Author: auralynne

Dunno if I’ve said this before, but I. ABSOLUTELY. LOVE. what I do for a living. Each time photoshoot day rolls around, I’m reminded of this fact. As I’ve mentioned before, our photo taking method is pretty ghetto – we dress to the nines in my designs, go someplace pretty, and play pass the camera!

These pics are from a late October shoot.  I wanted to take advantage of both our Indian summer, and the fall colors, and get some good shots of a few new looks.  Following are a few of my favorites:

Jewelry: Vixen’s Delight
Hat: Mad Rose Hattery

We discovered pink and orange don’t mix very well – but luckily there was still plenty of green to pose Andrea  against.  The fiery tones of the fall leaves were perfect for Miranda’s olive green gown, however:

Jewelry: Vixen’s Delight
Hat: Mad Rose Hattery

Miranda and Andrea were both wearing a new jacket designed to complement my “Vintage Diva” bustle skirt.  I’d tried pairing the jacket from my “Gothic Temptation” gown with the bustle skirt, and it didn’t work very well – poofy bows on the sides of the hips made the jacket poof weirdly.  I re-cut the jacket pattern to be pointed in front with a fishtail back design, and the new design works perfectly with the skirt’s flirty bows.

In the following pictures I’m wearing an existing design in a new color.  It’s been my Masquerade ball gown this season (turns out there are a ton of fun dress-up and cosplay events in my area).  I wore it first at Rufflecon, and planned to also wear it at the Witches Masquerade Ball later that month.  Then the night before the ball, a picture popped into my head of the cutest little witch hat.  Next thought was “Can I make it?” closely followed by “Can I make it in only a few hours??”  Turned out the answer to both questions was an emphatic “yes!”  I plan to offer hats like that in my shop eventually – after perfecting my process so that the completed hat is more firm, less squishy.  I’ll continue to have most of my designs accompanied by the creations of Mad Rose Hattery – but sewn hats is something she doesn’t plan to offer – and occasionally the perfect matching hat for a gown is a hat sewn from the gown fabric.

Great pics, and a great time!  Yay for pretty public locations and yay for warm fall days.

Let it be known to everyone reading this post that my sister…

Is a dork.

Lol we usually wind up with a few pictures like this when we take photo shoots.This was the initial result of me telling her “ooo hold onto the gate and look playful!”

Several poses later, and I’m shaking my head and saying “No, that looks constipated.  Playful, Andrea, playful!”

To which she replies, “Okay, constipated.  I can do constipated!  How is this?”

It turns out she is better suited to vixen-ly and elegant lady poses, like these:

Gown by me, it’s my “Gothic Temptation” Victorian bridal ensemble.  The jewelry is my sister’s Faery Rose necklace set.  And the hat is also from another “sister” shop – the Plum Flutterby Teardrop hat.

And finally, here’s my absolute favorite shot from the day.  I took two of it – one zoomed in and one zoomed way out because aaaaaah the pretty the pretty!

Have you ever had one of those days that just won’t go right?

We had one of those recently.  I had just finished with a couple of tea gowns, and we had one non-rainy morning that would work in which to take pictures.  We decided to make our first trip for the year out to Eolia Mansion, a local historical mansion turned park that is probably one of the prettiest places in Connecticut.

You probably can’t guess this by looking at our pictures, but they are all self made, completely not professional!  We have a ghetto routine we follow on photo days, generally getting dolled up at home and piling in the car with baby, and each of us takes pictures of the other, while baby stays mostly entertained with toys and happy magic baby juice (adult translation: apple juice.)

There were minor snags in the morning causing us to be late getting ready, but the first major snag came when I realized the location of my stroller – which would be in the trunk of my husband’s car, in the parking lot of the place he works, about 40 minutes away, in the exact opposite direction of Eolia mansion.

Our best option was to stop at Walmart along the way.  Woot for Walmart shopping in full Gothic Victorian costuming.

We were nearly ready to go, and I went to put baby in the car seat, and there was no car seat.  It was also in my husband’s car, about 40 minutes away, in the exact opposite direction of Eolia mansion.

There was an old car seat in the basement, which needed to be cleaned before we could use it.  Woot for working with bleach, laundry detergent, and soft scrub in full Gothic Victorian costuming… just kidding!  Two clothing changes, one load of laundry, and a few minutes of scrubbing later, we’re ready to go again!

