Christmas Day 2012

Merry Christmas everyone? Are you enjoying your turkey coma? ;^)

This will be a short post, but I just wanted to wish everyone the best. There've been a couple trying times this year but hopefully the new year will bring us better times! I hope it's not too cold where you are; stay warm!

I also got a new sweater among my other gifts.. super comfy and warm. It's Calvin Klein~ *pinky up*

detail shot

I'll leave you with some food porn.

Guild Wars 2 Wintersday 2012 Event

Hi guys!
The other day I logged into Guild Wars 2 for their Wintersday event! Actually, it's been going on for a few days now, but I haven't been able to get on.. luckily I made the finale though! They even have their own Santa named Tixx (I believe) and Lion's Arch was decorated for the holidays.

They had a bunch of mini games set up, ranging from snowball fights to an actual dungeon. Some of them were really hard, but really fun! I ran the dungeon a couple times with my boyfriend so that we could create our own mini pets! I made the plush griffon and he made the golem.

When there are things to collect in videogames I get pretty excited! I collect figures outside of gaming, so when there's something rare like these Christmas toy mini pets I couldn't help myself haha. They're so cute!
I play a Sylvari ranger named Calael de'Sylvania (add me to your friends list as TheSweetBean.2175). It's the same name I used when I played Dungeons and Dragons haha! I typically gravitated to the natural-like races like elves and classes like ranger or druid.

I really enjoyed this event! Although I wish I had participated earlier...
If you're interested, I also have a steam account! Visit here.

I hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday! See you soon.

Xmas Shopping at the Eaton Centre & Photos of the Week #4

Today I was SO excited to hang out with Sachie and go Christmas shopping! (I got a lot of things but can't post them here because I know relatives will be peeking haha) I just hit my holiday break from school, so it was almost a mini celebration to go out and have some fun with her. We don't see each other too often outside of conventions and cosplay, so it's really special!

It was rainy, but not too cold thankfully! I wanted to look cuter than my usual stressed, student self so I ended up wearing a skirt and tights. I need more girly winter clothes I think.. We also went and got food before shopping. I had these delicious bbq pork buns and dim sum! :)

Afterwards we went through the mall. Stopped off at Lush, H&M, Crabtree & Evelyn (I love that place!) and of course Sephora! We tried out a bunch of fragrances from Tocca which I've been dying to check out but never got around to it till now! Sachie is buying me a rollerball of one of their scents for Christmas that I'm super excited about! I never get to take scents with me on trips because the bottles are too big, but this is perfect!

The Eaton Centre in Toronto is all decked out in its Christmas finery too!

The tree changes colours too!

After I got back from shopping today I decided to try out something I've been wanting to do for a while. My common room at residence has been decorated by some of the students for the holidays and the ambiance at night was interesting and warm that I had to take some photos! It's also the first time trying out my tripod and my god are tripods amazing! They let you do things that you wouldn't normally be able to do!

Took these with my Canon T3i and 18-55mm lens.

Wish I could've made the bokeh balls a little better but the room was only so big :'(

Just cropped this one, no Photoshop

I hope everyone is staying warm and snuggly during the exam period. Stay safe!

Tsubasa Hanekawa Cosplay Progress

Hi everyone! A friend asked me to join her Bakemonogatari photoshoot with the rest of the group, but seeing as how she wanted to do Hitagi, I chose to do Hanekawa Tsubasa :) I'm reusing the same uniform as my Hitagi and a base wig I bought online for another cosplay thinking that I can squeak by as Tsubasa.

But ohmygod this cosplay is going to be so ghetto.. colour retouching and tedious photo editing will be involved, I feel sorry for the editor hoho... I'm not going to spend money on the same outfit that I'm only going to wear once.. And I don't have time to run out to downtown Toronto for ribbons and such for her hair and whatever so I just used paper (I was howling while putting the outfit on just because I knew everything was hanging together with tape.. I don't even own a hot glue gun at school!)

SO LONG AS IT LOOKS OK IN PHOTOS HAHA

Being megane is so fun ;o; ♥ But I think the braids might be a little long.... oh well!

