Japan

I've been gone for quite some time and I'm sure that this place has long since been forgotten as time went by and blogging became less popular. I became more and more busy with university, then work, and I forgot all about this place. Reading this blog was a little like opening a time capsule... things have definitely changed, but it was nice to look back on those bright, happy memories from many years ago. 

Kyoto was the last place I visited in Japan.

For a very short update, after graduating from university, I moved to Japan. I was living there for three years, working in Shizuoka, then later in Hiroshima prefecture. Now, I'm back in the United States preparing the best I can (in the midst of this pandemic) to return to college to further my education. I miss Japan. I miss Japan so much, but I had been wanting to go back to college for a while now, and things just sort of fell into place and the opportunity presented itself. I hope one day I can return.

I don't think anyone will read this, but despite this, I'd like to begin writing here again. I've been thinking about what else I can do as I wait out this pandemic, and I remember writing a blog being a fun way to pass the time. 

I met some wonderful people in Japan.

I'm not sure which direction this blog will go in, as my focus has since shifted away from fashion to other hobbies and interests. While in Japan, I lived a sort of minimalist lifestyle, with all my wordly possesions fitting in a suitcase and backpack, but I've been thinking that I would like to wear more of a variety of things, since my wardrobe has been small for quite some time. Maybe...

In the meantime, I hope that everyone is doing well. Best wishes for your health and safety.

Birthday Tea Party

Last week I went to visit my best friend Katti and we celebrated her birthday together. We had been planning her birthday get-together for a while now, and it was a relief that we could actually make the day a possibility. We celebrated her birthday by drinking tea, eating cookies, watching 'Sense and Sensibility' and roaming around in her yard. It was all a lot of fun. We had planned a Regency era themed party, but because I didn't have anything Regency-ish in my closet, I just wore lolita...

Katti appears to have floated out of a Jane Austen
novel and no one noticed! 

She and her mother worked hard on creating a Regency inspired dress especially for the occasion. The dress had a beautiful print of flowers on it and Katti looked so elegant in it... When she moved the dress flowed around her in a kind of romantic way that you only see in movies. I'm hoping that Katti will write a post about the dress on her blog. If she ever does, I will make sure to include the link, but until then you only get a teaser photo! The dress really is lovely and I hope she makes a blog post about it soon...

A tray of delightful things.

Here are the cookies that we made... that were quickly gobbled up. They were so good! However, I ate more of them than she did. The glass tea pot was borrowed from her mother and the cups were from Katti's awesome tea cup stash. If you look very closely you can see the long mono-cookie on the right that I named 'Cookie Finger' since that's what it looked like. I can't remember the flavor of the tea exactly, but I think it was vanilla and raspberry... Whatever it was, it was delicious!

Hi.

Here is what I wore... I was going for a 'Victorian girl' look with this outfit. However, I really wished that I had something that fit the theme of the party... It would have been more fun if we matched... I'll have to look into finding some Regency era things in the future. 

Dress: Millefleurs
Cutsew: Taobao
Everything else: Off-brand
...No shoes because I was inside

...It's kind of rare that I show my face because I'm usually doing something dumb with it... I'm mad that I blinked my eyes in this photo. I'm wearing a deflated petticoat because I just wanted a minimum amount of poof for this outfit. Also, I just like being able to move around...

I think tasseography is interesting and fun and so when Katti and I drink tea I almost always want to read our tea leaves. We sort of finished the party with a really un-professional tea leaf reading. Katti had a lot of lucky symbols and I almost always get a depressing cup... nothing about love. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. When I read my own leaves that's what I always look for, but I guess no one wants to love me. According to the tea leaves I'm going to be doing some questing for knowledge soon, or something like that, so maybe I'm going to fall in love with a dictionary, or something. Or a thesaurus. 

Yay! I hope this blog post was enjoyable! I hope you have a wonderful week! 

The World of Mushrooms

Honestly, mushrooms were something I had to acquire a taste for, but since I don't eat mushrooms that often I thought I would start collecting things with mushrooms on them--- Specifically cute, printed books and other ephemera. My collection is really tiny at the moment, but I thought I would take a moment to share the things that I've found.

Tribe, Ian, and Uberto Tosco. The World of Mushrooms.
New York: Bounty / a Division of Crown Pub., 1973. Print.

This book was something that I found on Etsy. On the front of the book are those popular mushrooms that you normally see in illustrations and cartoons. One of my favorite artists, Yuko Higuchi sometimes peppers her artwork with this kind of mushroom and I didn't know until I read the book that the mushroom itself is called a "fly amanita", or "amanita muscaria" if you want to get all scientific-y. This mushroom can actually be eaten (if prepared correctly), but they are toxic as well as psychotropic so please don't eat them... DON'T EAT THEM. I know they look really tasty and they look like they would look really cute thrown all over a salad or a soup, but I like you and I care about you so please don't do that... You will die. The book has a lot of other really beautiful photographs as well! Here are some of my favorites:

I purchased some mushroom postcards too, but I think I will share them in a future blog post. Right now I should be studying for a quiz and doing a chapter of reading... 

