DR.SKETCHY'S HELSINKI: MARIE ANTOINETTE

The other week I posed for DrSketchy's Anti-Art School Marie Antoinette-themed night that was held at our studio!



Vegan cupcakes, pastels, lots of fluff and rosy cheeks.

You may remember I used to go quite a lot to the cabaret-live-drawing evenings of Dr.Sketchy's before, but then I ran out of time and so did Tinker and Aiju who were organising them in Helsinki - this was the first night in a few years. And while we were at it we decided with Tinker Bell to start producing them over here again (Dr.sketchy Finland has mainly been active in Tampere only during the Helsinki hiatus). So be prepared for more nights of good music, some wine and most of all drawing fabulous models in fun themes!

Here are a couple of paintings from the night by Anna Kainulainen:

You can follow Dr.Sketchy's Anti-Art School Finland via blogger or on Facebook!

Read more about Dr.Sketchy's here.

BALANCE BY THE SEA / SUMMER AT THE STUDIO

I'm back from our usual three days of archipelago midsummer celebrations! It wasn't all wine-sipping and constant eating for me 24/7, I took some time to do some pilates and balance practices as well. The setting kind of calls for that; I've always liked to work out by to the sound of the sea.

In summer my pilates classes over at our studio are Monday evenings, and what better way to continue summer after the celebrations by celebrating your own strength, hmmm..? Tomorrow at 18:30! With the Elvis themed dance workout before that. (Which we also did with my mom and sisters too at the beach today. It's fun!)

I also have a morning pilates class every second Thursday, and every second Thursday Ruska has her Seasonal Yoga Body Clock Yang class. We have a summer discount for the whole season where our anytime card is only 90€, and you can buy our 10-times card for the summer season for just 100€ (normally 140€), until July 15. We're open all trough the summer except for week 29 in July!

And -woop woop!- next week we're having a burlesque beginners-intensive camp! Two days of fun and learning including stage-make up practices as well as a free entry to the Vegas-themed summer edition of our RubiesKlubit in the evening - a complete starter kit that is! The camp is in Finnish but if you speak English eller svenska we will mix! Do join in on the fun!

Plus, one last thing of self promotion (which I often forget to do, ehrm) ; do remember that we organise bachelorette/hen party burlesque classes (burleskipolttarit) too!  At our studio, or alternatively we show up to where you are celebrating (with some limitations, of course). It's is rather popular these days, having burlesque classes for the bachelorette parties, and were actually the first in the country organising them, together with Bettie, Kiki and Olivia. So we know how to keep you entertained!

But yeah, pilates, tomorrow evening -or, today by now I guess, as we are just about to tick-tock over to Monday's side here.
"Be in control of your body, not at the mercy of it." (Joseph Pilates). YES to that. So see you!

IN LONDON & VIENNA

I am out in the archipelago celebrating Midsummer for a few days, but meanwhile here are some snapshots from my workations in May -

We were a mere week in London for the London Burlesque Festival!

I rented a fab air b'n'b in a old bank-building-turned-aparements in Holloway.

We hooked up with our old pal from Norway Miss Knockout Noire and hit the town as The Scandinavian Leather Jackets. That included a lot of laughter.

And then I paid a bunch of money to see Daniel Craig (drool) and Johnny Depp (drool) in wax.

The most interesting were the really old dolls though.

But we did indeed work there too - here in the middle of getting into drag for our boyband act.

And later the usual glittery burlesque setting as well!

A week later, very early in the morning, it was time to gather the boyband again and fly over to Vienna and the Vienna Boylesque Festival!

A too-early wake up can be balanced up with a prosecco breakfast upon arrival, meeting up the rest of the Finns who had been there for the first nights of the festival already.

Streelights of love in Vienna!

The world's best boyband, next to the world's without-a-doubt-best-female-boylesque performer Lou Henry Hoover, before the show.

Backstage post-show photo by Neil Kendall (@neilnezkendall). So many men and so much glitter!

