A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes

May 9, 2013 Nina Penalosa7 Comments

outfit details – pullover: Forever 21 // dress: BCX (buy here) // ring + earrings: Once Upon a Smorgasbord (buy here and here) // glasses: Derek Cardigan (buy here) // shoes: Mossimo

I was looking through my wallet the other day and noticed that I never took out my Annual Pass to Disneyland despite the fact that it expired two months ago. *cries* A key to happiness with an expiration date is the saddest thing ever! Wah wah wah. #firstworldproblems

So today’s outfit is a “what I’d wear to Disneyland” kind of a thing, but really — I’d wear Disney related clothing ANYWHERE. 😀

I actually wore this lacey navy blue dress on my last trip to Disneyland (seen here). Annnd, this is the dress’ third appearance in an outfit post (seen here). Sorry I’m not sorry for recycling! I got my lavender Cinderella pullover a couple years ago when Forever 21 first started selling them. Naturally, I went ape sh!t and bought almost every friggin’ one they had, except for yellow Lion King pullover which they never had in my size every time I stumbled upon it. RUGH!

The jewelry I’m wearing is made by yours truly and I just put them up on Once Upon a Smorgasbord! Don’t worry, I’m just wearing them for show in this outfit. I didn’t actually go out and about wearing them! And with Mother’s Day coming closer and closer, it’s too late for me to have a sale like I originally intended. Mah bad.

So bad news: if you want to buy something for your mama from Once Upon a Smorgasbord, it won’t ship out on time.

Good news: I’m going to start a sale ON Mother’s Day! I’ll be adding more things to the store, so be on the lookout for more info on that and a code to use at checkout 😀

Cheers,
Nina

geek style

D.I.Y. Doctor Who Pullover Tutorial on GadChick!

March 13, 2013 Nina Penalosa9 Comments

I’m super excited to tell you all about the D.I.Y. tutorial on how to make your very own Adipose sweater I created! It can be found on a super nifty blog called GadChick 🙂

In case you’re wondering what an Adipose is, it’s an Intergalactic creature that’s basically composed of fat. That sounds super gross, but they’re soooo cute! They appear in the Doctor Who episode “Partners in Crime,” which is super adorbz BTW and is one of my favorite DW episodes because Donna Noble (played by Catherine Tate) RULES.

Once again, the tutorial can be found here.

And if you happen to make a sweater for yourself, send me a picture! I’d love to see what you all come up with!!!

Cheers,
Nina

Lions, and Tigers, but no Bears. Aww man!

January 14, 2013 Nina Penalosa2 Comments

outfit details – bomber jacket: Espirit // polar bear pullover: Forever 21 (buy here) // purse: Coach // necklace: Swarovski // glasses: Derek Cardigan (buy here) // jeggings: Vera Wang // boots: Steve Madden

‘ello! Hope you all had a lovely weekend, I know I did (on account of Saturday being the anniversary of my birth)!

To celebrate my entry into my late 20s (oh my god, I was 17 ten years ago?!), Tim and I went to the Sacramento Zoo to hang out with the animals! I had never been there before, plus the thought of being able to feed a giraffe was too exciting. That’s actually something I wrote on a bucket list I created when I was in high school — feed a giraffe. I’m obsessed with tide pools and stingrays at aquariums, I suppose I’m just really enticed by the idea of being able to interact with wild animals. But alas, when feeding time came the giraffes weren’t interested in the food. Apparently during the winter they just don’t care that much about om noms because they’ve already stored enough energy or something like that.

But I WILL feed a giraffe one day! It’s gonna happen, dammit!

Fun fact time: Betty White helped raise money for the zoo’s giraffe exhibit in 2009. BETTY WHITE INTERACTED WITH THE GIRAFFES I SAW WITH MY OWN TWO EYES. <– I’m also obsessed with Betty White. Who isn’t?

I’m trying to get back into the habit of bringing little toys with me to document the places I go, so I brought Rarity and my little Rory Williams action figure that Jennifer got me for my birthday! I also wore my polar bear sweater to go along with the zoo theme of the day, but to my surprise the Sacramento Zoo doesn’t have any sort of bear exhibit. 😦

The lack of bears didn’t ruin my trip though, I saw tons of other interesting animals like the singing gibbons (Google them, they’re all kinds of entertaining), a pensive primate (pictured above), an eastern bongo (pictured above), and some wild kitty cats! I couldn’t get any decent shots of the lions, the tiger, or the snow leopard (it was so small, it looked like it was as big as a Border Collie), but I managed to take a picture of the jaguar. 🙂

The red panda was by far the cutest critter there, it totally reminded me of Rory (my dog, not the action figure)! But my new favorite zoo animal has to be lemurs because they were ridiculous amounts of fun to watch — I think Tim and I spent a good 10 minutes watching them run around and sun bathe. Especially since one of them kept holding their arms out in a way that said both “come at me bro” and “look at me, I’m fabulous!”

