Event: 5 years celebration of Summer Tales Boutique

Summer Tales Boutique (former Fly Away Fashion) is a Dutch lolita indiebrand and shop. Their website is over here.The owner Katie also organize some teaparties every year. This year was a very special edition of her teaparty, because she celebrated 5 years of Summer Tales Boutique! This event was bigger than normally. It was also not in the shop, but at an other location in Utrecht.
In the morning I catch the train with some other lolita´s from my city. It was fun to travel with others. After meeting with other girls at the station of Utrecht we were hadding to the location. It was a short walk. We were welcoming with a delicious cupcake, which we eat during the waiting for the start of the fashion show. The show was quit small, but gave a good impresion of the new designs from the shop. Their was also a dress from Innocent World, because the shop sells that brand starting this season! I was happy to hear that. After the fashion show their was some time to talk and take a look inside the pop-up store. Their were diffrent tickets for the event: a normal ticket, a lucky pack ticket and a diner ticket. I chose the lucky pack ticket. I didn't buy anything in the pop-up store, but I got my lucky pack. I got a classic one and this was inside:

Dido gave the alpacasso immedly a name: Olaf (no not the one from Frozen as everyone thought). I was quit happy with my Lucky Pack. The main part of the teaparty was to start: food! First came the sweet snack, like macarons and cake. I ate some, but I'm not really a sweets person. Luckly for me after the sweet part, their was also some more sauvry food. During the food part of the teaparty was also oppurtinity to take a look to the history of the shop. In the room was also a corner with drawings of a future design with colorway options. Katie would like to know what we thought about is. Their was a box for leaving a note about your thought of the designes. I liked the designs although I had some ideas about the colour ways  I missed the more darker, classic ones. In my opinion the design was perfect for such colours. Their was also time to take photoes of our outfits. The sweet Rosalynn from the blog Lolita Wonderland was the photographer of the event. She took some nice pictures of my outfit!

I was wearing my Mille Fleurs JSK and Innocent World Purse. The necklace is from Summer Tales Boutique and the flowercrown in my hair is from Cute Lou. The rest of my co-ord is off brand. The teme of the party was magic, but since I couldn't come with a decant outfit to fit the time I decied to wear the JSK I like the most.
At the end of the teaparty was a Bingo and outfit contest. The girls who take part in the contest had took a lot of effort in their outfits. The inpiration was various from Harry Potter to the Brothers Grimm fairytales. The bingo was a name bingo. To full fill your card you need to ask other peoples names. It's a good way to learn other people. I liked the idea, althougt I didn't win anything. The day was really nice, but I was tired when I finally got home in the evening.
 

Cooking: Japanese curry with beef and beer

In my neihgboorhood is a nice and very big Asian supermarket. I love to spend hours in the shop looking to all the strange and not so strange, but still weird products. The other day I came across the Japanese curry section in the shop. I know the variant from India, but never tried the one from Japan. I hadn´t any idea of the taste and how to make a proper meal of it. The problem was solved when I came across this video on Youtube from Ochikeron. I give the recepie a shot today and tried it!

I used a bit different ingredients than the orginal recepie. I couldn´t find the specific mushrooms so I used the normal brown ones. I also couldn´t find the good beer. Instead of the Japanese beer I used Dutch beer (Heineken).

All the ingredients I needed: mushrooms, beef, edame beans, onions, beer and the Japanese curry, in my case Golden Curry.

First I started to chop all the mushrooms and onions. Afther that I decied to do the recepie a bit different: I cooked the edame beans first and pop them out of their shield.After that I follow the first step of the orginal recepie: baking the onions! When the onions were getting brown I added the mushrooms and the beef. I baked those till they were also brown and added some water and the beer. I cooked those ingredients for about 7 minutes.

Before adding the block of curry I removed the foam. I waited till the curry was melted and added also the allready prepared edame beans. I cooked the whole mix for another 5 minutes. In the mean time I prepared the rice, added all the pieces together and tada I had my meal!

I loved the taste of the curry and I liked how it turned out. The only was that in mine opinion this is more a winter meal, instead of a light summer meal. This is a firm meal, so not very sutable for the hot summer.

LBC: Hot weather lolita coordinates

I like to participate now and then in the Lolita Blog Carnival (LBC). The LBC is a group on Facebook with the goal to unite the lolita bloggers around the world. Every week the moderators of the group are intoroducing a new topic. It's free to participate for the members of the group. I don't feel always the urge to particpate, but sometimes a topic pops up which I like. This weeks topic is hot weather lolita coordinates. When I read the topic I had immadly some inspiration for coordinates. I don't like to wear lolita during hot days, but their are always a lot of meetings during the summer which I like to attend. In this way I came up with some not too hot coordinates during the years. I always follow some 'golden rules' during the summer. Those rules works pretty good for me. I always wear anckle socks, never wear a blouse, bus instead use a cardigan and use dresses of not too thick fabric in my coordinates. I'm also very found of light colorschemes during the summermonths, althought dark colors can be pretty too. I coordinate two light colored dresses and one dark colored dress for hot weather. I hope you will enjoy my coordinates!

