Shopping, searching stars and sleeping

Outfits from past four days

So this is a little summary of the past four days in America. Second day was basically driving day for us. We drive around the coast and stuff.

Though we also stopped by the Golden Gate bridge.

I took picture in front of it now that we were there. The bridge is pretty damn big and it was hard to fit it to photo. Thank gog dad had bought new objective to camera. I just can take pictures of many more things now and it makes "life" easier.

Well here's some things I have bought during these four days.

On the second day there was more driving but also some shopping. I found lovely denim dress for 10$ and awesome Hakuna Matat shirt for 15$. Just had to buy them. There's something in dresses. I just want more of them.

In the start of third day I bought Hetalia DVD box, which includes first and second season. It cost 27$. I was pretty surprised with that. In Finland I would probably find it only from Anime happenings and it would cost 50€ so I thought it was good deal. 

After that we head to Hollywood. Which was pretty awesome. It's kind of silly but I had to take pictures with the stars of my favorite actors, like Johnny Depp, Jennifer Aniston and Jackie Chan. And I admit it was pretty interesting to see who all had stars. Thought the guys that tried to get me to some star tour were little bit annoying.

I really don't want to tour around to look where the stars live. Not my thing. So I just smiled them politely and said no thanks.

At the Hollywood I stumped into two men who where dressed up as Jack Sparrow and Willy Wonka. Well what can I say, had to take picture with them. They were totally in character. I mean they were like really awesome cosplayers. 

In front of one movie theater there was build little Hobbit thing. There was throne there and I admittedly wanted to take picture in it. Also there were posters of the Hobbit and some fountain. Can't say I wasn't excited about it. Lately I have really been grown to be Hobbit fan. Mostly because of the awesome actors I guess.

From the Hollywood I also found that awesome Cry Baby shirt and Hobbit-poster. Got the poster for 10$. My dad bought it for me since he was so hungry and wanted to continue. Well I don't complain. The shirt was 27$ but I couldn't say no to Cry Baby.

So these are my today's findings. You probably noticed them at the one picture before. The dress was lovely and I don't have anything like that. So I thought It was good thing to be bought. Thought it was 25$ but it was worth of it. I bought the skirt because I fell in love in it. I mean it remind me of CL's style and I really love her style. Besides I have been dreaming of skirt like that. So it was easy decision, since it was cheap too: 10$. 

At evenings we have bee touring in car events, since my dad loves them. We have even three cars like this at home: Chevelle, Camaro and Corvette. I can walk around and watch this cars, really they are actually pretty cool. But when it's getting longer than hour and half I try to find something else to do. Well since dad had just birthday at Friday we thought with mom that we go to these events with him. It wasn't too bad. I even found my dream car. The car in the middle. It reminds me of Public enemies-movie and is pretty cool.

Until now the America has been pretty cool. I really liked the Hollywood. The dishes here are thought ridiculously big! How can people eat that much! I haven't even on here ate my whole dish. And don't let me get started with the breakfast. It's just full some sweet stuff and I really miss rye bread now.

Still now my inner clock is messed up. I go sleep at 8 o'clock and wake up at 5 or 6. It's weird to be so exhausted so early. 

Christmas eve is coming soon and I'm really interested how it will end up being here. 

I hope everyone is having some great Christmas time and enjoying from it with some family and friends!

Mari

So where am I?

I spent yesterday traveling on a plane. We left home at 4am, and drove to airport. First plane left 8 a'clock to London. There we had an hour time to change to plane which went to... America!

The plane had two floors! The was also some lying seats. We were just on the first floor and we had normal seats. Though we all had own "TV". I'm so glad we actually had those cause the flight took 10 hours. I had time to watch four movies, Despicable me 2, Lone ranger, Percy Jakcon and the sea of monsters, We are the Millers, also I had time to watch four episodes of Big Bang theory. 

I kind of hope that they have new movies on the flight back and that the Doctor Who episodes will work then. 

There was also possibility to listen music with that thing. I was surprised to find whole albums from SNSD and Infinity. I really enjoyed the flight. We got served juice and water like at least once in a hour and we got food two times.

