January Favourites

The first month of 2018 has just flown by! Can't believe it's the end of January already and it will be February tomorrow. Or as I like to call it, the one month that is impossible to spell. This month I managed to put out quite a few blog posts and I'm proud of myself for keeping this blog updated regularly. I've got ideas for future blog posts so it should be an exciting year. Anyway onto the monthly favourites!

Gaming
Once again, I've been playing a variety of games this month. Been playing a bit of Style Boutique 3 of course and have been posting play journals here of my adventures. Trying to collect clothing items currently and I wish you could make money at the other shops as I need all the dollars I can get to buy new items!

A cute mannequin display I made this month.

Still playing Disney Magical World on the 3DS. There was a moment a while ago where I absolutely hated the game as I could never get the items I need as they drop randomly. The cafe parties are the biggest issue for me currently. I've managed to get the Minnie Star Medal one, but I'm having difficulty with the Donald one at the moment. I've held three 8 combo parties and he still won't give me a medal. Ugh, this game. However I had made a significant dent in completing the furniture collection. I just wish the items cost less coins to craft as some are like 1200000!

Last month I brought this cute game on Steam called Castaway Paradise which is kinda like Animal Crossing. I've been playing it quite a bit this month and it's rather enjoyable. I'm slowly working on doing landscaping on the island, just waiting until I unlock the garden pack as I really want the stone walls that come with it. I only have one more stone bridge to unlock and then I've completed all the puzzle pieces parts of the game. I wish the quests were a bit more varied and that you could reject them. I hate the donate a shell to the museum one as I literally have only two more to donate for the collection but haven't come across them. Only have four more Steam achievements to unlock in the game and one is for growing all the flowers in the game. So I've set up this little area on the island to grow each type of flower. I still have quite a few to unlock as I'm only at Level 26 currently. The hydrangea flowers would be my favourite style of flower, but I'd like to try and plant a variety of types around the island once I know what they all look like.

My little flower area in Castaway Paradise

Growing some vegetables!

Music
Didn't get any new albums this month, but I've exploring Yahoo Auctions for good deals on albums on my wishlist. So hopefully this year I'll pick up a few bargains of J-Pop albums I've been wanting for a while. Music wise, I've been loving E-girls still especially the E.G. Crazy album. It's just so amazing! I'd rank it as my number one album of all time now as all the tracks are perfect. Even if I don't like a track, I always play the album in the car and I start loving it!

Art 
I wish I had more time for art, but it was something I missed doing this month. I managed to squeeze in some time to experiment with galaxy paintings with watercolours. I know I'm super late to the trend, but they are just so intriguing. I love watching videos of artists making them on instagram. I tried making one myself, but I used just cheap Monte Marte paper (Australian brand you can buy at discount stores here) and some random white acrylic paint I had lying around for the stars. It turned out ok and I definitely learnt the dos and does of the galaxy paintings. The watercolour paint I used is the Sakura Koi brand. It was a fun little project and I'm looking forward to trying it out again.

My attempt at a galaxy painting with watercolours.

Sewing
This month I started working on a new sewing project. Unfortunately didn't get to finish it this month like I was originally planning, but it's getting there. I've been making the Romper from this New Look pattern 6373 which is view B on the pattern. It has been a good pattern to work with as it had some new techniques I had actually never tried. I've been sewing for years, but only really stuck with dresses and skirts. So it was interesting trying something new. The fabric I'm using is quite hard to work with but looks stunning as it has this amazing paint splatter pattern on it. Looks great with the flounce part of the outfit.

   

Inspiration Time - Clothes Edition

Today I went to a meet-up with the local Lolita group and it was absolutely wonderful! Everyone was so nice and even though it was extremely hot due to the heatwave, we had a fun time. Afterwards, I felt inspired by all the girl's lovely dresses and chatting with them about sewing. Thought I would make a post about some clothes items that inspire me and I absolutely love. These pictures are ones that I've discovered over the years on sites such as Pinterest, Instagram and Tumblr. I don't know how to describe my style. I tend to go with whatever is in my size, affordable and fits well. I only look at sale racks when I shop for clothes (that aren't say active wear or essentials like pyjamas). Nowadays I don't buy clothes much as most shops here are fast-fashion stores that just sell junk and I'm not game enough to buy clothes online due to not being able to try them on. But I'm always looking for inspiration on the net for items I would like to sew for myself or keep an eye out for.

First off, here are a few dresses that I adore and would love to have in my wardrobe. I'm a huge fan of anything with a Peter Pan collar and quite a number of these dresses feature that style of collar. I think comfortable dresses that you can easily slip on and are suitable for hot weather are my type of outfit. It always nice to feel comfortable and not feel constricted when wearing clothes. Anything that is kinda breezy is perfect and short dresses are the way to go. I'm not a fan of long dresses or maxi ones, I prefer ones that finish at a shorter length. Winter is perfect for woollen dresses paired with tights and boots. I like wearing warmer dresses in winter as then you don't need to wear multiple layers when it's freezing cold.

Gorgeous fabric on this dress.

I love the blue tones.

