Afternoon Projects: Organizing My Sewing Bin

So messy!

Once again, LLSIF releases the perfect card for an event with only one week to work with. While I was planning how I would make each piece, I realized that I've totally lost my basic bodice pattern. I'm sure I kept it, and I'm sure I put it in my sewing box but... where in my sewing box is another question. For two years now it's been a huge mess. After each project, I'm usually very lazy and just stuff the fabric in wherever it fits. So, by now it's so tightly packed with untidied messes that finding anything is a huge pain. I find that sometimes I even put off projects simply because finding the patterns and fabric and thread is such a hassle! So, I decided to sit down and tackle this mess once and for all.

Sorted into piles. The piles from left to right: Scraps to keep, notions/tools, scraps to toss (two paper bags), and bolts of fabric.


My first step was to take everything out of the bins and put it into piles- one for fabric, one for scraps, one for notions/sewing tools, and one for garbage. I was amazed to find how many tiny worthless scraps I had held onto over the years. What did I think any of these scraps would ever be useful for!? 
I found the hardest part of this process to be deciding what to toss and what to keep, what to file as fabric and what to file as scraps. The criteria I ended up mostly sticking to was, if it's big enough to make a shirt out of, it's fabric. If it's smaller and I could make a cute bow out of it, then it's scraps, and if it's too small or ugly for even that much, then I toss it. It actually helped to streamline my process quite a bit!

Why in the world did I hold onto all of these useless scraps!?

After everything was sorted, I began organizing my whole sheets of fabric. Since I live in a very small space, I have no choice but to keep all of my fabric in a bin under my bed, but I knew I wanted all of them to be visible without having to dig through. To achieve this, my goal was to stack the bolts vertically in my bin, but to avoid the fabric folding in on itself and becoming messy after a while, I needed some kind of backing to wrap my fabric around to keep it straight and tidy. Thankfully, my building happens to go through many cardboard boxes every day, so I have a steady supply of recycled cardboard boxes to use to this end! I measured the depth and width of my bin and cut out rectangles of cardboard using these dimensions.

Such hard work...

After I finished cutting, I took had a nice glass of strawberry tea. Cutting cardboard is hard work!

Getting back to work, I then neatly folded all of my fabric onto the freshly cut bolts and stacked them all in my bin. My technique was to fold the fabric up length-wise to be the same size as the short end of the bolt, then roll the whole thing up wrapping around the long end of the bolt.
It was a lot of work, but the end result looks so nice!

So pretty!!

It turns out that just organizing my fabric took so long that it was already night-time by the time I finished, so at this point my scraps and notions are still a big jumble. Look forward to part two when I organize these as well! Meanwhile, even if those aren't organized yet, it's a much more manageable mess with the bolts of fabric tamed, and I was able to find my pattern piece!

As a bonus round, here's a picture of how the cosplay actually turned out. Many thanks for MVM Photography for making the photoshoot possible.

Stay tuned for part two next week!


Recent Purchases: Graduation Haul!

Last Thursday I completed my last final of my undergraduate life. I think that in a few weeks I'll probably start to feel much more accomplished over it, but not before I finish simply being extremely happy to be finished with finals, and then after being overwhelmed by job searching. Since graduating, I've been focused on getting my room back in order and getting on top of all of the work that I slacked on during finals, but I've also been up to some fun stuff as well! On Saturday I had the pleasure of doing a graduation photo shoot with a very talented friend of mine, which I might share when he finishes editing the photos. Between that and being fed grapes off the vine by my boyfriend while I lounge around in his room, I've also gotten a fair amount of shopping done as a present to myself for graduating.
I saw that preorders for the Liz Lisa happy bags were opening the day after my last final, and I was waffling on getting one for myself, but ultimately decided against it. Instead, I treated myself to a combination of Daiso, eBay, and thrift shopping!

