Just a little post to say I hope you all had a great Christmas, and I hope you have a fabulous New Year.
I'm going to Whitby for All About New Years Eve so I won't be posting for a few days (but when I do, expect silly pictures of me dressed as an ugly sister for the panto theme).
When I was a little girl my Parents and my Grandparents did there best to make sure I got the best start educationally (the educational system in the UK had just been changed around and they were worried that I might suffer because of it), and one of the things they did for me is get at least one educational gift for me each Christmas and birthday.
One of the best gifts I ever got was a full set of the Britannica Student Encyclopaedia.
It was an amazing resource for me as a child, and I'm pretty sure I read each one cover to cover so many times that at one point I'd have been able to quote huge chunks of them.
The main Encyclopaedia Britannica is one of the oldest and most concise encyclopaedias in the world, these days a full one is 32 volumes long, you'll need a huge shelf to put them all on, but it's worth it.
Of course these days, if you don't have a shelf big enough for 32 volumes there's the online edition, which you can get a free trial of by clicking here.
The online edition comes in four different versions:
The Library Version- Satisfy the learning and research needs of all public library users with three age related information areas, making the Library Edition easy-to-use for everyone.
The School Version- Make lessons exciting and inspirational with over 46,000 graphics, more than 4,000 videos, plus audio clips, interactive games and quizzes
The Academic version- Britannica's vast, accurate and up-to-date resources are ideal for quick searches, homework and in-depth research.
4. The Consumer Edition- (the one the trial is for) which also includes a dictionary, thesaurus and world atlas.
So what are you waiting for? Save your shelf space and give Britannica online a go!
I've decided to do a few sponsored posts here and there and I decided to let my readers (that's you guys) know first incase anybody objected.
I have some promises to you all about my sponsored posts.
Firstly sponsored posts will no take over my entire blog, I will do one, maybe two per week at the most and when I am back to being in a position to blog every day these will not count as my daily posts, these will be extra entries.
It's not my attention to divert away from my regular content (if you think I'm starting to then let me know).
I will NEVER give a good review to a bad product, that is my number one promise.
Wherever possible Sponsored Posts will relate to my blog themes (Fashion/ arts/ music).
I'm not magic, therefore I can't review any products I've not used before, I guess this point is more for readers who may be interested in having me review their product. Anyhow if you are interested in having me review your product I'll usually need a sample of it. You can contact me at random_havok@hotmail.co.uk (please put "Sponsored Posts" in the subject line so I don't think it's a Nigerian scam email and delete it).
This DOES NOT MEAN that all of my review posts will be paid reviews, I will still continue to write reviews of products that I buy myself anyway.
Finally sponsored posts will all begin with the line "This post sponsored by *company name*".
I know it's not going to make me a millionaire, but I am trying to save my cash towards setting up my own business at the moment so every little helps right now.
Again if anybody has any questions of concerns then leave me a comment and I will feedback to you :)
This year I bought more gifts for people than ever, and I got some awesomely nice things back :)
The choker up at the top was a gift from Kev, and made by my friend Queenie from Forever in Black.
It's a cameo design with a skeletal lady replacing the usual er...Um...Fleshy one!
The next gift is a classical Lolita headdress that is my gift from Queenie excuse the kitty paw, Stirfry wanted to play), I actually got this a little bit before Christmas, and you can see it "in action" so to speak, in the previous post on top of my pin curled hair.
I was given a set of relaxing lavender bath goodies by Kev's family.
I love lavender and I needed some bath supplies so I'm super chuffed with these!
I can see myself re-using the box to, I'm not sure what for yet though.
From my family I got "Mrs Fry's Diary" which I plan on reading very soon (I will let you know if it's as interesting as it sounds).
And (excuse my derpyness) a Snuggie!
It's so snuggly and warm :D
I also got some cash which I will be using part of for this dress:
The embroidery will be purple so I can wear my choker with it.
I'm very happy and grateful for my presents this year, and I'm very happy that my first Christmas day spent away from my parents house went so well :)
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How did your Christmas go?
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Day 22: A song you hate
To be fair it's more that the video CREEPS THE SHIT out of me than song hate (though I'm not a fan of Metallica, I prefer Beatallica).
I haven't been blogging very much lately. I have been so busy with the holidays I've hardly had a moment to blog!
