My first meetup was mentioned in my last post... laser tag!
I remember being a little nervous, just because it was a new group of people who I'd never met. I'd been to cosplay meetups before (I've since left the cosplay group, and while I still cosplay I do it much more casually) but never a lolita meet, and so I wasn't quite sure what was going to happen.
My mom and I did a "dry run" a day or two before, where we drive out to the meetup location so that I can see ahead of time if there's any construction or how some funky thing on the map works, and pick out landmarks. And then, if anything goes wrong, then mom is in the car with me and we can figure out how to fix it without me having a panic attack ^_^; Anyway, I knew how to get there, and everything went fine, I think I was the third person there? I'm always early.
I think they lumped us in with a few more people, but it was largely just us playing, and we did sweet versus classic and gothic for the team divide ^_^ It was a total blast and we hung out after the game, and it just generally made me very excited about being part of the comm.
Tuesday, September 30, 2014
Sunday, September 28, 2014
52 Week: 3 Things I wish I was told when I was a new Lolita
1. Comfortable shoes are very important.
If you're going to a meetup that is a rather active meetup, or one that requires a lot of walking, like say, oh, laser tag or, um, the zoo... for goodness sakes, if you do not have a pair of flat lolita shoes, just wear ballet flats! It doesn't matter that they're not strictly lolita, just wear ballet flats, and for the love of everything do not wear heels even if they are the only lolita shoes you have.
On the plus side, I now know that it is possible to play laser tag in heels. Not very fun, but possible.
2. You never HAVE to wear makeup.
For whatever reason, I somehow got it in my head while researching the fashion that makeup was a "must" while wearing lolita. It is not. Yes, it completes the look and makes you look more polished in general, but you never "have" to wear it. Also, I didn't actually realize what BB cream was until this summer, so there were quite a few days that I was in really hot weather wearing foundation. Don't do it. Just don't. Especially if you're just walking around campus.
3. You look just fine if you wear glasses rather than contacts.
You do. Trust me. And if you want to put on eye makeup, just take your glasses off, get close to the mirror so you can see, put on the eye makeup, and put your glasses back on. You look just fine.
BONUS: Things you will find out when you start wearing lolita:
1. Petticoats are a pain to drive in.
2. Do not wear new tights around your overexcited dogs.
If you're going to a meetup that is a rather active meetup, or one that requires a lot of walking, like say, oh, laser tag or, um, the zoo... for goodness sakes, if you do not have a pair of flat lolita shoes, just wear ballet flats! It doesn't matter that they're not strictly lolita, just wear ballet flats, and for the love of everything do not wear heels even if they are the only lolita shoes you have.
On the plus side, I now know that it is possible to play laser tag in heels. Not very fun, but possible.
2. You never HAVE to wear makeup.
For whatever reason, I somehow got it in my head while researching the fashion that makeup was a "must" while wearing lolita. It is not. Yes, it completes the look and makes you look more polished in general, but you never "have" to wear it. Also, I didn't actually realize what BB cream was until this summer, so there were quite a few days that I was in really hot weather wearing foundation. Don't do it. Just don't. Especially if you're just walking around campus.
3. You look just fine if you wear glasses rather than contacts.
You do. Trust me. And if you want to put on eye makeup, just take your glasses off, get close to the mirror so you can see, put on the eye makeup, and put your glasses back on. You look just fine.
BONUS: Things you will find out when you start wearing lolita:
1. Petticoats are a pain to drive in.
2. Do not wear new tights around your overexcited dogs.
Sunday, September 21, 2014
52 Week: Combining other fashions with Lolita
This one might be short-ish but considering that this will be like the fourth thing I've posted today, I think that's okay.
I am a big fan of combining fashions! If you never introduce new things into a fashion, then the the fashion can't grow, becomes static, and then becomes boring and slowly dies off. I have said this many, many, times for a lot of different things. However, I think that combining things needs to stay in the realm of the rules. Also it needs to look good as an outfit in general, that's probably the most important thing.
For example: I'm starting to amass a collection of resin jewelry. I know that a lot of people wear resin jewelry with both Fairy Kei and OTT sweet (or just sweet) and it looks absolutely fantastic. I, however, have not done that yet, because the jewelry that I have would not look good in a coord with the dresses I have. The colors match, yes, but while I think that a resin star with little dinosaur sprinkles in it would look adorable in a Fairy Kei or even the right OTT Sweet coord, it would not look good with my own coords, which are usually more old school sweet, country, or classic. Kind of like how, while some of the colors are also similar, I wouldn't wear the same necklace with one of my Sunday dresses. I think this should be common knowledge but sometimes I'm surprised.
