Lolita on a Budjet: Hime Lolita

Who doesn't want to be a princess at some point in their life? As girls, many of us dream of being a princess and with Hime, or Princess Lolita we can make dreams reality! Hime Lolita is definitely a extravagant style, so it can be fun to wear on occasions when one feels like going the extra mile to look glamorous. Perfect princess hair and makeup is only part of the look, and here I'll show you an affordable Hime Lolita look using items from Bodyline! This outfit costs $114 to $167 plus shipping and handling.

The base of a Hime Lolita look is always an elaborate dress. I feel that this pink flared sleeve dress is perfect for the Hime style and it's got the added benefit of removable sleeves, making it so you can wear it as a Sweet Lolita dress as well. And what outfit is complete without a great pair of shoes to go with it? These ribboned heels are pretty and cute and give you an extra boost of height for that added confidence as you stroll along. I felt that a pair of lacy tights would work best with this look and was pleased to find that Bodyline! offers cute bow patterned tights. For that extra touch of glam, a pair of pink lace and bow nails is just the perfect touch. And for icing on the cupcake, put on a cute flower headpiece that is elegant and cute. Or you can glam it up and get a tiara, which unfortunately can't be gotten from Bodyline!, but can be easily found at stores around Prom season. Not everybody has perfect Hime Lolita hair or the time to do their hair up, so if that's you you can also get a Hime wig from Bodyline! in just about any color you want! I hope you enjoy this Hime Lolita outfit.

All of the items in this outfit plus more in this style can be found on the Bodyline website. No pictures due to the fact that I haven't received permission to use Bodyline!'s images. Check me out on Twitter.

Lolita on a Budjet: Gothic Lolita

 Gothic Lolita is the first Lolita style I tried and today is one of my favorites.The one thing I dislike about Gothic Lolita is that it lacks bright colors, so I enjoy wearing other styles of Lolita as well. For this Gothic Lolita outfit I chose to do an outfit that's mainly black with white accents to keep the outfit from looking too dark. For those that prefer an all black Gothic or Kuro Lolita, I'll do an outfit later on for that style. This outfit costs $120 plus shipping and handling. Let's go!

The most important part of any Lolita ensemble is, of course, the dress or, in this case the jumper. For this outfit I chose a ruffled jumper that comes with a matching katayusha, or head bow. I love that this jumper's cute yet inexpensive and that it comes with a head bow as well making for even more savings. For a blouse to wear under the jumper, I felt that the ladder race blouse in white would be the best since it allows one to wear the sleeves long or short making it a very versatile blouse. Since it's a white blouse it can also be used with many ensembles or by itself with a pair of jeans if you want a casual but cute look for every day wear. I thought that over the knee socks would look best with this look, but a cute pair of lacy white tights could be substituted for a more mature look or to keep your legs warm in winter. I love how cute all of Bodyline's shoes are and these are no exception! The triple bow shoes in black are very cute and I love the little heart shaped clasps on them. To top it all off, I thought that adding a few cute rings would be nice. My favorite ones are the black crystal rose and bow rings. Now add a petticoat and a pair of bloomers and you're good to go! I hope you enjoy this look and look forward to more in the future! Bodyline! is always adding new items, so there's sure to be more looks in this and other styles in the future.

All of the items in this outfit plus more in this style can be found on the Bodyline website. No pictures due to the fact that I haven't received permission to use Bodyline!'s images. Check me out on Twitter.

Thrift Store Find: Sweet Lolita Skirt

Whenever I visit a thrift store, I like looking through the linnens section to see if there's anything that would look cute as a dress or a skirt. A while ago I found some curtains with a very cute print and ruffles along the edges, so I bought them and made one of them into a skirt. The skirt turned out a bit longer than the ones on my other Lolita dresses, but it's a very nice skirt. I don't wear it very often mainly due to the fact that I don't have a blouse that works well with it. I found one that works alright as long as I pull the skirt waistband down around my hips though. I plan on turning the second curtain into a blouse once I find a pattern that I like.
 I'd run out of waistband elastic at the time I made the skirt, so I instead used a ribbon I had lying around. It turned out very nicely.

All images were taken by me unless otherwise noted. Check me out on Twitter.

