The Darkling Tag

I got tagged by the lovely Sary over at The Walrus Room. I tag my goth pals, Bane, Maria, Meagan, and Franny.
I picked my questions from the list Graveyard Kittens provided.

THE DARKLING TAG!

• What is your favourite candle scent? Lavender, always!
• Do you have a favourite book? Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. A fantastic feminist novel, read this if you haven't!
• Are you a tea or coffee person? Englisht Breakfast or black tea only. I'm picky with my hot drinks.
• What is your favourite perfume/cologne? Lavender perfume oil, which I buy on Ebay. I believe it's handmade.
• Do you have a celebrity crush? Tom Hiddleston, have you seen that part in Crimson Peak? Me-ow! 😉
• If you could change your name to a stereotypical 90s/2000s gothy name, what would it be? Ebony Ravenwing, or something equally silly.
• What are your top three tips for surviving hot weather while black clad? Light and airy clothes, sunscreen, and a parasol.
• What song always makes you happy (doesn't have to be a goth band?) Groove Is In The Heart, by Deee-Lite
• Are you active in the arts (eg. Play an instrument, paint, write, etc)? I'm a self taught crafty person, I always try to customised things or DIY.
• What is your number one non-gothy hobby? Playing video games! I currently only have a PS4, but I hope to buy a gaming computer next year.

Thought Provokers:

• If you could be a supernatural creature, what would it be and why? A powerful immortal witch.I like the idea of having the power to create anything I wish, as well as living forever.
• What horror monster-bases super power would you have? Spooky stealth, I'll appear when you least expect it!
• Do you feel confident or comfortable interacting with other Goths or gothy people (online or irl)? Why or why not? Kind of. I have a lot of trouble talking to people (small talk especially) and I'm really shy until I've been around somebody a lot. I find it much easier online, as I can formulate the words in my mind, and not forget words or stutter.
• Is there something you wish there was more of in your subculture? More willingness to support the scene. There is a lot of drama with certain people and events. I wish people would just get together to support events we put on, otherwise there will be no events to attend!
• Care to share an embarrassing story related to your "darkliness"? I pronounced to many band names wrong when I was a baby-bat, especially cringey when it was in front of elitist goths.
• How are you at DIY? I'm skilled at it, if there's something I don't know then I'll look online and figure it out. I love learning new skills and making new things.

Confessional (aka True or False):

• I love watching cheese romance films. True! This is my guilty secret. I love Jane Austen films, and all those dorky ones like Legally Blonde, Never Been Kissed, How to Make An American Quilt, Kate & Leopold. I can go on and on. The only rule is it has to be feminist in some way.
• I ALWAYS remember to was off my makeup at night. Very true. I'm experimenting with an asian beauty inspired routine which I have to double cleanse and slather a lot of different lotions on my face. My favourite item is my snail slime cream 🐌🐌🐌
• I sleep with plushies. True! I have two bats, which are great for hugging. I find my shoulders hurt sometime, and I usually need something soft to prop my arms up.
• I wear non-black pyjamas most nights. False, it's always a black singlet and my undies.
• I think Andrew Eldrich is overrated. True, but I still love Sisters of Mercy.
• I don't like vampires. False, they're pretty awesome.
• I don't like clubs. False, it's where I DJ!
• I don't enjoy graveyards. False, I think they're soothing places.
• Blood makes me queasy. False, I'm okay with it. Other bodily functions put me off though.
• I'd sooner faint than pet a spider. False, I'm not squeamish about any animals.
• I don't like haunted houses. False. I even went out of my way to visit "Australia's most haunted house" the Monte Cristo homestead in NSW.
• I've never read Dracula. False, it's a very good story. It's free online if you ever want to read it!
• I think "Bela Lugosi's Dead" is a long and boring song. False, I love love love it!

NOTICE! Some images not showing

Hi readers,
I was just notified that Photobucket is now charging for 3rd party hosting, as a result a lot of my photos are not available.

I'll be moving them soon, so hopefully the photos will show up again. I'll be deleting my photobucket account.

From
Natalie

DIY Brooch and Earring Frame Holder

Whilst I had my staple gun out I decided to tackle another project.

I was going to make a brooch and earring holder out of a frame and some lace.

I got this wooden frame from an Op Shop for $10 and I spray painted it black.

I liked this frame because it had a lip on the inner part, I was going to use this as a base to staple my lace.

I also didn't want the backings of my accessories to scratch the wall, so I think the base helped with this.

Standard stretchy lace from the fabric stash.

I roughly cut it out. It didn't have to be perfect, especially because it's stretchy.

I started folding and stapling it into place. I did a LOT of stretching, as I didn't want my heavy accessories to drag the fabric down.

I only realised after that my staples were too big and some of the wood was being damaged! Eek!!

I'm not a fussy person though, so I just used black paint to hide them :)

Finished, with the damage visible.

Finished, with the damage painted over.

I love that I can see all my brooch and earring options! Of course, this frame wasn't big enough for my whole collection ;)

I used these 3M velcro type picture stips to hang it. This means I can take the frame off to get to my accessories.

I hope this inspired you a little bit!

DIY Reupholstered Chairs

So I got these mismatched table and chairs from a second hand store for $50 all together.

