BUNNIES AND OTHER EASTERY THINGIES

Easter. Felt it was really early this year as I am not sure it's quite spring yet for real, at least not in the kind of way you'd dare to be sure about This year I learned how the dates are set, how it goes related to the first full moon after spring solstice. Aaaahaaa.

Dag bought home easter-grass they'd grown in his kids' club plus a black witch's cat he'd made. Milk cartons and toilet paper rolls, forever strong in the kids' crafting departement. I've made a ton of these as a kid myself; there would be some Christmas elves and angels and Easter witches and bunnies in every corner at every holiday of the year in our home when I was young. I was too small to remember what I thought of my creations myself, but when my sisters started bringing them home some years later I remember thinking they were ugly and started dreading the day my own offspring would clog the surfaces of my future lovely home with their cardboard-glue-and felt pieces. And then BOOM that day comes and you go aaaaaw and think everything is just adorable. Meow!
(Even though that cat obviously is a little drunk. )


On Friday I drove into town for a late night gogo-dance-and-eat-whipped-cream-on-stage gig (in other words nothing different from the usual) in the same time stressing for the following day's Easter-treat collecting that the children do on Easter Saturday, which I had not had the time to prepare properly. Or, I had kind of prepared it already as I had indeed stuffed some material in a plastic bag at the same time I packed my gogo gear at home in the city the day before, but not put into realisation.

(Backstage photo by Antti Vuorenmaa.)

So the next day I had a super-domestic-day and got up early to sew Dag a bunny costume. Well, a bunny hood, not top-to-toe (phew!);  he wanted to be a Easter bunny this year. This time I had also remembered to bring the face paint ton the right house (one of the things I stuffed in that bag)- last year I had to improvise with whatever I had in my make up bag - and Dag turned into a little bunny boy.

His older brother had misplaced his bunny costume I'd made him some years before and after some panicked searching we got a little creative and he became a cartoon mushroom instead. Because why not!
Dag's oldest brother is 15 already so he has skipped out on this for some years now already.

And then those damn pussy willow branches. The ones the kids hand out so they get candy. Let's just face it, I'll probably never manage to have them done well in time.  (Challenge for next year: do it! Well in time might mean I could get the kids to actually work on them themselves too). Usually they are decorated with feathers and crepe paper. But you take what you have and what time you have -  I added gift ribbons like last year and turned a couple of A4's into quick decorations and they did turn out rather decent.

And then the boys were ready to join up with a gang of some small yellow baby chickens, an Easter egg and some witches to go collect sweets.  It's a mix of eastern (Orthodox) and western pagan-meets-Christianity-traditions to go around houses, either on Palm Sunday (east) or Easter Saturday (west), and wish the people well for the coming year. And get lots of candy.



Meanwhile it was time for some (very quick and easy) baking as we had people coming over. Woom woom super Saturday.

Later I turned into the actual big B and hid some eggs around the house for the kids to search for the next morning.

It's always fun! Although one may bump into the ones that were the most well hidden later during the year...

The kids' sugar-rush stash.

Well, it's only once a year...

ONE OF THOSE OOTD ONES

Outfit of the day. Eastery vibes. Or well, pretty much anything colourful and patterned this time of year give me easter-vibes. It doesn't have to be all pastel. Definitely the shoes. Easter and spring vibes. They are still for socialising or representing indoors though; outdoors it's still too messy and muddy so I go for my golden booties. (And now everybody is like 'alright, note taken'! Intresseklubben antecknar as one would say in Swedish.)

The dress is King Louie and the shoes are Sweedish Hasbeens.

PASTEL-LY HAIR

It's been half a year already since I coloured my hair already but I'm still not sure what shade it really is. Peachy-something. It does require some work to maintain - or well, a lot of bottles at least - and it looks a bit different after every wash, depending on which bottles were involved. (If I've been a bit too eager I end up with my little pony hair but when just right it gets this powdery soft pink peach shade.)

At first I mixed some crazy colour with my conditioner (strong pink and soft lavender) but then the shade woudl wash away completely the next time, unless the colours were added again. Now I've been using Biozell's caring color masks,  both raspberry, plum and silver mixed with conditioner. They stay in the hair a bit longer, altough I still use them pretty much every time. (I've bought all these myself. No-one has sponsored me with anything here. Sadly. Heh.)

At first I thought I'd only go for this for a little while but I kind of get addicted to trying to achieve the right shade... My hair is doing quite well still, and I still have all the coloured hair masks left so I guess it (the colour, that is) will hang in for at least as long as they last. Heh heh. And as the hair looks different from wash to wash one does not get bored. Heh again.

But... on all on-stage photos my hair looks blond anyway. Hmpf.

EARTH HOUR

It's especially easy to pull off earth hour when half of your house is out of power anyway.

Well, we've had quite some earth hours here already, but there should be an electrician coming over next week. Good thing we have a gas stove.

But yes I know it's earth hour -over here, right now- and I am on the internet. But it's with battery life, not charging! And I will closed the lid soon anyway. Ok! Earth hour. Closing it now. Bye!

IN THE FOUR YEARS-AGO SUNSHINE

Facebook has this habit of reminding you of old posts and memories, and while the alogorithms often may feed you memories that are rather random ("Oh look, I shared this meme two years ago!") they sometimes do manage to remind you of events that makes you go 'aaaaw'. Some time ago a picture popped up in my feed of me and a growing bump while on vacation in Tenerife four years ago. It's strange that that actually was  that long ago already, but on the other hand it could as well have been twenty years ago. I think most memories turn "timeless" after a while.

