December Favourites

December came and went in a blink of the eye as usual which is fine because the craziest time of the year retail wise is finally over. It was pretty mental this year with all the sales and Black Friday has become quite big here in Australia with more people buying items then rather than Boxing Day. The weather has been terrible here as well with most days being in the mid 30's to the mid 40's. Anyway,  here are my monthly favourites for December 2019!

Gaming
I actually have some new things to share this month for gaming! The Nintendo eShop is currently having a sale and eShop cards were also 10% at JB Hi-Fi. So I grabbed one of those and picked up a few download titles I had been wanting for a while. I got Cooking Mama: Sweet Shop which is totally adorable and I've missed playing this series. There are some great new recipes and I like how everything is themed around sweets and you can set up your own shop and such. I also got Conveni Dream which is a convenience store simulator that is best in short bursts. There was also a title called Doll Fashion Atelier (known as アトリエ デコ ラ ドール コレクション Atelier Deco La Doll Collection in Japan) which is a cute game where you dress up a doll in various lolita style outfits. It's incredibly short and there isn't much content, but fine for passing time. Here are some photos of a doll I created along with some food from Cooking Mama.

Music
Got a bunch of Kaiser Chiefs albums for Christmas which I'm excited to listen to. I was really into the band back when they first started and have their first two albums. Picked up their most recent release at JB Hi-Fi and it's on my list to listen to along with the ones I got for Christmas.

Sad news this month with E-girls announcing they will disband in 2020. But it wasn't a big shock considering how poor the group has been promoted by LDH since the reformation years ago. Compared to the previous releases when they were 19+ members, I didn't enjoy every single release like I used to with the older stuff. Plus once the Dream members left, I feel a lot of people lost interest. Wasn't a huge fan of their recent release Easy Come, Easy Go and I still can't get into it. Hopefully with the announcement that Happiness will work with an international company, we might get a western release from them. Here is a random selection of songs I've been listening to this month:

My K-Pop Collection 2019

Time to round-up my K-Pop collection for 2019 and I picked up a few new and old releases for my collection. It's a mixture of new and second hand titles through sites such as YesAsia and Yahoo Auctions. I will be sharing photos by group just like in my J-Pop Collection 2019 post as it's easier to take photos that way.

First up is Crayon Pop which has been a love of mine for many years now and I've slowly been building my collection over the years. Mainly collected Japanese releases from the group this year but I hit the jackpot and did find a copy of the groups Bing Bing single which is quite rare! I was excited to find this as you never see copies of it around and the photobook reminds me so much of that particular era of the group. Way recently posted a video to her Youtube channel where her and the girls react to videos of Dancing Queen and it was such fun to watch. I had so many good memories of my early days in K-pop from watching it. Hard to decide my favourite song from Crayon Pop as I love them all but I'd say Dancing Queen for today as I'm feeling nostalgic.

Up next is the mess of a group that is MOMOLAND! I only got their 2nd Mini Album - Freeze! this year and didn't bother with Show Me as I wasn't too interested in it. I love the packaging of Freeze as it's the same size as Fun To The World and they look great stacked together. I believe Show Me is the same size as well so Great! is the odd one out from recent releases and won't match size wise. Welcome To Momoland still has the best design and photobook for me. Favourite song would be BAAM of course and I'm interested to hear their new song when it comes out in a few days. Also can MLD just announce what's going on with Daisy jeez.

Feels like forever ago that I got a new WJSN album which was their 1st Mini Album - Would You Like? Another beautiful release from the group and this shade of pink is to die for! I got this right at the start of this year from eBay so no wonder it seems like a billion years. My favourite song from WJSN in regards to these three releases would be the Chinese version of Mo Mo Mo as I love Chinese versions of songs and it sounds so cute in the language.

My Favourite Shopdo Outfits of 2019

It feels like I made a gazillion outfits in 2019 for my Shopdo and it is interesting going back through all the outfits to pick out my favourites. I definitely have my favourite styles that I tend to use more than others. My tastes seem to go towards girly, feminine and psychedelic looks. I do love baby-doll outfits as well but not too many ended up on my favourites list in 2019. So let's take a look at my top Shopdo outfits for 2019!

First up is my top three psychedelic looks and this style has really became one of top styles this year. I think using it in heaps of challenges and Shopdo looks has made me appreciate the style more. Styling Star also has a great range of psychedelic items and it's easy to mix them with other styles like lively or girly. The two pink toned outfits below are some of my faves from this year and I've recreated them a number of times in different colours. I chucked the Bread Time outfit in as it just worked out so well and it's rather silly.

