First impression of Victorian photoshoot

Photograph: Henk van Rijssen

Sophistiqué Noir monthly theme post: flowers

For lack of time, I'm not doing an outfit post for this theme or showing you what hairdos can be made using flowers (would have loved to do that!), but I'm only showing you a photograph of the clothes I have that have flowers on them. I really like flowers, but I always pair these items with something less sweet, like combat boots or lavish gothic jewellery.

From left to right:

-Purple skirt: Vive Maria

-Dress with tiny flowers: Vive Maria

-Dress with flowers: King Louie (I'm going to wear this one for Easter)

-Skirt with flowers and baroque print: King Louie

- Skirt in Spanish style: from the market place

- Skirt with English roses: King Louie

I also have a picture to share from a photoshoot that I did last year:

(Photograph: Inge Fienieg)

Sewing a new skirt & a trip to a thrift event

I've been neglecting to reply to your comments on my previous posts because I've been extremely busy that last couple of days. I'll be sure to make up for it next week!
So what have I been working on? First of all, there is this article that I'm writing for a scientific journal about the subject I graduated on last September. I hope to finish it within a couple of days. Secondly, I have a photoshoot in victorian attire coming up on Sunday! The idea is that I'll dress in mourning costume. I have a lot of basic clothing, but I lacked a good skirt. So I really worked like crazy to finish a skirt based on this example:

The mesh layers took me ages to attach!! It wasn't an easy process, but at least I didn't have to pay more than 100 euros to buy this skirt in a shop. Instead I spent 30 to 40 euros. It didn't end up having as much volume as the skirt in the picture above (though I still have to press the layers outwards a bit more), but I like the lace that I added to make it a more of a personal item. Here is the documented process:

Finished:

Here I am wearing a bustle over the skirt:

I also made a mourning veil, attached to a hat:

Tomorrow and on Saturday I'm going to attend a thrift event! I'm really excited about what I will find there and of course I'll  post about it later. 

Superstar summer collection 2012

One of my favourite mainstream clothing brands is called SPS ('Superstar'). I'm afraid it's only available in the Netherlands, but it might still be nice to have a look at their new collection, just for inspiration:

New cardigan: Isla Ibiza

A while back I got a gift from my mother: a beautiful new cardigan by the brand Isla Ibiza. I had tried it on during the winter sales and instantly loved it. The material is good and soft and the knitting just fabulous! Originally the cardigan cost a shocking 140 euros, but my mom only paid 40 euros during the sales. 

Outfit post: springtime!

I bought this dress for only 3 euros during the H&M sales! It’s made from a very light fabric and therefore perfect for spring or summer. I went for a black & white look:

Dress: H&M

Lace stockings: V&D

Cardigan: H&M

Cameo necklace: bought at a festival

Bracelet: Noosa Amsterdam

Belt: V&D

Rituals eyeshadow palette ´Gems of Goa´

 Last Christmas my boyfriend gave me a beautiful green eyeshadow palette from Rituals. It´s from the Gems of Goa line:

 The eyeshadow palettes do not contain harmful chemicals, which makes them even more desirable. The colors are very profound, but not really dark. If you’re looking for a darker green, you can try to apply black eyeshadow as a base. Here I only used the green:

Mais il est où le soleil? Summer 2012 collection

Mais il est où le soleil? Summer 2012 collection

As I’ve mentioned before, I love the Belgian clothing brand ‘Mais il est où le soleil?’. Unfortunately I’ve never had enough money to buy anything, but I love to look at the pictures and dream. :) Their clothing is romantic, with lots of tule skirts, corset tops and ruffles. In my opinion it perfectly matches a darker themed outfit, especially when you want to tone the black down a bit.

To give you an impression of the brand in general, here is a video of the fantastic atmospheric winter 2011 fashion show:

And here are some pictures of the new summer collection:

Tea obsession?

I have a thing for tea and especially for extraordinary flavoured tea... Last week I found a package in the mail that contained 8 new kinds of tea that I had ordered through the Dutch Teabar webshop:

These flavours are:

- Oudhollandse appeltaart (traditional Dutch applepie tea)

- Fruity Fairytale (green tea with mango and other exotic fruits)

- Stroopwafel thee (traditional Dutch syrup cookie tea)

- 1000 dromen Ayur la Vie Bio (green tea with grapes, roses, jasmin etc.)

- Rooibos aardebeien slagrooom (rooibos tea with strawberries and cream flavour)

- Rooibos hammam (roobios tea with orange, eucalyptus etc.)

- Bananarama (tea with banana, coconut etc.)

- Rooibos choco caramel (rooibos tea with chocolate and caramel)

I have already tried each kind of tea, except for Rooibos Hammam. Apart from the Oudhollandse Appeltaart, which didn't contain any tea but only dried fruits, I loved all flavours a lot! Bananarama is definately my favourite though. Drinking tea becomes so much fun with exotic ingredients!

Outfit post + new summer jacket

I tried to make pictures of what I am wearing today, but it's really hard to do this by myself. There is simply too much light coming into the living room to make it work. And the darker parts of the appartment, where mirrors are located, are too dark to make good photographs without using flash. Sometimes I can ask my boyfriend to make the picture for me and then there's no problem at all, but today he wasn't around. So here are some crappy images:

Trying the mirror above my vanity table:

 And the mirror in the hallway:

 This isn't much better either:

T-shirt with lace: Vive Maria

Cardigan: H&M

Skirt: don't remember (cheap find)

Stockings: Hema

Necklace: gift from mother-in-law (wearing this one a lot lately!)

Bracelet: from a tiny store in Amsterdam

My friend Joyce (from Beauty & Metal) recently bought a new jacket online, but didn't like it well enough to keep it. She wanted to return the jacket to the webshop, but I told her I might be interested in buying it from her instead. I tried it on and it fit nicely. Problem solved and I'm the happy owner of a new summer jacket now! 

Military style jacket: Large Popmerchandizing