borninwinter81

[borninwinter81]

Holy shit, newest acquisition, something to get me used to the heavier weights but will also be a joy to wear themselves. 30g each, they're very comfortable so far.

The seller is Spinal Jewelry, they sell mostly weights like this but occasionally other things too. The large central piece is real antique Victorian glass, and they're based on Victorian Mourning jewellery. They could have been designed with me in mind!

Earring and ear weight collection

I have a post showing my collection of plugs and tunnels, so I thought it would be nice to do another showing all my hanging ones too. I'll probably also do a third showing all my labret studs but I just placed an order for some new ones so I'll wait for those to arrive first.

As my lobes are stretched I don't wear them on conventional earring hooks, instead I remove whatever findings they have and then hang them from my ears using a hinged "clicker" ring, the kind folks will often wear in a septum, through a tunnel.

I display them like this as it's nice to be able to appreciate my full collection even when I'm not wearing them, and I find I will wear them more often if I can see them rather than having them put away in a jewellery box. There's only one pair which I don't have out here and we'll get to those...

Most of these were thrifted, home made or are just charms that I've chosen to wear as earrings. I get a ton of compliments whenever I wear the crows with the crescent moon on them, but they're just some cheap charms that I think originally came from Ali Express or Temu (I bought them at a slight markup from a UK reseller).

Here are some honourable mentions that don't fit those categories. First has to be my wedding earrings. These are onyx and marcasite. When I first stretched my ears I was sad I couldn't wear these anymore, until I realised I could modify them. They look like they need a polish!

These are from Katie Whittle, an etsy seller who I've also met a number of times at conventions. They're wooden, handpainted, and although they're large they're extremely lightweight. Flies might not be for everyone but I love them 😁

These are from a seller called Deviant Angel Emporium. All their stock is great and very reasonably priced, but Bram Stoker's Dracula is one of those movies from my formative teenage years that is very important to me, so I had to have them.

These ones were bought at a comic con and I'm really annoyed I didn't save the sellers details as they had a lot of great stuff. Christmas isn't really something that I care too much about, but I love Krampus.

I did a post about these not too long back, but they're worth sharing again - my labradorite hangers. At 12 grams they don't really qualify as weights, but they're my heaviest "earrings". These would probably be extremely uncomfortable if they were worn in regular pierced lobes, but I can wear them in my stretched ones all day with no problems at all.

And lastly, the big boys that live in their own box: my white brass bat weights. Again I've shared these before, but I wouldn't miss an opportunity to share them again. These are my only true weights, at about 75 grams each. I bought them from my body piercer, but I've since discovered the original seller is a company called Symmetry Body Jewellery who do tons of really beautiful weights. Yeah they were a bit pricey, you can get cheaper mass produced bat hangers, but when you see and feel these you can tell where the extra money went.

I can wear these for a couple of hours with no discomfort, although having that much weight hanging from your ears does feel a little strange at first!

Heavy weights and hangers are only intended to be worn for a few hours at a time, and not every single day, you need to have breaks or you can hurt yourself or over stretch your lobes (weights arent supposed to be used for stretching because they put all the pressure at the bottom, causing stretching to be uneven).

There are many folks far more experienced at wearing weights than I am who can wear much heavier ones than this for a long time, but you have to work up to that!

I am currently on the lookout for some slightly lighter mid range weights, but as I said above the good quality ones are expensive and my bats have kinda spoiled me for the cheaper alternatives. I will reblog when I've found some that I can't do without!

[borninwinter81]

Dark Lili cosplay (Legend)

I was inspired to share this by @rattusrattus3's new video (Labyrinth inspired lookbook) - it reminded me of that time 14 years ago when I cosplayed Dark Lili from the movie Legend.

Legend and Labyrinth are two of those iconic movies that were totally quintessential to my childhood (as my username says, I was born in '81 so I was able to watch them when they were first released, and grew up with them), but if I had to choose between them it would be Legend. It's darker, has a more epic scope, and Ridley Scott's visuals are absolutely stunning. Also the Lord of Darkness may possibly be my favourite role that Tim Curry ever played (yes, I prefer him in this to Rocky Horror).

It should come as no surprise that it was a lifelong ambition to cosplay Dark Lili, but I always thought it would be too difficult. However at Halloween 2011 I managed it. Unfortunately I'm having real difficulty in finding photos from that night, but here is one!

[borninwinter81]

Playing with old school trick photography with my boyfriend 💝

[borninwinter81]

my partner is into tin type photography now :3

[borninwinter81]

Possibly my last battle vest update...

