Make over and randomness

So this post is a little late coming as i’ve been so busy with work and running around london and agitating over my postie hating me i just haven’t posted.

As you can see, i’ve re-done the blog.
New header, layout blah blah, nothing fancy i’m afraid. i do like the header though. took me ages to get the paint on yossie’s hand from red to blue. >w<

SO!
New arrivals……. let’s see…… guess i should start off with my Morning Musume Sexy 8 Beat tour shirt huh?

wewt.
I love it. still need to wear it out though.
but it’s a difficult colour combination to wear i think. i don’t actually like gold. but it was the implication of the shirt that drew me to it. XD

next up is Buono! 2! i was complaining just this morning to mum about how it hadn’t arrived yet and stuff and less than half an hour later it was shoved through the letter box. >w< yay!

Please excuse the paws in the photo. my dog, lilly, decided she wanted in on the action and lay down right there. bless her. XD

I didn’t realise until i got it open that i’d actually got the limited edition version…… which surprised me because i thougt was too much of a cheap skate to buy that.
but in anycase, the packaging is awesome. love the designs on the disks and the back inlay picture is awesome. those pink outfits are the best. so awesome! they all look amazing in the pictures of the entire booklet!
once again, please excuse the dog paws. XD

Once again this is a fantastic album. there’s something about the girls voices harmonising that is just so relaxing and beautiful and they definitely have their own sound that reminds me of summer. probably because i spent all last summer listening to Cafe Buono! but still.
my favourite songs so far are:
~ Kira Kira
~ Minna Daisuki
~ I NEED YOU
~ You’re My Friend

My boyfriend pointed out today that “Goal” sounds like a mixture between Coldplay and Kings of Leon. and i can totally see why he thinks that. not the Kings of Leon part because they suck but definitely parts of it sound like When I Ruled the World by Coldplay. *nod*

The DVD is also pretty fun to watch too. a cool part about the making of the album cover etc etc etc and also tv adverts of their singles from Kiss! Kiss! Kiss! which were pretty fun to watch. ^^

Over all i give this album 4.5 stars out of 5.

Next on the list is the arrival of Paul’s birthday present (part 2). i was so excited about it! i couldn’t help myself and opened it to have a peek at it.
and i took a photo. i hope it’s hard to guess what it could be……. although maybe not??

what could it be…….??
don’t say, i’ll reveal all next week sometime.

^_^

can’t be bothered to write anymore. will update some time later. ^_^

Rankings

So the other night i got very bored and made up a couple of ranking lists for my favourite members of the wonderful hearts groups.

i know i have lists in my “who’s that girl” page which i will replace with these picture lists later. ^^

Momusu:

M’kay so i guess i should explain.

Sayumi: Only recetly became my favourite Momusu member. i really liked her before but before Yossie left she ranked maybe 3rd or 4th. After Yossie left i didn’t pay much attention to Momusu at all until very recently. but now i love her and already have far too much of her merchandise to begin to know what to do with. XD

Eri/Risa: It was a bit of a toss up between these two as i like them just as much as eachother.
i don’t really have a second favourite in momusu so the rest of the rankings are a bit vague. it’s kind of Sayumi and then everyone else. but Eri and Risa are my next favourites i think. i love Eri’s voice and she can work teh sexy soooo well and Risa’s smile is totally contagious, can’t help but grin along with her.

JunJun: So JunJun is by far my favourite of the Hatchikies. She’s just so……. there. i love her voice, not as strong as LinLin’s but i still love it. but then again I’m a Sayu fan. XD she was always my favourite of the two Pandas. even way back when i was mad that they “replaced” Yossie. i was mad cause i started to like her a week after she left and the panda’s joined. XD

Reina next: I’m not sure what it is about Reina but i just can’t put her near the bottom. i just think she’s gorgeous. and even though she’s no where near as cool as she was in her Yankee phase, there’s something about her i love. plus she has pretty cool merchandise. >w<

Koharu/Aika: another battle for this place. i’m not too sure what i think of either of them. i don’t really know much about Mittsi, i don’t know much of her personality and never really found any need to find out. On the hand of Koha……. i like her solo songs but the rest of her is a mystery. i can’t stand the over sugary character and …….. she bugs me.

LinLin: aaah….. LinLin…… she has a great voice, however it doesn’t really make up for the fact that she’s really scarey. just something about her freaks me out!

Ai: Well what is there to like about Miss Oldest-in-H!P-i’m-better-than-you-and-can-sing-the-crap-out-of-Koi ING? Takayucky.