I think combining fashions is really best done only when you are very immersed in both fashions. I think that Peachie does a great job of combining elements of Fairy Kei with elements of OTT sweet. I however, would not be able to do the same thing with near the amount of success, because I don't know very much about Fairy Kei. I would love to apply some Mori-girl or Aristocrat elements to my lolita (there's a girl in my comm who I believe does Aristocrat as well as lolita and her coords are fantastic and elegant and wonderful) but, again, I'm not as familiar with those as I am with lolita, and I think it would definitely show.
If you want to add elements of something into your main fashion of choice, but you're not very familiar with that "something," look around for pictures of people who have done it successfully. Learning from them will give you a start, and then you can learn more about that other fashion and begin successful forays into combinations!
... Oh wow, this is actually a decent length, yay!
I am a big fan of combining fashions! If you never introduce new things into a fashion, then the the fashion can't grow, becomes static, and then becomes boring and slowly dies off. I have said this many, many, times for a lot of different things. However, I think that combining things needs to stay in the realm of the rules. Also it needs to look good as an outfit in general, that's probably the most important thing.
For example: I'm starting to amass a collection of resin jewelry. I know that a lot of people wear resin jewelry with both Fairy Kei and OTT sweet (or just sweet) and it looks absolutely fantastic. I, however, have not done that yet, because the jewelry that I have would not look good in a coord with the dresses I have. The colors match, yes, but while I think that a resin star with little dinosaur sprinkles in it would look adorable in a Fairy Kei or even the right OTT Sweet coord, it would not look good with my own coords, which are usually more old school sweet, country, or classic. Kind of like how, while some of the colors are also similar, I wouldn't wear the same necklace with one of my Sunday dresses. I think this should be common knowledge but sometimes I'm surprised.
I think combining fashions is really best done only when you are very immersed in both fashions. I think that Peachie does a great job of combining elements of Fairy Kei with elements of OTT sweet. I however, would not be able to do the same thing with near the amount of success, because I don't know very much about Fairy Kei. I would love to apply some Mori-girl or Aristocrat elements to my lolita (there's a girl in my comm who I believe does Aristocrat as well as lolita and her coords are fantastic and elegant and wonderful) but, again, I'm not as familiar with those as I am with lolita, and I think it would definitely show.
If you want to add elements of something into your main fashion of choice, but you're not very familiar with that "something," look around for pictures of people who have done it successfully. Learning from them will give you a start, and then you can learn more about that other fashion and begin successful forays into combinations!
... Oh wow, this is actually a decent length, yay!
30 Day Lolita Challenge: Day 28-30 CHALLENGE COMPLETE!
Day 28: A picture of the perfect lolita location:
Okay, this is just taken from Google Maps Streetview, but this is Patty Cakes Bakery, here in Galveston. I picked here because a) it's a bakery, and no matter your style, a love of sweets is one thing that most lolita's share, and also, it's old fashioned and cute! Check them out here
Day 29: A picture of a lolita you would love to meet for real:
I don't want to take one of their pictures without permission, so I can't do a picture, but I would love to meet Peachie or Lovely Lor! I watch their videos a lot, and they're a big part of how I got up the courage to start wearing Lolita in the first place!
Day 30: A photo of yourself taken today and 3 good things that’s happened over the last 30 days
You do not want to see my face today. I have been in bed sick all day and it is not a thing of beauty. Would a fairly recent non-lolita selfie do the trick?
Good Thing #1: I made new friends on Tumblr.
Good Thing #2: I finished an essay and felt good about it.
Good Thing #3: My "Intro to Museums and Conservation" class went on a field trip to the Texas Seaport Museum and I got to walk on a tall ship for the first time.
30 Day Lolita Challenge: Day 20-27
Day 20: A picture of a lolita friend
Here, have multiple friends! This is from a meetup at the art museum!
Day 25: Your favorite lolita themed artwork:
Uhhhhhhhhh...
Day 26: Your Facebook profile picture
It's literally just my face from the picture above ^_^
Day 27: One song that fits your lolita style:
Not really sure what this means! I'll just say "START: DASH" by μ
Here, have multiple friends! This is from a meetup at the art museum!
Day 21: Your favorite fictional lolita
I don't have one yet?
Day 22: A picture of your room
Here's pictures of my dorm room?
Day 23: A picture of your handwriting
Why do you make me do things?
Day 24: A picture of you from a meet
This was right before I left for the meet, so it still counts ^_^
Uhhhhhhhhh...