Unless I'm extremely lucky and managed to find a couple of small patches I'm gonna call this finished.

Just this past week I've started listening to Hellripper and I bloody love his stuff (I've heard it described as evil Motorhead, a mix of thrash, Black Metal and rock and roll) so I ordered a patch from his bandcamp and it fit perfectly here.

As you can see there is a smallish spot just above, and also a space on the waistband underneath where I might be able to fit a banner patch if it isn't too long.

Here's a full pic of the front, I think the Paysage d'hiver banner on the other side of the waistband may be new since my last update. Maybe also the Ritualmord patch and pin badge.

And the back - no changes here but just for completeness. Again I may possibly be able to fit some tiny ones on the shoulders and the collar, but I think I'm just about done honestly.

[borninwinter81]

A do-it-yourself music night 🤘

Last night two friends and I put on an extreme metal night in our town!

They're fairly new to this type of music, they're very enthusiastic and were saying it was a shame that you never really hear this sort of thing in clubs, even ones that do play metal. We started discussing and decided there was no reason not to try and do it ourselves 😁

We rented a function room at a bar (deposit only, if the bar makes enough money on the night you get the deposit back) worked out a setlist, downloaded Virtual DJ which is free, created and printed some flyers and made some social media pages.

We also managed to borrow some speakers and a sound board from a friend who kindly set them up for us, but most venues will have their own PA if you're unable to do this.

I'd say the night was reasonably successful, although we had a lot of friends come to support us there were also quite a few people we didn't know, so our promotion efforts must have worked at least somewhat.

If you have a niche music interest and are disappointed that you never get to hear it when you go out, try doing it yourself - we pulled this off with just over a month's preparation, it's really not that difficult, if we can do it anyone can. All it cost was a bit of our time, and the deposit which we will get back.

Here's our flyer:

And a photo of me in the DJ booth after we'd decorated it:

[borninwinter81]

Agalloch vinyl and deluxe CDs

In the day and age of streaming it does me good to know that there are still record labels and independent artists producing beautiful physical media, and today I had some more of it arrive in the post.

As I've said before, I tend to limit these kind of purchases, but Agalloch are one of my favourite bands in the world ever, and for the past few years they've been re-releasing each of their albums. I had to have them.

It's been a nightmare getting them here - the first time this package was sent it was returned due to "insufficient address" whatever that means (the address provided was correct) and in spite of myself and the sender emailing the courier to try and confirm the address with them. I had to wait for the return to arrive back with the sender, be processed and then sent to me again.

However this was worth the wait.

First the vinyl. A reissue of the album Ashes Against the Grain in the colour "ashen cascade" trifold vinyl, limited to 250 copies. This is the third reissue that has been released: Pale Folklore was 2 years ago and The Mantle was last year.

And the deluxe CD versions of all three albums. People get less excited about CDs than vinyl, and I was in two minds about whether to get these, but I'm so glad I did because they're utterly stunning. Each is in a hardbacked "book" of 64 pages containing the original album booklet plus interviews, artworks and promotional materials, and as well as the album CD each one also contains a second CD featuring demos, EPs and other rarities.

I already have The Mantle on vinyl, I bought that last year, but I don't have Pale Folklore. I'm feeling like I have to get it now just to complete the set!

If they keep follow this pattern next year The Marrow of the Spirit should get a reissue and then in 2 years The Serpent and the Sphere.

Lastly they kindly threw in a bunch of free stickers

A gorgeous package to receive and well worth the trouble of getting it here.

[borninwinter81]

I just got my first set of high-end high quality stone plugs!

Thus far all the stone plugs you see above have come from places like Custom Plugs, Stretch-it body jewellery and Urban Body Jewellery. There's nothing particularly wrong with any of them, I've never had any problems, but I've been watching a lot of Lynn Loheide videos recently and learning more about the high-end custom stone manufacturers, and as I had a little extra money available this month I thought I'd order some and see what the fuss is about.

I've been keen on the idea of getting a pair in petrified palm root (fossilised wood that has essentially become stone) for some time, and Urban Body Jewellery do stock those, but the problem with stone plugs from somewhere like UBJ is that as stone is natural the colours and patterns can be very variable and I've read reviews of people saying they've bought this material and it's been almost totally dark with no "wood" at all. It also sounds like the finish on them is often not great and they might tend to have cracks and chips in them.

These came from a manufacturer called Grit Lapidary. They make totally custom plugs to order in a variety of interesting stones, only open their books for orders a few times a year, and have a $400 minimum for those orders. That was far outside my budget, however they do also hold a small "ready to ship" line with detailed photos so you can see exactly what you're getting. These are the ones I chose - with postage to the UK they were just over £100, I'm not sure what the dollar amount would be.

