IMPROVEMENTS

I've never been much for New Year's promises. I mean, come on.
But, I have however tried it with improvements. Improvements of things I've noticed I don't handle in the most ideal way in daily life. I've however tried improving the same things two years in a row and both times it has gone horribly wrong; I'm even worse than before...

This year I'm going to try and read more.
I have a small pile of books on my bedside table that has been there forever. I should just leave the damn computer and internet alone (sorry guys...)!


I have heaps of books waiting for me as I keep on buying them in a different pace than I actually read them. Goddamit! I also put loads of books on my shelf when packing down my grandparents hundreds of books in boxes for storage in the basement. So many pages, so many words and letters, so little time...


Another thing to improve is the one that I've failed the past years: organize my papers better, instead of giving the pile a go only once a month (if even that). Oh my I am so terribly bad at that, and believe me - I have lots of papers; the regular ones all household gather, my own companies and then the Itty Bitty's company matters. I'd need an assistans (who will work for free and still not screw me over). That improvement would also result in a much more nicer study one could actually spend time in, ahem.


Last but not least I should try to stick to another thing I wanted to start last year already (but did not manage to do, mostly thanks to Teh Internet...); a moment of self pampering each night! Now, you may think that I'd actually do that all the time, yes, in some matters,daily basic stuff like toothbrushing and hair brushing of course (and the occasional cabbage-do :) - but in the end not that much. I was thinking things like a foot bath, some stretching, a scrub, a calm moment. Something small just a few minutes per evening. Lat year I planned that I'd put fifteen minutes on papers and tidying up per night, and fifteen minutes to myself with something nice.
Well, didn't work out.

Let's see if I'll be better (to myself actually) this year then!

A YEAR IN THE LIFE OF

2011. So, last year is over and this one has begun. Time goes by so fast.
But on the other hand, some things that happened only a short while ago feel like it could have been years since. The days get this strange blue, thin layer of nostalgia over them, and happenings are transferred to this space where time has no meaning - last month, last year, ten years ago. Sometimes it feels like forever, sometimes like just now, sometimes the amount of time does not matter, except for that it is all something that already was.

Well, I guess those are just called memories. Perhaps you know what I mean.


Blogs form this ever changing media in the sense that what you publish is only directly available for a short time; the faster you post the faster old posts disappear to the archives. And while some old posts are viewed over and over again via different sources others will remain unread.

So I thought I'd have kind of a similar diggin-in-the-archives-competition or shall we say give away to the one I did last year, when I asked you to name your favourite post ever on The Freelancer's Fashion Blog.(Surprisingly many thought the best one was written during December 2009, which of course is great as that would mean I just get better by time...or then just that it's not interesting enough or to much bother scrolling back a bit. Heh:)

But anyway, this time it goes like this:
Name or link to your favorite post from 2010 by leaving me a comment.

Just like last year, when Prefecta won the mirror necklace, you will be able to win a surprise gift, something small and pretty.

The competition will be open for about a week or so and you can of course enter from where-ever in the world you are, but do leave me your email if you don't have a blog or page to link to.
Happy New Year!

SUNSHINE AND BIRDSONG

You know, sometimes some of the tiniest things in life are the best ones - those you may only be reminded of when you are actually enjoying them, or those small details you long for when you are far away from them.

Sitting by my window in the soft evening sunshine (yes, we have sunshine in the evenings up here :), letting the warm summer air in, listening to the birds twitter is one of those. Just amazing actually, after a long and cold winter, afer a hectic day.

The weather is spectacularly warm this week; warmer than usual. Helsinki really blooms up and is much more great on days like these. Reminds me of the fact that there actually are places where you wake up to warm and sunny mornings all the time, almost, and to the fact that it is very possible to live at such places too...

But for the time being I will most likely stay here, and take the cold when it returns. Especially with all that's to come soon: the Move. This week will be spent in the flat-to-be, preparing for the renovation. THe downside with great weather is the fat that you feel frustrated and kind of guilty if spendfing your days indoors. But I'll keep the balcony door open an let the bird twitter and sunshine in.

And for other moments when twittering cannot be heard, I'll listen to this song:

ANSWERS AND ANSWERS vol.2

Little Brooklyn's King Kong at HBF09 (Photo Rik Stavale). One of the most creative burlesque performances I've seen. You can youtube google it. It has nothing to do with the text below but so what, it's always nicer with some pictures ain't it?

Well, anyway; thank you for all the nice coments on my previous post. As I now read my text afterwards I see it may sound a little defensive, which it wasn't ment to be, since no one should have to defend their style; it was rather just thoughs - and some minor ranting perhaps- in general. And neither am I offended of what people may say on the internet when it comes to issues like that, even though I might raise an eyebrow or two and wonder what the hell is wrong with people... But thanks anyway! You are all so nice.

