100,000 Page Views!!!

Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!!!!!!!!

At some stage last night, my little blog reached 100k page views! You have all made me so incredibly happy! I would love to express my gratitude and thank you all for reading, whether you are a regular or just a casual browser. I am going to celebrate by eating lots of sweets and thinking up some future posts, so I can reach 200k views!

Thank you all!

Dreamy Horoscope by Angelic Pretty

Today I will be taking a look at the other new horoscope print. You can see the print discussion for the BABY print here- http://luna-rain.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/twinkle-constellation-and-stars-by-baby.html

But today's print is from Angelic Pretty. It is called Dreamy Horoscope. This series contains 2 dresses, a salopette, a skirt, 3 different hair accessories, 2 pairs of socks, a blouse, a unicorn plush bag, a star shaped bag and various bits of jewellery. Does this series rival Baby's print? Let's find out!

This is the OP. I think the bodice shape looks fine, but I would definitely use the waist ties to help it look more fitted. I like the gathering on the front because it gives the front more texture and depth. It would look worse if it was totally flat and hopefully it will mean it fits the bust a bit better. The neckline is decorated with cute star lace. Whilst the lace does blend in to the design a lot, I think it is needed because otherwise this dress would be so plain and boring. The sleeves look very stretchy. I like how they are not too puffy, because I don't think very puffy sleeves would suit the shape of this dress. They are finished off with cute thin ribbon bows. I really like the ribbon bow on the front and the cross-neck straps (not visible in this picture) because they have star charms on the end! Just like Dream Sky! The shirring runs the whole way across the back, and that means it is very exposed. I don't think that looks particularly nice, but the great thing is that it makes the dress size really flexible. I can imagine this dress being very comfortable to wear. The baby-doll shape is very appealing and the skirt shape is lovely. It is not your typical lolita shape, but that has hardly affected sales of other similar series. The skirt part has been kept quite plain, so the print is displayed better. The bottom is finished with a ruffle and 2 lines of lace, which works really well. It makes the dress look more interesting, but at the same time it fits the style of dress. My main complaint is that the material used is very shiny.

This is the JSK. I have been pondering the kindest way to talk about this JSK... but to be honest, it looks like a sack. It is so shapeless and unflattering! There is no real bodice to the dress, so it probably wont provide much support to those who are large in the bust area. If it wasn't for the print, I wouldn't even notice it was AP.

The neckline also doesn't appeal to me. The round neckline and ruffle don't seem to match up well with the main shape of the dress. I think the ruffle part is a bit too wide and sticks outwards too much. The lace however, is up to AP's usual standard and looks cute. The straps are also finished with more star charms on the back, which is cute.

As there is no real bodice, it means there is no shirring on the back. Smaller lolitas will be grateful for the waist ties, although I would be interested to see how this affects the overall shape of the dress. The bottom hem is finished off with a nice ruffle, topped with more AP logo lace. Again, the material used is very shiny.

And here we have the print close-up. AP have gone very cutesy here (Did we really expect them to do anything else?) and I had no idea there was a cupcake constellation! I am pretty sure AP made that one up...  Whilst I do like the floating stars in the background, I don't really like the floating constellations in this print. It just doesn't look that special. It almost looks as though somebody just doodled some cute things on a notepad and thought they would stick them all together in a print. As you can see, the print comes in 5 colours- white, pink, sax, con blue and black. The dress material is so shiny, the print is almost non-existant on the pink and sax colour ways because it blends in way too much. I also think the white colour-way is absolutely hideous and cheap looking. I personally would only go for the con blue or black, because at least the print stands out on these 2 darker colours.

For me, the jewellery is also a bit of a let-down. Whilst I appreciate it has been done to match the print, I really dislike the lines on the jewellery. They look really scratchy and it just doesn't appeal to me. There are 2 items shaped like bows and I felt they both looked awkward.

I do feel that the unicorn jewellery is the saving grace of the series, BUT only in certain colours. I think the blue (the colour is called con) is the strongest colour for this jewellery. Unlike the bows, I feel the unicorn jewellery does need the lines on it to help the unicorn design stand out. Other colours, such as the pink and sax blue ones, don't work as well because the lines blend in and don't stand out. Unfortunately, it makes these colours look as though you are wearing a randomly shaped lump of plastic around your neck, instead of a cute unicorn.

I am at least happy that AP have released more star shaped bags. I really love this blue colour!