I have been doing lots of blogable things though, and taking lot of pictures, so I thought I'd do a little round up post to keep you guys interested while I flap around like a headless chicken trying to find wrapping paper!
(one doth apologise for my derp face in this one)
Last Saturday was the Charnel House Christmas Party, and I decided to pin curl my hair. To stop the weather killing it in one fell moisture filled swoop, I went to Barkollo with 150 pins in my hair (pin head!), and let the curls out when I got there.
I also wore the dress from this post I made on Sew_loli last week. I decided to wear the dress in it's unaltered form one last time to make sure I definitely wanted to alter it.
I do.
Also in that photo you can sort of see the beautiful headdress Queenie made for me as my Christmas present :)
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On Sunday, Tia took Queenie and I to the visitor centre in Gateshead to see their small art show on The Snow Queen.
The visitor centre is in what used to be St Mary's church, and it has some very old gravestones around it.
Bird footprints, cute huh?
This was my favourite part of the Snow Queen display.
Queenie took this photo of me sitting in the Snow Queen's throne.
If anybody is interested in seeing the rest of my photos from the Snow Queen's palace I'll be uploading them to my Facebook like page in an album called "extra extra" shortly.
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On Monday night, I went over to see my mam and have an "Our friend Jack and snack!" night.
These are nights that happen once in a blue moon when I go visit my mother, we watch a film, drink some Jack Daniels and eat some snack foods.
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Yesterday I spend the day hanging out with my mam again, we watched more films, ate more snack foods (hey I need some saturated fatty badness to get through gigs sometimes! The one time I didn't gorge beforehand I almost passed out), no more Jack though (I'm not a fan of liver replacements so I tend to try and stick to the recommended guidelines for alcohol) .
Later on after all of the unhealthylicious nom, films and girly chatter I went to see Ginger and Friends, supported by The Eureka Machines and Supercharger.
I managed to completely fail to take any photos of Ginger, but that up there ^ is Supercharger and this is The Eureka Machines:
And also a sign with bad grammar, it reads "Santa I've been a good girl please stop".
Please stop what one wonders?
All in all it was a great gig, almost didn't go, but I'm actually pretty glad I did.
Out of the three bands I did prefer The Eureka Machines over Ginger, but all three were pretty spectacular.
Kev bought their album, and since he's borrowing my ipod while his is being repaired I'm hoping it will end up on there :)
Also we both got a photo each with Chris Catalyst and his bottle of IRN BRU!
Today?
Well I've just been attempting housework.
TEH GLAMMER!
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So what have you guys been up to while I've been AWOL?
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Day 21: A song that should never be covered
Seriously, I love this song. Every cover version ever sounds like it came straight from hell itself, didn't pass go and didn't collect $200.
It turns out 3D is better if you sit in the middle :)
Well anyhow, I loved Voyage of the Dawn Treader and I highly recommend it.
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Yesterday I went over to Bloodmyer's house so we could get started on some skirts we are making.
Before I got there though I swung by Eye Of the Fly, the charity art project where she works to take a look at their sewing machines that weren't working.
The following may be classified as pornography to the tailors who follow this blog:
Yes, that's right, it's a century old Singer sewing machine.
AND
I
FIXED
IT
!
I am a goddess among men!
Actually all that was wrong with it was that there was a huge (and I mean HUGE) knot of threads under the feed dogs, took me about 30 seconds to fix once I managed to get the plate off (it was a but stiff at one side).
Anyhow after that we went back to hers and got started on our skirts.
We managed to get the patterns made up quite quickly (it was pretty awesome seeing Bloodmee's look of "Pattern block WTF man?" turn into "Ooooh actualy this is kind of easy!"), cut and pinned our pieces and after Christmas we're hoping to get them finished and start on our next skirts :)
Yesterday I got my first ever Loli_valentines. I know who it was from (not telling though as they're supposed to be secret!), I wasn't expecting it but I was super happy when I scrolled down the page and found it :)
The photo she used isn't of me in Lolita, instead she went for a photo from the very first project I did at university, and as I've never talked about it before, I thought I'd explain it to you today.
In Freshers Week, we were put into groups of four so that we could all get to know eachother a little better and we were given a challenge.
The challenge was to make an outfit from recycled materials (we were allowed to spend £5 on new things, my group bought the parasol handle and a Puca notebook), and it had to fit into one of five themes (Geisha Geek, Space Odessa, and I don't remember the other three).
