Ensh'eass Woéd

Plastic insects painted with gold paint and glued onto a frame I've found from some flea-market.

 Finished and unfinished diy-projects. And my camera is still broken but now more so. I have to keep it together to take pictures. Such a headache and I cannot afford a new one.

My little "laboratory", which consists of different laboratory-type of bottles that I've found, gotten for free or paid couple euro's for.

 Unfinished tray. Saw one like it in the internet and thought making one for myself. It was black tray with ouija-board painted on it. Looked cool. Mine -- not so much "cool" but as soon as I've finished it will be enough for me.

Glass bell-jar on a glass plate glued to a glass candlestick.

"Last night a moth came to my bed, And filled my tired weary head, With horrid tales of you, I can't believe it's true"

(My Hannibal-inspired decoration)

Finished and unfinished diy-projects:

(Oblivion and Skyrim inspired books and "statue" of Nocturnal - unfinished, a fossil-hand and an unfinished vampire-slayer kit)

Some are inside shelves behind.. things, so I just took some pictures the best I could and mostly with a flash. Sorry about that. Also my camera is broken, so it's hard to use it for more than few seconds at time.

My unfinished vampire-slayer kit. Contains different kinds of bottles, one wooden stick, sharpened into a stake, toy-gun, some kind of saw, religious stuff like a bible, crosses and so forth. The box needs a layer of paint and I still haven't figured out how to assemble the things inside it. Cheap to make especially if you get lucky and find a wooden chest from a dumpster. Insanely lucky, especially if you're poor like me. I just look for other slayer kits and figure out how to assemble mine.

(Diy-fireplace and "antique" globe)

A diy-fireplace; a bit unfinished. Not the best looking one, I know. It looks so much better without the flash, since it's usually dim lighting in here. Also the "stonewall" need some shine in them, so I need to buy some kind of paint that makes it shine and look more like stone. To make your own fireplace, I recommend you to google it with the words "do it yourself". There's some good instructions out there, I usually improvise everything with what I have or what I can find as cheap as possible.

Average plastic blue earth-globe painted to look a bit older with gold-paint and white and ochre-color paint. You don't need much of the paint so it's quite cheap to make, if you can find a crappy globe with decent price - unlike I did.

Part of me feels like I should explain why a guy is interested in making stuff like these, but I won't. I think I've written about it before, at some other blog-post, so that'll do.

The Dweller on the Threshhold

(Copyrights belong to me)

"Part of me's beginning to think that's how you get to the end of your life 

and don't have anything to show for it."

This sentence has been going circles in my head.

Today started one week of resting at home. I'm too diligent that this feels wrong. A curse not strange to my countrymen. Or so has been said. Diligent, hard-working, and tough are the basic characteristics but each new generation changes that. I guess this is part of me growing up in a unsafe home with unstable people in unstable situations. I tried to help by being quiet, helping in anyway I knew how and usually none of the things I did was appreciated. At times I would get frowned upon by trying to clean the mess we were all living in. I've made my peace with those things, I think, but all that explains my distress of not fulfilling my duties. It feels odd being at home. I hope this feeling of uneasiness eases since I took this week off just so I could rest and gather my strength. Let the medication do its magic on me and hope for the best.

(Copyrights belong to me) 

(Copyrights belong to me)

(Copyrights belong to me)

*

New family-member. Seeing him warmed my heart. I named him "Byron". The most beautiful thing I've seen.

Heebie-Jeebies

My apartment is always "under construction". It's been months since the last time I did something to it. I have tables and shelves to re-paint, but I've been too exhausted to continue.
I should take a better - more well-lit - pictures of my home, especially the DIY-projects you can barely see here: fake-fireplace (picture above) and the steam-to-be-punk- computer in the picture below. It looks better from afar. The things I've used with making the both are plainly put "trash" and stuff that I've come across or collected at some point. Wood-pieces, paint and knick-knack's of all kind. But I still need to continue working with them. The fake-fireplace needs some kind of metal-cover(?) to add the fireplace-feel and also to stop my cats from going near any candles I might burn in it. It is highly fire-risky gadget to be had, but I am very careful with open-fire anyway, and I've always planned to invest on led-candles. For the safety of my dear possession but most of all for the safety of my cats whiskers. Nothing looks quite so sadly hilarious than a cat with burned whiskers.