I didn't want to get out of the wig right away.. it's so silky and thick! I've bought from this eBay seller before and I've never been disappointed.. ahhh♥

I swear no shopping on this.. How did this turn out so creepy? ;o;

And this one kinda reminds me of human Ursula from The Little Mermaid

Thanks for dropping by!♥

Youmacon 2012 Report

Hi everyone! Now that I'm finally starting to feel my legs again after this weekend, I decided I should post a report for you all! (Though I don't know what legs has to do with this haha)

This was my firs time going to Youmacon in Detroit, MI and it was also my first time traveling alone with my girls (Sachie and Genniieeee), last time didn't count because we were being escorted by Ackson. We took the Greyhound bus early Friday morning from Toronto and arrived in Detroit around mid-afternoon. Sachie stayed over the night before which was really awesome since we can never meetup outside of conventions due to school.. it was nice being girly and getting primped for the con the next day! (Next time you can have the bed, Sachie!)

When we crossed the border, we had no idea that the con was so close! The bus dropped us off a few blocks away and we ended up taking a taxi over to the Renaissance Center. For anyone else going, please be careful with taxis! We got scammed because we were Canadian and the driver started loading our bags while we tried negotiating the price of the trip. We could have haggled more, but we were all a little nervous because there were some sketchy folks behind us calling out to us. It was just an uncomfortable situation in itself... please be careful!

The convention itself was... interesting to say the least. Luckily we were rooming with some AWESOME people (I miss you guys already!), but we had some difficulty with the hotel room as the Marriott introduced a wristband policy to monitor how many people were in the room. We didn't want to take the risk, so a whole lot of us crammed into our friend's room...

The layout of Youmacon this year was a little confusing (certainly for a first timer like myself). The building goes vertically, so escalators and elevators galore! The walkways are all circular as well, so it's very confusing trying to get where you're going. We must have walked around that place a billion times. Some locales are nice for photos though, and it's very urban.

Cool ceiling near on of the escalators in Cobo Hall

What confuses me the most though is why they had the dealer's/artist alley in Cobo Hall. Obviously space is an issue, but it separates a major part of the convention from everything else! I spoke with a couple of artists who were disappointed and stressed, as it's a lot of effort to sell your work at these events.

CourtoonXII as Saki Morimi from Eden of the East

As for my cosplay lineup, it was a fairly relaxing weekend!
Friday I went as Maid ver. Ritsu from K-ON! with Sachie as Mio:

Saturday I went as Howl and interviewed LittleKuriboh, as well as others, as part of press for Crunchyroll:

Photo by Sachie

And Sunday Sachie and I went as Matryoshka Meiko and Miku.. we also met up with Berndor who cosplayed Gumi! We were the most moe together haha, I loved it! We also ended up being included in the Detroit News which was nice!

All in all, I feel it was the people I was with that made the event great. I`m really thankful that Inner Mind Theatre and everyone else looked out for us Canadians! I hope we can see each other again really soon! xoxo.

EOS Gothic 3 Tones Turquoise Review

Hi everyone! Recently I picked up two natural looking lenses from LensVillage.com during their big back to school sale. The first ones I'm reviewing are the EOS Gothic 3 Tones Turquoise!

Specs

Life Span : 1 Year

Diameter : 14.5mm

Manufacturer : EOS

Origin : South Korea

Lenses is manufactured by EOS and labelled under DollyEye. 

As you can see, these lenses feature a very nudy look, with multiple colours to help blend in to your natural eye colour. These are very similar to the popular Puffy 3 tones, and I believe those have a more vibrant colour (which I realized after my purchase..).

In the lens case I feel they lean more towards a blue colour...

... however on my eyes perhaps they look a little more green? It blends really well which is nice, and the enlargement is there yet subtle with the right makeup. I could probably wear these to class without much staring.

I also find that they're really dark in real life.. although they appear alright in bright photos.

I'm so used to these super black outer rings that I'm on the fence about these ones. They're so natural that I don't know if I can use them for cosplay... what do you think?

Enlargement is 4/5 (Slightly larger for a natural dolly look)

Design is 5/5 (They're meant to be natural, and that's what these do)

Colour is 4/5 (Look blue in the case, yet more green on my eye.. and from far away they're both... so I'm confused! But very pretty haha)

Comfort is 3.5/5 (Not the most comfortable ever...)

I have a feeling that I'd like the Puffy 3 tones better... They seemed more vibrant and it's Geo... Have you tried this brand? Which do you prefer?

Skinfood Good Afternoon Honey Black Tea BB cream REVIEW + SWATCH

I've been running out of the current BB cream I'm using and so I decided to purchase a couple cheapies to try out.

The first is Skinfood's Good Afternoon Honey Black Tea BB cream in Shade no. 1 Light Beige:
(Phew what a title!)

What it promises: "A long-lasting bb cream that helps maintain bright morning skin throughout the day without darkening or smudging (...) that keeps skin soft and supple."