Good-bye for now! 

How to Train Your Dragon 2

Katti and I went to see 'How to Train Your Dragon 2' a couple of weeks ago. The movie was an absolute treat and we were both surprised at just how creative the overall movie was. The plot was also enthralling and there was never a dull or boring moment.

A nice guy working at the theater took this photo for us.

We decided to dress up as mori girls. It's kind of funny because we ended up doing our hair similarly. I don't know if anyone has noticed, but we do a lot of unintentional twinning... Although we were supposed to go see the movie with our local lolita group, we missed the memo about the time change and we unknowingly went to the movie at the wrong time... Oops. We missed out, but I'm pretty sure there will be another opportunity for us to hang out with the group in the future.

Katti's outfit looked so cute and summery. 

I was trying to give Toothless a hug, but it looks
 like Toothless is about to land on my arm...

I wanted to wear my apron dress since I haven't worn it in a while and it looked really nice paired with the blouse I found at Goodwill. I also wore the really cute shoes that I found for the first time. Yay! Here is what I wore:

Blouse and Shoes: Thrifted
Apron Dress: Taobao
Purse: Off-brand
Tights: Bodyline
Socks: Innocent World

What I am super excited about are the shoes! I found them at Plato's Closet. I think Plato's Closet specializes in buying and reselling gently used clothing, but I'm not sure if they operate anywhere outside of North America...

The shoes were barely used and were a really good price.

If you are thinking about seeing 'How to Train Your Dragon 2' it really is worth watching! It's pretty easy to follow even if you haven't seen the first one. Thank you for reading! I hope you have a lovely day!

Lace Collars

I've had a lot of time on my hands this summer so I thought I would take advantage of that and tackle a knitting project that I've been wanting to do for a while now. I love detachable collars, but they are incredibly hard to find, so I decided to make my own.

I love the cornflower blue color...

I made this blue collar with some yarn that my grandma had given me a long time ago. I love the color and I can't wait to coordinate an outfit with it. The collar is a little big and almost drapes past my shoulders, but I think that it's cute.

The first time I participated in the Mori Girl Secret Santa event on LiveJournal, I received a beautiful ball of yarn in my parcel. For the longest time I wasn't quite sure what I should make with it, but I recently got some smaller size knitting needles so I decided to make a lace collar that was smaller than the blue collar that  I made.

...Also, the yarn was made in Norway!

The resulting collar is just the right size and I blocked it so that the edges of the collar were more pointier. I'm currently selling this collar on my Storenvy so if anyone is interested in buying it, please take a look! SOLD!

Thank you for reading!

Belle

So today Katti and I went to see Belle! I really don't think I can explain the movie in a way that does it justice, but it was such a great movie with so many emotional scenes... the struggle of Belle is highlighted by her background as the daughter of an admiral and a slave woman. She was raised by her father's uncle, an Earl, but  even being brought up in a life of privilege and elevated rank was not enough for Belle to escape the prejudices that were so alive during that time. 

Katti in front of the poster!

Katti and I decided to wear outfits that were inspired by Victorian art and drawings since neither of us really had anything rococo... Katti's outfit was from the book "What People Wore" by Douglas Gorsline. It was sort of hard for me to decide what I wanted to wear, but in the end I decided to wear an outfit very loosely inspired by this painting:

Maria Dietsch (c.1850). Joseph Karl Stieler.
Oil on Canvas.

You can't really tell, but I braided my hair to look a little similar to the woman in the portrait and I wore a blouse with a lace collar and put a bow on it... I wasn't sure what the bottom of her dress looked like, but I improvised...

Blouse: Forever 21
Skirt: Little Dipper
Shoes and Tights: Off-brand

If you haven't seen Belle, I would highly recommend it! The costumes and scenery also made this movie a real marvel and there were so many things that the main characters wore that Katti and I wished were in our own closets! 

Picnic at Lichgate

Today, my best friend Katti and I decided to have a picnic at Lichgate. We would have liked to have been there at a time where there were less people, which is why we planned to go before noon, but when we arrived there was a flock of elderly ladies having some sort of Garden Club meeting. Despite the crowd, my best friend and I found a nice shady place to picnic-- then a swarm of mosquitoes ran us away from that spot and we had to find another spot. Nonetheless, we had a great time and hopefully we will get to go again when there are less people.

Yum!

We packed a lot of good things to eat.  Katti made matcha flavored bread and the best finger sandwiches in the whole world and I made some rustic apple pie, casserole and ginger lemonade. Everything was really delicious.

Here is what Katti wore! Also, she decorated that hat
you can barely see in the left-hand bottom corner.

Katti and I both wore mori girl and we both unknowingly coordinated similar looking outfits. My own outfit was kind of plain, but here it is anyway:

Blouse and Skirt: Forever 21
Everything else: Off-brand

I guess this was a pretty short blog post, but I don't know what else to write about!

Oh! Also, there was a flower at the bottom of my glass!
I thought that was funny. Sorry for being stupid!

Thank you for reading!