Pictures Drawn for Me Part 7

Here are some drawings done by friends either on Deviant Art, or in real life! These pictures mean so much to me, I just love them! Some are my OCs and some are birthday presents and art trades with friends in real life. I'll upload them in the order I got them. <3

Both of these are from my lovely friend, Wendy; she also did a couple of sketches for me, which were beautiful, too! I really love these pictures, they're so cute! The characters are Len, Rin and Miku from Vocaloid, seeing as she is a big fan of the Vocaloids!

My Birthday!

On Saturday we went out to Manchester for my birthday celebration, so I dressed up for our "high tea" in Lolita and my new 1920s-style cloche hat, plus some leather gloves as it was cold. It added a slightly more sophisticated element to an otherwise cutesy outfit, I think (and also, it was raining so I didn't want to wear my Baby headbow, whereas my new hat is more weather appropriate).

Blouse: Dorothy Perkins

JSK: Lovely Sweet Room - Baby the Stars Shine Bright

Socks: Secret Shop

Mary Janes: H! by Henry Holland

Cloche (not pictured): John Lewis

Leather Gloves (not pictured): Marks and Spencers (borrowed from my grandmother)

The restaurant we went to was called Tea42, and was situated rather closely to the Arndale centre, which was convenient from a window-shopping point of view. Tea42 specialises in gluten-free high tea, but also serves food for non-celiacs, which was good seeing as I'm the only gluten-free person in my family. The whole restaurant was very glamorous and girly, but also very quiet seeing as there are only a few tables at a time (we had to make a reservation). Also, the food was very high quality!

I had the gluten-free afternoon tea stand with the "99 tea" which was a lovely black tea with vanilla flavour. There were so many teas on the menu that I had difficulty choosing just one! The tea stand consisted of  plate of sandwiches - a salmon bagel, egg and cheese on bread cut to the shape of a star, and ham with cheddar and pickled lettuce, warm scones with the most delicious strawberry jam I've ever tasted (plus cream), and a plate with little cakes on - pink sponge with jam and cream, a chocolate mousse with a biscuit base, raspberry meringue, and a creamy desert with a raspberry on top. It was all so lovely, and I expected myself to come away still rather hungry, but I was absolutely full before I could even finish! My favourite was the scones with currents! I'd love to go again someday. 

After lunch my sister, mother and I visited the theater to see Joseph and the Technicolour Dreamcoat, which was amazing needless to say; so dazzling and fun!

My Doll Collection So Far!

I've finished setting up my display cabinet for my Pullip dolls. There are a few empty spaces, but Christmas and my future birthdays shall soon sort that out... *nudge nudge, wink wink* I apologise for the terrible photos, it's just that it's very difficult to take photos of something so tall and narrow when the photographer is short and clumsy. *laughs*

Aika (Pullip Tiphona)

Celeste (Pullip Nella) and Johan (Isul Johan)

Beverly (Pullip Merl)

Garnet (Tangkou Vampire) and Narcissa (Tangkou England)

Pullip Doll Nella

For my 16th birthday I received Pullip Nella from my parents! She's so beautiful, and seeing as she has a slightly darker colour scheme in her clothes, I'm calling her Celeste, like stars in the night sky.

 Pullip Nella has golden blonde hair in an intricate braided style. Her hair is long, soft and beautiful, but due to the style there's no chance it will become tangled. She has dark hazel-green eyes, similar to Johan's in style, but a completely different colour. She is my first doll with pale pink lips, and they're just adorable! Nella's outfit is made by Alice and the Pirates, a gothic lolita brand, and comes with a matching headdress. My favourite part of her outfit is her harlequin-styled tights and tiny shoes!

I've decided long ago that she'll be Johan's older sister, aged 15, and lives in Cologne with him in the 1930s. She goes to an all-girls school, but really wishes she could be with her brother instead, as she's not a big fan of her school. Her hobbies are singing, playing the piano - especially practicing études - dancing, and watching the stars.

The collection so far.

My collection is getting rather big so I recently got a glass display cabinet from IKEA to put them all in. So far it hasn't been assembled yet, but I'm really looking forward to it.

Birthday Haul!

This post is due to the reason that I'm a spoiled brat and love material-world goods. *laughs* I'm really grateful for all my gifts, they're all just so special to me! My real birthday is on the 22nd October, but we celebrated it early again this year, as the 22nd is a bad, busy day for all of my family - plus, school. My day was spent pottering around dressed in lolita, reading my new books and unwrapping poor Nella - so a really good day!
Reviews for books, TV series and my new Pullip will come soon!

Black mohair cloche - from my Parents.

Blandings TV series - from my brother.

Pennywise vinyl figure - from Abi.

