January Favourites

Ah this month has been mental! I feel like I didn't accomplish anything and now we are somehow at February already. I'm not even ready for this months favourites and I have no clue what to talk about. When I was in town the other weekend, I did come across this gorgeous Barbie display in a toy store. Look at all those collector Barbies!! They even had the new Rewind line which is super cool and I like the designs of those dolls. Unfortunately I didn't find what I was actually looking for in this store which was some Sylvanian Families toys. They are my new obsession and I'm trying to find the perfect one to buy as my first one. Sadly I haven't come across it yet so I shall keep searching.

Gaming

Finally got a stylus for my switch! I've been playing stacks of pixel art and puzzle games on the console and its much easier with the stylus. Totally obsessed with the games I got during the boxing day sales and I've somehow played 7 hours of Hatsune Miku Puzzle. Like it's really good and I haven't even started the hard levels yet with the 300 pieces!

Beauty

Ordered some products from Revolution Beauty even though I wasn't originally planning to. I was going about my life when they sent an email for Buy 2 Get 1 Free. So I thought why not have a look however I ended up buying all sale items which is what I usually do on the site. You can get such good deals! I love their brushes and wanted to get more for my collection. I do have Morphe brushes but I find they wear out quicker and the Revolution ones work better for me. Picked up the Beetlejuice set as it had all the eyeshadow brush types I like. Also got two lip glosses because I'm obsessed with Revolution lip products. The other two items were a coffee detox eye cream thing and a lip scrub which ended up leaking all over the package. Luckily only the brush box was damaged and I wasn't going to keep it anyway. One of my lip glosses was also cracked but no serious damage. Didn't have much luck with this order but it can happen.

August Favourites & Blog Update ♡

August seemed like a long month for me and it didn't fly past quick like everything else has this year. I felt like I got a number of things done this month and had some fun experiences. Made a list for everything I wanted to post in this month's favourites and there was quite a few things. I will be posting a blog update at the end of this post so please give it a read if you are a follower of Marzipan Wonderland ♡ ♡ 

First up because it doesn't really fit anywhere else are these cute Barbie patches I found! My friends and I were in Big W recently when I came across these. I thought the price was good for three official Barbie branded patches and I've been collecting patches for a future sewing project. Of course I had to have a Barbie one on there as I love Barbie! I was actually looking in the Barbie area as I've been on the search for Barbie So Extra #6. She is impossible to find!! I went looking for her today in a few shops that had the new So Extra line listed on their site but when I got to the stores, they only had older dolls. Going to hit up some other stores closer to work tomorrow and I just know she is going to take forever to find as it took me 6 months to find Doll #3.

Gaming

This month I've been playing my 3DS quite a lot and I've really missed the console. It's so easy to pick up and get into a game. I enjoy playing it for short periods when I'm bored or I get some inspiration for an outfit. I have been playing heaps of Style Boutique which I'll talk more about in the blog update later on. Another game I've super been into is Cooking Mama: Sweet Shop! I actually brought this ages ago and totally forgot about it as I must've gotten my Switch. I remember picking it up on the eShop as it was on sale and it's a fun game to play quickly. The recipes are easy and a bit repetitive, but the deserts are gorgeous! Definitely give this one a try if you are a fan of the series.

Reading

I never thought I would get into reading as much as I have this year! Getting a Kindle has made a huge difference and opening my eyes to the world of ebooks! I never really got the appeal of them but once I spent more time researching titles I was interested in, it was easy to just start books and read them on the go. I've been using my local library app to read ebooks and it has been amazing. I used to use the library a lot but I found it hard to return books once I switched jobs as I wasn't next door to a library anymore. So I thought app would be good and it's the best thing! My library uses Overdrive and it works great on my Oppo phone. I enjoyed reading this book called Paperback Crush: The Totally Radical History of '80s and '90s Teen Fiction this month. The cover looked appealing as it reminded me of Babysitter Club books which the book actually talks about. It was a longer book than I was expecting but I learnt a lot about teen fiction and I never knew there was so many titles! We didn't have most of these here in Australia when I was younger as children's/youth literature is very dominated by certain authors and always deals with gross or weird humour. I wasn't a big reader as a kid but I do remember reading Babysitter Club books from school fairs.

February Favourites

Thank heavens February is finally over and I don't have to strain my brain every time I have to spell the word out. The start of this month went super fast and then the last part kind of just dragged. I'm sad that summer is over as we didn't really have much hot weather this season. There was only a few days where it hit 40 and most of the time it was in the twenties. Shame because I love summer and I just don't want it to be winter as I cannot take the cold weather. Hopefully autumn will have some nice weather! Anyway here are my monthly favourites for February!

