KawaiiClaires Review!!

Hello! Today I'm going to be doing a review here (my first "official" review??) of my friend Claire's Etsy store, KawaiiClaires! She sent me a lovely package filled with a sweet letter, candy, some adorable pastel handmade headbows, hadmade soaps (which I can't show because I used them all up!), and the items which I'll be reviewing today! Claire is a really crafty person and she seems to be always making something new, whether it be soaps, phone cases, DS cases, or jewelry.

A selection of some of her items~

KawaiiClaires is located in Canada, and the theme of her store is, of course, kawaii! Her package arrived really quickly from when she sent it out, and everything arrived very nicely; all the jewelry in individual fabric baggies which I thought was a good touch.

Here is how the package arrived to me; featuring the headbows, soap and candy!

Although these items were free in return for doing a review, her prices are very affordable! I'll get to the individual prices when I review each item, of course, but for example - the large flower necklace above is only around $7! (I say around because the exact one I received is not on the site for sale)

Overall everything is very clean, very nicely made. I don't know anything about resin making, perler beads, or decoden-esque crafting, but everything seems to be very high quality and nothing scrimped on! So, let's get to what she sent me!

This review is obviously going to be picture heavy, so be warned! 

Firstly is this pixel Pokeball pin for $7.50! I wore this on my badge when I was at Colossalcon! I have a thing for pins and badges and such, and the Pokeball is something so recognizable to so many people. This badge is about 2", so it fits anywhere you like! If you like this design, she also has Pokeball headphone holders!

Detail on the back and pin

Next is this adorable strawberry pink heart ring for $3.54. This ring could easily be a staple piece in many peoples' cute wardrobes! It looks a lot like a piece of candy to me!

Although it's hard to see from my pictures (and that's my fault ^_^;) the color isn't just a solid pink, but it has little flecks of red inside! I think what I love most about this piece is that it's not at all small! I love big pieces.

You can see a bit of the flecks of red here. As you can see, it's not a small piece, but it's not so huge that it would hinder your hand movements. I've worn this out and about for a while now, and it's very sturdy and holds up nicely!

The second ring I have is this cute decoden whipped sparkle ring, also for $3.54! This ring is a must have for fairy kei, decora, or even sweet lolita! This ring is a perfectly swirled dollop of whipped cream decoden with chunky glitter all over!

This ring has also been worn quite a bit and it's very sturdy as well. I have lots of decoden pieces from lots of different people, and unfortunately some of them don't really hold up. This one has held up through me reaching in my cluttered bag, worn at a busy convention, and other daily wears.

What I think is the best thing about this piece is how unique the glitter all around it is. On a lot of pieces like this, you see very small glitter, but this one has bigger dots and strands of glitter which really stand out and look like sprinkles atop whipped cream! 

Next is the first of four necklaces, and unfortunately I only have one picture of this necklace for some reason. This piece is the most simple of the four, but still very eye catching! It's also the smallest, but I consider it still very sizable. This necklace has a pastel pink and pastel purple merging with each other with glitter all throughout. It reminds me of Nerds candy! This one isn't on her Etsy right now, but I'm sure you could request it!

This necklace is probably my second favorite! Please excuse the glare on this picture. This exact one isn't on her Etsy, but she has many similar piece with other tumblr-esque/sassy phrases, such as this one that says "I hate you"! 

This piece is extremely shimmery and shiny, and definitely catches the eye when you wear it out! I'm really into the offensive sort of tumblr phrases (I'm not sure how to describe it?) that she puts on these necklaces. 

As I said, I really have no idea how resin pieces such as these are done, but I really love how the phrase is put inside of the resin itself. This whole necklace looks like a glittery lollipop to me, with the glitter frozen in mid-swirl. I really, really love things like these. I love wearing this necklace out in the sun!

Second-to-last is this adorable purple glittery kitty necklace! This one also isn't on the website right now, but again, I'm sure you could special request it! Something cool about this necklace is that if you hold it in the right light...

You see the kitty face! Much like the last piece, the glitter on this necklace is extremely glittery and shiny. The glitter catches the light no matter which angle it's turned at! 

