Secret of the Week + Royal Chocolate

There's a forum on LJ called Lolita Secrets. It comes up every Sunday morning. I've decided that I'm going to pick my favorite secret from each week. I'll try and post one of these each Sunday.

Sometimes the secrets are targeted towards certain girls in particular, but I won't be posting those here. I am going to post the ones that I think are the funniest.


On to the fun stuff!

Secret of the week for 8/28:

I wanted to start this last week, but never got around to it. So here's my secret of the week for 8/21:

These are both furking hilarious.

Now on to the sad news..

Angelic Pretty released a series called Royal Chocolate. It features cute non-print JSKs, salpoettes and coats. Their like, ya know, whatever. :-) 

But the Royal Chocolate socks....

It breaks my heart that I didn't even know these existed until it was too late. If I had been following AP's facebook, I would have known the day they became available. Just look at that detail. I think these would go even better with Chess Chocolate than the socks that are in that particular series. They would also coordinate so beautifully with my Melty Chocolate bag. 

Damnit! 

Update

Angelic Pretty San Francisco got a shipment of these in in mint and ivory. So I jumped on the opportunity. Thank god for their facebook notifications. 

Pre School Blues

So tomorrow morning, I am going to go to my first class at the University of Phoenix. I am finally starting work on my bachelors degree. I don't know whether to be excited or pissed that I'll be in school another two years, as most people my age got their degrees years ago. I do realize that I'm extremely fortunate to be able to get an education in the first place, and will do my best. I picked the University of Phoenix because if I had chosen a public school like a cal state, I'd be stuck trying to get a degree for at least twice the time it'll take me at Phoenix.

I also have one last class to take at PCC, MATH. :-( I start that at 7am Monday morning. OHH well.

I've made a couple of impulse buys over the last two days, which I'm about to share. I am going to try and ban myself from the EGL sales for the next two weeks, as I have absolutely no more money to spend on myself anyway. After I pay my last bill and put gas in my car, I'll have about $21 left over until the 10th. Which is OK, I can live off of that. I bring lunch to work, and make my own coffee at home. I have no other expenses throughout the week.

Now on to the fun shit.

IMPULSE BUYS

Impulse buy #1:
I saw these on a girl on Daily Lolita about a week ago. She was in OTT sweet, and was wearing her clip in the same pink x blue mix wig that I have. These came up last night and I jumped on the opportunity to buy them. Usually all you see from chocomint on egl are the star clips. These are pretty bitchin:

These look like balloons! I bought mine in blue. I can attach this to the middle bow on my Candy Treat JSK. So pretty!

Impulse buy #2:
Today I found this on EGL for a flat price. Meaning the price included shipping and paypal fees. Usually something like this would cost a lot more with all of the fees.

It's an Angelic Pretty donut necklace!! I'll be able to wear this with my casual black Soft Cream coord. I feel kind of bad, because there was another girl inquiring about it before me,  but I left my pay pal before she left hers. This is the second time  I've done that to that user in the last month.  Oh well. 

I also like this donut necklace because donuts were one of the first things that I tried making out of polymer clay two years ago. They came out lookin' like crap. To celebrate my purchase, I fixed up an old donut charm that I made 4 months ago. It's a huge mickey mouse donut, and I attached a marshmallow chain to it and turned it into a hair clip. I attached it to my purse for school tommorow. 

(Kind of) Impulse buy #3:
My black kawaii goods star. I don't really know if I can consider this impulsive, as I needed it for my casual coord anyway.

I'm thinking about pinning this on my melty chocolate bag to make it coordinate better with the rest of the outfit. 

I seriously can not wait for all of my stuff to get here. My casual coord is going to be so wonderful. I think I probably went a little over my $150 spending limit, but that's because I kept coming across stuff that would go perfectly with it! I LOVE planning out every detail. I would never wear anything out if just one of those details was missing. 

My plan for my next check: 

1. Get those damn mint shoes for my Milky Berry coord already. ($70)

2. Put away hopefully $150 for my next JSK. 

3. I need to buy my tickets for PMX, though I have all Sept. and Oct. to do that. Will wear Milky Berry to PMX most likely. 