Feminine is another style that I've enjoyed working with in 2019 and Chorale has a wonderful selection of items to use in outfits. I tend to stick to colour themed outfits with the feminine style as it creates a nice silhouette and there seems to be trend with short skirts and feminine outfits for me. All these outfits have a running theme of short skirts or trousers and a knit themed top.

JB Hi-Fi Haul - Blackpink, Girls Generation & TWICE

Over the last few months, I've picked up a few K-Pop releases at a local entertainment retailer here in Australia. JB Hi-Fi has starting stocking a small range of Korean releases this year due to the popularity of the genre in the west. It's mainly boy groups honestly as all I really see are BTS and GOT7 in most stores. Blackpink is the only girl group I've seen the most so I brought all their releases I could source as well as some TWICE and Girls Generation which I had to order in.

First off is TWICE's 7th Mini Album - Fancy You which I got in Type C as it was only available as a random cover. Would've loved to have gotten all three versions but I don't think the supplier was thinking the same as me and all the copies that my store got in were all Type C. I can totally see why people like collection TWICE releases as you get so many goodies! I love the range of photocards and whilst I'm not a huge collector, it was amazing getting five cards in one mini album. The main one I wanted to get was a Jihyo card which I did happen to get so yay. The Fancy You mini album is huge and I was quite surprised at how large the photobook is. I have to store it with my Japanese magazines and books as it won't fit in my usual K-pop storage area.

My J-Pop Collection 2019

For my J-Pop Collection round-up for 2019, I decided to take photos of each group within my collection because it seems my collection has grown quite a lot since last year. Managed to pick up a lot of singles and albums this year that were great collector items and even found some super rare finds! I got most of these from Yahoo Auctions in Japan and others from sites such as Tower Records or CDJapan. Like in my 2018 collection post, I'll be posting the list of the entire collection at the end along with links to any reviews I did of singles or albums this year. A fun addition to this years collection is that I'll name my favourite tracks from each groups Japanese releases that I own as there is usually a few tracks that stand out the most for me.

First off is Rainbow which was a group I became interested in this year and definitely way too late as they had long since disbanded. I don't have many of their Japanese releases just yet but I've focused on collecting an album first so I get more songs at once compared to buying a single. Here is Limited Edition B CD+DVD and Limited Edition C 2CD of their re-release of their only Japanese album Over The Rainbow. I really enjoyed this release and Rainbow really was a great group! The Japanese version of Gossip Girl would be my favourite track from these two releases.

For AOA Japanese wise, I only got one new addition which is the Limited Edition B CD+Photobook of their second Japanese single Like A Cat. I had been looking for this for a long time and finally found a cheap copy recently. It's nice that it has a similar design to the photobook versions of 胸キュン Mune Kyun as you can stack them together. Favourite songs from this lot would be 胸キュン Mune Kyun of course as well as the Japanese version of Elvis from the Like A Cat single.

MOMOLAND has had a rough year as a group and recently lost two members and I'm just waiting for Daisy to leave because we all know that's gonna happen. Only two new additions to MOMOLAND this year with the Limited Edition CD+DVD of The Best ~Korean Ver~ and the Limited Edition B CD+Calendar of I'm So Hot. Boy was The Best one hard to find as I have been looking for years and finally snagged one this year. I do actually use the calendar in the I'm So Hot release as well! I put the new member card up each month near one of my CD storage areas. I didn't bother getting their first Japanese album Chiri Chiri as the release didn't interest me and I had most of the tracks already. I'll get it in the future sometime when it's cheaper but the cover art is just so boring to me as I'm not a fan of logo designs. Top song would be BAAM as that's my top MOMOLAND song in general.

Another new group was added to the collection roster with TWICE finally joining the team with two singles. I've always been into the group's Japanese releases over their Korean ones and I'm in love with the Japanese version of Fancy. I'd have to say it's my favourite song of 2019 and I can always listen to even over and over again. So that's the main release I picked up the Regular CD edition of Breakthrough and it came in a set with the Regular CD Edition of Happy Happy.

Still going with the Crayon Pop collection with some new single additions this year! Got the Limited Edition CD+GOODS of Dancing All Night for super cheap as well as both PCSC Editions A & B. These were a great find as you rarely see the PCSC ones and even harder to find them in complete condition. I was super happy to find them as I was bummed about never finding them when the single first came out. My favourite song of the group's Japanese releases would be the Japanese version of Bar Bar Bar because who doesn't love the group's iconic song?

One Item Challenge - April Bonbon

Adding another One Item set to the challenge roster and this post is all about the Frilly Tiered Shorts from April Bonbon! I decided on using these shorts as I thought they were pretty versatile and the pattern was quite subtle for use with different images. April Bonbon is known for it's bright colours and patterns, I wanted to try to find an item that was a bit softer and a neutral kinda tone that would work with opposite styles to lively such as gothic or chic.