It was really interesting to follow from the window how suddenly it was night and it was really dark. Everyone else slept on the flight but it was kind of hard for me since I slept on the flight from England. 

My mom bought me the Hobbit book as Christmas present. I'm glad that she allowed me to read it on the flight already cause there was some much time. I have read already 5 chapters and I really like the book!

My traveling outfit looked like this! I thought skirt would be more comfortable than a shorts. You can't really see it in the picture but I tried to something like simple elf-look And I really like it. I guess I will be doing that more to my hair no on.

We arrive to America and 2pm. There was long lines to passport checkup and it actually took as 2 hours to get there. At the passport checkup they also took our fingerprints and photos of us. I haven't seen anything like that in any other country I have visited so it was quite interesting.

When we finally got out at 5pm (after we had got our rent car) It was already pretty dark. We came to the hotel and I fell down to bed right away. My parents went to get some food while I slept. Then I woke up to eat and fall a sleep completely at 7pm. 

At the morning I woke up 3am. My inner time is mess right now, but I guess I will soon get used to it. Even thought I haven't seen anything else yet than airport, pit of road and hotel, everything seems so different than Finland.

Well I'll be telling more about the trip as it goes on! So let's hope everything goes well and I have lots of things to tell about!

Mari

DIY: Christmas cards

Since Christmas is on it's way, today I'm going to show you how I made Christmas cards for my friends this year. I know that making cards might seem little bit hard, but home made card always feels bit better than the ones that you can buy from shops. It shows that you care about the other person. Well don't worry, making these cards don't require special artistic skills. Really I'm pretty bad drawer... But let's see how I made the cards.

Alright so my goal was to make house shaped cards. Since I only had brown colored carton I decided to make gingerbread house cards. I started by making a stencil from paper. Since carton is thicker it would get annoying lines to it if I would just start fold it. So if your card needs some folds, make the stencil.

Second step is to cut correct sized pieces from the carton. Then you place the stencil on top of it and press with something that will make track to the carton. The point here is to make the folding easier. So the red lines in the photo show where you should make the tracks. 

So after the previous part you are able to fold it really easily and it doesn't have any unnecessary lines. 

Next I cut the curtain to the shape of house. You can do it with the help of stencil or without it. I did this with the help of stencil. I placed the stencil on top of the carton and marked the cutting parts and then shaped it.

Well now we have the house. But it looks empty right? Maybe it would be good to make some residents. 

Since I made five cards I needed five residents to the houses as well. And like I said already before I'm bad at drawing, I can only draw animals. So why not make some animals to cards? These ones were pretty simple to make. I made fox, bear, squirrel, penguin and cat. You can choose yourself what you want to put inside the card and do it then. This was my choice.

Then we only need finishing touches anymore.

I'm showing the squirrel card as example. I made little texts inside the card and also  speech bubble for the squirrel. This one went to my lovely cousin,

Only thing left to do is to decorate the outside of the card. I just decorated it with white pencil. It's like the white sugar frosting that gingerbread houses have. Also I added little text to in the middle of the card. This way the whole card is like tiny Christmas wishing story.

 I decorated all the five card in different ways since they went to different persons. I'm pretty happy by the way they ended up looking like. 

So this was my easy do it your self Christmas cards - instruction. Hope you will find this useful!

Mari

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

So today I saw The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. I can honestly say that... It wasn't waste of my money and time, although it was long movie. I liked really much actually!

Thanks to the lighting I look like freaking bug...

So because I don't want to spoil anyone... I'm not talking about the plot at all. I'm just going praise the amazing actors. 

At first, oh my god Martin. Seriously Martin Freeman did very good job, once again. My friend didn't quite understand me, when I said after the movie that Martin looked so adorable trough the whole movie. "But... He is old" she just said. Well can't blame her. She likes more of actors from Ireland and I love the British ones.

I was really happy to hear Benedict's voice. Shame we didn't see his face, but his voice is pretty much amazing too.

I was happy to see these both actually. It feels like it has been while since I have seen Orlando Bloom in any new movie. I have missed him. And he looks so very handsome with long blond hair maybe he should grown his hair in real life. 