 

Onto Berryz Koubou

 

Chinami: What can i say, the girl is gorgeous. never used to like her because in the early days she “looked funny”. a goofy little kid with poker straight black hair and a big grin. but now…… she’s gorgeous. the Dakishimete Dakishimete PV definitely helped me see that. as did staring at her face while i sewed it onto a pillow cover, lol!

Saki: Same as with chinami and the PV helping me see how much she’s grown and changed. plus i love her voice. it’s a nice change to the squeaky chipmunks we have lying around.

Momoko: speaking of chipmunks……. lol! i used to dislike Momo alot but recently, since she’s been in Buono! and the last few releases, her voice has become so nice and much deeper. it’s a relief and even though she’s still a little odd looking, she’s turned into a young woman and once again, looks amazing in the new pv.

Maasa: Maasa used to be my favourite. it’s not that i like her less….. i just like the others more now…… sorry Maasa!

Yurina: well i didn’t really know where to put her, she’s kind of like Mittsi in that we don’t really see much of her to judge a character. i don’t love her but i don’t dislike her either.

Risako: meh….. she’s ok. she can sing (just about) and that’s kind of it. i don’t like or hate her…. i nothing her.

Miyabi: OMG get some personality. enough said.

 

C-ute next!

 C-ute was by far the hardest group to rank. i just like them all far too much to really know what order to put them in.

Mai: Love mai. her voice, her hair, her eyes….. everything. she’s even purple. my favourite colour. enough said

Chisato: I love her eyes and how they aways look like she’s smiling. plus she can sing the crap outta songs so add great voice to the list too.

Saki: She’s cute, she has a great smile, love her hair and personality and her singing voice has the same kind of squeaky charm as Sayu’s does but in different ways. ><

Airi: I really like Airi, she’s cute, and can sing pretty well and we get to see plenty of her in PVs and stuf. she’s just uber cute. Favourite out of Buono!

Kanna: don’t really know much about her except that she can sing pretty well.

Erika: Ditto

Maimi: it’s not that i don’t like Maimi, far from it, i just prefer everyone else. ^_^

 

Also, Collection Update: My Sexy 8 Beat tour shirt arrived yesterday! I’m sooooo happy with it. i love it and it’s so comfy. can’t wait to team it up with my gold tights, black legwarmers and black shorts in the spring!

It came with the usual free photo and it just so happens to be of Gaki in my favourite concert outfit of all time from the Wonderful Hearts Summer 2006 concert. ^_^ yay!

Will post picture when i’ve resized them. hassle. -.-

^_^

Bento re-incarnated!

So today i made a bento for the first time in like……… at least 8 months now.
It’s a shame i stopped after i left college because it really was one of my favourite hobbies and i have so much bento stuff that hardly gets used anymore.

but now,i have made another. was pretty much forced to because a: i can’t afford to buy lunch every day at work anymore and b: i had left over pizza and regular lunches get boring after a while.

So here it is! my newest masterpiece. aimed for a Valentine’s day theme. think it turned out pretty good for my first attemptin so long! *nod* ^_^

So Top tier on the left, bottom on the right.

bottom tier: Heart shaped rice ball and pizza clices, the little red pot has thai sweet chilli sauce in for the rice (it’s so good trust me) and we have lettuce and spinach leaves surrounding it all. i even made a rose out of a couple of res lettuce leaves in the top corner, not sure if you can see it though.

Top: marshmallows on a usagi food pick and a little chocolate heart (made them for friends for valentine’s day), sultanas on a food pick an under than sultanas and dried apple pieces and Usagi Ringo (Rabbit apples) i love making these guys, so cute! oh! and there’s even a few Konpeito in there for afterwards. ^_^

hmmmm the top tier looks a little empty, you can see gaps……. oh well. it can be fixed next time. ^^
and that is my cute lunch for tommorrow. ^^

Ice Creamusume new PV

Second music review in as many days! Phew!

So yesterday (i didn’t notice it as posted up) the PV for the chinese version of “Ame no Furanai Hoshi de wa Ai senai Darou?” was released.

It’s a wonderful PV and the outfits look great, love how they’ve kept the fluffy boots too! i think in general the girls are starting to be dressed similarly to how the rest of Hello! Project are being dressed, matching outfits but all are slightly different.

What i love love love about this song is how much ReiRei and Guu-chan we get to hear, and even Youko gets a great solo line (Lin Lin’s line in the usual japanese version). All the girls get some screen time and they all get decent solo lines.
Once again, i think Tsunku needs to take a clue with the Wonderful Hearts units.

