Japanese Garden Nails

I haven't done my nails in a long time, but it's been a weekend full of cleaning and I needed a break, so I stamped out a design. Almost all the designs you've seen on this blog are handpainted, but these are stamped from stamping plates.

Fire Hair

In more ways than one. 

I dyed my hair for my Halloween costume, which you'll see soon enough and which made it's debut yesterday after 2 YEARS under the presserfoot! Anyway, so my hair is kind of fire-in-a-dye-bottle, and then if I decide that I don't like my part-shaved eyebrow, I can say I lost the bits of it in a fire or a chemical explosion or a Bic razor fight.

For now, though, at least, I do like it. So, there.

I was just kind of thinking about it yesterday I guess, and then today I was talking to my roommate like, "yeah, that'd be crazy if I did that lol" and then I was in the bathroom with a razor, so... welcome to my life. Its name is "Spontaneity."  Or "Bad Decisions." I don't know. I do actually kind of like it, so maybe not bad decisions. <3

Wishing y'all all the best and a very happy pre-Halloween Sunday evening,
<3LW

I'M LATE!!

Sorry, we're on an Alice binge. I'm getting it out of my system.

This is the fourth and final set from the Alice shoot I did with Liam of Blackrose Photography a couple months back that I never showed you. You've seen Alice, the Hatter, and the Queen, but now you get to see the White Rabbit.

I promise, my next blog post will be the last Alice-related one in a while. It's just going to be a couple photos I took of a friend Saturday morning with some mushrooms. I couldn't help myself. 

Anyhow, I'm late for a very important date, so I'ma begone.

<3 Lovely

How Do You Get To Wonderland?

I said I'd do a compilation post of outfits I have pictures of that were clearly in some way inspired by Alice in Wonderland. Without further ado, here it is.

This one is the most recent. It's from my last post, from August 29th, 2012.

These two are from the summer of 2009. Alice was a conscious goal here. I wish the photos were better, but they're not. They were taken at Broughton Castle in England, on a field trip from my time studying at Oxford. I still own and wear the light pink satin bow headband and the corduroy miniskirt. The coat was my favorite, but has now faded beyond recognition, and I have no idea what happened to the shirt. That's STILL my favorite purse, although it's almost dead now. I wore enamel clock earrings and blue and gold eyeshadow with my white tights and mary-janes, because I wanted to get as close to Alice as I could without wearing a costume.

Man, I even still had braces. This photo was also pre-jaw surgery, in case you're wondering what looks so different. The jaw surgery actually took place about a month after this photo was taken.

Here comes the blue again! I was mostly just feeling very little girlish, but I think the Aliceness is evident here.

This is Alice all the way for me. Taken my senior year of high school (I'd guess about February of 2010?), and I was wearing a Victorianesque corset underneath to help me feel in character. You can probably tell. The dress and bolero are vintage, and belong to my mother. Love my off-white tights and Victorianesque boots.

It's mostly the line here that is Alice, but again the blue and the headband seem relevant. You can't see here, but I was also wearing blue tights as well as mary-janes.

Mushroom nails! Need I say more? This is one of the first nail art designs I ever did, certainly in the first five sets.

The next four photos are from a photoshoot I did with Liam Roisendubh of Blackrose Photography: Alice, the Hatter, the Queen, and the Rabbit.

 

 

These two are from senior year of high school. 

Look, I'm even falling down the rabbit hole! That was the idea, anyway.

Also senior year of high school:

This is what I wore to the midnight showing of Tim Burton's Alice, and I believe I also wore most of this ensemble to an Alice-themed Rocky Horror. My mother made this for her sister for a set of Alice Halloween costumes.

This was taken at my 16th birthday party, all Alice-themed. 

AND That's all she wrote.

<3LW

Je ne sais quoi

Alice in Wonderland is absolutely a fashion inspiration to me, and always has been. I should do a compilation post about that. I think I will. When I wear headbands, especially headbands with bows, I tend to think about that, especially when there's something blue in my outfit. Today, it's a blue headband with a bow, blue and gold eyeshadow, and blue/green/yellow hair.

I got these soaring sparrow earrings on clearance in a shop in the mall that houses the train station in Utrecht. That was kind of a long sentence, but that's that. I really like them, and they were really cheap. I hope I don't develop an allergy to cheap jewelry, because I do love it so.

This picture seems especially evocative of Alice to me.

The dress is either from Ross or Marshalls or TJ Maxx, and I got it in Carson City around Christmastime last year because the sleeves reminded me vaguely of Morticia Addams. The Addams Family is kind of close to my heart (hence my alias Lovely Wednesday).

There's something about overexposed and oversaturated images that I can't resist.

