Three awesome new additions to my jewelry box:
1. The leaves of Lorien
2. Arwen’s evenstar necklace
3. Gandolf’s brooch

These are so fun! I can see the brooches as a quirky touch to my everyday twee outfits on colorful cardigan sweaters. Arwen’s delicate necklace would pair well with soft chiffon maxi dresses with low necklines or even a sheer Edwardian blouse with long, billowy sleeves.

This Slytherin locket was originally what I was searching for when I discovered the LOTR costume jewelry—keyword spamming is not such a terrible thing after all. Since forever ago, I’ve been wanting a long antique gold necklace with a gigantic pendant to top my simple sundresses with. And because everyday is a summer day on Guam, I wear A LOT of sundresses. Which is to say, I’d wear the necklace a lot. So I wanted it to be special and kind of esoteric and a Slytherin locket seemed like the best bet. Problem is, it’s nowhere to be found! Well, at least not the version pictured above. I’ve searched the ends of the internet—every crevice in eBay, etsy and google—and the only thing that comes close is this locket from The Noble Collection:

Bummer it’s in metal :/ I have to admit how much I love that they included Regulus Black’s letter to Voldemort though. Even if it does seem a little gimmicky.

Since we’re on horcruxes though, how’s this for Marvolo Gaunt’s ring?

Except I imagine it to be encased in tarnished gold. I like how a gem, something that’s normally meant to be elegant and polished, can also be as raw and imperfect as this one.

On a side note, my big brother is a bona fide Harry Potter haterader. I can already hear him snickering under his breath all the way from Gainesville at the idea of a post even remotely relating to HP. So as a preemptive move against his backhanded remarks, I just wanna say—go do some calculus, or physics, or how about reverse engineering YOUR SKINNY BUTT, smarty pants!

Ahem, now where were we? Right, so while I’m still on the hunt for a horcrux (get it? get it? ha ha. I can be so lame), these *hunches forward and taps fingers together in an all-conspiring gesture* preciouses will suit me just dandy.

mustard cardigan – vintage
Leaves of Lorien brooch – eBay
ascot top – Zara
polka dot skirt – thrifted (no label)
mary janes – Nine West

I kept my outfit neutral, wanting the make-up to emphasize all the color. But it wasn’t applied dramatically enough to show through the camera and instead ended up looking like I was crying all night. Oh well.

I like the way red and green look together; they are complementary. But for some people, it looks too much like Christmas. What do you think—hit or miss?

I made this basic striped shift dress for me, but ended up liking the fit so much that it’s now a new addition to the shop.

I ordered these shoes for two reasons: 1. because Keds never go out of style, and 2. to enter the Chictopia/Keds contest. But they arrived one day shy of deadline. Damn it.

I bent down and yelled Hello! into one of those hollow poles behind me. But it didn’t say anything back.

military jacket – Ralph Lauren (borrowed from my boyfriend’s closet)
silver rings – gifts from Loraine
studded bangle – self-made
striped mini – Neneee (self-made)
shoes – Keds

Today I’ll show you how to make one of my favorite staple foods. Fresh lumpia comes in different varieties. There’s the minty Thai version, the light Filipino version, but my absolute favorite is the delicious Vietnamese version. I like to have this right after a good run because it’s heavy in refined carbs, but also has some lean protein and healthy fats thrown in for good measure. It’s just what your body needs to replenish those glycogen stores.

INGREDIENTS
(makes 4 servings)

for lumpia:
8 large dry rice papers (or 16 small ones)
2 cups rice noodles (boiled and strained)
4 pieces romaine lettuce
1 cup bean sprouts
2 pork chops (vegetarians can substitute with tofu [I'm looking at you, TOOTS!])
12 pieces cocktail shrimp
1 tsp sesame oil
1/2 cup hot water

for dipping sauce:
hoisin
peanut butter
club soda

To prepare the ingredients first rinse your veggies. Cook rice noodles to the recommended time on its package and strain. Slice and salt pork to taste and steam; trim the fat. Then butterfly your shrimp all the way in half.

