It's now the second week of uni for us at UoA, and the workload has increased so much from undergrad to postgrad courses! Honestly, I am really surprised and stressed out over uni for the second time in my life (the first time was semester 1 of my first year, I was such a tryhard lol).
When I'm stressed over uni, I usually either:
1. paint my nails, or
2. go online shopping
Today I have decided to post up my wishlist from DresSale because I've been looking through their store the entire day (so many items!!) and there's actually a lot of good bargains on there! (just had to hunt around a little cause I'm too stingy) please help me receive my wishlist by clicking one of the 'DresSale' links in the wishlist post on Confetti! (read more)
Uni just started up again for the new year. The past week has been surprisingly hectic – perhaps I just need a bit of time getting used the uni routine again?
Shortly before uni resumed, Confetti was invited to take a sneak peek at Farmers Department Store's core A/W fashion collection! Cora couldn't attend (that busy busy girl!), so Little and I went by ourselves ((´д｀))
It was a suuuper hot day, and we got so lost on the way there that we ended up going to the police depot to ask for directions.
Not like we're foreigners or anything （；￣д￣）
At the launch event, we were taken around and given a brief introduction to the inspiration for each of the key trends this season – Punk, Sloane Ranger,English Rose, and English Glamour.
If you haven't figured it out yet, this season is drawn from several iconic British styles through time. (read more)
So Japan Day in Auckland this year was on the 23rd of Feb, so this post is just over a week late (awks sorry!) ;w;
Japan Day festival this year happened to fall on Japan’s Cat Day! At least it seemed to, since most people I follow on instagram are so many hours behind me that their nyan nyan day (22/2) posts appeared on the 23rd for me.
The festival this year was held at ASB showgrounds. I haven’t been in the past few years, so in my eyes the festival has gained a lot of recognition and has grown heaps!
Today I’m showing my buys from Taobao from late last year – if you like any of the items, feel free to ask me for the link (I have them all saved in my order at my shipping proxy’s site) ^^
I took the photos in the dim corridor because I was too excited to move it somewhere brighter, so the photo quality is pretty bad as I cbb editing them (all) sorry! ><
A bag and some eyelid tapes were sent to T’s house in China, but she left for NZ just like, 5 hrs before it arrived T_T hopefully the bag will be ok on its shipment here…
Apart from those two items, everything else in my last taobao haul is here! Description/mini review of each item is in image description...
OK so I’m posting this up ahead of the Farmers Autumn/Winter Launch and Japan Day because my friend サ-ラ who helped me purchase this fukubukuro is posting her unboxing soon too, and I have some of the stuff from her lucky bag xD
edit: サ-ラ's fukubukuro reveal is now on her blog here! She got a really good bag too ~ *happy happy*
I only look at fashion LPs, because Japanese brand clothes are ridiculously expensive and generally not worth their price when they’re not on sale. Yes I said it ok; brand lovers, don’t hate – you know it’s the truth.
Because D.I.A doesn’t have a web store, I haven’t really seen their items in detail before. As it is, many D.I.A items turn out to be average quality, and in general I would say that their more casual clothing are certainly not worth their regular price. However, when you get 15 items in a LP, the individual cost of each item makes it virtually impossible to get a ‘bad value’.
D.I.A also has one of the most ‘good value’ LPs of the gyaru brands. Year after year, Ank Rouge has disappointed me with their average-as-plain-icecream LPs (2014 suitcase here and 2014 carry here). I don’t know the owner of those two blogs btw, just linked the first two I found with photos for Ank Rouge 2014 LP on google lol.
SO my LP! The title of this post is a little misleading because it didn’t come in a box, BUT most LPs are sent by shipping services in boxes so for searchability, I wrote unboxing k
It’s been a while since I posted, sorry for the brief hiatus!
I’ve taken so many photos these two weeks, but being the instagram addict that I am, every photo has to be filtered yadi-yadah. Long story short, I simply didn’t have time to prepare all the photos for posting recently ><
Is it better to have few, but good quality, photos…or to have many, but average quality photos???
I swear that is a blogger’s biggest dilemma :’( #firstworldproblems
Anyway, last weekend we had the annual Auckland Chinese Lantern Festival! As usual, the festivities spanned from Friday till Sunday – with fireworks on Sunday evening.
I originally planned to go on Sunday so that I could stay and watch the fireworks, but I had to leave early. AND THIS YEAR THE FIREWORKS FLEW OFF THE SKY TOWER TOO!! So unfortunate T_T
I bought these lenses around September last year (my final CL purchase of the year) when I decided to cosplay SeeU for Armageddon. Sadly, I wasnt able to buy a commissioned dress, and being typical slow lazy me, exams crept up and I didn't end up sewing my own cosplay. I still have the fabric and all the accessories though, so I will do it this year!
Ok that was a big tangent. Back to the review!
I bought these lenses because I needed something very blue, but light, and doesn't have a big limbal ring. Even though she has a clear black limbal ring in her box cover illustration, her eyes are so blue that on cosplay, it wouldn't stand out if I used a lens with a dark ring.
