As you might have recognized it's gotten really quiet here. Since university, work and my personal projects are taking more and more time I don't really have the time for this blog anymore.
I don't want to delete it because there are still some things I really like and still quote when asked, so I add some information here at the top where you still can find me, what projects I have etc.
UPDATE: Since the information below is already five years old and you might still stumble across this blog, I thought I'd add my current main social media outlets which are: Instagram @rufflesandsteam and YouTube, besides my still existing facebook page.
I'm still quite active on my tumblrRuffles and Steam (which is my main tumblr for Steampunk and Lolita) and I also have one for Mori/Dolly related stuff Lace and Layers.
From time to time I update my deviantArt profile AyraLeona as well.
At the moment I want to spend more time in front of a camera again so I set up a profile on Model-Kartei as well, if you are interested in doing some photos with me feel free to drop me a line there.
If you want to contact me the easiest way is via my facebook page Ruffles and Steam.
As some might have noticed my current project was my own book: "Das Große Steampanoptikum" together with Alex Jahnke which is a steampunk lookbook of authors, makers, models, artists etc. from the German-speaking area.
It can be bought directly at the publishing house "Edition Roter Drache" (or on Amazon of course). You'll find the dates of readings and signings here.
I'm also still an active author at the Clockworker and the Gatehouse and you can contact me there, too.
When I'm not visiting events for review purposes or readings of the Steampanoptikum, it might well be, that I'm there with the Steampunk Expeditions Gesellschaft. We're always looking for new member to join the crew, so feel free to contact the team on the homepage.
So you see, I'm still busy within Steampunk (and also Lolita from time to time) but I just don't find enough time to update this blog anymore. You now have some options where you can sty in touch with me. If you have any comments, questions etc. feel free to contact me via one of the above options.
Have a wonderful time my dear travelors,
yours AyraLeona
As promised in my last entry here come my outfits from Wave Gotik Treffen.
Friday started with the Victorian Picnic at the Clara Zetkin Park.
We went as a group of servants (not only maids, we also had a butler but he was already gone when we took this picture)
Since it was the day-off of the servants, sun glasses fit as well:
Outfit:
skirt + apron + headdress: Bodyline
underskirt + blouse: thirfted
sun glasses: Vintage
In the evening I changed into more comfortable clothes, Casual Steampunk Lolita:
Outfit:
shoes: Deichmann
socks: off-brand
dress: Orsay, dyed by me
belt: Primark (I believe)
blouse: a gift from Kitty
hat + choker: self-made
bag: restyle.pl
On Saturday the Steampunk Picnic took place, so I wore Steampunk Lolita
Outfit:
dress+ shoes: Bodyline
socks: ?
vest: Takko, modified by me
chocker and googles: made by me
nerf: modified by me
hat: thrifted
On I decided to go for Classic Lolita, including tights and a long blouse (although it was chiffon) as I knew we would mostly spend the day inside of rooms with air-con.
shoes: Deichmann
tights: Primark
dress: taobao (Cinderella Story I believe)
chiffon blouse: Primark
hat: self-made
bag: taobao (Loris)
gloves: Vintage (ebay)
leather bow: Poorman's Gold Label
choker: handmade by me
brooch: hand-made (Rarebear Grumman)
In the evening the girls and me decided to go as "The Bloomer Gang" to see Tarja Turnunen
That's the good thing being a lolita: Most of the time you have a decent amout of short pants with you ^_^
On Monday I woke up quite eraly so I decided to do a fancier make-up which I normally wouldn't have dine, because the outfit I planned for it was too much fabric for the temperatures but I improvised another outfit around the make-up and I quite like how it turned out ^_^
Steampunk Mechanical Doll
Outfit:
shoes: antaina
socks: Primark, dyed by me
dress: Orsay, dyed by me
bag: restyle.pl
leather bow: poorman's gold label
choker: selfmade
goggles: modified by me
kraken on top of my head: crocheted by me
So those were my outfits for WGT 2014. A lot of Lolita or Lolita inspired stuff as well as Steampunk. I guess one can see my preferred styles ^^
I hope you like it! Have a nice weekend! Seems like the summer finally arrived.
Okay, finally here we are talking about Wave Gotik Treffen 2014. (I'll do an extra one with my outfits later ;) )
Press access
Press bracelet
Since last year I get press access to be able to report for the BCM and the Gatehouse Gazette. You can find my reviews at the Gatehouse here and the BCM here (it's #19).