OUT IN THE GREEN

The other night when I couldn't sleep I did something I haven't done in almost a year I think: I browsed a couple of the blogs I used to read. I've missed reading blogs.  And both of them were just the same as they've always been, with similar photos and happenings and themes. Which made me laugh a bit at the fact that it's just the same over here as well. So now I'll do yet another post about me having a day off and thus finally get to attend things in my garden. But you know what they say, few things are as important...

We had lunch with Dag on the porch. Fresh tomato-filled pasta with herbs from my garden.
In the background you can see my tomato plants, which I planted from slices earlier this year. They've grown so well!

Here are the herbs "in action". As I suppose their action is growing.
This year I didn't grown them myself though as I was too late, so I bought them ready and planted.
Dag loves to water plants. He also loves to go on excursions and "secret discovery expeditions", which I once used to get him along on a walk and that he now wants to go out on all the time. But it can be turned into making plain things interesting: watering the plants turned into one task we had to do on our secret mission. Well, the kid actually loves to water plants. But it works well with other tasks.

 Dag equipped me with weapons, in case we ran into any bad guys.
(Also note my haute floppy pink home-wear shorts. Or un-note them. Not very picture worthy in any more vivid angles.)

 The cats serve as panthers.

The first thing we saw on our investigating excursion was that the wild strawberries are ready! THey are THE absolute taste of summer.

Noticed it will be a good cherry-year! Wohoo!
Last year we did not get any berries; I am not even sure the trees bloomed then.

And then we ended our mission by harvesting the rhubarb. Pie and jam coming up!


And I'll be bringing some (= a lot) of that pie out with me to the archipelago; heading out there for those classic three days of summer, family, food and wine (in moderate doses only folks!) tomorrow. Happy midsummer!

THE PEACH DRESS

This peachy/salmon pink dress is one of my favourite dresses. I've always had a thing for shirtwaist dresses and this one has pockets as well which kind of seals the deal. I bought it at a vintage store in Berlin when we were there with Eddi in 2010.

But -there's always a but - it is a bit too tight over the chest and is now hopefully next to my sewing machine waiting for alteration!

The top always was a bit on the smaller side and I'd often wear a slip of lace top underneath in order to be able to keep the buttons opened as far down as possible. But nowadays it just makes me look stuffed, so I can't really rely on that trick anymore.

I have been thinking about how to alter it to add spaced around the bust; adding a strip of fabric in the middle of the dress, under/next to the decorative panel that runs vertically across the top, or make it diamond shaped or so? Or do I just add more fabric from under the arms? The dress it's rather well made so I am afraid to fck it up. Any sewing wizards out there with advice?

TWENTIETH OF JUNE

Dag turned four (!!) and we had a big birthday party last Saturday.
...Of which I didn't take any photos but afterwards, as I had my hands full. (It feels like that pretty much all of the time nowadays, too busy to take out the camera to document things, or to even bring it along. Having that said, I do have a big bunch of pictures intended for posts that have never made it that far and most likely never will either...)


I did manage to take one during the day even though I missed the candle blowing with a few seconds!

But here's the little mister instead opening up his birthday present on the actual day (Monday; yesterday). He has a total ninja-phaze going on and got these soft ninja throwing stars that he was very exited to get.

Dag was born on the lightest and thus also longest day of the year; summer solstice, and quite suitable the name 'Dag' means "day"in all Scandinavian languages. We had decided on the name before already, but he sure came out on the right day!

Four years ago he was just a little bundle in my lap and now he is throwing ninja stars (and even doing so in English, because youtube and Lego Ninjago). Although that does feel like FOREVER ago already. The newborn phase; the first months, were so weird and kind of hard to remember by now.

(The blurry photo is from the hospital just moments after he was born, before he (and I) was washed up. I remember being totally beat, obviously, but still mumbling to Eddi to "change the ISO settings damn it they photos will be crap otherwise".)

But everything after the acute baby-phase feels like on long year only. When Dag turned two and we had pancakes? What, last summer, no? Two years ago!? NOW That's crazy.

