Weapons of mass-confusion

♫ Dreamtale – Dreamtime

I was doing a bit of cleaning in my hall today and "came across" my interesting collection of arms – or I could say, I picked them up and moved them out of the way while dusting, but the sad truth is they've been lingering in my hall for looong, and I don't really know where to put them. I don't have any equipment to hang them on my walls, and I could barely even decide which wall. But they're cool nevertheless!

I cannot remember where I bought this coat of arms – somewhere abroad for sure. Some photos might reveal where exactly, but I'm quite sure such photos would still be on paper as it certainly dates back to 2005 or earlier, and I didn't have a digital camera back then. Too bad the shaft of the polearm extends so far that I cannot even place this on some surface to lean on something!

This is the oldest of these pieces! My very first sword, or not a sword but a dragon-shaped dagger! I'm quite sure I bought it in Greece ten years ago. I can imagine what was going on in my mind when I saw it, something like "omg-RPG-dragons-OMG-Middle-Ages-IWANTTHAT-dragons!!!" And yeah, I bought it, and I almost got to be a bit embarrassed because of it on my way back. At the airport, our luggage was X-rayed, and for some reason the monitors were turned so that while I was waiting for my stuff to go through the machine, I could also see what the inspectors were watching. And they stopped the steady flow of luggage when they suddenly saw a very suspicious black object in one bag... It actually looked quite cool, since it was turned so that its nice silhouette was what they saw. The inspectors pondered over this suspicious object for quite a while, and it was quite obvious whose bag it was that caused the stop... Yet in the end, they just let it pass, not even wanting to open the bag and see it. (Naturally it was going to the hold, so it was not like I was going to stab someone in the cabin.)

I didn't buy this one myself, but my mother brought it to me from Turkey. In case some conservative souvenir  vendor was confused seeing a girl buying a dragon dagger, I can only wonder what someone else thought of a middle-aged woman purchasing this... Or then they just thought she's going to give it to her son. I consider this my pirate sword since it's the closest to a cutlass that I have!

And yes, both swords can be removed from their sheaths, yet naturally they're not particularly sharp. The very tips of the blade could do some harm, though. I gotta be careful with myself. :x

And finally, a mystery (plastic) dagger – I don't know what it is! I don't know whose it is! Somehow it has just appeared in my apartment! It's plastic indeed, with a slightly bent blade, and I think it may have been a part of something (maybe a decorative coat of arms) since it doesn't have a rear. I guess I could use it as a bookmark since it's that much smaller than the others too. But seriously – I'm sure I haven't bought it, and no one has really given it to me either. It might have belonged to my brother (or that's what I suspect) but still, a mystery!

Now if I could only figure out where to store these weapons. I wouldn't like to hide them in a box, but I don't really have any showcase for them either!

The most honest cookie jar

♫ Battlelore – Buccaneers Inn

What a lazy blogger I've been. I suppose I've tried to be less lazy in real life (with little success).

A few weeks ago a friend of mine had a housewarming party. It wasn't particularly easy to come up with something nice to give to him; one one hand we'd been hinted that something edible would be nice, but on the other hand I also wanted to give something that'd last a bit longer. And this guy has a very elegant taste when it comes to décor, so I wanted to give something that'd look like "him".

The result: I purchased a glass jar, baked some white chocolate chip cookies and designed a sketchy blotchy poison bottle label. This was pretty much a sequel to the project I showed in the previous post. I used the same sticker paper too. The nasty thing, of course, is the fact that with the home-printed label (on a matte paper) the jar can only be washed very, very carefully on the inside. However, my friend got a spare label to stick wherever he wishes. :D

The poison label was also an efficient way to imply that everyone was eating cookies baked by me at their own risk. Cannot say they wouldn't have been properly warned!

