Independent Artists I Love! #1 Cosmicolor

This is a mini series I have been meaning to write for as long as I can remember but I’ve just never really got around to it, until now! I love independent artists thanks to conventions and shops like Etsy and Tictail!

For my first post in this little series I wanted to talk about Roo who owns and designs for their store Cosmicolor. I discovered them through Twitter funnily enough and fell in love with their Persona 5 designs straight away! I waited patiently for them to be released in the store and as soon as they did I had to order some!

NOW this post would have gone up on my blog on Thursday instead of the ranting post BUT this post actually contains one of my best friends birthday presents. I only saw her yesterday to give it to her so I wanted to make sure it was kept as a secret.

I ordered 2 charms, even though a part of me wanted to buy all of them! I bought myself Akira/Joker/The Protagonist and I ordered Ysuske/Fox for Gabriella. They’re both our favourites in Persona 5!

It took about 2 weeks for my parcel to arrive, which was fine as it travelled all the way from Canada. The price of the charms was reasonable in my mind, as well as the postage! They cost $12 each, Morgana costing $10. Altogether it came to about £20 for the charms AND the postage from memory. Either way it was well worth the money for these cute charms.

When you ordered any Persona 5 charms you also got a cute little card with them too, which of course I got. I wish I had asked for two now to be honest seeing as one of the charms is a gift for Gabriella. Oh well, coulda, woulda, shoulda.

The charms themselves have a clasp style chain so they’re easy to attach and detach. They also have black or red stars on, mine has the black star and Gabriella’s has the red one. The charm designs are also double sided with one side being happy and the other being serious.

Image taken from cosmicolor.tictail.com

If you’re a Persona 5 player you may have noticed that Akira and Yusuke are wearing their personas costumes, so they’re little cosplayers! All the members of the Phantom Thieves are dressed in their personas costumes, which I love! I haven’t seen anyone else do this and it really does add something new and different to the characters.

So, down to the charms themselves!

As I mentioned above I picked up Akira for myself as he’s my favourite character for various different reasons. He’s so damn cute in Arsene’s (his main/first persona’s name) outfit and I especially love that all the characters also have happy and serious fighting style faces. It really adds to the characters more. You can tell that all of these were really well thought into in so many ways. I mean look at all the detailing! Even so much as adding the cards for all of the characters that you get throughout the game. I love it so much! He’s going to go onto my Loungefly Pokemon bag (which you can read about here).

As I mentioned this charm is for my friend Gabriella so I’ve had to try and keep it a surprise on social media, as well as on my blog! Yusuke is the same as Akira and the other characters in his personas costume, as well as having a happy and serious face. I’ve obviously left him in the packaging due to him being a gift. I want him to get to her safe and sound! I hope she likes it. 🙂

This is the card that Roo sent out with the Persona 5 goodies and it is so damn cute! I love how Roo sent these out attached to a bit of card so that they wouldn’t get bent in places and ruined. I don’t yet know what I’ll do with the card but I think it’ll probably end up in a frame somewhere, especially if I create a Persona 5 themed picture for the office.

The designs on both of the cards are amazing and I would LOVE a proper print of the Leblanc design for my kitchen. I am just in love with all the little touches on the Leblanc image. If you don’t know what Leblanc is it’s the coffee and curry restaurant that Akira the main character stays in throughout the game. As you can see from the picture there’s a cappuccino/latte with a cat face in the milk froth, the phone can be seen peeping in the corner and finally Morgana and Akira are both staring at a plate of curry. SO DAMN CUTE! It actually makes me happy to look at. I didn’t really capture it in the picture but this side of the card is holographic, WHICH IS AMAZING! The other side is simpler as it’s meant to be like a playing card with Joker (Akira’s nickname) and both Akira and Morgana dressed  up in the middle. Morgana in a dress is so damn cute and this also makes me happy! FYI Morgana is a boy. 😛

I wish I could have ordered more goodies from Roo when I originally ordered these goodies, but I wanted to watch my money at the time. I was going to make another order last week for a couple more charms, but left it due to needing my cash for holiday goodies. I’ll probably wait until October now when I’m back from holiday to get myself some more charms. I want to own all of them!

Images taken from cosmicolor.tictail.com

My current mini wish list of items I want to buy next from Roo is the Ryuji and Morgana charms. I’m thinking ordering 2 each time will be a nice treat every other month.

Image taken from cosmicolor.tictail.com

As well as wanting to own all of those charms I also really want some of the mice charms too. I was going to just select a couple BUT I can’t decide which ones I really want. I want them all! If I had to choose three I’d pick Akira, Ryuji and Akechi. I’d want them all to link them together, which is what Roo will do if you ask! I’d hang them up somewhere in the office, or maybe the living room.

Overall I am in love with Roo’s designs and I can see me going back for more, whatever they design! Not only does Roo draw Persona 5 pictures but they also do Love Live, Tales of Berseria, Nier, Kingsmen and many more!

If you like what Roo does, then please check out Cosmicolor as well as all the social media! I’ll leave all the links below.

Store

Twitter

Instagram

Tumblr

So that was the post to kick start this new series off! I for one am so damn excited to continue this series as I love discovering new independent artists. Posts will probably be once a fortnight if not once a month. I’ll see how I feel! 😛

Do you like the look of the amazing work Roo creates? If so make sure to go and let them know over on Twitter! The link is above.

Until next time all take care and I hope you’ve had a lovely weekend.

Best Friend Tag!

