Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Frill! Saturday

Saturday morning I woke hellishly early for a Saturday, wiping the sleep from my eyes at about 6:00 am. I had to get a big head start because I was helping Kendall and Savannah get ready, and we had to be at the hotel by 8:00 to get the VIP breakfast. So I wake up so very very early and try and sneak around as much as I can, do make makeup and hair, get dressed and by about 6:35 Kendall is up. So she takes care of what she can and I help her out.
I poke Savannah awake about 7:15 and she gets ready too. Now, with all this time you'd think we would be fine right? Wrong, we didn't manage to leave till 8:09. Oops. But, we got all we needed to done and we looked great! We went to the hotel and to the fourth flour to the VIP Con suite.

Lo, A room full of food and lolitas! They had tea, cereal, pastries and all kinds of stuff. It was really nice. We had a little less than an hour to visit before we the boutique allowed early VIP access so we had time to visit at this point. Everyone was very nice, but soon the time came to close and feverishly shop!
 There were a ton of brands in the boutique because brands had sent in stuff, but also a lot of people had sent stuff in as a consignment deal. There was BTSSB, AP, Alice Doll, Lily of the Valley, Automatic Honey had sent some stuff which sold out almost immediately, My Dearest Victoria, Baroque, Kinki Kitty, and a ton more. Innocent World was being pushed by Frill as a big deal too, having been sent some new releases to be included in the fashion show and to be sold, however they didn't want to put those on sale till Sunday because they needed to save them for the fashion show!
There was just so much stuff in the boutique and that wasn't the end of it! There were two other areas for vending too. There was a Dealers room where brands could sell their *own* stuff instead of relying on Frill to do it, and then the Artist's Alley. The Dealer's Room was really nice and had a lot more style to it, since the brands could do their own set up and design for their stall. There was even a vendor for men's fashion! That was really cool.
It's been really noticeable this year how much more effort has been put towards catering to the men's side of the con. There was a whole men's track of panels and games and what not, as well as a good bit of male attendance. It was really nice to see how everything was expanding to accommodate everyone!

A Wonderful shot of  I Do Declare in the dealers room
 Really, looking back on it, the main draw of the convention was the shopping. There were dressing rooms which offered us something lolitas don't usually get. The chance to see the piece on instead of hoping it'll work out! And there was so much variety too. Since almost all of it was indie designers instead of big name brands their was a lot more innovation and style that wouldn't be seen normally.
Yours truly certainly spent a good bit too much to be proud of Saturday and came out with some fantastic additions to my closet. Really, I only bought two big pieces, everything else was accessories and whatnot, which is what I really need. I am so awful about buying socks and hair bows and all the stuff that gives real variety to outfits. But I'm slowly remedying it!
After all our hectic shopping which we spent a solid 2 1/2 hours on, we headed over toy what is, since last years introduction, probably my favorite spectator sport of all time -- Tea Dueling! You can read and learn about tea dueling through their Facebook Page. Long story short, I am not a very good competitor. I lost first round. ;-; But my sister is a champ, she was runner up and only lost to the champion last year and this year she made it all the way again! Even more than that though, Kendall competed for the first time ever and won! Totally and completely kicked everyone's butts. Not only that but she got interviewed by a TV show about conventions and is going to be on TV!!
Winner!
 After tea dueling we wandered around for a bit longer and then we got lunch up at the con suite. They had a pretty nice service with sandwiches and salad and that kind of stuff. There was also some pretty cupcakes, which was a nice surprise. After alllll that we headed back down and went to a couple panels to pass the time and when the time came headed over to the room where lolita speed friending and petticoat persuasion would be.
Lolita speed friending is basically like speed dating but instead of romantic interest it's talking to people to see if you hit it off or anything. You aren't supposed to talk to anyone you already know, and you only have two minutes for each person so you have to go fast!
That was pretty fun, but afterwards was the petticoat persuasion game! I had never played before but it seemed really fun. The goal is to run around and get other lolitas to give you their petticoats, whoever gets the most wins. And guess who won? This girl! I at first was just going around the panel room but then I started running around outside and asking lolitas for theirs. What's even funnier is that as lolitas gave me their petticoats they started running around and asking for me too! It's like a formed an alliance, haha!

I ended up with FOURTEEN petticoats all in all and felt like a totally fluff monster! The other guy had ten. It was really exciting, since I usually don't win things. I got a little bag with some goodies from the vendors for winning. But I'll be showing you those when I do my full haul post at the end.
When that wrapped up it was almost 5:00 and that was the time for the model call, luckily it was in the same room so I didn't have to rush anywhere.
Saturnight is a whole nother can of fish so I'll be making a separate post talking about it. I think I'll be going about it slightly differently. But that was Saturday! And wow was it fun.
Till next post. XOXO

Thursday, June 6, 2013

Frill! Friday

Hello! It's done, Frill is over and done and now the Thursday after I'm finally writing about it. I'm going to take the con one day at a time to fill up more blog posts so I'm not leaving you guys hanging and also to make it so it isn't just one giant dump of photos and text. First on the agenda:
Friday
Friday was incidentally my last technical day of school though I didn't actually attend because I exempted my exams. Not knowing that when I booked the flight for us, I did a safe time of 5:50 departure, so in the end I had all day to get everything in order for packing and to get myself ready for traveling! I always believe in traveling in style.
I had rollers in my hair all morning long to make my hair curly for the day.
 Kendall, the friend I attended with, came over about 2:00 and we got all of our stuff ready and waited for Savannah to get home so we could get her stuff in. One we got everything packed we headed off to the airport! We chose one that was about one and a half hours away because it was significantly cheaper so we had to get going pretty fast. I didn't get a picture of my travel outfit or Kendall's unfortunately.
Not a whole lot that's interesting before we got to Atlanta haha.
There were two events planned for Friday night: The fashion walk at 7 and the pool party at 10:00. Since we didn't get in until 7:00 we missed the fashion walk. We needed food and whatnot. We went to this cool place called farm burger and it was very good. If you're ever in Decatur you should totally check it out. They even have vegan options!
So we got dinner and then had to go to a store to get me a bathing suit bottom because mine is gone!  ;-; And that didn't leave us a whole lot of time so we went directly to the hotel after that and to the pool. It was super cool seeing all the adorable bathing suits and girls having fun! A few girls even brought mermaid tails to swim around in!
(Photo taken by Robin Wesson)
 It was so fantastical, a perfect lolita pool party. Kendall, my sister and I, as well as a bunch of others, played with an inflatable ball and tossed it around and it was soooooo fun. It was a great ice breaker for getting to know everyone! The pool was even heated! It was really great.
That night they also had pre-con badge claim for VIP attendees. So we popped over and got our badges and our sweet loot that came with the VIP package. (I'll be making a post at the very end to show all the stuff I got including the items from my swag bag)
After that we headed home to try and snag a few hours of sleep before waking up at an ungodly time to get to the hotel the next day for free VIP con suite breakfast and the early boutique opening.