White rabbit with a pocket watch

Hiya fellas!

I'm beginning to think that it is impossible for me to update this blog regularly. The problem is, when I actually do something that would be worthwhile to update I'm most likely not taking photos of the event, but enjoying it fully. I suck at blogging, haha... but yeah I actually came to babble a bit about the past couple of days weeks months.

Some of you probably know that I'm attempting to graduate this spring. That means the whole year I have been juggling several school projects to get points, working on my thesis and the project going with it, filling up my portfolio and on my spare time, practicing burlesque.

Boohoo my laptop is all dusty.

Also, I have an art exhibition coming up soonish. I'm up to my elbows in paint but then again I really enjoy painting! I just have a very tight schedule, which sucks because I would really like to spent even more time to finish up each painting. :I

Some works in progress!

We also have another burlesque gig coming up, so I have been making props, mainly new pasties. ♥ I really like making them, even though I'm still not very skilled at it... But well, my boobies ain't complaining. :D

Very basic red hearts. I wore these in my Little Red Riding Hood act in Never Grow Old. ♥

Turmion Kätilöt theme pasties! Just had to. xD

These are for my upcoming act... can anyone guess the theme? ;)

Next Sunday I'm also going to model again, it has been ages since I have been in front of a camera. I'm really, really excited about the project! The photographer gave me a little something beforehand to make preparations... guess what we'll be shooting? :D

Forget about penis envy, those fangs are HUGE!

Fangbanger much?

Of course, I have had some free time also. I have spent it visiting friends and relatives, having friends over at our place, partying, playing Magic the Gathering and Dungeons and Dragons... oh yeah and I turned 24 in the end of February also. Too bad I didn't take any pictures from my party, it was Alice in Wonderland -themed. :) I also ordered something nice for myself from ebay afterwards. ♥

Squee~! Absinthe spoon! It cost  around ten euros with postage. :3

And these beauties! I needed a new pair of party heels for winter since my loyal Pleasers are finally falling apart after 4 years of excessive wearing. :< But these are so pretty! Cheap too, around 30 euros with postage. ♥

Truth to be told I have been shopping quite a lot, but only second hand. I cleaned up our closets and threw out/sold/donated dosens of kilos of clothes and well, there wasn't much left so I really needed some new basic everyday wear. I might show those items too, depends whether Wolf is willing to take photos. :3

Meh, my life has been busy as hell lately, I'm hoping summer won't be nearly as hard. I have been looking for a perfect job after graduation,and I hope I can start already during summer but still, it cannot be this hard. :D But to all to my readers: happy springtime, Easter is coming up and that means CHOCOLATE. ;3 ♥

Show me how you burlesque!

Oh my gosh, almost a month has gone by since our first burlesque gig on Valentine’s day. So as promised, in this post I’m going to ramble a bit about burlesque in general, what I think of it and so on. Beware, wall of text coming right up!

So, what is burlesque? Wikipedia states:

“Burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects. The word derives from the Italian burlesco, which itself derives from the Italian burla – a joke, ridicule or mockery.

Burlesque overlaps in meaning with caricature, parody and travesty, and, in its theatrical sense, with extravaganza, as presented during the Victorian era. "Burlesque" has been used in English in this literary and theatrical sense since the late 17th century. It has been applied retrospectively to works of Chaucer and Shakespeare and to the Graeco-Roman classics. Contrasting examples of literary burlesque are Alexander Pope's sly The Rape of the Lock and Samuel Butler's irreverent Hudibras. An example of musical burlesque is Richard Strauss's 1890 Burleske for piano and orchestra. Examples of theatrical burlesques include W. S. Gilbert's Robert the Devil and the A. C. Torr – Meyer Lutz shows, including Ruy Blas and the Blasé Roué

A later use of the term, particularly in the United States, refers to performances in a variety show format. These were popular from the 1860s to the 1940s, often in cabarets and clubs, as well as theatres, and featured bawdy comedy and female striptease. Some Hollywood films attempted to recreate the spirit of these performances from the 1930s to the 1960s, or included burlesque-style scenes within dramatic films, such as 1972's Cabaret and 1979's All That Jazz, among others. There has been a resurgence of interest in this format since the 1990s.”

Correct me if I’m wrong, but in my opinion nowadays burlesque is a performing art that usually includes comedy and striptease. However, not everybody agree on that! Some say it’s pure comedy with no erotic aspects, others say it’s just striptease with a fancier name. One of the most common opinions is that it’s just a chance for fat chicks to shake some booty too. When I heard that I actually felt quite insulted at first but later I started to notice a seed of truth and here’s why.

I have been a total fan of burlesque for several years. I think I’ve gone to most burlesque events in my city for several years and last year when we decided to form our own little burlesque group and start practicing I felt thrilled. But why? I’ve always felt that burlesque is very empowering. The scene is filled with brave women (and men) who dare to show off their erotic side on stage! And well, let’s face it… for me the most amazing thing has always been the diversity of nearly nude human bodies, beautiful in some very different way that in mainstream media.

