Drooling over..

Beautiful, white leather bags. Just because.

white-hot by white-lily featuring a zipper bag

Nothing much

1. This morning, I was about to wear a top that I bought in the Philippines (but had not tried on, because I was in a hurry then) when I realized that I could not get it through my head. I kept thinking that there was a button somewhere that I missed, hoping in vain that I will get to wear it. Alas, it seems that it will be an impossible feat, and I will never get to don it unless I rip the neckline to fit my gigantic head :(

2. Star Trek Into Darkness is one of the movies I'm looking forward to watching soon, but at the same time I'm dreading to see it. Why? Because my current favorite actor, Benedict Cumberbatch (from "Sherlock," "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" and "The Hobbit," to name a few), is the villain! Will I spew bile at his mercilessness or smile at the deep timbre of his voice? Ah, I guess I just need to remind myself that he is an actor by trade, and while he is amazing at it, he is but another person living on the other side of the world. (Watching Sherlock is making me want to try my hand at forensic chemistry, though.)

3. I used to hate my hands - or more specifically, my fingers. I would stare enviously at other girls' units, wishing they- what people describe as "candle-like", long and elegant - were attached to me, too . Mine are shorter and stubbier compared to my Ma's, and there were times when I was a kid that I would secretly give Pa the stink eye for dominating over Ma's genes and passing them on to me. That is, until I saw that the very same ones were on Pa's mother, my Lola Annie. She who bore 8 daughters and a son with my Lolo Manny, who cooked all their meals (with Pa as her constant companion at the wet market) and made sure that their school uniforms and work clothes were washed and pressed and neat. Not to mention, whenever I went to visit my paternal grandparents during my recent trip to the Philippines, she would always have food that she knew I missed laid out on their table, and with a smile would urge me to have some more. One of the best days I had was when I took the family out to Laguna for lunch. On the way home, she remembered that there was a store famous for its Buko (coconut) pie, and she stood in line, out in the heat for a long time just to buy boxes of it, while all of us waited in my cousin's van. The next day, I was greeted by more food prepped by Lola Annie, and like she promised, one of them was a dish I sorely missed and longed to eat for years (escargot and fern in coconut milk). "We already had some last night, and we saved this portion for you because you said you love it!" Squeals and thank yous rushed out from me, I kid you not. Now, whenever I look at my hands, I no longer scrunch my nose at them and try to superimpose those of hand models on them (I still appreciate nice hands though, but I'm ok with mine! In fact, I'm blessed to have them). Now, I smile and remember how thankful I am for Lola Annie. I may have inherited Lolo Manny's love for writing, but it is with the hands I inherited from Lola Annie that I write and type with.

Kmart Wish List

(I just realized that a lot of items I posted on Poylvore got reposted here! LOL sorry I'm such a newbie, but I cleared them all up.)

As most of you know, I'm a bargain shopper. I set limits on how much an item should cost - I will not pay more than $25 for jeans (unless they make me feel like I've got Jessica Alba's calves) or more than $20 for a top (unless it is extremely versatile, for a special occasion, or a classic). If you spot me in a higher-end boutique, I'll most likely be in the Sale/Clearance rack or if I'm not, I'm probably mentally taking pictures of items I like so I can find similar pieces with more reasonable price tags in other stores. So imagine my delight when I became a finalist for Kmart's "Money Can't Buy Style" fashion contest about 1 1/2 years ago, where I had the chance to create my best Kmart ensemble and wear it while on a Skype video conference with a fashion photographer.

All-grey, all-Kmart (except for the shoes - they're Hugo Boss ;) )

Cherry Blossoms

I have a funny story about cherry blossoms. Back in 2009, two months after I and my family arrived in the US, we decided to swing by the Cherry Blossom Festival after we finished submitting some papers to the Philippine Embassy in DC. Unfortunately, we had no idea how to take public transportation from the embassy to the Tidal Basin where the trees are in abundance, so I just took pictures of the ones that we passed on the way back to the train station.

Me: "There it is! There it is!"

If you look closely, though, you can see that it's not a cherry tree. I actually had a disagreement with my father about what they were supposed to look like, because I vaguely remembered this beautiful scene in Mulan:

Fa Zhou: My, what beautiful blossoms we have this year. But look, this one's late. But I'll bet that when it blooms, it will be the most beautiful of all.

This and That

Some "Spring"spiration, fun videos and Polyvore sets by moi :) Enjoy!

