Petticoat Parade

I love fifties style and love skirts with fullness and petticoats under. A few years ago I bought a lovely big petticoat from Doris Design, but it wasn't good under my dresses. It was too big and too short, but it sold immediately in my Etsy butik. :)

Now I again have a fine little collection of petticoats, suitable for all my dresses and every occasion - even for work! Yes, I've become brave and use them at work. I suppose they all think I'm a crazy old lady anyway, so what the hell. ;) Let me present my small collection, sorted from how much fullness they give.

Here is the first one that gives the least fullness:

I bought it at a flea market for about 1.5 dollars, the lady selling it had sewn it herself. It gives almost no fullness, so it is mostly used for fun, but it is great layering over another skirt.

The second is from the fifties and found at Etsy, it gives a little more fullness due to the soft frills:

It is also good layering over for example the third skirt below.

The third skirt is my absolute favourite, because it becomes ALL my dresses and is super comfy to wear although it is a bit stiff. It gives perfect fullness, it just holds the dress out a bit, and is not huge like dancing skirts. It is also from the fifties and found at Etsy:

I have shortened it a bit at the waist.

The fourth is almost like a dancing skirt, but it still looks lovely under my dresses when I'm in the mood for more fullness:

I found it at DodoTrading (Etsy), a British shop. And only cost about 25 dollars! It is super nice, a little stiff, but has an inner-skirt which makes it comfortable and doesn't ruin your stockings. I highly recommend it. They carry it in several different colours. I chose Ivory since I thought it was a good all round colour. I'm not that fond of coloured petticoats.

But petticoats also takes up space when they're just hanging on a hanger. So when DH renovated our office, where our closet is, he took care I had a space for them. Here they hang perfectly besides my ironing board and makes me happy every time I open the closet door:

Monroe Monday

Summer Nails

Here are the nails I have remembered to take photos of during the summer.

I love Pinterest and saw this pink french manicure, which I had to copy:

Both polishes are old, but I'm sure it is possible to find some alike them. The baby pink is from Misa and the neon pink is from Depend.

Blue holographic kisses:

The light blue holo polish is from Makeup Store named Siw, and the blue kisses are a Chinese stamping polish.

Here I have made some nails with ordinary tape:

The red one is OPI's The Spy Who Loved Me, the  orange is a cheap La Femme and the green one is from my US trip. I was going insane by how ordinary tape broke every time I tried to remove it. I resqued this mani using tweezers a lot of patience.

This mani is made with Essie Navigate Her (one of my favourite greens) and an antique L'Oreal named Algae, great name, because that's really what it looks like. At my ring finger I have OPI's green glitter from the Muppet collection:

And the tape is professional striping tape which DH had got from the car painter at his work. I think he was tired of all my cursing over how awful and annoying ordinary tape is. It is a dream to work with! So if you know a car painter, do bake him a cake and ask for some. ;)

This lovely swimming pool coloured polish is a gift from my dear colleague. I had admired the colour on her nails:

I have stamped with my lovely new Pueen plates. They are really great (more about them later), but unfortunately my top coat has dragged the stamps a lot, super annoying, but I was too tired and lazy to remake them.

And here is my very summery vacation nails - strawberry and ladybug theme:

Both polishes are again very old, the pearly white is an antique Gosh and the red one is an OPI mini.

When visiting Germany I bought the famous glitter base coat from Essence, which you can peel off. Here I have tested it under IsaDora Ocean Crush, which is a texture polish looking very beautiful in the bottle:

Texture polishes are not my cup of tea, but I had to buy this one. In fact, I could have bought them all, but I'm glad I didn't, because I still don't like it. I really want to paint 7 to 8 layers of top coat over it to smoothen it out and make it shine. Yes, I know - I am old fashioned.

This is the third day of wear, so it will never last a week with the glitter base coat, like my manis always do. It was very difficult to peel it off later that day. The glitter base smelled exactly like PVA glue (see the PVA trick here), this was just thinner and much more difficult to peel off, so I will not recommend it. Steal some PVA glue from your husband instead. ;)

Monroe Monday

Cottage Feeling

Well, our second vacation week was spent in my nice old cottage at the Isle of Moen, Ulfshale:

It is the greatest gift of my life, you can read about it here if you want to.

My cottage is from 1956 and has been my grandparents. Right beside it is my sister's house, which has been our parents', so we have a garden gate between our gardens, since we have been used to visit each other since we were children:

I have kept much of the fifties style, surprise, I know. ;) This is the kitchen:

The photo is dark, because we were so blessed with sunshine all week and my small camera is not that advanced when taking photos in backlight. I didn't want to bring my big reflex camera with me.