First of all the packaging is SUPER cute! I love natural tones in everything and the cute honey bees on the packaging make me feel so happy. I also like the cardboard box it comes in, as it further eludes to Skinfood's natural approach.

The packaging itself is TINY! Only 30g of product. The product itself is fairly cheap though online compared to other bb creams and it's not like you're supposed to use a lot anyways! So this could be a good value.

I've seen other swatches for Skinfood and found them to be pretty dark on my fair skin. This however, seems to be okay for the most part! Definitely beige, but not grey like other BB creams tend to look at first.

The coverage for this BB cream is SUPER LIGHT. Almost no coverage save for lightening my lighter freckles and doing well to conceal my pores. This is definitely something you may want to use as a primer for other products rather than using just this. This will probably not completely conceal blemishes and certainly doesn't conceal darker spots like the ones on my cheeks.
I think it provides a nice, natural canvas for the rest of your makeup. On school days I'll likely just use this and powder, but for cosplay or for photos I'll definitely need some more.

The finish of this bb cream is DEWY. People with oily skin may not like it, and I certainly am not crazy about the glowy look, but this is the finish most bb creams come in.

At first you may feel like there is a slight tackiness when you first apply it but that quickly goes away. What is left is the SOFTEST SKIN EVER. Like, I'm talking BABY SOFT here. And this last at least the whole day for me.

There is a definite scent to this product. I don't really know how to describe it; perhaps a black tea leaf scent somewhat? I don't notice it when I'm wearing it, but if you're really sensitive to scents you may want to be careful.

OVERALL I'd give this maybe a 3.5/5. It doesn't really cover anything, covers pores well, leaves me with uber soft skin and comes in a nice package for a decent price. It's cheap and easy peasy to apply as there's no real change in colour as far as I can see. SPF 20 PA+ is always a good thing no matter what time of year, especially for my fair skin.

So depending on your needs, you may want to bypass this one or use this as a no fuss school bb cream if you don't have issues with your skin.

Urban Decay NAKED Palette Review + Swatches

Hello everyone! Today I have an overdue palette review for you:

Urban Decay's NAKED palette

I've had this for a while now (since last May), so I've gotten quite a bit of use out of it already! I do not lie when I say that I use this everyday. I work full time in an office setting during the summer, so looking polished everyday is highly important. These could be my future employers so everyday counts. Especially if you're still a student, you want your coworkers to see you not as a young and irresponsible girl, but a refined and respectable young woman.

With this, I fully believe a good neutral palette is a must!

UD's NAKED definitely fits the bill, with 15 shades (13 I'd deem office appropriate) that boast high quality pigments and long wear when paired with the included Urban Decay Primer Potion. This palette also has a (small but great) built-in mirror and a cruelty free eyeshadow brush.

While the NAKED 2 palette has cooler shades, this one clearly features some warm shades. If you have blue eyes like me, you'll love the palette as every colour here will make your eyes pop day or night! The variety is wide - from highlights to shimmers to sparkles, light or dark. Another plus is that each shadow is UD's full size, so you're not getting chinced just because it's a palette! If you do the math, you're saving quite a bit of money as well on shades that will last you a really long time and are suitable for everyday!

Left to right: VIRGIN, SIN, NAKED, SIDECAR, BUCK

Left to Right: HALF BAKED, SMOG, DARKHORSE, TOASTED

Left to Right: CREEP, GUNMETAL

 I'm afraid the case gets very messy, but I've had no troubles travelling with it so far as there are magnets that keep the lid in place. The mirror could be larger, however it's a good quality mirror. If you want to take a different brush with you, just swap the one that comes with the kit! The brush that UD has supplied is pretty meh in my opinion.

Swatches left to right match the order of the palette. Over Urban Decay's Primer Potion

 The shadows themselves are really soft, blendable and semi long-wearing when paired with their primer potion. I find that without the potion though, sometimes there are shades that slide in the crease.. but nothing too bad.

The potion bottle is cute! The wand that comes with it is nice and easy to get the product on your lids. If you apply too much though, I find the eyelids may start to get oily? It's a weird feeling. Definitely makes a difference in the eyeshadows though, I find the colours are bolder when you use this underneath!

Overall I adore this palette and I'm so happy I splurged on this! It will last me a really long time and is perfect for even my cosplays that require bolder makeup. If you're looking for a tried and true palette I would recommend this one!

ROM with the family

Hi everyone! A daily post for you today!

