Do I really need these shoes?

Well actually, no. But when I found these knock off's at Vivistyle.se with a fair price I simply couldn't resist them. I had to wait for them a few weeks and when they arrived at last, it started to snow.

It's impossible to use them outdoors on icy ground so I'll have to wait for a warm day or springtime. The heels are extremely high so they are a not easy to walk fast in even though they are comfy.

Pictures of my studio

In the basement, in a room that once was a garage under the house is my studio. It is a room for all kinds of work. The picture below shows my desk. The little component cabinet, contains jewellery components. The drawer to the left contains all kind of stuff.

 Here's an example of how it looks in the drawers. Laces, flowers, glitter, papper...almost anything neatly organized.

A metal cabinet from the garage containing tools. The dressform I made from plaster strips is still looking the same, I haven't done anything with it yet and thinking of keeping it like that. 

I love the chipped paint on the old radiator. My grandmothers old sewing machine is standing under it. I think it still works but haven't tried it yet. I got it from my mum last winter and that night we put it in the basement the burglar alarm went off. The motion detector in this room had detected a quick temperature shift. It was the first and the last time it went off like that. Very strange and spooky. There's a lot of scraps in this corner it's photo studio equipment and sewing machines. The white paper hanging from the ceiling to the right is a backdrop paper. I would like to tidy this corner a bit more to be able to use the chipped radiator for backdrop when photographing.

This is my sewing table with sewing supplies for the sewing machines in the grocery ledge on the wall. As you can see the things in my studio is very mixed in style but lot's of 50's stuff. All the furnitures down in my basement have come to me for free. I always keep my eyes open for cabinets with small drawers to store my stuff in.

Here's a close up of my hairpin collection from the 40's and 50's. I love the packaging and pictures. The red cardboard holds bags of pastel coloured hairnets, to bad there's no black one.

So this is were I like to go when I want to be alone. The room is not often this tidy, tables and chairs are usually covered with some fabrics or paper clips. 

In the second room from this I store all my fabrics and have an ironing bench and my grandmothers old electrical mangle.

Fathers day

Poor old man. He need his rest in the couch...

This sunday we celebrated fathers day. I'm very glad that I have Johan in my life because he's a very good father and give my boys another male rolemodel for their life. He loves computor games as much as our kids and he finds out fun treasure (candy) hunts for the kids, that always contains something with electronics. A good geek dad needs a geek tie right?

I made this tie out of scraps of the Ghastlies fabrics I have. It turned out really good. It is lightly padded as a tie should be and is sewn by hand. 

As swedes are very casual at work, some dress up at fridays. At Johans work they have "fancy friday" when they dress up in jacket and tie and eat lunch in a restaurant. Someone's looking forward to this fancy friday :D

Alfons and I made and decorated monster cakes and chokolate cupcakes.

The darkness in november

November is such a boring month. The daylight is more like a gloomy sunset. It is impossible to take photos indoors ( I don't like to use flash of lamplight). One of the evenings before Halloween, me and Johan sat in front of the tv and made som steel wire crafts. I made a cross with beads to hang on the wall.

Last saturday evening was All Saint's eve. Thats the night when every gravestone has at least one candle lit. Me and Oskar went to visit his grandmothers grave. I know he miss her deeply, but I also know that she follows him werever he goes. Although he cannot see her, he says someone use to follow him and that is propably her. 

The grave yard outside our town is huge so it is a very impressive sight to see all the candles in the dark.

Today I tried the new harness on our bunny. She's so grumpy about it and it took only 20 minutes before she had gnawed it down. I was raking the leaves during that time.

 You can see on the pictures that we haven't got snow yet and the temperatures vary from -10 to  +10. I really long for snow.

Halloween treats

I tried to keep the treats simple this year, but after checking Martha Stewarts website I got lots of inspiration. For example for the welcoming drink and snacks.

The glass has black sugar frosted edge. Lime soda is served with eyeballs made of  rambutan fruits stuffed with blueberries. Not many dared to eat the fruits.

Caramel popcorn. For the first time I made them myself and damn they are dangerous, so tasty, I ate too much of it! I coloured the caramel with red food colour. 

I used the same candy bags I made last year, the text says "trick and treat".

I made simple cookie dough and used our new cookie cutters to make Halloween themed shapes and simple frosting with food colour to decorate the cookies.

I've been dying to try theese broken glass cupcake and after three trials I succeded to make some sugar glass I could use for the decoration. The blood is simple raspberry ice cream sauce.

 These ghosts are an idea I took from cakepops, but under the cover of sugarpaste I used chocolate balls, a very common treat for kids (and adults). 

Mr Bones is sitting on the porch to welcome our guests. I lend him my antique top hat and my welding glasses. A bow tie and a flower gives him the perfect Gentleman look. 

Here he is, sitting and laughing in the dark.

View of the porch in the dark.

I bought a pumpkin for the entrance and carved a smiling face. 

A few days later I made some delicious pumpkin soup of the meat.

Last week we had a little snowstorm , sadly it has all melted away now.

My childhood dream came true this Halloween! I always wanted a doorbell that played Bach ; Toccata and Fugue in D-minor and Johan made it come true. I'm so happy to live with an electronics nerd. Alfons wanted a face to appear the same time the doorbell rang and he achieved that as well. The garage was turned to a spooky house with different props installed; a slamming door, a monster coming up from a coffin, lightning and spooky sounds.

I'm glad that I worked half time, otherwise it wouldn't be a Halloween at all this year. The scedule for the day has been working, sleeping, eating, some decoration and sleeping again. I have noticed that I'm very confused and lacking short time memory. I have difficulties to read instructions and protocols and I had to take help from Johan to fill in the form for the health insurance money. But I started to do some technical drawings at work and that worked fine. My mood is better but not ok. I feel so stupid.

November theme post; Hosiery

Time for Sophistique Noirs monthly theme post! This time it's a very well chosen subject for the season, hosiery. 

I realized when I dug through my hosiery drawer, that I have a lot of them. Since I live in a very cold place it's often leggings under the skirt and nylon stockings only in summer. But today i choosed a newly bought pair, dark blue with paisley pattern that I bought at Indiska. My son is behind the camera and when I edited the picture I saw that the picture was blurry even though he used a tripod :). Since it's friday I thought I would go a bit more colourful than usual.

As I collect everything vintage I have a vintage hosiery collection as well. Some are well used and some are safely packed in their original parcels in the box.

Theese are my new old stock stockings. Some are made in nylon and some are made in real silk.  All of them have back seams.

Look at the quality of these stockings!

I can assure you that they are in perfect quality. I have used some several times without any holes. The pink ones in the middle are never used, I'm afraid that I would look like Miss Piggy with them on.

It was quite some years ago when I used them. It was when I was a skinny girl that spent the weekends at a gig or a dancefloor.