Add hot water and sesame oil in a deep-ish plate. Dip rice paper for about 5 seconds on each side making sure all ends are covered in the mixture; try not to soak the wrapper for too long ’cause it’ll soften as you add the filling. Lay it out on a flat surface like a cutting board or in this case, a sushi roller. *Note: I’m using 2 small overlapping pieces of rice paper. You can also use 1 large piece instead—it’s actually easier—but our grocery store was sold out.

Now, about 2 inches from the end of your wrapper, layer your lettuce, rice noodles, bean sprouts, pork, and more rice noodles in that order. Try not to overload on ingredients because it might make the wrapping part a toughie. Fold the 2 inch excess wrapper tautly over ingredients, then do the same for each side. Roll once.

Then lay 2-3 pieces of shrimp orange side up just above the wrapped portion and roll ’til the end. Done. You can repeat the same process for as many pieces of lumpia you like.

For the sauce, I didn’t make any precise measurements, but instead mixed just about equal parts hoisin and peanut butter (maybe a little more peanut butter, I love peanut butter!). With club soda, I diluted the mixture until it reached the consistency of a creamy salad dressing like Ranch. I’m pretty sure restaurants use 7-up, but didn’t want to add any unnecessary sugar to an already sweet mixture.

Serve immediately and enjoy ^_^ om nom nom!

How cool is it to find the ultimate present for your mom in the toy department? She can spend months on end assembling her 10,000 count jigsaw puzzle, admire its completion for five minutes, then take it all apart and toss every piece back in their box like it isn’t anything. WTH. If you want to know where I inherit my OCD tendencies from… Thanks, Mom!

One time, Francis and I worked on a jigsaw puzzle together. This was a very long time ago—when our metabolism was more forgiving and we were still easily upset by things beyond our control. When he would wait for me to clock out at the corner of the bar, meanwhile slipping little haiku’s written on the back of beer labels or prose on paper towels into my jacket pocket whenever I served him his next round. Still very restless after hours, I’d hijack borrow a bottle of Black Label from inventory and a liter of Coke and with that, we’d plop down on my back yard and talk about absolutely nothing.

What I remember him saying was, “Did you know Courtney Love used to be a stripper on Guam?” and I said, “Ah, you read Spin, too?” And there was something familiar in somebody whom I didn’t have much in common with. Like feeling at home in a foreign country; that’s how I wanted to get people, how I wanted to be gotten. Even if we both felt a little smug in our knowledge of the most random useless information. Blame it on adolescent arrogance if you will.

Another time brought us well into sunrise. We took a drive to 7-11 in my beat down piece-of-crap ‘92 Jeep Grand Cherokee for the largest cup of butter toffee coffee ’cause it was too late (or technically, early) to fall asleep and the chemical that tells your brain to wake up when sunlight dilates your pupils had already kicked in. We found ourselves crashed out on my bed by afternoon only to wake up still dressed in the previous night’s attire with bloody bad breath and boogers in our eyes and no weird feelings about sleeping together without ever actually, you know, sleeping together.

“Sorry I left without saying bye. You were still asleep and I needed to take a dump. I’ve been thinking about you all day though; I even thought about you in the crapper,” he said. A regular Casanova.

