Welcoming 2013 With a New Tradition!

As 2012 comes to a close, I hope you are all spending the long weekend or winter break with your closest family and friends!
I spent the weekend with my mom, which was really nice.
I also received a belated Christmas package from my friends in Minnesota, which included a haunted house kit! You may remember the disastrous gingerbread house from last year's Christmas.

So with this nifty kit in hand, I decided to make my own New Year tradition of making a chocolate cookie house!

OK, the real reason was just that it is a fun thing to do and it is what I spent the better part of today doing! More photos under the jump~



The lovely front door! Open the door to new opportunities in the coming year!


An adorable bat for good luck in the window~ Bats are a symbol of fortune (as in being fortunate) in Chinese tradition :)


The back of the house! The scallops were supposed to look like a cobweb pattern, but I think it looks more like upside-down layers of lace or ruffles because I didn't make them spiky enough... ^^;


Some different angled shots


A size comparison with Teddy!


Last year's house for comparison. This year's house definitely has less decapitation and tumor-chimney involved.

How was 2012? Best moments? Worst? What is your biggest wish for 2013?
My best moment was surviving the worst apocalypse ever! Just kidding, it was moving out and becoming financially independent in September ^_~
My worst moment was the hospital stay in October. Failing more than half my classes might actually top that though... (sh!)
My biggest wish for 2013 is to regain my focus and motivation for school, and to wear Lolita more! After school started I wore Lolita much less!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everybody!
Sorry for the lack of blogging. School has taken over my life, but while I did have some free time I made cards for my friends. Here are some more cards I have made!
Click on the photos to see them full size.


Christmas Cascade Card The Santa and dinosaur are on clear acrylic sheet so they look like they are flying!

Chinese Christmas Center-Step Card

Christmas Pop-up Card (the trees pop out)

Christmas Pop-up Card with failed Spring-up dinosaurs.  They don't actually stand up on their own :(

It's the End of the World

Happy End of the World!
It's nearly 9PM here and nothing has happened yet, so here are some photos of my last Fashion Design project. It was a group project and we made two outfits. Click the photos to make them larger:









And here is my favorite photo from the set:


In Fabric Print class we also had to design t-shirts. I wish I had better photos, but here are mine:

The bear is heat-transfer printed with LED lights on the belt
The other two are toy dinosaurs fused to netting and bubble packaging paper and then sewn to the shirt
I like dinosaurs

How was the end of the world in your country?

Happy Holidays! DIY Cards

Happy International Lolita Day! I was not able to celebrate this year, but I thought I would share some mechanical cards I have been making for a variety of holidays. I am no professional by any means, but I will give the names of the styles and you can look online to find tutorials :) For some of them I used tutorials, for some I just looked at the photos and figured it out myself!

It is really neat to gift handmade cards because it's much more personal than store-bought ones. Plus, cards with moving parts or unique folds make everybody happier!

My favorite card so far is this Thanksgiving card! The tail opens and closes :)
This is called a fan card



This is a Christmas side-step card

This is a (failed) cascade card)

This is a pop-up gingerbread house card

This is a New Year tri-fold card

This is a Christmas waterfall card.  The tree becomes more and more decorated as the pages are flipped

This is a Christmas easel card.  It's nice for displaying!

This is a bunny swivel card.  The bunny has cotton on it and it turns as you open the card so it's visible from the front and the inside

Christmas tri-fold or tri-shutter card

Chinese New Year side-step card with a sliding fairy that slides across the cityscape!

A general card.  The idea for the words came to me while I was sleeping, and I made it into a pull-tab card!



I hope these were fun to see!  What did you do for International Lolita Day?  Are you going to be making cards for anybody this season?  Hope you have a good holiday season!

Sweet Classic Surprise!

Sweet Classic Lolita isn't a real "style," but it's what I call a blend of Sweet Lolita with a slightly more elegant, mature look that isn't as grown-up as Classic Lolita (think Mary Magdalene.) I suppose you can say that Sweet Classic is like the teenager stage of growing from Sweet Lolita to Classic Lolita!

Innocent World is the best brand to illustrate what I mean by this style. Today as I was perusing my feed on Livejournal, I was surprised to spot some Sweet Classic pieces by my favorite brand, BABY, THE STARS SHINE BRIGHT!


Operetta Bouquet JSK

The muted colors and floral print are very Classic, but it's still rather sweet and lacey with ribbons all over! Follow the jump for more pictures and also the corset skirt~


The red wine color of this dress looks more mature and elegant.


The corset skirt is love! I especially like the two little roses at the center.

What is your favorite blend of styles? In addition to Sweet Classic, I also like Sweet Punk Lolita! Maybe I am just a Sweet Lolita at heart and feel the need to add a touch of sugar and lace to everything ;)

I'd also like to say thanks to the readers who are sticking with me! I've been incredibly busy with Fashion Design homework. The photoshoots turned out well though, so I will probably post them here~ They aren't exactly Lolita-related, but I like them!

Hello! Sorry for the unexpected break in blogging! I've hit a few snags in the EGLB sewing tutorial I was working on. Namely, none of the pattern pieces actually fit together (I'm doing the Kana Knickerbockers) so I'm at a bit of a loss about what to do. They are off by about 4 inches :o

Last week was my midterms, and I'm happy they are over! I haven't been wearing Lolita at all :( But I've started up on my other hobby of making cards! I'm making cards for my friends in the USA and will post photos (well, if they're not too horrid) when I am done!

I hope everybody has been having a good few weeks and good luck on midterms for those of you who are in school!

A Sweet Halloween Mini-Meetup

Yesterday I went to a mini-meetup with some friends to try out the Halloween special at a special ice cream shop, Glacio. It is a part of the "exotic" food court at 板橋大遠百/Mega City in 板橋/Banqiao.


For NT$280/US$9.60 you can get this limited edition pumpkin cake and ice cream set. The cut-off finger cookie is free with every order!

Since pumpkin is not a popular flavor in Taiwan (sob) I was excited to try this!



This is what it looked like. I'd eaten a Subway sandwich before coming, so I did not order any savory food. That was a good idea because the serving sizes for the savory food was ENORMOUS!


An ice cream spider with chocolate legs and a chocolate spider web sitting on whipped cream and thin slices of chocolate cake. I ate this little fellow first, as he started melting under the warm sun!


Some chocolate ghosts coming out of a pile of fruit and whipped cream. The cookie finger with jam sauce was also quite delicious!


Yum!


Pumpkin mousse cake on a thin slice of pumpkin cake. It would have been better if it had been kept colder. I was unable to finish such a rich cake!


Size!


I thoroughly regret ordering this hot chocolate to go with. I was far too full and the hot chocolate really wasn't that good considering it is a real chocolate block and was quite expensive...


My outfit from the meetup! It's the JSK from the Lolita Runway Challenge :)


Normally, this puff pastry dish is what Glacio is most famous for. KAMIKO ordered this with her boyfriend. It is good for two people to split, because it is HUGE!


KAMIKO had some adorable bunny ear muffs, so we took photos!


Her matching mittens!


Dinosaur Lolitas are taking over Taiwan!