Y Salon 30th Birthday Party

Last Tuesday was Y Salon in Eldon Garden, Newcastle's 30th Birthday Party.

Having managed to get us tickets to the event as soon as I saw it mentioned, Queenie, Laura and I turned up as the token glamorous Goths.

The night began with a complementary cocktail each (it was kind of like a Mojito, but with a twist, quite 70's infact), and miniature cupcakes (Queenie and Laura got mine).

After what seemed like an awfully long time (I'd finished my drink, and I'm a student, we drink slooooooow), Y Salon's Head Stylist and two models took to the catwalk (my apologies for having no photographs of the actual show, I sent an email in advance asking if I could take photos at the event and was told no as they had their own in house photographers, however they don't seem to have put those photos up yet anywhere and plenty of other people took photos anyway, there are some really awesome photos in Rebel Angel's post here)

The stylist demonstrated some of this season's big looks in hair (and by "big looks" I mean that BIG HAIR is REALLY in, good news for those of us who like a bit of Hime poof now and then).

A lot of the looks involved curling, and as I'm not a fan of using heat I plan on adapting some of these looks for pin curls.

Next came a small catwalk showing of currently on trend hairstyles (mostly big, though there was a very pretty variagted bob in there too), followed by a very Avant Garde section based on mermaids.

I really enjoyed the mermaids part.

Next came a small selection of nibbles (we never got any of the savoury things, but we got some beautiful chocolates and strawberries), and then came the goodies bags.

Inside my goodie bag was, a magazine (photos above)

A GHD make up bag (I'm not awfully fond of pink so I might save this for a give away), a bottle of vitamin water,

A loreal mascara, some trial size versions of heat styling products,

A GHD sectioning clip

Some discount vouchers.

I really enjoyed the whole thing, pretty awesome and I'm totally on the look out for similar sorts of events in the future :D

***

Day 6: 5 Foods

Lentil Daal

Falafel

Hummus

Stuffed vine leaves

Bengal potatoes

All Tied Up: A Talk in Corsetry

Corsets are something I really love. I enjoy the feeling of actually being supported (I don't really get this from bras, perhaps I just haven't found a good enough one yet), I enjoy the way they help you control your posture and most of all I like how they look, so when I found out that as part of Newcastle Fashion Week there would be a talk on corsetry I jumped at the chance to go.

When Queenie, Laura and I went to book tickets, we discovered that there were still a lot of spare places so Queenie invited along some of her customers and corset making friends, so there was quite a large group of people turned up on the day decked out in our corsets!

I wore my favourite underbust, the red silk one with the skull cameo.

 The talk was interesting, but not massively well researched , Queenie and Laura both corrected the speaker on points.

First was that she tried to say that in the past in order to tighten the corset women had their husbands push a knee into their back.

Although caricatures exist of this, it isn't actually true as this would have caused them to dislocate their backs.

The second was that she said Victorian women were expected to have waists the same size or smaller than their ages.

This is not true either as the average waist size for a Victorian woman was the same as it is now.

I did get to meet some really cool people that travelled for the talk though.

If you're into corsets you should defiantly have a look at Bad Kitty Corsets (she did one based on Neil Gaiman's "Snow, Glass, Apples" UNF!), Sparklewren and of course Forever In Black

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Day 5: 6 Places you want to go

Versailles

Bran Castle

Return to Tallinn

Tokyo

The Black Forest

The Pyramids at Giza

Scott Henshall Talk

(photograph via the BBC)

On the Tuesday of Newcastle Fashion Week there was a talk entitled "How not to do Fashion" with Scott Henshall.

Scott Henshall is probably most noted for designing Samantha Mumba's diamond encrusted dress for the première of Spiderman 2.

Basically the talk was about his career, how he started out at Northumbria University, became the youngest person EVER to exhibit at London Fashion week, got his collection into Liberty's and then subsequently had to remove it again after people tried to wash his designs and the prints washed off and because Wedgewood were unammused about him using their buttons that cost more to make than what he was selling them for.

Then onto his temporarily rise, then fall when he managed to accidently sell his company (always read the fine print),  the point where he could only really design for Z-listers, that awful, awful moment when he decided it would be a good idea to appear on "I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here", his slow rise back to where his is now and the point when he was eventually able to buy back his company (after selling his house).
I found the talk really interesting and inspiring, I'm glad I went.
I think my favourite part of the whole thing was when he said that in the world of Fashion you need to stand out and not be a clone of every other designer around you, this has always been the way I have though, and this is what caused problems for me at Heriot Watt, and has ultimately lead to me deciding that I'm not going back in September.
I felt stifled and un-creative there as I was being pushed into making "safe" designs instead of exploring the millions of possibilities out there.
If my bussinus doesn't work out I think I'll probably try and apply to do Fashion at Northumbria instead.

