BETTER IN BLACK

The weeks I do my early work shifts I still go for some version of my black uniform I wrote about several years ago. Quick, easy, rather incognito, but still stylish enough considering I get up a bit after five in the morning (or, rather: at night).

Black is the great disguise, a perfect way to cover tiredness, pluffiness and bad hairdays. Sometimes in more drastic ways, sometimes in more subtle. I know for some this might not work and colours and flair may do the trick instead, but I am better in black and it has to be lots of it. Especially when getting up early in the morning, having loaded a few ships already before the average office worker has had lunch, and, especially, like here, when having to go some place and be representable in the evening.

(Cat pics added for bonus comments.)


As you know from before my basic trick is to cover my hair with my beret, and make a few big rolls in front. Basically if your hair is not too messy or dirty you could skip the beret and just do a plain chingnon in the back of your hair as the curls in front will look nice enough.

For my hair in this one I rolled four curls, all in the same direction, and secured them with one pin in the middle.

Some highlighter, a good f foundation and lipstick does the trick on my weary face, but I think the most important is to do my eyebrows - I never leave the house without a few quick lines and a brush trough on them.

For my black look I also, always, do a strong eyeliner. Another easy face-saver is to cut a piece of old false eyelashes, about 1-1,5 cm in length and glue it in the outer corner of your eye. The small pieces are really simple and quick to apply, idiot safe to so say, and gives your eyes a totally different look - perfect cat eyes!

You may have noticed, at least I have, that most of my hint and tutorials always contains the words "easy" and "quick" - I like to be fancy, you know that, but I like to get away with as little effort as possible, unless the occasion is very special, then it doesn't matter. But my poiint is that you don't have to have all the time and skill in the world for a nice look!

The dress is an old knitted one from H&M. You've seen it in drawn sometimes in the very beginning of this blog.

Edit : OK; I have to add as you all seem to read the post this way - I do not look like this at five in the morning, of course not! I put on my black stuff yes - the "uniform" I refer and link to or a black dress- but come on, I work in the harbour, outside, no false lash bits or hair rolls... This is after work, when tired and having to go somewhere! But maybe one is not very good at expressing oneself late in the evening when having woken up some 18 hours earlier :)

CATS AND KITTENS AND FULL SKIRTS

The internet, oh, the internet. A never ending source of information. And inspiration! And - disinformation, crap and bullshit. A space to spend time well worth, and also waist it. A place of gain and ruin. Heaven and hell. Hallelujah!

But. Although I might spend a little too much time and money online from time to time, the internet is very useful for me. Often thanks to my Freelancer's Fashion Facebook page - and to all of you. Why? Because you help me find the stuff I want!(A desire and need most likely created by the internet in the first place, but hey, that's peanuts at this point).

The most acute Must Haves are stuff that I realize I can very well live without if I wait one week and decide in fact not to give in to the desire.

But sometimes again the quick compulsive need to buy a certain thing can turn out very well, and become a long lasting well used item; I am mostly referring to clothes here now, but this actually applies to about half of my tattoos as well.

The latest in this case was a kitten dress - a dress with kittens on it! Not spotted on the web actually, but in real life, on a girl. And then it struck me - what the hell? A kitten dress? Of course! How had I been able to live my whole life without one so far? So I asked her about the dress, she told me the brand name, didn't quite catch it, then forgot it. As you know, here's where the internet comes in handy. But my friend Google was not able to help this time. The game wasn't all lost at that point though - post it on the Facebook page and woah! - some moments later I have the link.

Ta-taa! Kitty dress found.

However, after thinking about it I for a while I decided the dress perhaps was a little bit too expensive considering all the other things I am in a totally and very desperate need of (yes) and considering the fact the the cut on the dress was nice but not that extraordinary _ I should perhaps not buy it after all. But, in the same time I also realized I really had to have a dress with small furry felines on it. Well, now I needed to get my hand on the fabric instead; which I eventually did (also trough the help of some followers), after first browsing hundreds of kitty fabrics on ebay.
In the end I did go for anohter fabric instead, with retro kitties on. Meow meow!