And then it's time for the answers to the rest of the questions:
Where you've taken your tattos and are all of them your own design?
- I've taken most of them at Legacy Tattoo and those are made by Sailor Andy.. I've designed all of them myself, some are my exact drawing line by line while others are slightly modified to suit the skin better. My meraid is hand made (with a bamboo stick) in Thailand.That's also the one that looks the least like my drawing...

What are the names of your cats? They are gorgeous! I love cats and pics about those two makes my day.
- Pekka and Lulu! Pekka is the fat one and Lulu is the tiny one. They're brother and sister. I'll make your day somaday soon again and put some more cat pics then:)

Do you have any brothers or sisters? Do they look like you?
- I have two younger sisters, 25 and 22 years old. We all look pretty different. The older of them works in the harbour with me and a some people there think we look the same and mix us up. (Like a stevedor guy she once dated. It was cold and we wore wearing caps outside. He drove up to me and said "I haven't heard from you laely but I guess that's ok since you haven't heard from me either" I looked up and told him he should propably talk directly to her. He kept his calm and said that yeah, he will, drove away. And then he avoided me for some weeks afterwards :D)

Are you that blond by nature and what hair products do you use?
- No, not this blond. RIght now I'm not sure what my real colour would be. It was quite chocolate brown when I was small, then went lighter into a, now that I think about it, rather nice toffee-like colour. I had a spiral perm for years which dried my hair out and turned real light in summer, so I started bleaching it due to that, as it grew out darker in fall and looked bleached anyway :) I use silver schampoo and conditioner every now and then, otherwise a lot of salon products for chemically treated hair. I have a lot of hair and it's all dry so a bottle of conditioner or leav-in blam doesn't last long.

I don't have a question but a request, would you like to post some pictures of your wardrobe?
- I was actually asked to do so by a fashionsite, to participate in their article series about wardrobes last year but didn't have the time. I might do so later this autumn perhaps!

The same request to post a picture with your boyfriend, but I would totally understand if you don't want it.
- Well something might show up here at some point...

More pics: 2 in 1! Brilliant.

A SLAVE TO THE DETAILS

Sometimes I stumble across things written about me on the internet. Most of them are really nice but some tend to think that it's a little bit too much with all the dresses, tattoos and hair done and so on. Lately some small birds told me about this thread on the internet where someone was listing vintage inspired style blogs she liked and I was among those mentioned. As most often most of the comments were positive even though many tended to "worry" about the effort being put into the looks of the girls in the blogs mentioned. Some on the other hand found the effort to be just too much or overdone.

I started thinking about the whole effort thing and find it a bit funny because first of all, dressing up and getting dolled up for me is one part routine that I don't even think about and the other part just fun, kind of like a hobby. And doesn't really all girls, and boys alike, who are keen on looking nice make the same effort but in different ways? Is there really such a huge difference if I pin curl my hair the night before than if I'd go to get a spray tan?

But on the other hand, I am the kid of girl who will schedule my day according to how my hair needs to be washed, dried and rolled if I have to, who will spend days on the internet to find the umbrella that's just right and pay a small fortune to have it home delivered (OK, that's already a bit over the top I admit but that's another story) and dress up in the whole shabadang with girdles, stockings and the prettiest dress for a Sunday walk, just for the joy of it. That's who I am and I like being that way! I like making efforts. Plus let's face it, no matter how glorious ones life is, it's not like one is invited to parties every day. But that doesn't still mean you couldn't dress up on a regular monday. I'm not saying life is one big celebration, because it's not, and that we should all hold hands now and sing Kumbaya in pretty dresses - I just think it's makes any hard or easy day a bit better if you look nice. Well, in some ways at least.

Anyway, last weekend I did go to a party however and then it's nice to roll that hair even a little bit more than normally and get glammed up. This time in my dress that Olivia Rouge made and in a mini beret from Molla Mills that I got from Paula to cheer me up last spring when I was sad.

And my vintage checked jacket. I can't believe I was thinking of selling this jacket away! It matches my shoes for heaven's sake! (And I'm not the only slave to the details out there, many others do notice it too :)

QUESTIONS & ANSWERS

I'm not really an arrogant A hole. But I am rather unorganized. And very busy.
I tend to forget to answer questions I get in my comments. Sometimes it can take me a long time to answer blog related mails written to me too.

So I thought I'd do this thing were you can ask me anything and I will answer almost everything!

This is my sneaky-suspicious look when I say, ok, go ahead and ask then.

I'll answer a couple of questions/requests I remember now straight away
1. Make up
I get lots of questions about makeup. But the thing is, I will never do a makeup tutorial - there are tons of youtube tutorials out there that go for the same look and they're all pretty much similar to each other. I do the same make up almost every day, just make it heavier and add some glitter for shows. And in the end you still have to see what suits your own face the best.

But I will do a post about makeup; which products I use and some tricks I rely on, that I promise!