***

Day 4: 7 Wants


To finally be happy, I keep thinking I am then something always comes along and ruins it. I 
For my latest venture to work out.
Pony Boots
Enough money to live comfortably
To never have to put up with another street harasser ever again.
To not have people tell me I'm making up my sexuality or gender identity for attention (I'm not, if I wanted attention I'd pick something with less of a negative stigma duh)
 To be free.

Newcastle Fashion Week

Between 14th and 21st May was Newcastle's very first Fashion Week.

The week featured talks from the likes of Scott Henshall and Wayne Hemmingway, several creative workshops and displays of locally made fashion.

The events I attended, I actually found pretty poorly attended, which was a shame as I really enjoyed said events, but hopefully in future years they will be able to advertise and promote their events a little better.

I had originally intended to go to the Wayne Hemmingway talk with Queenie,  but we couldn't find the venue and ended up missing it, however we went and signed up for tickets for a corset talk that took place on the Friday instead.

It turned out that not many people had booked tickets for the corset talk yet (mostly I guess down to poor advertising), so Queenie (being the corset maker extrodinare behind Forever in black block booked a bunch of tickets and invited some of her customers and other corset makers she knows.

We did make it to the Scott Henshall talk which was amazing, but I will talk about that tomorrow.

All in all I really enjoyed the first Newcastle Fashion Week, and I really hope there will be another next year :)

***

Day 3: 8 Fears

Being alone again

Heights

Failing

Loosing my teeth

Not having the opertunities I need to succeed

stress

Being the person I once was again

I fear having a stroke and not being able to tell people what I want, just being a mind trapped in a functionless body.

It feels like a fabulous weight has been lifted from my shoulders!

Great news everybody! No its not that you read that in the Professor from Futerama's voice, it's that today I AM FEELING GOOD!

Why am I feeling good?

Well this morning I went along to a meeting with someone from The Prince's Trust to see if my business idea (which I STILL can't really tell you about, but new we're getting closer to the big reveal *squee!*), is a good idea and if I could get onto their course and possibly eventually get funding to start up.

Well *almighty drum roll* I got a place on the course!

So from 14th to 17th of June I shall be learning how to get what I need to start up my business and the joy of filling tax returns!

I'm feeling really happy about this now because what I want to happen, is happening!

I'm still having the issue with my friend being weird with me, but I've decided I'm going to try not to let it get to me to much, I am still sad about the whole thing BUT I've done all I can, I have tried, tried and tried again to find out what is up and I waited, waited and waited for a little help with how I was feeling and never got either of those things, so I don't feel like there is a point in beating myself up over it, especially when I have so many other friends who are there for me when I really, really need them.

My mam's dog saw a vet last week and it was confirmed that her cancer is inopperable, however she isn't in any pain at the moment so my mam decided to keep her on anti-inflammatory meds for now so we can all have our chance to say our goodbyes and get our closure, and when it starts looking like she is starting to feel pain then he's going to be put to sleep. The vet reckons we have a good few more months of her in our lives.

I'm still pretty upset that she's going, but at least this way we get to say goodbye and it's not sudden, we have time to prepare.

Since I'm feeling better I'm hopefully going to get back into the rhythm of posting every day, I have so much to talk about from the last few weeks THAT I'M SURE YOU'LL LOVE!

• Newcastle Fashion Week
• The Scott Henshall Talk (if you don't know the name, he's the designer who designed Samantha Mumba's fabulous diamond spider web dress for the Spiderman 2 premier )
• The Corset Talk
• Meeting some fabulous corset makers (including one lady who made a corset inspired by my FAVOURITE Neil Gaiman story of all time "Snow, Glass, Apples"
• The Y Salon 30th Birthday Party - Avant Garde hair, delicious chocolates and an awesome bag full of freebies!

  

Crochet experiments!

Mostly a picture post of some of the bits I've made since deciding I wanted to try learning crochet last week.

Going to try and write a proper entry tomorrow.

I am, I feel

I love blogging, I love writing this blog, and I really don't want it to die.

I have some things going on my life right now that are getting me down and every time I try and blog I can't think of anything nice to talk about because it feels like there's a great big shadow hanging over me.

When I was 6 or maybe 7 two things happened, my Granda died and my mam got a dog, she called her Tinker.

It's been 15 years and now Tinker is pretty old, she started having problems with her teeth about a year ago, and recently lumps have appeared in her mouth and on her side, mam took her to the vet and they said they could operate on her mouth but it would cost £600.

My mam found the money somehow, and she took her for an x-ray the other day.

They found more problems and are performing a bunch of tests.

