Spring Picnic Meetup!

Hello everyone!
This weekend I attended the local lolita group's spring picnic meet up, hosted by my friend Kendall. (I helped!)
It was a really nice meet up and for Kendall and I started at 8:00 the night before. We made up all the sandwiches and cupcakes and whatnot, though Kendall did way more than I did. She even made the bread for the sandwiches! The menu was Vanilla cupcakes with strawberry buttercream icing, turkey and cheese sandwiches, cucumber sandwiches, tea, lemonade, and croissants.
The next morning we got up about 7:30 to get ready, put together and what not. Since Kendall is new to lolita she doesn't have any clothes of her own yet so I put together outfits for both of us as well as my sister, Savannah, who attends the meetups as well.
Since it was a picnic I wanted all of our outfits to be springy.

For Kendall I did a more classical outfit since she likes that style and did it with a kind of mori twist to it; layering, ruffles, pearls, brows and natural colors. I was ver pleased with how the outfit turned out.
Boater hat: Taobao
Capelet: Vintage
Top: Offbrand
Skirt: Handmade from egl sales comm
Boats: Offbrand
Jewellry: All offbrand

Savannah is a very no fuss kind of person so I went with a simple coord. I went with my straw bergere hat for her because it shaded the face and was very much springy but since it was a bit more reserved and old fashioned, unlike boaters hats which match just about any age, I picked my red bustleback dress. I also liked the dress because the bright red reminded me of gingham tableclothes. The shoes are my riding boots and I chose them because they're very comfortable and good for the outdoors.

JSK: BTSSB

Blouse: Anna House

Socks: Offrband

Shoes: Offbrand

Hat: Vintage

When I was planning my outfit I knew one thing for certain, I was wearing that mini straw hat. I bought it last year at Frill and though I really like country lolita, I just have a hard time facilitating it. Never the less, I was determined! I took my other country-ish item, my strawberry socks (which were the first pair of lolita socks I ever bought like....4 years ago, and I barely wear them. ;-;), and made an outfit around them. The pink shoes and dress were the basics because they were the majority color, and I used that blouse to tie in the red in the strawberries in the socks. I wish I had more red to tie into the outfit though. :c
Blouse: Offbrand
JSK: AP
Underskirt: Candy Violet
Socks: Secret Shop
Shoes: Golden Pony
Mini hat: Indie brand of unknown origin

Once we were ready, we packed up our apocalyptically well stocked load into my car and headed off to the park to set up! We got there a good 45-50 minutes early and started laying out our food, and place settings. The weather was lovely that day too; We were under the shade, and there was a breeze. Kendall had bought the most perfect place setting for the picnic too! Since we had picnic tables available we set everything out.

The girls started filing in once the time for it to start rolled around. The first one to get there was a new girl named Caroline! We just had a huge influx of lolitas this past month or two, like 9 people. That doesn't sound like much but when there was about 8 people beforehand its a big jump!

Caroline was an absolute sweet heart. She was so quiet and really just a nice person. It was great to meet her! We kept having to remind her she could go and get food and things. She was nervous about getting up!

Then Erin showed up, she was new too! She made her own skirt and was just getting into lolita. She looked super cute.

Then Angel showed up, and she was super adorable. Angel likes to keep herself a little more private so her face is covered in the pictures. Either way she was presh to death.
We all ate our food and then we took pictures, which I've used so far for everyone's pictures but we also took doubles to match everyone's styles up!

The two classic ladies!

Country Bumpkins. >u<

After the gratuitous pictures we all got together for a game of croquet! I own a really lovely cherry wood set and Kendall asked me to bring it along for the meet up. Kendall won last time and she won again this time! Two time champ!! I was doing really well till the end, and then I fell behind. ;_;

Serious business.

It was such a lovely day and a lovely park. You can see the fields behind us.

Then things got intense...

Shockwave!

Face of a Killer. HA!

 Hadoken!

Oops! It's ok guys, there's enough petticoats to go around, I swear!!
Till next time guys! <3

