As I’ve grown up I’ve become unashamedly more cutesy. Observe:

My sparkly pink gradation nails complete with sparkly photo filter. I actually did these with some clear polish and an old eyeshadow/blush compact that I never use. I’ll do a tute if people are interested.

I’m currently doing full time prac in a relatively serious office setting but we’re allowed to have our cubicle the way we want it. Since my work is pretty depressing I decided to make it more “mine” than office appropriate. That’s why I have a giant pink Hannari Tofu tissue box cover next to my phone…

And Hikonyan and Dragonite look over me as I work! It definitely cheers me up at prac.

Dragonite hangs out at my desk

Anyway ever since I started prac i’ve started to buy clothes that suit work and normal wear. I’ve always wondered how people transition from ‘fashionable’ clothes to what I used to call ‘old lady’ clothes – now I know.

I am loving the new sleeveless button up shirt trend, i’ve got plain ones, striped ones, ones with scalloped collars, peter pan collards… I just love them. They’re so versatile.

I’m sorry about the lack of blog posts. I don’t know if anyone else has felt like this but every time I see the time since my last post I feel more and more guilty, and then I don’t want to post anymore… causing me to feel even more guilty. I just feel like ‘oh it’s not worth it, it’s been so long’ and then I leave it for another week, and then another, and then another… and that’s how my blog has pretty much died over the past year.

Well i’ve decided, since it’s 2012 and a new year, that my new year’s resolution is going to be to post something at least once each week, even if it’s short and if it’s just a picture. I think I am too concerned withhow long my posts are and then I get hung up over how I have nothing to post.

Anyway happy new years everyone .

… and therefore NO snack food is safe from my stress eating habits. Carrots face no threat though (I hate carrots!).

Recently i’ve been drawing a ton of stuff in Illustrator and i’m really loving vector art.

The other thing i’ve been using Illustrator for is making icons and themes for my phone. Currently Android has very few cute themes available and so i’ve resorted to making my own. Most of the themes available on the market are very sci-fi dude-ish which isn’t my style.

I’m still unsure of whether to upload them or not. A developer account on the Android Market costs money and i’m not sure if I want to invest in it. Plus i’m not sure if I’ll have the time to update constantly and what not… I can barely keep a blog XD.

I think I will decide when I start full time prac work – my holidays will be spent doing slave labour being on full time prac. Gives me something to do though and i’m sure the experience will be good. 39 hours a week of unpaid work makes me shudder though.

I absolutely abhor the taste of coffee – I just can’t stand it. The only thing I can stand that tastes remotely close to coffee is tiramisu, but that’s probably because it’s about 1% coffee and 99% sweet cakey biscuity sugary goodness.

I do love making coffee though back from my days as a part time barista, and I do love making tiny little coffee cups.

They’re not perfect yet. I found that the plates are a weird shape and not round after it dries because of shrinkage. Before it dries you think the plate looks ok, but after two days it tends to shrink into a lopsided manner. These are much better than my old attempts though – I wish I took photos so I could show you guys! It would’ve illustrated the concept of ‘practice makes perfect’ – certainly these cups didn’t end up like these overnight.

I’ve recently been really loving brown/beige coloured things – nail polish, Rilakkuma, Kapibarasan, miniature coffee, chocolate flavoured stuff. I wonder why.

I’ve finally succeeded in growing my nails out again which is amazing. At one point I actually looked at my nails before and thought ‘… they’ll never get better again’ and was very sad about that. They were split down to the quick to the point that often i’d have splits but I couldn’t do anything about them because I couldn’t file my nails down any lower physically. They were also peeling like crazy and my index finger peeled to the middle of my nail and they were constantly sore. I wish I took before pics! Now they’re much prettier so i’ve been wearing a ton of nail polish again.

One thing that did concern me was if I was going to wear nail polish, i’d have to remove it constantly and nail polish remover was also another culprit for dry, brittle nails. Then I read a great tip on Lacquerized about adding glycerine to nail polish remover.

1. Have your nail polish remover – I use one that contains acetone because non-acetone removers + glycerine take waay too long to remove, but you can mix them.

2. Glycerine or glycerol (it’s the same thing) – this is a thick clear liquid often used in moisturisers and soaps. You can get it from pharmacies and Woolies/Coles if you live in Australia. Look at where the medications and Epsom salts are located.

3. Mix both in a spare plastic bottle. I mixed half and half which means they separate due to differing densities. That’s ok, just shake it up before use. Your hand might feel a bit oily after removal, so if you’re planning on putting nail polish after wash your hands and dry them first.

4. And always moisturise still!

This trick was an absolute godsend! I’m a perfectionist with my nail polish so I remove a lot and so far i’ve had no problems.

On a completely different topic now, i’ve got a little preview for a future project of mine:

I’ve been making themes for Android phones. Most Android themes on the market right now feature more of a modern/manly/techy/cool aesthetic which doesn’t suit my love for cute. This is a screenshot of my phone right now and it features dock buttons made by me (the ones on the bottom) and the other icons with the little rabbits are on the market currently called ‘Rabbit G’.

I recently got Adobe Illustrator so i’ve been drawing and designing a lot. I’m thinking of putting some of these themes up for download in the future on my blog, and if it takes off and there’s lots of interest i’ll buy a developer account so I can develop for the market. But that’s far off right now!