It’s just a pleasent song to listen to and a great and relaxing PV to watch.
SO that’s “Liang Ai Deng Chang” and it’s japanese counter part, “Liang Ai Ge Ming 21” and “Ame no Furanai-whatsit”. All we need now are Morning Coffee and Go Girl PVs and the whole album will have one for each song! >w<

PS: i am working on figuring out how to embed videos into my posts so you don’t have to keep following links. ><”
So far no such luck. i don’t want a widget dammit.

I’m also thinking about re-doing my header…….. something with yossie in…….. XD

The Berryz Bounce Back!

So after the dreadful release that was Madayade, Berryz Koubou seemed to be going down the drain, being over-taken by C-ute who with each single sound more and more mature and who seem to be glowing with all this energy that Berryz used to have way-back-when.

However after watching Dakishimete Dakishimete Berryz are back up there and i have to say this single ROCKS!
I loved it the second i saw it, the music was a little Koi no Jubaku sounding at the start and the lighting reminded me a little of their first few releases but then they started to sing. It’s mature and up beat and is moving away from the squeaky voices that drive my parents insane.

There’s so much to comment about on this PV and single and i don’t really know how to word my thoughts, but here goes:

Firstly the styling, being the costumer-in-the-making here, oh gosh, everyone looks amazing, Chinami especially and i NEED Maasa’s leggings, they’re awesome, although i don’t like the dead hamster under her hat.
It looks like the stylist finally forgave Yurina for stepping on her cat and finally gave them some decent outfits. The hair and make up looks brilliant and omg Chinami! I just can’t get over JUST how awesome she looks!

Please forgive Miyabi’s lack of personality, it’s quite usual and luckily it’s not contagious. good job she looks hawt in this video.

Please can someone wrap Momoko up and give her to me for Valentine’s day? she looks soo good and cuddly, swapping the kiddy pigtails for a rocky pony tail and her squeaky chipmunk for a much more mature sounding singing voice that almost doesn’t suit her.
I almost forgot about Captain! She looks soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo good, what’s up with the hair?? I love it!!! I’m guessing they wouldn’t really give her an A-line cut but the choppy look really looks good on her!!
Risako still looks the same….. how???

Onto the music itself:
It’s not the kind of song that would automatically stick in your head…. i’m on my 3rd listen since typing this post up and i still can’t really remember how it goes. whoch is a shame but other than that it’s great!
It’s mature sounding and sounds like it could make a fab remix. The synthetic “Dah!”s that seem to be so popular in H!P songs right now are there again and like i said before, the intro reminds me alot of Koi no Jubaku but the actual body of the song is quite Arabian sounding atpoints and….. and…… and…… i’m drawing blanks at how much i love it.
One thing i do like about it is that the lines are fairly fairly distributed and so we get to hear everyone at least once and they all have solo lines. i wish Tsunku would apply this to Momusu and C-ute aswell though. it’s getting annoying, “Yes we all love Airi but dammit can’t we have a litle more Mai?? And yes Ai and Reina are good singers but given the chance the Pandas, Mittsi and Sayu all are too!!!”

i really like it and it’s definitely one of Berryz better releases recently. except of course for Yuke Yuke. >w<

4.5 stars out of 5!
^_^V

Pillow Tutorial

As promised here is a quick tutorial for turning a towel into a pillow (it could even work with a tshirt if you’re feeling adventurous)

What you’ll need:
~1m of Sheeting (I used white. 1m is the average size for a pillow the size of paul’s Chinami Pillow in my last post. if your fabric doesn’t have sheeting, cotton or poly-cotton works just as well)
~ Thread as close to the colour of the sheeting as possible
~ Pillow stuffing
~ The towel
~ Needle and thread the colour you want (one that’s close to the colour of the towel is best)

~ Scissors (Fabric shears are best!)
~ Sewing Machine (you can hand stitch if you don’t have one but it’ll take much longer)
~ Pins

Steps:

1~ Sheeting comes already doubled over but if you went for a different fabric fold it in half to make it double thickness.

2~ line up the towel with the folded edge of the fabric and pin in place.

3~ CAREFULLY cut around the cushion and take the pins out and put into the fabric underneath one corner at a time. (saves you trying to line the fabric up again)

4~ sew the edges together so only 3 are closed and turn inside out (if you have curved corners like mine did don’t forget to snip around te edges carefully to stop getting weird angles in the curve)

5~ stuff with the stuffing until it’s nice and full and then sew the open edge closed (don’t worry about the tatty edge, it’ll be inside the cover anyways.