Day 26: Your Facebook profile picture
It's literally just my face from the picture above ^_^
Day 27: One song that fits your lolita style:
Not really sure what this means! I'll just say "START: DASH" by μ
So... Challenges... Right...
Did I say that I would have time to blog this summer? Surely I didn't say that...
Ooooohhhhhh boy, I have let this blog slide a lot! My summer was very busy, with illness and online classes and volunteering, and so while I was active on Tumblr, a lot of my "blogging blogging" kind of went by the wayside. Also, I've been working on an original novel, and so if I had time to sit down and write something, that's usually what I was working on. Or I was doing character research, and ended up on Tumblr anyway.
Also, these challenges are, well, challenges! I'm very bad about keeping up with trends, and even in lolita fashion, I tend to ignore trends completely, unless it's something that I like, and even then my notice of the trend will be more of a "hey, it's magically easier to find people selling that thing I like, hooray!" So weekly topics like "3 trends I wish would come back" "Trends I thought I would never get into, but I now love" "Trends I thought I loved, but now I'm not too keen on" and etcetera, are very hard for me to do, because I'm sitting here like "um... what's been a trend? Oh, solid tights were a trend? Okay, I like those, that's all the leg wear I own..." As I mentioned, I'm very practical with my fashion choices, even in a very impractical fashion like lolita.
So, I'm deciding how finishing off these challenges is going to go down. I've started my new semester of college, and I now have an on-campus job (I'm a TA for my favorite professor!) so I'm likely not going to have as much time to really blog as I did last semester (which wasn't much in the first place, I know) but I will try to keep going at a steady rate. With the "30 day" challenge, there's a lot of pictures in there, and so I might do a post that just has "30 Day Challenge: Day 20-25" and a bunch of pictures. With the "52 week" challenge, I'm just going to do the ones that I have something to say about, because we don't need a bunch of "uh, trends... right" posts from me. So if I go from week 19's topic to week 32's topic, you haven't missed anything!
And that's pretty much it. I think I might try to finish up the 30 Day challenge today, and figure out what post I'm doing next on the 52 week, so expect an update soon!
Ooooohhhhhh boy, I have let this blog slide a lot! My summer was very busy, with illness and online classes and volunteering, and so while I was active on Tumblr, a lot of my "blogging blogging" kind of went by the wayside. Also, I've been working on an original novel, and so if I had time to sit down and write something, that's usually what I was working on. Or I was doing character research, and ended up on Tumblr anyway.
Also, these challenges are, well, challenges! I'm very bad about keeping up with trends, and even in lolita fashion, I tend to ignore trends completely, unless it's something that I like, and even then my notice of the trend will be more of a "hey, it's magically easier to find people selling that thing I like, hooray!" So weekly topics like "3 trends I wish would come back" "Trends I thought I would never get into, but I now love" "Trends I thought I loved, but now I'm not too keen on" and etcetera, are very hard for me to do, because I'm sitting here like "um... what's been a trend? Oh, solid tights were a trend? Okay, I like those, that's all the leg wear I own..." As I mentioned, I'm very practical with my fashion choices, even in a very impractical fashion like lolita.
So, I'm deciding how finishing off these challenges is going to go down. I've started my new semester of college, and I now have an on-campus job (I'm a TA for my favorite professor!) so I'm likely not going to have as much time to really blog as I did last semester (which wasn't much in the first place, I know) but I will try to keep going at a steady rate. With the "30 day" challenge, there's a lot of pictures in there, and so I might do a post that just has "30 Day Challenge: Day 20-25" and a bunch of pictures. With the "52 week" challenge, I'm just going to do the ones that I have something to say about, because we don't need a bunch of "uh, trends... right" posts from me. So if I go from week 19's topic to week 32's topic, you haven't missed anything!
And that's pretty much it. I think I might try to finish up the 30 Day challenge today, and figure out what post I'm doing next on the 52 week, so expect an update soon!
Saturday, July 26, 2014
Review: Dreadful Darling Art
So, I've had a package waiting on my desk for me for a week or a little over now, and tonight I finally got to open it! The package was from Dreadful Darling Art, and I'd been waiting to open it because it was my reward for getting through a really rough week of school work (I'm taking an online Spanish class this summer... I've gone through about half the class in a week! My own personal decision, cause the class itself was kinda stressful, but still...) and I'm absolutely over the moon in love with everything!
Everything was packaged so nicely! The tissue paper is a nice touch, and everything was really protected! You can kind of see it in the package, but I got a handwritten note and a business card ^_^
EEE! Look at it, it's so pretty! She puts everything in these precious little bags, isn't that adorable? BUT LOOK AT IT IT'S SO PRETTY!