Lolita on a Budget: Wa Lolita

 Wa Lolita is one of my favorite styles of Lolita clothing. The cute kimono styled dresses, geta sandles, and traditional Japanese accessories all add to make it a style that is a lovely combination between traditional Japanese clothing and the ultra cute Lolita style. Today I've put together an ensemble featuring Bodyline's cute and inexpensive clothing. The total for this outfit is $115, not including shipping and handling. Here we go!

 

The Kimono dress is definitely one of my favorite Wa Lolita dresses that Bodyline offers. It comes in multiple colors allowing for different looks to be achieved, but I like the blue one the best since it reminds me of cupcakes. n_n I felt that the over the knee socks would look best with this dress since it ends slightly above knee level. Unfortunately, Bodyline! does not sell geta sandals, but they have plenty of cute Lolita shoes that would work well with this outfit, especially the blue and off white ones. The small flower pins Bodyline! sells are very cute and simple as well as cheap allowing for one or more to be bought to adorn hair as well as modded for use as a bracelet or other accessory. The pink ones match the best with the one on the dress. For an accessory, I thought that the Neko purse was a perfect mix between kawaii and the Japanese style. The drawstring allows for a more traditional Japanese look as well as allowing it to be worn around the wrist.

All of the items in this outfit plus more in this style can be found on the Bodyline website. No pictures due to the fact that I haven't received permission to use Bodyline!'s images. Check me out on Twitter.

Thrift Store Haul: New Petticoat

Recently I've been having good luck at my local thrift store. This time I was shocked to walk in and see a black petticoat hanging on the wall! I gave it a try, decided it fit well enough and got it really inexpensively. I was very happy that I had found such a nice petticoat at a good price. And then I decided to try it on under my Gothic Lolita dress and found that real petticoats are VERY poofy. It was also quite a bit longer than my skirt. So I tried it on under a longer skirt that I had made, which it barely fit under. and saw how it gave me a very poofy skirt that looks like I'm wearing a hoop skirt underneath it. Needless to say I have never owned a real petticoat before, just ones that I made myself out of old sheets and bed covers. All the same, I'm happy with my purchase and look forward to finding or making a longer skirt in the Gothic Lolita style to wear it with.

All images were taken by me unless otherwise noted. Check me out on Twitter.

Thrift Store Haul: Sewing Project Supplies

Recently I went thrift store shopping at some local stores. Turns out I was pretty lucky! This post is about the supplies I got for making more Lolita clothing for myself. It's always fun looking through thrift stores. You never know what you can find! This is just a little bit of the things I've gotten from thrift stores in the past. Here's what I got (minus one item since I neglected to take pictures before I started sewing):

In all I got several yards of eyelet lace and a white Eyelet fabric, a bit over a yard of lace elastic, and a new zipper to replace one in a cute skirt I got a few years ago. It was all very inexpensive, especially the eyelet lace which is usually very expensive at craft and fabric stores. Here's some closer pictures:

I'm planning on using both the lace and fabric on a new dress. Now I just need to find a pretty light blue fabric, decide on the design, and get some patterns to make it!

The lace elastic is very pretty. It's a bit too thin for using in skirts or fabric petticoats, but it's nice for sleeves and light weight petticoats.

I intentionally got a zipper that was a bit longer than I needed, so I just cut off the extra before sewing it in. Unfortunately I cut off a bit too much so now I need to put a hook and loop at the top of the zipper.

I'll make sure to do an entry once I make the dress I'm planning on with the lace and fabric. All pictures were taken by me and that's me wearing my skirt. Creative cell phone camera mounts and timers FTW! If you wish to use any of my pictures, please receive permission from me first. Check me out on Twitter.