Again, I think the glitter Claire used is very unique compared to other resin makers. It's huge and very reminiscent of the 90s! All the edges of this piece are very clean, and you can tell she took care when she makes these pieces.

Lastly is my absolute favorite necklace! Like the heart necklace, similar pieces with other tumblr-esque sayings can be found on her Etsy, such as this one that says "I ship us" for $7.50.

I think my favorite thing about this piece, besides the fact that the shape reminds me of some jewelry I had when I was a kid, is how big it is! The entire necklace fills up the palm of my hand, so it's definitely a statement piece! 

I love that the huge pieces of glitter inside the resin change color from a yellowish color to a green, it definitely compliments the color of the resin. I honestly just can't speak highly enough about this piece, it's so sturdy, yet not at all heavy to wear, and just so very adorable!

So, that's it for my review! I'm also going to be doing a review on my vlog later tomorrow, so I'll be posting that here if you want to watch me actually hold and move the pieces and see them shine and such in the light!

I can't say just how much these pieces make me smile. Yes, I'm doing this review because Claire is my friend, but I truly do believe that these pieces are well made, fairly priced, and completely cute! I hope you all check out her Etsy store and perhaps order an item or two, or share her shop to your friends!

I hope you all enjoyed this review and I'll be writing soon~

10 Favorite Etsy Shops Part One!!

The holidays are near and it’s time to stock up on gifts and stocking stuffers for your family, friends, or yourself! What better then to give to two people at once - the gift recipient and the gift maker? This is why I love Etsy.

Etsy is like an Amazon or Taobao for homemade and vintage goods as well as crafting materials. It’s most known for having lots and lots of stores by artists on it. You can find anything there, from zines, to wedding rings, to artwork, to clothing…pretty much anything you could think of. 

I am probably going to buy most if not all of my friends’ gifts on Etsy this year. As an artist, I want to do everything I can to support other artists. So I’m going to recommend my favorite Etsy shops, ten at a time. Note that I may or may not have ordered from each of these shops so I cannot always speak for quality and timeliness and such. Also, I’m going to provide a link HERE to my general Etsy favorites list, which is very diverse, and not everything in that list is from a shop I’ll be mentioning.

Kawaii Power Up

Kawaii Power Up is actually the first Etsy store I ever made a purchase from, and a favorite with me and my friend. My review can be found HERE. This shop specialized in cute and nerdy accessories. My favorite items from this shop are the dust plugs! I feel like they are the most reasonably priced - although her shop is very well priced for what you get - and the most unique. The shop includes free goodies with every purchase as well! 

Nerdy Little Secrets

Much like the previous store, Nerdy Little Secrets specializes in kawaii and sometimes nerdy accessories perfect for all cute fashions. However, this store’s accessories are much more softer in appearance. I feel like this shop is a little more diverse then Kawaii Power Up, and has also been open for longer. Their prices are very fair, although wait time for certain items is a little bit long. 

Starlight Deco Dream

Starlight Deco Dream is a wonderful shop. It’s main draw is jewelry and accessories based on anime series, such as Madoka and Sailor Moon. Again, the prices are very fair. My favorite item from the shop right now is the giant “mahou shoujo” necklaces! This shop is a must for fans of magical girl anime!

Miss Alphabet

“Your one-stop shop for all things Barbie, Fairy Kei, and pastel goth!” Miss Alphabet is mostly a clothing store that caters all shapes and sizes. With sparkling fabrics and bows and lace everywhere, this store is great if you want clothing to catch the eyes of others. The prices are a bit high, but everything is custom made and very high quality. 

Bity Kity

Bity Kity is another accessory store, and everything is very pastel pink and purple! I don’t have much to say about this shop that hasn’t been said about the others, but this shop also offers very fair prices. They also have custom and pre made decoden phone cases!

Beagle Cakes Art & Illustration

This shop focuses on very cute and stylized stickers, prints, and cards. Most of the art is original, but there are also sets of Sailor Moon stickers. The shop also offers custom chibi prints! For what you get, the prices are extremely reasonable.

Mayshallwin

Mayshallwin is another store that offers cute stickers, though this one focuses on characters from anime and the like, especially Pokemon. The art is very cute and stylized. The only qualm I have is that the prices are a bit high. For example, for one dollar, you can get…one sticker. However, the owners seem to be students, so it’s a bit understandable.

