Wednesday 27 October 2010

So what do Vegans eat?

My apologies to any Vegan subscribers because you'll already know a lot of this but there are some delicious food links for you later on.
Anyhow, I get this question quite a lot, I was raised as a Vegetarian so switching to Veganisim wasn't that much of a radical dietary change for me, still it baffles some people so I thought I'd shed some light on my eating habits.
A common misconception is that Vegans are all pale and skinny.
Well yes I am pretty pale (but then I have Scottish and Irish ancestry, both nationalities being known for their rather pale skintones), but skinny?
LOL have you seen me?
I am NOT skinny, I'm not fat, but I'm certainly not skinny.
I suppose I have a vintage vamp figure, I'm about the same size (but taller) than Louise Brooks:

Another one I hear a lot is that we Vegans live on "Rabbit food".
While it is true I love a good salad, I did not get all this from lettuce alone.
In a regular week I eat: Toast with Vegan Margarine, Humus and Salad Sandwiches, Linda McCartney Sausages, chips (aka fries), baked beans, Crisp sandwiches (aka potato chips), Linda McCartney Country Pie, steamed cauliflour, steamed carrots, mashed potatos, Lentil Dahl, rice, Nut Cutlets, tinned spaghetti, Pasta with tomato sauce, vegetable burger, steamed cabbage, steamed parsnips, roast potatoes, vegetable gravy, Vegan Ramen, spicy bean burger, mushy peas, vegetable and lentil curry (I love lentils, they're my comfort food), Falafel, Pita, rice and salad, spiced risotto, and sometimes maybe a pizza as a treat.

It's also a myth that you have to give up sweet things.
I'm not really as into sweet treats as I was when I was a child, but every now and then I will get a craving for cake.
But cake needs eggs and milk?
Oh no, the cakes in my favourite Vegan cake books Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World: 75 Dairy-Free Recipes for Cupcakes that Rule and The Garden of Vegan: How It All Vegan Again! do not, and the cakes from the aforementioned books are much moister and easier to cook than any of the none Vegan cakes I made before the switch.
It's also pretty easy to make Vegan friendly cookies, biscuits, jelly, ice cream, scones etc and there are a number of ready made brands popping up on supermarket shelves (there's an amazing company called Free From do really nice jam tarts) .
I've not tried either of these yet but my facebook friend Monsta found this recipe for Raspberry Tiramasu cupcakes (how good does that picture look?), and a few days back I found this recipe for Vegan Macarons :D

I do sometimes have trouble when I'm eating out, but usually it's a case of asking if I can have something from the Vegetarian choices "but without the cheese".

I tend to try to cook at least a few times a week, there are a vast number of awesome recipe books out there (as well as the two I already mentioned I'm a big fan of  Skinny Bitch in the Kitch: Kick-Ass Recipes for Hungry Girls Who Want to Stop Cooking Crap (and Start Looking Hot!)Veganomicon: The Ultimate Vegan Cookbook and Linda Mccartney's Home Cooking, the later not being 100% Vegan, but full of easily adaptable recipes), and the internet is full of recipes for Vegans who like to say NOM!
Some of my favourites being:
Linda McCartney (yes I know, she was like my food idol)
The Vegan Society (has a whole section on Scottish Vegan recipes, seriously try the haggis, it's not boiled inside a sheep so you have no excuse to miss out)
about.com's vegetarian pages  (again, not all vegan but there are a lot of vegan things there)
Vegan MoFo (contains a lot of what I like to call food porn)

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Amusingly after all that talk of Veganisim I'm going to see Saw 3D tomorrow.
Eek!
I'm not sure if I'll manage to post tomorrow or not yet, but rest assured, if I don't I haven't been murdered by Jigsaw and I'll likely post when I get back from Whitby on Monday :)

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Day 10: Fairytale braids
I think I need a little more practice with this one, it was kind of harder than Torrin made it look :S


Tuesday 26 October 2010

Tuesday Tutorial: Repo! Style profile image.


Today's Tuesday Tutorial uses Photoshop, but it should be quite easy to adapt to other photo editing software if you don't use photoshop.
I was a little inspired by Spoon Graphic's Zombie poster tutorial, which can be found here, that tutorial is a little more advanced than mine though.
Most of my inspiration though came from this poster of Blind Mag from Repo!The Genetic Opera:

I simplified it though for those of you who don't use photoshop a lot, those of you who do I'm sure could work out ways to make your version more like the original.

