Innocent World 2017 Special Happy Pack Unboxing

My first ever lucky pack and I was so excited with the whole process. Terrified at times that I'd get a nightmare pack, but also excited. Now I'm on a total lucky pack high and want more, but obviously the season is pretty much gone now, so I'll have to wait either for the summer ones or even until next year.

A Practical Lolita Bag

There are few things cuter than Lolita bags, as far as accessories go. Unfortunately, they are quite known for not having a lot of actual storage space. This isn’t limited to plush bags – a lot of brand bags tend to be small pouches or in a shape that prevents from packing bigger items. Although that seems to be changing ever so slightly and slowly, and as always there are exceptions, this has forced a lot of Lolitas to either look amongst offbrand bags (with varying degrees of cuteness found) or to abandon hope and resign themselves to carrying a practical bag or a canvas tote, more or less cute, along with the unpractical bag to actually carry things in.

Casual January Drinks & Games Meet

On Sunday Leeds comm had its first meet of this year: a casual gathering for drinks and games. Although the theme was casual, I seem to have absolutely no idea how to casual (or better still: how to casual whilst remaining weather appropriate), so I just went with the best thing I could do, which still ended up being comfy and toned down (even if from petti down I was pretty cold).

I totally didn't take a proper outfit shot that day,
so this is the only one that I have.

A better view of what I wore:
| Bodyline Sweet Macaron JSK | vintage blouse | Peacockalorum
underskirt | Antaina tea parties | Innocent World Diamond Rose
OTKs | Cutie Creator headbow | Enchantlic Enchantilly Sugar
Confectionary Ribbon Necklace | Chocomint ring (not pictured) |

This selfie best shows off my new lipstick: Trinket from
Sugarpill. It sparkles and stays for ages, I love it!

The meet took place at Dry Dock, a pub-type place in Leeds which I know my comm has been to before a few times, but which I visited for the very first. The turnout was actually a lot better than I had anticipated, which was great – you got to see the regulars and catch up with people you haven’t seen in a while as well as get to know a few new people (well, new to me, not to the comm). The relaxed atmosphere at Dry Dock, particularly at the time we arrived which was around 1:30-ish, encouraged chatting and getting to know each other, which was brilliant. They also have a neat selection of food and drink – my lunch, curried cauliflower with rice, kinda looked like something served in an old school or in a hospital because of the weird plates, but it tasted lovely. The drink was called Bohemian Raspberry (still makes me giggle) and had actual bon bons and marshmallows inside, but ended up being too sweet even for me – and I drink pretty much exclusively sweet alcoholic drinks!

Bohemian Raspberry

We then had a few games, starting things off with Consequences. For anyone who doesn’t know it, it’s a pen and paper ice-breaker game: one person writes a sentence, the next one is meant to draw out the sentence then cover the original sentence up for the next person to have a guess at what that sentence is. Then the drawing is covered, so that the next person draws based on what the third person down the line wrote and so on until you run out of space. (It makes far more sense when you do/see it.) Mine ended up pretty hilarious, as well as very current: my initial idea came from the headline that downloading the Meitu kawaii app on your phone infects it with spyware, and then it descended into this:

Click to enlarge

Afterwards some of us played a bit of Bucket of Doom, which is similar to Cards Against Humanity, except that instead of completing sentences with your cards you use them to make a story as to how the item on your card will help you escape the situation read out from the scenario card. And just like with CAH, I found that I’m not particularly good at it, I ended up being too literal or just not had particularly funny cards for the scenarios given.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t stay as long as I wanted to. Although Bradford and Leeds are only a 20min train ride away from each other, the commute is a lot longer and more tiring than it seems, especially on Saturday evenings when you’re in Lolita. I wish that I lived in Leeds – not only is it cooler, but then I could’ve stayed longer without having to worry about busses home etc., I could’ve just taken the taxi back. All the more saddening as it seems I’ll have to miss the February meet because I’ll be away in Germany visiting family. Time really flew by during that meet and it was great to see so many friendly faces again. Maybe one of the other comms will put something on that I could attend and get my monthly dose of Lolita meet vibes…?

How have you been so far? Did you manage to get to any meets yet or wear Lolita out and about? Are you one of us battling the cold right now and trying your best to stay warm as well as cute? If you are, I hope you’re doing a better job of it than I am!