Gothic Lolita By Miss Carlyfornia

So, a few years back I decided to buy a dress from Miss Carlyfornia after working with her on my Senior Project. At the time I commissioned my dress from her, I also decided to buy a cute Gothic Lolita pinafore. She was able to make me a very cute Gothic Lolita dress that allows for a wide range of sizes meaning that I don't have to worry about growing out of it as long as I don't go putting on a few hundred pounds. (I like food, but not that much fortunately.) The dress only took a few weeks for Miss Carlyfornia to make before I was able to go pick it up. I'm very pleased with how it turned out. The fabric is all cotton, making it comfortable to wear and keeping it from being overly formal. I love the fact that the dress is very versatile. The style of the dress is very nice allowing for one to wear the dress four different ways, forward with or without the skirt gathered up or backwards either way. The dress looks great any way you wear it whether by itself or over a blouse, with or without a petticoat. My favorite part of the dress is the eyelet fabric used for the under skirt. It's very cute and delicate along with the eyelet lace keeping this dress from looking overly dark.

 Overall, I feel that this dress was well worth it as it has lasted me several years with semi-frequent wearing. All of the seams have held up just fine as well as the ribbon, lace and fabric used for this dress. Just about every time I wear it I get complements on how cute it looks, even in non anime crowds. If you can, I highly recommend getting a dress from Miss Carlyfornia as they are inexpensive and very cute. Last but not least, here's some pics of the dress!

Miss Carlyfornia can be found on Twitter and Facebook. All pictures are by me unless otherwise noted. Check me out on Twitter.

Lolita on a Budget: Bodyline Clothing

 Not too long ago, I discovered a very nice, inexpensive online store to buy Lolita from. Bodyline has many different types of dresses, most for under $100, along with blouses, shoes, and lots of different accessories. They also sell some cosplay costumes too as well as wigs, making this an excellent place for beginner cosplayers, as well as those on a budget, to buy from. Many girls into Lolita can be found wearing Bodyline clothing such as Living Doll Venus Angelic. She can be seen wearing the Bodyline polka dot dress in her Real Life Anime: Kawaii Cupcakes video that she made a few months back. I have yet to order from bodyline, but I look forward to increasing my Lolita collection with their cute affordable pieces in the future. Look forward to outfits I've assembled using Bodyline clothing that can be purchased for less than the price of a brand name dress!

My new Cloud Cosplay

For those of you who are Final Fantasy VII fans, you will most likely recognize Cloud as the main character in the series. For those of you who aren't Final Fantasy VII fans here is a description of the character:
 Cloud is the main character in the Final Fantasy VII series. He is a former member of SOLDIER, the army in the game, and now works as a mercenary who works about any job. At the beginning of the game Cloud is hired by a rebel group called AVALANCHE that works to undermine a large corporation called Shinra Inc. that is monopolizing all of the power in the world. As the game progresses, Cloud is caught up in a struggle to prevent all of the energy being sucked out of their planet. Cloud's weapon, usually called a buster sword, is a giant sword taller than he is, and he must use it to battle many enemies during his adventure.


For those of you familiar with the series and those of you who have looked up pictures, you are probably expecting an epic soldier-like cosplay. I will admit, it is pretty good, but it's not Cloud's usual outfit. For my Cloud cosplay I chose to do his outfit from Wall Market when he was infiltrating Don Corneo's mansion. For those unfamiliar with the game, at one point fairly early in the game Cloud has to dress up like a girl to get into the mansion of Don Corneo's, the mayor or equivalent in that area, to rescue his childhood friend Tifa and gain information that is crucial to Cloud's quest. Cloud was all for just breaking in, but Aeris, a flower girl he met earlier in the game, suggested that Cloud dress up as a girl so that the two of them could get in and rescue Tifa. Before they could do this though, Cloud has to talk to multiple characters to obtain items such as a dress and a wig to be able to dress up as a convincing girl.


So I've posted some pictures of my outfit at the end of the post so you can see how it turned out. I made all of the outfit except for the boots and that is my real hair, not  a wig. The Cloud face isn't my real face. Finding references for this outfit was a little difficult since the graphics in the game are not the greatest, but I was able to modify and combine patterns that I have to make the dress look the way I wanted it to. I had to come up with a pattern for the sash and the flared part of the sleeves on this outfit and am very pleased with how they turned out. The puffed sleeves look adorable and the skirt turned out to be just the length I wanted it to be. The sword in the last picture was made by one of my friends out of cardboard and duct tape. Please tell me what you think of my new cosplay!

