KERA snap and picnic

Hello dear readers! How are you?

It's a nice day in England, and I have been doing some writing in the garden. Also, I've taken the opprtunity to handwash some of my clothes! Handwashing is a never ending task for lolitas, isn't it? At least it should all dry quickly today.

This post is from a while back, it was the day I went to the KERA snap at Marui and then had a picnic in nearby Shinjuku Gyoen. This was my outfit:

Hat: Handmade

Blouse: Atelier Pierrot

Skirt: Jane Marple

Gloves: Vintage

I really love this Atelier Pierrot blouse with big puff sleeves. It is very historical looking and I feel like a girl in a story book! For the purposes of the snap I said my theme was 'Country Lolita'. I really like the idea of country lolita and I want to make more outfits in that style. Alice a la mode/Alice Deco used to have a lot of nice country coordinates that weren't typical. What happened to that magazine? It was so creative!

Here's a better look at my hat. As you can see, this was taken at the park. It was such lovely weather- sunny and warm but not too hot, windy or humid! There were lots of young families out and very cute children tumbling about.  

It was a good situation for wearing country lolita. One strange thing though- there appeared to be cat litter sprinkled on the grass all around!

Is it fertilizer or something? Weird!

I'm delighted to say that my picture got into the snap, along with Shinobu and Aviva/go_slow_ly!

I can't tell you how happy I am to see my picture in there. I wish I could go to the snap every month but I've only made three so far. I hope I can go to many more when I return in the autumn!

Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed the pictures. Have a lovely weekend wherever you are!

Sapphira

Fishbourne

 Hello dear readers! How are you?

Sorry for such a long gap between entries. I have returned home to England for the summer and I have been busy enjoying myself!

I still have lots of Tokyo posts to catch up on, but in today's entry I'll show you photos from a day in Fishbourne, near Chichester.

As I have mentioned before, I am friends with a certain Jack who has marvellous Adventures in Museum Land! Last wekend he wanted to visit Fishbourne Roman Palace. I had been there before on a school trip, but I thought it would be nice to refresh my memory and so I tagged along.

Here is my outfit:

Blouse: Vintage

Skirt: Handmade

Plimsolls, socks: Offbrand

Since we were going into the country I thought it would be wise to wear plimsolls, and I put together a 50s inspired coordinate to match them. I looped up my hair to make a poofy ponytail and tied it with a pale green ribbon.

It's simple to do and cute and practical for summer! I will make a tutorial soon.

I won't tell you too much about the museum as you'll be much better off reading my friend's excellent article! However I'll share a couple of photos of the most famous and well preserved mosaic there:

Cupid riding a dolphin

A hippocampus

The mosaic also included an exciting sea-panther but my photo didn't come out well :(

 Although it's not my favourite period in history I always feel a sort of jolly familiarity when I visit Roman sites. Latin was probably my best subject at school and I kept on with it right until I left sixth form. Unfortunately I don't remember all that much of it now!

Outside, a reenactment with 'Roman' soldiers was being staged. It went on a bit but there was a thrilling part where they all rushed at the audience and several children ran away screaming! A the end there was a demonstration of the onager and that was pretty good too.

After we had exhausted the museum we had a picnic and then went for a stroll. We met two very friendly horses!

Lovely horsey! I wanted to take them home with me. 

Since I'm in England for a while, I am going to try to write more about my own country. There are a lot of wonderful things here and I want to share them with you! I hope you enjoyed todays post.

Thank you for reading and see you next time,

Sapphira

xxxx

Showa Kinen Park

Hello dear readers! How are you?

It's a drizzly day today, I suppose rainy season is getting started. However, I'm going to show you pictures from  nice sunny day! I went for a picnic at Showa Kinen Park in Tachikawa.

I was suprised at the size of the park, it's huge! It's the one place I've been in Tokyo where you can look around and not see a single tall ugly building. It almost felt like I was back in Sussex.

The park includes a lake, bicycle track and a herb garden. I took this picture in the herb garden, it's really pretty! And I saw a fat little lizard sunbathing among the herbs :)

Blouse: Franche Lippée

JSK: Innocent World

Bag: Baby, the Stars Shine Bright

I wanted to make a light-coloured, dreamy classic coordinate like Fanny Rosie! Do you know her? I expect you do, since she is very popular, but if not she's a Canadian lolita with the most perfect classical outfits.

