Lolita Blog Carnival #10: DIY Gift Ideas

I'm super thrilled about this blog topic considering the holiday season is coming up and I have been unseasonably excited for gift-giving this year, so I'm going to jump right into this topic!

Buying gifts for a lolita can be really straining on the budget because even the simplest items can be over 60 USD! So what do you do when you really want to get something memorable but just don't have the money yourself? Make a crafting day out of it! I don't think there's a single person who won't appreciate a well-made handmade gift, and you don't need to be the most skilled seamstress in the world to make any of these gifts either!

Trends I like and dislike.

I have been wearing lolita fashion for about five years, and a lot of things have changed both in the community, what is popular, and how exactly my fashion has changed. On that topic, I thought I'd include the look voted as a favourite from my Wardrobe Challenge post last week, since it is actually a revamp of an old coordinate I wore years back.

This is how I wore it the beginning of my junior year in college (omg this photo looks so old, haha, I don't even use that camera anymore, I have TWO new ones!):

I feel like now I have have a much better grasp of colour balancing and make-up, hahaha~ A lot has changed in a couple of years. Also omg, look at my dorm room!! This is when I first moved in with one of my best friends.

Lolita Blog Carnival #8: Wardrobe Challenge

I was really thrilled to hear that a topic I suggested for the Lolita Blog Carnival to do was selected by popular vote this past week! This week, all the participants of the blog carnival will be getting together and picking out one lolita piece from their wardrobe, whether it is a skirt, jumperskirt, or one-piece, and challenging themselves with making five different coordinates with it.

As a quick detour, my outfit has nothing to do with the coming post because this Wednesday was the Hindu Festival of Lights: Diwali! I went for a slightly belated pooja (it's like a Catholic mass, for lack of a better way to describe it) yesterday, and just never had time to wear the outfit I was planning to introduce this post. I wore a traditional sari worn the North Indian way (despite me being South Indian--Diwali is celebrated as a New Year's celebration in North India, and I kind of felt like mixing things up), and had a great time. =)

Hope you enjoy the photos, they become progressively darker because the sun set as I worked through the challenge the day I took them.

Before I show you the pictures, I want to share a few tips on how to get the most for your money when looking for lolita items, and what kind of pieces you can look for to know that you have a dress you can wear many times in many different ways. It get's boring when you realise you can only wear a dress a certain way!

1. Ask yourself "can I layer things with this dress?" It's much easier to make a lot of different outfits if you buy a skirt or jumperskirt because you can wear a different blouse underneath it each time, or even wear something over it (or both)! Plus, you can even fold over a jumperskirt and use a waist belt to turn it into a beautiful skirt. No one will ever know the difference, trust me. ;D
2. Buy something in a solid colour that has a similar base tone to the rest of your wardrobe. If you tend to wear muted colours, buy pieces that are in that same realm because you can do colour combinations a lot easier this way. If you have lots of pastel yellow pieces, you probably don't want to buy something a cool blue because they are just on two different levels, and you'll realise you end up spending more money on new items to match the dress than the dress itself!
3. Detachable pieces, button-up fronts, removable collars: these are all FANTASTIC additions to a dress that makes it that much more worth it to buy. Simply purchasing a jumperskirt that has a couple of detachable bows is already begging to be coordinated in so many fresh new ways! Brands like Metamorphose and MAM Maxicimam sell dresses that often have detachable ruffles, so you can make a dress that had an OTT sweet feel suddenly look toned down and classy.
4. When buying prints, use this as an opportunity to add different colours to your wardrobe without straining your budget. This is a bit of a strange tip to explain, but basically, say your wardrobe already has a lot of mint in it. And then WHAM, Baby releases this gorgeous print in pink, that you really want! But that seems to be a bit painful on your wallet because you don't really have anything else that's pink. But ah! Look closer and you will see that the print actually has quite a bit of mint interspersed within. Suddenly it's a lot easier to coordinate with it and add a new colour to your wardrobe you don't have a lot of! Even though solid colours are great for coordination, prints can be even better sometimes. 