2. Photos
"I'm always curious about whether you take all your own photos and how you always manage to get the lighting so spot on? "
Well, first of all I have a pretty good camera. Not a great one, but an OK that can take great pics if you do it right. If there's not time nor good light for getting it right, I fix the photos in Photoshop afterwards, Levels, Curves etc. Basically there's nothing I can't do in Photoshop, although I prefer to get away as easily as possible. (Well as you can see the photo above has some more playing around than just levels and curves - sometimes that's real fun too - especially if you should be working with something different than making yourself look all 1939 for example :) I indulge quite a lot what I like to call "forced photography" -heheh- as I have my sister or a friend take some pics for my blog ("You have to take some pictures for my blog now!"), but I do take many of them on my own too.

That's it. If you post a question here during the weekend and perhaps the beginning of next week too I promise I'll answer them all by next weekend in a post!

Oh, and if you come here a lot and react a lot and I have forgotten to link you let me know!

PALE BLUE NIGHTS, PALE BLUE TUNES

Chet Baker.
Maybe the finest heroin addict ever (and my favorite interpreter of this song):



Every spring I get as surprised by how light it is at very late and early hours(as I on the other hand always tend forget the darkness that comes with autumn). Lately I've woken up to work at five-something and the sun is already shining from a bright blue sky! Later I'm enjoying the pale blue May evenings by walking around the wooden houses and huge stone buildings with their massive courtyards in the next part of town, admiring the evening light, listening to Chet Baker and thinking of things, being able to relate to every word in every song. Well, except for My Funny Valentine perhaps.

SOME MINOR WORDS OF WISDOM

Because you know, a small little set of of lovehandles is just fore the better.
More to love baby!



And now it's time for me to take a short break from everything; work like hell for a couple of days and also try to figure some things out. I'll be back soon with this promised tutorial and I might get on with some tags I've received too. Have fun until then ok!

A STYLISH COINCIDENCE

You know why you should always do the "what are you going to wear"-call to your friends before going out?

This is why.
As many things are often about details, wearing the same detail as someone else - even though otherwise dressed rather neutrally - may cause those two people's outfits to look like twins. Nobody pays any attention to the fact that two girls are both dressed all in black, but two girls in black with black-and-white checked shoes may already raise an eyebrow or two...
Well, her shoes are gingham and mine are pepita so that only makes our outfit cousins.
And in the end, we didn't think about it for long because so what.*


Somtimes the way we see similarity, when it come to dressing, can be a bit funny. For example, some people dressed all in black won't really catch your eye (ok, unless they are all victorian goth,death metal fans or so but that's not what I ment), but the same crowd all in red, or say, blue from head to toe will. Actually any other colour than black would certainly be noticed (this of course is not only related to the way we react to clothing but to colours aswell and certainly varies a bit from place to place). Then there's also the aspect of feeling that people following a certain style, different from one's own, tend to look reather alike. (I can only imagine: "You know those girls that like old movies, fleamarkets and stuff and dresses like my grandmother? They all look the same in their skirts, red lips and rolled hair..." :) The way we tend to look at others is an interesting topic but as I always try to keep myself short, I'll just leave it to this.

*) Back in the days on an extempore trip abroad (=no luggage) with J we wanted to go to the baths and did some rapid swimsuit shopping. We found bikinis and retro-cut swim shorts in the wame pattern and the idea of matching gear was hilarious in our hungover minds until we met at the pool. Then it was just really really lame. And we were concious about that for most of the stay.


Pssst. Thank you all for the comments on my previous posts and sorry if I'm not always too quick anwering them...

SAME SAME BUT DIFFERENT

Ok, no, it's different.

See, the dress to the left is a Stop Staring dress that I really wanted and that fit me nicely except for in the back where the fabric was hanging strangely loose. Surely it would've been fixable somehow, but if you buy a dress for one-hundred-something euros the first thing you want to do is not to sit down by the sewingmachine, but to wear it straight away and hit town (in your nicest shoes and deep red lipstick).

Well, the dress to the right is from H&M and you can get it for 34,90€.
And oh yes I know, it's almost a crime to compare these two but there are still some similarities that might make me get over the "loss" of the Stop Staring dress. Perhaps. And for a dress under for 40 euros I'd be fine with sitting by the sewing machine making it a bit longer (adding some black fabric at the hem, with pleats in the middle or on the sides to give it a more 30's-like silhouette, would be qutie nice).

*******************************************************************

First this post was only going to be about those two dresses, but as I was thinking about this I realized that I really do not need another dress. Ok, I have proclaimed that a girl can never have too many dresses yes, but my wardrobe certainly can. (For example, I have some dresses I have only worn once. And boxes full of stuff to be ebayed away, some of which I took nice photos of a year ago already. Still there.)

Remember K and her quest from this summer, about the shopping-ban? Well, she failed. Not miserably, but still failed. Now it's my turn. Sort of. (To try that is, not to fail).I put no more new clothes in my wardrobe until I get some out first! Then there is also the economical aspect related to this; I have some travels I want to do later this autumn. Selling some old stuff on ebay wont pay me a ticket too far I guess :) So - no eating out for a while either, I'm going to cook at home! Umm, for next week atleast. And on weekend it might be ok to dine out...
(oh I feel myself failing already).