These are incredible. You only need to see and hold them for a few seconds to know why they cost as much as they do. The finish on them is like a mirror, there are no imperfections whatsoever and the wood looks like flames!

Its not going to be something I can do often, but I would definitely like to order from them again, or from similar manufacturers here in the UK, there's one called Stonewolf Adornments that I have my eye on.....

Plug collection

I reached my goal size on my left ear a few months ago (right has been this size for ages), and recently I've discovered that I'm able to wear some of my double flares in it, though unfortunately not all of them just yet, so I thought I'd do a post where I show some of them.

I also had my forward helix pierced in February and I am now able to swap the ends, so I've got a couple of different ones of those here too. Any redness is just from changing the jewellery, nothing is irritated!

NOTE: some of these are resin, however as resin may be unsafe if worn in contact with skin for a long time, I only ever get ones that are inside a metal tunnel.

First pic, amethyst stud and a resin plug with real mushrooms and moss in it. Second pic, jade stud and dragons blood jasper plug. The stud in my lobe is quartz.

First pic real tiny shells and sand, second pic paper butterfly, both in resin.

And here are some of my right ear. First pic labradorite teardrop, second a snake hanger. The stone in the stud is onyx

First pic hematite teardrop, second real leaves in resin.

And because I don't feel like trying everything on, here's my full collection.

If anyone wishes to know where I got a particular item from feel free to ask! I'm in the UK so almost all of these came from UK sellers.

[borninwinter81]

I don't have any new big dramatic hangers yet, but I did get some new septum clickers this week to hang things from.

For reference these are the ones I've been using, 1.2mm thickness with an internal diameter of 12mm.

Theyre great, however I was thinking if I want to get some heavier hangers or even try making my own, I'd need something a bit more sturdy to hold the weight.

These are 3mm with a 16mm internal diameter. They're chonky! They also look really good when used with those labradorite earrings

Earring and ear weight collection

I have a post showing my collection of plugs and tunnels, so I thought it would be nice to do another showing all my hanging ones too. I'll probably also do a third showing all my labret studs but I just placed an order for some new ones so I'll wait for those to arrive first.

As my lobes are stretched I don't wear them on conventional earring hooks, instead I remove whatever findings they have and then hang them from my ears using a hinged "clicker" ring, the kind folks will often wear in a septum, through a tunnel.

I display them like this as it's nice to be able to appreciate my full collection even when I'm not wearing them, and I find I will wear them more often if I can see them rather than having them put away in a jewellery box. There's only one pair which I don't have out here and we'll get to those...

Most of these were thrifted, home made or are just charms that I've chosen to wear as earrings. I get a ton of compliments whenever I wear the crows with the crescent moon on them, but they're just some cheap charms that I think originally came from Ali Express or Temu (I bought them at a slight markup from a UK reseller).

Here are some honourable mentions that don't fit those categories. First has to be my wedding earrings. These are onyx and marcasite. When I first stretched my ears I was sad I couldn't wear these anymore, until I realised I could modify them. They look like they need a polish!

These are from Katie Whittle, an etsy seller who I've also met a number of times at conventions. They're wooden, handpainted, and although they're large they're extremely lightweight. Flies might not be for everyone but I love them 😁

These are from a seller called Deviant Angel Emporium. All their stock is great and very reasonably priced, but Bram Stoker's Dracula is one of those movies from my formative teenage years that is very important to me, so I had to have them.

These ones were bought at a comic con and I'm really annoyed I didn't save the sellers details as they had a lot of great stuff. Christmas isn't really something that I care too much about, but I love Krampus.

I did a post about these not too long back, but they're worth sharing again - my labradorite hangers. At 12 grams they don't really qualify as weights, but they're my heaviest "earrings". These would probably be extremely uncomfortable if they were worn in regular pierced lobes, but I can wear them in my stretched ones all day with no problems at all.

And lastly, the big boys that live in their own box: my white brass bat weights. Again I've shared these before, but I wouldn't miss an opportunity to share them again. These are my only true weights, at about 75 grams each. I bought them from my body piercer, but I've since discovered the original seller is a company called Symmetry Body Jewellery who do tons of really beautiful weights. Yeah they were a bit pricey, you can get cheaper mass produced bat hangers, but when you see and feel these you can tell where the extra money went.

I can wear these for a couple of hours with no discomfort, although having that much weight hanging from your ears does feel a little strange at first!