Lolita in Anime

Lolita is rather frequent in anime and manga along with cute maid and other cosplay outfits. One of my favorite animes/mangas, Monster Princess/Princess Resurrection has multiple characters who wear Lolita all the time. This anime was actually one of my first introductions to the Gothic Lolita style. I automatically fell in love with the outfit worn by the main characters master, Hime, and have wanted to cosplay her ever since I first watched it. Even now I still love how her skirt has multiple ruffled layers. My lovely Gothic Lolita Pinafore has a similar skirt, but with only two layers instead of three.  Her sister, Sherwood, has an equally pretty outfit with red roses around the waist and an adorable crown that she wears at the top of her ponytail. A cute little cat girl character, named Hiroko, that showed up in the anime only had a different maid outfit in every episode. All of her outfits looked very Lolita-like with lots of frills and lace on them. In the manga, another one of Hime's sisters had a white Lolita outfit similar in style to Hime's, but without the tiered skirt. I, unfortunately, can never remember her name, most likely because she isn't seen very often in the manga and does not appear in the anime. It's unfortunate that my favorite character in the Monster Princess anime, Hiroko, doesn't appear in the manga and that, likewise, my favorite character in the manga, Hime's other sister, isn't in the anime. Some of the main things I dislike about the Monster Princess anime are that it is a completed series and that it did't go into the story in the manga very deeply. It is still an enjoyable anime despite that. Also, it's less bloody that the manga, making it a lighter story without as much death in it. In one particular story, there was a monster that controlled people's body's and sucked the life out of people. The main difference between the manga and the anime was that in the manga, anyone that had the monster control them died, whereas in the anime they were still alive, but only just. I like the anime better in some ways, but I also like the manga because there are more stories in it. Both are definitely on my favorites list though.

Dreaming of Dollfies

A few years ago I saw a very pretty doll at an Anime convention I was attending. She looked so delicate and dainty, I fell in love with her. I later found out that she was a Dollfie, an asian ball-jointed doll. Ever since then, I've been interested in getting one. Sometimes I'd look up pictures of different Dollfies. And then, one day, I looked at the price of a Dollfie on an online store. It was enough to make me shriek. Luckily, I didn't. I was startled that anyone would be willing to pay so much for a doll. My hopes of getting my own Dollfie were flittering away as fast as a bird being chased by my cat. However, recently I found that there are other doll manufactures that make similar dolls for much lower prices. My hopes of getting a Dollfie, or a cheaper imitation, were renewed. All of the dolls I found were still rather expensive for my price range, but I still hope that I can get one of these beautiful dolls that I can dress up in homemade Lolita dresses that match my own.

My new Gothic Lolita Pinafore

I recently had the opportunity to buy a lovely Gothic Lolita pinafore from Miss Carlyfornia. It is very well made, comfortable, and adorable too! I have yet to make a blouse to wear with it, so I took one of my white button-up shirts and tucked the collar in. This is my second Lolita dress so far, and it will definitely not be the only one I buy from Miss Carlyfornia. The lace is very girly and cute and the purple ribbon used as a tie for the skirt is a nice touch. All of Miss Carlyfornia's clothing is very nice in the fact that it is adjustable and thus can be worn by a wide variety of people. Here are some pictures of my lovely new pinafore!

My Very Own Lolita Outfit

For my senior project, I decided to make a Lolita dress. I'd been wanting a Lolita dress for some time and I was thinking of making one. However, I hadn't had the funds or the motivation to make one. So when the time came to choose my project, I immediately knew what I wanted to do. I originally was thinking of just making a dress, but I knew just a dress wouldn't be enough. So I decided to make a jumper dress, a blouse, a head bow, bloomers, and a petticoat. They all turned out very nicely, despite some difficulties I came across. My mentor, Miss Carlyfornia, helped instruct me in how to make it all. Here are a few pictures of the dress and bloomers.

Hello to All

In this blog I intend to talk mainly on the subjects of Anime and the Lolita style, along with cosplay, sewing, dolls, and anything else relevant that catches my fancy. I plan to put up pictures of my Lolita and Anime related clothing, as well as tips and suggestions for making or putting together your own cosplays and Lolita outfits. Please enjoy reading this blog as well as commenting. Thank you all.