The first thing you need to do is open a new file, if you want to print the image then set the DPI to 300 and the canvas size to A4 (if you have a large scale printer adjust accordingly).
Set the background colour to a nice bright red (or a different colour if you want, see the end of this post for more inspiration).
Next I took the photo I wanted to use and roughly traced around it with the lasso tool (it needn't be perfect as in the final you'll only be able to see the skin).

I decided I wanted my skin to look a little more ghostlike than Mag's so after I pasted my photo onto a new layer I changed thy layer colour to black and white and then the opacity of that layer down to 35%.

Next to make the skin easier to see I made a new layer and painted a big white shape with a large paint brush all over the areas where there is skin. I then moved the layer under the photo layer.
Next I took a photo I took of some mould spores, pasted into a new layer and then changed the opacity to 25%, this makes the image look slightly grungy.

Next I pasted in my photo again, switched the colours to black and white and clicked the "tint" button, this usually automatically gives the photo a sepia tint, but beside it is a button to change the tint colour, I went for a nice dark green. Next using the magic wand tool I selected and cut out all of the areas covering the skin so that the layers underneath could show through.

Next I made two white rectangles using the shape tool, then using transform I rotated them diagonally.

Finally I added in the text. Again I used the transform tool to rotate it to where I wanted it.
And there you have it.
I'm considering adding the blog address in in the background at some point in the future also.
More inspirations:





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Day 9: Your hair in two Rope Braids


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What would you like to see in future Tuesday Tutorials?

Monday 25 October 2010

Mini skirt ban?

I was browising BBC news earlier when I came across this article. 
In short the mayor of Castellammare di Stabia want's mini skirts and low rise jeans banned in his village.
Apparently he is of the opinion that this will "restore urban decorum and facilitate better civil co-existence" and  combat sexual harassment.
Forgive my bluntness, I hate looking at random people's arses to, but fining people 500 euros for wearing mini skirts and low rise jeans is not going to stop sexual harassment.
You want to stop Sexual Harassment?
Stop victim blaming, stop fining the people getting harassed and start fining the bastards doing the harassing.
I should be able to walk down a street naked if I wanted (don't worry, I won't, but technically in the UK this is perfectly legal so long as it doesn't cause anybody distress), and not have to worry about harassment.
The people being harassed are not the problem, the problem is people who need to learn to control themselves, and if they can't? 
Well then in my opinion they shouldn't be let out in public.
It doesn't matter what you wear, if someone is going to be a creeper, they're going to be a creeper regardless.
I have been harassed by people in my school uniform (my school's uniform was the most un-sexy thing ever, black trousers and a bottle green jumper), in baggy jeans, tight jeans, short medium and long skirts, one time I will never forget was when I was 15 and had the worst flu ever, was wrapped in a giant duffle coat, wool hat and thick jeans, I looked like a multi-coloured marshmallow man, and yet some berk still told his friend I looked "do-able" as they walked past me.
Eww.
The following year I went to college dressed as Death from the Sandman, and the builders who were renovating the house up the road made lewd comments about my lipstick.
When I was 16 I had  lot of problems with my self esteem and that hurt me for weeks, it made me feel like I was the one to blame for what they'd said to me.
I wasn't, and neither is anybody who wears a mini skirt or low rise jeans and gets hassled for it.

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Day 6: Your hair back combed

Day 7: Your hair in two English Plaits

Day 8: Your hair in wartime pincurls with a headscarf
Heh forgive me for the last one, but in order to get the curls to set properly I find doing them first thing in the morning is best :)

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You can now become a fan of Queens of the Wild Frontier on Facebook!

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Today's question: What is your opinion on the proposed mini skirt ban? Do you think it's a good or a bad idea?

Sunday 24 October 2010

Sunday Round up 4

This week has been less of a busy one than usual.
Monday through Thursday I didn't really do very much, just general housework and stuff.
Friday was my mam's day off work so I went to visit her and we spentthe day catching up and then went to the Fear and Loathing event, which you can read about here
Saturday was a Charnel House night, funtimes were had :)
Today, well soon I shall be making a nice curry with Kev (as in he's helping, not an ingredient...)

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Next week is going to be a busy one though!
Unfortunately there will be no Friday Feature as I will be away Friday- Sunday.

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30 Day Challenge Update!

