Hi all! It’s been a bit busy round these parts as I realise just how much work I have to do on my Linden entries and how much time I have to do it in, but I did put up the Christmas tree the other day and then proceeded to take photos of it. Something that would (and does) seem bizarre to most of my friends and family, but not to you guys, we inhabitants of internetz world! Never would have done that with a film camera. Just think about how much more of an insight future generations will have into our lives compared to what we know about worlds before ours. Everything we do/buy/see is documented! It’s mind-boggling, and a little bit awesome to be part of it all.
Anyhoodle… Just some pics for you today…
I’m getting my Christmas on. I’ve been waiting for the pink candy canes to come back into the store after last year I left it too late and they all sold out!
Trying to work out ways to make that ‘Joy’ sign into a massive necklace. I suspect that it’ll be itchy and irritating to skin.
It’s also 31 degrees outside. Summer has begun.
How long ago was it that I first showed you the new piece for the shop? Monday you say? Monday a week ago!?
Yes, well… I never said I was prompt
Not to mention the various hair/backdrop/focus fails on the first photo shoot. As you can probably tell the focus issue still hasn’t been resolved. The perils of D.I.Y photography you know. But it’s a choice between buying an air-conditioner OR a DSLR with remote control. *drool*
But ANYWAY, Hortensia Noir is now up in the shop!
Ta-DA! God I’ve been slack finishing this piece off, and I will continue to be slack because it’s not going to be up in the shop until Thursday/Friday, I haven’t even worked out what to call it. Something to do with brains? Or coral? Some sort of riff on Hortensia (French for Hydrangea) is probably the front-runner . L’Hortensia Noir or something. Any suggestions?
Also- new shoes!!
I love them so much, even thought they give me cankles. SO MUCH BRIGHTNESS. The first pair I order (the ones that didn’t fit) have just sold on Ebay. Now I have to navigate the post-auction protocol, of which I have no knowledge whatsoever. The other pair (white and pink with grey jersey heart printed panels) are currently up for auction here.
This is how much my hair has faded in the space of three and a half weeks. Damn my incessant need to be clean 
I don’t think I can wait until the six weeks are up before I get the re-growth tended to and the colour retouched. Dye will be ordered tonight. Of that you can be certain. Can someone please develop a range of permanent unnatural colours please?
Happy Monday!
Inspired by a post on San’s blog and by this blog dedicated to lists I’m doing my TILT this week in the form of various lists. I love lists, I have lists in the back of my daily planner, I have lists on a little note pad I use at work and I even have a notebook with a map of Paris on the front of it that I carry around with me just for writing more lists.
Everyday Activities I Love:
- Showers, both hot and cold (seasonally dependent).
- Riding the Tram.
- Grocery Shopping. No, seriously. I LOVE going to the supermarket. I do it every day. It’s ridiculous.
- Writing ‘To Do’ Lists.
- Painting my nails and getting it perfect.
- Blog reading in the morning.
Man-Style I Love:
- Tailored black suits, white shirts and visible tattoos-all together.
- Converse Sneakers, most sneakers.
- Shaved heads gone to stubble.
- Swagger.
- Well fitting clothes, not too tight and not too baggy.
- Personal style.
Jobs I Love to Dream About Having:
- Costume Designer ( See also Garment or Accessories Designer).
- Knick-Knack Store Owner.
- General Arty Type who lives of their creative powers and goes to gallery openings.
- Writer of massive books on fashion history.
- Stationary Designer- in particular diaries, daily planners etc.
- Art Historian
Songs I Love Currently:
- Anything Girl Talk.
- God Only Knows- Beach Boys.
- Jump Around- House Of Pain.