So overall, I am hugely disappointed with the series. I think AP was trying to catch the magic of Dream Sky and in my personal opinion, they failed! As somebody who is a star print fan, I think I was expecting something a bit more special. I prefer the OP over the JSK (which is unusual for me!). I would only go for black or con. Would I buy this series? No. Although I have added the con blue star bag to my wishlist, because that is too cute for me to resist.

Valentine Thank you!

A big thank you to whoever made number 39 this week!

http://loli-valentines.livejournal.com/123718.html

A Nice Little Surprise For Me!

I have not been having a great time! I have been unwell, my new brand has been hit by customs and work has been slow. So when I saw a random pink letter in the post, it caught my eye. Then I saw that it had been sent by one of my Facebook friends. I opened it to find... she had sent me some lovely jewellery! It was totally unexpected!

I got a bracelet with cute moon/star beads.

I also got a matching ring!

Some of my really long-term readers may remember I got sent a jewellery package a while ago, and these items came from the same person. They wouldn't have known I was having a bad day, but the jewellery came at just the right time! It is really lovely to see such an act of kindness and generosity. Thank you so much Saija for my new items. I love them!

Luna On Twitter!

I finally got around to joining Twitter! Sadly, LunaRain and Luna_Rain were already taken, so I had to add a stupid number on the end!

If you would like to follow me, or just want to know what I am doing/moaning about/having for dinner, then you can find me here- http://twitter.com/Luna_Rain88

You can also see the link on the right hand menu with my handy button!

I promise I will stop posting this link everywhere soon. Everything is still new and exciting, so bear with me. I am looking forward to making lots of new Twitter friends!

June 2012 Ox Loli Meet- New College Picnic!

So on Saturday we had the June Oxfordshire Lolita meet. This was my first time going to a meet which was held on International Lolita Day. Before I went rushing off bring a mad woman, I completely forgot to wish you all a Happy International Lolita Day so I will do it now- happy belated I.L.D everybody!

Roxy was our wonderful host for this meet. It was her first time hosting and she did a really amazing job. We had a picnic inside New College, Oxford. Roxy's dad works there so we had very special access. It helps to have insiders! We were given wine and really posh canapes. I feel very sorry for the person hosting the July meet, who is going to have to follow on from such an amazing meet!

The soup shots were especially popular with certain people!

I thought I would share some of my favourite pictures I took of the college. You might recognise some of the areas because they were used in the film Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. That is how awesome Oxford is!

I really like this wall covered in wysteria. 

You have no idea just how much I would love to live here!

This was my favourite area. I wish I took more photos.

Here is our group! I really loved everybody's outfits.

We also had a cake decorating contest! It was seriously fun and I thought it was a great idea. I wouldn't have come up with something like that. I think it is fair to say that some of us took it more seriously than others!

Here was my 2 offerings. Can you believe my cake on the far right actually won Most Creative? I was so surprised, but also very happy. Thank you to everybody who voted for my strawberry guzzling cake! I got a ring, lip balm and a bracelet. You can see Sammi's winning Best Sweet cupcake in the background (the one with the rose). The rose she made looked so professional. Sammi, you should work in a cake shop! Amber's winning gothic cake is near the front in the previous picture. It had a spider design on it.

My outfit for the day! I was wearing Nostalgic Chess by Meta with my Innocent World crown bag. I have gradually been collecting accessories for this dress. The bolero was not meant to be a part of this outfit, but it was a bit cold outside! I was also wearing a chiffon blouse, my AP Chess Knight necklace and my gold Paris Kids beads (as both a necklace and a bracelet). I just wanted to point that out in case people didn't notice the gold/royal/chess theme I was aiming for here! I don't have a suitable head bow for this dress yet, so I improvised with a detachable bow from the dress and a plain black bow. I do have more bolder ideas planned for this dress but that will have to wait for another time.

So a huge thank you to Roxy for being such an amazing host. I think everybody was stunned by how beautiful the setting was and I know I had a brilliant time!

Luna Is Taking The Day Off!

If you were expecting a post today, then I am very sorry. I have a long and very packed weekend ahead of me. I am going to be doing fun frilly things with some awesome people, visiting my mum and then meeting up for ANOTHER picnic. It is the Queen's 60th Jubilee weekend and my husband is off work for a few days, so we are going to make the most of it and just generally be very British (In other words, possibly eating posh sandwiches and scones.There might be some tea involved too).

So I hope that everybody has a fun weekend, whatever you are doing! I will be back very soon!