Quick craft: How to age jewelry

Today I purchased a new pair of earring from Glitter which is a Finnish costume jewelry shop and decided that they weren't quite me. Thus I decided to make a little tutorial about how I aged them a bit. 

Here is what you need.

- A piece of modern blingy jewelry.

-Markers. The black and the blender are necessary but if you don't want to add colour then you don't need the coloured one. I chose to add colour. 

Then just start colouring the gems. I chose to make the central stones green to match my green jewelry.

This is how it should look after the first coat. From here just add more black to the stones of your choosing and lighten others with the blender. If your blender gets too dark just clean it by colouring some white paper. 

Before and after. I decided not to make them perfectly symmetrical to make them seem more authentic.

Done. Now let them dry for over night and go enjoy your new bling!

Madame Parapluie

Celebrating her royal bunniness

On Saturday I went to Mari's place to celebrate her bunny's birthday. Mari had done a lot to make everything very bunny friendly and the theme for outfits was bunnies. 

I wore:

Bonnet: Handmade

Blouse: Fan plus friend modified

Dress: Innocent world

Shoes: Offbrand

Bunny Bear: Baby the stars shine bright

Our queen and her minions plotting world domination.

All the bunny bears. 

Madame Parapluie

What's in my purse?

This is my bag. 

Click for larger view

And here are the things I keep in it. The bag itself is Longchamp and can magically carry my groceries if it needs to. In it I have my glasses and sunglasses, a notebook I got from Carmilla, my almanac and a pen, my wallet which is from Baby the stars shine bright and my mobile phone in pochette I embroidered myself and of course my keys but they aren't very pretty so I'm not showing them. During summer I usually add a fan, to keep cool and during winter I carry a thermos of tea to keep warm.

Madame Parapluie

Bubu

My husband got me Bunny Bear as an early anniversary present. She is so big and so cute, I love it so much. I can already tell taht most of the time she is going to sit next to my teddybears on the sofa but I always did believe in bringing some lolita to ones decorating. 

Without the hood. The bear ears are cute too but I'll probably keep the hood on most times. It's a bit cuter that way. 

The Baby logo has a cute little diamond on it. 

Just look at the darling laser eyes...

Madame Parapluie

Cloudberry lady Bat shoes

Recently I purchased the lovely Bat shoes from Cloudberry lady and I must say they are absolutely fabulous. The shoes are leather and hand made in Finland. The design is just so wonderfully gothy and whimsical without being utterly stompy. There is this daintiness in them I like a lot. I love them. 

Madame Parapluie

Don't you ever interrupt me while I'm reading book.

Hello dears!

On monday I visited the library first time in months. I have been simply too busy to enjoy my regular visits. In honour of this I naturally dressed up a bit. And what better to wear in a library than a book print.

Hat: From Estonia
Blouse: Vintage
Dress: Handmade by me

Necklace: Juliette & Justine
Shoes: Why do I always forget this?

I really love this fabric. Leather bound books are just so elegant and otherworldly. These are examples of victorian books and the maker of the print also has an Edwardian version.

I still wear my winter shoes even if there is hardly any snow ion the ground anymore. It's  still rather cold after all.

My new Juliette & Justine necklace, purchased at Hellocon (which I will talk with more detail soon).

Madame Parapluie

Essentials of style

My Style Essentials by mimielizabetha featuring a tapestry wall hanging

Good day lords and ladies. Today I decided to talk about my style essentials. As you know I am balancing on that fine line of gothic and classic lolita and nowadays my coordinates tend to be more on the classic side, although still quite dark. 

I prefere dark colours with some light additions like the Juliette & Justine Princesse du Pays Que Vous Rectifiez one piece clearly shows. I still love all black dresses (there is nothing more versitile than a little black dress) but currently my favourite type of fabric is tartan. It just gives such a cute, elegant air to any outfit. 

When it comes to fabrics I don't go for the cotton. I prefere velvets, laces and satins and silks to give my outfits that luxurious feel. Intricate patterns like the one on my unicorn dress are good too. 

As dresses go I like the ones with a waist seem and a big poOOofy hem. I have a few princess-line ones but those tend  to get a lot less use than the waist seamed ones. The long sleeve one piece is my option when I need to get the outfit done quickly. Just throw the dress on and you can walk out the door looking faboulous. With blouses my favourites are those with a standing collar and a huge bow. They are just adorable and classy at the same time. I do prefere long sleeves over short ones for I find them more elegant.

I tend to accesorize simply. I like hats and wear a lot of them. My favourite type is the humble cloche which gives an outfit a deligthful twenties wibe. If I am not wearing  hat then it's time to utilze the massive velvet bow or something decorated with  a bird skull. 

Socks in my opinion should remain simple, lacy at most. Printed socks I can't stand.  It's either the basic black tights or something lacy and deligthful (usually in black as well). 

With shoes heels are my way to go. I am quite short so few extra centimeters does not hurt. During winter I tend to use ankle boots or boots depending on the snow situation. During summer it's pumps all around. I love my Fluevogs dearly but Minna Parikka is almost as nice.