Daiso

Right after finals my friends and I headed over to the local Japanese district to have lunch. We ate at a delicious okonomiyaki restaurant called Gottsui. My stomach was still in knots from finals, so I didn't order much, but I snacked off of my friend's plates and ordered myself some miso soup and an unbelievably delicious watermelon tea. The card reader on my computer isn't working lately, so I can't share too many pictures, but I did post a picture of my tea on instagram.
After eating we poked around Tokyo Japanese Outlet which was filled with adorable things as usual, and then headed over to Daiso. I've been really into scrunchies lately, so I made a point to stock up, and also found a cute bow clip for wearing with my ponytails.
I also picked up a super cute cat fan (since even in the winter, it still gets hot in this area)  along with some peachy sparkly nail polish and a new set of false lashes I hadn't seen at Daiso before! They reminded me of Dolly Wink's Sweet Cat eyelashes, but they're only $1.50! I was excited to see a more natural looking lash, since normally I wouldn't want to wear Daiso lashes outside of cosplay only. I did try them on briefly and was disappointed at how uncomfortable they were, but I'm going to give it another try when I have plenty of time to do my makeup and see if I hadn't just applied them wrong that day.

eBay

I've started winning auctions... please don't let me get addicted! This auction was ending the evening after my final. It was a very close auction with two others bidding for it, but I let all of my pent up stress from the last couple of weeks guide me. I didn't want to pay more than $20 initially, so I chose my bid to be under $20 with shipping included. After pushing the button though, and with only 1 second to spare, it turns out another bidder had set their max bid to something higher, and I was outbid. Without thinking, I clicked to bid 50 cents higher... and miraculously not only did that bid go though before the end of the auction, but it happened to be higher than the other bidder's maximum bid. It was so suspenseful, and I felt so proud to have come out victorious.
Even though this skirt seems to be offbrand (the seller did not list any brand or show any photos of the tag, so I have no idea) I think it's extremely cute. The print seems to be a bunch of tiny bows, and the lace at the bottom looks like it's a nice quality. I think the skirt has a nice flannel type of fabric as well, which makes it perfect for winter. Definitely can't wait to receive it!


After the thrill of winning the last auction, I was actually kind of let down that this listing only had a "Buy It Now" option. Still though, $15 for an Ank Rouge shirt seemed too good to pass up, especially since I've been in need of cute short sleeved blouses like this for the past few months. On the one hand, I really hope it is not a replica, but as long as it looks nice, at this price I'll be happy with it either way.
Incidentally, this is probably the least thought I've put into any purchase since I started building my wardrobe. I think a combination of the low price, the fact that I've been in such short supply of blouses, my feelings of victory over finals, and the fact that it matches so well with the skirt I had just bought, made this blouse a very easy decision. I love that the brown bow embroidered on the collar goes so well with the bows on the skirt. I'll definitely be wearing these together a lot.


I actually only bought this My Melody coin purse because it was cheap and I wanted something to practice bidding on to make sure I remembered how it worked. Well, it turns out that I won anyway. I've never used coin purses much, but I always struggle with change when I put it in my wallet, so maybe I'll give it a try. I'm sure I can find something to put inside, even if it's just small jewelry or something like that.


When my birthday came around in late September, my mom asked me what I wanted as a gift. At the time I had been really busy with school and conventions so I wasn't able to ever actually do anything. So, now that I graduated she asked if there was anything I'd like for graduation and my birthday. Sometimes it can be really hard for me to think of things to ask for, but I thought about it and realized that I'd been admiring this Penderie Cat OP for months. After looking at it more, it seemed like such an obvious thing to ask for.
I love the vintage style cut of the dress, and the kind of sad kittens. Even the "Please take me along!" in the print is a sentiment I can relate to a lot. I just vibe with this dress on just about every level. I'm especially happy with it as a graduation present like this, since I'm also fairly certain that it will have a place in my wardrobe even if I eventually decide to move away from himekaji and Liz Lisa in general. It's definitely a piece that I love as a piece on it's own, even before factoring in how nice it looks with the rest of my wardrobe. Thanks again, mom!