Heavy weights and hangers are only intended to be worn for a few hours at a time, and not every single day, you need to have breaks or you can hurt yourself or over stretch your lobes (weights arent supposed to be used for stretching because they put all the pressure at the bottom, causing stretching to be uneven).

There are many folks far more experienced at wearing weights than I am who can wear much heavier ones than this for a long time, but you have to work up to that!

I am currently on the lookout for some slightly lighter mid range weights, but as I said above the good quality ones are expensive and my bats have kinda spoiled me for the cheaper alternatives. I will reblog when I've found some that I can't do without!

[borninwinter81]

Labret stud collection

As promised, the companion to my previous posts showing my plugs, and my earrings and weights, here are all the studs I currently own.

I've worn flat back labret studs in all my ear piercings since my teens, just because they're way more comfortable and a lot more hygienic than butterfly back earrings. These are all 1.2mm or 16ga if you use those measurements, and they're all made from titanium.

Back when I started wearing these in the 90s there was almost no choice for piercing jewellery, you just got a ball on the end, maybe with a coloured stone in it if you were fancy, but nothing like the range of options there are today for internally threaded ends. I'm still getting used to being able to wear interesting ones!

This is my right ear which is currently vampire themed! We've got the bat, the blood drip and the ankh at the bottom and a coffin at the top. I just need something different for my rook now.

My left ear doesn't have a specific theme at present. The discs in my faux snug (two separate piercings made to look like a snug because I don't have the right ear shape for one) are because those piercings are quite fresh and still healing, but my body piercer has managed to source some labradorite ends from an APP approved supplier, so those will be switched out eventually.

For the rest we've got a rose, a quartz, and a spider in the lobe, and a scythe in my forward helix. The scythe is a fairly new one, when I first put it in I wasn't 100% sure if I liked it there, but that same day I had compliments on it from two people 😊

Then these are the ones I'm not currently wearing:

Goat head

Skeleton hand

And an assortment of different semi precious stones - green onyx, amethyst, black onyx and lapis lazuli.

[borninwinter81]

Earring and ear weight collection

I have a post showing my collection of plugs and tunnels, so I thought it would be nice to do another showing all my hanging ones too. I'll probably also do a third showing all my labret studs but I just placed an order for some new ones so I'll wait for those to arrive first.

As my lobes are stretched I don't wear them on conventional earring hooks, instead I remove whatever findings they have and then hang them from my ears using a hinged "clicker" ring, the kind folks will often wear in a septum, through a tunnel.

I display them like this as it's nice to be able to appreciate my full collection even when I'm not wearing them, and I find I will wear them more often if I can see them rather than having them put away in a jewellery box. There's only one pair which I don't have out here and we'll get to those...

Most of these were thrifted, home made or are just charms that I've chosen to wear as earrings. I get a ton of compliments whenever I wear the crows with the crescent moon on them, but they're just some cheap charms that I think originally came from Ali Express or Temu (I bought them at a slight markup from a UK reseller).

Here are some honourable mentions that don't fit those categories. First has to be my wedding earrings. These are onyx and marcasite. When I first stretched my ears I was sad I couldn't wear these anymore, until I realised I could modify them. They look like they need a polish!

These are from Katie Whittle, an etsy seller who I've also met a number of times at conventions. They're wooden, handpainted, and although they're large they're extremely lightweight. Flies might not be for everyone but I love them 😁

These are from a seller called Deviant Angel Emporium. All their stock is great and very reasonably priced, but Bram Stoker's Dracula is one of those movies from my formative teenage years that is very important to me, so I had to have them.

These ones were bought at a comic con and I'm really annoyed I didn't save the sellers details as they had a lot of great stuff. Christmas isn't really something that I care too much about, but I love Krampus.

I did a post about these not too long back, but they're worth sharing again - my labradorite hangers. At 12 grams they don't really qualify as weights, but they're my heaviest "earrings". These would probably be extremely uncomfortable if they were worn in regular pierced lobes, but I can wear them in my stretched ones all day with no problems at all.

And lastly, the big boys that live in their own box: my white brass bat weights. Again I've shared these before, but I wouldn't miss an opportunity to share them again. These are my only true weights, at about 75 grams each. I bought them from my body piercer, but I've since discovered the original seller is a company called Symmetry Body Jewellery who do tons of really beautiful weights. Yeah they were a bit pricey, you can get cheaper mass produced bat hangers, but when you see and feel these you can tell where the extra money went.

I can wear these for a couple of hours with no discomfort, although having that much weight hanging from your ears does feel a little strange at first!