This year I went again with Kitty and Luching and we three also had a flat together. (If you ever want to go to WGT, make sure to book as early as possible! We three are in the same private flat since three years now and we always book our next year, when we leave ;) ) The festival itself is from Friday to monday over Pentecost, but we always stretch our stay from Thursday to Tuesday if possible so it's less stressful driving the 5-6 hours.
When we arrived on Thursday, we had a lot of fun putting all our stuff together taking photos and asking our facebook friends how many girls we would be at WGT.
The answers differed A LOT!
For example when we did a photo of our luggages one of my friends said “That's for six men for a three month polar expedition, or one woman for three days festival”
Well, anyway, we had a lot of fun taking those pictures and reading the comments. Looking at them makes me realize how much I love my big car!
The Friday started with the almost traditional Victorian Picnic organized by Viona. This year I decided together with a group of Coppeliusfans that we would dress up as Victorian servants. Because there are so many Lords and Ladies at the picnic, they can't be without maids and butlers. Although we didn't served much and pretended it was our solemn free day, singing “Diener 5er Herren” (=servant of five Sirs) from Coppelius a lot.
Later on we decided to do something with our outfits and started photobombing pictures with the help of Jesko from dark-pictures.org. He asked good looking folk for a picture and after two normal photos we invaded the scene serving cookies, dusting and so on. The reactions of the people were priceless!
I know that Jesko also took some videos so there might be some video evidence later this month.
On Saturday then the third Steampunk Picnic took place. This year it was organized by Oleander Lindenzweig and me and we changed the location from the rather busy park at the Moritz Bastei to the Park near the Parkschlösschen where we were not invaded by photographers.
Around 150 Steampunks showed up and I really enjoyed the time talking to new and old friends. It was really hot that day (as it was the whole weekend) and so I ditched the shoes at some point and so did others. We tried to stay in the shadow of the solemn trees available.
Our Sunday started with a relaxed breakfast at the Absintherie and Soup-Bar. Afterwards we to the city, first visiting one of the many exhibitions and then we went to the lecture of Christian von Aster.
Unfortunately there were some problems with the press access at the cinema where the lecture took place. They said that paying visitors should be let in first, but at the lectures of Aster there are always too many visitors, so if you are late you won't get a seat, so saying paying visitors first means that you won't get a place...
Luckily von Aster himself gave us his spare tickets so me and some other press attendants could get in.
Sadly this wasn't the only time we had problems with the press tickets this year. For example you couldn't use the public transport with the press bracelet. (With the normal WGT bracelet you can.) There should have been an information e-mail stating that which me and some of my friends didn't got. So in the end you had to pay around 25€ extra to be able to do your work! Which I find kind of ridiculous, that's a fourth of the regular price!
People waiting to see Christian von Aster
Plus there were events during WGT like the open air cinema where you had to pay extra entrance fee as press because they wouldn't let you in with the press pass!
I'm sorry but this is not how you treat the people who make your advertisement!
The black line 31, especially for WGT
But well... I enjoyed WGT nonetheless, but those are difficulties that could have been avoided!
On Monday there was another lecture of Christian von Aster and I had the opportunity to interview him (in case you don't know: he's one of my favourite authors so I really enjoyed doing so especially as talking to him is a lot of fun :) ) You can find the German version of the interview at the Clockworker.
Of course we also went to see some concerts but due to the heat (around 36°C and more) we didn't wanted to go to the crowded halls to often. I ended up seeing only 2 and a half music acts.
The fist one was Tarja Turunen (ex-Nightwish) the other one was Kitty in a Casket which I wanted to see, because I was sure my friends from Austria would be there. Well, and the half was the band before Kitty, which I mainly heard as we stayed outside or at the sofas upstairs waiting for Kitty.
A thing you have to do when at WGT is visiting the agra where is the main shopping hall! Of course we did, mainly in the evenings wearing more comfortable clothes strolling around the Gothic shops. I really liked that there were much more little and individual sellers like my friend Diana-Bianca from Atelier Tausendschön.
Headgear from Atelier Tausendschön
Unfortunately there too was the mass of cheap “just-glue-some-gears-on-it”-Steampunk stuff you see everywhere.