<3 Lovely Wednesday

Radioactive

Dear Readers,

I did my hair!!!

I was going to do the roots blue, so I bleached my roots first... and then I like it so much that I decided to put the blue on the bottom instead. I used Splat! Blue Envy, and did it myself in the bathroom between 12am and 2am Saturday night. I am in love with my hair right now. In LOVE. Maybe platonic, maybe heavily sexual. :P You decide.

Both the shirt and the sandals are beautiful hand-me-downs from Queen Maryjean, circa 1980s I think.

The lace skirt I made myself, without a pattern, on the spur of the moment because I was motivated to sew and the fabric I wanted to use for a shirt needed to be washed first. My Bernina wouldn't take to one layer of the lace, so the gathering had to be done by hand. The raw edges are finished with a zig-zag, but it's polyester and I'm not really worried about fraying. The scallops were on both selvedges, the fabric was 60" wide, and I had 2 yards of it, so I cut it in half lengthwise and sewed it together to make 4 yards of fullness, gathered the raw edge by hand, and top-stitched it to a crushed velvet waistband--not the best choice without interfacing, but it was what I had laying around, and it works fine. Plus, it's super comfy and has stretch. I sewed in a flat hook and eye on the waistband, and a set of snaps on the opening in the lace. It could use another snap, but it's not a huge deal. I mean... it's a lace skirt, I'm not exactly worried about people seeing through a tiny opening.

Locket ring from Starlight Jewelry (I think?) on Etsy.

Lying on a fake beach

You'll never get a tan

Baby I'm gonna leave you drowning until you reach for my hand.

In the night your heart is full and by the morning empty

But baby I'm the one who left you, you're not the one who left me.

I love the yellow-blonde of my roots. However, trust me, blonde looks terrible on me as an all-over thing. 

I look crazy pink in the worst of ways. With blue ends? Not so!

When you're around me, I'm radioactive

My blood is burning, radioactive

I'm turning radioactive

My blood is radioactive

My heart is nuclear

Love is all that I fear

I'm turning radioactive

My blood is radioactive

This beautiful black velvet blouse zips up the back, and the neckline is decorated with hand-sewn imitation pearls and rhinestones. I feel like a princess going around in this!

Waiting for the nightfall, for my heart to light up

Oh baby I want you to die for, for you to die for my love.

Thank you for reading, mes amis. 

The lyrics (captions that are not my commentary) are taken from Marina and the Diamonds' song Radioactive. Marina is a wonderful beautiful artist and woman, and that's all I have to say. An added note, don't worry, the lyrics are not descriptive of my relationship right now, although I have in the past connected with this song. Right now, I just really admire her as an artist, and Radioactive seemed an appropriate name for this hair-based outfit post separate from the song. <3

All my love,

Lovely Wednesday

Back to Birds and Flowers

Oh, how I have missed my wardrobe.
Feel free to give me the sarcastic "Oh, poor you, you only had HALF your oversize collection of wearables for the last 9 months. I FEEL SO SORRY FOR YOU."  I get it. I have no right to have missed dressing like this when it's not like I didn't have enough to wear, but I missed it anyway.
In any case, sarcasm or no sarcasm, I'm now back at college and reunited with my more fun clothes, including my bird collection and my socks and tights collection. I may or may not have taken serious advantage of that situation today. Check it out:

A note on tomatoes, since they're in the background here. My roommate keeps putting my tomatoes in the fridge, which is not where they belong. If your wonderful, delicious tomatoes keep going pale and mealy on the inside, it's because you're keeping them in the fridge.

My old birds!!

Got these princessy earrings at the Pasadena City College Swap Meet a few weeks ago for a dollar. This is why I love swap meets.

So the Japanese girls have this nifty trick, this thing called sock glue (or sock-tachi), to keep socks from falling down. I think it was invented specifically for the loose socks trend there, but I need it for when I convert tights into socks, like I did here by meticulously cutting the top of the tights off.

Just kidding, it wasn't meticulous. I was like, SNIP, done.

I don't have sock-tachi, though. What I do have is first-aid tape, so I wrapped the first aid tape (non-sticky side down) real tight around my leg above my calves and below my knees and stuck it to itself, pulled my socks (née tights) up, and pressed it against the tape's sticky side. I didn't know if it would work, but (surprise!) it did.

Ring purchased on etsy. I think it was Starlight Jewelry or something like that.

A bunch of polishes I don't remember under Sally Hansen white crackle. I was not really happy with the white crackle, as it's somewhat transparent (and two coats are not an option), and it separated more into strings/strands than chips. Oh well. :P

I'll see y'all later, I'ma go catch up on Project Runway with my friend Ethan. Yay!

<3 LW