On a sidenote, as I mentioned I have been going trough laptop hell (rather craptop or lapcrap. Not bitter at all.) and while sorting out some files I came across this folder of short texts I'd write every now and then back in the days, often late at night.
One was about staying out on the balcony of my building with a smoothie and a cigarette (I was always about balancing things up...) at 4am (I've always been a bad sleeper as well) looking at the light summer night sky. It said I had been listening to Röyksopp. There was a man on the opposite side of the street bending over the flower bed along the house wall. It was a nice flower bed with lots of orange flowers; I think they were poppies. The petals were spread out on the sidewalk underneath him like a orange carpet. First I thought he was about to pick some flowers, or collect petals, but then I saw he had a knife and was just smashing them, flower by flower. Why would he do that.ö I was thinking that I should yell at him to stop, but then someone came walking along the street and he put the knife in his pocket and walked away. A swallow flew by and I went inside. Eleven years ago, but I remember that strange incident well; it was dated June 20, 2005.  That year it was also a Monday, like yesterday.

MAY TRAVELS

OK. So I really, truly, absolutely, have a very hard time comprehending that we're in mid June already. Like total w to the t to the f, what happened? I guess my mind is still somwhere in early April. May sort of just disappeared. But I did do a lot of things in May, which might also be the reason it just flickered by - did a lot of traveling and also managed to come down with a stomach flue, which has been going around a lot here lately, and had me totally beat for some days. And then I've been stuck with my old laptop slowly dying and not migrating properly to my new one, and a bunch of other computer related things regarding my new one, which makes me think Apple for some reason hate me and are punishing me for anythin bad I may have done previously in my life. Karma-apple.  That whole technical mess has taken me some weeks too, and now I am finally writing on the new one, which hopefully will also contain the relevant stuff that my old one did. First world problems I know but high up on the list among those. Can we add hashtag #weeping here or so?

Well, anyway, so I did a bit of work-related traveling in May.

Pardon the crappy phone photos but I always, and I mean ALWAYS and truly always, get that seat. It's almost amusing.
(...And we're back in the first-world-whiners club again...)

SUMMER CLASSES AT SHANGRI-LA

A little hint for any of my readers that are located in our around Helsinki; next week we are starting our summer schedule over at our studio and burlesque school and to celebrate the new season having a discount of two-for-one; two persons for the price of one or take two classes pay one!

(My iPhone made some semi-accidental "art" when I was playing around with apps and filters. I am sort of almost computer-less for the moment -which is a different and seemingly neverending story...)

 We are having lots of themed summer classes, like my Elvistellään!-class starting on Monday (which is, a dance workout with go go, burlesque and rock n'roll moves with Elvis and Elvis only on the soundtrack. Because why not! Can't really translate the Elvistellään-name from Finnish though..). And a lot more. I'm also teaching a Pilates intro class on Monday. You can find out more trough our website (so far in Finnish only) or via our FB summer event page.
Come dance and sweat and have fun!

SIGN OF THE DOG

Here's the video for Dark Country that we shot earlier this spring!

You can see some behind-the-scenes footage and making-of in my previous post.

DARK COUNTRY: BEHIND THE SCENES

In April I filmed a music video for my friend (and total multi-talent) Sampo's duo band Dark Country (Sampo Marjomaa & Jami Pietilä).
The setting was something of a classic 50's horror tale with werewolf vibes but also a comment on on the wolf hate and hunting craze that still is around in this country (and hate/haters in general as well).

Here are some behind-the-scenes from the days of filming:

It was a big and nice crew to work with! But outdoor filming is always outdoor filming -I have never (well, almost) filmed anything anywhere that would actually be comfortable all the way, no matter how lovely it may look (me walking on a hey field in summer - so sticky! I had pants and my old harbour boots on underneath the dress! And last winter we filmed the Knucklebone Oscar video in a warehouse with -10C indoors for example...there's always something!).  This surely was no exception - it was an especially cold weekend for the time of year when filming the woods part, and it rained most of the night when we shot. But anything cold and wet just makes one feel real cosy and relieved afterwards when thinking about it and seeing the material now the rain really looks like it would have been ordered and suits the whole picture perfectly.
 We'll get back to the final video in just a bit!

Indoor shots by Minna Lehtinen, outdoor photos by Roscoe Lee.