Recently I went to the ROM in Toronto with my family to see the new dinosaur exhibit! I took my camera with me in case there were good photo opportunities although I accidentally lost them all afterwards haha;;

The dino exhibit was really dark, so it was hard to take proper photos, but they had some interesting lighting that I wanted to take advantage of! Overall, they were really impressive! From tiny ones to the large ones.. they were all different shapes and sizes! It was neat being so close to them too... you were close enough to touch (although you really shouldn't)!

After we walked through the other, regular, exhibits.. like China, Japan, Mammals and things like that! I think I like the animal ones the most, although I felt uneasy since I imagine they were stuffed :< I really love animals haha;;

I also visited the Egyptian exhibit (I remember this from when I was a little kid) and had the same creepy feeling as I did then. I didn't take photos for this one as there were actual mummies in there and it felt disrespectful. :/ I've never liked that one...

We also visited the gift shop and I made the BEST PURCHASE EVER! It's a dinosaur hat (I wore it to FanExpo)!!

I had a lot of fun that day.. I kept creeping my brother since he's cute when he makes weird faces XD;;

GIVEAWAY WINNERS ANNOUNCED

THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO PARTICIPATED!

_______________________________

HERE ARE THE WINNERS!

1st: Zackery Wright

2nd: Alice (who contacted through Facebook)

3rd: Vallon E.

_______________________________

I hope everyone enjoys their prizes! I will contact you through the email you provided and will ship your gifts sometime this week!

IT'S GIVEAWAY TIME!

I mentioned on my Facebook page recently that I would be holding a giveaway once I hit 200 likes! Not only that, but I have also almost broken 24 000 pageviews on my blog and we're almost at 200 followers on Twitter as well!! WOW! I can't express my surprise and gratitude enough! To think that people might be interested in what I say or do is such a warm feeling. I felt I had to give something back!

So here are the prizes you will win!

1st: Evangelion Sweet Witches Figure (Complete figure)

2nd: Puella Magi Madoka Magica Petite Nendroid

3rd: Mini Pink Sailor Arpakasso (scarf removable)

To enter

1. You MUST leave a comment on this post with your name and an email address that I can reach you with.
2. You MUST follow my blog via Google Friend Connect (the sign up button is on the right).

FOR EXTRA ENTRIES

• LIKE my Facebook page
• FOLLOW me on Twitter
• RETWEET my post on Twitter (retweets of others posts do not count, this you can do more than once!)
• REBLOG this contest photo on my Tumblr!

The winners will be chosen:

August 26th, 2012 at 1 PM EST

GOOD LUCK EVERYONE!

Elsie (The World God Only Knows) 1/8 Figure

Hi everyone! Every time I go to a con I usually pick up a figure. This time it's the super adorable and ditzy Elsie from The World God Only Knows!

I feel like her playful spirit really shows through with this figure! It also showcases her ditzy character as she is playing around with the bottle that will contain all the spirits they need to catch! She's obviously very carefree and naive.

Her raiment was very stressful to put on her. At first I was trying to set it on her backwards! I'm lucky to have not done any major damage, but I feel like it was really risky business trying to put her together. As you can see, the raiment is very close to her neck.. so it's a tight squeeze! Her broom must also weave through the raiment and into her hand.

The end result is very worth the stress though! Her slanted posture and flowing raiment really make her look weightless as if she's flying in the air!

The bottle she sits on is translucent as well which I thought to be a nice touch. It's made of a stiff plastic, so be careful during assembly as you might dent or puncture it!

Overall I think this is a gorgeous figure that I'm more than happy to add to my growing collection! I'm starting to run out of shelf space! :D

Otakon Con Report Day 3: Sunday

Last day of the convention!! ;A;
I cosplayed Synchronicity again because it was something I was very proud of! My first fully made cosplay where most of the work was done by myself. With STR I had a lot of help with the arms (with sanding for example), but with Synchro I did all the pleating, sewing, etc. by myself! Genie still helped me with drafting though which I'm super thankful for!

I can't wait for the day when I can fully make a costume by myself.. victory will taste so sweet!

Sunday might've been the most chill out of all the days! The con practically ended at 2pm so we spent the rest of our time walking around and eating by the harbor. Packing also soaked up most of our time as well.. I basically hung around with Sachie and the tumblr-famous Mako (I joke of course) for the rest of our hours. I didn't eve wear lenses again orz;;

With the last of my money I bought a Morico t-shirt and a cuff-linked earring from another artist alley vendor! I feel super badass when I where the earring though haha!