My absolute favourite thing for this month was the discovery of the Barbie Pop Vinyls. One day my friend and I were in EB Games looking at the giant wall of Pop Vinyls and that's when I saw them. Couldn't believe it that they were actually real! I ended up buying the Day-To-Night Barbie a few days later because I just needed it for my Barbie collection. There are three designs in this set: Barbie & The Rockers, Peaches 'N Cream Barbie and Day-To-Night Barbie. I got the later one as I have a connection more to this design than the others. I remember seeing this doll in my Barbie books growing up but never owned it as it wasn't in production anymore. Plus the pink shades on this model match the 90's pink box dolls and merchandise that I like to collect. The Peaches 'N Cream one is gorgeous though and I'm torn on getting it. I just don't have room for more Pop's and I only got this one as it was sentimental to me. 

Gaming

I turned on Animal Crossing New Horizons one day as it was Bill's birthday and he's one of my favourite villagers. And guess what DIY I finally found that day washed up on the beach? It was the signpost DIY I had been wanting for ages! Just my luck!

The only game I've really played this month is SELFY COLLECTION and I've still been enjoying it. I will be posting a play journal soon of the game as I'm close to completing the storyline of the game. That should go up early on in March and once I've finished the story line, I'm working on getting 100% with the clothing collection and requests. I really do appreciate how the game shows you all the clothing items for each brand, if only Style Boutique had that! Here is a nice outfit I made in SELFY COLLECTION recently where I went a bit crazy with the accessory items.

Music

I've listened to way too much music this month and can't think of too many favourite songs that come to mind. I did however find Britney Spear's In The Zone in the Op-Shop which I was super excited about. Someone threw out their Britney collection but I had most of them already. So I got In The Zone as I didn't have that one in my collection just yet. The one album I'm looking for is her Blackout one and I never see it anywhere! I used to own it years ago and one day it just went missing. I never knew what happened and I only really thought about it a few years when I started collecting Britney CD's. Hopefully I'll come across it one day. Here's a bunch of songs I quite like at the moment to finish off this month's monthly favourites.

November Favourites

Didn't November just start? I feel like it went super quick and can't believe it's December this weekend. And soon it will be 2019! How on earth did that happen? Anyway here are this months favourites!

Gaming
As I posted about last week, I found a copy of New Style Boutique at EB Games recently and have been playing a bit of it lately. It's quite fun and exciting to go back to older features in the series. Plus I can finally use glam/flirty fashion when it's actually in the game. I need to work out how to get pictures of my console to post on here.

In Styling Star news, I reached 3000 likes on my Shopdo! Hooray! I'm so excited to reach this milestone and went crazy giving every one on the recent tab of Shopdo lots of likes to celebrate. I'd like to thank everyone who visited my Shopdo who reads my blog or just stumbled across it online. I shall continue with the weekly updates, still on Monday currently just late in the day as my work schedule changed.

Music
Earlier this week I posted about my recent haul from YesAsia which I was excited about receiving. The Dream Ami one has the most gorgeous design and apperantly she is recording a new song so that will be another one for the collection hopefully. E-girls also brought out a new song this week which is pretty awesome as I love 80's sounding songs. I prefer this release over Perfect World mainly because I'm all about their dance pop songs rather than slower stuff. I do wish however the song was just a standard physical release instead of these MUSIC CARD ones. They are always a pain to track down and find. Hopefully we'll see some Happiness, Flower and SYY releases next year instead of just straight E-girls releases all year.

Other than that, I've just been listening to bits and pieces K-Pop wise. I've been super into Pristin recently which is kinda sad since the group is currently in limbo with whats going on with them. Looking at picking up their physical albums next year as I only have them digitally currently.

Toys
After like a billion years of searching, I finally found the Barbie Fashionista doll I had been after. When the doll was released, I could not find her at any toy or department stores in my state so I thought she just wasn't available. Months later I came across her randomly in Big W and was rather surprised to see her and some other dolls from the same release on the shelf. And added bonus as she was on sale!

30 Day Cosplay Challenge Day 10 - Barbie

Now today's cosplay was a tricky one and was a bit outside the box. I thought it would be a challenge to try and cosplay the outfit that one of my Barbie dolls has one. The doll was one I got from the Barbie By You promotion that was around a few years at Myer for the Christmas period. The promotion allowed you to design your own Barbie doll from a selection available via an iPad. I got this brunette Petite style Fashionista who originally came with a blue printed dress. I've swapped her outfit for this tennis skirt style dress I got in a fashion pack. I attached a picture of the doll for reference and she also had on a pair of cat ears nowadays which aren't in the photo.

I quite love the design of this dress in real life so I thought it would be fun to find the copy of it in Styling Star. I ended up combining some items from Marzipan Sky and April Bonbon for the upper part of the outfit. The shirt doesn't have the same print, but I choose it because of the blue detail around the collar. Grabbed some cat ears from Purple Moon to finish the outfit off. I might try to post some pictures of my doll in the future with the full outfit on.

November Favourites

I know it's a bit overdue but here are my November favourites! I've been so busy playing New Style Boutique 3: Styling Star that I totally forgot to post this list.