I won’t go into the hairy eyeballs we got all thru Walmart, and I haven’t yet checked PeopleofWalmart.com for our photos, but we made it to the park.  As always it was an utterly gorgeous place, with the mansion overlooking fields of swaying wildflowers, everything awake and alive for the warmest day of spring.

We got the brand new stroller out of the trunk.  It was very theft proof.  VERY theft proof.  And very unpack-proof unless you happen to keep a tool kit in the back of your car.  We didn’t have a tool kit.  We didn’t even have a pair of scissors.  And I do believe there was a zip-tie on that thing everywhere a zip-tie could possibly be placed.

After 12 minutes of straining, whining, and moaning, I discovered the secret of life.  Or at least the secret of opening zip-ties with only a safety pin.  The secret: insert the pointed part of the safety pin into the zip tie from the inside out.  The point is to get the safety pin wire between that little flap and the ridged edge of the zip tie, so that you can pull it out.  It could also probably be done with a paper clip in a pinch.

By this time tiny baby was most definitely out of patience.  We broke out the happy magic baby juice, and got the last finishing touches of our costumes (hats, jackets, gloves and such) in place for the photos.

The best part is, you would never know about our strained patience from viewing the actual photos.  🙂  I’m quite pleased with how well they turned out!  The first few I’m sharing in this post are me.

“Welcome to my estate, please come inside,”

(Heh… I wish!)

Such a pretty, pretty place!  Harkness (the name of the state park containing Eolia mansion) always takes my imagination right to elegant gilded times, and being there IN COSTUME feels so awesomely epic.  I <3 photo shoots.  🙂

Credits:

Gown by auralynne

Jewelry by Vixen’s Delight

Hat by Mad Rose Hattery

The clothing pieces I’m wearing are available sold as a full set – it’s called “Gothic Temptation” and it’s posted for sale here.   I also sell most of the items separately as parts of my “La Rose Gothique” and “Sweet Temptation” clothing lines.

And finally, here’s a pic of our long suffering tiny baby.  He offered up a slight smile because, well, there was a camera pointed at him and smiling at cameras is what we do.  One day I’ll post some pics of him when he’s in a good mood, he’s usually quite the ham.  😀

I’ve spent the last few days with my nose glued to my monitor, performing a much-needed update to my website.  I’m now responsive – meaning my website should work on most mobile devices and tablets!

I know a bit of internet coding – and now that geekdom is cool, it’s my claim to geekdom!  Lol…  I’m self-taught from back in the day when html was just html.  Nowadays it’s gotten so complex – it’s different KINDS of html, and you should let the browser know which you are using so it doesn’t get confused.

Which causes me to scratch my head and say wait, which kind am I using?

But I think I’ve succeeded – mostly!  You can actually see what I did in this browser window.  If you resize it to narrower the look will totally change.  I had finished mostly with the layout last night, and was totally stoked and sharing my dorky stoked-ness with my husband.

I show him the full layout, which looks like this on the homepage:

Then I drag the window in, resizing it so that the mobile layout will engage, and it pops into place like this:

And since the awesome layout poppage totally deserves a sound effect, I say “Boing!”

And I can’t resist dragging the window out and in several times, and say “Boing!” each time the layout changes from mobile to normal and back again.

My husband gives me a nonplussed look and says, “Wow, you are a dork.”

And I say, “Nuh-uh, I am the girl who makes the website that goes…”

April is that great time of the year when it starts getting warm again – and while it’s warmer than March, and most awesomely warmer than February…

It’s still way too frigging cold for a photo shoot!

I had new blue gown, however, and Andrea was a trooper!

The gown is called “Sweet Temptation”, and it’s a 4 piece mix and matchable set.  The jewelry is by Vixen’s Delight, and the hat is a custom creation – a collaboration between myself and  Mad Rose Hattery.

This post has been a long time coming. I apologize for my long silence, but it’s been hard to come up with the gumption to make this announcement, especially since so many of you have been with me for so long that you feel more like friends than customers. The short of it is, I’m shifting the focus of my business away from belly dance costumes.

You guys don’t know this, but for a long time, I’ve felt like I’m floundering every time I make a new pretty thing. The issue is, I’m not dancing anymore. I used to call myself a “living room dancer” because I would at least practice, but kids, life, and waning interests have made it so that I can’t even say that anymore.

