let luck be on my side.

I love getting lucky packs, and I'm always hoping that BTSSB SF are doing winter lucky packs while I'm in California in the winter. It hasn't happened in a while. But this year I decided to try my luck with an overseas lucky pack. An expensive one to boot.
I ordered directly from the Baby Japan website for the first time. There were 3 different set options for Baby and 2 for AATP. I ended up going with the Princess Set, which was about half the price as the most expensive option. It was said to come with two jumperskirts, a cutsew OP, a coat, blouse, a bag, socks, hair accessory, stationery, etc.

I had it sent to school during break and had to wait till I was back to see what I got. Pretty anxious to open it when I got this big box upon my arrival!

 I wouldn't say I was disappoint with what I received at all, but I'd be lying if I said I felt like I got what I wanted. The problem I had was that there was a coat that I was dying to have, but it'd been sold out on the website and wasn't for sale in the San Francisco location, so I had really hoped I would get it in the lucky pack. Didn't happen.

Onto the contents!
This piece was the first one I saw when I opened the box.

Sweet Jewelry Princess Garnet! I was really surprised with this one; I wasn't expecting any of the border print JSKs so this one was a pleasant surprise. I would have loved this one in the navy or offwhite colorway, though. Black and pink takes me back to my not so pleasant middle school days.


My face fell when I got this one. It's definitely very pretty, but I always pray that I don't get anything pink in my luckypacks. Pink is my favorite color but Baby and Angelic Pretty make bubblegum pinks that are too saturated for my liking. The black with pink was already pushing it a little. There's no give on this one. No shirring in the back so it's a little tight for me. The details are lovely, though. It has a flocky crown print and pearls on the chest.

This coat was the next item, Teddy Ribbon Coat. It was definitely not the coat that I wanted, but BIG sigh of relief I got cream. I was hoping to not get black. Dark colored dresses I'm alright with since there's usually a balance of light colors in the print, but I have a hard time wearing too much black now.

Next is the blouse! I was hoping to get the shirred babydoll blouse because I've wanted it for as long as I've been in lolita (five years now!), and another girl in the comm got one in hers. Unfortunately I didn't get it. Hoping to sell this one because there's no stretch in it and it doesn't fit me.

The cutsew OP I received was really cute. I almost like how it looks, but the sleeves are a little puff and the skirt isn't too full so I don't like the proportioning. Too top heavy. If it were sleeveless I might have wanted to keep it.

A piano keys cardigan! This is charming. It comes in three colorways, pink, white, and black, and I think the white one is my favorite.

A pink bolero. I was pretty eghhh about this one but it looks like my pack was coordinated relatively nicely, as this pairs up perfectly with the first jumperskirt up top.

    This bag, I really do like. It's perfectly sized for papers and books. I've been wanting a heart bag but those sell well and I'd been pretty certain that they wouldn't be giving them out in lucky packs so I was preparing for the worst as far as bags go. I was expecting something small like a clutch or a pochette.
More pink. I suppose to go with all the other pink in the pack.

Plain white socks. I'm not fond of knee high socks so these will probably be sold.

   Brand stationery items! Usakuma kind of freaks me out. I wish they'd do black bead eyes instead of red and blue eyes.

I put everything on sale or for trade, so I was trying out some of the things this morning. I have a habit of wearing the things I'm selling for as long as possible before I part with it. Which I think makes sense but it's also a bit silly because I've been wearing this Sweet Jewelry Princess JSK for a few hours and I'm starting to get attached to it.
The pink is much more pastel than I remember it being when I first opened it. This one has already found a new owner, so I will be parting with it by next week. I wasn't super excited about any of the items that I got in the pack, but after having them around for almost a month, they're growing on me.


Still hoping someone will trade me for the coat and blouse! I'm going to get back to work.
Love, Kaia

critiques are so much fun just kidding.

Photos of my dress from my draping final. I quite like how it came out. I chose a navy toile an cream lace. All I had was stark white lace so I tea dyed it with Harney and Sons Vanilla Comoro.
It looks a little funny because I don't have a petticoat large enough to fill the whole skirt. The necklace was made by me too. I've never made jewelry before so it took a while for me to get it done. Instead of stringing the beads, I used wires so make links. Might do a tutorial on that.

While it wasn't necessary for the presentation, I included an illustration with different colorways the dress would come in. It made me a little sad after making it because I would personally rather have the pink colorway than the navy! After our critiques, Emily and I tried on our final dresses and took pictures in them. I took it back home and showed my mom. Then my dad came in and I told him to check out the dress I made. You made that? he asked. And your teacher didn't give you an A? Nope. Then what IS a A?! Beats me. Nothing I make, apparently. Bummer. It's break but I'm busy being sick and going to doctors and doing applications and business things and other fun things like that. Love, Kaia

international lolita day.

Happy December! Yesterday was International Lolita Day, which takes place twice every year, once in June and once in December. I bought a lucky pack from Angelic Pretty during their 2nd anniversary event online, hoping I could wear that yesterday. I've never bought a dress from Angelic Pretty before, so getting one was pretty exciting! The only thing is that I'm not a huge fan of sweet styles and Angelic Pretty is all about sweet. I was just hoping I wouldn't get pink.
First reaction: welp bummer, it's pink. Which isn't totally unsuspected, since pink is often the color left over. Pink is my favorite color. Just not Angelic Pretty pink. Or Baby the Stars Shine Bright pink (I like Victorian Maiden or Innocent World pink).
I looked it up, and this one is called Polka Dot Chocolate. It's cute, but I didn't quite get that lucky with my lucky pack because I was hoping for not-pink not-satin not-onepiece. I'm a jsk kind of gal.
Needless to say, I sold it for about the same price that I got it for. I figured a cute dress deserves an owner that would wear it. I snapped a couple pictures of it tried on.
On an unrelated note my hair turned kind of reddish in a freak accident. I flipped out the same way Howl did when his hair turned black. There was a New York tea party event with the other lolitas in the area yesterday, but I didn't go because money, the lack of, and time. I had a field trip and a bunch of errands to run in the city that I didn't make it back to my dorm until 11. I forgot to put into account that several trains are under construction on weekends, so I ran around transferring all over. Hectic. So I didn't dress up because I'd be running around and also because it's like 30 degrees.