This one right here, on it's way to me now.

I'd love to turn it into a two piece dress, or perhaps a shirt and circle skirt. Or a shirt waist dress.

Hmmm...

Now of course, another question is; will I actually ever fix myself that kitty dress?Knowing me, those of you who do, might have your doubts.

So, a little poll:
A. I will get the two-piece dress done in time for summer
B. I will skip the original idea and go for an easier version, but get it done.
C. I will get the dress done in time for summer 2012
D. I will have the dress done by someone else (which will make it a very expensive kitty dress in the end)
-or-
E. The fabric will end up looking really good among the other fabrics that are waiting forever in my fabric box.

What do you think?


PS.The kitty dress I did not get was by Limb clothing and the kittens-fabric by Micheal Miller Fabrics (great fabrics!).

THE CAT AND THE SPARKLING SHOES

You know when you as a little girl couldn't dream of any more wonderful shoes than the red ruby slippers Dorothy had?

Although my own acute carvings for glittering shoes are long gone I did get myself a pair worthy of those Oz-tastic shoes; black velvet heels covered with small sparkly diamonds!(Yeah, yeah, real diamonds). Perfect for burlesque parties and for shows; one can never sparkle too much in stage.
I got these on sale at Halonen.

PREPARATIONS

I'm at work in Siberian weather loaing like hell until midnight, but yesterday and this morning I prepared a lot of things and put ourselves in the Christmas mood!

With a martini and some Sinatra we decorated our small Christmas tree last night.

It's actually the first Christmas tree I've had since I moved away from home a decade ago!

I usually pack a lot of my gifts in old newspapers - saving money, saving nature. Normally I go for the daily papers I've read at home, but this time I picked up some free chinese magazines in my local supermarket (apparently Tapiola is full of Chinese readers?). I make the cards out of lace-like cake paper or left over gift paper from last year.

If you have no idea of what gifts to give, a pretty bowl (from the flea market/super market/fancy store, however you like it) filled with fresh fruit would at least be appreciated by me.

I baked heaps of gingerbreads! Spelt gingerbreads with a hint of orange and another set with almonds.

Eddi wasn't totally happy with being dressed in my apron, having to mix the other dough. But he did enjoy eating it later on.

Saved some for ourselves, while the rest is meant to be decorated and given away.

The decorated ones turned out surprisingly ugly though. For a while I considered saying it was Eddi's kids who baked them. Disappointment. But well, I'm good at a lot of other things! And they do taste good.

I also gave myself a little Christmas present!I had already give up on receiving these before the holidays, but then the delivery boy arrived only minutes before I was on my way to work. Ave Maria was playing in hte background when I opened the parcel. It was a very beautiful moment.

And very beautiful shoes!It is however minus 20 C outside so I won't be wearing these beauties for some time. Well, except for indoors.

Bonus cat-in-the-box!

How are your Holiday preparations coming along?

Ok, Edit : it's almost minus thirty, not 'just' twenty.

THE SUNDAY DRESS

I've been winterizing more of my summer dresses.

It's funny btw how a dress you were never really that interested in but bought as it happened to be on sale (that's the right consuming spirit, buy even if you don't care!) turns out to become your absolute favorite one. The cut is the Doris dress from Trashy Diva and it's just perfect, although it looks less interesting on the site.
(Well you can't see that much of it actually since it's "winterized" but anyway.)

The cherry brooch is by Frollein von Sofa.

THE BLACK CAT MEETS THE WHITE ONE

I've had this lamp for perhaps a year already, not being able to use it - I ordered it online from the US and didn't think of the fact that it wouldn't work over here as it is (you know, as everything has to be different there in America). As taking it to that one electronics shop outside of town that I was told could change the whole shabadang into matching our power system seemed to be one of those never-gonna-happen things I almost gave up on it. But yesterday Eddi removed the bulb system and used one of the extra lamp chords we had here at home and now, ta-daa, let there be light!

Pekka posing.

The siamese lamp is from Modcloth.