Luke Evans was kind of new to me. But I loved him in his role. There was something really heart warming in him. So I would like to thank the great casting for choosing this man to Bard's role.

Evangeline Lilly, she was amazing. I have this habit of usually not liking that much of woman characters. I don't know why. No, I don't hate woman characters there are probably more good than bad ones. But in roles like this I usually feel little bit irritated by them. Well it didn't happen this time. Who knows maybe I have grown or something... But this woman did amazing job.

After seeing the movie I can't help but ship Evangeline's character Tauriel with Aidan Turner's character Kili. Yes please could they get married in the end or something. I would like that. Their chemistry was great at the film. It was so adorable.

Gandalf is so cool. Deal with it. Great work really from Ian McKellen! I hope I will be able to act still too when I'm over 70.

So I don't know what to say. Every actor did great job, they were just perfect for their roles. I liked this movie more than the first one. I feel like the first one was just introducing as for this movie trilogy and it was just start of it. Well it is that. Since these movies are based on one book it's understandably. 

If you liked the first one, you are going to love this. It was more funnier, there was more action and of course more romance. 

Don't worry If you don't belong to the "lord of the ring's fandom". I can honestly say I have never watched lord of the ring  movies, not even one of them. When I was younger I found them pretty boring so I never watched them. Now I'm starting to feel that maybe I should watch them.

Hobbit might give little bit more for the one's that have seen the lord of ring movies, but it really gives so much too for a person who hasn't seem them. 

One thing I would like to criticize is that the movie is so long.. Maybe little bit too long. It feels little bit silly that they have maid three movies of one book. Well I don't complain since the movies are so well made and have such great actors, that it's actually a pleasure to watch the.

In the half way of movie I had ate all of my popcorn's already, and I thought that is this movie still going to continue long? Well it did. The movie is just there and there that it's not too long. If it would be like even 15 minutes longer it would be too much. 

I can warmly recommend this to people! If you haven't seen it, go watch when you get the chance. 3D has come long way since Avatar, and it was great thing to watch.

Now off to bed, since I have maths test tomorrow.

Mari

Independence day

Today we are celebrating independence day in Finland! I spent morning baking some things to eat for. I made those Christmas cakes and fried some Karjala's pies, which are traditional Finnish food. 

We brought my grandparents to visit our apartment for the first time, and went to watch some fireworks too.

My today's outfit was this! Black dress and a hat. I really didn't need the sunglasses when the day got further. It get's dark pretty early here already.

I guess my outfit was something like mix of CL'd and Dara's outfits in Missing you MV. Dress was more like Dara's outfit and the hand and sunglasses more like CL's. Well I must say I really love the outfits in Missing you. It would be amazing to get clothes that 2NE1 wore in that MV.

My main reason for write a post today was that I get to share these awesome firework pictures to you. Hope you enjoy them and have great Friday! 

I will go and enjoy rest of this independence day.

Mari

Turku day

The top photo was so dark and I tried to brighten it up quickly. That'swhymessy...

I had school trip to Turku. I wen't there with two history curses's students. We left 7.15 from school and were back at 5.45 probably. I wore blue dress with black cardigan and black hat.

I got idea to this outfit from Dara's Missing you MV and live outfits and Risako Sugaya's outfit in Motto zutto isshoni itakatta MV outfit. Yeah, I don't have as pretty dresses or as big hat, but hey I said I was inspired by these outfits. I was actually pretty satisfied with my outfit yesterday. But I really wish I could find some more pretty dresses. 

So I spent day in Turku, which is at the coast of South-Finland. It wasn't nearly  as cold as at middle of Finland. But still the sea air kind of felt cold. 

First we visited at Turku's cathedral. Our teacher told us some things about how the history can be seen in this church and other things like that. The church is actually pretty big. I was surprised. It's biggest church I have visited in Finland. Of course this church is little when it's compared to Notre dame, which is the biggest church I have ever visited.

Inside the church was really pretty, and especially I liked the sealing.