As the weather - apart from some really nice and spring-like sunshine yesterday- has been rather grey, foggy and gloomy fro quite some time already I took a look back at the sunshine four years ago. (A lot of pictures that however never really turned into a blog post back then.) We flew to Tenerife with Eddi and the boys as well as my sister and her husband (or, fiancé by then), leased a small house in one of the more quiet areas. An idea we came up with on a rainy day in the archipelago the summer before. I haven't been on vacation anywhere warm since then (or on vacation anywhere at all, actually) and, well, wouldn't say no if the chance came up!

I almost forgot how short I had my hair back then!

 And haha oh my, I remember thinking my belly was sooo big then already...
Well, it would turn twice the size after that and the fella who came out of there is so big by now it's a bit weird, how times go.

AT WORK

Stepping onto stage in our duet act at HelBF16.
Photo by Tuomas Lairila.

I've never really written that much about burlesque in my blog, at least not compared to how big a part of my life it really is. I think that's partly because I have always thought that it's not really of an top-interest to many that come here (which may be part to some of the misconceptions about what burlesque is and is not), and partly because it is after all more a job than a lifestyle and I then just don't tend to write about "work" all that much. But then again considering I perform pretty much weekly; and work is pretty much all I do nowadays, constantly; I might have to start letting some more sequins in here too.

Last weekend was the time of the yearly Helsinki Burlesque Festival, the 9th in it's order and the 7th I was performing at -  I attended the very first festival in 2008 as a spectacor and then performed at the one there after, every year except for in 2010 (when we just partied).

It is a very intense weekend and as it is our "home festival" Finnish performers usually tend to produce new acts for it, which means lots of I-though-I-was-in-good-time-this-year-but-alas-once-again-I-am-not-sewing and rhinestoning. And such. The Helsinki festival is very prestigious, and there's a reason for it being one of the best in the world - it works by invite only, is very well produced and organised and, not to forget - has a fabulous audience. There is a strong community over here that involves both performers and a loyal audience. Most of the Finnish performers perform for free at the yearly burlesque gala to raise money for the festival, which has always featured performers covering the whole spectrum of burlesque. Even though every year has been great this year was perhaps the most awesome so far!

Whenever you see photos from events it is usually, apart from the shots from on-stage, a bunch of people in ecessive make up posing with or hugging each other backstage. (Here we are posing with fabulous Luminous Paraiah before our group extravaganza). And well yup, that's pretty much what it is, at events like this, because it's fab to work with fab people and especially if you don't see them that often because they are located elsewhere than you, but, and let's make that a BUT - there also is a lot of work before and during any show (especially backstage too, apart from the hugging and selfie-taking) which does not always show to the other side of the curtain - and that's also part of the illusion.

So as usual,  there was a lot of work and little sleep before a lot of things were debuted last weekend. In our soon five years of marriage, this was actually the first time I could hear my husband say, with perhaps a little hint of discontent in his voice "you know, there really are glitters everywhere here at home now".
Yes and there sure were. Not only that but glue and thread and pieces of tulle and cut-off strips of fabric and what nots. In not only one but two homes (but he never goes to the other, so he doesn't know. Phew).

But well yeah, this is what came of it! Our new duet act which we came up with pretty much exactly one year earlier when driving home a grey March day from a gig in Turku.
The dresses are designed and made for us by Ira's studio.

We are going to have to perform so much with this number in order to pay the costumes back to ourselves. Hastags: broke, wildanceforfood.

Here are four weeks of modifying and embellishing corsets, which are then visible for about 22 seconds of the show.
Assum.

We also did a nine-person strong Queen bitches- pageant-title craving- act (that suitably fit the Ballroom Blitz / Prom Night theme of the festival rather well) as The xxx-ettes.  It was such a hilarious process to work on.

Here posing for imaginary selfies.

Apart from klass (yes yes with a K),  we also possess etheral grace, as you can see.
The xxx-ettes is a mash up between The Itty-Bitty Tease Cabaret and Thee Dizzy Daisies.

Posing for the annual Atelieri O.Haapala group photo. Can't wait to see the photo sets of this year!

The emptiest glance I could make.
Both pictures above from @ksenix's instagram.

Tonight -I was planning to post this before so some of you cold have still made it, but I didn't and turns out it was sold out anyway- we performed at Orion before the dress & sing-along screening of Moulin Rouge.

And here is the mandatory post-show selfie on the way home. People with heavy make up hugging one another. But awesome people after doing an awesome job.

Tomorrow night -well, today by now I guess - it's time for more, when our own Rubies Klubit turns one year! At Masco from 20hrs onwards.  Do come and bring a friend or two!


On-stage photos by John Paul Bichard, Tuomas Lairila and Tulla Ylikorpi.

LONG TIME NO SMOOTIE

I haven't made a morning smoothies in ages due to many reasone (or actually two; time and money) but today one of pinapple, banana, coconut milk and frozen wineberries and cherries from last summer came togehter. Pinkacolada!

Long time no rawbars too! But here they are again. These ones with cashews, hazelnuts, sunflower seeds, dates, blueberry powder, cocoa, vanilla extract, coconut oil, coconut flakes and dried berries. All just woom-woomed mashed together in the mixer and then refrigerated.
Raw food stuff always sound rather pretentious but these are actually made of basic supermarket stuff and it's like having cake for breakfast! Woop woop.