Visiting museums in style!

Yesterday the local open air museum Árbæjarsafn had a market day with free entrance, so naturally we had to go investigate and dress up accordingly. I mean what else do you do.

A definite bonus of oncoming autumn is that I can begin to wear capelets and scarves and such. A negative is that this particular bonnet will have to retire for the winter but hey, late August/early September is the cheating zone in which you can still wear summer items but also include autumn ones!

And now for photos.

Detail shot.

Outfit rundown:

Dress: honestly no idea, no tag anywhere. Gunne Sax has been suggested.

Bonnet: Mrs Parker's Millinery & Mercantile

Capelet: Andersen & Lauth

Boots: Bodyline

All else: vintage/offbrand

Museum selfie! :D

I seriously hate going up and down stairs like these, narrow, steep and did I mention that with hems like these there's no way of seeing where you're putting your feet on. Could be another stair, could be The Void.

I'm quite sure this room was haunted. I walked in and the radio in the room immediately began to make demon noises at me, stopping only when I stepped away from it.

Here's something that apparently really is haunted! It's a sleeping shack for scouts and one of those beds belongs to a ghost called Hallbera. No one knows which one it is though, but if you sleep in the wrong one you'll find out. :D

I love old rooms...

...and bizarre wall tapestries.

No I have no idea why there's a 80's style sweater on the wall, blame the time travelers.

I admit the wig is also a mystery.

I used to have a bed like this. The taller I grew the more it had to be pulled out until that one fateful day when my friend sat on it and the whole thing came apart in the middle. :D

We also ended up in the evening news (holy bob I gotta learn to walk like a, a, woman - failing that human will do as well, actually anything but that cow jog).

Naturally I bought this guy. I've also eaten him already. :Þ

Text says "party lollipop for a party lion" and that's exactly what I am, I arrive to the party, eat everything and go right to sleep.

International Lolita Day, June 2014.

What did I do on my weekends?

To begin with I packed the SO and a friend S in the car with lots of camping equipment (forgetting only half of the important stuff that one needs when camping) and headed for Snæfellsnes. It's one of my favourite places in Iceland, topped only by Flatey, and I brought along a coord juuuuuust in case a perfect location would present itself. And lo and behold we found just the place - Skarðsvík in Öndverðarnes, the north tip of the peninsula. It was a warm but windy day so hems and hair went flying about everywhere. :D

Onwards for the photos!

Dress: Gunne Sax

Bonnet: Mrs Parker's Millinery & Mercantile

All else: offbrand

A ghostly photoshoot.

Like mentioned we did a little photoshoot at the summer cabin. There was this abandoned, half-rotten playground that was quite eerie so here you go - one more addition to the "Supernatural Creatures of Iceland series, the afturgöngur. The name translates as "walks again" and although it's technically speaking a ghost, it's more zombie-like with a physical body and capability of causing all kinds of harm. The difference might be that they don't eat humans and that they aren't contagious in the same way as zombies are.

Stories of how they begin vary but they often have a theme: either an afturgöngur bears a grudge and follows a person everywhere they go, some even follow that person's whole family for generations to come or they can be made by a person who knows magic. This usually requires a murder - you make the afturgöngur by killing a person and adding some magic to the mix. These ones have a chance of backfiring because if the magician then runs out of tasks to give them (tasks you can give them are usually only one: go follow this person I want to destroy until they die) they'll turn on their maker.

Some clever magicians managed to lock their creations inside small containers, often made of sheep bone. So just in case you find a sheep bone with a cork in it... might be a good idea to leave the cork in. Just saying.

Two typical types of afturgöngur are móri and skotta. Móri is male, skotta female, both are usually linked with the colour rust red. The skotta often wears a traditional Icelandic dress with the spoon of the headdress either bent out of shape or pointing backwards. For examples of Icelandic ghosts Draugasetrið in Stokkseyri has lots of interesting ones! Visiting the place remember a few things: it'll be cold in there. There may be ghosts walking around, actors or otherwise since the site is near an old haunted bridge and has a graveyard right next to it. The owner said that after the opening hours none of his workers are too keen on staying inside the building.

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Outfit rundown:

JSK: selfmade

All else: vintage/offbrand

For more photoshoots of Icelandic creatures:

Troll

Elf

LBC: Your First Lolita Item.

