giveaway!

giveaway from universal-dollhere i hope you enjoy!

a tea party for beginners.

My weekend was fun! my friends loved the bears i made! yay~ but after all the tea drinking at the party i feel inspired to do a post on a proper tea party! this is mostly a reference for the host of the tea party having it in their own home/yard though ^^.

The Tea Basics: Know your tea, theres many different styles but the main 4 are black, green, white and herbal. For a tea party you want to choose a tea that suits the party and is probably on the fancy side, aka a loose leaf tea. you can get nice tea from specialty stores that specialize in coffee or tea theres bound to be one in your town somewhere.

Black tea is best for a tea party because you can add milk and sugar to it and it is the most common of the teas. But there are still different blends of black tea, some more fruity, some more bitter, try to pick one that you think your guests would like. the 3 normal black teas are Orange pekoe, earl grey and english breakfast.



Set Up: the set up depends on your location, is it indoor or outdoor? what season is it? but you always want a nice table and a table cloth that reflects the season and the colours of the room or garden. I would also recommend a plastic tablecloth liner to go under the table cloth and protect the table just in case.

you will want a centrepiece for the table, like candles or a flower vase and to have a nice napkin holder and nice napkins, fabric or paper whichever you prefer. you will also want comfy chairs.


Tableware: Theres 2 ways to go about tableware for a tea party, you can have everything match or you can have a bunch of different styles that don't really match.

Either way you will want everyone to have: a teacup, a saucer, and a teaspoon.

you will also need: a sugar spoon, a sugar container, a creamer, a teapot and if you are serving food a plate/platter for that.

*note: the guests dont use their tea spoon to add sugar to their cups, that is what the sugar spoon is for. teaspoons are for stirring tea.


Etiquette and such:

-you should add all the tea and sugar BEFORE pouring the tea in the cup. if you do it in the reverse order it will have a different flavour.

-you should pour out the guests old or cold tea before pouring them a new cup.

-the host should at least pour everyones first cup of tea.

-unless your eating lots of food you can avoid extra plates and have them put their cookies and other bite sized treats on their saucer.

-ladies are always allowed to keep their hats on at the table because it is considered a part of their outfit. just like you wouldn't take bracelets off to eat because they are part of your outfit.

-always try to be in host mode unless something big happens, don't just let your guests fend for themselves.

yet another giveaway!

Ribbonlicious is having a giveaway! here is the link!

Sew diffrerent!

Remember the button? that cute little round thing with the holes? i know you see a lot of zippers around these days, especially on punk clothing but buttons can be cool too! But Sometimes just sewing them on the normal way is boring, so heres an idea to spice up sewing and add some detail and personalization to whatever your making! I've even seen buttons shaped like cupcakes! and they don't have to be expensive either, you can buy a bag of assorted buttons for somewhere between 1-5 dollars and you get like 100 buttons of all sorts of shapes and sizes.

making shapes like this only really works with buttons that have 4 holes though, but as you can see you can make shapes while still sewing through all 4 holes of the button! and you can make different shapes if you turn the button, like and X becomes a +, You can even do arrows and the letter Z.



I think this would be an adorable way to spice up a bag or a t-shirt and even cover small holes along a seam line or in a corner or just sew on like a normal button. its up to you to decide!

Friendship brear gift idea!

So two of my friends are having a conjoined late (almost early, their birthday is in november) birthday party. Its so late that i don't know if other people are bringing presents but i would feel rude not bringing one, so i thought i would go the cute, sentimental road!

Im making matching teddybears from purple and yellow fabric with little button eyes. the fronts and ears are different colours but the back is all the same colour, one purple and one yellow. that way they mach and they both have something i made just for them! I hope they like the present!

In the picture one is finished but the other one is still a work in progress! im sewing its eyes on now.



I think these are the coolest flowers i've ever seen! they bloom upside down and look kind-of like an octopus! i just had to toss the picture in, i felt like such a stalker taking a picture of flowers in someone else's front lawn.


And on a side note, the giveaway i mentioned a while ago should be ready this weekend! look forward to it!

Finding tokyo giveaway!

Give away here!

book review: Boneshaker

I stumbled upon this book while walking by the local independent bookstore and noticing the awesome looking poster in the window but I honestly enjoyed this book! it was very well written with a wonderful plot and everyones favourite, character development! the book takes place in a sort of alternate reality 1880's Seattle, full of zombies and poisonous gas. Focusing on a mother and son who go on a grand adventure through the zombie infested streets of the city.

I wasn't expecting it to be so mother-and-son-ly but it was a nice break from shojo manga and romancy books. Theres not really anything lolita about the book, but it does qualify as steampunk, and isn't steampunk the cousin of lolita?

the book is a bit over 400 pages long and makes a great summer read for anyone who likes steampunk or zombies!