*

I've been meant to get to know the music by Nick Cave for some time now, but coincidentally I was lured into this song by the album cover. After all, I am weak for the aesthetic beauty of the night-time trees:

Also the fall-time playlist of mine consists of dark cabaret, well, what can I say, the era the music rekindles really speaks to the reincarnation- and history-freak-side in me:

"Aures habent et non audient"

Poor man's do-it-yourself: 
a found bottle and the remains of my window-paint from the earlier post "The Full Circle".

I apologize for the blurry photo, but I wasn't sure if I would even put this picture here so I took only one quick shot. I wanted to share this if there are anyone who can't afford to buy actual artistic occult-bottles - which was my inspiration on this one - and who, like me,  like to do stuff for themselves just to get things for themselves as quickly as the first inspiration comes to mind. Things, that are not perfect, but still they please me. Which is the main reason for doing anything. All the books I've been painting all the paintings and what-not's have always been just for me. And yet I think I might not be the only one. So if anyone gets an idea from this technique I used, I hope I could help somehow.

If I weren't so lazy as I am, this un-perfectionist, I could take a better picture. But enough about explaining my lack of carefulness! I had mostly red window-paint left so I used that although I would have preferred to use black paint instead. Although I do like the colour red, I still don't like to use it much. Mostly in paintings but otherwise my home hasn't got many red things.

At some other time I could show the books I've been painting. I think I wrote some other posts about finding free used books to decorate, so to speak, so that's an interesting project which I recommend to anyone out there, who might like to make some artistic-books for themselves. No reason to throw old books away when you can give them a new life.

Small pieces of Art

Now this is the kind of card pack I would want:

Dead on Paper.

Really cool.

Soon I might be able to show you the books and other smaller projects I have been working on.

"The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance"

(Copyrights belong to me)

I've been tired, lazy and spending a bit too much money on stuff for my apartment. Yet I found really fairly priced fake-skulls from Ebay, that I had to buy them. 
Skulls are one of the things I simply find beautiful; the shapes, the colours are just amazing. Truly one of those things that are naturally beautiful. I could admire them all day long.
If you, my reader, are interested in buying skulls (and if roaming in the forests looking for them doesn't "pay off"), just go to Ebay or Etsy. I usually prefer Ebay for the price. 
If I found reasonable priced skulls, so will you.

I have also been doing research on steampunk-computers, so I could pimp my desk computer into one. If or when succeeded I will post a photo. But I suspect that this will be a long project.

One project I manage to finish was transforming one wall into a dark green one. Not as dark as I wanted, but since I couldn't paint the wall nor put tapestry on it - for I live in a rented apartment - I did what I always do; bought a long fabric and attached it onto the wall. I dare say it's a good - and fast - option when you can't do anything permanent on your asylum-white-walls. The result isn't smooth, of course, and usually it looks really good without being smooth.

And talking about painting; since I feel like doing all kinds of projects, I also am slowly finishing up some of my unfinished paintings. I am excited about one particular work.

Perhaps these are the kind of projects that have taken my interest over studying. Although I admit, I feel that the studying should take higher priority, but what can I say. Everyone needs to take a little time off every now and then.

*

I won't talk about the studying, since I feel a bit down by the lack of it. But like I said; I have been tired and lazy. Do not know which exactly but all I know is that I can't force myself to do anything. Have tried it - never succeeded.

Since I do not have much to write about, as I seem to have been feeling well enough not to write my usual rantings, I'll keep this post short.

(Copyrights belong to me)

For friends of humour, especially dark, twisted and hilarious humour; check out the animation-series Robot Chicken. That pretty much sums up my whole week.

“Many a book is like a key to unknown chambers within the castle of one’s own self.”

(Copyrights belong to me)

I'm a collector of several things, for example: literature. I especially collect classical literature works - even if I hadn't read some of it before. Dostojevski, Shakespeare, Orwell, Wilde and many others, who have been considered to be one of the great authors of all time. 
I also collect books that interest me and books that qualify those both criteria's but also on top of the previous criteria's books that are old and perhaps even aesthetically pleasing to the eyes. 
I most likely do not have any books that would be considered to be of any financial value, and even if I did, I would never sell anything I have. Oddly enough, I've grown very tight emotional bonds to my books. If there would be a fire in my home, it would mean a catastrophe. No kind of compensation would ever be enough to bring back what I would lose. So I sometimes fear that something bad might happen. I cannot think of any ways to prevent catastrophes with my budget so I try not to think about it too much. 