Lastly, i’ve got some housekeeping announcements:

- I’ve deleted my Twitter account. It’s nothing personal and no drama or anything, I just don’t use it ever so there’s no point having it.

- I took my Tumblr off the site because I never update it. My account is still there because I often check it to look at other people’s Tumblrs, but there is no point checking mine because there’s nothing there XD.

- I have been reading all of your blogs I promise. I have a confession to make – I actually really hate leaving comments! I’m always like ‘I have to leave something good… not like two words… but what?’ and in the end it just takes too much time. But I promise I do read your blogs and I absolutely love them.

- With that said I don’t expect comments in return by the way. I am happy to just know that you guys are reading. I love reading blogs and I love writing them and that’s all that matters to me, so if you hate leaving comments like I do as well, I don’t expect them .

Until next time!

I’ve started wearing nail polish again. This is because I realised if I can see the tips of my nails, I start to pick at them and peel them! It’s a vicious cycle, because I picked at them they were disgusting and stumpy so then I didn’t want to wear nail polish which led to more picking… well anyway i’m glad i’ve managed to break that cycle. They’re starting to grow out yay!

My polka dots turned out neat, but the stripes were too wide and not straight enough for my perfectionist tastes.

I’m posing on top of my spanking new Kapibarasan folder. I recently bought a lot of A4 files. Kapibarasan is my favourite Japanese character because he is an adorable blob.

I mean just look at him! He and his buddies are just blobs of pure adorable-ness.

Here is his official website if you want more cute.

Anyway before I go i’ll just address the giant pink elephant in the room: i’m so sorry for not having updated in like a month. I’m back now, uni has been unbearably busy. I don’t think my posting schedule will be as frequent as before, maybe once a week or so, but i’m definitely back for good! If not it means i’ve started my next placement, but i’ll try to let you guys know in advance.

Also I no longer really use twitter or my tumblr and will probably be taking both down – I don’t have time anymore! Moo…

Sorry for the lack of posts everyone. I just haven’t had much to post about at all. I thought about doing some reviews or outfit posts but I don’t actually have a handy full length mirror anywhere in my house with adequate light. So for both actual reviews and outfit posts I need a lot of time to set up, and I just don’t have that sort of time to do it .

It doesn’t help that I spend all my spare time sleeping XD. My favourite hobby!

But anyway I decided that I need to post about something or risk getting into the habit of not posting anything ever, so I looked through my phone and found something.

This is Princess Woofina the Cocker Spaniel. She is a figment of my imagination during one particularly boring lecture.

She went on to be engaged to Lord Schnauzerton during another particularly boring class.

And then they got married. I expect they will live happily ever after with little Schnauzer x Cocker Spaniel puppies…

I’m sorry for the crappy photo qualities but I don’t own a scanner. Hopefully after this series of pictures you won’t think i’m crazy XD.

Anyway it’s been seriously freezing here in Australia and so I decided to go back to taking baths again. Plus I just wanted to relax and unwind before uni because I wasn’t really looking forward to getting back. At some time it was just me and my brother here when I got back so I didn’t feel too guilty about excessive water usage.

When I went back to Taipei they had so many Japanese bath powders on sale but because it was hot there, I didn’t get any. I did remind myself that it was cold back at home, but I just didn’t feel like it at the time… now i’m really regretting it! I did find a nice bath powder in Aussie pharmacies called ‘Radox muscle soothe bath salts’ – turns the water into a nice green colour and smells nice and herbal. I didn’t actually find that it was any more soothing for sore muscles than just a normal hot bath, but it was still nice.

I use facial masks when I bathe because it’s too cold normally in winter. This one is from a Taiwanese brand called ‘Love More’ masks which have the cutest packaging. They’re little envelopes from different parts of the world – this one is apparently from the ‘ice springs’ of the Swiss Alps. It claims to be moisturising, and I did find it to work quite well.

I have nooo idea why this picture is so stretched… anyway I also read in the bath otherwise I get bored lol. Short murder mysteries are the best. I tend to not be able to put a book down when I start reading it, so if I read a full length mystery novel in the bath i’d shrivel up into a prune!

This is one of my best purchases ever in Taipei – Body Whip body lotion! Everyone erroneously thinks that it’s some sort of kinky edible sex toy cream but it is not, it’s just normal moisturiser, but in a can!

It really does come out in a whipped cream texture! It’s so light and fluffy and it smells delicious… I have no idea where I can get more when I run out so I desperately hope I don’t any time soon!

Anyway my last tidbit of news is I put an email subscription link on the sidebar to your right – put your email in and you’ll get an email every time I update. This is for all the people who use Google reader/friend connect instead of RSS readers because WordPress doesn’t allow it on WordPress.com hosted blogs. I’m so sorry. Alternatively if you have a Bloglovin’ account i’ve got a nifty cute button on the sidebar to that too. Come on, you know you want to, the cute bird says so!

And my last last tidbit of news is that David got me a new phone in exchange for the ridiculous amount of goodies I got for him in Taipei, so you’ll find that photo quality has gone up dramatically. Wooo!

SORRY .