AW Recycled Journals

I’m a little hesitant to list this shop, because there are so many one-of-a-kind journals in this shop that I don’t want bought up, hahaha! This store features recycled journals, as in, journals that are made from VHS covers, record sleeves, and there are even a few made from board game boxes and cereal boxes! For something this cool, the prices are great. As a journal/sketchbookphile, this store is heaven. 

Ready to Stare

This shop features plus size clothing and statement jewelry, and wants for others to rock the way they look, no matter how that may be. My favorite item of theirs are earrings made from giant dinosaur toys. The prices are great and their models and stock photos are beautiful. This store has a very street fashion/soft ghetto feel.

Thanks for reading!! See you later!!

Nintendo eshop Game Haul!!

For some reason, buying games on the Nintendo eshop is magical for me. I think it's just the concept of being able to have all these games on you at once while only carrying one thing. My fiance has quite the digital game collection, both on his Wii U and 3DS XL. I want to build up my collection, too!

We traded in a bunch of stuff the other day, and I got a $35 eshop card! I was originally planning to get one big 3DS game and one smaller Virtual Console one, but then I thought about it and I was able to get four Virtual Console titles, one indie game, and one 3DS title! And I still have a little over a dollar left over! I'm going to need to get a bigger SD card for my 3DS soon!

So I'm going to talk about what I got briefly...I'm not really going to get too in-depth into the games, but moreso my personal first impressions of them. (I haven't had too much time to play through them all, yet!)

I am going to go ahead and say, I do recommend all of the games listed! Some moreso then others, and of course it al depends on what sorts of games you personally like to play, but they are all worth trying and all under $8!

Megaman 

(CURRENTLY ON SALE)

The original. The first. My fiance's favorite franchise. Too bad it's dead. Every time he plays it, it seems really fun and I really want to play it. So I finally bought one! I decided to start with the first for a few reasons...because it's the first, obviously (though fiance called it the hardest, oh nooo), secondly because it was on sale. And it is a lot of fun! It's also really hard! I love platformers but gosh am I terrible at them! But even though I'm constantly dying and I'm stuck at one part, I'm having a lot of fun trying, and I am improving! I also love the simplicity of it and how it's really stood the test of time and is still relevant and fun today!

Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse

Castlevania is another one of those franchises that I've heard about forever but never tried out. Just hearing about it from friends, I knew it was hard. But I love vampires and all things spooky, so I decided to try it out. Much like Megaman, I'm not very good at it, but I am having a lot of fun! Unlike Megaman, the images are so complex and detailed; it's absolutely gorgeous. I love how much work was put into the character and background design. I also think it's perfect to play now since Halloween is coming! 

Color Zen

I rarely find anything that strikes my fancy in the "Indie Game" section of the eshop, so I was very surprised to see something so wonderfully lovely. Color Zen calls itself a puzzle game with no real right answer, a game where you should just plug in your headphones and relax. While I have to disagree a bit with that statement (there are right answers to the puzzles, just many ways to get there), it is indeed quite the relaxing game. I haven't tried all the modes in the game yet, but the main mode is very fun. You are presented with colored shapes on a black background and you must get the main color to be that of the border color. Most of the puzzles so far have been pretty easy, but it's still very fun and satisfying to slide one color into another. The sounds that go with this game are also very lovely and ambient. I know I've already said that I recommend all the games here, but I really, really do recommend this one.

Pokemon Battle Trozei

I'm usually skeptical of Pokemon side games. Mostly because I was so let down by Mystery Dungeon, and I've heard bad things about a lot of the newer side games. But my fiance has this and it looked a lot like Puzzle Challenge to me. And this really is a lot of fun! It is like Puzzle Challenge or Puzzle League in that it is a line-them-up game, but it's also so much deeper. It's providing me with both ease and challenge, and it's really loads of fun. Also...the Pokemon are drawn really cute!! 

