Another Ukulele Video! Ring of Fire

Now that I've gotten over my initial fear of looking stupid on the internet (I do it every day in real life, why should it be any different online?), I'm comfortable enough to start posting my progress with playing the ukulele on here.

I've moved on a bit from my first video, this one shows a bit more technique when it comes to strumming, and I'm hoping to lean to regulate my breathing better and project my voice more. I'm having singing lessons from my gorgeous friend, star of stage and screen Kiki DeVille, and slowly I'm gaining more confidence and technique, but obviously I have a very long way to go!

This is from a week or two ago anyway, since then I've been working more on developing my strumming rhythms (ooh err, missus), so the next video I make should be better. I'm pleased with my progress anyway, and soon I will be getting a brand new fancy banjolele!

Come to me, my pretty...

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New Tattoo!

A few weeks ago I travelled to Birmingham on a sweaty coach to pay a visit to award-winning tattoo studio Modern Body Art and to my good friend, the gorgeous and talented Rachel Jamie Baldwin. There I spent about five hours under the needle, getting inked with this amazing pirate lobster!

I've been slow to heal with this one as I've been run ragged over the past month and not looking after myself as well as I should have been, but despite a tiny bit of dryness Captain Squeezy is now fully healed and looking amazing, I love him! I allowed Rachel free reign over the design, having known her so long and always adored her work. It was drawn to match the colours and nautical theme of the Octopus Tattoo she did on me while she was an apprentice in Manchester.

By the way, that weird pink triangle was a blister I got from stupidly wearing new shoes a couple of days before I was due to be tattooed, thankfully it's now completely disappeared.

Tragically, Rachel lost her mum to cancer a few months ago, and ever since she has been working tirelessly to raise funds for Cancer Research UK. She's holding a tattooing for charity event on the 19th January, with some absolutely top-notch artists taking part, so if you are in the Birmingham area or fancy travelling to support a good cause and have an amazing piece of high-quality tattoo work done, please check out the facebook event.

You can see more of Rachel's beautiful tattoos on her facebook page and tumblr, you can also buy gorgeous limited edition prints of her paintings in her etsy shop.

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What I did on my Summer Holidays - Rebellion Punk Festival

So it seems that once again, I have fallen victim to that old devil, blog neglect! So here's the first in a series of recap posts of some of the fun stuff I did over the last couple of months! I'm going to write a few now then release them over this week to ease me back into regular writing.

During the first week of August we went off to Blackpool for Rebellion Festival! This is our Summer holiday every year, as unlike me, Aerospace Boyfriend doesn't get much time off to go to gigs during term time, so for him it's one big catch up.

Outfit, Day 1! I made the fascinator, necklace, bracelet and capri pants! This was my first foray into trouser-making and I have to say, I have no idea why I was always so nervous of it. They're easy! I bought a really basic capris pattern and have adjusted it to my measurements, it's proving invaluable. The pattern is Butterick 5614 and despite the mumsy-looking envelope photos, this is the perfect pattern for vintage-styled bad girl capris! The shoes are by Melissa and are so ridiculously comfortable and flexible that I can now wear heels for an entire festival.

Much horseplay was had by Areospace Boyfriend and our darling friends, possibly encouraged by the excessive consumption of Guinness and cider...

One of the absolute highlights of the festival for me was The Hillbilly Moon Explosion, they're one of my favourite bands at the moment and absolutely amazing live. Emanuela's coy stage presence and sweet, jazzy voice coupled with Oliver's rock 'n' roll showboating and the band's all-round passion made for a fantastic show, their songs are like beautiful lullabies interspersed with butt-shaking badass rockabilly rhythms and definitely worth checking out!

On the Friday night we saw King Kurt! These boys never fail to put on a great show! Thankfully the eggs, Marmite, jam etc. that their performances are notorious for were left at home, and the only antiquing we received was a light sprinkling of flour from a jubilant audience member. Some filthy comments from singer and reknowned pervert Smeggy even managed to get psychobilly-shunning Aerospace Boyfriend giggling and enjoying the scene's messiest stalwarts and we both had a great time.

Outfit, day 2: jeans, top and jacket all modified by me in various ways over the years, chopped up/dyed/embellished etc! The big mirror in the hallway of our hotel was perfect for taking ridiculously vain pictures of myself posing before we set out each day to watch the bands. I had pictures of days 3 and 4 but I appear to have lost them in a haze of whiskey and disorganisation.

The big headliners of the festival were Rancid and Social Distortion... I've loved both these bands for years, especially Rancid, but frankly the less said about them the better. I don't know whether the sound engineers were incompetent or whether it's just impossible to get a good result from hundreds of decibels bouncing around an arched, high-ceilinged, tunnel-shaped Victorian Ballroom covered in twiddly Rococo bits, but the sound in there was so bad that I could barely distinguish some of my favourite songs until they were almost over, which was really disappointing.

On a much more positive note, for me a huge highlight of the festival was having some brilliant aftershow gigs to go to, presented by Misery of Sound. Organiser Andy worked really hard to put some brilliant psychobilly and horrorpunk bands on and did really well! I missed the first one featuring Vince Ray and the Boneshakers, but the next two with Th'Loveless Bastards (featuring members of Mad Sin and The Hyperjax, keep an ear out for them!),  Luna Vegas and Graveyard Johnnys were absolutely storming, hence there aren't many pictures from these nights because everyone was either too drunk or too busy having fun!

I'll get moaned at for this by Aerospace Boyfriend who does not appreciate me taking a little of my love and giving it to other boys, but you need to watch this... my darling Welsh friends and favourite little rockstars, the Graveyard Johnnys:



If you're in Europe they'll soon be on tour, keep an eye on their facebook page, go and support them because they're lovely boys!

