Harajuku

            COLORFUL HARAJUKU

Have any of you guys ever heard of Harajuku? Well if you haven't then you'll discover a  crazy colorful world! A place where nobody is can be called weird or ugly.

Harajuku is a shopping district between Shinjuku and Shibuya. Every Sunday, a bunch of young people will go to Harajuku to hang out and of course most of them will dress up a bit or more like a lot. The picture above is just an example of a tiny portion of the people in Harajuku. As you can see, they aren't dressed like how we would on a regular Sunday. All of the styles of the world unite in this shopping district. Emo, visual kei, goth, lolita, decora, ganguro, hipster, vintage, hip hop, rockers, cosplay, every kind of style you can think of!

Today I will be introducing to you guys some of the most seen fashion styles. So let's start! XD

               KAWAII DECORA
              

Kawaii Decora is probably my most favorite fashion style out of all of them. If you translate it in English, it would be Cute Decoration. It's a very crazy, colorful and overloaded fashion style. The arms are usually full with crazy bracelets and the hair will be full of hair accessories. Usually the clothes are colorful and same with the shoes. Toys and plushies are a big part of Kawaii Decora. Sometimes it's a hair accessory or a bag. OH! I also forgot to mention that they have colorful hair as well. :D

                Visual Kei

Ah~ Visual Kei, I love this style just as much as Kawaii Decora. It's kind of a mix of punk and goth. Their clothes are usually black, red, white, the usual dark colors. It is more crazy and less casual. They tend to have medium length or long hair. The hair's usually  layered and styled like the ones you see above. Of course, some or most of the people will wear makeup. Usually heavy eyeliner and lipstick. Visual Kei is actually quite normal in Japan. Most rock band are either goth or visual kei like Dir En Grey, The Gazette, LM.C, Ayabie, Malice Mizer, etc.

                  Lolita

Lolita is a really elegant and cute style. The clothing involves a lot of frills and ruffly knee high dresses. They use a lot of floral accessories. Also bows and lace are used a lot. Most lolita are either Gothic or bright and cute like the 4 girls in the picture. Simply described, Lolita is a cute and floral princess like style.

So I finally finished introducing to you guys, the three main styles in Harajuku. There is more but I wanted to finish this post before the end of April. I had so much to do this month, I couldn't find anytime to finish this post. But I still hope you found out a bit more about Harajuku and make sure to check out TokyoFashion to find out about the stores and more on Harajuku!

Macarons!

               A Week Of Sweetness

This week was full of sweetness! I celebrated two birthdays and made ton of sweets! I was busy with school, presents and making sweets the whole week and I just feel so EXHAUSTED! I'm probably just going to sit through the weekend on the computer. Too tired to even move.

This week was my Grandma and sister's birthday. My Grandma's was on the 14th and my sister's was on the 16th but we celebrated it on the 15th. Some of my aunts came to visit so I decided to make sweets for the two birthdays and for my aunts to bring home. I made macaroons. I don't know how you guys call these but I call it macaron. This is french sweet created by Pierre Herme. 

Mine's weren't as beautiful as the ones above but it was still delicious! If you want to know how to make them continue to read!

Ingredients:
-2 room temputured eggs
-5 tbs. of granulated sugar
-1/2 cup of ground almonds or almond powder
-1 cup of icing sugar
-food colouring(optional)

Utensils:
-an electric mixer
-2 large bowl
-parchment paper or wax paper
-2 sheet pans(the size depends of how big your oven is)
-oil(if using was paper)
-plastic or rubber spatula
-piping bags

First, separate the eggs into one of the large bowl. All you need are the egg whites. Once separated, start beating the egg whites with an electric mixer a maximum speed. After it starts to become like foam, add 5 tbs. of granulated sugar. Continue to beat the eggs for a minute or two. It should end up like this.

You know it's done when you can flip the bowl over without the egg whites falling down.

In the other bowl pour the ground almond and icing sugar. With the spatula, mix until it's blended. Then pour the mix into the egg whites. FOLD the egg whites with the mix using the spatula. There are tons of video on how to fold egg whites on YouTube so go check it out if you don't know how to. This is how it's suppose to be like. It can't be too stiff nor too liquid-like.

When you finished leave it aside and start putting parchment paper on the sheet pan. If using wax paper, make sure to put some oil. Then pour the macaron batter or mix into a piping bag or a zip-lock bag and start piping it onto the sheet pan. You can pipe it in any shape you like. Usually they are small and round but I played with the shapes. You can buy some mold sheets that shows you how big the shapes are suppose to be. It will also be easier than doing it by eye.

Leave it aside for 10 to 30 minutes and preheat the oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit. When it's heated put the the pans into the oven and bake it for 12 to 15 minutes. After it's done, let it cool on a cooling rack and peel the macarons of the parchment or wax paper. Add any kind of filling you like and it should end up like this!

 Mine's ended up like this. Wasn't the prettiest but it was fun to make! :D
I'm not a pastry chef or anything amazing so it's normal mine isn't pretty so don't be sad if yours wasn't as pretty as the pictures. I failed many times before it ended up like this! XD

DIY 3D Flower Decoration

            DIY 3D Flower Decoration

Hey! It's March 1st! That means it's MARCH BREAK! Well at least where I live that is :D

So today I will be showing you guys a pretty cool and cheap DIY 3D Flower Decoration. There is a DIY video on Youtube which I'll post at the end of this post(I said post twice XD). 

