Of claws, cards and crosses

And she pauses in settling into her own dwelling again, to invite her lovely guests for a spot of tea.

My, what a whirlwind the past few weeks have been! The last days of a semester always are, I suppose. Well--I have completed two full years of college, over at a darling little liberal arts school in the South/Eastern part of the country (not wishing to sound ethnocentric, I will clarify that "the country" refers just now to the USA--sadly, I am merely a devoted fan and not a citizen of Great Britain or Japan, my two loves when it comes to the nations of the world). I live on the west coast, however, and let me confirm that it is quite something to move all of ones things across two thousand miles!

The logistics of moving (and of course the stress of final exams) was not the only exhausting facet of these past few weeks. Sadly, I have found it necessary to look for a school elsewhere for my junior year, in order to pursue a Japanese major and also...well, I shall only say that if any of you have experienced how truly horrendous homesickness can be, you have my deepest empathy. Be that as it may, I realized in those last days that I will very much miss many things about the college, such as my dear friends there, which include the eccentric, closeknit Music Department, my...rather incorrigibly funloving Japanese class, and many others.

I will not wax poetic on this subject at the moment, so allow me to move on and give you a glimpse of my gothic and lolita related plans for the summer, as they regard this blog. In a strange and marvelous turn of fate, I and the rest of my sisters (I have four of them, actually, all younger then me--no, no brothers--yes, indeed, quite fun it is) have simultaneously been inspired to tackle the enormous task of cleaning out and lolify--er, decorating the house this summer. I really must thank Lolita for making me view cleaning up as an enjoyable endeavor! At any rate, partly in keeping with the theme for May on EGL (the Elegant Gothic Lolita community on LiveJournal), which is "What have you lolified?", I shall post pictures of any house-cleaning-related accomplishment I deem sufficiently cute and spooky to interest my dear guests.

Aside from that, this ballroom shall continue to be a home to any of my other creative pursuits that relate to those two favorite subcultures of ours. In fact, I have my first batch of pictures right at this moment. You see, with partial inspiration from the March style tips over at Lolita Charm, I began regularly filing my nails for essentially the first time in my nail-ripping-and-then-clipping existence. Instead of changing the shape into which I file them, as the generally awe-inspiring Victoria Suzanne suggested, I decided to pursue my secret wish for gothic claws! So for the last several months I have been diligently filing my nails long and pointy, and occasionally freaking out the dear normal people. Tis quite fun, I assure you.

Unfortunately, claws and piano do not mix, and so I will have to clip them again whenever I resume playing. But I most likely wait till after the San Diego Comic Con, at which (just like last year) I plan to cosplay young Princess Ursa from Avatar: the Last Airbender, because claws are very Fire Nation, you see. Later, I would like to create sets of fake claws--having been inspired by the nail art of Violet LeBeaux over at Tales of an Ingenue!--which would neatly bypass the whole issue of claws versus ivory keys, and of course when I make anything of that sort, I shall post pictures.

Speaking of which, a couple days ago I experimented with painting my claws a dramatic combination of black and dark red. Being unused to the art of nail polishing, I did not achieve perfection by any means, but please feel free to draw what inspiration you can from my attempts.

Being right-handed, I tried something a little more tricky on my left hand nails--namely, red card symbols on a black background (spade, club, etc). I drew inspiration from a recent post on EGL, although mine came out nowhere near as neatly as that poster's did. Here is the whole hand...

 I do hope you can see it all right, and that it won't crash anyone's browser. Perhaps I'm being a little over paranoid, but I am very new to all of this. Anyway, please excuse the messiness of the back porch--besides being good for natural lighting, I thought our French doors might make a nicely lolita background.

From right to left, the symbols are (supposed to be): spade, heart, club, diamond, and rose (unsurprisingly, knowing me).  If you wish, here are a few links to closeup pictures of the individual nails.

Thumb (spade) (Sorry, it's quite blurry, despite my efforts with a graphics program)

Heart (I tried reinforcing the lines, but alas, blurriness persists...) Sadly, this nail is the most recent of three that have recently broken, and this one hasn't had time to grow back.

The rest are frankly embarrassing, so I'll move on to the other hand. I confined myself to (somewhat sloppy) crosses across each nail on the right hand, and as a whole I like how this turned out better.

The fingers...                                                                 

...and the thumb (not quite as blurry as the other closeups, thankfully).

Well, that's all for now. It has been quite an adventure, figuring out how to post pictures! I feel so loli, here with my blog and my nails. <3  I will say that having these claws gives one a delightfully disturbing thrill, especially considering that a certain demon butler (namely Sebastian of Kuroshitsuji) also has black claws, under those elegant, prim-and-proper white gloves.

As a side note, as I was sitting here wrapping up my post, several of my family members came and presented a welcome home present to me. My sister (one of them, that is) has the wonderfully lolita hobby of making doll clothes (although she is not a lolita herself--not yet, anyway), and she redressed a Shang doll and a Mulan doll as none other than Prince Ozai and Princess Ursa, using fabric remnants from the afore-mentioned cosplay of mine! While their connection to lolita is debatable, I shall have to post pictures of them next time, because it is simply wonderful, after all, to be suddenly presented with a miniature, fantastically outfitted version of one's favorite pairing in the world. ~