So yes, burlesque is a chance for fat chicks to shake some booty. However, the same chance is for all others too. For that shy girl with glasses and body as a twig, or that single mom with deflated breasts, or that goth kid with stretch marks and skin pale as Finnish landscape on winter. In think it is fairly pointless to argue if burlesque is more theater or striptease, that is not important. To me, burlesque is all about embracing our bodies and the “faults” that come with it, and loving ourselves despite (and also because) of them. Most of the people who come to see burlesque (at least here in Finland) are women and I think that the cheer that emerges whenever a piece of clothing hits the floor is not because of progressing nudity, it is a cheer for bravery and also a cheer of relief (“Oh my gosh, that girl in there is just as… normal as me..!”).

Since I started doing burlesque my self confidence has increased so much! I feel more accepting towards my body… Of course I still want to improve it by training and diet but I also want to pamper it (which is fairly new to me). And I’m more forgiving towards myself, too, more allowing. So to me, the whole point of burlesque is to bring joy to people. That means both the audience AND the performer.

Speaking of performance, I think our show was a huge success! So many people came to see us they actually had to close the doors at some point because the bar was so full of people! Haha, the bar management definitely didn’t see that coming! I’m so happy that so many of my friends came to show their support, even though some of them had to leave because of the huge mass of people it really meant the world to me to see them there.

The show went well enough, I made a few mistakes and almost tripped when my heel got stuck to my skirt but I managed to pull it off in the end and I was happy with it. Next time I’ll do even better!

Truth to be told I think I was more nervous about what people, especially my family would think of this new hobby than about the actual performing. I must say that for a while I thought that this would make me a bad daughter, affect my possibilities to find work, etcetera… but then I realized that I personally don’t see anything wrong in doing burlesque (quite the opposite!) and it would be stupid of me to think that if someone else would judge me that persons opinion would be more important than mine own! I’m not perfect and my choices aren’t perhaps the choices that someone else would make, but they are my choices, and I should stick to what I feel to me is the right thing to do!

Below a couple of shots of me during our show, if you’d like to see more pictures of us go check out our Facebook page! ♥

© Pauli Tavasti

© Anniina Holappa

You make me feel like I am whole again

Hello again sweeties!

So, our very first real burlesque gig took place yesterday on Valentine's day. :3 I'm going to talk more about it when I've finally recovered from the shock (and sleep deprivation, three and a half hours last night *yawn*). :D Meanwhile, I thought I'd chat a bit about Valentine's day!

I consider myself a rather romantic person. Well, at least when I have a partner that I can respect, such as Wolf. He's quite romantic too. We try to do something nice together every day and on special days, anniversaries and such we usually go on a date and do something even more special. We have been together around five and a half years and we still do everything we used to do back when we first started dating. We also kiss and hug each other several times a day still. I think it is very important to spent quality time with your partner even if you have been together several years. Everyone needs to feel appreciated in a relationship. This Valentine's day however, since we had our gig we didn't have much time alone together. Wolf came to see our show of course and he was also very helpful too. ♥ I hope we'll have time to spent more time together this weekend. Heh, we exchanged small gifts anyway, both got candy. ;) ♥

Back when we started dating Wolf was in the army and since we couldn't physically be together we wrote a lot of letters. I thought that I'd show a little piece of a letter I wrote to Wolf when we had been going out for a month or so. I was already head over heels in love and still am. ♥ Heh, we used to draw to the letters too, since we didn't have cameras back then... :D

Gosh... I'm so tired... I wanna take a nap on Wolf's lap now... but before that, to all to my readers: Happy (late) Valentine's Day! ♥ Below an old picture of me and Wolf. :)

Morrigán

Hi there! I just arrived back home from a visit to my family and in-laws. I have been stuffing myself with amazing home-cooked foods, seeing friends and even working on my thesis a little bit this weekend, I thought I'd do one more thing before heading for bed and that is post the pictures we took in studio before Christmas for our burlesque group. :)

The reason why I'm posting this now is that we are going to have our first "real" show next Thursday. I'm quite nervous, but excited too! I think I'll write about the event more once we've held it. :) For now, more info about that can be found on Facebook.

But yeah, the pictures! The shoot went really well, Madam Hardware herself was behind the camera and lovely Raw Berry assisted with the lighting and so on. I did the Photoshopping, as usual. :) We worked very efficiently and here's some of the nicest shots of the shoot (in my opinion). ♥

Teehee, playing with my feather. ♥

For some reason, the "ugly pretty" shots seem to suit me the best. :O

I was a bit inspired by this painting and the symbolism going with it. ;)

I totally love my feather boa, but it's losing so much feathers I'll have to buy a new one soon. :<

Haha, the last shot always have to be a weird one for me. :D This time Dragonball Z style power up pose! xD

I really don't know what more to say about these. :D So please do comment, ask questions or whatever you want! I'm going to go get my beauty sleep now, so good night. ♥

Babe in the basement

So the last post was about the new rubbery additions to my wardrobe but the image quality was typical Finnish winter = no sunlight bullshit I wanted to post you these pictures that present the latex pencil skirt much better! These pictures were (once again) shot by Pauli Tavasti and photoshopped by me. They are actually for my burlesque performer Facebook profile. Also, if you want you can go and like me. ^w^ But yeah, the pictures!

