Photoshoot - Elverhøj

As I’ve mentioned before, I joined the staff of the only current danish lolita oriented magazine; Starlight Magazine.
Last edition I did the cover art, and two editions ago, I modelled with friends for the Red Riding Hood shoot. This time I modelled with three other models, wrote and article and did a tutorial, designed final logo from scratch and did the layout for most of the magazine, this last bit wasn’t too bad, since a lot of the magazine consists of photoshoots, as well as five articles written and layouted by Sabrina, as well as having both a make-up tutorial, a recipe page and a page with recent brand.
Most of the work consisted in waiting for people to finish their works, figuring out who made what, if they planned on finishing things before deadline and so on (two didn’t meet deadline).

Check out the magazine here!

The photoshoot itself was planned ages ago, by Sabrina who really wanted to make this shoot happen. She made one dress and two skirts, bought extensions, jewellery and make-up, and we went location scouting one weekend, and she tried getting dry ice, which fell through, so she got smoke bombs instead, and when Stine, who was to be our soldier for the shoot, got really ill at the last minute, we advertised for a model on facebook, and our friend Rikke agreed. This was a major save, and Rikke did so well!! She didn’t have much clothes, but she and Sabrina managed to scrape a really convincing outfit together by combing things from their wardrobes.

We all met up at Sabrina’s at 10, and spent the next four hours to get ready, then we packed provisions, photography gear etc. and got on our way.

The trip to the location took some 30 minutes plus the 20 minutes it took to walk from the station to the final location. We passed through a major deer herd in the idyllic forest, and the deer just ignored us. It was magical! Sadly none of us took any photos.


The shoot took around three hours I think, and then the skies suddenly opened up and water poured down!! We all scrambled to save the gear and the make-up. Since I’d been barefooted for the shoot, and my shoes had gotten wet, I simply walked back in the pouring rain without shoes, stepping in puddles and mud. It was great!
The day ended with Supernatural and pizza. A great ending to an eventful and fun day!

If you just want to see the photos from the shoot, and not the whole magazine, check out Sabrina's photoblog over at Flights of Fancy.

Genki con

Once upon a time, there was only one Japanese pop culture oriented convention in the small kingdom of Denmark. I joined the staff and attended it for four years, but then the con just got too big for it’s own, too little space, too many people, too many unannounced schedule changes, gossip and so on. At least for my own liking. A lot of people still believe in J-popcon and love going, and they plan their cosplay for most of the year.
By this time other conventions had sprung up in the rest of the country, to cater to the many people who wished to share and celebrate their love for anime, manga, cosplay and so on, And many were too young to travel to the other end of the country, or couldn’t afford the very expensive trip, or even just wanted to attend more than one con a year, as well as be able to cosplay without freezing to death (J-popcon was always held in winter).
I had by this time lost the interest almost completely, and only attended J-popcon to participate in the fashion show (where others planned co splays, I planned and made a new dress), but I didn’t really get into the con spirit, most people there seemed very young, annoying and so on. However I now think that you get what you give, and I had a lot of negativity and so only saw the bad things.
Last year however, I attended a new con called Genki (this was only their second year) as I was participating in the fashion show, and was very surprised to discover that I wanted to stay after the show, to hang out with my friends and talk. So, this year, as our great leader Sascha advertised for participants in the lolita show for Genki, I joined, after finding out if I had favourable working hours. And since a lot of friends were coming too, I planned on spending Saturday at the con.
The fashion show was Friday, so I dragged my outfit with me to work, then with me back to Roskilde (which seems silly, but I didn’t want to waste time swinging by the apartment to get the outfit). Keon was a hero, and picked me up at the station so that I didn’t have to bother with busses or walking.
I hung out with Keon, Cecil, Eri and her baby girl Emma for some 15 minutes, and then I had to meet up with the rest of the frill cult to go to a changing room, which had been reserved for us (really cool) It was all back stage, so no one saw our outfits before the show. This was a problem at last years J-popcon).

My outfit was inspired by the newest upcoming craze; OTT classic, and even though I was unsure if you could call black and off white classic, I went for it. My friend Stine joined us as well this year, and dressed in aristocratic boys style. We totally matched 8D

Photo by Ariellah

Rundown

Bonnet - Homemade
Roses - Accessorize + H&M
Blouse - Market (cannot recall the brand)
Dress - Homemade
Stockings - H&M
Shoes - Bianco
Bling - A mix of homemade, H&M and vintage

The bonnet turned out SO well! I’m very pleased with it. I based it on a floppy hat from H&M and then just went crazy with scissors, needle and thread, chiffon and ribbons. The material of the bonnet is wool/felt, and it sits very nicely on the head, so much so that it didn’t need any combs.

As said, I paid a one day ticket for Saturday and it was so much fun! I didn’t attend that many events, but just hung out a lot. It was actually so much fun that I went on Sunday as well. This wasn’t planned as I had a deadline on an E-zine, but I just really needed the weekend to be a little longer, and so I went.

Here’s some mood photos.

My outfit saturday. I was head over heels for those storm troopers! Sigh

I also brought my LE Identity Disc, which I made people pose with.

