Bulletin Board: Mermaid

I'm happy to reveal that my next costume project will be a Mermaid. I'm super excited about this costume. Rather than using any mermaid in particular as an inspiration,  I'm picking up influences from here and there. I've made some sketches, but it's likely that my plans will change during the project. 

I'm not sure why, but I've always been very interested in mermaids. Lately my interest has become a down-right obsession. I was bore over the summer, so I created my own mermaid kingdom in my toughts. My mermaids live in the Baltic Sea, in brackish water (a mixture of fresh water and sea water). Why Baltic Sea? For one thing, it's the only sea by which Finland has coastline. Another reason is the brackish water, because it creates conditions for unique biodiversity. I'm wondering off subject, so back to the costume now.

My mermaid costume will be composed of a tail, clam bra (perhaps I'll figure out something less revealing, time will tell) and a sea themed headdress. I'm still figuring out the hairdo and make up. The hairdo will probably be very natural, and I think the make up should expend to something like body painting.

Again, I've collected stuff on my bulletin board. This is the normal state of it: bursting with pieces of fabric, photos and drawings. 

I had time to paint during the summer, and one of my paintings portrays a mermaid. Here it is:

   

The Red Queen

Now let's have an overwiew on this project. My goal was to make it look as same as possible with the original costume. For comparison, lets look at them side by side. The picture on the left is from here. The picture on the right is me.

The colours don't look quite the same. The lighting is very different though. While keeping in mind that Helena Bonham Carters appearance has been digitally mastered in the movie, I think my costume looks good. I can't make my head grow, you know!

Here are some pictures:

Owerall, I think this was one of the best costumes I've ever made. It was a long project, but totally worth it.

These pictures were taken in my grandparents home. They live in a beautiful old house just about a kilometer away from our place. The drawing room was a perfect setting for the Red Queen.

Now it's time to say good bye to the Red Queen. My next project will be something magical that lives in the water. Can you guess it? Comment your thougths. Also, feedback on the Red Queen costume is more than welcom. Until next time!

Makeup For the Queen

In this post, I will tell you about the struggle of finding the perfect wig, how to wear your hair under it, and, of course, how to make a make up similar to the one Helena Bonham-Carter had in Alice in Wonderland (2010).

First, the wig. I've mentioned before that I live about half an hour journey away from the nearest city. Well, I live even further away from the nearest city with a shop selling decent wigs. (I don't even know how far away.) AND I had to get a very specific looking wig. So, I did what anyone would do nowadays: started a search in the internet. After hours of search, I decided that this was the best one.

The bad thing about buying something online, is that you can't be  100% sure about what you're going to get. So if any of you readers are thinking of buying this wig, here's how it really looks. It's a bit brigther red than in the sellers picture. The crown that comes with the wig is terrible, but you can easily replace it  with a better one.

Wearing a wig can be troublesome for people with long hair. How to get your hair as flat as possible, and preferably so well-attached that it stays on its place when you put your wig on and take it off several times? I got the idea for my way of doing it from a friend of mine, whos got really long and thick hair.

How to do it:
Separate your hair into two sections. Make two french plaits (regular pigtails work too). If you have bangs, use hairpins to get them away from your face. Attach the plaits tightly around your head with hairpins. Finish with hairspray.

The make up for this costume almost gave me a mental breakdown. Getting a perfect matt white skin with cheap face paint (the only face paint I found without ordering it online) is very frustrating. But before I start raging about how difficult it is to put on make up, lets get to that part of this post, where a person who isn't good at make up stuff tells you about make up stuff.

What I used:
-hairmousse
-hairspray
-white facepaint
-white inliner kajal
-two shades of blue facepaint
-blue eyeshadow
-black eyeliner
-black mascara
-three sets of fake eyelashes
-red lipliner
-red lipstick

A lot of makeup stuff

For a start here's how I look without makeup.

Step 1: Eybrows
This step is all about hiding the eyebrows so they don't show from under the make up. I used hairmousse and hairspray. I used a very small amount of hairmousse to flatten my eyebrows. Then I sprayed some hairspray to my finger and applied it to my eyebrows. Sounds wierd but works!

Step 2: White facepaint
To get that matt white skin I had so much difficulties with, the most important thing is to have quality facepaint. Don't buy anything that seems too cheap! I spread the facepaint to my face with a make up sponge to get an even result. I used white inliner kajal for my inner eyelids.