This is a glass with salt and my beloved granny's handwriting, I miss her every day:

The brush pot is practical and matches the colour of the tiles:

I remember this pair since I was very little, now there's hardly any paint left:

But they still love each other.

And tea and coffee pots and a tiny candlestick made og old copper coins, I love such things:

I have bought this sixties coffee set on a flea market, since my granny had 117 different cups without saucers, and this suited the style of the house so good and cost almost nothing. I also love that for once it is not roses but carnations that decorates the cups:

I knitted a lot:

My granny loved Maja, the Spanish scent, and always had Maja soaps, a tradition I have continued:

When I was about five years old I chose the tiles in the background, that's the tale today. They were chosen because they were so "nice and light". Yes I know, time changes, but it was a great luxury to have a bathroom in a cottage in 1972. Before that we had a shared loo standing in the middle of the two gardens, which my dad dig into the garden when it was full. We didn't have running water or electricity either.

Well, let's go outside:

This was my grandpa's vegetable bed, now it is a cosy patio where we eat and relax in the shadow. My dream is that one day my skilled gardener son re-lays it all with red flags.

Sister has made café latte:

We add a little Kahlua, then it tastes like dessert.

Summery Danish lunch served on my lovely plates from the fifties:

I only have four in four different colours and would love to have more, but I never find them at flea markets, so if you have some and want to sell them, please let me know.

We eat together and take turns to prepare all meals, here sister has made us Italian dinner with "curry cake", super delicious:

Sister's terrace where I cadged some internet and relaxed with my iPad:

We also worked a bit, here DH is renovating the kitchen window:

At the country there are small booths everywhere selling different things like fruit and vegetables, and books (50 pence each) and free magazines:

And even ladybugs and angels!:

They were simply too cute! I will put a pair on my parents advent calendar, sister got a pair and the rest goes on my Christmas tree. Believe me, Christmas will be here before you know it. ;)

I hope you've all had a lovely summer holiday, because I did. :)

Monroe Monday

Harzen 2.0

Well, we went to Harzen, Germany, again this year. I wanted to go to Vienna, Austria, but we had sold the "number 1", that is the car that should be the best in our private collection of cars, but which had become old, and DH didn't want to drive all the way to Vienna in my winter car without AirCon and speed-pilot - men! Well, fortunately Harzen is a large area so we just went to the opposite end this year. But we were so extremely lucky to get our brand new and shiny luxury limo the day before our holiday:

Yes, he looks happy - and he should, because he has got exactly the car he wanted most!

We lived at Hotel Victor's right at the eastern side of the old borderline:

Before the hotel a nice old convent were built on the ground, but Stasi tore it down, since refugees hid in it hoping to flee over the border at night. Yes, they really did such things. The hotel is now built in the same style as the convent.

At the hotel there were a huge spa, pool and wellness area - here is our bathing clothes drying:

When driving around you often meet signs like this telling us that Germany was divided into East and West until the end of 1989:

Here is the borderline, this is no man's land, where the flagstones were the patrol path. Here Stasi walked up and down in sharp uniforms and loaded machine guns:

Our city, Düderstadt, was nice and cosy and we found time for a café latte:

A statue reminding us how Germany was previously divided:

Many families were split for many years.

We visited Rammelsberg, which is the largest mine in Germany:

The mine workers' clothes and personal belongings are hanging up under the ceiling. The dark cloths are meant to hang their clean clothes in:

And here is the shared bath:

The red tubs are very large soap dishes.

You could go on different tours and since we had never tried an authentic trip with a real mine train before, it became our choice:

The wagons were meant for 12 persons, but we were only eight and we were sitting tight.

There was a museum with very large machines and engines:

 I love engines.

Opposite our hotel was the Borderline Museum:

This English text described how the world was back then and up to 1989:

I have used a telex machine like this when I was an apprentice:

It was the only way my company could communicate with African countries.

And here is a photo of one of the watch towers, they are still standing every where in Germany:

We visited an alternative bear park, which was fantastic. It was alternative in the way that the bears had lots of space and they really looked like they was having a good time:

I have not used zoom, we were really so close to him, quite scary.

Sleeping teddies:

My own bear:

Very frightening! 

And we also took a trip with the vintage train, called the narrow-gauge line:

Very expensive, but also very cosy.

Here they shovel coal for the next trip:

And I bought a few nail polishes for my collection: