geek style · out & about

Under da Sea

The title of this blog post is somewhat misleading because I am completely the opposite of being under the sea. Right now, I’m up in the air on my way to Hawaii! Or maybe I’ve already landed. I don’t know. Hawaii is 3 hours ahead of my usual time, and I suck at even the most basic of math problems so trying to figure out where exactly I am at this very moment is giving me a headache. Anyhow, I’m really excited since I haven’t been to Hawaii since I was 15. My cousin is getting married this weekend on Oahu, but I’ll be staying there for a whole week. Weeee!!!

Tropical locations aren’t completely my thing (yes, I know I’m weird), but we’re staying at Aulani! Disney magic all day, every day!!! Y’know what I’m sayin’? I am going to be eating ALL THE DOLE WHIP.

Since today is Thursday, I decided to post a little throwback outfit to something I wore to Disney’s California Adventure last month. My dress has silhouettes of Ariel all over it and I just added my crinoline to give it some extra oomph. Now that I think about it, it probably would’ve been better if I wore a lavender cardigan and my orange-y/yellow flower clip to emulate Ariel’s color palette more. But oh well! I like the way this ensemble turned out, and I think it’s pretty clear that it’s an Ariel Disneybound outfit, right?

I also packed this outfit for Hawaii sans the crinoline —  I heard that it’s kinda rainy and hot (uuggghh) so I think I would be insanely uncomfortable if I walked around wearing it. Don’t be surprised if you see it on the blog again!

I’m bringing my laptop with me since I still have to work on things for Wear Your Voice Mag, but I’m not sure if I’ll be updating the blog throughout the week. I’mma be on vacation afterall! You can count on me to upload tons of pictures on Instagram though. If you don’t follow me on there yet, you can find me via @lefancygeek. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!!

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dress: Hot Topic (buy here) | cardigan: Old Navy (buy here)
earrings: Betsey Johnson (buy here) | crinoline: Tatyana (buy here)
shoes: deflex Comfort (buy here) | hair flower: DIY’d by me
sunglasses: Charming Charlie (no longer available)

cheers

5 fandom friday

5 Fandom Friday: My Favorite Comfort Films

5 fandom 2

 

I always make it a point to watch one or two Disney movies whenever I feel sick. This is a tradition that started when I had the flu my senior year of high school. Plus [most] Disney movies make me want to bawl my eyes out, which is perfect to help clear my sinuses! The Disney films I’m listing aren’t necessarily my all-time top 5 favorites, but the ones I seem to want to watch the most when I feel ill.

1. The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

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The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh is the kind of movie I like to watch when the sky is ridden with rain, but it’s also great to watch when you’re in a sickly state too. It’s a cute, easy going movie, and Pooh Bear is my favorite!

2. Up

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When my nose is clogged to the point where I can’t even blow it all out into tissue, watching Up is the perfect solution! Within 10 minutes of the film, I’m already crying my eyes out and for some reason when you cry, your nose runs like it’s no one’s business. Ahh… sweet temporary relief.

3. Mary Poppins

Mary Poppins

I just want Julie Andrews to be my grandmother and feed me a spoon full of sugar after she gives me my medicine (to help it go down)(obviously), okay? Okay.

4. The Little Mermaid

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You know that scene where King Triton and Sebastian are looking at Ariel from a distance near the end of the movie and King Triton tells Sebastian how much he’s going to miss her and proceeds to turn her back into a human? SO MANY TEARS. ALL THE TEARS. I seriously got misty eyed just typing all that. o__o

5. Hercules

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This movie is rife with all kinds of mythological inaccuracies, and that kind of stuff usually really bothers me. But I LOVE Hercules! It’s just a feel-good movie, and I think part of it has to do with its soundtrack. “Zero to Hero” will forever be my jam.

What are your favorite comfort films? Lemme know in the comments section!

cheers


To find out the origins of 5 Fandom Friday, go here. And check out The Nerdy Girlie and SuperSpaceChick to catch up with the latest prompts! 

geek style

Under the Sea

outfit details – t-shirt: RedBubble (buy here) // skirt: Marilyn Monroe (buy here) // cardigan: GAP // belt: Xhileration  // flats: Blowfish Malibu Shoes // tote: Tokidoki for LeSportsac // ring: Betsy Johnson (buy here) //hair bow: Judy & Park (buy here) // glasses: Derek Cardigan (buy here) // earrings: Crossroads Trading Co. // watch: Timex x Disney

Greetings my little ponies! It’s been awhile since I’ve done an outfit post hasn’t it? I finally managed to find time to sneak in a shoot while I house/dog sit for Tim’s mom and sister! As I type this, Rory and Jezi are curled up by my side enjoying a little nap. It’s almost been like a tiny vacation, this house/dog sitting gig, despite the fact that I still had to go to work. And speaking of tiny vacations, Tim and I are going to be heading to SoCal in a week! We’re only going to be there for a few days, but we’re hitting Disneyland, exploring LA for a day, and then we’re going to visit my sister in San Diego. I’M SO EXCITED!!!! I’ve never been to Disneyland while it’s dressed to the nines in jack-o-lanterns and other spooky Halloween decor so I’m super stoked! Oh, and my sister’s going to take Tim and I to some yummy local SD restaurants. I cannot wait to om nom on some pizza knots from Soda & Swine ::drools::

Anyhow, today’s outfit is inspired by The Little Mermaid/Once Upon a Time. I picked up this art nouveau Ariel t-shirt by Megan Lara last month on RedBubble and paired it with my Peter Pan mermaid bow by Judy & Park and gold dinglehopper earrings from Crossroads Trading Co. I despise the mermaids from Peter Pan (I mean, they only tried to drown Wendy for no good reason), but I couldn’t resist the bow! Look at how effing cute it is! And it was handmade beautifully too. I don’t remember how I came across Judy & Park on Instagram, but I’m glad I did. I also bought a Coraline bow from her as well. And check out my hot pink shoes! I bought them years ago when I still lived in Daly City at Bakers for $20! I don’t know why it took me so damn long to start wearing them. I bought my black skirt at Macy’s last week when I was in Modesto visiting my dad at the hospital. Don’t worry! He’s fine, he just had knee replacement surgery. My mom, sister, and I headed to the mall while he was napping and the dress I wore that day was really short (I normally wear it with black tights since it makes it look not so short, but I couldn’t find my black tights that morning sooo, yeah). I bought the skirt because I was getting really self-cautious about it. But I’ve been searching for an a-line black skirt that’s nice and sturdy for a while anyway, and it’s a good length unlike the other two I have hanging in my closet — one is too flimsy and the other one is too short. I apparently have been having Goldilocks issues with black skirts. I’m also obsessed with it, so don’t be surprised when it pops up a lot in future outfit posts. 😀

My Tokidoki for LeSportsac tote went perfectly with my outfit with all the glam pirates,  kawaii mermaids and sea creatures! One of my favorite shows, Once Upon a Time, is currently set in Neverland and Ariel is supposed to make her debut in an episode to be aired later this season. EEK! I’d go on about it, but Tim’s not caught up yet and he reads my blog sooo ::fingers on lips::

This outfit magically conjured itself up since I’ve had Once on the brain. And the fact that The Little Mermaid came out on DVD/Blu Ray last week probably had something to do with it too.

I hope your Wednesday is swimmingly delightful, my little ponies ♡

Cheers,
Nina

bloop

A Smorgasbord of Mushy Cute Stuff

Happy Valentine’s Day/Single’s Awareness Day/Thursday, everyone!

I don’t have any huge plans like I did last year, but Tim and I are going to stay in and eat pizza (I think…?) and watch movies this evening — we’re basically just doing what we usually do whenever we get to hangout over the weekend. Good times!

I just wanted to share some geeky and not so geeky Valentine greetings, including some I remember giving/receiving from the 90s, that I found on the interwebs!

Hope you all enjoy your day whether you happen to celebrate this Hallmark holiday or not 😀

Harry Potter valentines by Kjersti Faret. Click here to see more!

Doctor Who Valentines by Tom Kurzanski

Dalek valentine by Amy Liu

 

I actually got that Abu card from a boy I couldn’t stand in first grade!

Star Wars valentines by Katie Cook

via Tumblr

I’m pretty sure I handed these The Little Mermaid cards one year 🙂

Downton Abbey valentine by Hurricane Vanessa

Sherlock valentines by robbicide

Firefly valentine via Hypable

I can’t find the original creator for this Firefly greeting – HELP!

Scott Pilgrim valentines via Uproxx

Cheers,
Nina

bloop

How I Met My Phantom Lover & Other Disney Delusions

Before Tim and I got together, I constantly thought of different scenarios of how I’d meet my future boyfriend. I remember a few years ago, while walking through Golden Gate Park with my friend Monica, our conversation on our love lives (or lack thereof) led us to this subject.

Scenario number one for me was always this: We’d meet at a used bookstore. While browsing the fiction section, we both reach for the same one – Pale Fire by Vladmir Nabokov. He’d insist that I go ahead and take it, and I would insist he do the same. This would go back and forth while I felt my face grow warm and scarlet. And then I’d tell him that I actually already own a copy. He would ask me if it was any good, and then I’d tell him I don’t really know, because I bought it when I was a freshman in high school hoping to look smart by owning that book, but grew a bit bored while reading it, and that I want to eventually give it another chance. And he’d loff, not laugh, because he’d be British! Then he would ask me if I wanted to grab a cup of coffee and pastries at a nearby bakery, to which I would agree upon. Rather than coffee, I would drink tea because coffee, though delicious, gives me migraines, and I would struggle between getting a cookie, a morning bun, or macaroon (chocolate chip cookie always wins, BTW). And then we’d date for hella years, and then get married, and have dogs.

Scenario number two involved dogs as well. It’s quite simple: We’d both be walking in opposite directions at a park and our dogs would see one another from across the way and go ape shit, thus making each of us attempt to hold them back, but lose control and our dogs would collide, their leashes coiling around our legs tightly, and we’d tumble onto a soft patch of grass. Both of us would utter Oh my Gods! and I’m so sorrys! to one another and we’d scold our dogs to no avail. Obviously, after that we’d get married and he would write musical ditties and I would write stories, and then my schoolmate would come over and want to make a coat out of the puppies they were going to have. When telling Monica this, she said I watch way too many Disney movies. Also, I didn’t have a dog when I conjured this scenario, but once I got Rory, I thought, “OH MY GOD! My 101 Dalmatians fantasy can become a reality!”

So, yeah. I do watch a ridiculous amount of Disney movies. And I think those films may have played an integral role on the way I wanted things to play out in my own love life (which has been entirely fictional for the better half of my somewhat young life as I dated celebrities in my head).

For my first kiss, I wanted so badly for it to be just like the  “Kiss The Girl” scene in The Little Mermaid, minus the cock-blocking eel henchmen. But what guy could possibly recreate a boat ride with coordinated fish spitting water (that’s doesn’t sound romantic) while swimming in a circle around our little vessel, while a musically inclined crustacean orchestrates a beautiful number urging him to smoosh his lips onto my lips in a romantical fashion? A Disney Imagineer, perhaps. But where am I going to meet one of those? And aren’t most of them way older than me (10 years was always my cutoff)? The closest thing I ever thought of getting to date someone who worked for Disney in a creative aspect was if I moved to Emeryville and met a Pixar animator at a coffee shop near the studio. However, I never moved to Emeryville and my first kiss happened in my ex boyfriend’s car, in front of my parents’ house while holding a box of tiramisu and he asked, “Do you wanna try?” I had no idea what he was talking about. It was terrible. D:<

And when I was still a wee lass, I assumed that if I lost a shoe, a handsome boy would find it and he’d bring it to me immediately and we’d fall in love and live happily ever after. I recall going to a wedding when I was about 5 or so, and I ran around the dance floor and pretended to lose my shoe. I one shoe’d it for a bit, but Prince Charming never came my way. Defeated, I  retrieved my shoe on the dance floor and ate some cake.

Other things I thought when I was a kid was that my Soul Mate would come out of nowhere if I just sang to myself while alone (with the exception of animals) a la Snow White and Sleeping Beauty. Or if I just sang in general (Prince Eric loved him a siren). I never attempted this one. I thought it was something to do when I got older, I thought maybe my singing would get better. Once I got older I realized it was a stupid idea (and I can’t sing for shit — I fail as a Filipino and a Disney Princess). It’s scary if you think about it though, because in both movies, these girls are out by their lonesome, and then some guy they don’t know comes along and startles them. But it’s okay since they’re hot. I thought [still think] Prince Philip was the dreamiest of all the princes, but after watching the “Once Upon a Dream” scene again, I’m disturbed by how Aurora is genuinely freaked out by his sudden appearance and tries to get out of his grip, but he just grabs her hand again ’cause he thinks she’s smokin’. Creeper Prince Philip is a creeper!

If Quasimodo came out of his bell tower because he was drawn to your lovely singing, you’d be scared shitless. Don’t feel bad though, because I’d totally be scared too. Poor Quasi.

I’ve lived through more situations like those in Sara Bareilles songs (which are really effing sad, in case you’re not familiar) and the film (500) Days of Summer rather than having magical Disney moments where my love life is concerned, and though Tim and I just met through a mutual friend and were friends for 3 years, I feel that the evolution of our friendship is a damn fine story. I ended up with a pretty handsome, thoughtful, and hilarious dude (who is musically inclined like Roger Radcliffe from 101 Dalmatians minus the pipe habit, so suck it Phantom Lovers and Disney Princes!). 😀

geek style · out & about

The Happiest Place on Earth

I got back from my super amazingly fantastical 4-day Disneyland adventure last night around 2:30 am! Or technically, earlier this morning. My back is killing me (Tim had to put Icy Hot patches on me, and I’ve been downing Aleve like there’s no tomorrow), my feet are sore, and there’s slight chaffage between my thighs, but I already miss Disneyland oh-so-terribly. 😦 And despite the fact that we were there for 4 days, we still didn’t do everything we wanted to do. BUT, we also got annual passes, so we have a whole year to go back as many times as we can!!!

Some pretty interesting things happened during our stay — the cast of Modern Family were shooting on location for an upcoming episode. We spotted them on Main Street! And on Saturday, we used our Magic Morning passes to get into the park an hour early, and around 9:30 we headed over to California Adventure to get Fast Passes for World of Color, but we noticed that the park was damn near empty — a rarity for a Saturday at Disneyland. We were stopped by some cast members at the entrance/exit and they told us that there’s a “situation” going on outside of the park, so they weren’t letting anyone in OR out. Basically, we were trapped inside Disneyland which is probably the greatest place anyone could be trapped at. We got to enjoy 3 hours of short lines! But I do feel bad for the folks who had to wait inside the parking lot to get in. :/ Oh yeah, Disneyland closed at 2 am that night too. CRAZYNESS.

I got to see my sister and her boyfriend briefly since they were at the park for the One More Disney Day event a few days before we got there.
We asked a cast member to take our photo — he ended up making us do 3 poses.
I saw someone wearing the SAME EXACT Hello Kitty cardigan and leaf print dress as me. WHAT ARE THE ODDS???
Meeko wears a bow tie now. Bow ties are cool.
These are not the droids you are looking for.
Disneyland was a ghost town on Saturday morning. It was amazing!
Eric Stonestreet (Cameron!) from Modern Family.
This looks like an engagement photo. Hehe. 🙂
The World of Color show is by far one of my favorite things about California Adventure.
At elecTRONica with Sam and Aaron.
Aladdin and Jasmine on It’s a Small World.
Tim and I with the ultimate couple: Mickey and Minnie.
Another one of my favorite things at California Adventure is the sketch class.
Prince Eric & Ariel.
Matchy-matchy with the Sleeping Beauty duds.
In case you haven’t thrown up over the cute couply pictures we took.
Captain EO is so delightfully 80s. ❤

I can’t wait to go back for my next visit!!!!!!

geek style

Grand Opening!

I’m very excited to announce that Once Upon a Smorgasbord… is officially open!!! And just in time for the holiday season. Huzzah!

Here’s a peek at some of the necklaces I have available:

Thanks to my friends and family who have been very supportive of this endeavor. I hope you all enjoy!

And don’t forget, the giveaway for my Rapunzel necklace is still going on! Click here for a chance to win. 🙂