Step 3: Blue to the eyes
The Red Queen has a great over-the-top eye make up, which  I just love. I used a small brush to draw outlines of the make up and then applied two layers of two different shades of blue facepaint with a bigger brush. I finished the look with blue eyeshadow.

I know, the eyebrows are visible here.

Step 4: Eyeliner
In this makeup, eyeliner can be used for much more than highlighting eyes. I did that, too, but more importantly, eyeliner is great for drawing the Red Queens thin, curvy eyebrows high above where peoples eyebrows normally are. It's also rather useful for making a beauty spot.

Step 5: Mascara
Adding mascara to the upper eyelashes creates a good base for applying fake eyelashes. I wanted my upper eyelashes to look very thick and rich, but the lower lashes to be a bit more separated and thin, so I didn't use mascara for my lower lashes.

Step 6: Eyelashes
I use fake eyelashes almost every time I wear a costume, beacause they make eyes really stand out and give the make up a festive look. This time I have two sets of fake lashes on my upper eyelashes and one set on my lower eyelashes.

Step 7: Lips
Probably the most characteristic thing about this make up is lips drawn in to the shape of a heart. The best result comes with a steady hand and lipliner. I drew the heart slightly under my bottom lip and exaggereted the cupids bow.

Here's some pictures of the finished look.

My 'photographer' wasn't home, so I had to take selfies.

Hair showing underneath the wig :P

So that's it about make up. I know I  haven't been posting stuff for a while. I'm sorry. I've been incredibly busy with shcool work and dance lessons. I really like studying, but high school is a lot of work.

The Difference Golden Paint Can Make

This project has tought me a lot of things. For example, the difference paint can make. I made my specter and my crown out of very ordinary things; soda cans, bottles, cartboard, styrofoam, aluminum foil, broken christmas decorations etc. I tried my best to use materials we already had around the house. Now I start thinking about it, the only things I bought for these accessories were two kinds of rhinestones and golden spray paint.

The difference golden paint makes

It's quite easy to make a crown out of soda cans

The specter was one of my favourite parts of this project. I wrapped crumpled aluminum foil around a cartboard roll. I made the top part out of styrofoam hearts and filled it with more styrofoam. I decorated it with toothpick spikes. For the bottom part, I glued a plastic bottleneck, half a chritstmas ball and two parts from children's toys togther. Finally I added some decorations with hot glue and braided twines.

At this point the specter looked awful, and I started to doubt the brilliance of my idea. But after I painted it with golden spray paint, it looked actually really good. I added some red rhinestones and a lot of plastic pearls to make it look more finished and detailed. I decorated the top part with shards of red christmas balls. I smashed them into smaller pieces with a hammer. Most of them were already broken.  Tough my parents didn't mind me broking more of them. I glued the shards to the top part to create a more heart-like shape.

I made the crown purely out of soda cans and hot glue. I cut five triangles, five hearts and a thin band (to unite the triangles) from around 3-4 soda cans. I glued a heart to each of the triangles and put them and the band together with hot glue. I added embossed patterns with hot glue.

Golden spray paint and red rhinestones gave the crown its finishing touches.

While working with this costume, I kept my eyes open for suitable rings every time I went shopping, because in the movie, the Red Queen has many rings on her fingers. I looked for as cheap, ugly, vulgar and old-looking rings as possible. I found five rings, all of wich were cheap (the most expensive one having a price of 2 euros), large, and, in my taste, really ugly.

Me vs the English language

The pattern I used, Simplicity 3782, is on the far left. I paid $17.95 for it.

As I've already told you, I'm from Finland and my native language is Finnish. I've studied English at school since I was nine. I know the basics and I can make myself understood in everyday situations. I can read books in English without much (or any!) help from the dictionary. And I thought that I would manage with English sewing instructions. How foolish of me. Sewing this dress has been a constant struggle with the English language. The English sewing words confused me. It was challenging, but fun and I learned loads. 

I started by making an underskirt. That was quite easy, and I hadn't nearly any difficulties following the instructions. Simplicity recommends that a hoopskirt should be used with this dress. I don't own one, and I wasn't willing to purchase one, so I used an extra underskirt made out of very thin foam. It once belonged to my aunt. In these photos I have it under the underskirt. 