I also made two amazing new friends from Sweden and Holland Respectively, Marie-Louise and Ivo! These guys made my weekend and I hope to see them at the festival again next year, maybe sooner!

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Please vote for me in the Vintage Awards - LAST DAY!

I've been nominated as a finalist in the Vintage Manchester Awards! You don't need to be from the area to vote and no registration is needed, so please, please go and vote for me in the 'Best Vintage Inpired Designer' and 'Best Vintage Blog' categories! I really appreciate all the support my blog readers and Kalandra Jane Designs customers have given me since I started my little venture!

Vote here: http://www.vintagemanchester.com/best-of-2012-awards/

If you fancy you could also vote for my friends Bethany Jane Davies, Vintage Twists, Rose and Lee Vintage Living, Carnival Divine burlesque,Vintage 78 DJs, or Mikey Wong, they've all been supporters of my business over the last couple of years and are all very deserving of recognition!

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In which I embarass myself by singing in front of you all.

Well, this has received a reasonable reaction on my facebook, so I may as well show it to my lovely followers too. Just for god's sake nobody upload it to youtube, and don't watch it if you're a musician.

I have really wanted a banjolele for ages, but they're very expensive and the only one in the family is an heirloom on Paul's side so is going nowhere. My stepdad runs a music shop so I can get a banjolele, but figured I should learn on something cheap before spending a lot of money on an instrument - I have a tendency to pick things up and make a good start, then abandon them.

So I bought the cheapest ukulele possible, and taught myself to play six chords on it in two hours this evening. My fingers hurt. I've also never sung in my life, not even in front of my boyfriend of four-and-a-half years, so I'm jumping in at the deep end here. Hopefully I'll get better at both singing and playing over the next few months.

Enough stalling anyway... here you go, Astro Zombies by The Misfits.

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Summer Updates!

Hello my darlings. It seems it's been a month since I last wrote a blog post - this is because I have spent the entire time either working or being drunk at festivals! I'm utterly exhausted.

I'll write a different post every day about all the stuff I've been doing, there's so much to cover. I'll start over a month ago, when Clare (from whom I have stolen a couple of these pictures) and I did a stall at the Bolton Tattoo Bazaar (they also run the Manchester Tattoo Tea party).

Here's our stall! I was just helping really so had a space for my hats on the end.

I saw my gorgeous friend Kitten! I'm wearing a dress I made and a lovely flower by Dolly Cool.

One of my hats graced the cover of Tattoo Revolution Magazine, on the beautiful head of my good friend Rachel Baldwin. She's pictured in her wedding gown, and the hat I made for her Las Vegas wedding! She married fellow amazing Tattooist Nick Baldwin, and their gorgeous work along with pictures of the ceremony were featured in the magazine. I'm so proud of her, she's been through a lot recently but shows such strength and puts so much love into her art. I'm also wearing new glasses! You can't see how beautifully green they are here, I'll get a better picture of them in all their Dame Edna glory.

I got new business cards! With my face on, because I'm vain, and my Twitter, facebook and blogspot address because I'm trying not to be such a huge technophobe. Please follow me!

I bought new eyeball colours for my Psychobilly Mini Top Hats! Also a marvellous Hillbilly Moon Explosion vinyl EP, but more about them in a post later this week!

That'll do for today, I need to ease myself back into blogging after such a long break! Coming up during the rest of this week: great bands you should know and love, fun at festivals, lots of pictures of me looking ridiculous and/or drunk, amazing leopard print capri pants sewing, vintage knitting, Aerospace Boyfriend's graduation!

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New Hair and Th'Legendary Shack Shakers!

I finally got a haircut! It only took me a year and three months. I went to my friend Bethany Davies, vintage make up and hair artist extraordinaire, who runs mobile beauty services, pop-up salons and has a gorgeous little salon in her home too. Here I am ready for Th'Legendary Shack Shakers / Dirt Daubers gig on Sunday.

Here's what I wore - my tiki dress and bolero, which I made a couple of months ago after planning it for over a year. It's already a bit too big for me, bah! (But also yay for bodily shrinkage!)

I don't know what that blur is on my mirror, it's been there forever, I can't tell whether it's hairspray which I've managed to miss while cleaning (OK, so I don't clean often), or whether the silvering is starting to deteriorate, it's a pretty old mirror. Also I really need to get a backdrop or something, I'm sure you're all sick of seeing the craphole that is my bedroom.

Even though I saw them a couple of months ago in Liverpool, I just had to go to see Th'Legendary Shack Shakers again, they never fail to put on a great show.



Supporting were the Dirt Daubers, the rather more traditional side project from Shack Shakers singer, raconteur, lowbrow artist and all round mountain music impresario Col. JD Wilkes, his wife Jessica and bassist Mark Robertson. I particularly liked their rendition of the old Appalachian murder ballad Down in the Willow Garden, and of course I can never resist a band with a banjo and a washboard.





They also had girls' t-shirts in different sizes! I almost burst with joy, despite them not having any vinyl records. It really annoys me how on the rare occasion that bands produce ladies' t-shirts, they are almost always 'one size', and that size is TINY. The lovely Shack Shakers had three ladies' designs from s-xl, so I bought two. Admittedly they had run out of xl in one of them, obviously because it is super cool and everybody wants one, so here I am after wriggling into a slightly scandalous large.

Here I am with my darling friend Natalie outside the venue, it was all finished and we were out by 10.45pm! We are old ladies, evidently. Best dressed old ladies in the nursing home, though.

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