Pullip Nella - from my parents.

Lolita books - from my parents.

History of Fashion and Claudia's Story - from my grandparents.

Bear book ends - from Wendy, and chocolates from my Aunt

King of Darkness chain - from my parents

Red rose, from my Aunt.

Balloon from my Aunt.

Something Fresh by P.G. Wodehouse

Indeed, this book was something fresh for me! Books like these from P.G. Wodehouse make a nice change from the horror stories I usually read. I bought a whole series of these back in the summer, and I'm so glad I did, because I'm hooked on the series now!

 The story is a part of the Blandings Castle series and follows Lord Emsworth, a fluffy-brained, forgetful, dreamy man, and his large family. Lord Emsworth is very eccentric, with an obsession for collecting things for his museum. His son - whom he isn't particularly fond of - Frederick, is engaged to a rich American man's daughter, Aline. He is asked to visit their town house one afternoon, and being so forgetful, he goes home with the equally-strange Mr Peter's prize jewel, the Cheops of the 4th Dynasty, in his pocket! Needless to say, trouble soon ensues, including two imposters at Blandings, both with the same mission in mind. 

I find this story irresistibly hilarious, and I had a smile on my face the whole time! My favourite character, naturally, was Lord Emsworth, who forgets literally everything, which leads to so many misunderstandings on his part! He's like Bertie Wooster going senile - which is actually really sad when you think about it - but it is played in a really lighthearted manner in Something Fresh. His favourite activities included pottering about the garden with his flowers and messing around in his museum, plus, his pig. There's obviously nothing dark or mysterious going on in his world, one of the many reasons why I think he's adorable.

Ashe Marson and Joan Valentine were my other favourites, and make a really great couple, too! It was interesting to see things from their point of view, as they're not exactly well off like most of the characters in Wodehouse's books; so we get to see how things work downstairs at Blandings.

As for my least favourite characters, I can't really say I like the Efficient Baxter (or "Nosy Parker" as the staff at Blandings call him). He seems really alert and on-the-ball, but irritating and overly-suspicious most of the time. That's just my opinion though. But I suppose it mainly stems from the way he was trying to thwart my favourite characters' plans.

Pictures Drawn for Me Part 6

Here are some drawings done by friends either on Deviant Art, or in real life! These pictures mean so much to me, I just love them! Some are my OCs and some are birthday presents and art trades with friends in real life. I'll upload them in the order I got them. <3

This picture is drawn by my dear friend Wendy. She drew me an amazing picture of Usagi from Sailor Moon, and it came along printed with a quote from Plato - "Every heart sings a song incomplete until another heart whispers back", which I absolutely adore! Another picture came with it, one she has decided to work on for my birthday!

And this wonderful picture was what Angie drew for me as a part of our trade! He's our dear little psycho-boy, Patrick Hockstetter from Stephen King's IT dressed as a vampire for Halloween. As she knew I have a liking for Anne Rice's vampire chronicles, she incorporated a bit of Lestat de Lioncourt into the design, which I think is an amazing idea!

Today's Co-ordinate, Shirring Princess!

 

Blouse: Dorothy Perkins

JSK: Shirring Princess, Baby the Stars Shine Bright

Headbow: Baby the Stars Shine Bright

Socks: Sock it to me

I wear this dress a lot recently, as well as my Wonder Cookie JSK! It's such a cute, typically BABY dress! I thought that the white on my blouse goes very well with the white on my headbow, and the small bits of white on the socks. The socks have really cute cats with mustaches on, so how could I resist them in Boston!

Elizabeth Rose Bonnet

I made this bonnet recently with the supplies I bought in Maine. It's made of a straw hat base (18"), dove grey velvet, white cotton on the inside, three kinds of lace, grosgrain ribbon, and four white roses. This is the first hat I've made, so I'm satisfied for my first attempt!
 
I was going for more of a simple, elegant design in monotone colours, to match the name of the Queen of England. My mum said that I should have added more roses on the back, but I think it looks okay the way it is; I wanted it to be quite sparse anyway. Actually, it turned out quite different from the design I quickly sketched on holiday, but seeing as this was my first bonnet, I'm rather glad, as the other design seemed quite complicated to make.

I'm really pleased with how nicely the grey and white go together, as that was a last-minute decision. Also, the lace on the front looks very impressive worn. As for what I would change if I were to make this again, I think that the puckering on the crown of the bonnet looks rather odd - I had a lot of difficulty getting that to sit right, and in the end it still looks quite strange...

Whilst making this, sewing the lace to the brim, I listened to Jeeves and Wooster on the TV and drank rose tea - a really relaxing way to spend a Sunday afternoon! I'm really enjoying sewing at the moment, so I'm thinking of making items in grey and white to match, to add a classic element to my lolita wardrobe; perhaps a grey cape and a grey A-line skirt with roses...