That orange looks hideous, but I did save some money by not buying red fabric for the entire underskirt :D

I made a bumroll following the instructions, but ended up not using it. It made the dress look bigger than in the movie.

 

Bumroll

Here's the dress with the bumroll...

...and here it is without it.

The picture above was taken on the mornig of our schools annual "costume party". You can see the entire costume in it. I think the golden fabric looks really great. I didn't waste all those hours I used textile printing the pattern on it after all!

 Sewing the underskirt was just a warm-up for sewing the bodice and the sleeves. For one thing, I had picked the wrong size, and I had to scale down everything. There was also the question of how I was going to get into my costume. If I'd follow the pattern, the dress would have buttons on the front. But if I that was the case, what would happen to the golden front panel? Another option was to put a keychain to the back of the dress. That would possibly make it difficult to get my hands trough the sleeves. After some thinking (this happened late at night, mind you) my mum and I came up with a "creative" idea. I'm not going to the details (they're nothing important because I don't recommend this option to you), but lets just say it included safety pins and velcro.

The sleeves had to be scaled down as well. I used golden and black fabrics and ribbons made out of the same red fabric I used for the underskirt. I glued some red rhinestones to the red ribbons (this happened at 1:30 AM!). I made the puffs a lot bigger than they were in Simplicitys pattern. I made the pattern to the black and white cuffs myself, using - once again - textile printing.

Next some details: the white collar and the golden front panel. The front panel was quite simple to make. I cut two triangles of golden fabric and one of buckram and sewed them together, making one triangle that was golden on both sides. Then I created some red lines by sewing very thickset stitches with red thread. I added rhinestones and plastic pearls for decoration.

The collar was something of a challenge, because it needed to stay up almost horizontally. I used thin foam sewed inside fabric to give the collar some structure and stiffnes. The collar had to be made a lot bigger than in the original pattern. 

Here you can see the collar and the front panel

Finally I attached the golden skirt part to the bodice. When all this was done, I was pretty tired of sewing and the ridiculously mysterious sewing instructions. 

One of our cats (we have six of them) fell in love with my pincushion. I just had to take a picture :)

Hejsan från Sverige!

 

I had the time of my life in Sweden! Our field trip there was amazing! It really brought our class together. We had a great time together and shared some unforgettable moments. On top of it all, Sweden was breathtakingly beautiful! Everything was green and the trees were full of flowers. The houses we saw there were small and cute, and everyone seemed to take excellent care of their gardens.  I took nearly 600 photos, some of which you're about to see in this post.

The Swedish language sounded lovely, we just didn't always understand what people were saying to us. Every time we would tell them that we didn't speak Swedish, they would give us this knowing look and say: "Finland". I guess they see a lot of Finnish tourist that don't speak Swedish there. Swedish is one of  Finlands two official languages, and it is taught in every school in Finland. However, this doesn't guarantee that everyone in Finland would speak fluent Swedish. Many students have a bad attitude towards studying the language - and even some adults have something against Swedish being a core subject at school. I've studied Swedish for nearly three years, and personally I think that no harm can come from studying a language. After all, everyone doesn't speak English, so it's good to be able communicate with some other languages as well.

I loved every moment of our journey, and I hope that it could have lasted longer. In years to come, I will alway remember this as one of the best experiences of my life. So, without further ado, here's a day-by-day account of my week in Sweden.

Day 1

We left from our school at 9.45 and drove about 570 kilometres by bus. You could think that sitting in a bus for hours would be boring and annoying, but not this time. We talked, joked and laughed. And took a lot of photos and videos. Our destination was a on the west coast of Finland. Our ship left from there at 20.00. We didn't really have time to do anything else there but eat in the buffet, have a quick look around the tax-free shop and then go get some sleep. The ship would arrive in Stockholm very early the next morning. Each of us was given a Svenska språkpass to be filled during the field trip.

Day 2

We travelled from Stockholm to Gotland via Nynäshamn. This ment more travelling by ship. It suited me fine. I love the sea. I could spend hours watching sun light play on the water surface. I got an idea for my next costume project while admiring the reflecting light. I'm not going to tell  what it is. You'll find out soon.

