing them almost every day after they arrived (and I took them to the cobbler to get a rubber layer glued to the soles to make them not suck in little stones ;P).

14. What excited you most?
Pole dancing. It's been a long time since I've been so excited about anything! I got a pole at home as well and just recently found a spray that's helps skin grip the pole better. I also invested money in a good body lotion, because dry skin has no grip. And I registered on a pole dancing forum and have been looking at videos and learning the names of different moves and so on. All the signs of being very excited!

15. Compared to this day last year, are you happier or sadder?
I'd say about the same. Last year I was very excited about the new apartment, now I've gotten used to it but I still love the place.

16. ...thinner or fatter?
The scale says fatter, but I'm pretty sure it's mostly muscle because I still wear all the same clothes. I used to have these sad looking wiry arms, but now there are actual visible muscles!

17. ...richer or poorer?
A bit richer. My parents gave me 1/9th of a summer cottage, maybe this year I'll make room in my calendar to actually go there and enjoy the place.

18. What would you have wanted to do more/less?
I think there's never enough time to spend with friends, so this year I'll try to do even better and meet more people.

19. What was your favourite TV show?
Orange Is the New Black was a surprising favourite. I'm eagerly awaiting the next season!

20. What was your favourite game?
I didn't play that much last year, but of the ones I did play memorable games were Planescape: Torment (I played it when it first came out in 1999, but replaying was still great since it's been a "while"), The Walking Dead by Telltale Games (I love interactive fiction style games!) and Godus. Godus is kind of a tricky case, I bought it as an early release and it was supposed to be updated weekly and be developed with help from the community. Now it's been almost three months since the last update and the game is far from finished. I still do enjoy it, and I'll pick it right up once the next update finally is released!

21. What was the best book you read?
I've been a lazy reader, too! I went on a nostalgy trip and re-read some books I liked as a teenager. Mythago Wood by Robert Holdstock was a wholly different experience as a grown-up, so that's my choice.

22. ...best band you found?
I really got into Angels of Liberty. They released a new album just now, I need to get it!

23. ...best performance you saw?
Grausame Töchter in WGT. They played in a small space that was packed with people, and some parts I saw only on the screens of the phones the people standing in front of me were holding. The performance was really intense, and I didn't really know the band but still was fascinated by the show. I still want to mention KMFDM too, because they were awesome! And my other half singing The Mission's Love Me To Death at our friends' wedding, because that's just dear.

24. What did you want and got?
I mostly get what I want, because I go and get it myself ;P

25. What did you want but didn't get?
The abdominal muscles to do an invert on the pole. Any day now, it's so close! And a kitten, but I'm working on that.

26. Who did you miss?
My brother. He's so busy these days, it's hard to get a hold of him!

Möttönen is a pro at lying on the armrest.