I'm hoping for the best, but things do not look good for my four legged sister.

At the same time I find myself deeply hurt by someone who I trusted, so I'm very hurt right now.

I will still update this blog, but if there are huge gaps between posts, I am really sorry.

Newcastle Fashion Week is next week, and I'm going to some events so hopefully I will find the inspiration to post something about it.

Floorshow 2

Last Sunday was Floorshow 2, a day of Goth, Goth, Gothidy Goth music in Newcastle.

I spent a lot of the day working band merch and helping Queenie out on her Forever in Black stall.

I still managed to pop out and catch a little bit of each band's set.

First up were Action Directe. Action Directe are a political Punk band from Leeds, their music isn't to everybody's taste, but I like them. I've seen them four times now and each time they've had a different line up!

Next came The Last Cry, who are a little more Goth. They did AMAZINGLY on merch, people liked them so much :D

Obligatory photo of Kev and Feral DJing.

Then came The Scary Bitches, who were FANTASTIC!

(Please excuse Johno photobombing the background there lol)

Deathboy were the only band of the day whose music I didn't like.

Then came Luxury Stranger, it was the first time I'd seen them with the new line up (last time I saw them was in York last year when one of their previous line up's slightly odd fan-girls spilled red wine all over me and attempted to run away with Kev), I liked them last time I saw them, I liked them even more this time :D

Just had to get a picture of Chris's fabulous sparkle jacket :D

Dyonisis were fabulous as always :)

Sheep on Drugs headlined, I wasn't really expecting much, but I ended up really enjoying them :D

Obligatory back stage photo.

***

Day 2: 9 Loves

* Kev

* Stirfry Cat

* My real friends

* The parts of my family that I like

* Delicious food

* Beautiful clothes

* Myself

* Shoes!

* Fire

Bonnet is FINISHED! Aaaaaaaaand fabric and Royal Wedding Post!

My bonnet is finished! :D

There are a few things on it that went wrong, that hopefully won't happen next time, but this was my first go and I'm pretty damn happy with it :D

***

Last Friday was a pretty big day for the UK, it was the Royal Wedding of Prince William to Kate Middleton.

We weren't really as interested as most of the rest of the country so my Mam and I went fabric shopping!

I'm planning on making a few bags and this will be good to practice with.

Strawberries!

Blue/Black Taffeta that I plan on using to make a "Haunted Bride" dress :D

I also popped into the Fish and Chip shop (how Brit do I want to be?) and spotted this couple lurking in the corner:

***

Day 1: 10 Secrets

Well, they won't really be secrets any more if I tell you

Oh go on then...

* I post on 4chan sometimes. Every now and then there's a thread that isn't a hate thread, and is something I'm interested in. I dislike anonymous posting though and figured I''d be a hypocrite to do so, so I use a trip.

* I mostly post on /cgl/, /x/ and /soc/

* When I met my boyfriend I was just looking for someone to keep me entertained over the summer until I went back to uni...He seemed interesting.

* That was two years ago.

* I now have that stupid "I didn't know I was looking for love until I found you" song stuck in my head...CHEESE!

* My mother used to say I liked nothing better than a good argument...That's half true I suppose. I love good debate (if every one does it, is it then a mass debate? ;) ), but I'm not really fond of arguing. There's a difference between those, trust me.

* My grandmother used to say that she didn't believe any couples who say they don't argue. It's been two years and I'm still waiting to have an argument with Kev.

* Sometimes I see dead people.

* I hear them more than I see them though.

* I can't think of ten secrets.

Adventures in Millinery!

Yesterday I spent the day with Queenie and Tia hat making!

I started out making this fasinator with a little help and instruction from Queenie :)

Excuse my derp face.

It ended up Steampunkish by total accident, but I'm pretty happy with that :)

Next came the bonnet. I'm not quite finished it yet (NEEDS MOAR FLOWAZ!!!), but I'm really proud of it :D

We also did a little bit of a photo shoot with the JSK I made in the nature reserve near where Queenie lives.

I have two of these photos entered into Facebook competitions at the moment, and I'd love it if some of you guys would vote for me (I'm not going to spam you with it or demand your votes, but if you like the pictures I'd really love it if you clicked through and voted for me :) )

Lolitadesu's Spring Contest

Doll Delight's Contest

***

New Meme time!

10 Day challenge (http://ceejayc.tumblr.com/post/4526880009)

Day 1: 10 Secrets

Day 2: 9 Loves

Day 3: 8 Fears

Day 4: 7 Wants

Day 5: 6 Places you want to go

Day 6: 5 Foods

Day 7: 4 books

Day 8: 3 films

Day 9: 2 songs

Day 10: 1 picture of yourself