Thrift Store

On Sunday my boyfriend and I decided to go on a thrift store date. I was really happy with my purchases so far, but wanted to treat myself just a little bit more, without diving for any more brand items in the auctions. (There is one more bag which I am probably going to try for, but since I'm already going up against 2 other bidders I think I'll avoid giving myself any more competition and only bring it up after the auction ends) It turns out that we were very lucky, because we arrived within the last hour of an unexpected sale where all clothing in the whole store was only $2.99. I should mention that this is a Goodwill in a pretty rich area, so a lot of the clothing you'll find is in very good shape and there's even a lot of clothes from designer labels. It was really fortunate that we decided to go when we did!

I may pack this away until Summer, but I thought that something like this would be very cute over a dress or with a fluffy skirt. I love the swiss dot fabric with hearts all over it.

This shirt feels a little bit itchy, but I love the color and the rose lace pattern, and I'm in desperate need of more cute long sleeved shirts for Winter. I'm hoping that I can do something in the wash to make it a bit softer, but it's not so itchy that it's a big deal if not. The more I looked at this shirt, the happier I was over it, since I think the color and rose motif will pair it really nicely with my Hello Kitty JSK that I bought a while ago.

I have lots of cardigans that I've accumulated over the years, but they're all plain solid color ones. I think the lace on this sweater is very cute, and it'd go good with the skirt and blouse that I got on eBay. It is also a little bit itchy, but I can always wear long sleeves underneath if I can't make it any softer. It feels very warm. I think this brand (Heritage 1981) dissolved a few years ago but when it first came out I always thought their stuff looked really cute and vintage. It might be a good example of western clothes that can fit easily into a himekaji wardrobe.

I wasn't totally sold on this coat, but for $2.99 I figured that it was worth it to get just to experiment with. I don't have any really cute coats that fit with my style very well yet. Since it doesn't get that cold where I live, this isn't a huge deal, but I've been keeping my eyes open for coats that might be easy to modify to look more hime. Although the cut of this coat isn't anything special, the color was really cute and I think goes with a lot of the things that I own right now. I'm thinking of finding some faux fur to replace the collar with, perhaps replace the buttons with something cuter or add a ribbon to the collar, and add faux fur bows to the pockets. I think if I pull it off it can look really cute.

This is the only item I bought that isn't really for my wardrobe. I was helping my boyfriend look for jackets and happened to see the back of this. "Is that a Portal jacket?" I was really surprised to see it! My boyfriend was so salty that it didn't fit him, but it fits me me perfectly! I probably won't wear it on a daily basis, but we've been talking about going to some gaming conventions in the future, so now I'll have something to wear! I'm not a huge gamer myself, but Portal is one of the games that I've played and really enjoyed, even though the textures in the second one made me feel kind of sick if I played for many hours. 
My boyfriend said that Jinx usually makes really high quality stuff, so unsurprisingly this one feels really nice! The inside is a very soft fleece and in general it feels really sturdy and it's super warm. I looked online and apparently these go for around $50 new, and it seems like size small is sold out just about everywhere. $2.99, ladies and gentlemen! I love thrift stores.


Wow, that feels like a lot of stuff! Once my room is in better shape, I'm going to be hitting the sewing machine and knitting needles pretty hard. I want to make so many things for my wardrobe, and I have lots of Christmas presents to make as well!

Stay warm everyone,
Until next time!

Small Birthday Haul, Plus a Brief Explanation on Where I've Disappeared To


So, it has been well over a month since my last post and I owe you guys an explanation! Unfortunately, my explanation isn't very long or dramatic. School has been piling up and I've been focused on getting it together in that regard, so fashion and blogging have fallen a bit by the wayside. I also felt that I had been spending too much money, between cosplay, Halloween, my wardrobe, and dates with my boyfriend... plus eating out and other impulse buys, I decided to go on a spending ban for the month of November. All of this combined means I haven't had much time to blog or much to blog about. In hindsight I probably should have written a small update like this last month, explaining that I'll be on a brief hiatus, but every day I thought "I'm busy today... but tomorrow I'll definitely have time to write something!"
That being said, I'm still here. I have a backlog of crafts and projects I'd like to try (as well as a pattern-making book I got for my birthday sitting on my shelf begging for me to make some dresses and things). I have more wardrobe building tips and a considerable shopping list for my winter wardrobe. So, I haven't stopped blogging! I've just been really busy. You can expect my regularly scheduled weekly blog entries to pick up again in mid December after finals. In the mean time, although I have been busy I've been staying relatively active on instagram with my outfits and other little daily stuff.