Super Mario Bros. 2

I'm sure a lot of people know this, but the American Mario 2 was actually a completely different game in Japan retooled to be a Mario game, while the Japanese Mario 2 is known as "Lost Levels." Because of this, this game does indeed play different then all of the other games in the main Mario franchise. But it still works as a Mario game, and it's still a lot of fun. I mentioned I was kind of bad at platformers, and I am not the best at this, but I'm not terrible. This game also introduces one of my favorite Mario characters, Birdo! This game is one of the classics, so there's really not much I can say here. I've really been in a Mario mood recently; I also bought Super Mario Bros. 3 recently, and that plus this game has sated my needs.

Legend of Zelda

The original. The classic. And I've never played it before! My first Zelda game was Link to the Past, which I loved. However, after a while, I had to print out a walkthrough because it was so hard. I might have to be constantly looking a walkthrough for this game as well! There's no map, no real objective. But that's the fun of it, you get to be a real adventurer; a real explorer. I think this is the game I've played the least of out of the six, so I can't say too much of it, but...it's Zelda. It's the first. 

Kawaii Power Up Review!!

This shop can be found HERE!

(Apologies for not posting in a few days again...work just wears me out so much that I pretty much fall asleep right after I get home and completely neglect everything else...)

So! This is my first review on this blog, and unfortunately it's a short one because I only ordered one item! But, I know I'll definitely be ordering from this store again, so perhaps I'll post another review once I do. 

This is a review of the shop Kawaii Power Up, which can be found on Etsy. It can also be found on FaceBook, Twitter, and on Instagram, @kawaiipowerup. This shop specializes in kawaii and nerdy accessories! I found Kawaii Power Up when I was looking for cute dust plugs, and that is what I ordered, which I will get to in a moment. The first thing I noticed was the adorable and unique banner with the sweet mascot! This shop has very varied items, not just the usual things that your typical kawaii accessories shop seems to have. Also, while the quality is very high, the highest price I saw on any of the items was only $18! Here is an example of some of the products I really like:

Buy HERE

Buy HERE

Buy HERE

There are a lot of things at Kawaii Power Up I really like and I'll definitely be ordering myself a few things from them as an early birthday present!

Onto what I ordered. I ordered "Fairy Kei Moon and Star dust plug" in the shimmery lavender colorway (center). I needed something dangly for my new phone.

Buy HERE

It's listed as seven dollars, and I believe only went a little over eight with shipping. As with most Etsy stores, buying was easy enough, I didn't have any additional instructions to add, I just clicked how many and which color and that was that. I ordered it...I believe on Saturday night (because Friday night wen I got my money I was fast asleep...) and I received it today, on Wednesday. Wow! That's super fast. It came in a standard, small bubble wrap packaging, and was small enough to be left in my mailbox. 

The first thing I pulled out was the well-designed business card (again, cute!) which is made out of a nice material...and there was a gift attached! A cute, sweet cupcake hairpin!

I find that when shops like this give little gifts, it really gives me more incentive to buy from them and recommend them. Also I like to keep the business cards, not only as a reminder of where I got something from, but as decoration!

The owner also included a little thank you note on cute paper, another sign that this shop really cares about your business (excuse my short, unpainted nails...work...).

But what really made me squeal was that under the green bubble wrapped mass that was my order, there was...

A BUNNY BAG!!! I will definitely be keeping it, and if not using it for myself, using it for sending something to someone else!! It's the little details that count. Now, onto the actual order...

It looks exactly like it did in the picture, which is good. The actual plug, as you can tell, is tinted slightly purple, which I didn't realize when I bought it, but I really like. Details! There is a clear, blue star hanging close to the moon and three smaller stars making their way up to the plug. And how does it look dangling from my phone?

Very cute, of course! It fits in very snugly. I would say almost a bit too snugly, because I was afraid that if I tried too hard to pull it out again it might snap the ring attached to it. But I know that it will stay in, at least, until I get more to change it out every now and then. Past dust plugs I've had would occasionally get pulled out in my purse. 

So, overall, Kawaii Power Up get's all tens in my book! The only recommendation I would have for the shop is to offer various sizes of lucky packs (but I'm a sucker for lucky packs, so...)! The packaging was fantastic and kept the product safe, it was shipped quickly to me, and the dust plug is super cute! I highly recommend checking them out!!