We ate lunch in a cosy small restaurant in Visby. After that we saw our hotel for the first time. It wasn't really a hotel, it was more like a hostel. It was previously a living place for the workers of some kind of factory. It was a quite nice place to stay, but the other customers (both of them) were, well, interesting. It seemed that they had stayed there for a longer time.

In the afternoon we had some free time in Visby, the only city on the island. I bought some clothes and a book: Harry Potter och Hemligheternas kammare (Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets). The weather was great, so instead of spending the whole time in shops, I walked along the streets and visited a park with my friend.

Day 3

My camera's battery died halfway through our third day, so I couldn't take photos of the beautiful viewes we saw after we left the caves. :(

On day 3 we left our hotel in the morning and headed towards Lummelundagrottan. Our visit there included a short feature about caves, information on the ice age, and a tour in the cave. It was very beautiful in there. There were small areas filled with dark, running water, like a creek. Stalactites hang from the cave roof. We were strictly forbidden to touch anything. It would have been imbossiple to see there if the route hadn't been illuminated with electric lights. The guide spoke both Swedish and English, which was great, because otherwise we would have missed a big part of what she was saying. She told us about the cave being found by three boys some 50 or 60 years ago  While we were there, it was hard to understand that we really were underground. It felt as thought we were just indoors. It was a bit chilly there. 

For the afternoon we went to a little island outside Gotland. There we walked along (or more likely climbed on) reefs. I've never felt more in peace with the world than on that day. I sat on a reef and looked at the wide sea infront of me and the reef extending to as far as I could see to my left and right. Surrounded by all that, I felt very small and insignificant. My worries were just particles of dust in the vast universe.

Day 4

We spent a day in Visby. First we walked along the side of Visby city wall. We climbed far too many stairs up to a tower. We were able to see all of Visby from there, but standing too near the barriers aroun the top of the tower made me feel a bit nervous. 

We also visited a botanical garden. It wasn't at its best, since it was May, but it was still a very beautiful place. The very first picture of me in this post was taken there. 

The old part of Visby was amazing, with all these small houses with doors and windows much lower than they normally are and flowers planted on the sides of the streets. We visited an old church. We couldn't see all of it, beacause it was being repaired. After that, we had some free time to wonder around in Visby. My friend and I accidentally walked to the wrong direction at one point and got momentarily lost, but then we found our way back. It was a nice little adventure anyway. Oh, and if you are wondering about the bird, it's a new friend of mine.

Day 5

We left Gotland far too early in the morning, and headed to Stockholm. We ate at a restaurant which was on the top storey of one of the highest buildings in Sweden. The food there was great! Then we had some free-time in Stockholm. I went shopping with my friends (obviously), but I bought only a bag. It was insanely cheap: 99 crowns, which is about 11 euros. We visited a candy shop that was like from a movie or a book (like Honydukes in Harry Potter). I didn't buy anything there, just took some photos. Stockholm was just the kind of place I want to live in: it had old and beautiful buildings, the best shops, and the best of all, lots of different people. This may need an explanation: I live in the countryside, 4 kilometers away from the nearest village and 24 kilometres away from the nearest town. And this place just doesn't have the versatility of big cities. I want to live somewhere where the word "mainstream" doesn't exist, because everyone is truly who they are. Now don't take this as if I don't like where I live. There are just places I'd rather live in, you know?

In the evening we had another magnificent dinner in the ships buffet. I had a little language-misunderstanding-confuse-thing with one waiter. First I tried to speak Swedish to him, but then I realised that I didn't know how to ask for a piece of  roast beef in Swedish, so I changed into English. Then I thought, that since it's a ship going to Finland, perhaps the waiter would speak Finnish. And so he did.  When I left with my roast beef, he looked at me like I was crazy.

Day 6

Me and the Panda mascot :3

Back to home! Nothing really interesting happened, just sitting in the bus. Most of us were really tired after many nights of too little sleep.  We visited a factory outlet of a Finnish sweetsmaker, Panda. I had a ballet lesson in the afternoon, and you can imagine that my concentration wasn't at it's best. When I was finally home I was tired, but also happy.

So, thats all about my memorable field trip. Since then I've complited secondary school with pretty good grades, been accepted to high school (the one that speciliazes in drama education!) and relaxed on summer holidays. Have a nice summer everyone! <3 :)