Inspiration For Lolitifying Your Life

Many Lolita's love to Lolitafy their life, in addition to their selves. There's something wonderful about surrounding yourself with beautiful and interesting things! Whether or not you consider yourself a "Lifestyle Lolita" it's still a lot of fun to add a bit off ruffly fantasy to your life.

When you want to Lolitify your life and start decorating your house or just your bedroom to match your own personal Lolita style, there are a few ways you can go. You can go for a very rich and Victorian look, with lots of gilt and velvet, perfect for a Classic Lolita. You could also go the Sweet route, with fluffy pink throws and delicate pastels. There's also the more Gothic style, with lots of dark colors and curious objets d'art. Of course, these aren't the only styles of decor you could go for, and they could be mixed up in infinite ways. Who says you have to keep your black velvets and ceramic unicorn lamps separate? My own personal decor style is a bit of Gothic Victorian Eccentric. I love romantic pieces of Victorian furniture, black bed canopies, brocade comforters, and unusual collections. I also must admit I'm a hoarder of "strange" things, my current love is antique books, I have them stacked up all over the place! So you will have to excuse me if my tips and ideas tend to lean more in the Gothic direction.

Ideas for Lolitifying a room

• Start a collection of something curious. Pick a theme and a place in your room to display it. If you have limited room on top of dressers and such, look for a fancy little shelf on which to display your finds. Your collection could be something simple like cute ceramic figurines, or something very specific. Among the many things I collect (or rather, accumulate) is religious medals and interesting Victorian photos.
• Use pieces of your wardrobe as decoration. Remember Momoko's room from Kamakaze Girls? It was a dark crowded attic with Baby dresses hanging from her walls and ceiling. While you may not want to live in a burando maze, it's still great inspiration. If you're willing to put whole dresses on display, go for it! I think the most perfect addition to a Lolita room is a vintage dressform. I have one that I found in an antique store a few summers ago that I love to dress up. If you're not quite willing to use dresses as decoration, because of pets or dust, put some smaller pieces of jewelry on display. I also have a blue glass display hand that I have practically encrusted in Lolita rings and necklaces. A fancy wall mounted coat rack makes a great display for necklaces too.
• Make an inspiration board. An inspiration board is really just a fancy word for a pimped out cork board. Cover yours with Brand post cards, tags, photos of Lolita outings, or anything cute and inspirational to you as a Lolita. Here's a tutorial for a really awesome one. I would love to do one like this with a big gilt frame. My current inspiration board is an old coark board I covered with pink leopard faux fur with glitter covered thumbtacks. Xan-chan accused me of being deco for it, but I just wanted something pimpin.
• Add some greenery. Or maybe some faux greenery if you don't think you can manage a real plant. A lovely vase of fake flowers is just as good as a little potted plant for bringing a little bit of the garden indoors. If you're feeling particularly crafty and green thumbed, try making this beautiful Victorian Terrarium.
• Decorate your walls. So many people live bare walled lives! Which is just sad because there are so many ways of decorating your walls. You can hang up adorable prints in pretty frames, fancy mirrors, framed butterflies, shelves, drapery, almost anything! Try to avoid things like tacked on posters, and photos, if you really must tack stuff on your wall, make an inspriation board. Start accumulating small and pretty picture frames and fill them up with cute prints, either taken from magazines, or bought from artists. Instead of scattering them througout a room, cluster them all up in one spot, so you have a mini gallery all on one wall!
• Decorate your floors too! Don't settle with just a plain rug, even if you've had the same awful beige rug in your room your whole life, you can still add a touch of elegance with a small throw rug. Lovely oriental style rugs can be found cheap at many places. To get an opulent over-the-top look, buy a few oriental style rugs and use them all in the same room, layering them or placing them at angels if you have to! If you wan't something a little different, check around on eBay for tapestries. You can usually find vintage tapestries the size of a small rug for about 25 dollars, including shipping. Tapestries come in all sorts of different styles, from cute animals, majestic forest scenes, or even religious figures. I actually collect vintage tapestries with religious scenes on them, I use them on the tops of my dressers.
  
• Lighting. Candy Lights sells adorable silicone dipped light bulbs and light strands. They are just about the cutest lights I've ever seen! They look like wonderfully sweet candies and they give off the best soft pastel glow. If you need more to light your room than just a strand of fairy lights, be on the look out for any fancy lamps, they can be found just about anywhere for rather cheap. I'm so in love with pretty lamps, I have a great big red chandelier type lamp, covered in crystals with clear silicon dipped bulbs that look just like real flames. In contrast, I also have a ceramic leaping unicorn lamp! There's no need to settle for a plain desk lamp when there are so many interesting ways to light your room!
  
• Don't forget the kitchen! I love fancy plates. There are so many places you can get fancy Victorian style dishes, one at a time, for a good price. Home Goods usually has a ton of them for sale. Ebay is another good choice for import kawaii style bowls and plates, I'm such a sucker for cute bowls that have kitties painted on them. Asian grocery stores are another awesome place to find plates. They usually have a rather large selection of traditional fancy pates, with floral and gilt designs, and also Asian designs as well. I have all three of these kinds of plates and bowls mingling in the cupboard
  

Places to start looking for treasures

• Thrift shops, antique stores, and yard sales. Your best bet in finding something unique and cheap is to dig around thrift store and other such places. Most of the things I decorate are thrifted. Make a day out of it, invite a few Lolita friends and go on a treasure hunt! Just be sure to wear something appropriate, you really don't want to be wearing anything light colored or any huge petticoats. Things can get a bit dusty and crowded in such stores, you don't want to knock something over with a petticoat and get an expensive skirt dirty at the same time.
• Home decor shops. If you don't have any antique stores in your area that are reasonably priced, home decor shops, like Home Goods, are a good place to find faux antiques pretty cheaply.
• Design Toscano. I love this place, while they do have many things of questionable taste, they're awesome for adding the final touch to a room. I'm madly in love with their Eiffel Tower telephone.
• Madam Talbot's Victorian Lowbrow. I love this site! It's like a wonderful Victorian yard sale/art show. If the prices are a bit high, check out their awesome poster section. They're very affordable at about $13 and just incredibly cool.

Looking for some inspiration?

• Gothic & Lolita Bibles. There are a few features on rooms scattered throughout the Bibles, but there is also a ton of inspiration in the backgrounds of the outfit shots. The Gothic & Lolita Bible Extras are a good source of craft projects too.
• Jars of Cute. An adorable blog filled with adorable things to buy. They range from accessories to room decor, look around! You might find something that would be just perfect in your room!
• Shabby Chic blogs. Using ideas from Shabby Chic blogs can be a great way of adding a bit of ruffles to your room. Think of it as a mash up of Classic, Sweet, and h.NAOTO. It's pale and fluffy and tattered at the same time! Some great Shabby Chic blogs are Chez Fifi, Vintage Flair, Oh So Pretty (which sadly hasn't been updated in a very long time), and Gathering Dust.