There's a cafe at the park serving all sorts of drinks and herbal teas. I had lavender tea. It was a delicate taste, and very relaxing.

I drank it surrounded by lavender bushes! 

It was a windy day but I still really enjoyed the picnic.There were wild flowers and strawberries growing in the grass, and I had a nice view of the lake.

There's also a Japanese garden. It's beautiful! Unfortunately the trees were full of hairy caterpillars.... I am fond of caterpillars so I was quite pleased to see them at first, until one tumbled out of the tree an inch from my nose. I kept my parasol up after that.

I met a wise old cat in the Japanese garden! I saw three cats in the park, this one, a roly poly ginger one, and a scrubby black one. Why are there so many stray cats in Japan? Everyone seems to love cats and feeds the stray ones, but where did they come from?

There was also a bonsai garden. Some of the trees were 300 years old.

I hope that you enjoyed the photos. If you fancy going to a park for a relaxing day, I think this one is the best in Tokyo!

See you next time,

Sapphira

Outfit Video

Hello dear readers! How are you today?

Maybe you have already seen it, but I have made an outfit video.

I put together six different summer coordinates, as the warm weather has arrived here in Tokyo.

It's the first time I've made a video like this, and I'm really pleased that it has got a good reception so far! Between my poor editing skills and the geriatric condition of my laptop, I'm afraid the process caused me some tears, but it was worth it in the end. 

Here is the finished product!

And here is what I wore:

Outfit 1

Blouse- Anna House  

Jumperskirt- Innocent World  

Socks- Metamorphose

Outfit 2

Jumperskirt- Innocent World

Outfit 3

Onepiece- Innocent World  

Ribbon- Jane Marple

Outfit 4

Onepiece and socks- Metamorphose

Hat- corgi-corgi

Outfit 5

Onepiece and katyusha- Juliette et Justine

Outfit 6

Blouse- Metamorphose

Skirt- Jane Marple

Wrist cuffs- Angelic Pretty

All the other bits are offbrand, second-hand, handmade and vintage.

Hope you enjoyed it! Thank you very much for reading and watching.

Sapphira

My new home

Hello readers!

How are you? Today I've been exploring my neighbourhood. 

First of all, would you like to see the view from my apartment that I mentioned yesterday? 

(with scientific annotations)

I'll have to visit Sky Tree sometime, and there's a new bulding in Shibuya called Hikarie that's also on my to-do list.

My apartment block is right next to a very beautiful temple, I can see part of it from my window:

I had a healthy breakfast yesterday, sakuranbo and yasai juice!

It's the first time I've tried this type of cherries. I love the dark red kind, but these are also lovely, with a more gentle taste. I love this juice, it's full of all sorts of vegetables, very good for you and delicious too! I don't know if any of my readers are AKB48 fans (I'm not really) but some years ago they were promoting this juice and even made this PV in which they dance around dressed as vegetables:

As I was mentioned earlier, I was out visiting my local shops today. I'm staying in Koenji- it's such a cute neighbourhood! I was delighted to find lots of second-hand shops and charming cafes. I had to go into this cafe when I saw the sign:

It's Owl from Owl at Home! Owl at Home is one of the first books I can remember reading with my mother. It seems that this cafe is in a very old building (or else it's very cleverly decorated) and there are all sorts of cute touches like an embroidered menu board, old fashioned china and lots of owls!

It's only a casual oufit (it's hot!) but I'll give you the rundown:

Onepiece, bag: Vintage

Parasol: Innocent World

Hair ribbon: Anna House

Ah, and I couldn't resist a little clothes shopping:

It's a vintage cardigan jacket with bracelet sleeves. It's the perfect length to wear with lolita and I've been searching for a cream jacket for ages. Yes, I'm very good at justifying my purchases! I can tell it's going to be dangerous living in such close proximity to all these lovely shops....

I hope you've enjoyed this post! There are lots more exciting things coming up. I'm going to Versailles presents Tokyo Metropolis tomorrow; a special three-man live with D, Moi dix Mois and of course Versailles! It will be the first time I'll see Mana-sama!

As well as that I'm going to a lolita meet up and a Tanabata festival. 

The next post will be about the live! See you then,

with love from Sapphira

xxxx