Procrastination, Practicality, or Just Plain Poor {Lolita 52 Challenge}

Source

Hello Hello!! Before I get into today's prompt I just want to point out the updated layout for Monochrome Sparkle!I have moved my about me to its own page after basically destroying it for the sake of reducing side scrolling so go check that out! Learn all about my crazy life.
Anyway, today's prompt is "Why don't I wear lolita more often?", which is as good a question as any. Unfortunately there's not any big important reason. The fact of the matter is I just don't have a big enough closet to wear it any more than I do and even beyond that I just don't have the money to improve and maintain a larger closet for the most part.
I take close care of my pieces either hand washing or dry cleaning them, the latter of which is fairly expensive and while my parents DO help me quite frequently with the fees, almost always in fact, there is pacing to consider. I don't want to bleed my parents dry!
I have about seven jumperskirts and two skirts. That's it. And while I coordinate them very well and with a lot of different items there's not enough to really wear more often than I do, which is fairly often anyway! I dress four times a week at least, so it's not like I'm skipping out most of the time.
On top of that, I have to worry about wearing out my dresses. At which point I should tell the sad and short story of my first brand dress:
I once bought my first jumperskirt from San Francisco's BTSSB store and I loved that dress. Incidentally, it was my only jumperskirt for more than a year and I wore probably once a week! And I wore it into the *ground* by the time I retired it, it was covered in tiny stains, the lace was yellowed, and there were tiny rips along the seams.
The moral of that story is, if you wear a dress too often you basically slowly destroy it, and in an effort to avoid that myself with my current closet I have to take care to not wear my dresses to often.
So in essence, the reason I don't wear lolita more often is I'm not to the point where my closet can facilitate more than what I currently wear.
Till next time!

Why I wear Lolita? {Lolita 52 challenge}

It's just like the title says this time around, why do I wear lolita? I haven't done one of these in a while because I haven't posted in a while.  But that's the prompt, and boy what a loaded question. I've actually thought about this a lot ever since I read a questionnaire a couple years ago about lolita. As soon as I read it I really knew the answer-- so, what is the answer? This answer is a few parts.

Lolita is part of who I am. It represents part of me.

I started lolita at a very young age, around 14, back when I didn't really have an identity for myself. The existential question "Who am I" would have hit deep if I had considered it in between contrived stanzas of poetry and bad deviant art uploads. So, when I found lolita, along with some other things, I felt connected and grew around it and into it. Not so much artificially selecting myself for lolita traits but instead just growing in knowledge and experience relevant to the culture around lolita. Everyone grows up with cultural influences that shape them, people who participate in band, high academics, plantation society. Mine happened to be lolita.

I love the way it looks.

What more can I say? I don't know why, it's just part of me. I adore the look. The supreme girliness and unabashed self appreciation that goes into wearing lolita. I also like the fact that its technically an alt fashion and is really weird and out there.

The community is relatable and connecting.

While the lolita community has a lot of draw backs to it, the drama, the cattiness, it has a good side too. It brings together people from many walks of life and allows me to meet new people. And beyond that I feel like I belong. I fit in somewhere. It's hard to say that because everyone is encouraged to strike out on their own but honestly, people need support, people to relate to. That's what the lolita community does for me. I can ask advice, and talk to people, have things in common with people everywhere from Scandinavia to Japan.

So basically, lolita is just right to me. I didn't think about why when I did it, and now I only think why because I'm asked. It's ineffable and it's my fashion.

Oh geez guys, I AM BEYOND TARDY!

Ahhhhhh, I haven't written in like ever. ;-; I've been really caught up with trying to do ok in school (This princess is one nasty procrastinator) as well as just generally been busy with things. Last weekend I went to my first concert which was a big deal, and I've entered the running for senior class vice president. I try and keep up with my friends and all. Honestly, I haven't even spent enough time on myself! It's a travesty. BUT! But, but, but, next month is May, and that means A. last month of school before summer vacation B. THE MONTH OF MY BIRTHDAY C. the last month before this year's Frill Convention.
For those of you who don't know what Frill is (Or missed my gratuitously long picture post on it) Frill is the first American all lolita convention. Last year was the first one and this year is MUCH MUCH bigger. They've scaled it up to an actual hotel and have a huge amount of things planned compared to last year. I'm very excited to see how it'll grow as I've been following it since day one as best as I could.
This year Frill is June first and second, which means holy frick it is really really close. Heehooheehoo, deep breaths. I'll make a post later about my outfit plans for Frill if you are interested, this post is just a catch up.
Besides Frill, like I mentioned, is my birthday! I'll be 17 (ah, I'm so young) on May 7th. >u< I don't know what I'm doing for it this year; I can't do much because of what I'm planning next year. My mother and I talked about it before my LAST birthday and agreed that I could have a Masquerade ball for my 18th birthday so I'm trying to have really low key birthdays until then so I can spend more money on it! Haha.
I'm also thinking of making my Vice president campaign very....me. So up the glitter, pastels, and cute characters. I figure if I try and be very formal and political about it it wouldn't be an accurate representation of me. But who knows, things may change!
Anyway, this post was just to remind you all I am not, in fact, dead. I'll try to get better about posting. ;_; Boo.
To make this slightly more interesting, here's a couple outfits of mine from the past month or so!

Outfit Rundown:

Skirt- Made by a seamstress I can't remember the name of. :x

Shirt- Sweet loot from my concert attendance
Belt- Offbrand

(Not pictured: shoes and tights- off brand)

Cinnamoroll inspired outfit!

Jumperskirt- Glitter Trump from AP

Blouse- Antonio Milani 

Shoes- Golden Ponies

Tights- offbrand

Hair stuff: assorted lolita etsies

Apron- special commission

Anyway, Talk to you again soon guys!