My personal alchemy lab

♫ Sabaton – The Hammer Has Fallen

There are a hundred things I could do, should do, or would do (if) and I'm not sure if I'm good at prioritizing my projects, but when I suddenly got a strong urge to make custom labels for my spice jars, I just... well, put everything else off. Okay not really, but at least I completed this project rather fast.

Or too fast. :> The final stages, i.e. printing, cutting and sticking the labels to the jars were carried out late in the evening, and the kitchen was quite dark too when I eyed the line of my new custom jars in my cupboard and happily closed the cupboard door. And now the daylight (and especially the photos) reveal the ugly truth: I cannot cut anything even if my life depended on it. Seriously, I've never been too handy with scissors, and even though most lines have been cut with a paper knife and a ruler, the results are not too good on average. But I blame it on my desk lamp which recently resigned office.

I would have wanted to create labels which seem very old and probably bear resemblance to poison bottles and such, preferably printed on a brown paper... But since my spice jars are genuine Ikea products and don't look old, antique, vintage or whatever, I decided to go for a less extreme style. As you can see, the background isn't pure white (but I've failed to cut off the extra white paper here and there!). I looked up some instructions on how to use all those spices on the internet and put a brief description in the labels simply because I need some guidance. I am not the worst cook, but experimenting with spices isn't my area of expertise. However, I also wanted to add some useless information as well, such as the Latin names and some labels even got a suggestion for medicinal uses. (And in case you understand Finnish, don't try to use those tips! :D They may be accurate (or pure superstition) but I wouldn't really try to pour parsley tea into my eyes.) I guess pirates need medicinal herbs though...

I drew more or less accurate pictures of most spices, yet spice blends got a picture of a random spice bottle and cardamom had to settle for a pastry since cardamom seeds look too strange and I've never used it for anything but baking.

And I should have taken all the photos from this angle so that you wouldn't have seen all that salt on my shelf. Oops, I've forgotten to clean it. :x Maybe one day I can replace those Ikea jars with something resembling old apothecary jars and bottles and create labels which seem more mysterious. However, I think those are better than the masking tape strips which marked the jars before. So long!

P.S: I was positively surprised to find matte sticker paper which was very affordable too. I bought a variety which hadn't been die-cut into smaller labels of a certain size because I want to be able to use it for versatile projects. However, the backing paper was a pain to remove!

P.P.S: What is your favorite spice and why? I love the scent of cinnamon, cardamom and curry. I know cinnamon isn't particularly healthy (at least not the cheap type) but if I buy vanilla ice cream, I eat it with cinnamon (doesn't happen too often though). I would like to use (mild) curry more, but I am still not too good at experimenting. Oh, and one of my favorites: lemon pepper! It goes with almost anything. :D (Not really, but I love it anyway.) I love the scent and flavor of lemons, though I don't really eat the actual fruits.

In pursuit of a perfect dress

♫ Gloryhammer – Silent Tears of Frozen Princess

Eh, oops.
I cannot give too good excuses for not updating, except for having had a rather boring life, you know. Or well, a very dear friend did get married at the beginning of March, and since I was her maid of honor, I had a lot of wedding stuff to do. I've also spent the weeks after the event editing the photos I took there.

Anyway, the wedding had a slightly historical theme and the bride and the groom's clothes were somewhat inspired by the 19th century. I didn't want to get the most modern evening dress either, so I went online-shopping looking for a perfect steampunk inspired dress.

Both the bride and I fell in love with this one, even though it's all black. But I got the bride's special permission to wear all black since she also thought the dress was adorable. :)

Sorry about the photo. I took it right after opening the parcel and didn't bother to set up a tripod. I haven't seen (and don't have) many photos of myself at the wedding, but since they all have other people as well, I don't want to publish them here.

However, getting the dress was a pain. :D To cut a long story short: I saw it on Ebay, but spend a month considering other options as well. One night I went to see the Ebay sale again and decided I'd purchase it on the following day. As I was about to do that, I noticed the size S had sold out during the night! How frustrating (though I also learnt a lesson!). I turned the internet upside down looking for it somewhere and eventually found it in a British webstore. I shopped it, but it turned out they didn't have it in stock but could order it. I asked if they could do it within a month, and they were quite certain they could. I started to wait.