(Eddi asked me if I wrote out that he was like Mc Gyver, well, I didn't but now I did, sort of :)

LULU IN THE BATH

Here's a little cat-pic for Monday morning.

I have tons of these pictures as I for some reason have to take one every time I see one of the cats have gone and stuffed themself inside something. WHich is pretty much all the time...

SALT AND PEPPER

Now I have two more cats, white ones!

Vintage salt and pepper shakers from Little Bukowski. Every kitchen needs a little kitsch!

SOME THINGS I'VE COME ACROSS LATELY

You know, come across as in bought.

A bamboo tray found in an antique strore.


A mint condition bag from Pretty Damn Cute.

With a complimentary mirror inside.


And last but not least-
-a 1958 Blaupunkt radio Cabinet!
It also has a built-in but removable record player, but we haven't fixed the electricity chords to see if it works yet.


It serves as a kitsch-y liquor cabinet as well!

We found this at an antique store out of town; Fasaani.We went there only looking for "something small and absolutely no bigger furniture as it will soon get crowded at home". Now this piece was not exactly small, but we just couldn't leave it there.

Even though the piece has a few decades of tobacco smoke impregnated into it Lulu does no seem to mind. I have had to clean it quite a bit though.

TWO THINGS RIGHT NOW

Strawberry-cherry-rasberry milkshake and cat playing hide-and-seek.

THE CATS ARE SETTLING IN

They are everywhere and all at once (goddamit :)!

ASIAN INSPIRED TOMATO SOUP FOR SUNDAY NIGHT

Tonight we make soup.
Or; I make, you watch.

You need:
Red lentils, (peeled) cherry tomatoes, canned crushed tomatoes, coconut milk and chili sauce.

(...bonus pic of cat in between, watching the pot while cooking...)

And to make a long story short; you get:


Not that the story is that long if written out either - just boil the ingredients in mentioned order, first the lentils, then the cherry tomatoes etc. You can also go for just crushed the tomatoes if you want. Spice with some chili sauce, soy sauce, garlic and fresh coriander (if your lucky enough to have some at home -I didn't have any today) and whatever you feel like, a drop of lemon perhaps.
Done! If you want to pimp it up add shrimps, tofu or chopped vegetables, but the soup works fine just like that.

KITTIES

How many cats can you spot in the picture?


Eight altogether. Well the point here being that I got a kitty blouse from VintagEija's at the Ofelia market last month. It has cat patches on the pockets, which are both hideous and adorably kitch at the same time!

Now this is something you could pimp up any old blouse with rather easily yourself I guess. You just have to find the patches first of course, but they do have a selection of the weirdest such in haberdashery shops...

SOUP

I'm sick at home with a flu and alone so today there's no dressing up. Instead I'm making soup - a broccoli and lentil soup that I once tried out from scratch and turned out surprisingly good and has worked well ever since.

You'll need green lentils, broccoli, cooking cream and spices of your own preference. I've started to freak out over natrium glutamate so I'm not adding any stock cubes for taste, rather some garlic and bits of chopped onion, gourmet salt, pepper and a hint of chili. I prefer to use ecological vegetable cooking cream since it's additive free. I'm trying to be more concious about these things (and every now and then I actually succeed to be).

First, rinse about half a coffee cup of lentils and place them in cold water with the onions (or stock cube) and heat up.



Add the rinsed and slightly chopped broccoli when the lentils have gone soft. I actually use quite little water; it heats up faster and rather steams the broccoli than cooks it, that saves more vitamins. And no need to pour the boiling water away either. Cook under a lid until the broccoli is soft.



Add about one cup of cooking cream. Heat up and use a mixer/blender to mash it into a smooth puree.



Sprinkle on some pepper and whatever else you feel like, chopped herbs or such, and serve!

Since I'm slightly obsessed with not having a too monotonic colour sheme on my plate I have my green soup with a tomato sandwhich (on roasted rye bread with tahini) and some pineapple juice (which I normally only have for breakfast but hey, I'm ill). And mango sorbet for dessert. (Not so bad being sick in some aspects no :)

And believe it or not, my little carnivore Lulu enjoyed what was let of the soup. Who would've thought!