fairy shopping meetup

Dear Fairies,

About a week ago, I planned my first "official" fairy kei meetup. I planned to go back-to-school shopping. Although only one girl, Jazmine, could make it out of the group, but we had a lovely little time ^_^

First off, we went to a thrift store to see what we could find. Jazmine bought quite a few things including a very cute 80s retro sweater in pastel yellow and pink with ribbons on it. I had seen this sweater on the rack first, but I decided to give it to Jazmine since she's new to the fashion and needed something super cute to add to her fairy wardrobe. As for me, I only bought two tops. One is an 80s/90s purple floral blouse with a cute scalloped collar. The other was a handmade shirt made of a sprinkles fabric which I liked a lot and decided to use as a reconstruction project.

Next, we decided to go look around a bit and saw two other resale shops. I didn't find anything I wanted to buy at either place, but Jazmine bought three sets of cute pastel hoop earrings in pink, purple, and blue as well as a bag. Of course, every place we went into people were curious about our style XD

While driving to the thrift store, I saw a frozen yogurt place which looked interesting, so I proposed we stop by and have a bite. It's a local frozen yogurt company called 

Monster Yogurt. 

 

When we walked in, all the walls and the floor were lime green. Also, while the yogurt and flavors were pretty standard, I had never seen so many toppings to put on frozen yogurt before! Not only was there a standard bar of toppings, there was a wall and a half of candies, nuts, and cereals. The picture below is about 2/3 of

 the toppings that were on the walls. On top of that, there was not a whipped cream can but a whipped cream machine.

 I got a lovely strawberry yogurt and topped it with white chocolate chips, strawberries, whipped cream, strawberry and cherry syrup, a heart gummy, and the perfect touch was some really awesome chocolate sort of things that looked like pearls. I brought Prize Popple with us too~

The yogurt here was very good, had an awesome selection of toppings, and the price was perfect! I only wish there was a Monster Yogurt in my area. I got a little photo of Jazmine with Prize and my new Hello Kitty bag.

Our last stop for the day was a little cosplay shop that just opened in a new location called Cosplay N Charm (click for their webshop!). We ended up getting a bit lost before actually finding but we made it!

 

Cosplay N Charm is more than just a cosplay store. Not only do they sell cosplay costumes, but anime merchandise, cute accessories handmade by the owners, and clothing/accessories from Korea and Japan. It was quite a cute little store with a wide variety of things from the fashionable to the anime geek. The quality of the items seemed to vary from brand name to offbrand/unknown. There was a Baby Biscuit lolita bag which Jazmine told me was definitely a real name brand item. 

Although I'm mainly fairy kei, I sometimes dabble in classic lolita, so I looked through some of their lolita style clothing and found a cute, good quality offbrand blouse from Korea to go with a lolita skirt I'm going to get soon. I went to the dressing room to try it on. The dressing room was super cute I had to take a picture. I just loved the drapes and mirror.

 The blouse was lovely, so I decided to buy it along with another sale item for only $8: green colored contact lenses!The shop sells Magic Color contact lenses. This was the first time I have bought colored contact lenses. While we were there, one of the owners was working on sewing a little panda plushie. She said that she will soon make it into a vampire panda complete with bat wings to sell at an upcoming anime con.

Although I didn't buy a whole lot of items, I had a lot of fun with Jazmine, was lucky to find such good deals on stuff, and we discovered a couple of cool places.

So, onto what I actually bought! At the thrift store, I bought two shirts. The first is a cute retro 80s/90s blouse with cute little machine embroidery flowers and butterflies on the collar for only $1. The collar is also slightly scalloped on the edges. The second is a handmade shirt made of a cool sprinkles fabric for about $1.50, which I thought would be good to reconstruct.

At Cosplay and Charm I bought green Magic Color contact lenses on sale for $8

 

I also got a Korean offbrand white long-sleeved lolita style blouse with clear sparkly buttons on sale for $10

This is great quality for offbrand as the fabric is nice, there is careful detail including darts down the back and front for a good fit. I just adore it!

 

AND a bonus My NeighborTotoro button! Cosplay N Charm was having a promotion where they were giving free anime buttons to customers. This was definitely a lovely cherry-on-top. The button is a little bigger than an inch with a good quality plastic backing. Ideally, I'd like to start accumulating more Studio Ghibli merchandise since they are the pinnacle of anime.