- Perfect Drug and RingFinger, oh anything by Nine Inch Nails
- B.O.B- Outkast
- Happy- Max Sedgely
Words I Love:
- Minutiae
- Squee
- Veritable
- Bonheur (Obviously)
- Dude
- Bon Vivant
Bad Habits I’d Love to Be Rid Of:
- Not cleaning up after myself
- After work beers
- Not exercising enough
- Snacking on creamy biscuits
- Swearing
- Caffeine
Historical Figures I Love:
- Marie Antoinette
- Harriette Wilson
- Christian Dior
- Katsushika Hokusai
- Charles Frederick Worth
- Queen Elizabeth the First
I’m on the cusp generationally speaking, and I find this manifests itself in strange ways. For example: my thoughts on self-portraits. My Gen X sensibilities think that this hobby of Gen Y is self-absorbed and indulgent and frankly a little perplexing. When I started using the internet you never put up photos (because you had to have a scanner, and we did, but it was like a paint roller and if you twitched slightly while scanning you stuck a bit of a wave right in the middle of your scan) and you never used your real name. HOWEVER, as you’ve probably noticed, lately my Gen Y tendencies are surfacing and I’ve become quite a fan of the old digital self portrait. In fact you should see my Photo Booth folder- it’s disgustingly self-centered. So I’m conflicted. I take and like and post these morsels and then feel all guilty and concerned that I should be like this, so damn…. vain!
Well, bollocks I say. Being self-indulgent ain’t nothing new and there isn’t anything wrong with it (well, not entirely) so in celebration of this form of expression, here are my favorite vanity artworks from art history:
Pauline Borghese as Venus (1805-1808) by Antonio Canova.
Ah, Pauline, dear sweet Pauline. She was Napoleon’s Sister and so fancied herself she had a great artist carve her likeness in marble, thinly disguising the half naked portrait with the apple- a reference to Venus, the Goddess of Love. By adding the apple, the boobies are made acceptable by context. A naked Pauline would not have been acceptable. Naked Venus= YES. Naked Lady with no mythological or literary references= NO.
Louis XIV, aka The Sun King
Aka King of the Self (commissioned) Portrait
The Rising Of The Sun
The Setting Of The Sun
Louis XIV, former French King and bon vivant, commissioned many a portrait. These two from François Boucher depicting himself as the Sun. Conceited, much? (aside: I adore these paintings so much that it’s unhealthy)
Louis XIV, Hyacinthe Rigaud, Paris, ca. 1701
The dude had big hair, snappy duds and loved getting pics of himself painted. I think he’d be right at home on the interwebz. Ok, so picking on a king is a bit unfair, it’ part of his job to commission portraits for various reasons: to show how totally grand and awesome he is, to encourage the arts, and to create likenesses to be spread about his kingdom. His peeps need to see what he looks like (or what he wants to look like!). But Louis XIV was wholly self indulgent anyway, so he still counts. Come on, the man made Versaille as grand as it is, it’s like an aggrandizing self portrait in architectural form.
Napoleon Bonaparte
Napoleon on His Imperial Throne- Ingres
Napoleon Crossing The Alps- Jaques Louis David
I know, I know, these paintings have a purpose as propaganda for Napoleon’s regime so they’re not entirely self-indulgent. But STILL, the man was undeniably conceited.
So there you go. All of us who take ridiculous vanity self-portraits and post them on the internet are part of a long and honorable tradition followed by kings, queens, emperors and nobles. Wooo! I don’t feel bad at being so shallow now.
- I’m really getting into eating jelly (as in Jello) lately. It’s like my latest food craze.
- My shoes are the same colour as that sky.
- Speaking of which, I just listed the blue sneakers that didn’t fit on Ebay, so if you’re a ladies size 7.5 and you like crazy sparkly random footwear, then check it out.
- Obsessing about The Secret Society of List Addicts.
- Lace berets. I really want more hats now that my bad hair days are a bit more obvious.
- Loving: the smell of those moisturisers that have fake tanning stuff in them. They smell like summer.
- The heat wave in Melbourne just keeps going. Although last night it did drop to under 20 C.
- I got an unexpected day off today. Hopefully I’ve made good use of it!
- I’ll be making more of the little anemone hat I posted about last week, I should have done that today. But I didn’t. The recipient did love it. So all is right with the world.
- Found my old journals from when I was 18-21. Jeez, I was so tortured! But reading them served to highlight just how much I’ve changed and how much happier I am now. Lately it sort of feels like I’ve been asleep for the last 8 years, as though I am now awake and really being me and connected and aware. It feels strange but amazing.
