Christmas Dress 2015

This year's Christmas dress! I've made one every year for the past few years. This year's dress is made with vintage children's fabric (cotton), self lined in the bodice and lined in satin in the skirt for extra puffiness. Pockets for stuffing extra food away for later.

The print is actually tiny blue flowers with little green leaves.

Worn with the usual Christmas mouse earrings, although they're a little blurry here.

Christmas dress 2014

So I'm a teensy bit late getting back into blogging this year, but better late than never... or whatever.

Every year I make a Christmas dress. It doesn't have to be made of Christmas fabric specifically but I like it to have Christmas colours at least. Last year's effort was white with red and green, which is Christmassy enough for me.

This is a standard bodice/circle skirt pattern I use a lot. It fits well and it's very easy to make. I lined this one in a fairly stiff satin to make the skirt puff out. The outer fabric is a poly/cotton.

The first time I wore it I got a tiny little bit of chilli oil on the front, but it's so small it's not terribly noticeable. 

Oh! And I have a new tattoo. I had my lower left arm completed in December. Three roses and a spidey on a web. 

And of course, what would a Christmas dress be without my Christmas earrings? They are little dancing mice.

The end of my year was fairly low-key. I work in retail now and it was absolutely mental in the lead-up to Christmas Day! I can now gift wrap absolutely anything like a pro. I also never want to hear the words 'gift wrap' ever again until next Christmas. Afterwards, I sat down a lot.

New Year's consisted of a burger and a beer with my boyfriend, which was perfect.

New Year's resolutions?

~* more yoga (at least 4-5 times a week) *~

~* learn more recipes and cook more *~

~* try something new each month to be healthy *~

That last one can translate to anything - Sugar-Free Month, Walk More Month, 

Don't Injure Yourself This Month, etc.

My eyebrows and other first world problems

So I wrote a post all about my two year anniversary of blogging, made sure people knew I was still around and then promptly disappeared from Blog Land. 

Way to guarantee my continued online presence.

I've been thinking about blogging a lot lately, whilst not actually doing it, and I really want to get back into it. I had various reasons for stopping for a while, one of them being I didn't really know what I wanted to do with my blog. It was always, dress this, skirt that, sew some things, here are some photos. Same old same old. I wanted people to read my blog and was really just focusing on trying to make it interesting for other people.

So now I'm getting back on track, fer realz this time, and I'm going to make this blog more interesting for myself. There will be more written/less visual posts, a bit of sewing, more daily life happenings. General self-absorbed natterings.

And things I'm just thinking about lately.

1. Eyebrows

Here are my eyebrows.

 

Now that I'm wearing my hair in a longer fringe, my eyebrows are covered up and I haven't been maintaining them as much as usual. They're thickening up and I'm wondering what to do with them.

Part of me wants to wax them right off and draw them on every day.

Jay draws on her eyebrows and they look quite nice.

Here are some other eyebrows I like.

I also really like 1920's/1930's style brows.

2. And I'm wondering if I should change my fringe. It's gothier to have it shorter, but when it's long I can (inexpertly) curl it up, which I like.

Yes, it's Katy Perry. I want this hair.

3. Tattoos. I have some tattoos on my left forearm, and I've always vaguely planned to turn it into a sleeve.  (I am scratched from pulling sticky weed out of the garden the other day)

 

 There is a long blank patch of arm which I've so far considered covering with a fairy, based on a pin up girl or show girl, a dragon, some flowers on a vine/branch, or a couple of mice playing on a toadstool. I can't remember where I found all these, I saved them ages ago.

 

 4. CHRISTMAS. I do love Christmas. Here is my little tree. 

I have yet to decide on a Christmas dress style/fabric this year... not sure if I will actually get around to making one, but I will try.

I will also try to catch up on other blog reading this week.

And hooray... first blog post in months :)

Vintage Christmas Kittens... KITTENS!

This year's Christmas dress. 

Vintage kittens!!! 

You can see the fabric in more detail here

The pattern is Vogue 8470, but I borrowed some regular sleeves from another pattern.

I didn't have enough fabric for the waist sash, so I just added a red ribbon, which works nicely with the pattern on the dress.

Oh! And I changed my hair! Tired of my little short fringe, I've cut myself a longer one and I'm wearing it off to one side. But in my haste to get it right yesterday, I plastered it down with too much hairspray.

You get the idea though.

  

 

 Shoes: Modcloth

Ring: Diva

Earrings: bought when I was ten years old. 

They're probably considered to be vintage now too! I wear them every year.

As well as my own Christmas dress, I made Jay a Christmas skirt. She would only have black, so I Christmas-fied it with red lining (I think she likes it).

 

It was originally going to be a dress, but the lace is very heavy and full of stretch. The dress ended up hanging down past her ankles, so I just used the skirt.

She has now conceded that she should have her own blog. Yay!

We had our family Christmas lunch yesterday at our house. It was steaming hot outside so we spent the day in the comfort of air conditioning as we stuffed ourselves.

Jay and I with my parents...

...and Jay's mother

 

 Happy Christmas to everyone, from Jay and the vintage kittens and I!

 ~*~  xx  ~*~