Finally, in terms of brands that I think are best for flexibility--I definitely think Metamorphose is great for this. All their bows are usually detachable, they release things with detachable ruffles all the time, and you can get a lot of wear out of it. I've also found Innocent World is pretty fantastic as well, especially since they make some gorgeous solid-coloured pieces. Now, onto the pictures!

Facebook + my shelves are filling.

I feel bad that lately all of my posts have been related to the Lolita Blog Carnival. I need to some more writing of my own and update more often! So here comes two posts in one week! I feel like I never do this. @3@

Just a quick maintenance topic before we proceed:

Lately, since joining the Blog Carnival and going around more meet-ups, I've had a lot of sweet girls and guys adding me as a friend on my Facebook. Although I am very much flattered that they think I'm someone they can add to their account, I want to make a quick disclaimer that although from time to time, I do add people I don't know through school or work, my Facebook is pretty much dedicated to those contacts. I like to have my own personal space on the web, and I already have a very public blog, Tumblr, Twitter, etc.

I even made a Facebook like page for this reason, where you can go ahead and keep track of me through there. I pretty much post a lot of the same things on the two pages, and really you won't be missing out on much. But lately I think people have been finding it pretentious that I redirect them to my page vs. adding them as a friend, to which I say: I'm sorry, but I dictate what I do on my accounts, and if you really want to know more about me, it's really not that hard. You can look at any of the social networking sites I'm on and be able to speak directly to me. I just want to reserve my Facebook account for those I'm very close to and meet often. Basically, I want a distinct separation between my life on the Internet and my real life as a prospective law student.

So, for those of you who I was able to message through Facebook and notify that I don't really add people I haven't met often to my Facebook, thank you for your understanding. For those I couldn't message, hopefully you'll see this and know to follow me on some of my other websites, and I will gladly speak to you!

Now that that is over with, onto the main topic of this post~

Lolita Blog Carnival #7: Photo Diary

I've been wanting to do this for a while because of Zeruda's blog, but now with the Lolita Blog Carnival, I have extra motivation! Welcome to the day in the life of a lolita. =) I may do this again sometime, it seems like a lot of fun! This is what I wore that day:

Onto the actual photo diary! I don't have photos for part 6 just yet because I forgot to take photos of them. I'll do it tonight though since I'll be able to replicate it for the most part. Sorry about that. ;3;

Lolita Blog Carnival #6: My Lolita Playlist

Hello everyone! As you can see, the title of this post is a bit different. I finally decided to go ahead and join the Lolita Blog Carnival on Facebook because I really liked the idea of a bunch of people simultaneously blogging about the same topic, and seeing where everyone's answers differ. I'm so excited, I decided to hop on the bandwagon for the first topic suggested since I joined, even though I don't think I'm as avid as a music listener as I used to be. =(

But at least now my readers can expect more scheduled posts from me because I have more motivation to post often. *A* Hopefully we can get more discourse this way too! Yay~

I've actually had a lolita playlist for a long time. I had it marked as my "Dress-up Playlist" on YouTube, and I would let it run in the background while I was getting ready in my lolita finery! It started off as something I did when I was wearing lolita because I liked to use the music as a confidence boost. As you've seen from some of my more depressing posts on the blog, I get harassed from time to time when I am dressed differently, and I've realised I'm much more prone to breaking down and just not taking it well at all if I start the day off on the wrong foot. I use my music playlist to really cheer up and make sure that I start off positive, so it takes a lot more for me to feel upset.

I'll only be showing everyone my top 15 choices, although my actual playlist is close to 70 songs long. Most of these songs I have provided a video for that is actually a mirrored dance video because I like to learn the dances. =) They're in no particular order, I have a hard time picking a favourite out of all of these. Also, keep in mind, although this is a "Lolita Playlist" topic, the songs don't necessarily remind me of the fashion or feature lolitas, rather, this is music that I listen to to get me all pumped up and ready to wear it out and about outside of my house. It takes a lot of prepping for me to do this.