Costumes at Japanese Halloween Stores

So I haven't had time to do all I wanted with halloween this year.
I'm so busy with tests, papers, and presentations (not to mention work) that I barely have time for myself.
I really wanted to get my halloween look down but it's so rushed.. and the first halloween party I'm going to is tomorrow at work. I was going as a snow queen/yuki onna (a snow spirit in Japanese that killed people with her kiss/breath?) any who, I hope that I didn't over do it.
I am going in white face paint... and I hope the kids wont all scream and run away...
heck, it's halloween right? lol
anyway, here are some crazy pictures from the halloween section at stores in Japan. This is a wig...titled "Samurai wolf"....... Need I say more??

Now these are some "pants" or underwear... with a tap in the front... uuuuhh....

and this is a boob hat... 

ah, japan, you never cease to surprise me lol

Finding a craft store...

So back home we have Michael's and tons of other craft stores. Funny thing is, I couldn't name a single craft store that I've seen or heard of here in Japan. And I've been here for almost 3 years!
Funny thing is, I was actually gonna google it today when I got home, but I saw a friend with a big bag with a huge canvas or something in it, and I thought..."hmmm she's an arts and crafts kinda girl...maybe she knows", and she did!!!

It's called Sekaido. The best part was that the she said the biggest one was in Shinjuku...right next to the Forever 21!!! I had to go to work after, but I was so excited that I couldn't wait. I figured I had just enough time to make a quick stop, so I went there and bought some body paint to prepare for halloween and work on some looks.

This is outside of Shinjuku station. It was so close!

 OMG It's Forever 21!! But.....I was a good girl and didn't go in... I already did damage in the beginning of the month here.

And there it is, in the red Kanji letters. Even if I walked passed it a million times I wouldn't have known it was a craft store... Geez....

Sadly though, the face pain was crap. It was a liquid type of paint in a tube that said "chromacryl: studen't acrylic". You can use it on the face, it's non toxic and water based. But omg, it was so hard to work with. It just ended up looking really uneven and cracked, no matter how many times I re-did it with thin layers, etc. Dabbing over it with a sponge kinda picked up the paint and leave a hole... ugh...

So I need to find another craft store that sells clown pain in a cream form or something... The section with body paint was so small at Sekaido... Or else I'll have to order some online... Know any good brands? I hear Ben Nye is good.

Halloween Nail Tutorial

Today was a bummy day...

Starting from the beginning with my test in my early morning class. I woke up and left early just so I can get there on time and have some extra time to study, but NOOO all 3 trains I take to school were late.

I lost my planner, skipped belly dancing class because I was looking for it (with no success) and had problems recording the tutorial. Enough with my venting though... 

My creative juices are just not there lately, and I haven't had ideas or the urge to look for inspiration lately, but I knew I should do something soon. So, I did a halloween nail tutorial because the kids at school have been asking when I'll start with them this year.

So here it is... Simple really, I didn't like how the spider came out but I was too lazy to redo it, lol.

The tutorial will be up on youtube. but here's basically what I did:

1. Made a gradation with purple and a white glittery polish

2. Then I drew in the pictures using a thin wand, making "m's" for bats and white for a ghost.

I also did a spider web and a yellow spider, but I'd rather scratch out the spider lol.

I hope you guys like it and would try it out!!

check out

www.youtube.com/rilakumaki 

pretty soon and I'll have the tutorial up

Sleep!!!!!

So I've been having trouble with sleep lately... I mean, I was gonna sleep early, and here I am, doing homework and blogging! lol. I swear it's impossible to get enough sleep and perform well at school (especially if your working at the same time like me). What do you guys do to fall asleep? I don't like drinking warm milk because...well I don't like milk, haha. Calming music?

I always wanted to start doing meditation or some yoga at night to help me sleep. If you guys ever tried yoga, you know how the last 10-15 mins are spent on the ground doing savasana and just relaxing. I loved my old yoga classes where they put towels with scented oils like lavender or lemon grass on it and covered your eyes while you lay listening to the river flowing outside. It always made me really sleepy and I hated getting up when the class ended.

I'm going to start doing that, or at least try. Maybe it can help me sleep and be a de-stressor at the same time. I'll let you know how it works!

Sports Day!

So I have a day off tomorrow!! I actually get an actual "weekend" (as in 2 days off) because I usually work on Saturdays too. So why exactly am I off? Because Japan is great and has really random holidays through out the year. My favorites are green day (like seriously, the color green), respect for the aged day, and tomorrow - Sports day. Now no one actually goes out of their way to play sports, and all the children already had their Sports Day at their school by at least like last weekend or so... But nevertheless most jobs and places are CLOSED, including my job and school <3

Ah! It makes living here great when I think of all the odd public holidays they have here that don't really have any purpose or tradition/thing you do on that specific day. I guess I did go to the beach on Oceans Day this past summer, but it wasn't really crowded.

So what am I going to do with my day off? ..... Probably nothing, lol. But that's also important I guess. Getting good rest. I remember we were talking about in my psych class about how getting little sleep (even like 6 or 4 hours a night) everyday for a long period of time (the study was 2 weeks i think) is the same as getting no sleep at all for 3 days. I'm sure you can imagine just how unfocused and discombobulated you would get with 3 days of no sleep. When you think of it like that, a day of doing nothing is actually doing a great lot of "something" for my mental state =)
So I'll be chillin with my Rilakkuma,

Napping with him too,

and also spend sum time with my bunny <3

BYS Pallet in Conga Swatches

So I don't know if you've ever heard of this brand, but I LOVE their pallets!
So far I've only bought them in Browns and Conga, but I love swatching them at the stores.
This is the swatches from the conga pallet. They are all metallic and really pigmented!
It's 1,680 yen in Japan and you can buy them in most stores that sell cosmetics. I bought mine from Plaza <3

P.S Please ignore the PJs .... lol