♥ Lifestyle Lolita Challenge - Days 10-15! ♥

Hello all! Sorry for the brief absence in those posts, we're currently dealing with some sad family news, so here's a quick catch-up post on the days we've missed! I think most of these are quite short, so hopefully this won't be too long of a post!

Recently Haz and I have been talking about taking our first trip abroad together, and we're thinking it might be a package holiday to Disneyland Paris! Obviously, with a package holiday we won't be able to fit in any time for sight-seeing or shopping in Paris, but one day I'd very much like to visit the BTSSB store there! Living in the UK, it's not too difficult to get across the Channel to visit France, and it's definitely something we both want to do!

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Themed shops and beautiful shop decors are one of our favourite things to think about! We're guilty of going into shops we don't plan on buying anything from or couldn't afford anything from just to have a quick look at all of the decor and decorations; we often talk about retiring when we're older and running a cute quirky little boutique style shop. 

We did a very quick cursory google search and watched this quick episode of How It's Made (it's very informative and relaxing to watch the machines work!), but we also went to the V&A quite recently, where they have a lot of beautiful examples of vintage and antique lace. 

My favourite example at the V&A of lace was this beautiful veil. 

As you probably know, we're not at home right now; we're staying with Haz's family in Bristol. We've done a few touristy things and a lot of visiting around places, but I'm fairly sure we ate out this day! I'm sure we had very nice plates wherever it was, though. 

I think that the essay/poem a lot of lolitas have already read is this one, It's entitled "Rules of the Lolita" and it's worth a look, if you haven't already read it. The one I read for this challenge is 'Let's Talk About Hello Kitty'. 

I asked Haz to do hers first, and she struggled a bit! The words she came up with were:

Pastel, Cutesy, Sweets, Fairytale, Storybook

In comparison, I struggled . . . a lot! Here are mine:

Cats, Pink, Bears, Pastel, Accessorized

I think that a lot of my outfits definitely fall into looking like one another; I find something that works and stick with it. I like ankle socks, I like vintage brooches, I like small understated bows. I'm working on trying to vary my style a bit more! 

I have to admit that neither Haz nor I are big scent people/perfume people. We have a 'toasted marshmallow' cheapy roomspray from Poundland that we spray sometimes, and at university we both had little diffusers in our room (Haz's was Salted Caramel, mine was Cherry!). We didn't bring any perfumes or anything with us, but I thought I would share with you our absolute favourite spray to have in our bags/around us. 

It's this.

It costs £1 from Asda and it lasts ages and smells like candy floss, and honestly, what's there not to love about it.

✿Love,✿

♥Haz & Nat♥

♥ Lifestyle Lolita Challenge - Day 9 ♥ ~ Fairytale Inspired Coordinates! ~

When I was little, I had a magazine subscription to "Angelina's Fairytales", an Angelina Ballerina magazine that came with two stuffed toy mice (Angelina and her best friend Alice), an outfit you could dress them up in, and a magazine with activities themed around different fairytales. A lot of them were predictable; Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, etc. - but lots of them I'd never heard of and was very excited to read about! The fairytale I based my coord around I'm sure was listed in the magazine under "The Glass Heart", but the best version of it I could find online was entitled "The Three Sisters". It's about three sisters who are each born with a glass heart, and the love life of the youngest one who falls in love with a page. You can read a version of it here. 

The thing I actually found most difficult about putting this coordinate together was the shoes! I'm not totally happy with them, but they'll do. The dress is Mary Magdalene's Perfume Bottle JSK, which I thought was appropriate due to both the pale blue colour of the dress (which reminds me of glass!) and the fact that the print is adorned with glass objects! I went away a little from my comfort zone and put together a slightly classier coord here; obviously I had to have some representation of the princess' glass hearts, and I chose this cute pearl and crystal heart necklace! I took the brown from the ribbon and straps of the JSK for my accent colour, as I think it stands out a lot! 

The little bumblebee pin is a reference to the oldest sister, whose heart shatters on a windowsill she's leaning out of to look at a little bee buzzing around the flowers! 

What's your favourite fairytale? 

✿Love,✿

♥Haz & Nat♥

♥ Lifestyle Lolita Challenge - Day 8 ♥ ~ Favourite Local Haunts! ~

I thought here we would share both some of our favourite local lolita haunts as well as some other local places that we haven't been to yet but really do intend to try out at some stage! A quick special mention to an adorable tea-room called 'My Cup of Tea' that unfortunately closed down recently; its decor was beautiful, its prices were reasonable, and everyone was always very friendly!

Although they aren't really decorated in the kind of decor you'd expect lolitas to adore or seem to have many lolita elements at all, there's a street full of mainly independent shops in Hull in which we tend to gravitate towards for local meets, and on that street are both Caffe Gelato and Planet Coffee, which are places we often find ourselves holed up and chatting! 

I couldn't find a picture of anything we've gotten from Planet Coffee (although some things we've had that we've really enjoyed include bubblegum soda floats and honeycomb milkshakes!) so here's a picture of the kind of huge portions you get from Caffe Gelato! I can't remember exactly what's on it - certainly the blue gelato is bubblegum - but doesn't it look adorable? 

A little more out of the way but still technically local is Jubilee's Vintage Tearoom, a place we haven't visited but really want to! All of the pictures we've seen look very cute and it seems very appropriate for a royal themed or regal themed meet!

Finally, another cafe we would really like to visit at some point with the comm is the 'Boardroom Game Cafe', a board game cafe opening soon in Hull! Haz and I both adore board games and we've been bemoaning the lack of a boardgame cafe in Hull for a while; hopefully we can organize a meet for us all to go to and enjoy some snacks over a game!

✿Love,✿

♥Haz & Nat♥