I didn't get back home until 2 or 3 PM on Monday.. I simply passed out on the bus out of exhaustion from the weekend. Snoring passengers or not lol XD

Overall I loved going to Otakon so much! It was such a great experience, but I feel it'll be hard for me to go again because everything worked out so nicely this time.. my hope is to one day go to Anime Expo in LA! Next year I'll have to budget.. but maybe I can squeeze a cosplay event here and there...?

So where does this leave me now? Well... I did happen to maybe pick up some things that I might be giving away to you guys... maybe....! ;)
Stay tuned!

Otakon Con Report Day 2: Saturday

Saturday I wore Senjougahara Hitagi from Bakemonogatari. I was surprised that so many people recognized the character, as I has the impression that no one really cared at AN this year orz;; Actually, there were a couple Hitagis that wanted to take a photo with me!

(Sachie has perfected her photobombing skills over the years of course;;)

To be honest, Saturday was pretty chill compared to Friday. I didn't wear circle lenses as they were still stinging from the day before. I wanted to give my eyes a much needed break. We took our time going around, met up with Anna Fischer again for another sweet photoshoot (thank you so much!) and got to see a super awesome magic show! He was really good at tricking us and I think we got some footage too!

We also met up with Dejavudea, CourtoonXIII and Solo again for a meetup! I was expecting anyone to recognize us as Moetron, however we did have a couple visitors! Thank you so much for having the courage to say something! It makes me so happy!! We filmed a couple funny shots with MLZ Studios before having more photoshoots.



We are at 1:45!

Like I said, Saturday was pretty chill.. it's sad that Courtoon and Solo had to leave the con early to catch their flight though! I would have liked to have hung out a little longer..! Next time :<

As always, there will be more photos up on my Facebook page !
And more videos up on our MOETRONcos YT!

Otakon Con Report Day 1: Friday

Friday was probably our busiest day surprisingly! We had two cosplays planned; Synchronicity and Matryoshka! I've never planned two cosplays in a day before.. it felt pretty fancy! (I usually only have maybe two cosplays with me for a weekend just because I'm not made of money ohoho)

Matryoshka was a decision made, literally, four days before leaving. Luckily it wasn't so difficult and we got SUPER lucky at Value Village! I also had some things I could use in my closet, I just wish my old old old Miku wig was nicer. I'm seriously considering getting a new one because Miku seems to crop up every once in a while with me.. bah.

So we changed into Synchronicity (I was Rin, Sachie was Meiko) and then I went down early to help Genie set up in the artist alley. I tried out a different eyeliner technique that I think really made my eyes pop!

We basically bummed around the convention most of the day, although I bought an AWESOME Elsie figure in the dealer's room! Otakon's dealer's room is gigantic! Waaaaay bigger than what I've seen at Canadian conventions! I was so happy to see a greater variety of figures there too, as I feel there are so many repeats with vendors at Canadian events. I think I got one of the only Elsie figures there too, as I didn't see any others around huhu!!

WE ALSO HAD PHOTOSHOOTS WITH ANNA FISCHER!! So cooool~~ I felt pretty shy while meeting her, but she was really sweet with us! I felt so pretty while shooting with her too haha~~ I hope I get to see her again in the future since her and Phil are great people and work lovely as a team!

While back in the dealer's room we also bumped into CourtoonXIII and Solo-dono! :D I had seen their pictures online, and Courtoon's videos before so it was really exciting to get to know them over the course of the convention! We set a time to meetup and then headed back to change into Matryoshka.

The Matryoshka shoot has mixed feelings for me! On the one side I was SO PSYCHED because of the super cute girls I was shooting with! On the other hand, I had been nearing the 9 hour mark with my lenses and they were starting to really bug me! Halfway through the shoot my vision became so blurry that I couldn't really see much of anything and had to take them out. Because I kept mentioning it too I was worried that Courtoon and Solo would get a negative impression of me as well! Luckily they're such sweet ladies and (hopefully) didn't think much of it..!

(CourtoonXIII decided to take a walk at this moment :<)

We then had another photoshoot with a different photographer after Courtoon finished her business with Ackson and Dejavudea. I think that song is stuck in my head now. We took some more silly photos and then said our goodbyes for the day!

I can't remember much else.. but I feel this covers most (if not all!) of the day's major events. Like I said, this was our busiest day I feel!!

There'll be more photos available on my Facebook page eventually!

There's some videos up on our YouTube channel recapping Friday's events: