Of gothic gowns and spookily quaint Tshirts

And she snatches a moment of quiet amid the aftermath of her little sister's slumber party, firstly because she wishes to welcome all the lovely new guests to her Ballroom who have become her followers!

I am extremely pleased to spread the word of a new, multi-lingual Lolita blog list over at LiveJournal, instigated by the marvelous meiki (LJ name). A few days prior, skyblue_pink (LJ name), whose own blog I quite enjoy, had thrown open a query to the general EGL community inquiring after a mysterious and strangely elusive kind of Lolita blog--those by gothic lolis, such as yours truly. I had been wondering at the scarcity of Gothic Lolita blogs myself, and so, like several others, I posted my blog's link on this thread.

I cannot say for sure whether or not this Lolita's query had anything to do with inspiring the later blog list. However, to my great delight, The Midnight Ballroom was listed under the English-speaking blogs (right there among the Ms)! I promptly combed through the list, looking for lolita blogs that I had somehow missed in my great quest to...well, to acquire the long list of blogs you see there to the right. Knowing my own love of perusing my favorite loli blogs' latest musings (and knowing my own slowness to update this blog), every blog that I add is added with my dear guests in mind. Yes, truly. (Your host is sentimental as well as strange.)

I shan't witter on much longer this time, but all of this is to say that I want to welcome all my new followers, most especially those from LiveJournal! I do hope you will enjoy the ecclectic goings on of this darkly fanciful place.

And now, I promised you pictures, didn't I? For those who have only just wandered into our enchanted moonlit tea party, I will reiterate that my Loli Day this June closed with a formal dinner for a friend of mine who is graduating high school. I do not yet have any Lolita clothes whatsoever, but my gothic side got a chance to darkly shine, in a long gown of black lace that I acquired a few years ago.

 I truly apologize for the (sloppily drawn) face mask. I will try to avoid such practices in the future. However, all of the pictures taken at this time were candid shots, and while I do love candid shots, in this one I had a rather strange expression that I would prefer not to be your first impression of me.

Now, this may not be loli, but that doesn't mean we can't do an...

...outfit rundown! The opportunity to do such a thing for any outfit, even a gothic, non-Lolita one, does make one feel very loli, I must admit!

dress: Aardvark's Odd Ark, a vintage and secondhand clothing store. I believe they have more than one in the Southern California area.

gloves: Hot Topic

necklace: handmade (with a butterfly pendant and a length of thin black ribbon, which ties in back. Oddly enough, I'm wearing that necklace again today!)

hairclips: possibly someplace like Target? I've had them for a while.

And here's a full outfit shot!

Although, admittedly, my hair covers much of it. Yes, that is my real hair! Anyway, my shoes are unfortunately not very visible, but I wanted to comment that I bought them at a store called the Rack Room this spring, which had several different styles of low-heeled Mary Janes! Hence my newly discovered love for this style of shoe. I like to call this particular pair my "doll shoes," because they make me feel like a quaint and charming doll while still retaining that air of spooky mystery. Perfect for a goth loli, no?

Ah yes, and that is my younger sister (one of them) in the white gown. She isn't a loli herself, but that is a "head-eating bow" of sorts that you see--I believe it's the one I bought for her from Icing this Christmas. I hope she doesn't mind being featured in my blog!


Now for a bonus shot! In my last post (earlier on the day of the graduation dinner), I had mentioned that, while I did not truly dress up, I had donned my most loli Tshirt in honor of Loli Day. After posting that entry, I asked yet another of my younger sisters to snap a quick shot of me, just in case visualizing said shirt was as hard as describing it was.

There! Isn't the print darling? I  bought it at Walmart last year, around Halloween. It makes me want to make an ensemble like the one pictured!

It's a little hard to tell, but I was experimenting with this makeup tutorial on LiveJournal by the stunning sweetsailormars (LJ name)...as well as trying to look suitably melancholy for the photograph. I shall try out said tutorial once more when I have a type of makeup more conducive to vivid colors than my present powder-based eye shadows.

I shan't keep you much longer, but I do have one more bit of exciting and truly Loli-related news. During Christmas break, I began taking my first foray into loli sewing, in the process of making an as yet unfinished rectangle skirt. Today I feel inspired to finally recommence with this project. I have been longing to get started on all the loli-related creative undertakings that have been whirring in my brain, so the prospect of working on this skirt once more is quite exciting. As always, expect pictures of the finished product (and possibly during construction as well)!

Now, I do hope I've inspired my lovely guests to undertake their own creative projects, gothic-and-lolita related or no.