For the case:
You can do the case 1 of 2 ways:

1~ make the case as i’m going to describe it

2~ instead of folding the fabric, cut a piece 1 cm each side-wider and 3 inches longer than the towel and turning right side to right side, sew along the edges to seal together and then carry on as i will describe, the only problem with this method is that the towel could sustain some damage in the process and if you wanted to take the towel off later on, you may not be able to without damaging it further.

Onto the method:
1~ Re-fold the fabric so one side is shorter than the other making sure to leave enough room on the short side for the towel and line it up with the folded edge and pin in place.

2~ cut approximately 1 cm away from the side of the towel all the way down until the longer part is 3 or 4 inches longer than the edge of it and the shorter side is about 1 inch or so longer.

3~take the towel off and pin the fabric in the same way as before. and then hem the ends and fold down to the length of the pillow before sewing down each side giving 1cm seam allowance.

4~turn inside out an there is your almost complete case.

all that you need now is to hand stitch the towel onto the front. the idea of the case is that it goes on the same way as a pillow case does on a pillow with a flap type thing on one side to tuck the end of the cushion inside so make sure you don’t accidently stitch this closed. hand stitching will take a little while but it’ll be totally worth in when it’s done. machine sewing it is tricky and could end up damaging the towel.

5~ All Finished!! Put the cushion inside the case, throw it on your bed and get ready to snuggle up to it in the night!

My Nono towel is too little for this but the bigger towels are almost big enough to be body pillows! i think my Nono cushin will be sitting in my car. ^^ or used as a travel pillow. ^^

Do any H!P fans out there have room for a few more DVDs/CDs or any other merchandise?
I’ve agreed to help someone re-home her H!P collection and although i’d love to take it all my budget doesn’t stretch that far. xD
She’s absolutely lovely to talk to and deal with and because she’s not selling the collection to make a profit (just to find new homes) she is negotiable to prices and is happy to let her things go for much less than they would sell for on ebay or any other website.
Please email Charine to see a full list of the items and see if there’s anything you have room on your shelf for. ^^

^_^V

Walking in a Winter Wonderland

Did you all play in the slow this week??
Did you make a snow man? snow angel? eat it, sit in it, hide under it, throw it? what about make a snow fort or an igloo?
What about a snow dalek?
The people across the road from us made a snow dalek. not even kidding.

Sorry about it being so long since my last post, i have alot to update!

So i tried to post the other day but got into such a bad mood i abandoned my attempt and then i’ve just been putting it off and so i thought it was about time to try again. Plus i’ve been bugged a zillion times to update so just to get him off my back i will.

So a few weeks back i was asked by Paul to turn his Chinami Towel into a pillow.

It arrived in the post a few days later with the money i needed for the fabric and stuffing and i hauled my sorry ass over to Basingstoke to get everything i needed.
the way to make a pillow and case is very simple, it took me a couple hours to do it and that was me being slow. what took the time was hand sewing the towel on the front of the case so, should he want to, it can be removed with careful snips of the scissors.
For a few weeks i owned a Chinami towle…… Y_Y

I’ll post the steps up so everyone can turn their almost-useless concert towels into beautiful pillows too. just make sure if you tell your friends to link them to me ok? >w<

a photo of the finished product:
it was great fun to make and i plan to turn my mini Nono towel into one too.

I’ve started on my Amulet Dia cosplay!
Only done the top of the bodice and sleeve pattern so far but it’s started and it’s going to be a challenge, just the kind of thing i need to satiate my horrible craving to sew something. xD not sat down at my sewing mchine for months to do something properly so i feel like i’m letting her down.
in anycase, i’ll be updating on my progress from now on so look forward to it ok?
^_^

So yesterday me and my family went to london to see Quidam by Cique du Soliel and oh. my. god was it good. no it wasn’t good, it was better than good, it was fan-bloody-tastic.
if you want to be on the edge of your seat in amazment and crying with laughter and back again in the space of 5 minutes, go and see that show. it’s amazing!
we had excellent seats too, could see the whole stage, and although we were kind of far away because of the shape of the building we could still see everything perfectly. it was great!
i wasn’t supposed to take photos but everyone was anyways.

After the show we went to get dinner in China town, we went into a restaurant me and Paul decided not to go into when we were last in london and oh gosh the food was good!
Hads the udon noodles and usually i hate them because they’re slimy an quishy but these ones werejust so good!! i’m going there everytime i want noodles now. it was awesome. they were just done so prefectly, all delicious and firm and the soup was excellent and so was the miso soup. it was yummy and i ate too much again. >ww<

I’ll also be posting up a couple of new recipes in my Cookery Blog too so check them out.

^_^