I used to be a complete opposite of someone who collected anything. I didn't have much, and I didn't want much either. But after some time I started to crave for something to do with the moments I had and since I used to read a lot and I watched a lot of movies, it seemed smart to get back to those old hobbies. I guess that happened when I got my first long time period apartment and I had undergone some surgery - which is something I won't write about but will mention that besides my head my body has been also poked and cut through many times like it was a needle-cushion. 
When I was recovering from the surgery's I wanted something to do, since going to school or work wasn't possible at first. I started by buying some old used DVD's of my favourite movies and TV-shows. And then I started to buy books too, since I used to be a very enthusiastic reader. Book by book, DVD by DVD I collected until I grew too fond of my collection that I just wanted it to keep on growing. Now I wanted a larger collection to also be able to share some of it with my friends and family. Like a personal library - although yet a significantly smaller version of that.

(Copyrights belong to me)

Later purchases have been two big book shelf's since the older ones were getting crowded. Now I can keep on collecting these small pieces of art to enjoy over and over again.

I have to mention too, that I almost never buy any new books. And most of my DVD's are used ones too. It's mostly for financial reasons but even if I could afford to buy anything I would ever want, I'd buy them used. Just because a book has had previous owners and some of them might be a bit rugged doesn't mean that they wouldn't last forever if you treat them well in your own lifetime. And since consumerism creates a flood of material things that keep coming, keep getting bought and thrown away, it's a never-ending cycle we must prevent with our choices or we will drown into thrash or we will use more and more resources to make more new things even if the previous things have been thrown away. 

Just because you can afford to buy everything new, you shouldn't. There are thousands and hundreds of thousands of homeless books and movies getting thrown into trash if we don't buy them for ourselves - into a home that would value them as they should be valued.

And if you get your hands to some free and exceptionally cheap books you do not care for nor you cannot get them sold you should think of other options to do with those books.

And I must mention that there are blogs and bloggers that create exceptionally amazing mythic cult-books out of old ones, and here's a link to a forum with pictures of what you can make. It seems that the original blog has been deleted for who knows for what reasons, but here's pictures of the amazing books that blogger had done:

Click to go to that forum <-

Yet perhaps you can find other instructions from anywhere in the internet. Propnomicon has many links to many places with people who are prop-experts sharing happily their knowledge and know-how's.

And here's a book-suggestion to all of you who are interested in oddities and occult, mysterious books: The Voynich Manuscript. It can be found free to see and "read" in many places all over the internet - or bought copies of it from many bookstores. It's an old book that has been written in unknown language and filled with drawings of non-existing or bizarre things like plants, that do not exist anywhere in the world.

Here's a news column of the Manuscript to the curious ones -> Link to The New Yorker.

As black as the night can get

If someone has been wondering, where to get these very decorative hard-covered books of classical literature, go to Barnes and Noble . I will make some purchases there after Halloween is over. 
I really like it, when the publishers invests in the quality of the book. Books will survive most likely hundreds of years so it's nice to own books that look good in the eyes of people who appreciates aesthetic things, but since I already have one of these books, I know that they are very high quality.

*

Bought few green lanterns for candles. I really like how the flame looks in them. Like some eerie green foxfire dancing.

Since the nights have been pitch black for quite some time now, I'm slowly starting to burn candles. An old habit of mine.

*

As for the bad news, I think I'm getting used to my new medication, so the effects are starting to wear off. It's troubling, but it just means that I would have to change medication to something else, and try that. As I'm starting to lose the grip to the normality, and my mind has the will of its own, I'm feeling kind of discouraged with this situation. All I need to do is to remember how good it felt to feel normal, so I keep my hopes up.

I guess I could call this the good news, but I've gotten into baking. Just a  bit. I usually hate baking and cooking - mostly because it's a lot of work and that means a lot of dishes to wash, but I've been baking bread and desserts for myself especially when I have some extra time to do all that. It's been kind of nice.

"Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily - life is but a dream"

(Copyrights belongs to yours truly)

In Ancient Greek mythology, Proserpina the daughter of Demeter - goddess of the Harvest - ate a grenade apple in Hades, and was trapped to Hades for half of the year, since if you would eat anything in Hades, you would be doomed to spent the eternity there. While she was in Hades, the plants started to die, and winter came, because Proserpina's mother wept for her stolen daughter, and so Zeus ordered Proserpina to be returned to the world of the living. Still the damage was done, and so six months she spent in Hades ruling as the queen alongside the husband - she was forced to take. But when she was able to leave Hades for the half part of the year, the plants started to grow and spring came with her to the world of the living, as the mother and daughter were back together again.

As the leaf's cover our trail with gold, Proserpina is returning back into Hades. 

I had this painting - medieval art styled - about Hades and Proserpina. It's a perfect metaphor for my longing heart.

*

I've seen my friend and family after something that feels like a long time. That really made my week and I feel like I can go on for sometime with this. I'm usually on my own, so at times I need human contact. At least a bit after periods of solitude.

*

Today's thoughts were about reality. I don't know how long I've felt this way, but everything outside my apartment seems unreal. If it's the medication or the artist in me, that's how I feel.

Also another random thought of today: cat's do not appreciate antique. I got couple of amazing chairs for amazingly cheap, and my cat's think the chairs are for sharpening their claws...

*

Curiouser, curiouser...

Here's a couple of webshops I will put in mind the next time I have some extra coin:

shrunkenheaddotcom

http://www.etsy.com/shop/shrunkenheaddotcom

Masqueradesnbonesaws

http://www.etsy.com/shop/Masqueradesnbonesaws

Dellamorteco

http://www.etsy.com/shop/Dellamorteco

"Let me see you Stripped down to the bone"

It would seem that I don't have a specific trail of thought with this post. Just a stream of thoughts.

My small precious home is coming together. I now have a table, and in the weekend I will get chairs for the table. It will be great to eat at a table. So that's the last piece of furniture I needed - and what fits my small yet cozy apartment. I feel really attached to my new home, since it's been a safe haven from all the bad things that have happened to me in the past year. This is my home now. I hope I can stay here at least as long as I feel this need to put my roots into the ground and just stay put and heal until I can deal with the world again.

(Copyrights belongs to yours truly)

It seems that all the photographs I have now are several years old. I have only a handful of year old pictures. Sigh.

(Copyrights belongs to yours truly)

Since I've been so patient with only few coins in my bank account and using my imagination to feed myself, I shall gift myself with a bottle of red wine this weekend, since I'm getting my paycheck. Finally. 
The red wine "Versus" is probably my favourite, yet I'm the kind of guy who enjoys any kind of wine - especially any red wine.
Versus is a very smooth flavoured red wine without any strong flavours - it's not (too) sweet and there's no spicy taste to it. It's just very smooth and pleasant. It's delicious.

Versus Red

So I should pick something new again. Tasting different kinds of wines for finding a wine I like doesn't apply to me, but just tasting different types of wine stops me from drinking the same kind time after time.

I've never been the kind of guy who gets excited by eating or drinking or just excited by any kind of food or drink. I could - and I can - eat the same kind of food from year after year. I don't invest in the quality of food. I have no idea what the world of gourmet is like. I just eat to live. Although some foods and drinks do have an affect on my mood, yet the time for each of them varies greatly. Sometimes I get a craving for something, yet after a while, the craving ceases. 

Yet in other ways I am a hedonist. I feed my soul with music, art and great stories - in literature or movies or anything at all. That's why I sometimes can spend too much money on things that feed my soul but not my physical self. It's sometimes a tricky way of life, because in this world, I have to choose between feeding myself spiritually or feeding myself physically. Food is expensive as are the arts. At times it's not an easy decision. Although I'm not a starving artist just yet.

Greed is one of the seven sins

Oh, I'm so taken by the spam websites that "watch" my blog 100 times a month. I feel so special...

*

And now I have to admit, that if I don't stop buying things and pay the already bought things, I might get into trouble, if something would happen to my current financial situation. So now I won't buy anything except couple cheap things per month and pay the already bought purchases, so I won't have to feel stressed.

I have a rule, that if I buy something expensive or several things, and I start to get a teensy bit worried how the rest of the month will go after I've spent a lot of money, I can't regret it. I have to enjoy the things I have already bought. Stressing or regretting is just waste of time and takes the joy out of the gift you've given yourself. Life's hard, things can get hellish, so why not enjoy the little things.

