Kirjavinkki: "Tee teematka!"

Heipä hei, suomenkieliset lukijani! Pitkästä aikaa tekstiä vain suomeksi. Kirja, josta kirjoitan on suomenkielinen, ja epäilenpä että sitä muissa kielissä saakaan – turhaa siis höpistä englanniksi tällä kertaa.

Poikaystäväni antoi minulle jonkin aikaa sitten lahjaksi Helena Petäistön kirjan ”Tee teematka!”. Nimensä mukaisesti kirja kertoo teestä hyvin matkailulliselta kantilta, mutta valottaa myös teen historiaa.

Kirja on kirjoitettu lennokkaasti ja sitä on miellyttävän kevyt lukea. Vaikka sivuja on reippaat 300, sain kirjan luettua alle parissa viikossa. Bonuksena kirjassa on vielä ihanan värikkäitä kuvia. (Ei, minä en koskaan tule olemaan niin vanha, ettenkö innostuisi kirjoissa olevista kuvista.)

Kirjassa käydään läpi eri teemaiden teehistoriaa ja –kulttuuria. Esittelyssä on monia maita niin Euroopan teepääkaupungista Ranskasta Venäjään ja sieltä kauemmas, Intiaan, Kiinaan ja Japaniin. Myös Suomi ja Ruotsi esitellään (mutta luultavasti vain, koska kirjoittaja on suomalainen – Suomen teekulttuuri kun on aika olematonta). 

Ainoa, mikä kirjassa harmittaa minua suurella henkilökohtaisella tasolla, on se, että Helsingin teeliikkeistä mainitaan vain Théhuone, eikä The Ouncea ollenkaan! Ymmärrän kyllä, että Théhuoneeseen verrattuna Unssin valikoima on vaatimaton, mutta tunnelmaltaan Unssi on aivan omaa luokkaansa ja siksi ehdottomasti maininnan arvoinen.

Mitä matkailunäkökulmaan tulee, kirjassa on jokaisen luvun lopussa vinkit parhaisiin teepuoteihin, -huoneisiin ja iltapäiväteepaikkoihin kussakin maassa ja kaupungissa. Kun seuraavan kerran lähden ulkomaille, nappaan ehdottomasti kiinnostavimmat osoitteet talteen – ellen sitten nappaa koko kirjaa mukaan, olisipa sitten myös matkalukemista samalla.

Kirjassa on myös reseptejä erilaisten teeherkkujen ja erilaisten teelaatujen valmistamiseen, joten siinä on hieman kokkikirjan vikaakin. Siinä kerrotaan myös ranskalaisten neuvot hyvän teehuoneen tunnistamiseksi, ja valotetaan lyhyesti sellaisten teetermien kuin pekoe, orange ja flowery merkitystä.

Suosittelen kirjaa lämpimästi teen, historian tai matkailun ystäville – jos satut pitämään kaikista kolmesta, tulet taatusti nauttimaan kirjasta. Minä opin aivan valtavasti lisää teestä, ja suurena historia- ja teehörhönä olen aivan myyty tälle kirjalle.

Madron

Last Friday my good friend invited me to celebrate Madron (the last sabbath of the year for Wiccas) at her place. She requested that everyone should wear something very festive - once again a perfect excuse to wear lolita! The party was absolutely delightful, there was lots of delicious food, a bottle of very good white wine and of course the best company. ♥

I forgot to take any pictures from the party itself (a shame, since the food and decorations looked beautiful), but have the outfit shots instead. :D

I've always thought this dress (Innocent World's Rose Embroidery JSK) to be perfect for Autumn. Pearl collar is from H&M, and shoes I bought in London.

They are painful to wear but oh so pretty. 

Here's my hairdo. I like this style of bun very much at the moment, it always makes me think of Downton Abbey! I went a littlebit crazy with the rose corsages this time. x)

And I'm very sorry, but I simply must hype a little bit more about Autumn! I love love love these colours... *-*

This looks like a miniature garden to me! 

 

Yep, that's all this time. Might post some pictures from Oulu later, we'll see about that. 

Simple is Cute

I customized these old earrings a little bit. I haven't worn them in years, because they just were not my style anymore at all. Here's them before:

 

... And here after this 5 minutes "operation":

So much more simple. I like them - and can wear them - now! Plus this project left me with two spare butterfly charms to use on future projects to come. :}

Second Hand Findings

Today I went for second hand treasure hunt - haven't been doing this in a long time, but now I was very lucky to do great finds!

I found this awesome, vintage style poster made of metal. It's going to our living room. It matches perfectly with our sofa.  ♥

Also, four My Little Ponies from generation 3 - my second favorite generation. They need some serious brushing (and in some cases, washing) but after that they'll be just lovely!