The dress in this coordinates gives me a spring / summer feeling due to the color and print. I did my hair in an updo style to give my neck and back some air. The cardigan can be take off if it's too hot, but also protects my skin against sunburning. I use white anckle socks instead of the normal socks or tights. The parsol gives me shadow too cool down were every I am.I think this is my most ideal coordinate for hot weather! Coordinate run-down:
Hairclips: H&M
Cardigan: H&M
Dress: Pettit Angel (Dutch indie brand)
Parasol: Claire's
Socks: H&M
Shoes: Taobao

This coordinate is very simple, but still cute and elegant. I didn't use any blouse or cardigan, but instead go ride with bare shoulders (I'm sorry lolita gods!). The white color is very light, but I coordinate it with some color accents. Again I use the white anckle socks and did an updo hairstyle. No parosol this time since in my opinion this is a very casual lolita look.Coordinate run-down:
Hairthingie: Etsy Shop Cute Lou Couture
Dress: Innocent World
Necklace: Etsy Shop Cute Lou Couture
Socks: H&M
Shoes: Taobao

The third and last coordinate is a dark one. I use a cardigan, but with short sleeves and a cute-out partern. I use again the anckle socks, but this time in black. They're not visible in the photo, because that picture turned out not to be the best one.  I think this coordinate is not for + 30 celsius days, but can uses on any other hot weather.Coodinate run-down:
Hairbow: Primark
Cardigan: Primark
Dress: Mille Fleurs
Socks (not visible): Ebay
Shoes (not visible): Taobao

Want to read other posts about this topic?
- Daily Fuckery 
- Helado de Cereza
- Spoon and Fork 
- Beyond Kawaii  

Tumblr post: Poison Apples

Let's faced it: I'm addicted to Tumblr. I'm looking every single day to my Tumblr dashbord, scrooling througth posts and posting pictures myself. Mostly their are a lot of crappy reblog posts on Tumblr, but some posts or even blogs can give you inspiration. I have found such a blog laterly: Poison Apples. I came across the blog throught a reblog post on my dashboard. The post were photo's of Innocent world's new mook.

This is my favorite photo from the post. I love the classical vibe of the picture and what I can see from the dress it's really lovely. I clicked the source and ended on Poison Apples. I scrolled througth the blog and felt in love and push the follow button as quick as possible. The blog contains a lot of fashion pictures from Japanese but also Western fashion(magazines). Most of the pictures are a bit dreamy and fairytale like or have a vintage feeling like this one.

The mix between Japanese and Western fashion is lovely. I hope I can find more of this kind of blogs in the future. If one of my readers know such a blog please let me know!

Cooking: popin' cookin' candy sushi DIY kit

Yesterday I have tried a popin' cookin' DIY candy kit. Those kits are coming from Japan and are used to make your own candy or cookies with a minimal of ingredients. You only need some water and the powders from the kit. I allready new of the kits before I ever saw one with my own eyes. I follow PaperPastels on youtube and she posts sometime movies about the kits. I liked the idea and wanted to try one myself, but they're very hard to find here in the Netherlands. This week I was lucky enough to find some of the kits in one of my favorite Japanese shops in Amsterdam: Roppongi! I actually went only to the shop for a birthday gift for one of my friends, but came home with way more stuff ^.^

The Roppongi haul: three boxes of Pocky, little containers for my bento box and off course the Poppin' Cookin' kit.  

They sell diffrent kind of kits. I chose the one to make candy sushi.I think the design of the box is typical Japanese with all the colors and screaming text and cute figures. The bag inside the box had the same typical Japanese design:

And the bag contained: the diffrent powders, a little plastic spoon, a little plastic bottle, a plastic mold and some liquorice (the 'seeweed').

I'm always very happy that Japanese stuff contains always a lot of pictures. I can not read nor understand Japanese, so the pictures on the back of the box were very handy! I started making all the pieces for the candy step by step and this was the result in the end:

 

 Now it was the time to put all the piece together for some sushi! According to the pictures on the box I needed to make four diffrent kind of sushi, but I didn't notice the fourth one on the package, so I ended up making three sushi's. It was quite easy to make the sushi, althought I had a little fight with the 'seeweed'. It's like making real Sushi. I always have a fight with seeweed, so it was common for me.
And here is the result in the end: a maki, a egg nigiri and a tuna nigiri.

 And the taste? Well it's very sweet and stickey, but I kind of like it. It taste a bit like winegums. I think about buying the other kids too. It was fun to make and eat, so I will give it a try again!

 

A fresh new start

Some you may have notice it, but I changed the lay out of my blog a bit and cleaned all the old blogposts. I want to make a fresh new start with this blog. I haven´t been blogging a very long time. I like blogging, but I had no inspiration for new blogposts in the old concept. Only blogging about lolita and other Japanese fashion styles become a bit boring since I only wear lolita to meetings. I decided te clean-up my blog and make a new start. Hopefully I will write more often blogpostst. But what is my plan with this blog? Well... I want to write also about other stuff besides lolita. I'm planning on writing more about cooking, since that is also one of my pasions. I also like to write blogpostst about vintage tea stuff for my new Etsy shop All about tea. I wanted such a shop for a long time, but never had the guts to start. The shop is still in progress, but I hope it will work within the end of summer. Off course I will also write about my lolita life and make Tumblr inspiration posts (I'm still addicted to Tumblr). My first post will not be about lolita, but about cooking (well cooking is a big word for this, but I don't know how to call it otherwise XD). The picture gives already a clue.
I hope you will like my new blog!