.the princess portal.

I would like to start this series of practical Princess Lessons off with something painfully practical, those most mundane of duties - household chores.

A Princess, in this day and age, is not always blessed with the benefit of servants and needs must do her own chores however un lady-like they may be. Unless you have an obliging family member or household staff you probably have to tidy your own things, clean the dishes, wash your gowns and do other menial labour.

How did Cinderella bear all the mopping and scrubbing with dignity and grace? I don’t know for a fact, but I imagine she managed to make it a little bit fun for herself, and this is what I try and do whenever faced with a my least favourite tasks. These suggestions may sound a little silly at first, but please try them for yourself, you will be surprised how they make the time fly!

We can’t really wear our loveliest clothes when doing dirty work, so instead set aside some clothes to be your ‘rags.’ It might be an old faded dress, an old t-shirt or even a peasant style blouse. Throw on a frilly apron and tie your hair back with a pretty scarf. I find dressing up makes everything more fun.

Put on some music. I always listen to music when I do chores, it allows your imagination to wander away from the dull handiwork and keeps you light hearted. Pick something you can sing along to and trill away to your heart’s content.

Please protect your hands! Cleaning products contain so many harsh chemicals that will age your skin and can cause rashes. Wear a pretty pair of gloves and moisturise your hands afterwards.

Do a little bit extra, when tidying your room add a bunch of flowers to brighten your day. Instead of throwing your clothes in the drier hang them outside to drip dry and revel in the warm sunlight scent of air dried linen. Finding some form of satisfaction and pleasure from your end results will make the hard work seem more worthwhile.

Reward yourself. After you have ticked off everything on your to-do list (written on cute printed paper!) give yourself a treat. A relaxing bubble bath, a bowl of ice cream and fruit or an hour to spend curled up with a good book. You’ve earnt it!

I seem to be on a run of re-watching old films I enjoyed as a child and The Labyrinth is certainly one of them. I know a lot of people love this movie for David Bowie, but I have to admit that is not what attracts me I adore the Labyrinth for its glitter coated sets, its quirky creatures and most of all, its creativity.

The Labyrinth is really a masterpiece of multiple geniuses, when you put together Brian Froud, Jim Henson, George Lucas and Terry Jones you can’t help but to get something special. Much like Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the story is twisted and nonsensical and has many layers, like a dream apon dreams I have always had a fascination with the surreal and metaphorical in to which this story delves.

The plot is fairly simple, an imaginative young girl named Sarah asks the goblins to take her baby brother away (having a brother myself, I completely understand this!) she is inspired by her favourite book. However when her wish comes true and the King of the Goblins, Jareth, snatches up the little boy she is left regretting her wish. Jareth gives her 13 hours to find her way to the centre of the Labyrinth and rescue her brother, otherwise he will become a goblin too. Along the way she most solve riddles, evade enemies and make new friends to help her succeed.

The entire set and creature design is stunning, being the joint project of the Henson company and Brian Froud who previously made The Dark Crystal Some of the scenes I love best include; the opening scene in which Sarah, dressed as a medieval lady is reading the lines of the story, the beautiful maquerade, the scene where Sarah is back in her own room briefly with all her things (for some reason I find this part the most touching) and of course the fabulous Escher inspired maze in the castle.

I reccomend this movie to anyone who loves fairy tales, surrealism or simply wants to relive a little of their childhood dreams. I think I shall be buying the recently released Manga Return to The Labyrinth, out of curiousity.

I have just come back from a week in Albany, a small coastal town where I attended the funeral of the dear lady I mentioned earlier It was a beautiful ceremony and many people came to pay their respects. On the long jouney home I had plenty of time to think and decided apon a few changes I plan to make to the Princess Portal. I hope you will be pleased with them.

The first, and perhaps the least exciting change is that I will be placing some ads on the site. I shall try to make them as unobtrusive as possible, with no images and only relevant links. They will probably be in the side bar where they will not get in the way of your reading. I think it is only fair to prepare you for this and explain my reasons for it. As the princess portal gets higher traffic (and it has risen a lot of late) I have to pay more for my hosting, thus to support this I am going to try and raise a little through ads. Whenever you click on these ads you are helping me to keep the Princess Portal up and running!

