30 Days Lolita Challenge! Day 1

Since I've been stuck in a blogging rut recently, I decided to try this 30 days meme that's been circulating around the community recently. I believe it was Kris at Sweet Lolita On-the-Go that started this meme, at least that's where I saw it. So I'm going to try it out and see how far I get. I probably won't post one every day, but it'll be great inspiration for new posts.

Day 1 - 10 things about your lolita bubble

I'm not all too sure what this actually means. Does it mean my local group, my personal lolita experiences, or what?

1. For me, lolita has been a on again off again thing. I first got into the fashion when I was in 7th grade, got my first proper pieces in 9th, and then I sort of dropped out of the style. After I graduated high school, I went to study abroad in Japan and fell in love with the style again. Ever since I've been a proper lolita going to meet-ups and stuff.

2. I love the rules. A lot of lolitas these days are all like "screw the rules and be creative." I think that that can be one approach to lolita and some of my polyvore coordinates take that a bit more to heart. But for what I actually wear, I go traditional all the way. It can be boiling outside and I'll show up in a blouse and bloomers.

3. Mana. Eh. I'm not a Mana fan girl. So many people are, I don't really get his whole draw. I like his brand, I like his music, I'm just not a big Mana fan.

4. My local community is pretty darn awesome. We've had our share of problems. But I think we've been heading in a positive direction now. I've been a moderator there for about six months, and so far it's been crazy fun.

5. I love running lolita fashion shows! I've done two now, each one has been an extremely stressful experience. Somehow I manage to be extremely stressed and having the time of my life. It's a good 50 hours of pre-con work, and this past con I was so stressed I threw up. But that's probably my favorite part of being a lolita and I wouldn't give it up for the world. I'll probably be writing a whole article about my experiences with this at some point.

6. I think I'm a kuro lolita with a color problem. It's so strange because I really love colors and my apartment is just covered in scraps of colorful fabric. But I wear kuro lolita. It's quite odd to me.

7. I LOVE SHOES. I never really was a shoe girl until I got into lolita. Now, I've picked out like 15 new pairs of shoes that I'll be slowly obtaining pair by pair. My favorites are rocking horse shoes and anything with laces.

8. I never wear OTK socks. If my knees are showing, I feel cold and naked. So I always wear tights.

9. My room doesn't have a trace of lolita in it at all. Except for the pile of dresses for sale in a chair and the G&LBs on the book shelf. So I won't be taking pictures of my room for day 22.

10. I desperately want an elegant wardrobe of my own. My closet is just a normal one, but it doesn't even have a bar in it to hang stuff on, only hooks. It's a pain! Someday I'll have a vintage armoire or something glorious for my clothes. But not anytime soon.

Day one done! Let's see if I keep it up! I already can pick out days that I won't be doing, namely the ones that require pictures of myself. I try not to post too many of those to the internet, so I'll be changing those ones a bit. If you've got any ideas, feel free to email me at my new email, theelegantwardrobe@gmail.com! Bye bye for now!

Giveaway Winner!

Hello everyone! Here's the moment you've been waiting for! The winner of the March giveaway. There were sixteen entries, and I used Random.org to choose the winner.

Without further ado, the winner is...

Hedgefairy!

Congratulations! Please email me at cat91151@gmail.com to claim your prize!

Now, I really don't have anything else planned for today. My big convention is in a week from today, and I am swamped with preparing to run main events, a big Lolita Fashion Show for charity, two panels (including a revised version "The Elegant Wardrobe - A Guide to Lolita Fashion" for those of you who were at Ohayocon), and I'll also be working at a charity tea party on Sunday morning. So I'm a bit short on time and brain space. I will be posting the last March "Coordinate Tuesday" next week, but I can't guarantee anything for next Thursday, as I'll actually be at the con by then. If you'll be at Tekkoshocon, then I'll see you there! If not, you should totally look at coming next year (or this year if you can swing it). Bye bye for now!

Con Report: Ohayocon

Last weekend I went to Ohayocon in Columbus, OH. This was my first time going to this convention and Columbus in general. I got up super early on Friday and put on my favorite Metamorphose skirt and a cutsew. It’s tough to pack a petticoat into a suitcase unless you either have one of those Space Bags that you suck all the air out of, or you take a bigger suitcase. There was absolutely no room for a bigger suitcase and I don’t have a Space Bag, so I put my whole outfit, petticoat, bloomers and all, and drove 2.5 hours. And on the way back, I did the same thing in my Baby the Stars Shine Bright jumper skirt. It’s not too tough, just something to get used to. I wore flat shoes for this exact reason. Which turned out to be good because there weren’t a ton of non-floor places to sit down in the convention.

So on Friday, after a lot of difficulties, we got our hotel room and got to the con. I only had one panel on Friday and it was an absolute disaster. It was Japanese Crafts for Kids. If you were there and now you’re reading this, I’m truly sorry. We severely underestimated the number of people that we would get, and we had an issue with our crayons being in the hotel room. Long story short, we ran out of materials pretty quickly. Overall, Friday was not a busy day for lolitas at the con, as I didn’t actually see any. I did, however, discover that the dealers room had an h.Naoto booth! I didn’t buy anything there, but I was happy to see it.

Saturday was a bit better. We were hired by the Lolita Crush event to help out with the food service. It was a lot of work, but hopefully some people saw our fliers and will come to our convention. We all did one dance together, and then three of our members learned a few others to perform. Anyhow, I saw some super cute lolitas there (you’d hope I would at an event called Lolita Crush). The rest of the day was all promotional stuff, maid café panel and lots of booth work. I must have cut out a thousand quarter-sheet fliers and passed out at least 300. All in all, we passed out 2500 fliers!

Sunday was also pretty quiet. We were out of fliers, so we closed up our industry booth early. I got some jewelry in Artist’s Ally, because the kitty looks just like Vanilla-chan from Angelic Pretty, which I am in the process of getting. We played some Disney music for the attendees from our table, which was a whole lot of fun. I got to wear my BTSSB dress, and my feet didn't hurt too badly.

I did two panels on Lolita fashion, Lolita or Not and The Elegant Wardrobe! Lolita or Not was my friend Jen's panel to run, and of course, The Elegant Wardrobe was mine. It was pretty late in the day when my panel was scheduled, an as a result, I didn't get the size of audience that I was hoping for. Still, it was my first time doing that specific presentation. I'll be doing that panel again at Tekkoshocon, so if you wanted to see it and couldn't make it, you still have plenty of chances!

I saw a whole lot of cosplayers over the weekend, some of which were very impressive. I didn't take a lot of pictures, but the ones I did take are scattered throughout this post.

If you were also at Ohayocon, I hope you had a lot of fun too! If you weren't and need your convention fix, check out Tekkoshocon!

Coordinate Tuesday is coming up again! If you want your coordinate featured here, please either email me at cat91151@gmail.com, or post a link to the picture in the comments section of this post. As always, you can let me know what you think either via commenting here, or on my formspring. Hope to see you all at Tekkoshocon!