The agra shopping hall
But still I met some awesome Steampunks as well as lolitas. You can see all of my photos from WGT here on FlickR (picnics and the rest) and here on facebook (picnics and the rest).
All in all I liked WGT this year. The program was good, I met a lot of nice folk. The only problem was the heat! I ended up wearing only half of what I planned because I couldn't bare more then one or two layers of fabric. (Others couldn't, too which ended up with nearly-no-clothes. Unfortunately mostly on people I didn't wanted to see that many skin of >_< but also I have so much respect for those who were still wearing historical gowns and the like!)
We already booked our flat for next year so I hope to see some of you there next time if not earlier.
It's been a bit quiet here, as I am quite busy with university and different events.
But I just wanted to let you know, that I'm still there that there will be a post about this years Wave Gotik Treffen soon. If you are interested you can have a look at my "official" review at the Gatehouse, which will soon be followed by the review I did for BCM and which will be published ithe next edition in July.
I already posted some outfit photos on my Tumblr and my deviantArt so it's worth checking ;)
Last weekend was the Aethercircus Steampunk Festival in Stade. Germany's first and (so far) biggest Steampunk event.
As I announced in my preview post about 2014 we set up camp there with the Steampunk Expeditions Gesellschaft. On saturday the German children's TV KiKA came to our camp to make a short show for KiKA live! (which is the show for 14-18 year olds). Nici and I talked with the moderator Ben about steampunk and together with the camp we made a short movie.
Ben also rode the steam tractor and visited Horatius Steam and Teleman von Phones exhibition of steampunked objects. The band Drachenflug (who also organises the event) made an appearance as well as Daniel Malheur. Even my all time favourite band Coppelius showed up with their new video "Spieldose" in the 9min smash up of steampunk.
But now enough, here's the video:
(it's in German only, but the pictures show a lot of the festival athmosphere ;) )
(Whoever has more information and/or links to the appearing persons, feel free to drop me a comment ;) )
I know it's been a bit quiet around here, mainly because there was a Coppelius concert tour the last weekends.
Including a Steampunk crime buffet and a Steampunk Party. I will write a review about it, but first of all I'll be going to Elfia in Haarzuilens next weekend together with the Steampunk Expeditions Gesellschaft.
Please drop me a line, if you'll be there! It would be my pleasure to meet you! See you there ;)
Last Sunday was another meet-up of my local steampunk community Dampfkraft Gesellschaft Rheinprovinz (DaKraG). This time we went to the pancake house in Hattingen.
Andrea
My outfit fit the pancake house^^
The pancake house (or Pfannekuchenhaus in German) is a small half-timbered house in the historical centre of Hattingen. As we were quite many we had the whole upper storey for us alone. As the name suggests they serve pancakes in all ways you can think of: sweet ones with chocolate or salty ones with cheese and bacon for example. But you can also have steak on you pancake o.O (as one of the girls mentioned: for those husbands that had preferred the steakhouse^^)
The "hat desk"
After we ate we started changing places so everybody could talk not only to the ones at your own table but also to the rest.
Before the first wanted to leave we went outside to take the obligatory group photo (I'm usually the one that starts asking if we want to do one so there's kind of the ongoing joke of me wanting to take a group picture^^)
After the group shot my friend Andrea from Stoff im Gehirn and I did some outfit shots of each other as it's not that common within the DaKraG. It must be the lolita in us that wants decent photos...
I managed to get a snap of my friend Thomas as well: we had met some weeks before to work on his outfit and in the meantime he could finish his leather top hat.
After that we went inside again and chatted a little longer (making plans for the expedition camp at Elfia Haarzuilens and the like).
As more and more people left, a part of us decided to take a little stroll through the historical city centre. One of the group members had told us that there is a “steampunk letterbox” so we had a look.
Hattingen is really a beautiful little city, we once had a lolita meet-up there as well, because it's so picturesque.
As we walked it started to rain so we decided to leave as well.
Steampunks in their natural habitat, you can see their hunting habits
I really enjoyed the meet-up and I was glad to see all the steampunks again, especially not being the only steampunk lolita there thanks to Andrea, plus it was the first meet-up for my friend Thomas.
As you might have seen in my entry about the planned events for 2014 the Elfia is up next, so stay curious for what to come ;)