And speaking of fabulous, anteaters (Tim’s new favorite animal) look like they’re ready for the red carpet. I don’t know, there’s just something glamourous about them. Oh, and we totally saw some anteater action of the bow-chicka-bow-wow kind… y’know what I’m sayin’? It was so weird.

Overall, it was a good birthday! After the zoo we went to Old Town, ate dinner at Tower Cafe (if you’re in Sac you’ve gotta try the Malaysian Chicken Sandwich, holy crap!), did some shopping, and had a pizookie at BJ’s. Om nom nom.

Cheers,
Nina

geek style

Birthday Wishes

January 7, 2013 Nina Penalosa6 Comments

My birthday is this Saturday! AHHH!!! My original plans to go to the Happiest Place on Earth fell through, so I won’t be dining with Minnie Mouse for a birthday brunch or scream to my heart’s content on the Tower of Terror *cries tears of sadness* But I do believe that the boyfriend and I will do some exploring out of town, possibly Sacramento. I’m not sure yet. I have a few days to figure it out. I just know that I want the consumption of cupcakes and/or macaroons to be involved!

Anywho, I thought it’d be fun to create a wish list for things I hope to get for my birthday. Just like the Christmas wish list I made last month, I don’t expect to get anything off this list. This is all for funsies 😀

1. Can’t Wait to Be Queen dress from ModCloth

You can’t really see from the picture above, but this dress has horse drawn carriages, horse shoes, and castles all over it! Isn’t it magical? Isn’t it stupendous?! I wanted to wear this dress so badly when I went to Disneyland for my 1yr anniversary in November, but it was either be cute-and-broke or have money to spend around the park. *sigh* Needless to say, I’ve been eyeing this dress for months. Oh, and it’s FINALLY on sale!

2. Gift cards

Who doesn’t love a gift card? I’d specifically like one or two from Joann and/or Michaels since I really need more craft supplies. I have all sorts of things planned out in my head for pieces I’d love to make for my Etsy store and myself!

3. Doctor Who: Adipose stress toy

I get stressed very easily and I love Doctor Who, so this a no brainer, right? Annnd… I think this would be a super awesome thing to have in hand when I attempt to make Adipose pendents out of clay!

These can be found at Think Geek and Hot Topic

4. Doctor Who: TARDIS socks

Tim got me the Doctor Who ankle sock set as an early birthday present and they are ridiculously fantastic! But the weather is still cold, so these knee-length TARDIS socks would be an ideal way to keep my feet and calves warm and wave my nerd flag all at the same time. 🙂

These lovely socks can be found at Hot Topic

5. Little Black Bag

I think Little Black Bag is a pretty awesome concept — you get to pick out 3-4 designer accessories (bags, jewelry, beauty products, etc), but first you take this quiz to see what your style is and then a “stylist” shows you some things you might like, and then you pick what you like, and if you’re not crazy about something you can swap an item with another member online! I think I explained that correctly…? There’s a video on the site that explains it all better than I can.

6. Lady & the Tramp pullover from H&M

If you follow me on Instagram, then you know how desperate I am to get my paws on this beautiful knitted pullover (sweater, jumper,whatever you wanna call it)! I bugged Tim about it during the holiday season by dropping plenty unsubtle hints about how much I wanted it for Christmas. I thought it would be perfect because I love Lady & the Tramp and Tim calls me Pidge just like Tramp. So perfect, right?! But he couldn’t find it! He did his damnedest to find it too — called the ones around him, asked if they could special order it (they can’t), looked online. I ended up calling thirteen H&Ms that were at least an hour and a half away from me to see if they still had any in stock. Every store I called was COMPLETELY sold out, and it’s nowhere to be found on the interwebs. Well, there’s like one eBay listing, but it’s not even the right size. UGH.

Soo… if any of you happen to stumble upon this in a size 10 or 12 LET ME KNOW IMMEDIATELY.

And I know Forever 21 currently has a Lady & the Tramp pullover in stock, but I honestly think it’s on the fugly side, soo… yeah.