Or as one wise man once said: 

"Every day, once a day, give yourself a present. Don't plan it. Don't wait for it. Just let it happen. It could be a new shirt at the men's store, a catnap in your office chair, or two cups of good, hot black coffee."

Since I don't have a camera, which is one of the expensive things I should get, and I really need one, I have to copy these purchases from the webshop, I bought them from: http://www.pulju.net/shop/
I can recommend that shop to my countrymen. There's a lot of interesting stuff there.

I also bought brain-icemould, but I couldn't find it from the webshop anymore. Maybe it's still there somewhere.

I also wanted something luxurious so I bought myself a bathrobe. I have never owned a bathrobe. This will come in handy.
And it seems my cat likes how soft it is, since he's been sleeping on my lap for quite some time now.

And the most expensive and luxurious item I got was a modern gramophone designed to be used also as a cd-player.

(EDIT 9.12.2013: I had to change the picture since the webshop seemed to not appreciate free commercializing and the pictures don't work no more. So here's way too dark picture of my gramophone, so I will someday share a better picture of it.)

I have to admit, that this gramophone is now one of my most precious treasures. I have always wanted a gramophone, but at first I thought about getting antique one, but since this is modern and plays cd's, it's in many ways a lot better.  

*

I used to think that I'm not a materialist. I didn't have much possessions, mostly because I was poor, and I was so used to it, that I didn't realistically thought that I could get anything I sometimes thought I would want.

But with these several years I have collected many things that I have always wanted to have, but didn't think I could ever have them or even really want to have them.

And now I find a lot of interesting objects; books, movies, decor, that I find fascinating.

>> http://www.potterybarn.com/shop/dinnerware-entertaining/halloween-entertaining/?cm_type=gnav <<

The American Pottery Barn. Heard a lot about it in tv-shows and whatnot, but accidentally ran into their website: awesome Halloween stuff.

Blinding lights and thundering sounds in the darkest of rooms

Finally I got the last months paycheck! Unfortunately it wasn't as much as I expected it to be, so I'm checking if it's correct or not.

And I accidentally bought few not-so-cheap t-shirts from Ebay... I put them into the shopping cart so I wouldn't forget to buy them at some point (I have too much items on my watch-list so I didn't use it), and when I bought a black ring - that's supposed to be some international asexuality-sign, I bought everything in the shopping cart, even when it was possible to take some of the items off. I might have bought them late at night, because nothing else explains that mistake... Though, now that I think about it, I'm the type of guy who does stuff like this. It's really annoying.

Although I'm kinda happy that even though I used more money than usually, the t-shirts are kinda cool, and of my taste. But I won't show them here, because I get no pleasure out of showing of my clothes :D I leave that to women or anyone else who gets pleasure posing for the cameras like a model. But what I do enjoy is buying entertainment, oddities and beautiful artistic things. So I might show some of them here. Share my joy.

I'm also few movies and tv-shows richer now.

I bought the Fly-movie collection,

Old Star Wars I-III (or are they now IV, V, VI),

Walking Dead Season 1,

Game of thrones Season 1,

Planet of the apes -collection box,

Also I bought The Lord of the rings trilogy, some old campy frog horror movie, and Ironman-movie.

What can I say, I'm a fan of horror, scifi and action. The more bizarre and wild idea, the more I'm most likely going to like it.

And I'm finally watching the final Batman movie directed by Christopher Nolan. I wasn't expecting much of it (I was disappointed in the actress-choice for Catwoman), so I didn't see this movie in the theatre.

Yet I loved the earlier Christopher Nolan's Batman-movies and of course the ones Tim Burton directed. Michelle Pfeiffer is my favourite Catwoman with the emphasis of the "woman" (when I compare her to Anne Hathaway). Sexy, evil and mad as a hatter vixen, who's strong and sneaky enough to kick any supervillains ass.

And now that I have warmed up with talking about the Batman-movie franchise, I need to mention the amazing, addicting gaming franchise: Batman Arkham.

Batman Arkham Asylum,

Batman Arkham city,

And there's more coming.
I'm not going to make a speech about their excellency, I'm just going to say, that if the dark world of Batman interests you, you will love these games to the death. I can't oversell these games enough.