First off, I love the background of these outfit photos. The gorgeous blue toned interior of my current boutique look matches these shorts perfectly! I started off the challenge with the standard style of the shorts which is lively and this outfit is a cute lively look. It could also pass for glam as the camisole I used originally belonged to the glam/flirty brand (which you can find out in my latest Style Boutique post here!)

My top three outfits for this One Item Challenge would be girly, chic and feminine. All very similar styles and I went for a summer look for each style. I love the girly look as it's super casual and incorporates some floral elements. Can't believe I held off using camisoles until this game, they work so well with so many outfits! The chic and feminine outfits are similar in appearance and doesn't my character look so tall in the chic outfit? Of course I had to sneak my favourite chic glasses into this look and I used them because of the blue accents on the frames. The feminine look would be my top favourite as I love this styling and the white and blue tones compliment each other well. This outer from Chorale is still one of my top new items to Styling Star and I'm actually going to sew a similar looking design for myself next year. Should be interesting to see how it turns out because I'd love to try to modify the pattern to replicate the jacket from the game. I was pleasantly surprised at how well the gothic outfit turned out as I thought I would struggle with this style. Ended up finding these top in the same colour so I built the outfit around that.

Lively

Eastern

Basic

Zenmarket Haul - Goodies Galore!

A few weeks ago, I received an order from Zenmarket that I was excited about. I mean I'm always excited about getting parcels in the post, but this particular order from Zenmarket was special as I managed to track down a number of rare items I had been looking to add to my collection. Let's get straight into it!

First off is this amazing find of Pungdeng-E's mini albums that are hard to come across. The seller was selling both of these as a set which was amazing! The mini albums are known as 1st Album - 풍뎅이 풍뎅이 Go! Pungeng-E Pungdeng-E Go! and 2nd Album - 액션 풍뎅이 Action Pungdeng-E Go! This group always makes me laugh with their mismatched numbering system with their releases. These are mini albums I'm pretty sure as you only get three songs and the instrumentals. There is actually only four songs between these two releases because two songs from the 1st one get repeated on the second one. I think Pungdeng-E is coming for Crayon Pop's record of making me buy Bar Bar Bar a billion times. I'm over the moon about adding these to my Pungdeng-E collection and it's even more special considering the group might be wrapping up soon with their recently announced hiatus.

2nd Album - 액션 풍뎅이 Action Pungdeng-E Go! and 1st Album - 풍뎅이 풍뎅이 Go! Pungeng-E Pungdeng-E Go!

2nd Album - 액션 풍뎅이 Action Pungdeng-E Go!

Next up is the PCSC Edition A of ラリルレ RaRiRuRe from Crayon Pop which is the accompany edition to Type B which I found last month! It was a miracle to find both PCSC editions so close to each other and I even got a photocard with it! I already had Ellin's photocard from my Limited Edition CD+DVD of ラリルレ RaRiRuRe but this one has her in a different pose. I never knew there was another set of photocards at all. I can never seem to find Geummi when it comes to photocards which sucks because I want one of hers.

ラリルレ RaRiRuRe PCSC Edition A

Style Boutique - Miss Ribbon & Le Spark Guide (Glam/Flirty Style)

The Style Boutique series features a variety of clothing styles/images and over the course of the series, some styles have been removed entirely from the game. One such style is the fabulous glam/flirty style which was last featured in New Style Boutique (known as Style Savvy: Trendsetters in NA and わがままファッション GIRLS MODE よくばり宣言! in JPN). The style was referred to as glam in the PAL version (EUR/AUS and flirty in the NA version. The main brand to feature this style was also known as different names in each region: Miss Ribbon in EUR/AUS, Le Spark in NA and ビスクマリー BiscMary in JPN.

The Japanese guide book to わがままファッション GIRLS MODE よくばり宣言! describes the style as princess gal and emphasises sexyness and cuteness. Items that can be found under the main brand feature floral patterns, a large amount of polka dots and bows everywhere! Camisoles are a key item for glam/flirty outfits and the brand had a large number of them. Here are examples of items from the brand as listed in the Japanese guide book.

The glam/flirty style was removed from the series after New Style Boutique/Trendsetters and was no longer featured in the next game Fashion Forward. The Miss Ribbon/Le Spark/ビスクマリー BiscMary is no longer available in the Style Boutique games and the items from that brand were divided in other brands within the game. This guide will detail all the items that were available from the Miss Ribbon/Le Spark/ビスクマリー BiscMary brand and the number of colours each item came in. You can also find which brand the item now belongs to in Styling Star, for example the Polka Dot Lace Camisole is now found at April Bonbon. All items from Miss Ribbon/Le Spark/ビスクマリー BiscMary can be found at the following brands: April Bonbon, AZ-USA, Marzipan Sky, Marble Lily, Raven Candle, Stage Dive, Chorale, Brooke Bridge & Retrobeat.