Lolita Blog Carnival can be found here!

I love these themes, they're not written too exactly or explained in any way so it's up to the writer to interpret them any way they see fit to. For example this time I thought long and hard about the definition of "first lolita item". What would count as one? The first item I owned that was meant for lolita? The first item that actually was acceptably lolita? The first brand piece? Well, let's see. Prepare your frilly butts though, the ita is strong in this one!

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The first item I ever owned that I meant for lolita

...was of course a shoddily handmade headdress. I started dressing up in the mid-2000's, what were you expecting? I can't remember how often I wore this thing but since even once would be too many it may be for the best.

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The first item that actually counts as lolita

Lul, you can has a mini photoshoot. This is the first actual lolita outfit that I ever owned and true to form it was selfmade. Btw gimme some cred that stone ramp was icy and I almost broke my ankleneck 50000000 times.

Yup, it's an obvious lolita outfit! Shame that it doesn't show but the fabric was pinstripe and it was no small pride of mine that I managed to make the stripes match all around the skirt. :D

In fact it's not too bad if you ignore the lack of hairdo, weird ribbon dangly, maxipad headdress and them strap-things (personally I still kind of like the strap-things though)!

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My first brand item

It was Moi-Meme-Moitie! It's a bath towel! I still have it! :D

Aaaanyway the story goes that a group of friends saw those towels and made a group order, to which I jumped mostly out of the hilarity of the whole thing. Lolita bath towel, well why the hell not I'm totes in on this! I still have it here, it's quite a good towel.

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My first serious brand item

Nope, not the dress. Dress is still selfmade. It's the shirt, Jane Marple, and unusual in its time in that it had both a huge Peter Pan -collar and no lace or ruffle what so ever. In short it was a dream shirt for me that matched everything in my closet and never looked out of place.

Idk if it's easier to see in this photo but maybe I'll get extra points for matching my ice creams to my outfit. Anygays I wore this shirt almost literally to shreds. I still have it but in the end I dyed it chocolate brown, years of use always shows on the armpits of a white shirt no matter how well and often you wash it. :(

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My first dream item

I'm sure this one's unnecessary but I wanted to end this post with something else than a mental image of yellowed armpits. Puppet Circus was my dream print for ages, even after realizing I'd never be small enough or rich enough to get the OP. But seriously, there's just something about gold etched velvet, and not only that but the print on PC does own my heart.

I became the happy owner of this skirt via a friend who knew I loved the skirt a little more than my kidneys and, since she was planning to sell it, offered it first to me. I've let out some serious happy sounds around that time of my life!

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Other blogs partaking in this theme:

☂ Spoon & Fork ☂ Sparkling Girl ☂ ABC Lolita ☂ Wonderland Gone Mad  ☂ Vanillas Traumfabric  ☂ Whimsical Adventures of Me ☂ The Life of a Lolita ☂ Beautiful and Damned ☂ Alice in Lolitaland ☂  Alpine Heidi ☂ The Bloody Tea Party ☂ The Electric Carousel ☂ ImaPrincess ☂

At the Botanical Garden.

We all met at the Botanical Garden. It was an amazingly beautiful day (especially in comparison to the rest of the week) although a bit cold, and the cafe was chock full of wasps. They mostly buzzed around these flowers that were in full bloom though.

Well, occasionally they attacked our tea and soda, which made the whole frilly group scatter in screams - with the exception of F who just calmly stared them down. I have no idea how she does it.

S - once again I'm reminded how much I actually love RHs. They were The Wanted Item in the first years lolita came to Finland and although I never bought myself a pair I always admired them from afar. Headdresses are another point of nostalgia, so all in all a really beautiful old school coord!

A-G and that dress of hers looks way better on her than me. Something about her long legs vs. my long back I assume.

F, I forgot to take a photo while she was out of her coat but the coat itself is totally cute too! I had to crop her photo a little because A-G was sitting in the back (where you can still see her blue sleeve) and had quite a funny look on her face. :D

And me - aaaah on a hindsight I think this looks a bit too much like Raggedy-Ann. Oh well, sometimes the coords fail. :S

Anyway, it was a fun day!