A month passed, they didn't get the dress, then another week, and another. Just a few weeks until the wedding and I had no idea if I was going to get my dress. The shop kept apologizing. One day they just said they still didn't have it and asked if I wanted to keep waiting. Before I answered, I got desperate and again turned the internet upside down – and surprisingly, managed to find it restocked elsewhere! Quickly I placed an order to another British webstore and very soon, after a few hours, the order was shipped. I was happy!
I knew the next thing I had to do was canceling the first order, asking them to return my money. However, at this point I left for the gym instead and decided to do it after getting back home. But while I was gone (for a little more than an hour), I had got a shipment confirmation from the first store too! I was dumbfounded since a few hours earlier they'd said they didn't have the dress and I wouldn't have expected them to do anything before getting my answer as they knew I needed the dress by a certain day (and if I couldn't get it on time, I wouldn't want it at all). So yeah, suddenly I had two dresses on their way to me, and I could no longer cancel either one of the orders since they had been shipped. *deep sigh*

Naturally, I thought of returning one of the dresses even though it would cost me a bit more to send it back, but fortunately, the bride wanted to buy the other one. :) It turned out to be a good dress for her to wear to the hotel breakfast on the day after the wedding! Though I joked that she should have been like some brides in America and have two dresses for the wedding party already...

The wedding itself was an amazing party. So much love and fun and overall good time. It was also a pleasure to take photos there (even though damn difficult too) since the photos turned out to be filled with such warm emotions (not only between the couple, but their relatives and friends too). So long!

Preserving beauty

♫ Theocracy – Altar to the Unknown God

Although I rarely blog about cosmetics, I thought I could do so now since I've been somehow quite happy with some new products I've tried recently. It may be that they're not any better than some others, or that their actual results are such of my imagination, but anyway...

From left to right:
1. Neutrogena: Visibly clear pink grapefruit oil-free moisturiser
Since I suffer from acne, I try to rely on special products when it comes to cleansing and moisturizing my (facial) skin. Recently, I tried a new product, and I kinda liked it! Some oil-free moisturizers seem not to be enough to fight both acne and the winter which makes the surface of my skin get dry, and well, my skin does still get very dry (and oily) too, but at least this one feels nice, is creamy with a mild grapefruit scent, and well... It's probably better than some others. Yet moisturizing my skin type is a pain in the a...
However, I also bought a cleansing gel of the same product family, and I don't like it at all. It's also the worst product at removing make-up which I've encountered for a while.

2. Cutrin: Bio+ Energen serum
This product is actually targeted for those women who suffer from hair loss – however, I bought it because it was also recommended for those who are trying to grow hair. I think my hair loss is normal, but I'm really trying to make it grow, grow, grow..! Thus, I'm applying this to my scalp after I've washed my hair. I don't know for sure yet whether it'll really boost my hair growth, but it gives a really nice refreshing sensation to the scalp!

3. Virgin coconut oil
Straight off the shelf of your local grocery store! So yeah, it's basically... food. I've never been playing with groceries as beauty products before, but I read so many good user experiences with coconut oil that I just wanted to try it. People use it for various things: some moisturize their skin with it, some remove their make-up with it, others use it for hair treatment, and some even use it as a deodorant. Personally, I've noticed that it's quite good at removing eye make-up – better than many commercial products I've used. The main purpose for it, however, is to treat my hair. I apply some to my hair an hour or two before I'm going to shower, wear it like a hair treatment mask and then wash it away. And it makes hair feel nice and soft. I even read that it's good at deep-cleansing hair, and I might even have to say that it seems to be true. :0 And some people leave it in their hair when they go to sleep and wash it away in the morning. I haven't tried that yet, but well, why not some day.