After that we visited Aboa Vetus & Ars Nova museum. It's theater of history and contemporary art. We only visited the history part. There were some ruins that people had dig up from ground. They were building up exhibition so there wasn't that much to see at the moment. But it was still quite nice.

After the museum we had hour and 20 minutes free time. We went to eat with my friend to a Chinese restaurant. Then we spent time by looking place to buy ice cream. Luckily we found it before we run out of time and we didn't miss our buss. 

Lastly we visited Turku's castle. Last time I visited there I was probabyl seven years old. It was really nice. I think it was really interesting and exciting to visit here after such a long time. We got little tour around the castle. Well we didn't have enough time to go around the whole castle. But we looked some rooms that were furnished as 1500-1600 years style.

The day was pretty nice. I bought these things to my  family as souvenirs. 

I gave the Fix a bad haircut for my bold dad...

They are little boxes that included chewing gum. The boxes were pretty cool and funny so that's why I bought them. They include fresh mint, fruit and also cinnamon chewing gum. The cinnamon was pretty odd taste for a chewing gum. 

The end of week has been pretty easy. The Turku trip was nice off day from school. Although I was exhausted when I got home. Today we had short day at school and Finland's independence day is tomorrow, and we have the whole day actually free.

I hope everyone will have fun this coming Friday!

Mari

Slippery slippery... Falling down

Last couple days have been pretty cold, and the roads are getting slippery. Today it was snowing pretty hard, and I decided to stay at the apartment and not to leave home. I think the train would have never came if I would tried to get home.

Let's go little bit backwards in the time. On Friday when I came home the shirt above was waiting me at the apartment. I called mom and she said she had bought it for me. Doesn't it look cute? I really liked the way it looks on me. I decided to wore it while I went to visit my friend. We had sleepover! It was nice. 

We went ti buy some candy and crisps from next door shop and then we watched Harry Potter and the Half blood prince. It has been a while since I last time saw that movie so it was really nice. 

We slept probably to 10 and stayed in the bed until 12 watching some TV. Also we watched Anastasi movie. I was really happy! It was actually my first time seeing the movie. I have wanted to watch ever since I was little kid, but I haven't got a chance to do it. 

The movie was really beautiful. The songs war so beautiful, everything was. It made me wanting to add Anastasi to my cosplay list... And that list is starting to look pretty long. I should start maybe doing some of those ideas someday soon.

Now I'm going to watch Hobbit! I tell you are secret. This is the first time I'm seeing it. I know I know! I have been wanting to see this for a long. But something has always just come up and I just haven't watched it. I'm really looking forward to this, since Martin Freeman is in the movie and he is just great actor.

Well that's all for today! I hope everyone is having some awesome weekend!

Mari

DIY: Decorating sweater

So this is what wore today. Red sweater with denim shorts. Actually yesterday I was decorating this sweater. Can you guess what I did? 

Yeah I added the collar to this sweater!

I got inspiration of this CutiePieMarzia's video. She shows pretty awesome ways to decorate old sweaters. So I got the inspiration here, but still did something differently.

I found the cute lace when I searched trough my decorating bags. I had saved this long time ago and now was the time to use it. I though it was perfect to this. And I was lucky to find this. For some reason I didn't find anything like this in the local fabric stores...

I decided to this little bit differently than Marzia... Instead of sewing I took glue tape. I'm not sure what to call that in English. Anyways you can see it in the top photo. It's this thin net like thing, which melts when you iron it. First I wanted to make the border nice and clean. So I fold it and but that glue tape in the middle. I ironed it and tada~. It ended up looking pretty good.

Then I took the sweater and little by little ironed the glue tape attached sweater and collar together. I was happy how it looks now! No sewing marks.This little decorating made the sweater look much cuter.

Today when I came from school I made some gingerbread's. I used the new Moomin cookie cutters. The ginderbread's looked really good. But something was missing...

So I decorated them! I'm actually pretty bad at decorating any cookies, cupcakes or cakes. But these ended up looking okay.Besides they taste really good. I already ate 5 little ones!

Well that's all for today! I hope you enjoyed this entry and the little tip how to decorate sweater! 

Mari