Three IT Poems

These poems are written for my dear DeviantART friend, Angie! This is because of the amount of pictures of Patrick she has drawn for me in requests, so I thought I'd better give her something in return for all the lovely drawings! I've got one for three of her IT pairings, Henry/Patrick, Vic/Belch and Eddie/Richie.

Promises Exchanged at Midnight

Bird Boy

Here's a poem somebody requested on FanFiction.net for their favourite character from IT, Stanley Uris!

4 AM Chapter 1

This fanfiction is for Animal Crossing New Leaf, as odd as that may sound. I've been really inspired by the creepy villages that people have created for the Dream world, especially the music they use; such as 4 AM, K.K. Oasis, and K.K. Dirge! My favourite villages are Aika Village and Shachipanda Village (otherwise known as Druggy village)!

Grimm's Fairytales

I couldn't resist buying the collector's edition of this book whilst holidaying in Boston, it was just so beautiful! I've heard a lot of good things about these stories, so it was well worth buying.

These stories were absolutely terrifying, and well, grim... What I often thought was, "how on earth was this made into a Disney film?!" Honestly, they're disturbing, especially seeing as Disney is so sweet and fluffy.

1. Cinderella
This follows the plot of the Disney cartoon obviously, but its much more morbid. Cinderella's step-sisters are absolutely vile, and not 'ugly' as the cartoon states. For most of the tale, Cinderella spent most of her time crying at her mother's graveside, and often sang to her bird friends when she wasn't slaving in the home. One thing that really sickened me was the fact that her father just gave up on her once his wife died, and only cared for his new family, including the step-daughters. He went out of town and asked his daughters what they'd like him to bring back as a present; one answered beautiful dresses, and the other asked for pearls. And what did Cinderella ask for? A tree branch... She planted this branch and it magically grew into a massive tree over a period of a few days, and whatever she asked the birds for, they would throw it down from the treetop, including three gorgeous ball gowns of gold and silver. She goes to the ball after crying some more, and the prince falls in love with her beauty and wouldn't let anyone else dance with her, saying "she is mine", which was rather ironic seeing as he didn't even know her name. After going to the balls a couple of times, he decides that he wants to marry her, so goes about people's houses, asking girls to try on the gold slipper that Cinderella left behind. As the Step-mother expected one of her daughters to marry the prince, she went as far as to convince one to cut off their big toe, and the other to chop off part of their heel, all in order for the slipper to fit! The prince almost fell for it, if it weren't for the birds telling him to look at the pools of blood inside the shoe, which I thought was really stupid; surely he would have known what Cinderella looked like if he really loved her! So, he finally finds Cinderella and the slipper fit, so they got married. Hoping to gain benefit from the Royal wedding, the step sisters attended her wedding, where the birds aforementioned swooped down out of the sky and pecked both their eye balls out, so they lived a crippled life of blindness... Nice!

2. Snow-White and Rose-Red
This story wasn't anywhere near as revolting, but just plain weird. These two sisters lived with their elderly mother, and one winter's day this talking bear knocked on their door and asked to be warmed by their fire! If this wasn't weird enough, it turned out that he was actually a prince (like everybody else in this book) that was turned into a bear by this really rude goblin/gnome creature. When he was transformed back into a human by killing the goblin, he married one of the sisters, and his brother married the other sister... And all this while, I was convinced that the two girls were aged 7-10 and the man/bear was about thirty or so...

3. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Okay, this story really took the biscuit... Well obviously the evil queen tries to kill Snow-white because of jealousy over her being "the fairest of all", so Snow White joins the Seven Dwarfs and they agree to hide her - just as long as she does all the housework, cooking, cleaning, sewing, mending, etc. I thought this was really harsh, especially seeing as she was seven years old. The dwarfs tell her not to let anybody inside the cottage whilst they were working in the mines, but of course, she does. The evil queen is in disguised as various cold callers - including a woman who tightened her corset! - and almost kills her twice, but somehow she was always resuscitated. On the third death attempt by a poisonous apple, everyone thinks she's dead. So they bury her in a glass coffin so that they could see her body from all angles! And if you didn't think that was disturbing enough, one of the many princes in Grimm's world happens to be riding past when he falls in love with the corpse and asks if he could keep her for his collection! Collection of what exactly?! The dwarfs let him have her because of how pathetic he was being, and whilst transferring the corpse to his castle, the coffin was dropped, which caused the apple to come out of Snow White's throat. So, needless to say, they get married.

I read a lot more than this, but these were the ones that I found particularly weird...