Another trip to New York!

I thought I would share some photos of my recent trip to New York!

I especially loved this trip because I was really able to dictate where I wanted to go and the types of places I'd enjoy seeing. Hopefully next time I get to go alone or with someone with similar taste so I can cram even more into my trip! Really the whole shebang revolved around food. I was in the mood for traveling light so most of my photos are from my iPhone. @3@

KIRAMEKI Mag + Date night.

I am sooo sorry for the lack of updates--my life got so busy and I completely forgot to queue up some posts to fill up the empty space. ;A; Hopefully now I'll be back to the usual groove and will post some catch-up stuff in the future.

Until then, I have a really exciting announcement to make! One of my newest friends, the amazing photographer behind Saitam Photography, has given me the fantastic opportunity to be a permanent staff writer and designer behind his new magazine, KIRAMEKI! It is a magazine hoping to focus on alternative fashion and lifestyles, with a Japanese twist~

I was put in charge of the "Fashion Showcase" section, which is very similar to the street snaps in Kera and Gothic & Lolita Bible mooks! We're accepting all kinds of fashions from all corners of the globe, so if you want to share a photo, make sure it is 300 dpi and large enough to be used on 8.5" x 11" paper and send it to kiramekimag@gmail.com! We're hoping to have all our submissions in by mid-May so we can release the magazine in mid-June!

Since this is our first issue, we are looking for anyone who is willing to contribute graphics or editorials to the magazine. We are all just pouring our passion and time into this magazine, so we cannot promise any sort of reimbursement at this time.

If you own a company that you are interested in advertising, we are willing to let you advertise for FREE in our first couple of issues! All we require is an ad that is 8.5" x 11" sent to the e-mail provided above. C=

LBC #25: Three lolita beverages and outfits to match!

It's been a while since I participated in my last Lolita Blog Carnival! This time a topic came up that I just couldn't resist doing and made me immediately think of Sakizo's beautiful illustrations of personified food and drinks.

One of my favourites! "Milk."

Here are the beverages I picked and the outfits to match! I hope you enjoy~ I tried to use dresses that I have owned/tried on at some point.

Chocolate & Matcha Frappé. After I thought about doing iced matcha tea, I remembered that Sakizo had drawn a beautiful illustration for a matcha latté, so I decided to do a little twist and do the chocolate and matcha frappé. It's something I order when I feel like indulging myself from coffee shops that offer matcha tea (and thankfully that is becoming more common, rejoice!) and it is probably one of my favourite flavours in general.

I used Mary Magdalene's St. Claire one-piece in olive as the central point, and tried to go for a warm, kind of scholarly, look. The boots are from Victorian Maiden, and the hair piece is from this Etsy store! The photo of the frappé came from this lovely Flickr.

Lavender Lemonade. I love this delicious recipe for lavender lemonade, and knew immediately I just had to add this to my list of "lolita beverages." Aside from the lovely colour, it has a great aroma and taste too! Adding herbs to traditional beverages is such a great idea.

The jumperskirt and bolero are from Angelic Pretty, shoes from DreamV, and the tights are from this store. I purchased them using that same listing two years back and I recommend the store from my experience! The beautiful flower crown (what is pictured is actually the back of it!!) is from this Etsy store.

Spiced Mulled Wine (Game of Thrones Style). Probably my newest obsession, I recently brewed up a batch of mulled wine (slightly modified from the official "modern-day" recipe provided in the A Feast of Ice and Fire, the official Game of Thrones cookbook) during the last cold snap, and the spicy flavour and warming sensation was perfect for cold weather. I highly recommend it to everyone! It's not very alcoholic at all--and it has a strong taste besides so normally I only drink about half a cup at a time--maybe even less--but still, drink responsibly!

Because it's a staple for cold weather, I used another long-sleeved one piece by Victorian Maiden (I own an Olive & Ting replica of this, it's beautiful!), and coordinated it with deep golds and browns to mimic the cinnamon that is so prevalent in the recipe. I also wanted to add hints of orange representative of the oranges that sit in the brew! The fascinator is from this Etsy store, the beautiful crochet scarf is from here, and the flower pin is from here.

Hope you all enjoyed this topic, check out what the other creative bloggers did this week!

American Born Chinese Lolita ★ Geisha Baby ★ Loli Dreamland
The Bloody Tea Party

These are a few of my favourite things.

I feel horrible, I haven't really been doing blog posts off the top of my head lately and instead scheduling a bunch of Challenge posts instead. ;A; Life got really busy, I recently found out that a member of my family was hospitalised and I had to fly across the country to be with her in her time of need. A lot of my plans and exciting news had to be put off as a result of all that, so I hope you bear with me!

Here's the outfit leading into the adventure for today~

Pinky Paradise lens review!

Today I'll be reviewing my EOS Candy Blue lenses that I ordered from PinkyParadise.com!

I am really excited to finally own a pair of the renowned EOS lenses for myself--most of the people I have spoken to boast about the comfort and vibrancy of these leneses, and I am going to have to echo that sentiment for the most part. =)

Pumpkin Patch Meet + Tate's Comics

I met up with the local lolitas yet again for a fun meet-up for Halloween!

Again, I marked this as "travel" because it was the first time I went to a farmer's market like this that had a corn maze and tractor rides! I felt like I did everything that you're supposed to do on Halloween for once! =D I really want to frequent places like this in the future. I just wish it wasn't so hot. ;___;

I was going to go up the rock climbing wall they have there, but I ended up getting light-headed from standing out in the sun for nearly 20 minutes, so I needed to sit down and take a break, which really sucked. ;A; I wish the weather here would let up.

I ended up wearing an outfit pretty much inspired by; "the clashing colours of Halloween~" I wore orange, purple, and black with a tinge of pink. I really love the cute little pumpkin bonnet I purchased from Cute & Candy Clouds, it kept the sun out of my eyes too! To top it all off, I wore Sweetie Cake's newest creation, her Boo Bear cutsew~

Trying to get motivated...

I have been having a hard time picking myself up and getting motivated every day. I feel like there are just not enough hours in the day! I can't even bring myself to sit down and blog... I wonder what's going on?? ミ●﹏☉ミ

Even though I am a poor example of showing how to get motivated (since I'm having so much trouble myself!) I thought I'd share one of my hobbies that gets me the most motivated!! Cooking!

After moving into my new apartment right by the bay, I made it a point to eat dinner outside with my boyfriend every night. We are both so busy with studying, dinnertime is that time of the day where we can sit down and unwind a bit and talk. And it's even more fun to cook something really nice and meaningful when we do~ Both of us team up and make dinner together, and here are the results of our efforts.

All About Tea! + 3:15PM Milk Tea Review!

Today I thought I would do something a little different since I'm still exhausted from my flight back home from California. My first day back was filled with good news, but incredibly busy!! I officially received my Driver's License!!

But that's beside the point. While I was in California, I tried many different kinds of bubble tea. For those of you who don't know what it is, it is either smoothies, flavoured milk teas, tea smoothies etc. that come with chewy little tapioca pearls at the bottom. Since it's eruption into popularity, many other alternatives to the traditional tapioca pearl came about., so now I rarely get the familiar black pearl, but different kinds of jellies and add-ons. Here are my top three favourites in order of me trying them.