The things I come away with from those days—a dozen crinkled Bounty sheets, a magazine subscription circa 2004, a completed jigsaw puzzle—sentimental reminders of a time during courtship and carelessness. At first glance they don’t amount to much, but there’s something to be said about that. Something The Sunday Best said well, best when he quoted so-and-so (I forget who) in defense of fashion, “‘You can’t have depth without a surface.’”

straw boater hat – eBay
pink jabot top – reconstructed Kamiseta
denim shortalls – thrifted Calvin Klein
bag – Jill Stuart
mint sandals – Ecote

braided headband – eBay
charcoal knit cardigan – Forever 21
jabot blouse – Zara
black velvet bow – diy
rock bracelet – gift from Michelle
brown leather belt – Polo
kelly green shorts – gift from Lydia
lace oxfords – cool, casual by Slow and Steady Wins the Race

Lydia, my internet pal over at Style is Style sent these shaweet shorts for a clothes swap we did last month. After going through her box of goodies, I knew it was the first of the bunch that I wanted to wear. But as with most vintage pieces, it needed a couple of modern alterations before making its debut—taking in at the waist with some pleats and permanent cuffs at the hem.

Fit is so crucial to me. You can have a great fit in the grossest fabric and still look fantastic, but hardly ever vice versa. The truth is, I’ve been living in my jammies. mostly holed up sewing custom orders for the past month—with intermittent snack breaks over Breaking Bad reruns so as not to go completely bonkers. Sometimes I’m so preoccupied trying to dress other girls up nice and spiffy; it hardly affords any opportunities to dress myself up.

But over the weekend I read The Road by Cormac McCarthy and it kinda broke my heart and left me with an increasing need to ditch home and appreciate the outside world a little more. Well, that, and also we were down to our last slice of Roman Meal and last cup of Egg Beaters. And like the man and the boy, I was forced out of hibernation to make a quick food run.

So thankies Lydia for allowing me to do it in KELLY GREEN SHORTS! For sure, you’ll be seeing some of her other awesome picks in future style diary entries. But for now, look how cute she is in the cupcake skirt I made as a part of her care package:

I feel the same way about interior decor as I do about web design. That is, I’d rather strip it down to only the most essential. No flash (or flashy stuff) and if it doesn’t have some sort of utilitarian or sentimental value, then there’s no need keep it lying around.

This has something to do with an impressionable freshman year in high school and the first time I ever watched Fight Club. I remember entering my bedroom with a twenty gallon Rubbermaid bin for squeezing all useless crap into—all the Spawn collector’s action figures perched on top of my computer desk, all the fuzzy stuffed animals perfectly arranged on my perfect little twin-sized bed (save for a teddy bear from my nephew and gorilla from my big brother), all the hand-carved geometric scented candles that I never actually lit because its fancy form would melt into gunk. The more stuff you have, the more stuff you have to maintain, the more stuff you have to lose. It was a relief to stuff that burden into a giant plastic container and send it off to the goodwill.

But I mean, that’s not to say the practical stuff can’t also be awesome. Suramics offers these tiny tea bag rests in her etsy shop. But they also make nifty soap dishes—just the right size for those leftover bars of soap that are enough to build up a decent lather for your hands, but not on your entire body. I always feel guilty about letting those dry up in the shower rack and go to waste.

The dishes feature little hand drawn animals on them. Here’s one with a fox in our master bathroom:

And a bulldog for our guest bathroom:

Naturally, my favorites have to be the canids I’m considering this cute Dashchund for our kitchen, but hoping she’ll add more to her collection in the future. Maybe a Blue Dane or Chocolate Lab, or even a Jack Russel Terrier—I love their little eye patches! Especially when they extend to only one ear, it’s like a beautiful fault.

A while back one of my customers, Molly, asked if I’d be able to make a custom moon unitard for her show. It’s pretty safe to assume that anyone who has the strength of character to sport a unitard in front of hundereds of strangers is awesome (see: David Bowie, Freddie Mercury, that cute girl in the American Apparel ads). Molly is no exception; she is also very sweet. But what I really wanted to share with you guys is how talented she is. Check out some of her amazing tunes here. My faves include The Pillars of Modern Convention and Drugged Inter-invention.

If you noticed the album cover for Interjection from the Sad Violins, there’s a miniature violin resting on the palm of a hand. Do you remember that conversation about tipping with Mr. Pink in Reservoir Dogs? How he rubs his pointer and thumb together and says, “You know what this is? It’s the world’s smallest violin playing a tune for the waitresses.” You guyzzz, that is totally the violin he was playing!

