IN DRAG

Well alright, time for a little different kind of posing then.

I went to a fab drag event the other night. As there was no idea to compete with the queens when it comes to lashes and lipstick I went the other way instead; in drag. My habitus instantly changes when wearing more masculine clothes, it's not something I even think about that much or try to do. I know that well from the days of harbor work.

(I apparently only have one "man face"... And my glitter nails kind of give it away instantly but, once again: yey for pockets!)

Some makeup in strange places, combing my hair in a way I otherwise would not and in Eddi's clothes - there you have Mr.Freelancer.

The evening ended with a heart breaking proposal on stage between two dear friends of mine so I was  really happy not to wear my normal eye make up when sobbing aonf with everyone else!

PREP O'HOI!

It always feels like a small victory when it's warm enough again to take out the spring jacket and tuck away the winter boots! And that time is here now. Yes.

The suit and bag are vintage and the sailor top is from Tara Starlet a few years back.

On another note, every now and then I get this issue with outfit posts and posing and posting about it. Sometime wonder if I should just start doing them all like this...

...or then maybe not.

LIME-COCONUT BREAKFAST ENERGY BALLS

Inspired by one of my favourite ready made raw snack-bars these energy balls are a little less sweet and with an edgy hint of lime.

Made of
Sunflower seeds & Almonds (50/50)
Soft or soaked dried dates & apricots (about 2/3 dates & 1/3 apricots)
Lime peel & lime juice
Coconut oil & Coconut flakes

Mix the almonds and sunflower seeds in a mixer, about the same amount of both. You don't have to mix them flour-or butter smooth; leave some texture. Add a little bit of cold pressed coconut oil and the peel of one lime.

Put in the fruit bit by bit until the crumble somewhat sticks together when you form a ball. In other words you don't want it to be too compact and chunky.

Squeeze some lime juice in so that the crumble easily can be rolled into balls. (If you feel the mixture got too wet you can add some coconut flakes to suck up the extra moisture).

Roll the balls in coconut flakes -or cut into squares/bars and sprinkle coconut on top.
Store cool in an air-tight jar.

 Dag likes his. Well actually he snatched one while I was still taking pictures.  ("Cake" he says.)

 Or two actually, one for each hand, so that he would not miss out.

And there's just enough left for me still.

SHOWS FOR SOFT SUNDAYS OR SORE THROATS

I always have this idea of catching a slight cold and staying in bed for a few days just drinking hot black currant tea and watching a ton of series. Because then it would really be justified, to just lie there and take it easy, do nothing. It doesn't work that way though, since I either feel too ill to manage watching anything or then would have so much to do I lie there worrying about the time I'm missing out on... And the past year(s) when I've been ill I've had Dag to care for and entertain at the same time so not so much rest for me.

The past days both Dag and I have been ill, and it's been the kind of flue that has kept us sleeping most of the time. So no tea-and-cookies-series marathon for me, this time either... (Hashtag: firstworldproblems)

Apart from the obvious True Detective -Game of Thrones-The Walking Dead- and-so-on super series, here are some funny ones I could marathon when sick/hangover/insomniac...

Arrested Development.

It's probably the most hilarious show I know. I remember watching it on and off when it aired back in the early 00's but didn't catch onto it until just around the end; you can't get it unless you watch it properly. I've rewatched it on Netflix later, they have all the seasons (plus made a new one).


Episodes.

Stumbled across Episodes by accident and it's damn funny! I Think I was able to watch the whole first season on YouTube. Haven't seen the two following, so I suppose I'll aim for that for the next time I'm ill or can't sleep.

AbFAb

Absolutely Fabulous was one of my absolute favourite shows when I was teenager.  I realised it's been forever since I watched it and wondered if it still would work today. Oh yes, Patsy will always be Patsy!

THE BROWN ROOM

There is one room downstairs in the farm house, behind the door with the chipped paint, that you have not seen that much of. Well, anything of really. A room that at some point will become a proper study & guest room.

The past year it has been full of left ocrs from the renovation as well as old and nice and old and ugly furniture without a place for their own. Plus Eddi's windsurfing gear and geology stuff an my dead plants I tried to keep alive in there during winter.

We've aimed to fix it up to level one every free weekend this year we'e had but so far no luck...

It will however turn out great when it's  done, eventually. For now it has no electricity and an ugly plastic carpet on the floor which I to start with, before getting it properly done (that'd be level one), intend to cover with lots and lots of rag rugs.


It has the nicest light in the house with windows in two directions and old wallpaper that is both yucky and pretty at the same time.

RANDOM MIXED & THE PRACTICAL BOOTS

I realised it was time for me to get a pair of bad-weather-playground-trips-countryside boots to wear other than just my old workwear boots (that are too hideous and heavy to wear for real when you know, "going somewhere") and landed on these classic lace up boots with a small heel. Which have now been on  my feet also when the weather is not that bad.

The wool skirt is vintage and the rest just random stuff I had hanging around in the mess also known as our bedroom.

