I Have Been a Very Good Girl

...or so it would seem, because I got so many awesome presents for Christmas!

A super cute (and warm) loungewear set from my fiancé. I mean, unicorns? Hell yeah!

Kalevala Jewelry's The Heart of the House earrings in bronze, to be worn with lolita, of course. I prefer silver or white cold in jewelry, but warmer tones often go better with lolita outfits. These are from my fiancé as well (he spoils me rotten but hey, I'm not complaining). The handmade earrings with glass beads are from my Mom, and I like them very much also. They'll add a nice pop of colour to any dull, black outfit.

The tube scarf, "ear warming" headband and mitts are from my Lil' Sister, and the most awesome wool socks ever from fiancés parents. The socks have the logo of my childhoods favorite candy, the Kettukarkki.

These are from my Sister also. A pink bath mat, and guest and kitchen towels with beautiful prints.

A spice set for spicing our own teas from fiancé (this will be a new mutual hobby or ours), and the napkins and cupcake cups from my Sister.

Besides these I got some cosmetics, Electrolux Expressionist tea kettle (we can now choose the correct temperature for each tea, it's so great and we already named it Mr. Carson after the butler in Downton Abbey) and so much chocolate that I'll have to invite a lots of friends for tea to get rid of it all. :D So, if my friends are reading this - you are warmly welcome for tea and chocolate. ;)

Well, yesterday we were quite busy, as we had breakfast with my family and the Christmas dinner with fiance's, so I didn't have time to do my traditional Merry Christmas post. But I'll say it to you now, my dear readers; Merry Christmas a little bit late, and I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and got a lot of nice presents! ♥

Something New, Something Old

Good afternoon, lords and ladies!

It's almost Christmas, isn't that exiting? To me, it still is! I love Christmas - and not the least because for us students it means a long holiday! Summer holidays are not counted because most students work during Summers (and that includes me, too), but I like to keep my Christmas holiday as a real holiday. Hopefully I'll now have more time for blogging also.

This time I decided to blog a little bit about home decor. I am a great decor enthusiastic, but as a student I don't have the funds to purchase all the things I would like to. And when I finally managed to drag my fiancé - not so much enthusiastic - to Ikea, he was the voice of reason and said that there's no point in buying any new furniture to this apartment, as we are soon going to move out anyway. I have to admit he was right, and so we only ended up buying some new textiles. But even so, it's far better now! And as my fiancé graduated, we have real flowers in every room. ♥ The Villeroy & Boch bowl is his graduation gift also.

So, I changed the colour theme in the living room & kitchen area a little bit. I've been having a crazy dark blue period, and I still love that colour, but it made our little home look a bit gloomy. Now the colours are mainly white, light grey and just a little bit of dark blue. I like it very much, it's a really calming colour combo. The lace curtains are from Ikea, but the curtains with the grey flower pattern are Luhta Home's, a second hand find of mine.

These pillows are so old I can't remember where they are from, but they finally found their rightful place.

As you may already know, I'm very happy with our bedroom, which has been a pet project of mine (as fiancé agreed I can express my girly tendencies there, I have been able to decorate it just the way I like).

The mirror table is an ideal place for flowers (and candles too), because the mirrors create an illusion of many more flowers.

The next two things aren't actually new, but I just took them out after a long time of not using them and that makes them feel all fresh again! First, the cow alarm clock (it has an alarm sound of a cow mooing).

Second, these colourful lanterns. They are adorable and give a nice, festive athmosphere when lit.

Some Christmas decorations my Mom gave us (Stockmann, Perfect Home).

And our teeny tiny, totally fake Christmas tree with pink and silver ornaments. My view on the matter is that if one goes for a fake tree, it might as well be fake all the way, and thus I chose white over green, because the green ones never look real, either.

Okay, I guess that was all for the time being. What are your thoughts on decorating, dear readers? Are you an enthusiastic as I, or not so much? What are your favourite colour combos when it comes to home decor? And if you happen to celebrate Christmas, do you have a tree, real or fake? Feel free to discuss in the comments! It will be nice to see if there are other decor freaks amongst my readers. :3

Ice Girl

Good afternoon, lords and ladies!

So, as I promised, here's some pre-Christmas party outfits.This time my camera was actually working, but it was so grey and gloomy (again) that the pictures still look like this. Sigh.

Well anyway - I got the Dessert OP by Baby, the Stars Shine Bright last Summer, but it was so hot (or if it wasn't, I was too busy with my work and maid of honour's duties) I couldn't wear lolita during the Summer. I know Dessert OP is a Summer dress, but I couldn't wait that long and decided to see, if it works for Winter-y coordinations as well. Turns out it does. I have dreamed of this dress for so long and now I'm super happy to have it. ♥ I liked this outfit a lot - until my headdress caused me a head ache.

{Dress, boots - Baby, the Stars Shine Bright / blouse - Dear Celine / headdress - self made}

A close up of the headdress.

And another, more casual outfit, with the camera not working and thus, phone quality. It's a good thing my fiancé's phone actually has a quite good camera in it.

{Dress - Pinky Girls / shoes - Minna Parikka}

Some Shoppings, Some Outfits, Somebunnies...