Anyway, spending ban aside, I had some gift cards sitting around from my birthday so I decided to put them to use and find some things for my winter wardrobe. (Gift cards don't count as spending, right? Right.) Here's a brief run-down on what I bought.

I think the skirt I found has a cute old school gyaru feel to it while not being too over the top. I'm thinking of bringing in more browns into my wardrobe for winter, and going for a mostly strawberry-chocolate color scheme. I think plaids work really well for winter, and it looks like some kind of a flannel material which is even better, but I won't know for sure until it gets here. I may have to replace the lace at the bottom, depending on the quality when it arrives. I might go with a light brown or tan lace trim instead of black.

Almost every other outfit I put together these days, I keep thinking how much I wish I had a long dangly pink necklace. I love how long necklaces look with sweaters, and a splash of pink would help to tie together some of my less finished looks nicely. I really like the princessey feeling of the carriage. I'm thinking I'll add a small velvet bow to the top like I've seen on some Liz Lisa necklaces. Especially for winter, I really like the idea of having some soft fuzzy textures even on shoes or jewelry.

Speaking of soft and fuzzy, I didn't even realize I needed a fuzzy infinity scarf until I saw the listing on Amazon. I really hope the color is similar in real life to the picture because that dusty rose color is exactly what I need in my life. Either way I'm looking forward to having something soft and cozy to wrap around my neck as it starts to get colder.

Thanks for bearing with me guys! See you in a few weeks.

Recent Purchases: Summer Is Ending and I'm Still Buying Stuff


Hello again! I promise promise promise that I'll start doing reviews of all the stuff I've bought lately. My dorm building is so run down, there aren't any pretty backgrounds to take photos in front of around here. It's easy to lose motivation. 
So, here we are, mid October already, but amazingly we're still in the middle of this heat wave. It has gotten a tiny bit cooler since I last complained about it, but it's still definitely summer weather. We don't really get a Fall around here, the leaves turn red while the weather continues being sunny and hot, then somewhere in November it will suddenly start being cold and gloomy. Well, it doesn't get that cold even then really. I live in a desert!!
Anyway enough about the weather, since I know I have at least a few weeks left of Summer, I've been focusing my purchases on items that might be useful for both summer and winter.

Liz Lisa Stuff

Lizmelo Sweater 

Lizmelo Shirt Set

Liz Lisa Sukapan

I'm actually very excited about this sweater! It was my first time bidding on something that was kind of competitive. There were a few other people bidding on this and I was really worried that I wouldn't get it!  To make matters worse, I was on a road trip when the auction was set to end. Lucky for me, my boyfriend agreed to help me and we won! I love the color and I think the bows on the shoulders and lace are so cute, even though it's toned down enough that it can be worn very casually as well. I think it'll look nice with jeans or a skirt alike.
I've been looking around for good my melody t-shirts for casual coords, and this one stuck out to me. I love the roses and the soft colors on this one. I found a lot of bright red my melody T-shirts and they were a bit too loud for my taste. Even a lot of the pink ones were more bubblegum pink than what I was looking for. I also really like that this one has the design pretty far up on the shirt, so it won't be cut off when I wear it tucked into a skirt!
Speaking of skirts.... wow I'm in love with these sukapan! The print is very unique to me, it's not the same kind of himekaji border print that I see on a lot of Liz Lisa skirts. I think it has a kind of vintage feeling to it, even. But it's still very Liz Lisa looking. I really like the way they did the waistband. I've gotta try that on my skirts too!