4 x IN THE KITCHEN

RANDOM LIST no1

I am a list person. I need to make lists in order to get things in order, or, at least to feel things migh be getting into order at some point. The more there is to do, the more lists there are to be written, both on tasks and want-to's. Sometimes I even need to make a list of lists to be made.

Here's a totally different kind of list that serves no actual purpose - I see these different question-lists circulate on blogs and I for some reason find them rather fun to read. Maybe for the same reason we click Like at people's pictures of their lunches on instagram... I never done one ,self but copied a couple of those here for fun -

What did you look like exactly a year ago?

 I happened to blog exactly a year ago and then I matched my nails to our wallpaper!

What do you look like in this exact moment?

Oh my. But I started doing this so then I will. Well, as you know I surf the internet at night so I'm in a robe and it's dark and blurry but at least I have nice two-tone nails.

What's bothering you right now?
Right-right now? A runny nose; my runny nose.

Have you done something lately you've never done before?
This winter I worked out with a personal trainer and I always wanted to do so. Otherwise, with a small child you sort of get to do new stuff all the time, or do them from another point of view, as some of those things I did or might have done as a kid, games and learning and such.

Last thing you ate.
Chocolate!

Last thing you bought.
That's usually most often food but otherwise, a magnesium-chili lotion for aching limbs.

Last thing you googled.
"true detective"

Last image search you did.
Can't stop laughing at this one now.

(Heh. "'Daryl the walking dead comics" actually. But apparently he's not a character in the original stories.)

A quote that suits you.
"Think of what you're saying so you don't say what you're thinking"
Not sure if it describes me per se but that's a good one to remember every now and then.

Something you need to get done.
In alphabetical order? Too many things but first of all answer a bunch of emails before they get lost in the abyss of my inbox. Thankfully since gmail started sorting itself and separating mails my unread ones changed from a four digit number to three which makes me feel a lot better about it...

Something your obsessed with.
Apart from checking said inbox via my phone several times a day nothing in particular really.

MINT GREENS (OR CLOSE ENOUGH)

That mint green itch of mine is back.
Not that it ever really has been gone either. Sea foam or pistachio works for me as well.

As usual at this time of year it struck me, the need of a slight  renewal. Both when it comes to cleaning out the closet(s) and re-arranging at home, and, of course, the irrational urge of putting new stuff in. That includes me dreaming of new dresses (and strongly believing that the upcoming summer will very long and warm and sunny and full of moments to strut around with those dresses on).  I have luckily come to the point in my life where I've learned not to click anything home at 3 in the night -that's when I usually do my inter netting nowadays - but wait until the morning or a day or two before I do so, which often means I have the time to grasp my breadth and remember I can live without whatever it was I thought I just had to get. Especially this year, as I decided  - well kind of, let's not set any limits her quite yet - not to get anything new for summer and instead use my money for paying for more work outs with my personal trainer (which I have been doing this winter; it's rather expensive but I have to be honest, it's awesome working out like crazy again, more worth than any Trashy diva dress in the world!  Or well, almost. ) So any dress browsing I might indulge myself in now would be totally useless. But looking won't hurt,  right?

And then of course another thing struck me, which is -and how is this even possible : I don't own one single mint green dress!  Very little mint green anything as a matter of fact. Perhaps my butt muscles will forgive me if they get one or two hours less of work and can instead have something nice and mint green draped around them, hmm?

The shorts are from Vivien of Holloway
The dresses with a grey background are from Etsy/ Fleet Collection
Light turquoise dress with embellishment from Trashy Diva
Dresses in the lower left corner from old fav and affiliate ModCloth
Sweetheart top from Etsy/Contrariety Rose

WEDDING DRESSES

On the coldest day of this winter -which apparently is not over yet thank you very much god damn second round of snow!- I drove up to a pretty location in Tampere to shoot some of my friend's Olivia Rouge's vintage - and rockabilly inspired wedding (& bridesmaids) dresses.

Thankfully I was not part of the ice cold outdoor shoot... although the pictures do look beautiful!

All photos by Anna-Liisa Nikus.
You can browse Olivia's made-to-measure wedding dresses in her shop.

LOW KEY AND A LITTLE FLOWERS

This is how I dress up for work sometimes...

Atelieri O.Haapala was, as usual, present at the Helsinki Burlesque Festival a few weeks back with their pop up atelier. Here's one of my performer photos for this year, I love it!

The number I premiered was one I had planned for years. I spent a lot of time working on the costume, although I did not do everything myself. The headpiece, with leaves that turn into fans, was, as you know,  made for me by Fiona Timantti Millinery, and many of the flowers I used for my clothing was made by Anastasia, The Crazy Flower Maker. There is also a dress, which you can't see here, that Olivia Rouge sew me.

Although I had the costume ready planned in my head for a long time I sought up some inspiration pictures to go along while putting it together, some of which you can see here:

(pictures from retronaut.com)

You can see more of Atelieri O.Haapalas fabulous festival photos here.

A LITTLE HISTORY OF (MY) HAIR

Went trough some old photos of my hair(-styles) during my years of blogging. In one way I have an itch to do something about my hair, just anything new, on the other hand I feel a bit surprised every time I actually let it -the hair- out of that damn beret I tuck it into all the time. It's gotten so long almost feels a bit "new".