We were sponsored by The Southern Enquirer (who did an article which they put online here, unfortunately they didn't put the photographs online that they had in the paper). so we had to involve some of their newspapers somehow.
We were pretty inspired and set about makng something inspired by Takuya Angel, that had something of all of us in it and a whole issue of the Southern Reporter!
I spent five hours making tinfoil and Quality Street wrappers into Kanzashi, another girl made the bin bag Kimono, another made the newspaper and button bustle (RUFFLE BUTT!), and the final girl made the fabulous parasol ( she had a glue gun so it had to be her really!).
Even though it's not exactly wearable, I still love it, and it reminds me of the fun we all had in that first week. :)
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Have you ever made anything strange with a group of people?
The First one (above) is a purple feather collar, the new spider web net skirt (so new infact it doesn't have a name yet and isn't on the website), a black satin coutil underbust corset, and a pair of vintage lace cuffs (the shirt is my own).
Photo by David Armstrong
The second outfit is:
Black feather facinator, green net ruffle (which was amazingly comfortable by the way), green vintage ribbon cuffs and a green satin ruffle skirt (I love that skirt!).
It was a great night, I had a lot of fun and I got to see what some of the things that haven't made it to the website look like on a person, the only downside?
I WANT TO BUY EVERYTHING AND I CAN'T AFFORD TO!
Heh :D
I also had a fabulous cocktail that tasted like Turkish Delight in a glass, OM NOM NOM NOM!
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Day 18: A song that reminds you of a great night out
Forgive my absence for the past few days, I have been full of busy.
I have now however managed to finish the five fabrics I needed before I could screen-print my concrete.
(the actual casting itself has been moved back to the beginning of next term because of the weather).
The fabric at the top of the page stands the most chance of being the one that ends up being the design on the concrete, it is a layer of cotton plain weave, sewn (with a Singer Sewing machine from 1904 no less!) onto a piece of cotton jersey (which I was given for free because everybody thought it was hideous) and holes cut through, the print on it is a layer of Puff Binder with a copper foil print over the top.
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Here are the other four:
Those also use puff binder and foils on cotton plain weave, but three of them also use black flocking.
I'd really love some constructive crit on these if any of my readers are in the mood (remember that these aren't
Fashion fabrics, they're closer to art pieces).
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While I was in the print room on Friday I found one of my screens from first year waiting in the racks to have the images stripped off.
When I asked how it had managed to survive overt two years without being stripped I found out that it had been being used as a demonstration screen for open days, but that there was a shortage of screens now so it would have to go.
I'm a little sad that it lasted this long and now has to go, but at the same time I'm super proud that they picked my screen to show people how to print.
Also I can see how far I've come in those two years. This is made up from elements of that screen:
It was a mock Children's shirt front from my print project in first year (we did a little bit of everything in first year and got to choose at the end what we wanted to carry on with). I used way to much red ink, as you can see by how much definition I lost in the circles inside the cup, compared to how it looks on the screen and I can't for the life of me understand what possessed me to print the green background lines over the top of the cups and spoons!
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Day 17: A song that reminds you of a great holiday
If you're not into the Lady Gaga covers then skip to around 5 minutes in and give Last Words a listen :)
This week has been pretty back breaking for me, very monotonous, but hey sometimes print is, and at least I'm starting to get closer to the results I'm aiming for.
Monday- I was very frustrated to find that I wouldn't be allowed in the print room, and may not be for the rest of the week because my lectuerer had neglected to let the print room know we were supposed to be in there.
I had a pretty much wasted day.
Tuesday- I found we were allowed in the Print Room (thank goodness), so I spent all day printing.
As I said I started getting some really cool results but the screens get a bit heavy after a while.
Wednesday- Ditto, print all day (I also managed to get puff binder on my skirt which looks quite amusing now)
Thursday- I managed to flock my knee, oops! Developed quite a sore back, by this point!
Friday- Day off thank goodness, I really needed it. Actually I ended up asleep for half of it Oooops :/
Saterday- I spent most of the day sewing in the vain hope I'd manage to get home on friday *crosses fingers*
Sunday- I miss lazy Sundays! Been sewing all day again!
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Day 14: A song that reminds you of something funny
Reminds me of being on the train back from Whitby next to Grooving in Green (the band) and being totally unable to get Grooving in Green (the song) out of my head!
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, all of which feature inspiring images of people wearing the creations of 