And finally, these wonderful teacups! There's six of them in total, and now I finally have teacups in the actual teacup size. It is incredibly hard to find second hand tea cups in Finland, because most Finns prefer coffee. So all the second hand markets are filled with coffeecups. These are from 70's, made in the Soviet Union - usually they are awfully expensive, but now I got the whole set with 30 euros. (And I mean " here's one teapot, I ask 130 euros of it" -expensive. That happened just today!) So I am pleased.

Always Time For Tea And... Cheese?

Yesterday me, Sanni and Kata met for some tea, sweet treats, cheese and of course good company. 

We ate the mushroom also. Okay, not really, but it does look really cute in lavender! :D

But we did try new teaflowers that I got from my aunt, called "Auringon silta", "The Bridge of Sun". They were beautiful and the tea was very good, a mixture of green and white tea and jasmine flowers. Now my next mission is to hunt a shop selling these and buy some more.

Sanni also made a apple dessert from different kinds of apples picked from their very own garden - it was absolutely delicious with vanilla icecream! And Kata had baked a pie with rucola, basilica and cheddar cheese - needles to say, it was delicious also. The only "problem" with our tea parties... is that there is too much good food. x)

On to the outfit of the day. I was trying to achieve an elegant, yet slightly miss-matching look. Dress is Innocent World, and all else pretty much offbrand.

My stockings have hearts on them. ♥ And The Feet Killing Shoes make a comeback. No matter how painful, I am going to wear these once in a while, they are too pretty to be sold.

In the end, a group picture! It was so nice my boyfriend could take it for us, so often we can't get any group pictures at all because well, someone has to hold the camera. :3

My Style Picks For This Autumn – From My Very Own Closet

Autumn is my favorite season. I have always loved the cool, clear Autumn mornings, the sweet smell of past Summer and a hint of upcoming Winter mixed, the gorgeous colours of the trees – in Finland we have a very own word to describe those colours, “ruska” (and what a lovely word it is!). So yep, I’m very enthusiastic when it comes to Autumn, always waiting for it as eagerly as ever. Please bear with my hype. x)

I’m trying hard not to shop new items all the time – a difficult task for a shopaholic like myself. So instead of browsing the internet for things to feature in this post, and risk new temptations, I decided to search through my three wardrobes and find clothes and accessories that I already own and would love to wear this Autumn.

The colours: shades of deep red, white and brown. Brands: especially Innocent World and Victorian Maiden.

This blouse from Dear Celine, I’m sure I will be wearing it almost too much. I simply love it.

The light brown satchel and the white pearl collar borrowed from the mainstream fashion. I do like to keep an eye on fashion and pick my favorites from the current trends, to be a permanent part of my garderobe. If the item fits both lolita and my regular clothes – as these do – so much the better. 

Nude stockings with little black hearts on them. I like how elegant, yet playful they are.  

And finally, black shoes, paired even with outfits that don’t have anything else black, for old-schoolish yet fresh touch. The longer I dress in lolita, the less I care if my coordinates are completely matchy-matchy. 

What are your Autumn favorites for this year? Do they already hang in your closet, or are you planning to purchase them? Feel free to discuss in the comments. :)

Flowers and Dots

Just an outfit from today. It started raining (again) right after we left home, so I regretted my choise of shoes pretty soon. Oh well. (I like our new lantern very much, got it as a housewarming gift from dear Hanna. ♥)

Totally in love with my new blouse. Not so sure about the hairdo. For some reason it made me feel myself silly. o_O

Bad quality photos once again - my apologies. :<

Shades of White, Red and Gold

Today I could finally fetch my new Innocent World dress from my local post office. The post in Finland is known to be really slow. My dress was in Finland on Thursday already, but of course it took 4 more days for them to get my dress from Helsinki-Vantaa airport to my nearest post office - for the record, it's a 20 minute ride to my home from the airport. So yep, that's the post here. It takes 4 days to drive a 20 minute journey.

Well anyway, here it is now and I love it! The dress is of really beautiful, red wine like colour - a colour I didn't previously have in my closet at all. It's also quite classic - as I've told, I'm trying to add some more classical pieces to my quite sweet garderobe. (Please ignore the brown thing on the upper corner - it's a part of my pear shaped pillow that sneaked in to the picture XD)

The print features my two favorite things: roses and notes. Music is and has always been very important part of my life, so I adore all sorts of music themed prints. ♥

I also purchased a new blouse from Dear Celine. You could call this blouse my "dream blouse", if one can have such thing. It does sound a bit funny to dream of a blouse, and a offbrand one at that, but I've wanted to own this blouse for almost two years now! It's simply the most perfect loli blouse ever. Color is offwhite (love!), and the buttons have little rose images on them (love!) and it has a big bow on the neck (love!).

I was also pleased to discover that the Venice lace on this blouse is as high quality as Venice lace in my brand name dresses. It's very soft and also rose themed.

And finally, I got these lovely flower hair pins from my little sister! Aren't they cute? There's another wedding coming that I'm attending and I'm planning to wear this on my hair for that event.