You can download Poppet’s first release here for free. It’s an EP with songs about birds.

Molly’s adorable sketch complete with little notes and a smiley made it super easy for me to figure out how she wanted it to look:

Molly performing in said show (and said unitard):

This weekend I celebrated my birthday with some of my favorite people, wahoo! Friday morning at 4a.m., we kicked it off with a refreshing climb up Mt. Lamlam. Guam has a predominantly Roman Catholic population. Every year, for the past idk-how-many years, people gather on Good Friday to the top as a form of penance. Some also do it for the sake of tradition. Others still, do it just for funzies. You’d see everyone from Dads carrying their infants, to emo tattooed teenagers, to old people who could hardly walk let alone climb, but because of their determination they survive the trip anyway.

It was about a 2 hour hike to the peak and back and we wanted to catch the sunrise from above. Not too many obstacles, but the real challenge lay in trying not to fall flat on your butt with every step. It was so terribly slippery from the overnight dew buildup and scattered showers. I didn’t mind the mud though—you just can’t go hiking without getting your feet dirty! Plus Gerlie says it’s particularly good for building up our antibodies.

Afterward, we had an impromptu little picnic at Ritidian beach. We packed sandwiches, cheap beer, chocolate milk, eggs and rice—of course, because all my friends are Filipino, hahaha—and picked up lots of finger snacks at a local mom and pop store. Which reminds me btw, Southerners sure can make a mean empanada! I basically squared out an entire 2 hour workout by scarfing down that crispy, creamy, greasy, orange goodness in just under 2 minutes… Jesus. A lot of sun and a little fooling around later, it was time to head home and crash the heck out.

Wheee:

They are special:

A good portion of the next day was spent cooking—one of my favorite things to do aside from making stuff and talking about feelings. (Please note: there was no hint of sarcasm as I typed that last sentence.) Times have changed, but growing up in a partly Chamorro household left little room for directly expressed affection. Not once have I ever heard my grandparents say I love you to each other. Nor have I ever seen any of my aunties and uncles holding hands. However, one way we do show our affection is by cooking. The first questions I’m asked when I enter a relative’s house is always: 1.) “Where’s your mom?” and 2.) “Did you you eat?” And I know it might sound weird, but that’s on a par with saying “I missed you,” and “I care.” But I digress. Saturday night we feasted, toasted, and got kicks off the adorable Pancakes (~Andre) doing “beautiful eyes”:

Sunday was recovery day from three too many kampais and inuman nas. Gone are the days when I would drink to get wasted, a little buzz usually does the trick. But it’s hard to pace yourself when green apple vodka and club soda (with 2 lemon wedges, not 1) tastes so sprite! Also try: orange vodka and mango juice, yum

Birthday prezzies:

I was surprised and equally grateful for everything (after you’re legal, you kinda stop expecting any gifts on your birthday). They are all so wonderfully thoughtful! A coffee table set from my mom (I think I can attribute half of my furniture to her xD), book and awesome bookmark from Gabby and Red (now I will think of Gabby every night before bed), and Bath and Body Works goodies (Rio remembered how much I love vanilla-scented anything). The geek in Francis gave me a neat Sony wifi radio thingamajiggy for streaming music into my sewing room (’cause my poor macbook speakers are blown) and my absolute favorite, a new Lee Oskar harmonica complete-with-its-own-holder-just-like-Bob-Dylan’s-oh-em-gee! I won’t go into detail about other parts of his letter because it was enough to make me blush, but it did end with, Now you’re another step closer to becoming a sexy folk singer. Gosh you guys, I feel so very loved.

Well, that’s all from my eventful weekend. It was indeed a good Friday, and delicious Saturday, and lazy Sunday, but now it’s time for me to shack up like a mad scientist and get some work done!