Because I’m not dancing, I wonder if the things I make are still even on target for what dancers will like. And because I’m not dancing, I’ve lost that private, personal motivation that comes from designing and making pretties that I get to prance around in eventually. And finally, because I’m not dancing, and I’m a rather obsessive personality, not having something creative in my life to obsess over has also given me a floundering feeling.

In February, on a whim, I went to a local gaming convention. Our family, and our entire group of friends are major geeks, so I knew it would be a fun outing. What I didn’t know, is that our local big “retrofuturistic” gaming convention (Templecon in Warwick, RI) is also the biggest steampunk event around.

A fact about me: I’m a Victorian era obsessed nut. I’ve never gotten into steampunk though, because the cogs and gears and stuff just aren’t me. Because I’m a Victorian era obsessed nut, I had several gorgeous gowns prior to the convention, this one for example:

Yes, dork-girl made it for herself because she dreamed it and WANTED it even though she had no clue where or if she’d ever wear it. There was a “Neo-Victorian High Tea” at the convention. I saw it and realized, holy crap, I get to wear my teal gown somewhere.

Templecon shocked me, because apparently I’m not the only Neo-Victorian nut that isn’t into cogs and gears. The event was full of gorgeously dressed women, and I’d say at least half of them were more taffeta-lace-confection than clockwork. My teal gown fit right in at the high tea.

I’d already started shifting focus a bit before the event. I wasn’t sure what the new focus would be, but these two gowns aren’t really belly dance and they were debuted in my shop already:

The steampunk convention cemented it in my head that there IS a market for the new things I want to make, and my dream of creating gorgeous gowns, and even getting to prance around in some of them myself on occasion, is totally feasible! I’m uber excited, and I’ve been having way too much fun playing with new shiny non-stretch fabrics in between re-stocking my shop of its belly dance things.

I’m not going exclusively Neo-Victorian/Steampunk. There will still be belly dance items, for as long as you guys keep loving on them. I also have a lot of ideas for crossover items. My belladonna skirt is a perfect example. When worn with flared garter leggings and cut to just brush the floor in the back, it makes an AMAZING belly dance skirt. When worn with a corset, thigh highs and boots, it’s Neo-Victorian all the way.

So that I can focus on my sewn items, my sister is coming on board to first help with my jewelry creations, and eventually take them over. I’ll post more about her later, but you’ll LOVE working with her. Those of you who have been my customers a while know that I am a nit picky perfectionist, which is bad for my sanity, but great for my pretties. My sister is actually more of a perfectionist than I am. I have to keep reminding her that customers will not be scrutinizing her product under a spot light with 20/40 vision, complaining about something not being perfectly aligned, or a small smudge on a bead!

To everyone who’s been with me so far in my lace filled journey, thank you so much, and I hope to continue to create things that delight you. I’ll close this off with a teaser – here is a sketch of some of the gown designs I hope to craft and debut this year (you might recognize the center top as the blue gown my sister is modeling in my recent facebook post):

We took advantage of what will probably be the last good day of the year to head to the beach and get some UBER pics of my pirate jewelry collection – “Dead Men Tell No Tales”.

While there, we made several discoveries:

1: The beach is very windy. We get there, she’s all dolled up with pirate curls and feathers in her hat, and the wind goes WHOOSH, and we wonder if the beach was such a great idea for these pics… But the curls held, and even the fascinator stayed firmly attached to the bow on the hat. Yay for sturdy metal alligator clips with teeth!

2: Waves can come very quickly at rising tide. One sec she’s standing there striking an awesome pose, a safe 15 feet from the edge of the water, and the next, both of us are scrambling for dry ground amidst gales of laughter.

3: High heeled velvet boots were probably not really part of any practical pirate’s attire. Boots + shifting sand = absolutely no center of gravity or balance!

Then this wasn’t really a discovery, just a minor but amusing adventure with some passers by: “Okay, ladies, we don’t know what you are selling, but whatever it is, we want some!!”

Pics by me, Model is my sister.  The jewelry is available in her shop – Vixen’s Delight.

The skirt (and some similar cool pirate-y costuming) is available in my own shop on etsy.

And for hats, please visit our good friend’s shop – Mad Rose Hattery.