If you are interested in making this then here are the things you will need:

-Glue Gun
-Glue sticks
-Toilet Paper Rolls
-Paint
-Newspaper
-Canvas(optional)

So first thing you need to do is decide how many flowers you want. I decided to make 3 flowers. Each are different colour, size and height. The flowers are yours to decide how they are going to be so do it however you like it.

After you decided how many flowers you want to make, start cutting each toilet paper roll into 3 equal parts.

After that is done, start painting the rolls unless you don't want to. If you decided to use a canvas then paint it 
as well.

Once they are dry start gluing five or however many you like together with a hot glue gun.

If you decided to use a canvas, glue the painted flowers onto the canvas. After that is done, the project is finished!

Mine didn't come out as nice as I want it to but I guess it's pretty good. Also, I'm sorry if my pictures are bad quality. I do not recommend using a IPhone 4s. I need to buy a proper camera...

I hope your DIY project ends up better than mines :D Also here is the youtube video I said mentioned:
DIY Apartment Decor: Wall Art

This DIY project probably cost me less than 10 to 15$. Here are the price of each item I used:

-Glue Gun: 3$
-Glue sticks: 1$
-Toilet Paper Rolls: practically free unless you don't use toilet paper...
-Paint: 2$ each
-Newspaper: free
-Canvas(optional): 1.50$

Potion Pendants

             Happy Valentines Day!!!!

I know I'm a day late but I still have an awesome topic for Valentines Day. If you read the title then you already know what I'm going to talk about. For those who didn't read the title, I'm going to talk about Potion Pendants or Potion necklaces, whichever you prefer.

Potion pendants are really easy to make! I've seen a few DIY on these and thought making them on your own is a lot better than buying them. Buying them doesn't allow you too personalize your potion pendant so I recommend making them. It may not be as detailed and pretty as the one you see in stores or online but at least you can customize it to your liking. 

Here's a DIY video by Wonderland Wardrobe

                          

There are many other type of potion pendants like these two:

The one above isn't a potion but I still find it pretty cute! >.<

La Promenade Animation

                                                        La Promenade

                                                     

Hey~~~
I finally found this animation that I've been searching for months! It is called La Promenade by WOW Tokyo. I watched it once a few years ago and I loved it. Now that I've watched it again, I still love it! 

La Promenade is about a small pig leaving it's usual place for a small adventure in a room. The other curious animals decide to follow along to find out about the outside world.

This short animation gives off a really cute and calm feeling. I kinda feel as I was sitting in a small cafe in Paris staring at the Eiffel tower. Kind of like this picture.

I hope one day I'll be able to visit Paris! 


Oh! and Happy Chinese New Years to everybody!

AWESOME ROOMS

                                           REDECORATING OUR ROOMS

So me and my 5 years old sister decided to redecorate our rooms(well more like her than me). She repainted her room pink and white.

We also did those white leaves on the wall. All we did was buy some cheap maple leaves sticker and stuck it on the wall then painted over it. Of course when it dried up, we ripped it off the wall and VOILA! pretty little maple leaves of the wall. We also bought some kid wall stickers and stuck it on.

The ballerina stickers were 2$ and the animal ones were also 2$. It was really fun putting them up. 

I didn't really redecorate my room. You could say I've been decorating it since a long long time.

I'm really sorry if it's bad quality. I took the pictures on my IPhone and well you should understand, phone pics aren't the best quality.

Well I think some people might think I'm crazy but I really like how my wall is. That's just how I am. Though I do agree that the enormous amount of toys I have on top of my closet is a bit overboard but I just couldn't throw them out.

I really enjoy watching room tours cause it is very, how you say it, inspiring I guess. You can figure out how the person is just by looking at their room. Like my little sister, I'm pretty sure you guys can figure out that she's a girly girl. As for me...I don't know XD

HAPPY NEW YEAR! + Momosauur & OHroyals

            HAPPY NEW YEARS!!!!!

Can't believe it's already 2013! I'm definitely not use to saying 2013. I watched MTV NY Time Square countdown. It wasn't that good sadly. T^T Their countdown seemed so rushed. Maybe it was just me because I was watching at home alone. I'm such a Forever Alone... T^T

Whatever! I want to introduce two awesome people to my readers! They are two amazing artist called Momosauur and OHroyals. No that's not their real name, it's their youtube username. They post speed paint of their artworks. They also have a deviantart account which I will put at the end of this post. 

They aren't at all what you'd expect me to show you guys. 

Here are 2 of Momosauur's artwork:

And here are 2 of OHroyals' artwork:

Amazing right?! Okay well for those who likes this kind of art but seriously! It's so awesome! I am in love with their artworks! It makes me think of Tim Burton's movie like Nightmare Before Christmas or Corpse Bride, which are few of my favourite movies. Maybe I'm attracted to the artwork because of the abnormal skinny body, legs and arms. The eyes are really pretty too and the coloring is just AMAZING! 

This post was not posted because Momosauur or Ohroyals asked me to because it is impossible since we don't even know each other XD

Here are their links for:

Youtube: Momosauur & OHroyals

Deviantart: Momosauur & OHroyals

OH! And full credits to Momosauur and OHroyals for their amazing artwork!