Welcome back, colder weather!

Love,
Kaia

prototype

I had a critique last monday in draping for our dresses. Can you guess which one is mine?
If you guessed the one on the far right, you are correct! There are some things I need to tweak, but I'm overall satisfied with the end result. I haven't worn lolita in a really long time. Not since I moved coasts last year, because I didn't have enough luggage space to bring any dresses over. I keep thinking how I want to buy another one, but there hasn't been one that's come up that I really wanted. I thought about how much I wanted a dress all last weekend that I ended up making one for my critique.

This one is just my muslin sample, but it fits pretty alright so I might end up dying it to be worn. I don't know what color, though. For the final fabric, I'm hopefully going to find something with a nice print. Otherwise, I'll be revisiting the pattern and doing something more interesting on the front.
I got a little white to work on my final. Hopefully it'll come out nicely.

Love,
Kaia

Bunkasai.

Cultural festival post! I finally have enough photos to make a post. The day before the festival, I worked from after school until 11:00pm, and then worked until 3:00am to finish making the menus. I forgot to take pictures of those.

photos by William

I got up at 9:00am to go to school for setup. It was really exciting to see just how many people wore the shirt I made! I took pictures with a whole bunch of people who wore them. Here's one with Allen and my teacher. We all happened to be wearing a different color.
I got dressed for my cafe outfit in the afternoon. I was freaking out the night before because I couldn't find a wig cap or wig shampoo for my wig, and it was too tangled to wear. The beauty shop that I visited coincidentally didn't have either, but had fake hair elastics, so I settled for one of those instead.
I was pretty bummed because even though I had a camera, I was running back and forth the whole time and didn't get to take any pictures. Here's a picture someone took for us with May and Karen. The only picture I got was this one taken with the mirror in the kitchen. With May and Franny. None of us were expecting as much business as we got. A stream of people arrived as soon as we opened, and the line never died down. We didn't have assigned roles, except that maids and butlers were the ones to serve food. Unfortunately for me, I was making the parfaits when parfaits became really popular and ended up making parfaits for hours straight and didn't go out to serve much at all. We worked nonstop until 7:30 or 8:00, which was later than when we were supposed to close.
Three maids and four butlers turned out to be not enough. A picture of all of us, minus Vincent. I asked May to take me an outfit picture after we closed.

dress from bodyline, Elle cardigan from Goodwill, blouse from Taiwan, necklace from Angelic Pretty, donated tights, Secret Shop shoes.
I'm sure originally we were planning on black and white maid outfits. I suggested Bodyline because it would be the most affordable place we can get lolita dresses from. But most of the black dresses were sold out so we settled for blue. At first, I had been planning to buy a second hand dress from Baby the Stars Shine Bright or Angelic Pretty; I'm so glad I didn't. Pretty clothes and kitchens do not mix. I was stained with ice cream and chocolate sauce several times in the kitchen, and was elbowed and spilled half a cup of chocolate milkshake while trying to serve.

I stayed after school until 11:30pm for clean up, and had to wake up the next day to go to yearbook carwash. No wonder I've been asleep in class all week.

Love, Kai

characteristic immoderation.

The flea market was yesterday! It was the first time I went to the flea market in about a year. I used to go every month, but I haven't been able to for a while. Yesterday, I went with a couple friends to look for supplies for the cultural festival at our school. My side goals were to get a present for my friend and that Minolta I've been trying to hunt down. I'll talk a bit about my purchases later.

Today's outfit. I didn't really go anywhere today, so I just dressed up at home. I almost never wear this skirt.

cardigan from Thrift Town, scarf from Goodwill, Pea in a Pod camisole from Goodwill, skirt from Bodyline, shoes from Taiwan.
My eyebrow is showing. This will never happen again.
This scarf was purchased at a thrift shop for $3 yesterday. Not bad at all. The material is extremely soft!
And my favorite necklace that the scarf was covering.

I love this floral! Rose prints are my favorites, and this one has a nice, classical color scheme. Kind of refreshing.

Yeah, so about that flea market trip. Goal one: buy tea cups. That never happened. The prices didn't quite work out. Goal two: buy my Minolta. I found a few different Yashica and Canon and Kodak models, but they were all out of my price range.

What I ended up buying: a box of clay flowers. They were swooshing around in my backpack so a few of them ended up breaking before I got home.

What I ended up buying part 2: socks. The elastic on the white pairs looks like underwear. And the color of the pairs for flats looks like underwear colors. So when I see them, I always think it's underwear.

Because I wasn't able to find the camera at the flea market, I went to four different thrift shops afterwards to look for it. One Goodwill did end up carrying a nice Yashica one, but for $45, which was more expensive than the nice ones at the flea market.

I ended up getting a Gunne Sax dress. I will never in my life be able to fit into it. I'm hoping to be able to alter and redesign it.
Funny thing, my dad was lecturing me about how to design clothes today. He said "you have to make them look like stuff you can buy in stores! Like normal clothes! Clothes are made for wearing!" Oh dad.

Love, Kai