My friends, Stine and Casper in their DOGS cosplay.

Sunday's outfit. Photo by Ariellah

Sassy shot. Photo by Ariellah

I'm a Marvel girl by heart, so you can imagine how obscenely pleased I was with this group, not to mention the mask-thing XD

Spiderman was SO awsum! I love this shot!

The aforementioned E-zine will be the topic of my next update

Dress making

Since the last time I updated about my endeavours in the land of homemade clothing, a lot has happened!
But let me just show you an old modification, which was my old winter coat.
I loved the design, but it wasn’t really made for a girl with the hips I have, so since I needed a short lolita jacket, I jumped into it and cut it up.

I really like how it turned out. It’s very, very cute, doesn’t really sit that close to the body and I always loved red. I’m not sure if I want to do something with the collar yet, but I’m always happy to get suggestions.

I realized that I really needed another black dress in my closet. I have the deer jsk, but it’s high waisted and in chiffon, and these days I’m completely in love with velvet. Also, I wanted something with a more classic, and detailed bust, so I did this design sketch.

And here is the finished result. Crappy phone shot XD As you can see it came pretty darn close. I only decided to drop the bow belt.
This dress is sooo easy to wear! And I loved how the details ended up. So much so, that I’ve decided to make it in at least one more colorway. But I’m sure I’ll need it in more colors. My local fabric pusher carries velvet in sax blue, a peachy sort of baby pink, lavender, brown etc. (they also stock hot Barbie pink, which I HAVE to use on some kind of dress, just not sure what design yet).

While shopping for the black velvet dress, I stumbled across this satin weaved curtain fabric with a black and white house print. I instantly thought of Emikyu, and I took a quick snap of it with my phone, so I could find it later.
I got a gift certificate for the fabric store for birthday present, so the house fabric was then mine!
I didn’t do a design sketch this time, but I knew I wanted it simple, and with focus on the print, so I made the bust with black velvet, and stitched on five bows in the same fabric at the neckline (this is, btw, my new favourite shape for necklines. It’s cute).

The finished result. I made the skirt a bit longer than I normally do, and it’s just the perfect length for me! I prefer the hem to reach to the knees. I just bought some black velvet ribbon that I plan to sew onto the dress just above the hem, just to pull in the velvet of the bust more. This dress, like the black dress, is fully lined.

I also bought lavender colored fabric as well as blue velvet and a navy blue fabric printed with ropes, keys and locks, but these haven’t been made into dresses yet, so you’ll have to wait.

I’ve also taken up making jewellery again. Here’s some of what I’ve made so far. I've something like three necklaces more, since this was taken XD

Other than that I made a bonnet!! But you can see that in the next post, which is about the convention I attended last week!

The End of an Era. Long live Harry Potter

So, the day came, when the final Harry Potter movie had it’s premiere. As much as I had looked forward to watch it, I was sad to see it end. This series of movies has been so fantastic! No matter how much I’ve been nitpicking about changes in the story, I still love it very much, and it will be movies that I’ll watch time and time again, by myself, or at Harry Potter themed movie nights with friends, dressing up and eating house colour sorted candy, waving wands and repeating spells.
The books are very magical to me, and I can’t wait till my friend Eri’s daughter is old enough for me to read them aloud to her, or when I get a kid of my own. Be it a boy, or a girl, they’ll be introduced to Harry, Ron, Hermione, and all the rest, and it will be like greeting old friends.

Originally the plan was for Sabrina and I to join a lot of friends and watch part 2 on premiere night, but there was a lot of confusion about the tickets, and the friend who ordered the tickets got them for another night than premiere night.
Sabrina and I were somewhat disappointed, as we had planned and spent many hours on making house crest themed dresses. Sabrina is in Gryffindor, and I’m in Slytherin.
We decided that I’d go down to the cinema three days before the big night, late after work, and see if I couldn’t get tickets for just the two of us. And it was a success! The guy selling me them told me that the girl in front of me had actually just returned two tickets, so I snatched them up at once, and told him that he’d made my day!

On the big night, we went to Sabrina’s after work and got ready, and went to Imperial (the only right cinema to attend premieres at. It has a very long tradition of being the place to go, for most people). Imperial almost always puts a lot of effort into decorating the hall to fit the mood of the movie, and this time was no exception! Dementors hung from the ceiling, giant spiders prowled the staircase, chests with potions and ingredients and magical books were there as well, and a big 3D billboard of the movie stood as background for a large table overflowing with crucibles, cauldrons, weird colourful fluids and more.




So many people had dressed up! We actually ran into Liv and Kristine, and a few more, who’d just come out from watching the movie. Liv makes one amazing Luna!!
We were also interviewed by a news reporter, but sadly I’ve been unable to find the footage. It was a long interview, so I’m sure I’ve been very herpa derp derp, but still, it’d been fun to see.


Our dresses. They’re made from the same pattern, but Sabrina’s has lace on the shoulderstraps and a black chiffon bustle.

The crests were done by me with silver and gold paint, and I designed the look for the crests as well.

My dress turned out a little on the short side, so I'm planning a black underskirt, and also lengthening the shoulderstraps a little. Check out Sabrina's outfit