Seasonal lolita: Summer

There exist many general advices how to get through summer with less hassle, like - use sunscreen, stay hydrated, keep in shade - and so on for consideration. On the other hand, the summer heat is different story for the many layers and meters upon meters of cloth and lace lolitas dress in.

9 Handy tips specific for lolitas:

• Use parasol. Avoid the lacey kind on the picture, they barely provide any shade and don't prevent sunborn. The best are umbrella/parasols with some declared SPF. Mine has a SPF 50 and is also waterproof, which makes it as universal as it can get!

•  Get a straw hat. You can buy a simple hat in local store and adorn it with a ribbon, lace, or other accessories, buy a hat from TaoBao like I did, or even get a brand hat!

• Keep your hair up in an updo. Thats obviously easier for classic lolitas but sweet lolitas can do two buns to look extra adorable!

• Get a chiffon short sleeve blouse, even better if it is without peter pan collar. Wear a cutsew instead of a blouse, or simply put a light bolero over a JSK without blouse altogether (gasp!)

• Prefer light chiffon dresses or skirts. Loose babydoll or highwaist cut is a plus.

• Wear lace adorned ankle socks instead of OTKs or tights, or just get cute sock toppers instead to use on any ankle socks!

• Skip on the bulky accessories. A pearl bracelet and a small bow comb will do.

• Get cute sandals instead of closed-toe shoes.

• Buy a fan. Especially cute for classic lolitas!

Example coordinates around main pieces from my wardrobe, created in Polyvore

 

Bunny House petticoat

Once upon a time in every lolita's life comes the decision to expand on petticoat collection, be it due to new dress cut or petticoats already owned deflated beyond any hope. My time came as well and after searching around, I learned that 

• brand petticoats are not worth the price
• Bodyline's petticoats are short and flat
• Malco Modes may be fine for A-line cut, but cost $60+ 

Eventually, I found Bunny House. A small vietnamese indie brand of cute clothing which had a sale on petticoats currently going on! They make them to customers measurements, including petticoat lenght and color! I couldn't resist such offer and ended up ordering pink middle poof petticoat. The communication with the shop was great and everything went as smoothly as possible! I wondered if the petticoat will stand up to the stock photos. Here it comes!

The poof is incredible. The material is somewhat stiff on touch but does not itches. Theres no raw edges left untended and the elastic is soft so it wont cut into my waist. Its honestly much more poofy than I imagined! What will I even do with this much poof?

The petticoat looks quite fine with Angelic Pretty's Wonder Party skirt on top, however I feel like a jellyfish about to float away.

It seems ideal for heavier pieces like this Baby the Stars Shine Bright's Floral Lace Ruffle JSK.

On the other note.. its definetly not something to put under babydoll cut dress like Angelic Pretty's Dreamy Horoscope! This is way too much poof. Worst decidion of the day. 

Bunny House is definetly my new favorite for affordable but poofy petticoats! Additionally, after having mine for a while I can tell they seem impossible to deflate. Its as poofy as the first day!

Moldavite exhibit in museum

Me and my friend Tairesia went to a museum exhibit! 
 

This is our South Bohemian Museum. Since the exhibit was about moldavites, I dressed into a space-themed Cosmic JSK in cream color. It's more toned-down and although still counts as sweet, its quite on the subdued side (and it has pockets!)

Moldavites are created upon asteroid impact. The asteroids are huge rocks flying around our Solar System, they can be as small as a boulder or as big as a mountain. Sometimes they hit the Earth and when the impact is stronger, they melt the ground they hit. The melted ground is trasformed by the heat and pressure of the impact into glass and the glass droplets are ejected into surrounding area. These droplets become the moldavites and can be found million years after the impact which created them!

These are moldavites. There were hundreds of them in the exhibit, from different places across the world.

We saw more moldavites that day than .. well, honestly, more than anyone would probably want. The sheer amount was overwhelming. One final photo in front of the wall panel you can see in the back of the exhibit room, and we were ready to go home and rest!

 

Strawberry roll cake

I've come across this step-by-step sponge roll with strawberries recipe, a sweet common in Japan, at least judging from the photos I see around the internet. I decided to give it a try!

Strawberry roll cake

Ingredients:
4 egg yolk
1/4 cup of milk
1/2 cup of flour
4 egg whites
1/2 cup of fresh cream
1/4 cup of corn oil
8 strawberries
sugar to taste
a few drops of vinegar



Put egg yolk into a bowl. Add oil, milk, sugar (I used 3 spoons of powdered sugar) into the bowl and mix until water and oil blend together (I used a blender to mix them very well, until the mixture started to take on pale yellow color and bubbles appeared). Next sift in flour (I used self-rising cake flour) (for czech readers: hladká mouka a kypřící prášek) and mix until there are no clumps.

In to another bowl, add egg white with vinegar and beat until stiff with peaks. Put one third of the beaten egg whites into the batter and mix evently. Put the rest of the beaten egg whites, fold gently.

Pour the batter into a parchment lined pan and spread it evenly across the pan. Gently knock the pan down a few times to get rid of bubbles in the batter. Put in 180 C preheated oven and bake for 15 minutes. Take the cake out and let it cool.

In the meanwhile, beat the cream and wash the strawberries. Then take the cooled cake and flip it over on the parchment paper (I flipped it into another paper I put on top, rather). Spread the cream, put the strawberries on one end. Roll the cake (it was surprisingly easy to roll it!), wrap it with the parchment paper, and put it into the fridge to cool for half an hour.

Here goes the result! It was delicious, I'll be making it regularly for sure.

Handmade wristcuffs

I made my first handmade lolita fashion item! It's a simple classic inspired wristcuffs in ivory color. After a lot of obsessiong about what best lace to use and how to sew it together, I bought a couple of lace of an ebay shop, but the shades turned out to be very different from each other in person!

I used the top lace, soft and wide with embroidery on both edges. I folded the lace in half, then adjusted it so both embroidery is visible. Then I gently sewed them together under and above the line where elastics would go. That created a tunnel for the elastics. After adjusting its lenght I sewed the end of the elastics together, then the end of the lace. Then I prepared bows for the wristcuffs using this simple method!

As a finishing touch, I sewed the ivory bows on top. The wristcuffs turned out better than I expected!