Tops & Inners

• Dot Bikini Top - 7 colours (AZ-USA)
• Ruffled Tube Top - 8 colours (AZ-USA)
• Polka Dot Camisole - 6 colours (Marzipan Sky)
• Leopard Print Camisole - 8 colours (AZ-USA)
• Leaf Lace Camisole - 8 colours (Marzipan Sky)
• Lacy Camisole with bow - 8 colours (AZ-USA)
• I Love Me T-Shirt - 7 colours (April Bonbon)
• Striped Ribbon T-Shirt -6 colours - (AZ-USA)
• Knit Sailor Top - 5 colours (Marzipan Sky)
• Ruffled Polka Dot Camisole - 7 colours (April Bonbon)
• Polka Dot Lace Camisole - 7 colours (April Bonbon)
• Lace & Ribbon camisole - 7 colours (AZ-USA)
• Vintage-Feel Rose Camisole - 7 colours (Marzipan Sky)
• Lacy Babydoll Camisole - 8 colours (AZ-USA)
• Argyle Off-Shoulder - 8 colours (Marzipan Sky)
• Glam Cable Knit Jumper - 7 colours (Marzipan Sky)
• Rose Pattern Knit Top - 6 colours (Marzipan Sky)
• Off-Shoulder with bow - 7 colours (Marzipan Sky)
• Rose Off-Shoulder - 5 colours (Marzipan Sky)
• Roses & Dots Top - 7 colours (Marzipan Sky

November Favourites

This month's favourites are going to be incredibly short as not much happened this month for me besides work. Like the month just went by so quick and we are in December all ready! That's the joys of Christmas being the busiest month at work and that will continue for at least a month and half. I didn't really play any games this month besides making some colour collection outfits in Styling Star. Played a little bit of Pocket Camp but I'm really just waiting until next year when New Horizons comes out and I'll get a Switch console.

The last week has been crazy music wise with some big announcements related to my fave groups. My favourite member from KARA passed away sadly the other day and I've just been watching old KARA clips on Youtube for memories. MOMOLAND's company finally got their act together and announced some members would be leaving. I'm just waiting for them to announce Daisy has left because that girl needs to find a better company who treats her better. MOMOLAND just crashed and burned this year for me. I finally listened to their Japanese album Chiri Chiri recently and I wasn't impressed. The songs were a bit blah for me and you can really notice the difference with the missing members not singing on the tracks. Funny how MOMOLAND is totally going the Crayon Pop route which was my big group back in the day. Also I found out today that Pungdeng-E have announced a hiatus of some sort and will be performing a last live for fans. The writing was kinda on the wall for that one as Red hasn't been in the group for ages and there hasn't been much new content. Shame because I really liked Pungdeng-E for their uniqueness and fun sound. E-girls brought out their new song Easy Come, Easy Go in recent weeks and honestly I hate it. I listened to it on Spotify today and had to turn it off. The sound of the song just isn't very E-girls for me and whilst the verse is fine, the chorus is what does it for me. I feel since the reformation years ago, everything for me apart from EG-ENERGY (which is an amazing song I won't lie) has been kinda average. The group is releasing bops like everything on the EG-CRAZY album anymore and I didn't mind Cinderella Fit as it reminded me of Follow Me. I did have this photo to share from earlier this month when my workmate was asking me about what photocards were. I was unboxing a k-pop mini album at work and she was completely new to the concept of collecting k-pop. I attempted to take a photo of all the photocards I had at that time (I've managed to get a few more since) and whilst I don't seriously collect them, I've built up quite a collection over the years!

Shopdo Update

December is here and that means a new Shopdo update! I have three new outfits for this month and I went with a Christmas theme for the outfits this month. Kept the same boutique interior as I quite like the blue toned look and my character has another girly outfit on that is one of my personal favourites. Onto the new outfits for this month and first up is a floral themed baby-doll look. I went with this pannier skirt as the green and red tones reminded me of Christmas and the roses are quite merry. This is an ideal baby-doll look as it features many key elements to the style: pannier skirt, gloves, bolero and knee high socks. The second look is a cute Santa inspired outfit featuring girly and baby-doll items. I've been quite interested in overalls and overall style dresses recently in real life so I wanted to create a look similar to them in the game. The final outfit for this month a girly outfit titled Pretty Present and I was inspired by the bows on the clothing items for the name. I couldn't think of another Christmas themed outfit so I went with something casual. You can see all these outfits at Shopdo ID 0006271056 in New Style Boutique 3: Styling Star (EUR/AUS Region).