When I started this blog back in 2007 I was blonde, in the fourth or fifth year of bleaching my locks, but my hair was still in pretty good condition and quite long. I had my second or third round of bangs going on back then.

Which I tucked up quite often too. (It's a good thing remembering that, that it was quite easy in the end to hide the bangs, as I'm still undecided about one more round of those.)

I was working my shade towards more platinum. That's when i still had lots of hair and did lots of hairdo's.

When I had had the ultimate platinum blonde shade for about a year and a half I had also lost about half my hair, some of the hair just broke off. I started growing my bangs away.

But I got myself a set of faux clip on bangs instead!

In spring 2010 I put some think pink stripes in my hair to achieve a cotton candy look.

But then it was time to end that era and get my hair to grow back! I went darker shade by shade a few rounds as the colour didn't want to stay on bleached hair that well.

And then I had my own color back, pretty much. Here with a rolled faux bangs and one row of extensions to fill out the gap of the lost hair.

And then it was time for the one thing I had never done before but had been feeling for some time: cut it short! This was late in summer 2011; I had all the damaged hair cut off and was left with my own, new hair to grow. My friend was cutting me at that time, she cut it in a sassoon halo cut which in some aspects resembles a middy.

My hair grew a little longer but I kept it short. I had always thought short hair to be easier but it was in fact not, for me at least  -  if i didn't do anything about it it looked quite awful. And pin curling it took more time because the curls had to be made smaller than I was used to in order for the hair to get around to curl. Phew. Here modelling for Fiona Timantti.

 In certain light my hair gets rather red undertones. My hairdresser friend thought we'd try them a little stronger and gave me a light color treatment in a few shades warmer. It made my hair look rather red, but mostly in photos.

The clip on bangs ask  are the transition from blond to darker to toffee and got the name "the rat" due to that as it looked like a sad little wet rat when taking on color in a bowl.

A little before I had Dag I cut my hair the shortest it had been. Which informatively enough was three months shorter than when this pic was taken.

And after that I've only been to the hairdresser once, which was almost a year ago. Time have been busy, I've just dealt with the ends myself certain late nights with the kitchen scissors in front of the bathroom mirror, trying to figure out how it will look in the back when slightly cut from the front.

And now my hair looks like this, well, which al of you know. Like I said in the beginning of the post, I feel I mostly wear it quickly tucked into my beret (and most often use hair pieces at shows, the shows are so frequent I can't make the effort to set it before each and every one and my hair also thanks me for that) so when I do take a look at it I am quite amazed at how much it has grown and how much there is of it nowadays again.

Even though the thought of going all cotton candy with the hair, or -why didn't I come up with the idea before!?- mint green, still would be lovely those days are gone now; I will stick to my own color for the sake of my scalp and hair. I don't want ot go trough the feeling when noticing some sections suddenly were 10cm shorter ...

So, I think  the time has come to book an appointment with the hairdresser! At least for the sake of getting rid of a cm or two without trying to grow eyes in my neck to be able to do it.

FOUR THINGS RIGHT NOW: THE LIGHT IS BACK!

 I love this time of year! The light starts pouring trough the windows again and suddenly you remember it does not get dark at 3:pm al year round...

 We stayed over nigt in the countryside. Ate some left overs from the weekend's birthday party; my vegan apple-berry pie I made on spelt, oats and coconut oil.

 I like to put smaller plants in jars (of course I do, me and jars you know...) or big coffee cups.

And Dag is riding his horse.

THE RED BOOTS THAT ARE EVEN MORE RED NOW

You may recall me mentioning red suede lace up boots on several occasions trough the years? The kind of shoes I liked the idea of but didn't necessarily want to own, as I didn't really wear boots for many years. But due to practical reasons and shorter hems of mine I've been digging out my old boots from their hideabouts during the year and some time ago decided was it was time to start the search for the red ones, if such were available. Well of course, the internet delivered after some time and now I can tick that off my list!

But, the heels on the boots were beige and for me heels in a different color than the shoe only works in certain cases, and this was not one of those cases. So I did not really come around wearing the shoes -the whole point was that they had to be red all over.  The next step was then to try and paint them! I once coloured a pair or rubber heels (and soles) with a random textile paint I had at home and it stayed on super well for years so I was rather positive about perhaps getting something to stay on these too, although this was riskier as the heels are plastic which is not the same since it won't absorb the paint. Heels take a lot of hits and most likely any added color might rub off easily.  But worth a try still -

Went over to the hardware store and decided on red spray paint (and a brown-red primer), hoping the difference in shades would not turn too bad.

Put some masking tape to cover the actual shoe and gave the heels a couple of round with primer and then paint. I filled in uncoloured areas close to the seam with a red marker  - I coloured a pair of satin dance shoes like that once, with a marker, and it turned out super - but thats for another post.

And it did not turn out that bad! Well, quite good actually. After a few days in action the color is still on, so so far so good...