Colour Outfits Collection - Pink

As it's still too hot to do anything with this heatwave, I had some time recently to play some Style Boutique 3. I decided to take on a little challenge and design an entirely pink coloured outfit for each of the styles/themes in the game. When creating the outfit, I used items from the brands that focused on each specific style and only a few times had to use items from another brand (of the same theme) to complete it. For example, I didn't have pink shoes from Enid Chen so I used ones from AZ-USA that were chic theme. All items used in the outfits were ones from my personal wardrobe and there are still a wide range of pink coloured items to collect in the game.

So here are all the pink outfits I created for each style. I decided to go with a pink coloured theme first as pink is my favourite colour. Marzipan Sky has a large number of pink coloured items in the game and I had quite a lot of them already available as I had purchased them previously. Another reason for this is because Marzipan Sky is one of the biggest brands in the game with the largest amount of items so of course it's going to have lots of pink items. I wish you could change outfits when taking photos in the game because I find it so annoying having to go back to my apartment just to change my outfit.

Preppy Outfit

Feminine Outfit

Rock Outfit

Bold Outfit

Style Boutique 3 Play Journal: New Outfit!

Finally changed my character into a new outfit in Style Boutique 3. We've been having a heatwave where I live currently and it's too hot to do anything so I've been playing 3DS to keep cool. Can't wait until this 42 degrees (107.6 Fahrenheit) heat to go away, but at least it's not 48 degrees like I was in a few months ago. I had been wearing the same outfit for ages now as it featured the cute starry dress from Marble Lily that I absolutely adore.  First here are some pictures of that outfit that I took before I picked a new one.

So I decided to go with a psychedelic theme for my new outfit. One of my favourite items from Retrobeat is the 1960's style flower print dress. I decided to wear the blue toned one this time, but I also love the pink one. Next I headed over to the Beautician to get some new make-up supplies and have Lorelei do my nails. I picked a groovy set of nails from the psychedelic category that matched the colours of the dress.

Once my make-up was all sorted, it was time for a new hair do! I went with this retro looking style with a pink colour. It took me a while to choose the right fringe as I wanted to try something different from my normal bangs. I always use the same fringe as it matches the heavy bangs I have in real life so this time I went with something a little different. The pink colour tone matches the colour of the flowers on the dress.

Now it's time for a photo shoot! I love how you can take multiple photos at once in Style Boutique 3 and the ability to easily change the background is great as well. The one feature I would love to have is having access to the wardrobe whilst taking photos. I find it so annoying having to go back and forth to the apartment to change outfits. Anyway, I took a few pictures of the new outfit. Some of the new poses are so cute and it's great how you can just zoom in now when taking photos.

Simplicity Pattern 1419 Review

Thought it was time for me to finally make a post about sewing. Besides playing video games, I like to sew in my spare time. I haven't had to buy new clothes in ages because I'm always sewing new items to wear! So for my first sewing post, I thought I'd write a review of one of my favourite sewing patterns. The pattern is Simplicity 1419 and was part of the Lisette line.

Pattern Description
This pattern features two dresses and a jacket. The dresses can be made either with or without short sleeves and the dress features an optional peter pan collar. The dress pattern has a keyhole front and a pleated skirt. It is slightly fitted and features darts in the bodice. The skirt part of the dress features pockets which is amazing!! A 22" or 55 cm invisible zipper is required for this pattern. The jacket is a gathered peplum bolero style with three-quarter sleeves. I have only made the dress in this pattern and are yet to try making the jacket.

Sizing
The sizing of the pattern is 6 to 24 and I made the size 10 pattern. I find the size 10 is closer to a size 8 for me and is quite small around the waist.

Instructions
The steps are quite easy to follow to make the dress and the pattern would be suitable for a beginner to intermediate sewer. The first time I made the dress, I got a bit stuck with the neck facing part with the elastic loop and button. I ended up just skipping this step for reasons I will explain next.

Style Boutique 3: Shopdo Owner ID

Finally set up my Shopdo account in New Style Boutique 3: Styling Star! It took me a while to get around to it as I was busy finishing the main story line of the game and then I took a break from the game after playing over 42 hours of it. Anyway I'm excited for the Shopdo feature! Fashion Forward had lacklustre online feature so it's great Nintendo decided to add exciting online features in this new game.

The Shopdo app can be accessed via the phone menu in Style Boutique 3. It requires internet connection to use and allows you to visit online stores of other players from around the world. If you would like to visit my Shopdo store, use the owner ID search function and look up the owner ID 0006271056. Myself and a few other players have discovered however that Shopdo may have a region locking feature on it. People noted that they are unable to download my Shopdo Owner ID and I cannot download other peoples either, unless they are playing the same region game as me (Style Boutique 3). I've encountered this in other Nintendo games such as Disney Magical World where you can only access and download features from players in your own region. I don't understand why this is the case though because you could download rooms from players from other regions in Fashion Forward. So disappointing that I cannot access so many amazing items from other players and kinda makes the feature pointless if you are limited with what you can download.

My Shopdo Owner ID

I've created three outfits that are available to purchase at my Shopdo link. The outfits are baby-doll, psychedelic and preppy. I wanted to create some unique and adorable outfits for other players to buy. As you can see the first outfit is the baby-doll one which is identical to the one my character is wearing. I just loved these Marble Lily dresses in the previous game and was so excited to see them in the new game. The psychedelic outfit is a fun little number that I created using that silly poncho polka outer item. The last outfit is the preppy outfit and features the jacket from Brooke Bridge that I absolutely love.

Baby-Doll outfit

Psychedelic outfit 

Preppy outfit