I hunted ALL over the internet, and found the lightest, most limbal-less and large blue lenses I could find- Vassen Crystal Blue. Which are apparently also called i-Fairy Super Crystal Blue.
Every year, I will buy at least one pair of lenses in a brownish sort of colorwhether it be more of a chocolate, caramel, or some other shade. Geo Bambi Almond was my brown for 2013
I bought it near the start of the year, and loved it so much that I didn’t feel the need to buy any more! If it weren’t for the fact that there are sooo many lenses on the market I haven’t tried yet, I would honestly just keep re-purchasing these lenses every year. Forever.
These were the first blue lenses of 2013. In earlier years, I had an obsession with green lenses and I would get a pair of green every year. But in 2012 (I think?) green lenses started looking really odd on me :’(
As much as I love green eyes, it was time to wave goodbye to those. And since I always loved grey lenses, and they worked well on me, I thought “well, why not try other cool colors, like blue?”
So in 2013, I went for this super super solid EOS Max Pure Blue pair of lenses, in my usual 14.5mm! (They are indeed very pure though, not so sure about the max...)
With my lenses from last year, some were opened a little earlier in the year, some a little later. I didn’t take many selfies last year that show my lenses well, so I don’t actually have many photos for all of them.
Counting by days, we're only 2/3 through. But I've been counting in weekends since I started work, because that is the only time I'm home. There's only one weekend left before the end of January, and somehow that doesn't seem like nearly enough time to get done all the things I want to do!
This past weekend was yet again, spent going out till late, getting home late, and then sleeping till the afternoon. It's not what I wanted for this year to be like, but somehow I've been in this cycle for the past several weeks. Literally going out Friday and Saturday nights, and sleeping in the rest of the time. :(
On the bright side, I got to watch The Secret Life of Walter Mitty! I saw the trailer last month at another movie, and it seemed like a really adventurous story so I convinced my mom to go with me on Friday. The movie is everything I thought it would be, and I'm really glad I chose to watch it on the big screen instead of *getting it off a friend*. We ended the night by singing ktv till 3am, and so the partying weekend began.
Saturday was a friend's 21st birthday. I woke up really late so I thought I wouldn't make it since NZ busses are as rare as kiwi birds over the weekend. Luckily, a bus driver going to her district said he could give me a ride to her place when we reach the final stop, so I managed to get to her place with minimal walking! #happylazydays
Out of the half dozen things I wanted to do last week, I only managed to finish two, however the circle lens reviews I have taken photos for, so hopefully I can finish those through the week. I am also opening new lenses this week to use over the next 6 months! I love opening new lenses~~ >w<
Next weekend will be quite exciting. I have two photoshoots coming up, one for PretzelPOP (put together by Babycakesland), and one for Confetti so I'm really looking forward to working on those! Some other pretty pressing work has come up, but...I don't know how I'm going to fit those in at this point in time. Hopefully I will get those done early next month? ><;
Also, my clothes should be coming in the first half of next month!! I know it's pretty far off, but I'm just so excited I have to keep checking and looking at all the things I got LOL!! >0< OK I'll stop now. and just squeal in my own head and not spam everyone's fb newsfeed and other feeds with my excitement. ;w;
edit: the post for this shoot is now on Confetti! Read it here!
The day before yesterday I decided that in honor of the new year, I must have a photoshoot to change out my profile photos!
But come yesterday, I had no motivation after crawling out of bed at midday, and proceeded to spend the next 5 hours online looking for blog posts, images, videos, ANYTHING of people's lucky bags this year.
I really want to know all the prints that were available in this year's meta bag!! and I want to know what's in my D.I.A fukubukuro, but I must be patient for that ><
Anyway, so I finally started preparing for my shoot just before dinner, and a kind friend came by and lent me his tripod. My tripod is super noob, the head can't rotate so if I use it for my camera it's suuuper inconvenient. Plus I only have one tripod so it's like- how do I share it between my ring light and my camera? lol. The life of a blogger eh ^^;
Thanks to the second tripod, I had a pretty good setup last night:
cruddy phone meitu camera quality *sigh*
I've now started looking through the images from the shoot (yay!) so here is a preview for the meantime:
filterfilterfilterfilterfilterfilter >:3
Sorry about mini photo, need it resized and online for something ~.~
I looked for inspiration on pinterest two nights ago, but on the day I just didn't feel like going with any of them, so i sorta just started doing my makeup... then found this old dress from year 13 (senior) ball... and then chose my wig, and everything else followed from there xD
It was a lot of fun playing around with my makeup as I hadn't really touched them since...since my last photoshoot with Ken Bufton? That was back in early December! I really wanted to use the ready made bling stickers because it would save me so much trouble, but I have no idea where I've put them...
Hopefully I didn't lose them? lol that would be awkward.
Looking at the photos now, it seems a bit Luka (vocaloid) inspired? I sent one of the photos to Tenshi-nee as preview, and she said it reminds her of Just Be Friends haha. It would be fun to cos Luka someday!
Personally, for Luka I like the PV for Answer most~ Plus the "singing" is much better mixed and sounds more natural.
Late last year, I had the privilege of modelling for the portfolio of a professional photographer- Ken Bufton.