Overdone make-up has always been something I’ve tried to avoid. In between my decidedly experimental outfits and often wackadoodle hairstyles, a made-up face might be pushing it. But when Aileen—the manager for MAC and Bobbi Brown DFS—called to ask if I can model for their MAC colourview event, I thought, why not? It might be a fun experience. And so it was.

The workshop took place over the course of 3 days. Mieko—the trainer for MAC Guam, Saipan, and Hawaii—flew in from Japan specifically to teach these courses. In it, she basically covered step by step procedures on how to accomplish a natural-looking, flawless finish.

Before:

Interesting Tips I’ve Learned

1.) Glowing, silky skin (as opposed to the dry, matte look) is considered more on trend

2.) It’s important to use quality brushes made of natural hairs. Using your fingers or sponge will create a caked appearance. The right brushes allow you to achieve an even blend and control the amount of product on your face. At around $70 a set, their brushes may seem like much, but it’s a mild investment considering how long they will last provided that you take care of them (Mieko says she’s used hers for over 10 years).

3.) Secret weapon for longer looking lashes: brow set gel. It acts as a primer for curling and mascara. Even the most fine baby lashes (e.g. mine) will look full and long and stay curled!

4.) Try to stay within the eye socket area when applying shadows. To find out where that is, you can feel a dip if you press along your lids. Eyes closed, of course

5.) For shadows and liners, instead of sticking to one color, complementary colors yield nicer results (i.e. orange & blue, purple & green, etc.)

6.) Unless you’re going for the dramatic stage make-up look, avoid highlighting the brow bone. Otherwise it might end up looking too classic.

7.) For eyebrows, you wanna choose 1 or 2 shades lighter than your actual brow color. Brows done too dark will make you look like a meanie.

8.) Never ever skip moisturizing. I was so guilty of doing this. With Guam’s heat and humidity, I figured moisturizing would just give me fried chicken face. Boy was I wrong! I learned that if your brain recognizes that your face is too dry, it sends a signal to double up on oil secretion. When these oils are released, your pores get bigger and your chances of breaking out increase.

There were all sorts of other neat tricks and techniques throughout the entire workshop, but those were the most memorable to me.

After:

Mieko, who is just as kind as she is beautiful, was my designated make-up artist miracle worker.

McCriss was Clarissa’s make-up artist. She and two ladies in the front row kept making funny asides. It was hard to refrain from laughing during the whole demonstration. During her introduction, she says, “Hi everyone, I’m McCriss. Im the shy one.” That made us all lol.

Aileen, my boyfriend’s sis, was responsible for putting together the entire event. (Hi, Aileen! *waves*)

So now you know why I’ve been overdoing the black outfit posts these past couple of days. Hope this one was a little helpful to you all. I’m looking forward to going back to expressing my love of colors, be it in clothes or—now with new found knowledge—in make-up.

Obligatory wardrobe remix shot:

racerback tank – Forever 21
tiered lace top – gift from Reena (from Thailand)
Dr. Treves necklace & studded bangle – handmade by me
black rose ring – gift from Julia
beaded Navajo bracelet – Gallop USA
woven friendship bracelets – thrifted deadstock (Second Chance)
zipper skinnies – Papaya
fringe sandals – Sam Edelman

Day two of my black love affair. I reconstructed this romper from a secondhand dress. I’m really happy with how the overall silhouette turned out, but it’s just a little too tight for me around the pant openings. So it’ll probably end up in the shop.

Salvaging old materials is good for the conscience and creativity. It forces me to be more innovative when I have only so little to work with. The down side is if I know I won’t be able to recreate the same piece, I’m more reluctant to let it go.

romper – Neneee
braided sash belt – thrifted
necklace – gift from Francis
studded bangle – handmade by me
onyx ring – heirloom from Mom
platforms – Pierre Hardy for Gap