It's--my?--party!

So April 27th approaches, which means...

Ha! Found a Birthday Glitter Graphic with my name on it.

A lot of people don't know this about me, but I kind of hate my birthday. I get really depressed whenever it comes nearer. I think it must be the little girl in me who never got to have the whole birthday shebang for a really long time when money was tight during her childhood. 10 years later...well, things haven't changed. I don't really have birthday parties, nor do I expect gifts or even a "happy birthday"--I guess I now just consider it selfish to be concerned with having "my big day" when we're (my family) having financial troubles. But there must be leftover anticipation because I was in the middle of an Anthropology study fest (test coming up) this morning and just up and started sobbing all over my notes. I have absolutely no clue why it happened, but Marmie was very unhappy seeing me distraught. I took a break to try and cheer myself up, and was browsing through Dreamy Pretty Things on Tumblr when I came across this picture:

I eat strawberries when they're dipped in a bit of sugar like the ones on this cake. Strawberry is my favorite flavor of everything--cake, ice cream, flavored water, alcohol, everything. Marmie looked over my shoulder and said, "You know, we could make that." I smiled and told her that was sweet, but we didn't have the ingredients. Then she pulled out strawberry cake mix and cream cheese icing and replied, "I thought we'd have tea with it too."
...
Oh my god. I love my mother so, so much. I haven't had a birthday cake of my own in over five years. Call it the benefit of finishing my classes from home this semester, but to just have a home-cooked dinner and a home-baked cake means the world to me. Here's our strawberry birthday cake (it's heart-shaped, too):

There's a tiny pink candle in the very center. No way I'm flambeing myself trying to jam twenty-two candles on a cake. XD

Here's the whole spread--I took out my sweet-themed china I had gotten about three years ago and it matched quite well:

We put the whole set out even though it was only the two of us.

I haven't worn lolita or anything else very fancy lately since I've been mainly stuck in the house either doing schoolwork or workout tapes and neither inspires me to gussy myself up, but I did put together a little birthday outfit. I don't have a good mirror and mother is not--though I love her--even a satisfactory photographer, so the only shot I have of it is me squatting on my bed to get a shot in my vanity mirror:

The skirt and petticoat are bodyline, pink tights from Leg Avenue and top is offbrand vintage. The woman in the painting behind me is my Grand-Aunt Cora (from the turn of the century)! I feel kind of bad with my bloomers partly flashing her likeness :-(

I certainly was pleasantly surprised today. Have to get back to that test prep, but am certainly feeling a lot better now. It was a really fabulous surprise.

Tata, beatrix

Awesome Bonnet-Making Tutorial for BJDs

Very easy BJD straw bonnet tutorial:



Enjoy!

Strawberry Shortcake!

Ah, the 80s and early 90s and childhood memories. American Greetings created a slew of popular girls' tv animation characters (ex: Rainbow Bright, Lady Lovely Locks), but none has become quite as long-runningly successful as Strawberry Shortcake.

Old versus new: I feel the trademark style of Strawberry Shortcake kind of dissolved in the 2000s. They look like any character you might find on Dora the Explorer even :-(

Unfortunately, like the My Little Pony franchise, Strawberry suffered an--in my opinion--overdone makeover to make her "hipper" and more of a "tomboy." I say that because she's wearing jeans and almost everything cutesy has been deleted from her wardrobe to make her look "sleeker," "simplified, and up-to-date (and somehow like Where's Waldo?). I know this is probably an attempt to make her character more gender-neutral (while still marketing exclusively to girls), but I'm going to really, really miss the cute and original-looking costumes the characters wore. Just look at the above difference! The new designs are BORING. The only thing identifying each character is their hats.

But I choose to remember her as she was, and I made a new polyvore coordinate to celebrate her quirky, girly style:

So here's my question to all of you: Did you have a favorite childhood cartoon/tv show/book/etc that was remade recently in a way that made you shudder? The closest thing for me currently is the new Transformers movies (yes this frilly, girly girl loves metal music and is addicted to the original Transformers series. Ba-weep-grana-weep-ninny-bom). How do you feel about sequels to childhood classics or revamped characters/plot? What studio exec scarred your precious childhood memories?

Which Austen Heroine am I?

Take the Quiz here!

"You are Catherine Morland of Northanger Abbey! You love a good Gothic romance - so much, in fact, that you'll fool yourself into thinking you're living one! You are imaginative and naive, which is at once endearing and perplexing. Perhaps your heart is TOO pure...but it is adventurous. After all, you love a trip to Bath or a stay at an ancient Abbey."

I'm not surprised. I actually dislike Austen for a number of reasons, namely that she is way too Neoclassical for my taste, a bit too rational where romanticism might have kicked in. I prefer Ann Radcliffe or the later Bronte sisters. I suppose I'm horrid because I like shocking things to happen to the main characters---I mean "I left my abusive alcoholic husband in the Victorian era and I'm about to change social norms FOREVER" type things, not "oops that guy wasn't as much of a jerk as I thought" type things (Tenant of Wildfell Hall versus P&P). I must admit, the Gothic is an overlooked genre--I encourage everyone to read a good gothic, preferably one with a strongly-defined heroine like those of the Bronte sisters' novels. Male writers also produced some salicious Gothics, and many see the Gothic as the most hyper-sexualized of literary genres (makes sense--Victorian sexuality was fairly repressed). Not that Austen isn't wonderful, but she's the tip of a delicious iceberg of women writers of the late 18th and 19th century.

So, if you were an Austen character, who would you be?