Off Brand

Dusty Pink Bow Sandals

Hello Kitty Jumper

Roses and Pearls Necklace

These bow sandals have been on my to-buy list since the very beginning of my wardrobe shopping. I kept putting them off because I figured I should get some more main pieces before buying shoes... but now I'm at the point where I can put together several outfits and have barely any shoes! So I went for it. I think they're a good mix of things, they look really cute and princessey but they're still just flip flops so I can wear them daily and no one will give me a weird look for it.
I wasn't really sure whether to list the Hello Kitty jumper under off brand or it's own brand... the tag says Hello Kitty Sorridere but I can't figure out if Sorridere is a big brand or not. Either way, I think it's really cute. I got this one more with winter in mind. I'm thinking since I have so many dusty pinks and peaches leftover from Summer, I'll mix in some rich reds and maroons to try and balance it out. I really like the cut of this dress, and I especially love how subtle the Hello Kitty print is. From a distance you would think it's just a regular floral print dress, but up close there's the cute detail of little Hello Kittys floating around in the print.
Finally, I found this necklace for really cheap and I really like how it looks! I've been looking for a collar-length necklace to wear with some of my dresses. I think this one has a very Lizmelo feel to it, even though it's off brand.

Looks like my Summer wardrobe is shaping up just in the nick of time! Maybe this weekend I can finish up some of the other items I've been working on making myself. All in all, that will bring me to 22 items in my wardrobe. I don't think I'll be buying much else for Summer, since it's going to get colder so soon after these items arrive, so besides maybe a couple of accessories or one more pair of shoes, this will probably be it for my Summer shopping. 22 items is a bit small for a capsule wardrobe, but for the month left of Summer, I think it's enough. I'll do a wardrobe wrap up post once I start transitioning to my winter wardrobe for daily wear.

Stay tuned,

Wardrobe Building Part 3: Shut up and Take My Money

It's been quite a while since I posted about wardrobe building, so let's continue! After you've searched for inspiration and raided your closet, you're ready to take your wardrobe building to the next level. You know what you're looking for. You know what you already have. You're ready to hop on a plane and fly to Shibuya, right? Not quite. Let's be reasonable about this.
Before you even start, you should do a little bit of budgeting. This will really look different for everyone. In my case, I'm a student with many years of holiday money saved up (remember, I've been dreaming about this wardrobe for a long time!) but no job. That means that my way of "budgeting" was to set guidelines for what's "reasonable" rather than hard-and-fast numbers. Personally, based on my own situation, I decided that I could afford a handful of used brand pieces supplemented by many hand made and thrifted pieces, and cheap pieces found on the internet (on eBay, AliExpress, etc).
Do what makes sense for your situation. For the time being, I can't say I have much great advice, since I'm just on the cusp of being an adult with a paycheck and bills to pay, but maybe sometime in the next year I'll be able to come back and write more in depth about budgeting for a cute wardrobe. However, there is one rule of thumb that might be useful. If you're trying to do this on a budget, it's going to mean one of two things: either building your budget very slowly, or sacrificing quality. This is a fine line to walk, and there's no one right answer. Of course, it'd be nice to have a wardrobe full of Liz Lisa. On the other hand, if that means waiting two months just to buy one skirt even while buying used and scoping out good deals, you run the risk of never being able to actually wear the clothes that you do buy. Your taste might change in the time you're waiting to build up a wardrobe that's wearable, or your clothes might not be seasonal anymore. At the same time, you can't throw out quality either. As much as brands shouldn't matter, if you're trying to avoid any brand items, you'll inevitably fall into one trap or another. Maybe you'll end up with a wardrobe that strays too far from the spirit of the fashion you're pursuing (like trying to build a himekaji wardrobe with items bought entirely from Forever 21... it might still be cute but it will only ever loosely approximate the look you had in mind), having outfits that look extremely cheap (like trying to build a wardrobe entirely out of cheap eBay items... some of them are cute but you need high quality items to balance out the low quality ones you'll inevitably end up with), or spending an exorbitant amount of time behind your sewing machine (if you really had the time to sew an entire wardrobe by hand, you could probably afford to buy all brand in the first place). Again, where you toe the line is up to your personal situation and judgement.

The next step once you know roughly your spending limits is to do some extensive window shopping. I organized the items I'd selected from my existing wardrobe into an image on my computer  (MS paint to the rescue!) so that I could see everything all together and see how much from each category I needed.