Mango Outfit

Lord & Taylor Spring Brights

 

 My entry for Lord & Taylor's "Jetsetter Style" contest

Looks for Less

Being a thrifty shopper (I rarely buy a full-price item), I thought that redoing a celebrity's look would not take much time since I'm so used to looking for bargains on the internet. But I learned that it is hard to find similar items that are cheaper since celebrities, even when they are off-duty, usually wear/use items that are in the $300-$3000 range. With the help of shopstyle.com and google.com (plus my ability to use the right word combinations like "oatmeal pashmina," "nude wedges," etc.), I was able to come up with looks for less based on the ones seen on my favorite celebrity fashionistas Olivia Palermo and Jessica Alba! I will probably do one on Alexa Chung and Rachel Bilson tonight :) Anyway, I have to get back to work (yup, working on a Sunday, just finished lunch and boy was it good!). Happy Sunday and St. Patrick's Day, everyone!
 

Olivia Palermo's Look For Way Less! by white-lily featuring retro sunglasses

Jessica Alba's Look for Way Less by white-lily featuring nine west handbags

 

 

 

 

<3,

Coveting..

Flowery and geometric dresses

left to right, top to bottom:

1 / 2 / 3

4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 

9 / 10 / 11 / 12 / 13

Videos :)

A bunch of gems from the glorious internet haha :) Enjoy!

More fun stuff after the jump!

Happy Day!

Sometimes when you're down, you just want to be left alone to sulk and immerse yourself in it until you're over it, but more often than not it just aggravates that feeling instead of making it go away. The best remedy, I think, would be to look back at the blessings you've recently received and see that there is more reason to celebrate than sulk! Take a deep breath, and do a countdown of list down these blessings - they can be small, like getting a chocolate chip cookie from your friend during lunch, or big like a promotion at work or a long, heartwarming call from a long-lost friend! Here are my blessings and some things that made me smile:

1. 3 out of 4 of my submissions to Threadless got through! Whoop whoop! And now you have the opportunity to vote for it so it would get printed hehehe. I would be so happy if you give them all a $5! :D Thanks in advance!

Click here to score "Nature <3 Bikes"

Click here to score "Breakdancing Earth"

Click here to score "The World Wants You to be Awesome" 

2. We have a new pope! I have been reading articles on Pope Francis and I liked what I found, one of them being the fact that he has a master's degree in Chemistry (a man after my own heart? haha). May God continue to guide him in shepherding the Church and hopefully he'll leave a great legacy behind. In all seriousness though, he's what we need -a humble yet wise man who cares about the poor and truly tries to live as Christ lived. Habemus Papam! (The pope, formerly known as Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of Argentina, chose the name "Francis" in honor of St. Francis of Assisi)

Weekend Workout

Photoshop skill workout, that is! I barely got out of the house despite the beautiful weather outside because I was on a roll regarding my threadless submissions and I was able to watch some shows at the same time (I just finished all the episodes of Futurama, and am almost done with watching The IT Crowd, both of which are hilarious!) thru my tablet. So all in all, a pretty productive weekend for me :) Here are the things I submitted, I hope they'll all get through!

1. This one is for a bike-themed contest :) I was portraying the environment-friendly aspect of using bikes as opposed to cars. Those flowers took a while to finish, as did the bike, but I think it worked out pretty well.

I'm pretty proud of these flowers, they were hard to make without Illustrator

On Hobbit Holes + Spring Weather At Last!

I came across two adorable LOTR-themed miniatures:

1. Click here to go to the original blog post detailing how the bonsai tree in the picture below was made

Three things I love: an LOTR reference (Bag End, Bilbo Baggins' home), a bonsai tree and miniature art!

 2. A miniature replica of Bag End lovingly made by a fan - click here for more pictures and details from the artist herself, Maddie Chambers

OMG look at those teensy things! I'm my mother's daughter, she loves miniature things as well

I don't remember exactly how I got into The Lord of the Rings, but I do know that it's partly due to Harry Potter (my first foray into fantasy) and my penchant for reading books before they get turned into movies (or in this case, trilogies). Thank God that my best friend in high school was also into LOTR, I had someone to talk to and obsess about it with- at one point we both were writing in our respective diaries journals in Elvish. In case you want to know, she was better at it than I was (writing in Elvish), because between us she is more gifted in the arts. Not that it mattered to me, I was just glad that I wasn't alone in my LOTR fandom and with dreaming of having pointy ears (not hairy feet hahaha).