The table is sturdy, but needs some sanding and painting (future project).

The black metal chairs are also sturdy, but have an ugly fake leather electric blue fabric.

My goal was to reupholster these with new fabric.

I did some quick measuring, and purchased three metres of this lovely skull fabric.

I didn't use all the fabric, so I have some left over.

Is was easy enough to unscrew the chair from the frame. Only four screws held it in place.

I decided to keep the blue fabric underneath. This makes my job much easier, and I think the blue fabric will give a waterproof backing.

I made sure the blue doesn't show through my fabric before cutting out a generous square. I used this first square to also cut out fabric for the other chairs.

I folded over the raw edge underneath, and I used a staple gun the hold the fabric in place. I also made sure to keep everything centred, and taunt. Especially because this is non-stretch cotton fabric.

I also got the wrong staples for my gun, so I had to nip out to the hardware store to get the correct ones. Whoops!

The corners weren't too tricky, reminded me of wrapping a present.

This is my first time doing any of this type of craft, so I make sure to use lots of staples on the corners to keep them in place.

Seat one is finished!

I continued to do this to the rest of the seats and screwed them back onto the frame.

I'm so glad I got these all done.

My next big project will be the table, I need to sand it outside when it's a sunny day.

For now I put a cloth over the table, and my chairs look so much better!

Before and after.

I think I did a really good job. This was a very simple project, and it only took a few hours for me to complete. I have never done reupholstering before, but I found it easy to do. Perhaps this may inspire you to reupholster your own furniture!

Wednesday Wants: Cat Coven

Cat Coven features a whole bunch of witchy designs on t-shirts, pins and patches.
What I love most about this shop is that it's very affordable, and the items are handmade. The shop is run by one woman, Kjersti, who describes her images as influenced by her interest in the occult, feminism, cats and heathenism. My type of girl!!

I already have a "Creature of the Night" ladies shirt with a fantastic bat print on it.
I hope to purchase some more items in the future, but for now I hope you'll indulge my little wishlist. Perhaps you'll find something you like, and purchase something to support small business :)

Feminist Means Equality slouchy shirt. Photo from Cat Coven

I don't have any feminist shirts at the moment, but I would really love one of these. Feminist forever!

Forget-Me-Not slouchy shirt. Photo from Cat Coven.

I really love this print.

Midgard pin. Photo from Cat Coven.

Tea or Death patch. Photo from Cat Coven.

They also have Coffee versions available!

DIY Golden Picture Frame

I've been putting up some of my framed prints around my house. I was happy with everything, apart from the frame of a Klimt print.

It's brown. I hate brown. I decided to spray paint it antique gold to match some other frames.

I found this print at an Op Shop for $10, so it was a bit ratty to start with.

We don't have exciting spray paint colours in Australia. We don't have antique gold (only bronze for some reason). So I used metallic gold, along with a stain to make it look older.

This also shows my grey spray primer. Both are really cheap, you can also see my primer has already been used due to the paint splatters on it.

First step: I first taped newspaper over the print. The smart way would be to remove the print from the frame. Sadly, due to this being a cheap second hand item the print was stapled into the frame and I really didn't want to bother with taking it out.

So I used some painters tape and newspaper. Be careful that the painters tape doesn't rip the print!

Also, spray outside on some plastic or something. Spray paint goes everywhere.

As you can see, I also sprayed my primer coat.

GOLD! Always believe in your soul!

I did two layers of bright gold. You can see, this it's very bright and not very antique so the next step fixes that a bit.

I used wood stain (without the varnish). I went with a dark brown, instead of black.

I used a paint brush to fill in the curves and generally paint it on. Straight after I wiped it off with a damp cloth. This allowed the gold to shine through and the stain to settle into the grooves. I think it fixes the "bright gold" problem really well.

I let the stain dry for a few days, especially because it doesn't have a top varnish.

The end product!! Remember to be careful taking off the tape and newspaper. You can see some tears and scuffs on my print (but it's second hand, so who's complaining?)

What do you think? I think it looks much better.

Here it is with my other gold frames, all from the Op Shop!

Hope you enjoyed my little DIY

Australian Native

This past weekend my parents and I visited Zanthorrea Nursery, which specialises in Australian native plants.
I love plants, and now that I have a backyard (aka sand pit) I can start to plan a garden. I personally love cottage flowers, but they don't do well in the Australian sun, and my little house gets a lot of sun.

They had a few cute sculptures around, plus a chicken coop and a garden dog. He was an old boarder collie :)

I'm not wearing any makeup, only sunscreen. I'm trying to have no makeup on the weekends, so I can give my face a rest. I'll only put some on if I'm going somewhere important.

My parasol was very welcome on the day, as although it's now Autumn the sun is still dangerous.

I'll hopefully do a post about my new house in the future. I'm still unpacking!

Summer Styles

It's been a bit warm in Perth this summer. I try to combat this with short sleeves and bare legs. Here's a little basic outfit I wore to my cinema job.

This lovely lipstick is from Notoriously Morbid's discontinued product Ancient Mystic Matte in shade Cleopatra. It's an interesting metallic purple. I've recently purchased some more matte lipsticks from them, and I'm very excited to receive them. I need to wear lipstick more!