The first iteration of my wardrobe planning.
You'll notice that I was very optimistic when I sorted through my wardrobe the first time. "This t-shirt has a peter pan collar on it. That's cute, right?" "This dress is floral, right? That's totally princessey!" You'll notice that this image has way more items than what I posted in my last wardrobe building post. This is because as I window shopped, I realized that there were a lot of pieces in my existing wardrobe that really didn't belong in my new one, and I continued to prune (and have continued to prune further since writing that post), leaving only a handful of pieces that will truly mesh with my new himekaji clothes.

After I did some window shopping.
Over the course of the next few weeks, I made adjustments to this image, collecting many items that I thought I were missing. This process was similar to the daydreaming stage, but this time I wasn't madly saving every cute Liz Lisa dress I saw. This time I was looking for more realistic inspiration. I was searching eBay and wholesale websites, trying to find cute off brand items. I was looking at auction sites to get a handle on how much used Liz Lisa tends to go for. I was still searching the Liz Lisa catalogs, but this time looking for simple and non-patterned pieces I felt I could make myself. This collage eventually turned into my first eBay haul. At this point, though, it was starting to look extremely messy, and most of the pieces I had originally photographed had been removed from my wardrobe, so I reorganized.

Reorganized, after I'd bought more of my wardrobe.
When I made my new collage, I broke the image up into "stuff I own" (left side of the green line) and "stuff I want to own" (right side of the green line). This was much easier for me to look at, and as a result it was much more useful in helping me decide what to buy. Before buying anything, I like to paste it into my collage (which again, I'm just using a simple paint document to do this) and see how it looks with the other things I have in my wardrobe.
What has worked so far for me has been a process of buying ➸ wearing ➸ dreaming etc. I've been doing roughly $50 hauls with a handful of main items, and trying to sustain on just my wardrobe in its current shape once those orders arrive. After the first haul I was disappointed to see that I really needed more of everything. I wasn't able to put together a single complete outfit. When my second haul arrived, I realized I'd gone a bit dress crazy, and that while I was maybe a good pair of shoes away from having several day's worth of cute dress coordinates, wearing fancy dresses on a daily basis was a bit much for me. However, I also noticed that I was continuously reaching for skirts that didn't exist. So I got more skirts. By buying in small chunks and attempting to wear everything before buying more, you can make sure you're building your wardrobe wisely. For the first few hauls, you won't be able to successfully dress within your capsule wardrobe until laundry day, but you'll get a sense of what areas you're really lacking in.

I'm still in the middle of this step, but I'm really happy with my progress. I hadn't looked at my first wardrobe collage in months, and it's really motivating for me to see how far I've already come.
I really hope that I can finish buying the bulk of my wardrobe soon! I'll write another post once I'm finished talking about where I did most of my shopping, what search terms were useful to me, and other odd tips related to shopping. Then pretty soon afterwards I'll probably launch into transitioning from one wardrobe to another while I fill out my Fall wardrobe.

See you next time!

Afternoon Projects: Faux Sukapan

It's been way too long since my last update! School is starting very soon so there have been a lot more people to hang out with from Summer. The cafeteria is getting so crowded! Gone are the days that I could eat when I'm hungry without standing in a huge line. Ah well... but it's kind of exciting isn't it?
Yesterday I finally sat down with some of my cute fabric and decided to make a skirt! I want to make real sukapan in the future, but I think I need to find the right fabric for it. If it's too stiff I'm afraid it'll look too much like shorts. But in the mean time, I figured I could make some fake sukapan with my lace shorts and a gathered circle skirt! 

My lace shorts. Wouldn't it look cute peeking out from a skirt?

I found this fabric at Joann and while it's not absolutely perfect for himekaji (the print is a bit small compared to most Liz Lisa skirts) I still think it has a cute effect. This kind of skirt is very cute and also very easy to do. If you've ever made a circle skirt, it's exactly like that, only instead of using your actual waist measurement, you make the opening wider so that you can gather it as well. After a bit of experimenting, I found that a gather of 1.5x your waist measurement is ideal. I think this look is much cuter than a regular gathered skirt, since you can get really full without having a whole lot of bulk right at your waist. Since I wanted this to look like sukapan, I made sure to hem the skirt just short enough so that the bottom tier of my shorts would peek out from underneath. I really like the result!