Alright, well that just about sums up my list. I hope you all have a happy Monday (if that’s possible)! 🙂

Cheers,
Nina

geek style

Bah-Ram-Ewe

December 3, 2012 Nina Penalosa7 Comments

I’ve been lusting after this burgundy pullover featuring an adorable flock of sheep from Madewell for quite a few months now, but at $108 it’s beyond too pricey for me. *cries infinite tears of sadness* 😦

So I thought I’d ~~go ahead and torture myself~~ have some fun and create an outfit based around it along with the Lesportsac x Manoush purse and Blowfish booties I’ve also been drooling over.

Here’s what I came up with:

Bah-Ram-Ewe by chezfancypants featuring a bangle bracelet

~~OH MY GOD, WHY DO I DO THIS TO MYSELF?~~

Cheers,
Nina

bloop · geek style

Guest Post on Chocolate & Cream Cake!

November 9, 2012 Nina Penalosa1 Comment

Happy Friday everyone!

I just wanted to let y’all know that Mandy over at Chocolate & Cream Cake invited me to write a guest post for her nerdtastically awesome blog! The piece I did was for her ‘Fictional Fancies’ series, so I wrote about my childhood crush: Prince Phillip from Sleeping Beauty. To celebrate, I’m rocking the Sleeping Beauty pullover Tim bought me for my birthday today. Ooooh yeah! By the way, I seriously only wanted it because Phillip is on it. And when I went to Disneyland in March, I bought Tim a shirt with Prince Phillip on it that says “Sorry Girls, I’m Taken” and made him wear it while I wore this pullover. And there’s totally photographic evidence of it . Oh, how I love my boyfriend for being a trooper. ❤

You can read me gush about my animated lovah here.

Do any of you have a crush on an animated character or a fictional person? You can message Mandy about writing a guest post for her ‘Fictional Fancies’ series too! Check it yo.

Cheers,
Nina

geek style

Preppy Sith

October 19, 2012 Nina Penalosa4 Comments

Sometimes I like to make subtle nods to my geekdom in any outfit I wear, like with an accessory that reminds me of something from Doctor Who or a Disney character. Other times I’m very abrasive about it. Case in point, the Star Wars outfit I threw together when I went to San Francisco with my two best friends last Saturday. I’m usually all for the good guys and underdogs, but when it comes to Star Wars I can’t help but be drawn to the dark side of the force.

I don’t know what that says about me as a person. o_0

I found the Darth Vader pullover in H&M’s mens section a couple years ago. When I saw it, I felt like I couldn’t leave the store unless it came home with me… despite the fact that the money I spent on it should’ve gone to groceries. Speaking of groceries, the Stormtrooper ring I wore with this outfit was found on a cupcake from a grocery store! I seriously only bought the cupcake for the ring. Best $1.99 I ever spent! The collared shirt I’m wearing underneath my pullover was purchased at Marshall’s when I was a freshman in high school. I graduated in 2004, so that shirt is pretty fuggin old. I got my grey pleated skirt on sale at the Gap earlier this year during my local stores’ “Going Out of Business” sale. *cries* Stockton can’t have nice things, EVER! At least we have Dillards — it’s the only store location in California! My Kate Spade typewriter purse was given to me as a graduation present from my mom and dad last year. It is easily the coolest purse I own. And now a little Arpakasso (or Alpakasso) guy dangles from it. Jen bought it for me while we were in Japantown as a super early birthday present (my birthday isn’t until January). Since he’s wearing the German flag colors, I named him Han. 🙂

Our trip to SF was pretty awesome, despite the fact that my outfit shoot totally got interrupted by a mumbling crackhead. No, seriously. She was high and asked Shanice if she was a witch. She said some other things too, but they’re way too inappropriate for my blog! The picture above is the only decent shot that came from the shoot pre crackhead. I suppose it’s for the best — it would’ve looked odd if I smiled while clad in Empire gear, right? But before that nonsense we stopped by Berkeley first for food, because that place is just full of delicious om noms like Top Dog! Then we headed to Japantown where I found a Tokidoki cardigan that had buttons that looked like donuts. DONUT BUTTONS. I damn near died from the kawaiiness of it all. Afterwards we hit up Haight Street so I could sell some DVDs at Amoeba (but I decided to keep them because they only offered me $8 in cash), then we ran into the crazy lady, and ate dessert at Akiba Cafe. They have waitresses that dress up like lolita maids, but there weren’t any when I went. Booo. We ended the day at Stonestown Galleria, which is right across SFSU. When I was a student there I found myself wandering around Stonestown before, inbetween, and after classes. I often went home with an empty stomach and new shirt (or dress, or sweater, or whatever).