I'm a few photos behind, but don't worry I will upload them tomorrow.
I have begun thinking about my next 30 day challenge, and I have decided to make it music themed, perhaps a song for every day?
Also from now on I will be posting the photograph from the 30 day challenge at the end of posts instead of the start so you don't get a scene angles photo of me in your reader as the preview image every day :)

Saturday 23 October 2010

Fear and Loathing Halloween event


Last night my mam and I went to The Centre for Life's Halloween event, Fear and Loathing.

Iiiiiiiiiiiit's aliiiiiiiiiiiiive!

Fear and Loathing was an after hours, adults only Halloween extravaganza in the Centre for Life's main museum halls.
There was Absinthe tasting (I hold up my hands and admit that I cannot resist the temptation of a glass of Absinthe), Pendulum demos (my mam is really good at pendulum divining, I just can't get the hang of it though), an experiment to see if anybody could feel the spirits that haunt the building (the building is built on the site of an old hospital, which was in turn built on top of a plague pit from when the Black Death hit, this was found when the foundations for the museum were being made and people had to come out with Has-mat suits) ,

My orange lantern
orange carving (really hard by the way), an Edison Phonograph, various science demos and a comedic take on a Victorian Seance!

Mam warning the future about the dangers of The Cybermen with the Edison Phonograph!

We also got to have another look around the Dr Who exhibit, and infront of the Rakknos was a coffin!
Hardly one of the Vampires of Venice...

This lady went as the Green Fairy and won the costume contest...Did you spot the Absinthe spoon in her hair?
My outfit for the day was a vintage Chinese Brocade dress.
With the lady who did the pendulums demo.
It was great event, and if there is another next year  fully intend to go to that to :)
I don't have a photo of my hair yet today (I haven't styled it yet), but I do have...
Smoke rings!

Friday 22 October 2010

Friday Feature 3: chocolatehomicide's art

St Lucy by Chocolatehomicide, you can find out more about St Lucy here including why she has her eyes on a plate.

I first spotted Chocolatehomicide's creepy cute art style a few weeks back when she posted "The Doll Collector", a two page comic to the Livejournal group EGL (clicky) 
Since then I have been avidly looking forward to her posts and after her last art post I felt eager to feature her.
Thankfully she was only to happy to answer my questions.
Dead Things for Breakfast

You have a very creepy, cute style, was it a concious decision you made to draw like this or did it evolve over time? 

Honestly, I think it was sort of inevitable that I'd end up drawing creepy-cute things. Both "creepy" and "cute" have been an important part of my aesthetic tastes and my personality ever since I was a little girl. For example, on one hand, my imaginary friends that I had for years as a child were a bat, a spider, and a snake. On the other hand I wore my princess and ballerina costumes on a daily basis. And while I loved Sanrio and all things Hello Kitty, I would also love to go explore (supposedly) haunted cemeteries with my grandma. So even before I had heard of lolita and started incorporating that into my art, the creepy cute aspect was already there

Who or what inspires your art the most? 

Its hard to say what inspires me. Everything, really! Real people, other artists, movies, dreams, stuff I encounter out in real life- I find inspiration everywhere! Other times, ideas just come to me out of thin air with no inspiration at all. Pinpointing what inspires me the most seems nearly impossible! 

Choosing Heads

Who is your favourite artist? 

There are a lot of artists who I really like! People like Mark Ryden, Yoh, Camile Rose Garcia, Trevor Brown, and Yue Tachibana (AKA Lunago) are all really great in my opinion. There's also an artist who I discovered recently called "Candy Jane" who mixes morbid and fetishy themes in with lolita in a way that I really like (GASP! Fetish in MY lolita??? lol). But really, some of my favorite artists are the people I watch on DeviantART.

If you found out you could only use one colour to make art for the rest of your life, what colour would you pick and how long would it be before you went crazy?

Oh, goodness, I'm going crazy just thinking about the question! I don't mind working in just black and white, but if I were to only be able to use one COLOUR, I think I might go with pink. Pink isn't really my favorite color, but I think a palette of just black, white, and pink can look amazing. Plus there always a sort of femininity in pink that I think adds to my work more than any other color would. But I would go crazy pretty quickly, I'm sure. 

Simply Delightful

You can see more of Chocolatehomicide's art, and follow her work here

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regular bloggy note:


Day 5: Bubzbeauty inspired updo

I have a different haircut t Bubzbeauty so it looks kind of different in my hair, but here is how to do it:


Thursday 21 October 2010

Lolita in Secret challenged me; Lolita Pet Peeves!