Now, the other changes are far more delicious and I hope they will make up for the former! I have always used PP as a diary of sorts, to record my daily activities and thoughts, and while I plan to continue doing this I have been thinking for a little while of adding something more Over the next few weeks I will be reorganizing the portal and tagging all my old entries, as well as creating a few new categories for different sorts of entries other than my daily princess life. These shall hopefully include:

Princess Style posts with photos of my daily outfits and coordinates including information on all the items I am wearing. These probably won’t be everyday, but I’d like to do a couple a week.

Princess Profile I would like to share with you a little information on a favourite princess of mine, be she historical, fictional or modern. I hope you will enjoy learning a bit about these amazing ladies!

My Kitchen I don’t cook a lot (don’t expect these very often) though I do enjoy baking so I thought it might be fun to share some recipes and photos of the end result!

Inspirations I was meaning to make a new page for this, however I think it may be more fun as a new type of entry. These will be reviews of certain media that I find inspirational, movies, books, songs and poems.

Princess lessons A little different from the Princess Articles in my writings section, I would like to share a few practical tips on living as a princess, these could be anything from etiquette to how to choose the right shoes for a ball (glass is so impractical.) I hope they will be useful to you as well as a bit of fun.

Please look forward to seeing these new posts soon I can’t wait to get started!

Last night I watched a movie that was a childhood favourite of mine, Legend. It was so nostalgic, I just adore this film, even if it is a bit silly and cliche its just so magical and pretty. Princess Lily is beautiful and the scene with the unicorns always enchants me. I wish I had her dress! The sleeves are divine.

I thought I should finally post a photo of my adorable BABY nightgown which was a gift from Mirai for my birthday. The chiffon is so light and delicate, I am really developing a love of chiffon. I need some new summer clothes so I’ve bought a couple of chiffon dresses, they’re not lolita but definitely princess style.

Parfait says good night and sweet dreams!

This morning I was out in the courtyard talking to the roses, and I noticed that while all else seemed dry, this single peach coloured rose, the only one in our garden, was crying crystal dewdrop tears. An hour or two later the Prince came to tell me that his Mother had passed away this morning.

She was a beautiful, kind and caring lady and will be sorely missed by many. I am glad her suffering has finally ended and I pray there will be many beautiful roses like this one where she is now.

With all my love, may she rest in peace.

I have been quite lax in my updating lately. The party took so much time and energy and now that its over I am still recovering, not to mention doing some extra days at work to help out. It is a stunning day outside, beautiful and not too warm, what a nice summer day should be I decided to walk down to Mia cafe this morning to meet my friend Karine, and along the way I was pleasantly surprised to meet someone who knew about lolita fashion! It is not often someone recognises BABY the stars shine bright in my little city so I was really thrilled. She has been to japan and said she likes Wa-loli best.

Today I am going to share some pictures I had been meaning to post, which unfortunately got swept up in my business but should not be wasted. The first is a new treasure of mine! I bought it on Etsy, it is a handmade scrapbook with a Fairytale theme. Each page is decorated differently with faeries and unicorns and castles and crowns. I adore it and can’t wait to print some photos of my princess adventures to put therin I might also put in some of my favourite poems and scenes from traditional tales. The seller was so sweet as to make me this little note card with my name on it and a few gift tags and a faerie wand! I was enchanted by the detail she has put in to everything.

Earlier this week Clara came over to bake mini cupcakes I only got home in time to help with the decorating but I think they’re adorable (and delicious!) She bought these cute sugar butterflies and flowers and they are perfect for the season and the flavour is cookies and cream with cream cheese icing yum!

Last night was my birthday party! It was magical and beautiful and perfect and I had a wonderful time. I will try to remember everything that happened in order and not leave anything out because each detail is still so fresh and exciting in my mind I could barely sleep! I’m sorry, this is going to be very long.