Oh, and I also signed myself up for a lolita pen pal. I'm going to feel bad that I'm going to send my first letter on notebook paper and not cute stationary. She'll hopefully understand, once I explain what I spent all my money on :)

Goodnight!!

Random Wednesday Post

Well, pay day is in two hours, and I've already spent most of that money already. How do you spend money you don't have yet, one may ponder. Well, I did so with my credit card and a nice EGL seller.

Please don't think me irresponsible. I am not one of those people who is in a crazy amount of debt. When I first started in lolita, I promised myself I would not buy with money I don't have. Therefore, I do not make purchases on my credit card unless I know exactly when I will be able to pay them off.


Which is why I bought my bag. I was so paranoid about this selling out on AP's website before I got paid, so I woke up Saturday morning and decided to put it on my credit card. I'm going to pay it off tomorrow morning when I wake up. Just for kicks, heres a picture of it again:

I did mention that I had nothing to coordinate this with, but I'll be able to coordinate with my black soft cream skirt. The brown may look a little off next to the black, but it should be OK.

Then, as I was browsing the EGL sales earlier, I came across this Angelic Pretty headband. I am invoiced already for it, and the seller agreed to let me pay for it in the morning after my direct deposit comes.

One of the lovely ladies from the Little Tokyo meet had this headband in pink x mint. I thought it was so pretty. After finding this on EGL, I spent about an hour debating with myself wether or not I should buy it. In the end what sold me on this is how I can wear it with my short hair. 

It will also go great with bittersweet loli.

Speaking of which, Bittersweet is something that I'm definitely going to get into more. They call it bittersweet because the prints are traditionally sweet prints, but they are in black backrounds. The black Jewelry Jelly that I have blogged about before is considered bitter sweet. I also wouldn't mind picking up a black Sugary Carnival or Milky Planet, both of which have gone down to reasonable prices since the release of Chess Chocolate this month. I actually found a black Milky Planet JSK on EGL last night for $350, which is about the original purchase price. Two months ago the same thing was going for nearly $600. I also found a Jewelry Jelly set (JSK, socks, bow), but it was in sax and not black. Not that I'd be afford it anyway :)


Also, I've decided to kind of kiss my brand "ban" to the wind. I've come to the realization that lolita makes me so happy, and AP is just such a huge part of it all. I can realistically do about 1 brand coordinate a season (every 3 months). I can also do cheaper coords in between, like I'm doing right now with the Bodyline soft cream.  Once I start getting a hold of more accessories (shoes, bags, socks), the coordination price will drastically drop. So yeah, I'm pretty excited. I am so fortunate to have a job and be able to pay all of my bills, and still have a little left over for my hobby. Lolita has taught me how to appreciate the small things in life. Who knew a fashion could do such a thing?

Nisei Week Meetup

 Back in May when I first started wearing lolita, I was terrified to go to a meetup alone, and wouldn't even think of taking public transit anywhere dressed up. However, I've come a long way in those two months. It took two years of researching the fashion, and two months of wearing it, and now I finally feel confident enough to say that I'm officially legitimate. Even in a discounted brand like bodyline....

So on Sunday I went to Little Tokyo to meet several local lolitas for Nisei week. I went by myself, and took the train in full blown OTT sweet lolita. I already knew who a lot of the girls were because of facebook, but never really met them in person. I was somewhat nervous about meeting everyone in person for the first time, but I was amazed at how easy it was to talk to them. I think lolita has helped me grow up in a sense, as I'm no longer shy like I was for most of my life. Anyway, thats a story for another time. Here are some of the photos that I've been tagged in. I didn't have a camera with me that day < I really need one!> So I'm taking these photos from my facebook friends.

I wore my Bodyline Soft Cream coord. I really like how my new makeup is so photogenic. 

Me and Holley, notice how we're wearing the same wig?

Holley, Judy and I. 

All of my new friends! 

Now for some candids!

The girl in the bear hat is Claudia of Kawaii Goods. She's so awesome in person! This photo is one of my favorites:

 

Lolita makeup closeup: 

Group shots:

In front of the beautiful Little Tokyo garden. 

Notice the Melty Chocolate bag on the girl next to me, I want it even more now that I've seen it in person:

This is my favorite group shot, because of how the light shines through the trees and makes us look like princesses. 

