reading the tarot reader

after all these years, i do still read my tarot cards. and after all these years, my Fantastical tarot cards still haven’t failed me. (to read about my background in this whole tarot thing, click here.)

i still love seeing tarot card decks whenever i see them on display.

last time i went to Stockholm, i went to my fave clothing store, & Other Stories, with a mission. they were having summer sale at the time, and days before we left for our holiday i already noted down the things i wanted to get. it was for my own birthday present, you see. so while we were waiting to check-in to our hotel room there, my husband said we should just go to that store, “to get it over and done with” (= his exact words. men and shopping really don’t go hand-in-hand, do they?). but whatever. i wouldn’t want that to get me down, because i had actually been waiting for these items to go to the sale rack for exactly half a year.

the bag is always colour-coordinated with the items inside ❤

they asked if i wanted them to be wrapped in silk paper. yes, please!

and luck was on my side, because they actually still had these things i wanted to get.

the first one is a blouse… with tarot card print! can you imagine this tarot reader’s excitement when she first saw it online? it was quite expensive for my taste in its original price, so i decided to forget it. but i guess it was meant to be that they finally marked this down and there was still my size left in the store (there were only 2 pieces left, one was 3 sizes too big for me, and the other was just my size). it’s made of viscose crepe, very comfortable to be worn even in the summer. 45€ was the original price, and i got it for 22.50€.

the second item i got was from the same collection.

it’s a 100% silk scarf, with the size of approximately 80 x 80 cm. this was also on sale from 35€ to 17.50€ (i just checked, now it’s even cheaper at 11€). you probably know me well enough to know why i wanted to get this scarf, but i’m still going to spell it out.

because i wanted to turn it into this.

self-made shirt, Benetton shorts, MercuryDuo bag, leftover from silk scarf worn as headband.

i combined it with another fabric for the whole back side, neckline, & hem, and voila! i got another piece of clothing with tarot card print. 🙂

a close-up of the lovely print

there was even a small piece left unused, so i use it as a hairband. i didn’t use any pattern for this. since i love, love, LOVE the print, i didn’t want to add too much detail to the front side of this shirt. but for the back side, i decided to add a bit of a twist.

yep, i painstakingly did braids on the back side’s upper part. first i cut the part that i wanted to have braids in vertical fringe (like when you make fringe for a Native American costume), and only cut the bottom part of that area without cutting the left most and right most of the fringe (because they’re for the sleeves). and then i made braids for every 3 strands, and sew the braid ends onto the bottom part of that area. it was tiring, but i kind of like the hippie-feel of the outcome. my husband summed this shirt best: the front side is a Gypsy, and the back side is a hippie. 😀

 

the fabric i used for the back side is cotton jersey. i found it on the sale box of a fabric store, full of dirt and discolour here and there… it was only for 2.60€ for a big piece of it! after washing it in hot temperature, the dirt and discolour disappeared. 🙂

the bag that i used for the photo shoot was a free gift from a Japanese magazine called Cutie. it was another find from our last trip to Stockholm, when we were walking aimlessly in the Old Town and stumbled upon a bookstore called Science Fiction Book Shop. it has manga, novels, anime dvds & blu-rays, kits & models, and to my pleasure, a section of Japanese fashion magazines.

so you see? my cards never fail me. ❤