Good evening, lords and ladies!

This is a huge picture spam about some of the things I've been up to during this Autumn.

Let's start with an outfit for meeting with Tiia. This was one of the days my camera was not working, so phone quality it is. My hair has gotten very strange recently; it's almost straight and more silky than ever. I think it's almost in too good condition now, after the visit to the hairdresser and loss of bad ends. This IW blouse I'm wearing is also a recent purchase; I think it's quite elegant even thought it has a Peter Pan collar.

{Dress - Juliette & Justine / blouse - Innocent World / bow - Baby, the Stars Shine Bright / jewelry - Kalevala, souvenir from Manchester / boots - second hand}

I've been also trying to improve my so called everyday style, which is a little bit boring sometimes. I mainly wear black, grey and dark blue, so I've bought mostly colourful pieces (the skirt that appears to be black is actually dark red). The shorts I bought to be worn under lolita dresses during the Winter - they are very soft and warm. Of course I can also wear them as room wear.

Here are some of my new clothes in action. I wore this outfit to the VIP premiere of The Hobbit - The Battle of Five Armies movie. The movie was awesome, of course, though not my favorite from The Hobbit trilogy. The VIP premiere was a great experience all over, the athmosphere was very special as the audience started to spontaniously applaude before, during and after the movie. (Of course I'm not complaining about free food and drinks, either.)

This pajama set is a birthday present from my Mother. I like it so much, it's the cutest pajama I have ever had! ♥

These are also gifts; Kalevala Jewelry's Little Bird bracelet and a key ring from the same brand which represents the four winds of the world (also known as East, West, North and South) and is supposed to be a guarding, good luck symbol. The bracelet is quite old, so it's more red than Kalevala's copper nowadays, and I suspect it might be quite rare also; to my knowledge these were never sold, but were made to be given as exclusive business gifts. I've been wearing this bracelet quite a lot with my lolita outfits recently.

A tray I bought from H&M Home. I couldn't resist it. It's mint green and it has budgies. Though only two of them are actual, existing colour combinations and two of them are imaginary, it's still very cute. The blue one reminds me of my very first budgie and very first pet ever, Topi.

 

I don't even have my own dog yet, but this Bibi & Bim dog toy, designed by Ivana Helsinki, was too cute to be left behind. I will keep it safe for my own puppy and hopefully this will be her favorite toy. ♥

In the end, some bunnies. Yes, bunnies. This here looks awful lot like my very own darling Odessa, but this, my lords and ladies, was Odessa's sister, Kieran Ihana Oriana ("Kiera's Lovely Oriana"). In the pictures she looks very much like Odessa, but in the real life she was a little bit more petite. Sadly this was the first and the last time me and my fiancé were able to see Oriana; soon after this photo was taken she had to be put to sleep because of cancer. It made me feel quite shaken and sad because somehow I had never really thought that Odessa was a mortal, too. It's pure chance that it was Oriana who died now, not Odessa. I feel really bad for Oriana's owner, too, but luckily he has two new baby bunnies to comfort him (and I'm looking forward to meeting them too!).

And here's one recent picture of my Odessa - or maybe I should start saying "our Odessa", as my fiancé has kind of adopted Odessa to be his, too. :D But yep, Odessa is this relaxed around dogs - she often wants to lie next to them. It's actually Chico who is afraid of Odessa, not the other way around. We are lucky to have so nice doggies to take care of, all of them but one have a very good attitude towards Odessa. ♥

So, that was all for now. I'm going to attend two pre-Christmas parties this weekend, and I'll try to take & post some outfit pictures from them, too. If my camera refuses to co-operate, you'll have some phone quality again, I'm afraid.

Have a nice week end, everyone! ♥

Inspiration: It's Abandoned

Hello, lords and ladies!

First; my apologies for being so inactive lately. My camera is starting to break - sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. This makes keeping a style related blog rather hard, as I don't have a reliable way to get decent pictures. The other thing is that even if my camera worked properly, it's so dark in Finland right now, that it's hard to get good pictures anyway. The darkness always makes me uninspired to dress up. Some people cheer the Winter up by dressing in pastels, and how I envy them! I have my share of pastels in my closets, but I don't feel like wearing them during Winter (even though it might cheer me up, too).

But, speaking of uninspired, I just found this most amazing Instagram account itsabandoned. It hosts lots of heart breakingly beautiful pictures from abandoned places around the world. Here are some of my favorites. Some of the pictures are incredibly calm, serene and even enviting...

...while others are sorrowful and haunting. 

Some of the places should never have been abandoned in the first place, like this pretty little chateau in France. It makes me so sad that this kind of place is left to ruin, and yet, it still is so beautiful even now.

There was even one picture from Finland!

These pictures are just a few of my favorites. It was really hard to leave anything out, because almost every picture there is so beautiful. *-*

These pictures are truly inspiring to me. They make me want to travel even more. I'd love to go to at least some of these places!

What do you, my dear readers, think of abandoned places? Are there any near you? Do you think you want to visit them, or just avoid them at all costs? 

All of the pictures are from itsabandoned.