All in all, this was such a lovely experience. I made so many new friends, and am so happy by how nice and personable all the girls are. I'm sure one day I'll encounter some loli twats, but because I know how awesome most of these girls are, it won't even matter. 

Damn you, Melty Chocolate

I mentioned earlier that I'm trying to digress away from brand.

And then I found out today that Angelic Pretty re-released their Melty Chocolate bag:

I don't have anything that would coordinate with this. 

But I still want it.

Bad. 

UPDATE: Broke down and bought it on 8/20. I just got promoted at work so it's a present to myself. LOL, I could have bought a camera (which is what I needed) for the same price.

Casual Loli Coord

So after spending an entire summer being completely broke from buying brand, I've decided to lay off of it for a few months. Now that I have my two brand dresses, I don't feel the need to get anymore for a while. I'd say I'll wait until maybe January to buy brand again. Lets just see how well that works out...LOL.


While I'm putting a halt to my brand obsession, it doesn't mean that I am going to stop buying lolita (or a few small brand items here and there). After going to a couple of meet ups and interacting with other lolitas, I've realized that brand isn't everything. Therefore I will not feel uncomfortable wearing bodyline around the other girls anymore. By coming to this conclusion, I was able to put together a casual loli bodyline coord in my head. I've never even considered wearing lolita casually, but now that the fall semester is coming up, I'd like to wear lolita to school. The cool thing about casual loli is that I will not feel the need to wear a wig with my coord.


Now on to what I have planned out! I still haven't bought everything for Milky Berry, but I have a lot of time to do that; as I'm not really planning on wearing it until at least October. I am hoping to do my casual coord for $150 or less.

The  focal point of this coord is going to be the skirt. I am planning on buying Bodyline's soft cream skirt in black. I already have the JSK version of this in mint. At $25 + EMS shipping, it shouldn't cost
more than $50. I can't find a good photo of the skirt by itself, so I found this from another blog. I'm blotching out the faces of the girls as I don't personally know them.

I am going to buy the skirt on the left. 

For my top, I am going to wear a black blouse that I already have.

This isn't the blouse that I have, but it's just to give you an idea!

 I need to buy a light pink cardigan to go over it, where I can probably get at the mall for less than $20. 

In order to make the cardigan not as boring, I initially thought of pinning my pink chocomint stars to it. However, I think it would be far to much pink on top. A simple solution to this is a "bittersweet" fuzzy star from kawaii goods, which I still have to buy. The star will really pop in the pink backround, and coordinate wonderfully with the base color. Kawaii goods recently dropped her fuzzy star prices, making them considerably more affordable. 

LOVE THESE! 

As for my socks, I would like to buy Angelic Pretty's Toy Parade socks in black. I really don't like the Toy Parade series, as I find it a tad childish, but the socks are outfitted in conversation hearts! 

I'm planning on ordering these along with my Berry Berry socks from Angelic Pretty USA's website once I get paid again! 

As for my shoes, I am going to wear my pink RHS shoes that I already have. 

Mine are at the bottom right. 

So far, this coord will run me about $90 with the socks and skirt. So that leaves me with about $60 left over for acsessories. My biggest issue is which bag to get. Bodyline has this weird lookin' apple bag that I'm considering:

This is only $6 on bodyline's website. If I bought this I'd cut off the handles and cover up the weird green leaf thing with something. I'm thinking black, lightly deco'd felt stars. 

Also, for my hair, I'm going to wear the ice cream cookie clips that I made. The "frosting" on the cookie is going to be be pink, to coordinate with the rest of my accessories. As for my necklace, I'm going to wear my bear ice cream parfait from kawaii goods. I'm still debating on what kind of earrings I should make. 

And of course, if I REALLY want to spoil myself, and if another one of my Amazon books sells, I'm going to buy these totally bitchin rings:

I'd be able to wear these with just about anything.  

I'm also going to try to make some bracelets, as I just bought a huge bag of cute plastic stars. 

Until next time! 

Update: After spending about an hour and a half on Angelic Pretty's website trying to figure out why it kept declining my debit card even though I had money, I finally got through and ordered my stuff! I got my 2 rings and 2 pairs of socks. I'll buy the skirt, star, and cardigan next pay period.