Gaming
All I've pretty much been doing in my spare time is playing New Style Boutique 3. Already have over 30 hours of play time, I think I'm addicted. I believe I'm near the end of the main story which is surprising incredibly long. The new game has so many amazing clothes to list and I haven't even had the chance to experiment with a lot of the features like online as I've been so engrossed in the story.

This dress is too adorable!

The new Try It On animations are great!

Music
The local post system is delivering on weekends here to get through all the Christmas orders and I was lucky enough to receive an order from YesAsia the other day! I thought it would take a lot longer as they said it wouldn't ship until November 29th but shipped on the 21st. Hey, I'm not complaining as it means I get my parcel earlier. So this time I got some J-Pop albums I've had on my wish list for a while and these were:

• KARA - Girl's Story CD+DVD
• Dream Ami - Try Eveything CD Version
• Orange Caramel - Yasashii Akuma CD+Photobook

I'm excited to finally have KARA's album as I've been after it for a few years. I finally built the bullet and brought it as I was worried I wouldn't be able to get the version I wanted if it went out of the print.

Toys
Got two new sets of Barbie Fashionista outfits recently. I literally brought them right after the lady pulled them out of the box to put on the shelf. It's getting pretty hard to find sets here and it's annoying I'll have to wait months for new sets to arrive as now I have all the ones I can find.

I am super excited for the Barbie outfits that will be released soon. I know the Hello Kitty one is already available overseas but I'll have to wait a billion years for it here. A Nintendo line was also announced and I really want to get this one for my collection. How cute is the biker jacket? 

 

October Favourites

Another month has passed so here are my favourites for the month of October!

Gaming
Still playing Disney Magical World and slowly working my way through it. I'm currently up to 82 stickers and cleared most of the episodes. I'm stuck on defeating the final boss in Aladdin's World and I'm having trouble upgrading the wand as I don't have access to the last item I need for it. It's hard to earn coins in this game compared to the second one so now I've got a system of playing the game a few times a day just to collect coins at the Cafe.

Also in gaming news, I'm super excited for the release of New Style Boutique 3: Styling Star! I can't believe a new one came out so quickly, I'm still playing the second one. I've played the demo a few times and it seems the game is similar to New Style Boutique. The in-game clock system is going to drive me nuts though, I prefer the 3DS clock one.

Music
Didn't pick up any new albums this month, I'm saving up to get E-girls E.G. Crazy album and Dream Ami's Try Everything single. I really wanted to get Dream Ami's album she released this month but it was just too expensive and I already owned nearly all the tracks. That's one thing that frustrates me about j-pop albums, they often have songs I already brought in single form. I would've loved to have gotten the CD+DVD+Photobook version of her album as the cover was stunning, but it's a bit too out of my budget.

Isn't this Dream Ami cover so gorgeous?

Art 
My friend got my some gifts this month from Daiso which has the cutest and quirkiest stationery. A while ago we were in Daiso and found this hilarious pencil caps which are just caps you put on top of your pencil. Turns out my friend brought me a packet and they're actually quite good. It's handy to use on coloured or drawing pencils when you carrying them around in a pencil case. I also got some decorative tape which as an interesting case. It's kinda like a click pen, you click the top and the tape comes out the bottom. Then when you are finished, you just click it again and the tape retracts. I find it better than the usual white-out tape dispenser as I always seem to misplace the lid of mine. The BMO Badge shown in the picture was a gift as well and that comes from a company called We're All Mad Here. I have a super cute Lumpy Space Princess one from them as well that says Whatever It's 2009.

Toys
I had a gift card to use up recently so I decided to pick up two new Barbie Fashionista dolls for my collection. I used to be into Barbie collecting a long time ago, but stopped because my collection got too large (ended up selling half of it) and I wasn't interested in teh dolls that were out at the time. Now I've slowly been getting back into collecting mainly because of the amazing Fashionista dolls that Mattel produces. Fashionista dolls however are hard to get hold of in Australia and I rarely see new ones. I check all the toy stores and departments every week and they're still selling Fashionistas from 2016. I contacted Mattel and they said new ones aren't scheduled for release in Australia until next year which is annoying. Anyway I ended up getting Dolled Up In Dots (Number 13 Original) and Chambray Chic (Number 22 Curvy). I choose the Dolled Up one mainly for the outfit and I choose the Chambray Chic as I did not yet have a curvy doll and I really liked the face mold of this doll. I've already got a petite brunette doll in my collection so now I'm only missing a tall one to have all the different varieties. I also picked up a few outfit sets but I'm planning on making a post about Barbie's soon to cover those.

This month I came across the most adorable mug. Saw these cute Pokemon themed Halloween mugs in a store and they are just perfect! The top one is my favourite as I love the colours on it and how cute Pikachu looks in that Halloween outfit. Halloween merchandise from Japan is always amazing and if I lived there, my place would just be full of so much stuff (especially Rilakkuma which is my number one favourite).