4. Freeman: Facial clay mask mint & lemon
It's been a while since I've been regularly using facial masks, and I wanted to try something potentially good for my difficult skin type. I cannot say any product could save me from my acne (my problem cannot really be solved on the outside), but at least it feels good and refreshing. This product line has so many different options that I may want to try another one too, they probably have something for every skin type. And these are not even expensive.

Painting it brown

♫ Dreamtale – The Awakening

A while ago I rummaged through my wardrobe, picking out clothes I hadn't worn lately and probably wouldn't in the future either. It hadn't actually been so long since the last time I had done the same, so I didn't find so many unnecessary pieces this time.

While some clothes ended up in the "get rid of these NOW" pile immediately, there were some pieces with different flaws which I still wanted to save one way or another. This ex-black-and-white striped shirt was one of them. As much as I would like to wear white, or black-and-white, I'm not good at keeping white as white as it should. It's a bit embarrassing to admit this because I've had to study housekeeping and such (cleaning, laundry and that kind of stuff too, on a professional level) so much in the past that washing clothes should be a piece of cake to me. :x This shirt, for example, had turned yellowish in a very dirty way merely by staying in my closet, unused for a few years.

Thus, I decided to try to dye it – a procedure I had already used to save a b'n'w striped T-shirt some years ago. I tried to turn it red and black, but it turned out pink instead. The hue wasn't too bad – at that time, when I was more into pink. This time I really had trouble deciding on the color though! I haven't felt comfortable wearing red or pink lately to contrast my mostly black wardrobe (I've even worn my pink eyeshadow quite a little lately! But it's not the problem, only such clothes are) and I didn't want to try those colors on the shirt. I'm not much into wearing orange, yellow, green or purple, even though I like every color in some context. Then I thought of blue, ocean blue. I turned the city upside down hunting for such textile dye. Eventually I found some, but the selection in the store was quite wide and I began to reconsider. I thought of all things which have inspired me lately, and dressing up in neutral tones, or muted tones, has been the thing. I thought of pirates and steampunk and such, and then picked up terracotta brown instead.

I didn't use all the dye because it would have been enough to dye 600g of fabric and the shirt only weighed 200g, and I was afraid of the result being too unpredictable. But I'm not even sure what I really wanted of it. This is how it turned out:

I figured I would try to redye it gray if I didn't like the outcome, but I'm not sure yet. I'm not disappointed, I have to wear it a bit to see if it was a good choice or not. What do you think, is the terracotta brown hue ugly or maybe nice and warm?

Harnessing my superpowers

♫ Guardians of Time – Altered in Red

At the end of last year, I thought I could give myself sort of a Christmas present and since I had managed to find something after a long search, I placed an order online and began to wait with excitement...

I thought I had finally found a steampunk-style harness in a nice color, in my size and at a reasonable price. And knowing that new customs regulations would come into effect at the beginning of 2013 (which would result in online shoppers having to pay VAT in Finland more often), I didn't hesitate to buy the harness.

And things didn't go quite as planned. The harness was shipped particularly fast (=in 15 minutes!) in 2012 but unfortunately enough, it arrived in 2013 and got stuck at customs, and I had to pay the VAT. Damn. And then, even though the product turned out to be otherwise as described, it was more or less too "big" for me. Okay, not exactly loose, but certainly not very snug like it probably should be. I guess I can still wear it, maybe with some thicker fabric underneath...

The angle certainly flatters my arm!

The color is a nice grey – I guess it might be the best for me since most of my clothes are black, and a black harness wouldn't stand out well enough. I had thought about brown, but hesitated since I don't have any brown leather / suede / faux leather / faux suede items. (The harness is made of faux suede.) The lovely details include antique keys and some gears hanging on silver chains.

I hope I can put it into good use although it doesn't quite fit so perfectly. :x It's too cute to be left to gather dust in my wardrobe.