We arrived at Araluen botanic park just after five and quickly began setting up. The Queen and I put up three tables, about knee height. One large main table in the middle and two little ones on the side. These were swathed in black fabric, scattered with tiny silver stars and set with the towering vine candelabras I showed you earlier and dozens of tiny tealight holders which made little pools of light. We wound fresh ivy around their bases and scattered big summer roses in soft peach and pink and red about them (these smelled divine!) Around each table we arranged our homemade cushions. Alternating black and silver with glittery designs of leaves, butterflies, stars and moons. While we were doing this the King set up strands of fairy lights over the wisteria covered pergola, turning it in to a Fairy Bower.

It was nearly time for guests to arrive so I hurried off to get dressed in to my Titania costume. My dress was made of royal purple silk shantung with a layer of matching gauze over the skirt and long draping sleeves of the same fabric. The bodice had a piece of gold venice lace and the skirt was scattered with maple leaves painted matching gold. I wore a wig of long black curls with a gold wire crown set with swarovski crystals I had also made some jewelry, a matching choker and ring with tiny gold butterflies on them. Oh! And my wings finally arrived, they were iridescent purple veined with copper and fluttered behind me as I ran.
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I had a little princess day today! While I hadn’t the time and funds set aside for a really luxurious princess day I decided to treat myself by doing a little shopping and having tea on Beaufort street. Perth isn’t really a place to come for shopping, however beaufort st is one of my favourite places the most enjoyable districts to browse through. I start at the south end where there are several flower shops, they’re actually just deli’s that have taken to selling masses of unarranged flowers for much cheaper than your usual florist. I was looking for some Madonna Lillies because they have just come in to season but didn’t have any luck. Its ok though because I have a big velvet red rose on my bedside that I picked from the rose bush in our courtyard.

After the flower shops I visited the furniture stores, there are two that carry period style furntiture and I love going in to look. The first is called Early Settler and they have a mix of french provincial, queen anne and victorian styles. The other is a really amazing store, everything is a sort of modern-rococo style with big gilt mirrors and chaise lounges and cherub clocks, it’s a feast for the eyes!

I stopped off at Planet Books for a little while to flip through their japanese street fashion section, they have a new book in called J-rock Groupies that I really want because it has some wonderful lolita street snaps from Tokyo. It actually looks better than the Phaidon Gothic & Lolita book.

The last two stores I visited were Heart & Home, a delightful boutique full of roses and lace and soap and another store who’s name I can’t remember but they have some really quirky items and Blythes, including the Marie Antoinette Blythe who is simply stunning! I managed to buy some small gifts for a gift swap I’m doing and hope to post them off tomorrow.

I had tea at The Leaf, it was Parisian Rose and came in a charming glass tea pot over a little tealight warmer and there was a rose bud in my cup! I also ordered some cute baby gingerbread men and read a little while I enjoyed it

Once a year there is a special event run by Panic in which teams of two participate in a “Race Around Perth.” The idea is from a television show but its a lot of fun! This year I went with Clara and our team name was ‘Lace and Belles’ we didn’t win, but had a lot of fun along the way!

It was quite cold in the morning when we turned up, I was wearing my strawberry jsk and bunny hoodie so I was a little chilly but the day warmed up as we went along. We were given our first clue and rushed to the location where we had to become a living window display and have our photo taken. Clara and I were lolita pirates in a suitcase boat! Some of the other memorable tasks were Charades and a game where we had to sing a well known song using the words from a book as lyrics! I had to sing ‘Yellow Submarine’ to Dune!

It was great to catch up with a lot of our friends who were also participating and I think everyone thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

The rose bush in our courtyard is blooming. Its buds are black as night and open on to the most beautiful blood red petals. I have spent the day trying to take my mind off of the health of the Prince’s Mother, and also our dear family dog Sian, as both are close to leaving us.

I can not say it was a pleasant day, obviously the weight of these concerns is too heavy to be thrown off by idle frivolty. However, I did watch a film called Russian Ark, it is a very interesting look at Russian History shot rather abstract in one continous frame. I reccomend it. I also recieved some beautiful oils from Black Pheonix Alchemy Lab, I have Alice, Marie, Maiden, Poison Apple, Titania and Antique lace. They all smell so good I can not choose a favourite but Poison Apple is the most interesting and Antique Lace the sweetest. I shall wear Titania to my party and smell like wild peaches.