Habits You've Picked up from Lolita Fashion

Many of us find that wearing Lolita fashion, even only occasionally, has an impact on our selves outside of these frilly clothes. I believe that a lot of this comes down to the realisation of how differently we treat clothes and fashion when it’s Lolita and when it’s just regular everyday stuff. As long as this leads to something positive, rather than low self-esteem, I say let’s encourage those realisations and small changes of habits!

1 Dress 4 Looks Take 9

Seeing as this year the aim is to get more wear out of the things I own instead of buying loads of new stuff, there’s nothing more appropriate than another 1 Dress 4 Looks post still early on in January. This time I’m pulling out another one of my dream dresses, Alice and the Pirates Sheherazade ~ One Thousand and One Nights ~ which I’d never think I’d fit in, let alone own. And yet here it is, after panicking over whether someone would outbid me (it was already pricey at ¥40’000 initial bid for the set including the JSK, OTKs and headdress), panic messaging strangers on Lolibrary to ask about the fit and then panic trying it on when it arrived followed by squeals of joy that I managed to zip it up without problems or a boob loaf. So, trying again to not repeat things that I’ve already done with this dress, let’s get to it!

How Lolita am I?

Whilst we're still in the early days of 2017 I thought I'd do something extra to the usual new year bits. I really like the FYeahLolita's Lolita Level Up Quiz for how fun it is and comparing the Loli me in January 2016 and January 2017 should further show how much I've grown as an enthusiast of this fashion. Anyone else cares to do a similar comparisons - maybe even between you in your first year of Lolita versus now?

Birthday Afternoon Tea

First outfit post of 2017 – yay! It was my 25^th birthday on Sunday and if one’s birthday isn’t an excuse to wear Lolita, then nothing is.

| Haenuli Whipped Cream Kitty JSK | Bodyline L581 blouse |
Mufish tights | Cutie Creator headbow | offbrand boots and
choker |

I went to York with my Mum to have afternoon tea at Betty’s. I wanted to go back since I went there for the first time back in October and although previously I had hoped to do something more to celebrate my birthday, as we’ve had a very tiring visit from relatives just before I didn’t have the energy to do much (never mind that I also didn’t have any other ideas). But a fancy afternoon tea is celebratory enough.

Since I needed something capable of accommodating all the food (doesn’t look like much, but it was sooo filling) as well as very fancy, Whipped Cream Kitty was the best candidate for that. It was great to wear this dress again, I definitely need to pull it out of the wardrobe more often! I had this more Classic coord running through my head probably since I received my Taobao order containing the headbow and tights pictured. Red or blue boots would’ve made the colours that little bit more balanced out, but I don’t own any and it was too cold to just go out in heels (especially with tights this thin) – still, I’m happy with how the outfit came out.

How was your first week of 2017 so far? I hope it was good. I’d love to see what was your first coord of the year, but if you haven’t had the chance to wear Lolita yet then I wish you that inspiration and the perfect opportunity meet.

Lolita Wardrobe Post 2017

This is my second year doing a wardrobe post (you can see last year's one here) and I can definitely see improvement, both in terms of my wardrobe and the execution of the post itself. As I already said earlier, 2016 was the year where I could allow my wardrobe to expand and hopefully I managed to do so in a structured way that encouraged versatility and cohesiveness. There are a few bits missing from the post, namely jewellery (because I couldn't be bothered taking it all off their organiser racks and then putting everything back on), a couple of socks that didn't photograph particularly well and my Peacokalorum underskirt and hand muff which I simply forgot about. Everything else is right here and I hope you'll enjoy this post!

2017 goals

Happy New Year, everyone! Let’s hope that 2017 will be a lot more pleasant and kind to us all, and I wish you that brand gods are kind to you and your wallets.

Just like last year I set myself some goals to enable me to engage with Lolita fashion more, my 2017 SMART targets will focus on continuing that engagement as well as curbing my spending a little bit since I don’t need as many builder pieces as I did before. Having said that, as I plan on going to Japan this year I’d like to take that opportunity to set myself some goals specific to that. Therefore I will divide my 2017 goals into general and Japan-specific ones.

Edits made to the post (8.01).