Quality over quantity is my way to go in both shoes and bags. I tend to use only two bags in all my coordinates. Either it's the basic black wonder of space (seriously I love it) or the Innocent world crown bag.

Other accessories I love to utilize are parasols (that can douple as umbrellas, this is Finland after all!), gloves (lace on summer, leather during winter!) and fans.

So darling readers that was my style essentials! I would be glad to hear yours so please share in the comments! 

Madame Parapluie

A dress of dreams

Last week I received one of my newer dream dresses The royal teapackage from Alice and the pirates. I Absolutely fell in love with this dress when I first saw it but sadly missed the sale period. Fortunately I managed to snag it from EGl-community sales. 

I absolutely adore the print. So many references to old royal houses of Europe. 

The tromp l'oleil effect is really nice too.  And as usual for A&P the lace is very nice. 

The top has a bib with nice detail work. The buttons are a really cute touch.

The dress came with a detachable bow to go on your waist but I am probably going to use it as a headbow for that old school charm. 

Madame Parapluie.

Autumn inspiration.

I have noticed this autumn I am leaning more and more towards colour. So far my closet has been dominated by black but I am adding more and more colours, like dark red, blue, brown and different greys. I have even gotten brown shoes so I can wear outfits with no black at all. It seems that though I love gothic lolita, classic has been taking more and more room in my closet and in my heart. In a away it was inevitable as I have always loved historical influences in lolita. 

Also during autumn time I always get fascinated by the dollykei and mori girl styles and wish incorporate them to my lolita coordinations. Part of this migth be the fact that I feel those styles are warm and cocoony which works nicely in hopefully cooling Finland. 

 As for accesories there is ofcourse my everfavorite hats but also scarfs of diffenrent colours (I learned a new way to tie mine during summer and have been itching to try out.) and ofcourse headbands. I have also found my love of pearls and gold again. They give such a pleasent old fashioned feel to necklace or pin. And as always one of my biggest inspirations are books even more so now that I study to be a librarian. And trust me when I say that we will be seeing a lot more books in the near future...

What inspires you this autumn, dear reader? Please do share in the comments.

Mademoiselle Parapluie

Ps. Follow me on tumblr here: The parasol diaries

Silks, ribbons and roses

Click for a better view

Click for a better view

So I did a little craft project during the last two days. Silk ribbon embroidery is so fast to do. I absolutely love how it turned out and I am never going back to polyester satin ribbons. These are so much prettier and so much easier to manipulate.

I just realized this tote is going to match my new dress beautifully but more on that later...

Mademoiselle Parapluie

Chocolate bambi and other things

I have gotten some new stuff lately and decided to take some pictures of them. So here we go.

So here's everything and the best picture of the vintage blouse I got. I really needed a new white blouse and this one seemed to work perfectly. I really like hig collared blouses but I must admit that I am thinking of changing the bow thingy to something a bit nicer. 

Click for better view

Other thing I got is this Bambi buumi-headband from Essin maailma. I wanted a custom colour (darck chocolate) and she was kind enough to make me a pair. It's so lovely and fluffy and I have already many coordinates planned with this. 

Click for a better view

Here is a close up of the horns. 

And here's something I made myself. A necklace with a real antique key and two matching bracelets. I Used fresh water pearls, swarowski crystal and the key of course. They came out quite like I imagined them to. 

And here's a close up of the key. I like how one can see it has been used. It gives the necklace a lot of character. 

So do you like these sort of "what have I gotten recently"-posts? Should I make more of them? I would love to hear your imput. 

Mademoiselle Parapluie

Guess what I did today?

Flowerthief loves his weird angles. I must admit it's quite cute...

So yesterday I returned from Easter in Joensuu. Yes I visited Mokkamaa again, no you're not getting any pictures (well maybe one. About my dog. And not in this post.) Anyways I of course did what I always do which means once again I went to the library! (I should really think other places to wear lolita... Maybe the museum).

I went for a sort of an old schoolish look today. Black and white is such a classic combination and the blouse just fits old school style quite perfectly.

I wore:

Hat: Vintage
Shirt: Baby the stars shine bright

Necklace: Ofelia market, I can't remeber the shop though.

Dress: Juliette & Justine

Stockings: Sokos
Shoes: Gabor

And I did my nails too. I like this style a lot.

Mademoiselle Parapluie.

Lolita blog carnival: My favorite type of accessory.

Yes, it is the parasol. I absolutely love parasols. They are elegant, ladylike and romantic. Most of my parasols douple as umbrellas so they are rather practical too (If I only used them as umbrellas :p). The parasol has this old fashioned elegance to it which gives a new kind of charming air to any outfit.

My other favorite type of accessory is the hat. I love bonnets, cloches, berets and so on. I think hat gives and outfit a mature, demure look that can't be achieved by a traditional headdress or a bow. Also it gives more protection from the elements which can be pretty brutal in Finland.

Lolita blog carnival Facebook group.

Other participants

The bloody tea party ~ ABC lolita ~ Sweet and simple

Dollhouse diaries ~ Jewellery box of the starry eyed lolita ~ Ice age

Mademoiselle Parapluie