She gave me extra things! My eyes about popped out of my head when I saw this second bag!
Everything together! Ah, it's all so cute! And she gave me TWO necklace chains! I can't decide which one I should put it on first!
I'm keeping all these stickers! She closed up the tissue paper with them, so there's the lollipop from the outside, and then the cupcake and milkshake that were on the paper. I put them in one of the little green bags so that they won't stick to anything else ^_^
It's so pretty! I can't get over it, I keep staring at it! I fell in love with it just from her picture on Etsy, but I'm even more in love with it in person!
SHE SENT ME A MATCHING RING! Oh my goodness, I squealed when I saw this! It's so cute and fantastic and I'm so happy!
Little ghosties! These are so precious, I've been playing with them pretty much every moment that I'm not typing this out: they're tiny and cute and adorable and pretty much everything I like all rolled into one thing!
I've ordered from Dreadful Darling Art (her store is on Etsy) once before, and while I haven't used any of her pieces for Lolita (although with this new order I think if I put together a Halloween-themed coord I definitely will!) But I think that a lot of her stuff lends itself very well to OTT sweet, Fairy kei, and a bunch of different street fashion styles. I always get lots of compliments on my jewelry when I'm wearing something of hers!
Communication
♥♥♥♥♥
Angie has fantastic communication. With this order there weren't any shipping problems, she let me know when she shipped it and I got the package really really quickly and all was fine. The first time I ordered from her I had it sent to my campus, and our mail is a little weird, and so even though everything is fine, it always gets marked as "undeliverable" on tracking. She sent me a message telling me what had happened and saying that she would try to get it figured out, and while in reality there wasn't a problem, I was just really happy that she was that on top of it all. Plus she's always really nice and friendly in her Etsy messages!
Quality
♥♥♥♥♥
Dreadful Darling Art is the only store I've ever bought resin jewelry from, so I don't have any "in my hand" comparisons, but from what I've heard about good v.s bad resin jewelry, I can definitely say that this is really good quality. Resin aside, it's just plain good quality jewelry. The attachments for the chain (on the necklaces) are really secure, and I can now say that the ring backings are as well. The jewelry itself is nice and smooth, and it's hard like you'd expect from a good resin piece. I can be kind of hard on jewelry, especially jewelry that I wear a lot, and my first necklace from her is still in the same condition it was when I first bought it.
Likeness to Picture
♥♥♥♥♥
Her pictures on Etsy are absolutely fantastic. I have so many of her necklaces in my favorites list, it's a little crazy. All of her pieces are unique, and so you don't have to worry about any kind of photo difference, because what's in the photo is what you're getting, and she's very good about describing the size and everything you might have questions about in the item description.
In General
♥♥♥♥♥
I could recommend Dreadful Darling Art forever. I'm absolutely in love with her jewelry and whenever I wear it I can't stop staring at it and playing with it. Her prices are really reasonable, especially for good quality resin jewelry, and as a seller she's one of those perfect people who just make you want to buy from her again and again!
And now comes the part where I show pictures and gush about everything! SHE PUT A TON OF EXTRA STUFF IN, I'M SO EXCITED!
To start off, look at the precious sticker on the package! I'm keeping it, it's so cute and happy!
Everything was packaged so nicely! The tissue paper is a nice touch, and everything was really protected! You can kind of see it in the package, but I got a handwritten note and a business card ^_^
EEE! Look at it, it's so pretty! She puts everything in these precious little bags, isn't that adorable? BUT LOOK AT IT IT'S SO PRETTY!
She gave me extra things! My eyes about popped out of my head when I saw this second bag!
Everything together! Ah, it's all so cute! And she gave me TWO necklace chains! I can't decide which one I should put it on first!
I'm keeping all these stickers! She closed up the tissue paper with them, so there's the lollipop from the outside, and then the cupcake and milkshake that were on the paper. I put them in one of the little green bags so that they won't stick to anything else ^_^
It's so pretty! I can't get over it, I keep staring at it! I fell in love with it just from her picture on Etsy, but I'm even more in love with it in person!
SHE SENT ME A MATCHING RING! Oh my goodness, I squealed when I saw this! It's so cute and fantastic and I'm so happy!
Little ghosties! These are so precious, I've been playing with them pretty much every moment that I'm not typing this out: they're tiny and cute and adorable and pretty much everything I like all rolled into one thing!
Since I mentioned it so much in the review, I thought I should also take a picture of my other necklace! It's got little dinosaurs in it! And the glitter in the back is pink and orange and it's just so adorable!
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