 What I Wore

Silver Sequin Bow: Claire’s ~ $1

Bow Clip: <$1

Rhinestone Studded Glasses: Claire’s ~$3

Han Solo Shirt: Urban Outfitters (on sale)

Petticoat: Hot Topic (full price)

Black w/ Silver Polka Dot Tights: Target (full price)

Socks: Target (full price)

Shoes w/ Beads added by me: Keds (gift)

Bracelet: made by me

Popples Button: bought on EBay (gift)

~Sparkling Ga Eul

Faith, Trust and Fairy Kei Dust!

less expensive fairy kei clothing?

his-bee asked:Do you have any links for a starter out fairy to places that sell cheaper fairy kei clothing? Thanks ^^ 

Dear Fairy,

This is a tricky one, I must say. Of course a lot of brand things from Japan are going to cost a fortune, especially with shipping involved. So, a few other main options are retail shopping, independent sellers, secondhand shops, or thrifting. If you know anything about shopping for lolita, it’s basically the same for fairy kei, except better because you can’t exactly find lolita dresses at a retail or thrift store.

I highly recommend thrift shopping at your local thrift or vintage stores. Look for good condition clothing/accessories that emulate an 80s/90s sweet style, young girls’ clothing, pastel clothing. Even going to mainstream clothing stores now is a good venture with 80s/90s styles coming back into fashion or looking in the young girls’ sections is good too.

When it comes to shopping at retail stores such as Hot Topic, Forever 21, or Old Navy, I always find it useful to look in almost every store in the mall when the big sales are going on (50% off or more). Again, look for those items that emulate a nostalgic and sweet look reminiscent of the 80s/90s. The most unlikely place I found one of my favorite shirts to wear was American Eagle! I also suggest buying a size larger than you might normally wear since it will give a less fitted look. Remember, when you get a gift card from someone for a retail store, try looking around that store to find any items to wear in fairy kei when you go shopping.

Though if you are looking for online independent seller sources, Ebay, Etsy , and Storenvy have many things for sale which are good for fairy kei if you do some searching. Etsy has lots of independent sellers who make very nice fairy kei style accessories and clothing of varying prices. Also, Etsy is another good source for cheap vintage clothing. You can easily find lots of cool 80s/90s stuff for cheap. Storenvy is a bunch of independent sellers similar to Etsy, but they usually sell things that are imported from other places or are secondhand as opposed to handmade items. Like Etsy, Storenvy is also varying in prices. 

REMEMBER that if you're looking for a specific price range of items in places like Ebay, Etsy, or Storenvy, always adjust the price range search option on the left side of the screen! 

Retro Magic Store is a cool store that sells retro graphic tees with My Little Pony, Popples, anime, Disney, etc. for one good price across the store. 

I highly recommend looking at the LiveJournal and Facebook community sales as well where people will sell their secondhand or brand new J-fashion items at various prices.

Below are some links where you can find good priced secondhand fairy kei/lolita pieces and a few general shop lists.

http://popkei.livejournal.com/ (Fairy Kei LiveJournal Comm Group)

http://80s-cuties.livejournal.com/ (Fairy Kei LiveJournal Comm Group)

Fairy Kei Sales (Facebook Group)

Fairy Kei Sales N’ Swap (Fairy Kei Facebook Group)

http://fairy-tips.tumblr.com/shops (General Fairy Kei Shop List)

Where to Find Lolita Sales on Facebook (Lolita Facebook Group List)

http://egl-comm-sales.livejournal.com/ (Lolita LiveJournal Secondhand Sales Comm Group)


Etsy (Independent Designers/Sellers/ Secondhand/ Vintage)
Storenvy (Independent Sellers/Secondhand/ Vintage)

Closet Child (Japanese Brand Secondhand)
Lacemarket (Secondhand Sales and Auctions)


Lacemarket is a recent development that has almost become an extension of the EGL Comm Sales on LiveJournal. It is basically the "Ebay" of lolita with both immediate sales and auctions. I also recommend looking here since there are new items updated every day by users and I've seen a few fairy kei worthy pieces on here as well. The option to search by brand can be helpful as well~

Another option that is very helpful are online Japanese secondhand shops such as Closet Child. Closet Child has mainly gothic and lolita brand pieces, but many pieces that go through there can be used in fairy kei. I got my first Nile Perch dress from there. Also, be sure to check their "New Accessory" category for relatively good-priced kawaii accessories~

I hope this helps a bit and that it isn’t just a rehash of what you already know haha ^_^

 Later on I hope to keep updating posts with my personal fairy kei finds and recommendations, so keep an eye out.

~Sparkling Ga Eul

Faith, Trust and Fairy Kei Dust!

laduree shirts and tea

Dear Fairies,

I got a lovely bunch of gifts from my mother when she went to France. Laduree is a famous sweets shop in France that specializes in macaron and Uniqlo had a line of collaboration shirts with Laduree. I got three shirts from Uniqlo and a Marie Antoinette tea from Laduree. The Uniqlo shopping bag even has a bunch of macaron on it.

Laduree unfortunately has locations in only one city in certain countries, so the only one in the US is in New York City. I hope to go check it out next time I'm in the big city though.

The tea is wonderful and I love the shirts. Uniqlo definitely has some of the best quality clothing.

~Sparkling Ga Eul

Faith, Trust and Fairy Kei Dust!