- My beautiful Cyclamen is suffering from the heat, it’s all wilty and grey. Wha! I don’t know how to fix it but I sure can empathize.
- I ❤ Photo Booth.
- There has been another resolve to get my diet and exercise regimes under control, summer is coming and I want to be comfortable and to be able to wear whatever I want. I’ve made a lot of changes that I’m proud of in the last year but I still have quite a way to go. Although I’m convinced that all the Coke Zero I drink will somehow end up being really really bad for me. I just know it.
- Tomorrows forecast has been downgraded to 31C! The Bearau of Meteorology website cops a real punishing when it’s hot, I press refresh about 12 times an hour. But on occasion it pays off when they downgrade the forecast!
… My little hat is in Etsy’s Holiday Fashion Gift Guide! I’m so excited to be shown amongst such beautiful pieces! Gosh I want multiple sequined dresses.
Happy Thursday!
Chez Fantastic has had an eventful few days! There were ups, there were downs, there was laughter and there was swearing. Quite a bit of swearing. Mostly at my contact lenses, then at my shoes and then, well, at most things. I possibly swear too much.
This week:
❤ I finished a new fascinator!
There will be better pics of it, some time next week when I get another day off. But that aside, I really dig it!
Check out its sea-anenome texturals!
❤ You Am I was great and I was hungover. No photos of that. No, no,nononononono
❤ My Melbourne Cup involved running, sweating, stressing and being freakin’ irritated while I worked my butt off. No fun. I did eat lots of lollies.
❤ My SHOES arrived!!!
❤ My shoes were too small
I’m loving:
❤ The fact that my skin is really clearing up. I still say that it’s water power!
❤ My beautiful sneakers, even though they broke my heart and will have to be re-homed. :’( I have a new pair of the blue on the way, there weren’t any of the white in my size (waaaaa!)
❤ Family coming to visit on Friday.
❤ Setting goals, planning, scheming, and dreaming.
❤ My hair, my hair, my hair, a thousand times MY HAIR
Now my Thursday evening will (will, will, will) involve transferring the designs for my Linden doilies onto the fabric and starting the ol’ stitchy stitchy, tidying up the apartment in preparation of my guest’s arrival tomorrow morning and working out the shipping fees for the shop because, ladies and gentlemen, free shipping from trixiefantastic.etsy.com has finished! O.V.E.R. OVAH! Now I gots to charge ya! Alas, it means I have to do maths and the working out of stuff.
Hi Ho, Hi Ho, it’s off to work I go!
….New Hair!
Almost 8 hours in the chair, numerous hours lost marveling at it in the mirror, add up those numbers and you get the number of babies I want to have with my hair. Yes, you heard, I would bear its children.
All thanks to Wildilocks, Melbourne branch!
Happy Thursday! Today has been a gorgeous morning with a cool breeze and potential showers later, perfect weather for taking stock and accentuating the positive!
In no articular order, some cool things lately have been:
❤ Sunshine and green grass. Enjoy it before summer sucks the life out of all living things, including me ❤ I’m going to get to experience a venerable Melbourne tradition. No, not the Melbourne Cup, but the Cup eve and Cup eve-eve You Am I shows at the Espy wrong! It was the Prince in St Kilda ❤ Roses! All the neighbourhood gardens are in bloom! ❤ Dumpling dinners with Jennifer ❤ Nine Inch Nails, Nine Inch Nails, Nine Inch Nails ❤ Package anticipation! Waiting for the results of my recent splurge to wing (or sail) its way to me! Come to me my pretties! ❤ My first custom order! ❤ Perfectly formed and deliciously fluffy clouds ❤ Beers on balconies ❤ Pizza with beers on balconies ❤ and getting excited about my hair appointment tomorrow! New hair! Squeee! ❤
Sigh! Now I’m off to go wallow in all this disgusting positivity, go for a walk in the sunshine, and then off to work.
What’s great about your week? Doing anything fantastical on the weekend? Fill me in!