It was the first time I had modelled for an industry professional and veteran, so I was really excited for the experience!!
Truthfully, I was very worried beforehand about messing up, or being too slow, or doing something wrong. And in fact I did forget to bring a petticoat for my lolita inspired outfit on the day…
But somehow the photos of that outfit look better than they probably would have if I did have the petticoat, so I was very relieved ^^;
I also had no blouse that I could fit at the time. Tenshi-nee and wifey made me a blouse to go with the pink sakura skirt (both made from scratch!), but I’m now too fat to fit it LOL.
Tangent: there is, however, a blouse in the Metamorphose Lucky Bag they bought for my birthday in Dec though! Hopefully I can fit that one! ><
Back to the shoot-
For the photoshoot, I did my hair (lol, straightened it. Wish I used a wig instead), and makeup, and Ken was the photographer. It was easier than I thought to work without an assistant!
We took the photos at Auckland Domain. It was just the middle of spring, so all the flowers were blooming and the weather was wonderful!
As it is NZ though, we did have a couple minutes of rain. But it was over pretty quick ^^
These are my favourite snaps from the day (no photoshopping by me, since I’m mega chubby on Ken’s website anyway T_T)-
disclaimer: all reviews on this blog are 100% our own opinions, even if the products are sponsored.
Hiya!
Today I am posting the long-awaited GEO eyescream review! This series consist of (brown)Chocomousse, (hazel) Vanilla Brown, and (gray) Rayray Gray lenses.
The lenses were sent to us by GEO coloured lenses in October *last year* during exam period, so we never got around to doing a full photoshoot for them ><
We considered leaving this review until Cora got back from Europe so that we could do a full shoot, but it’s just too far off ><
So yup, this review is just going to come from visually impaired me today!
GEO Eyes Cream series yay! Bottles are so kawaii~~
TBH when I first heard about these lenses, i expected some dreamy swirly super big and dolly lenses. And when I got the lenses, my first thought was “oh wow, they’re actually really natural…*insert disappointment*”
It’s actually been quite a while since i really splurged on GEO lenses, since I’ve been really after the OTT colors and super large lenses that don’t look natural at all. It’s actually quite nice to try these for a change!
I usually make 3 resolutions, so that if I break one then at least I haven’t broken everything for the whole year lol.
But through the past year, I’ve come to realise that you don’t get nearly as much out of the experience, if you don’t put as much on the line.
So this year, I will just have one new year’s resolution:
be more thoughtful, and speak my mind
Sometimes, I think it’s easier to leave things unsaid. But oftentimes, because of the things unsaid, myself, or someone else is misunderstood. I want to try giving the choice to other people to decide what they want to do with the knowledge of something, rather than withholding it from them, and essentially deciding for them.
And yes i cheated by putting two resolutions into one lol.
On the 23rd when we went to Honeysuckle Lane, I only had my phone to take photos with.
My mom was not satisfied with the phone camera quality. She HAD to take a proper photo with the blown up Santa this year or else-…
So today after a nice dinner with some family friends, we sped out the door to view more lights. Can I just say… lol.
First we went to the church nearby- Northcross church started doing a little drive through Bethlehem town dress-up last year, and this year it was super busy!
It’s really nice to see people getting into the xmas spirit and light-viewing at 10pm, but I’m really hoing they’ll make it ‘walk-in only’ next year. Not only was the traffic horrible, and I couldn’t take proper photos, but all those cars just crawling slowly is really bad for the environment!!
Anyway, here are a few photos from Northcross’ Bethlehem:
So last night, my mom was super motivated to go out (instead of staying home watching the telly drinking wine), so we decided to go for a walk down my wifey’s road (Honeysuckle Lane) to see their Christmas lights.
Honeysuckle Lane is pretty well known on the shore for being the most cheerfully decorated road during xmas, but this year several households seem to have withdrawn from the annual tradition :/
I kinda miss the house that used to even open their garage to display some religious scenes :’(
So my mom and I went to Honeysuckle, decided after a short walk that it wasn’t quite festive enough.
So we drove back home, put on makeup, did our hair, changed clothes, got all dolled up and went to THE best xmas deco-ed street in Auckland, if not the whole of New Zealand- Franklin Road, Ponsonby.
Today (better be) a post spam, to catch up on at least some of the backlogged posts this year!!
I’d feel so bad if I let them run into the new year lol…
Anyway, my birthday was on the 5th, so I had a little dinner in Nov to celebrate with my friends that were going overseas. This bigger 21st party, I decided to hold with two high school friends ( P & T as captioned in the photos) since we’re all born in December and our friend circles are like, 90% the same lol #antisocialme
We had a simple barbeque in my back yard, and it was all just very chill *thank goodness*
The decoration was (truthfully) pretty last minute, but I think it looked really good with all the colors and stuff hehe. Super happy with a childish and playfully decorated 21st birthday ❤
We decided not to get catering, and made everything ourselves :3
Big thank you to all our friends that helped out on the day! And also E for the photos! ❤❤❤
GEO Eyes Cream series yay! Bottles are so kawaii~~
