I dressed up today, and paid a bit of extra attention because I was going to meet some new people, but in the end my outfit was seen for all of maybe 5 minutes when I asked someone to take a picture for me! Oh well–I guess that’s just how things go sometimes.

It’s still very, very cold here, so I bundled up as much as possible. I knew I would be out and about, because I headed down to the Garfield Park Conservatory. It’s a magnificent, enormous greenhouse with a charming Victorian feeling to it. However, it is not near where I live–I rode on 3 different lines of the L to get there. (But thankfully, my ride was not terribly long.) I attended a ball-jointed doll “mini-meetup,” and it was a lot of fun.

Although I’ve taken to painting my nails frequently, I don’t usually do much with them. I admire lolita who decorate their nails or are able to function with charms dangling from their fingertips~ However, I have very poor control of my fingers with false nails or decorations, so I didn’t want to attempt something that advanced. Instead, I aimed for a more subtle look. I first painted my nails with some very sheer pink nail polish, intended for French manicures, then alternated every-other finger with a coat of micro-glitter-packed sheer pink polish! It’s a particularly nice effect in person, because the light really dazzles on the glittery fingers, but it isn’t quite enough to be obnoxiously distracting. (Maybe I’ll try something bolder next time!)

My outfit today consisted of many, many layers! I couldn’t bear to go without long underwear, since I knew I’d be outside quite a bit today, so I wore a blouse under my one-piece to avoid the awkward collision of the mis-matched necklines of the dress and the thermal shirt. I like to wear blouses under one-pieces in the winter, and it works out very nicely as long as the dress has a square neckline and the blouse has a Peter Pan or high-neck collar. If the dress has a higher collar, there’s too much bulk underneath. If they both have square collars, the overlap tends to look awkward.

Instead of my “default” spiral pigtails, I coiled braids into buns, accenting them with a bow. It was a bit difficult to fit my earmuffs on without removing the bows, but at just the right positioning the headdress covered them up. (Thankfully they didn’t dig into my head! x_+ I worried it would be painful…) The wind can be brutal here, so having my hair completely up prevented any non-intentional “blow drying.” I wore socks for a little bit extra pinkness~ Even if my outfit was barely seen, I had fun dressing up today. At least I got a picture!