Heavy weights and hangers are only intended to be worn for a few hours at a time, and not every single day, you need to have breaks or you can hurt yourself or over stretch your lobes (weights arent supposed to be used for stretching because they put all the pressure at the bottom, causing stretching to be uneven).

There are many folks far more experienced at wearing weights than I am who can wear much heavier ones than this for a long time, but you have to work up to that!

I am currently on the lookout for some slightly lighter mid range weights, but as I said above the good quality ones are expensive and my bats have kinda spoiled me for the cheaper alternatives. I will reblog when I've found some that I can't do without!

[borninwinter81]

Went thrifting today and found a (partial) skull! Judging from all the toothmarks (probably mouse & squirrel), I'm guessing it was found in the woods.

@shiftythrifting

[borninwinter81]

I forgot about these in my original post but they're one of my favourite sets that I own, and my only wooden pair.

I bought them separately when I just had one ear stretched - the one on the left is Yew, the right Oak. They're made from burl (the knotty bits that sometimes form on trees) hence the interesting pattern on them.

When I started stretching my other ear I looked up the seller to see if I could get matching ones, but unfortunately they'd gone out of business. However, recently I realised that there's no reason I can't wear them together as a mismatched pair.

Plug collection

I reached my goal size on my left ear a few months ago (right has been this size for ages), and recently I've discovered that I'm able to wear some of my double flares in it, though unfortunately not all of them just yet, so I thought I'd do a post where I show some of them.

I also had my forward helix pierced in February and I am now able to swap the ends, so I've got a couple of different ones of those here too. Any redness is just from changing the jewellery, nothing is irritated!

NOTE: some of these are resin, however as resin may be unsafe if worn in contact with skin for a long time, I only ever get ones that are inside a metal tunnel.

First pic, amethyst stud and a resin plug with real mushrooms and moss in it. Second pic, jade stud and dragons blood jasper plug. The stud in my lobe is quartz.

First pic real tiny shells and sand, second pic paper butterfly, both in resin.

And here are some of my right ear. First pic labradorite teardrop, second a snake hanger. The stone in the stud is onyx

First pic hematite teardrop, second real leaves in resin.

And because I don't feel like trying everything on, here's my full collection.

If anyone wishes to know where I got a particular item from feel free to ask! I'm in the UK so almost all of these came from UK sellers.

[borninwinter81]

Art by Glyn Smyth

[borninwinter81]

Evening murmurs.

[borninwinter81]

18th century graffiti and a graveyard with a secret

Yesterday I took a day trip to the town of Shrewsbury with my husband and a friend.

The building which now houses Shrewsbury library dates back to the 16th century. One of the rooms in it was once a school room and centuries of young boys have carved their names into the wooden panels and benches. These were the two oldest we found:

And the most fancy. I've no idea who CF was, but he was clearly a cool guy:

Charles Darwin also went to school here and there is a statue of him outside.

My other favourite spot we visited was the graveyard of St Chad's church. This is now disused and in somewhat poor repair, with many of the graves around the sides being almost totally covered with plants. I took about 60 photos, here are just a few of them

The best part was when I noticed this at the back. At first I thought it was just another flat marker, but then I saw the writing on the edge of it...

"Entrance to vault". That means there are (or were) underground burial chambers here. There was also an iron plate on the ground very close by which might be an alternative means of access.

I did some searching online but unfortunately there isn't a great deal of information about the graveyard. An adaptation of "A Christmas Carol" was once filmed here, but that's all I could really find.

So, I emailed the church to see if they know anything about it (how large is the vault, is it still accessible, stuff like that).

I will reblog if they reply with anything interesting!

[borninwinter81]

Earring/ear weight mod

Ever had the experience of buying something online, then when it arrives it's not quite what you wanted? I'm sure you have.

I ordered these ear hangers from etsy because I thought they were gorgeous and I love labradorite. Unfortunately when they arrived they were way too big in relation to my face/head, they hung a bit weirdly, and just didn't look good on me (pic not mine, it's the etsy one as I didn't photograph them before I started messing around. Mine are silver coloured).

This was very disappointing as I was really excited about getting them, they were a little pricey and the seller doesn't accept returns.

However, each one was actually in two pieces: the front part with the labradorite (my favourite bit) was attached to the medallion (the part I wasn't so keen on) with a pair of large jump rings.

So, I dismantled them, grabbed some chain and extra jump rings from my craft box and...

I think this looks 1000% better on me, and now I will absolutely wear them (in fact I'm wearing them today!)

The medallions can be put away until I find a use for them.

Always remember you can mod anything you buy to make it better, even if it's brand new!