Haha, I'm goofing around in the last pic. :D Making an "Immotal face". xD I recently had another photoshoot also for my burlesque page and I'll try to post those pictures too soonish. :3

Rubber

Firstly, I need to apologise the rather poor picture quality. Firstly, Wolf (who was super sweet to take these pictures) is rarely at home during the few hours of sunlight, especially at the same time as myself and secondly, from now on we probably have to use our cellphone cameras since our only memory card reader broke. :< I wont buy a new reader or cord since I'm planning to buy a new camera anyway in a few months. But yeah, some pictures of the clothes I bought on our trip to London and some other items as well. :3

I bought this Lip Service Ring A Ding Ding Pinstripe Vinyl Skirt from some store in Camden, I think it was DarkSide. :) Such beautiful piece of clothing. I would like to buy the matching shirt also, but I haven't found one in my size (which I think is small in Lip Service) with a reasonable price tag

 also. :< If someone has the One For My Baby Cap Sleeve Top in black and size small I would be interested in buying it. :3

I'm also wearing my new hand bag. I don't remember the brand but I purchased it in Romeo & Julia in Oulu. My poor Demonia bat bag broke (didn't even own it for one year, come on!) so I needed a new one, fast. I really like it, except for the insides, which is black. Just like everything inside it. So I really can't find shit. :D But it is pretty. x3 <3

This latex outfit was the main thing of the London shopping trip. It is actually a playsuit and a high-waist skirt. Both of these are from Honour, but the brand is Skin Two. I totally loved Honour as a shop! The personnel were really nice, the shop well organized and beautifully decorated. I think I tried on half the latex items in the store. :D While leaving both my wallet and heart felt light as feathers... *sigh*

The last piece in this post was a gift from my lovely friend Neeppu. Latex panties from Westward Bound! Awwwwwwwwh I cannot even describe how happy I am! Thank you lovely woman! <3 I definitely have to get some Alice in Wonderland outfit, just because of this lovely, lovely sky blue and cream white coloring. <3

So yeah, pretty much all the nicest pieces of clothing I've bought since summer. :3 Some basic pinstripe pants from flea market and maybe a t-shirt... but so basic I cant be bothered to photograph them. :P Actually I'm selling/throwing out like 75% of my clothing at the moment. Table is reserved and the best pieces have already been bought by friends. I want and need SPACE. But well, I guess that's all for now. :3 I'm off to bed, since I have a draw and paint class early tomorrow. Buh-bye!

Dead and buried

Ladies and Gentleman! May I present to you... dead things in London! And some other curiosities as well. We spent one day in London visiting different museums and I definitely loved that! Even as a child I always wanted to go to the Finnish Natural History Museum whenever we were in Helsinki. The two-headed calf was my absolute favorite. ;) The museums in London were free too, so if you ever visit London I suggest you skip the Tussaud's and the Tower, save your money for food/drink and shopping and go see the London's finest dead and buried!

Anyway, I took a shitload of pictures but in most of them there's some kid photobombing the image since apparently people of London considered us a curiosity as well... ù_ú; Oh well, I'll post some (way too many still...) anyway, starting from the Science Museum.

We stopped by the Science Museum just really quickly, but it was full of wonders and you could easily spent half a day there. The lighting was poor though and my crappy camera said no can do so only a few pictures from there.

Next stop was Natural History Museum, which was right next to the Science Museum. It was really cool except for the fact that the area containing taxidermy was full of kids running around, pulling your clothes, photobombing pictures and their parents asking if they could take pictures with us... so pretty exhausting, though the animals were amazingly cute!

I had never seen a dodo before I think, so adorable things! Also, the dinosaurs and other prehistorical creatures blow your mind with their size and all! No wonder Jurassic Park used to be one of my favorite movies as a child!

Imagine my face when I found a container filled with bats! Some of them were huge! Pure love. <3

My favorite thing in the whole museum however was the "jar department". All kinds of things preserved in glass jars. Just look at them! Mr. Wolf was quite dumbstruck when I was running around squealing happily and taking pictures. :D He doesn't really share my enthusiasm in this... xD

By the end of the tour we were quite tired already but I took a couple of more pictures. Then we went to get drinks in some pub and continued to our final destination, the British Museum.

The British Museum is wonderful even as just a building. It really takes your breath away, I can assure you. And you could easily spend the whole day there. We didn't have that much time so we went for the things that interested us the most: the mummies and other historical relics.

It still amazes me how well a human body can be preserved if the conditions are right. I swear some of those mummies could have just been very thin people sleeping...

I had never seen a mummified cat before! The position is very odd... so human-like. o_o

Even though I loved the mummies best the museum is packed with relics, such as swords, jewellery and art. I highly recommend this place for basically anyone, but especially those interested in history of humans.

The rest of our vacation consisted of eating, drinking and shopping. :3 Unfortunately, I still haven't got pictures of the stuff we bought... I'll try to ask Wolf if he has time to take some tomorrow but we'll see, since time is very limited due to the short period of sunlight... :< Anyway, I hope these previous posts have inspired some of you to visit this wondrous city!