Crème de la crème

An idea occurred to me this afternoon as as I perused the chocolate counters for Easter treats - what fun it would be to have a dress entirely made of Creme Egg wrappers! I got to work that afternoon, unwrapping and carefully smoothing out the crinkled foil before photographing it. A little while later - ta da! My Crème de la crème dress was born.

I teamed it with an asymmetric purple bob, red heart shape sunglasses by elsa Liebknecht, and a dear little chirpy chick by Whynx Whiplash. I made the topper, adding red ostrich plumes and two little creme eggs tucked alongside. My mismatched purple and red boots, and red gloves came from Doh!

Altogether, not your average Easter look, but I think it's rather stunning all the same. Most eggcellent in fact.

St Patrick's day at Atelier

In my opinion, there isn't quite enough 'special days', and so, St Patrick's Day is a festivity that I like to acknowledge, if not necessarily celebrate, after all, I cannot boast to be of Irish descent. It's possibly got something to do with the colours, and definitely something to do with the shamrocks - all that lush greenery after a dull old winter.

This year, visitors to Atelier can celebrate St Patrick's Day in style in one of my charming Tiny Toppers, a bargain at 75L, and complete the look with a shamrock choker - a snip at 45L. Additionally, this year I have a limited number of shamrock trees, which I have patiently cultivated and now am able to offer to all at 50L. Just three prims a-piece, they can be planted in the garden, or shrunk down and shoved in a pot for the parlour, they make a welcome change from aspidistras!

Happy St Patrick's Day!

Sublime Storage

There aren't too many things I would like to possess in RL, but I'd love to have my brand new workshop cupboard. It's in a subtle pallette of turquoise, blue and gold, inspired in part by copper oxide colouration, and, of course with a touch of trademark damask. Who says that workshops can't have pretty things in them?!

I've set it for sale along with two large drawers and two small ones, so people can arrange them how they like, and put whatever they like in them too. I'm going to keep the following in mine: clouds, cogs, feathers, dreams, tiny seashells, small copper butterflies, ozone, mist, confetti and the merest wisp of opium smoke.

The Optometrist's Topper

Perhaps my silliest project yet (even sillier than clockwork squids), I put this new topper for sale at Atelier this evening. I'm not sure where the inspiration for it came from - a monchrome striped topper with lenses and aparatus from the optometrist profession - but I am hoping it will do well, even though it was pure indulgence to build.

The actual hat has been ready for some time, but there was a fanciful twelve verse tale of how the hat ended up in my shop to write, and then a little Punch and Judy-esque device to construct that enables people to view and read the accompanying poem. It's all filled a space in the ground floor at Atelier very well.

Happy Birthday Mr Tesla!

Today is Mr Tesla's 153rd birthday! And also one year since I commemorated his birth with the Tesla Topper, still one of my favourite creations. This year I decided to make a nice little freebie to match the Topper which I know so many of my group members purchased. And so here we have ... the 'I <3 Tesla' brooch!

More info on Tesla at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla

The Edison gets an outing

I was very pleased to be able to don the new Edison topper this weekend at the New Babbage Illusions White Themed ball. For the rest of my outfit, I decided the emphasis should be rather more on the punk than the steam. So it was on with the Panjen glamgoth skin, white Kin freebie hair, tattered Ghost dress, and Tesla white framed sunglasses. 

I really like to accessorise steampunk outfits with sunglasses. It always brings to mind that surreal scene in Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd, where Mrs Lovett is daydreaming about an idyllic day out at the beach, herself and Mr Todd eccentrically dressed in bathers and round framed sunglasses. I love a hint of surreal modernity in period costumes.

And the perfect finishing touch to this pale melée? 

A white boa - of the constrictor variety naturally!

Wearable albino boa constrictor, with blinking eyes and flicking tongue, by Meissa Thorne. 

My black wooly shrug - a new and inseparable favourite item - 

a Curio Obscura freebie, just the back and upper arms worn!

 Me and Tyger on the steps at Piermont Landing during the ball.

The Edison Topper

This week, my dear friend Miss Breezy Carver sent me a request for a new summer hat. She's been wearing my Tesla Topper all winter, and I've been so pleased to see her in it in a number of snaps on the New Babbage Ning. Her request was to have a Tesla Topper but in white. However, rather than re-hash the Tesla Topper, I asked Breezy if there were any other inventors she would like to personify in top hat form. She gave me some suggestions, and so, the next day I began work on a new Tribute Topper devoted to the work of Mr Thomas Edison.

The hat itself is made of a silvery white damask, with a smoky lace band, with a tiny detailed rendition of Mr Edison's incandescent lamp glowing on the brim. With the addition of some vintage electrical flex, three copper buttons and a flourish of copper fuse wire, the new hat was complete!

I gave the hat to Breezy today and she was delighted, and, I too am very pleased to have a brand new Tribute Topper in the collection at Atelier.

Above, Breezy in her new summer topper, plus, Mr Thomas Edison, and his incandescent lamp: In 1879, using low current electricity, a carbonized filament and a vacuum sealed globe, Thomas Edison first produced a reliable and long lasting light source.