My "pet peeves":

1. People who are bitchy for no reason. Seriously, you give the whole community a bad name. There are two usernames in particular (no I will not name, names), who every time I see on EGL, I just know they will be being rude to someone.
Yes I know fashion is a bitchy world, I'm a Fashion student, you needn't tell me twice, but that doesn't make it right.
If someone else does something that doesn't make it ok for you to do it to, if someone jumped off a bridge would you follow them?
Also I am sick to death of the "Oh we're girls, we're meant to be bitchy", um yeah, speak for yourself.

2. But I also hate people who assume based on the actions of a few people that all Lolitas are bitchy, backstabbing attention whores.
Plzbenotmkinasumptinsguiz.
Seriously, EGL and /CGL/ aren't the be all and end all of the entire fashion, if you find those places to bitchy, have a look at one of the many other comms.

3. When people can't take polite criticism, when they asked for it in the first place.
I will NEVER get over the time someone posted a tube dress to sew_loli, I tried to give some helpful advice on how to make it better fit the Lolita shilloute and she exploded into a tirade of expletives and called me an idiot for daring to crit her...Um what?  Surely Sew_loli is there for help and advice on how to make things better? That's why I post there...

4. Shoe pictures. Sooooo overdone now...Seriously...

5. Companies that make replicas (I have nothing against the people that wear them, see previous entries).

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Day 4: Your hair in Pigtails

First thing in the morning again, I'm sorry lol.

Also Gem Fatale is having a giveaway. Comment on this post for your chance to win a bunny ring or a necklace from Me and Zena.

Wednesday 20 October 2010

My thoughts on rumours

Day 3: Your hair in a Pony Tail

rumour (noun)- gossip (usually a mixture of truth and untruth) passed around by word of mouth

All of us at some point have had to deal with people telling untruths about us, we all have our own ways to deal and hope the truth shines through in the end, but this isn't about dealing.
This is about me wondering why people start rumours?
Sure we all did t as children, someone pissed us off and we called them names and told everybody they ate slugs for breakfast but I'm 21 now and people older than me are making things up about me, and friends of mine older than me have people make things up about them quite regularly.
The current tall tale about me amuses me more than it hurts, but sometimes people do seem to say things with the intention of making them hurt.
Why do people do this?
We aren't children anymore.

Tuesday 19 October 2010

Tuesday Tutorial 2: Kumihimo

Day 2: Your hair waved
Forgive me, I took that first thing in the morning because I waved it the heat-free way (so as not to damage my hair while I'm growing it out). The heat-free way involves  sleeping in plaits.

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Kumihimo

Kumihimo is an ancient Japanese cord making technique. It was originally used to make the ties that hold together a Samurai's armour, but now has many crafty uses.
To do Kumihimo you will need a marudai.
traditionally marudai are made from wood ad in my opinion somewhat resemble a Martian mushroom!
 Wooden marudai are pretty expensive, although I do eventually want a wooden one, I currently use (and would recommend to beginners) a foam marudai like this  Lightweight Kumihimo Round Disc Disk For Japanese Braiding and Cording
(I actually have two, one for flat braids and one for the round kind that I'm going to show you today, both are slightly different shapes, but it's possible to do the round kind on a flat braid marudai as I will be doing here, it's just harder to keep the tension even).
You will also need yarn or thread, I'd recommend using thick yarn for your first few tries and then working your way down to something thinner.
First cut eight yarns or threads, make sure you cut them all the same length.

Then tie a knot in one end (depending on how you want to use your final braid there are other ways to tie the ends but I'll go over these at a later date).

Take hold of the knot you just made and then take two of the yarns and slide them into the grooves at the centre top,  two more in the centre bottom , two centre left and two centre right.

Step 1: Take the bottom left yarn and slide it into the groove next to the top left yarn (to keep the threads taught, gently hold onto the knot in the middle).

Step 2: Take the top right yarn and slide it into the groove next to the yarn that is left at the bottom.

Step 3: Take the higher of the two yarns on the left and slide it into the groove above the higher of the two yarns on the right.

Step 4: Take the lowest of the three yarns on the right and slide it into the groove under the the remaining yarn on the left.

Repeat steps 1-4 until you get your cord to the length you want it. (unfortunately my photo came out kinda blurry  but this blog here has some great pictures)
There are lots of things you can do with the finished cords, and lots of different things you can do to make them different.
Try using different colours and thickness's of yarns.
I made yarns from carrier bags for an art project once to braid and they looked super cool.
My question today, have you ever Kumihimoed before?

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