 
As you can see, this skirt really is just a huge circle skirt that's been gathered to my waist measurement!



I gathered most of the skirt and sewed it to a waistband. When you do this, you shouldn't be lazy like I was and you should use interfacing. I was originally meaning to have the entire waistband be elastic but found that it was adding a bit too much bulk to my waist and it was unflattering. When I changed my mind the waistband had already been sewn shut so I didn't bother with it... but it would look much better if you used some!



I did leave a small section in the back ungathered so that I could add some elastic. I love elastic skirts and shirring because it always fits you perfectly, it's easy to get on and off, and it's really comfortable.

I'm sure this is something that I'll make again, so I'll be sure to document the process a bit more carefully next time and turn it into a full blown tutorial.
All of the things I ordered in the last two hauls have arrived, so I'm way overdue for a big review post, so you'll be seeing that soon!
Thanks for reading~


Recent Purchases: My Growing Army of Cute Clothes! [Liz Lisa + Ank Rouge]

Hello everyone! It's been crazy hot here lately! For a moment there it got a bit chilly, and I was worried that Summer was ending with only a few pieces for my summer wardrobe... but this heat is making me feel there is still plenty of space in my closet for warm weather clothes. 
I was feeling optimistic about the wearability of my wardrobe, even though I have so much space for more items, but after taking it with me on a trip, I discovered that while I do have some great individual items, I'm still lacking a functional wardrobe. I realize that I need more of everything, but I think I'm especially in need of shirts and skirts! Hopefully the heat lets up enough in the next few days. I have a lot of cute fabric that I want to turn into skirts! But right now I just feel like I'm melting... even online shopping has been difficult. Anyway, I don't see an end to this heat so I'll just stop writing ineloquently and show you all what I've bought recently!

eBay Finds!

Liz Lisa Pink Floral Dress
White Lace Dress

White Lace Skirt

Pink Floral Skirt
I've been really getting in the swing of things with eBay lately. I've been checking for new Liz Lisa listings every day, my watch list keeps growing and growing! For a while I was really afraid of auctions, but after winning the white lace dress, I wish that more things would go up for auction. It was really fun counting down to the last minute to place my bid, and I was excited when I won. I was really excited about winning the Liz Lisa dress, since I'd been drooling over it for over a month now. It's just so cute and I think it'll tie in so well into fall as well. I was really torn between the pink and brown version, but I think I made a good decision.
I've been having a really hard time finding cheap skirts to fill up my wardrobe with, but I like the two that I've found so far, and thankfully skirts aren't all too hard to make myself either. It's a little hard to tell but the pink skirt has little flowers all over it. I love that it almost looks like polka dots from far away.

Gyaru Community Sales

Ank Rouge Blouse

Liz Lisa Light Blue Dress
On top of browsing eBay, a friend of mine also introduced me to a Live Journal Gyaru sales community with lots of really cute clothes. My biggest struggle here and also in Facebook sales communities has been finding people from within the US, since international shipping can really add up. But I found these two on there the other day and was really excited. I really need more of these casual blouses, and the light blue dress is absolutely adorable. Worn as-is, it'll be great for hot summer days, and come fall I think it would look great with some tall boots and a cardigan! The seller was really patient with me as I got my eBay account set up again. I'm really looking forward to receiving these items.

Thrift Stores

Bow Tie Chiffon Blouse
Although finding hime-able clothing at thrift stores is somewhat rare, I've still been scouting them out and managed to find this nice chiffon blouse. This was actually one of the few things I had initially expected to find at thrift stores easily, but when I started actually looking they absolutely disappeared! So I was really excited to find one, but on top of that this one fits me almost perfectly. My only complaint is the arms fall a bit awkwardly below my elbows, but that will be a really easy fix once I pull out my sewing machine again.



Looks like my wardrobe is starting to pull together! My eBay watch list is full of items, and I've got plenty of sewing projects once this heat lets up, so I'm really excited to start getting to the point that my wardrobe becomes wearable.
I hope I don't melt before my next update!