I’ve been a bit quiet the past which, which I apologise for hundreds of millions of times! My reason for it is just because I’ve been too busy and tired after work and just wanted a bit of a break from blogging.

BUT I AM BACK and with a tag that I couldn’t wait to put up on my blog for you guys to read. I don’t know if I speak for many but I LOVE reading posts from bloggers that enable you to get to know more about the person behind the blog. I also love being able to find out more about them through their friends through posts and tags like this one.

Sadly I can’t remember the blogger who I found this tag through and when I tried to locate her blog my computer decided that it was a massive virus and blocked her blog. Oh dear. >.<

But yeah I wanted to do this tag to show all my bloggers what an amazing bestie I have and how much I love her! So we answered the questions to the tag via Facebook messenger and I’m really pleased with how it turned out. 😛

So I hope you enjoy this tag!

1. How and when did you meet?
Gabriella: On a forum in late 2008/early 2009. We used to talk on MSN, which shows how long we’ve been friends!
Nat: As Gabriella said we met on a forum that we do not name! I can’t believe it’s been 10 years next year! :O

2. What’s your favourite memory together?
G: That’s a tough one. I’d say meeting Benedict Cumberbatch together.
N: I’d probably say that day as well! I remember that evening so well, it was amazing.

3. Describe each other in one word.
G: Passionate.
N: Intelligent.

From back in 2010 when MSN was still happening!

4. What’s her dream job?
G: Something to do with acting or writing 🙂
N: A psychology teacher, Japanese translator/Japanese teacher or even acting or singing. ^_^

5. What’s her favourite makeup brand?
G: Oh god. Now that’s a tough one. I don’t think she has an ultimate favourite. She likes a lot of different brands.
N: Ooo I don’t know to be perfectly honest with you… I want to say Barry M but I put this down to her recently staying over and us looking at the Barry M goodies. 😛 Although I own a beauty blog, we rarely talk about make up haha!

6. What is something that annoys you about the other person?
G: I don’t think anything does really? I wish she’d have more confidence in herself, but I don’t consider that an annoyance.
N: To be honest that she doesn’t live closer because I miss her face all the time. Otherwise she’s perfect to me just the way she is!

7. If you could go anywhere in the world together, where would it be?
G: Japan! Preferably when we could see the sakura blossoms bloom.
N: Gabriella has already said it! Apart from Dane if there is one person I REALLY want to go to Japan with its Gabriella. I also want to go and see the sakura… I think we both need to plan something like this in the future…

Our last picture together, this was from Gabriella’s birthday last year! We are long overdue a new one. 😛

8. Favourite inside joke?
G: Ben and Tommy Cream Pie ice cream. XD
N: HAHAHA oh man I remember when we both thought of that! 😛 Oh man inside jokes… Anything rude and to do with men we fangirl over! Don’t think we can top Ben and Tommy Cream Pie ice cream though! I legit didn’t try and make a picture of that. 😛

9. Who takes longer to get ready in the morning?
G: Natalee definitely.
N: Yeah I always take ages to get ready.

10. Favourite season?
G: Summer, maybe?
N: Autumn for me. I love getting ready for Halloween and Bonfire night. September is my favourite month because of it. I’d like to say autumn or winter for Gab.

11. Favourite song?
G: I don’t actually know. We rarely discuss music.
N: Yeah we’ve never really discussed music much. I’d like to guess something by MCR though. I could be wrong…

Taken from the day we met Benedict Cumberbatch!

12. What is it like being best friends with someone who is obsessed with blogging?
G: I’m all for her having hobbies, especially ones that encourage creativity, and doing something she obviously enjoys so much.
N: Thank you sweetie! I love asking you to write for my blog too as I love having you be a part of something I love doing so much. 🙂

13. Heels or flats?
G: Flats!
N: FLATS! I do own heels and boots but I only ever wore them in my room as I was too scared to wear them out. I remember when we went to see Benedict Cumberbatch Gab wore heeled boots and I was all, “GIRL WHAT ARE THOSE ON YOUR FEET?!” Usually she wore Converse or Vans so I felt like I was witnessing a younger sister all grown up and going to the ball. 😛

14. Comedy, horror, or chick-flick?
G: I’d say comedy.
N: It depends I like a bit of everything. I love my drama films though, especially UK based ones.

15. What is something weird that she eats?
G: Marmite. It’s just gross.
N: Apart from Marmite Gab eats a lot of the same stuff as I do. I can’t think of anything to be honest.

Our first picture together! This was probably from back in 2011/2012!

16. You guys have anything matching?
G: I think we have a matching John Watson jumper? Other than that, I don’t think so.
N: You know what? I was thinking about that John Watson jumper the other day and how much I loved wearing it in the winter! With the brown elbow patches. 😛 I think we probably own some matching Primark/Asda pyjamas too but that’s about it. We need more matching clothes. Yuri on Ice maybe? 😉

So that’s the best friend tag! I had so much fun doing this post with Gabriella! I guess it’s a shame there wasn’t more questions for us to both answer really. I may create another one myself like this in the future to do a year from today? What do you guys think?

So who do I tag to do this post? EVERYONE AS USUAL! I’ll be tagging people via Twitter so keep your eyes peeled for those mentions. 😉

Until next time, take care all and I hope you’ve had a lovely weekend.

14 Things I Love

Today is the soppiest day of the year, of course it’s Valentine’s Day and it’s definitely like Marmite… You either love it or you hate it, there is no in between really. Well I say that but I’m one of those in between people… I hate Valentine’s Day for various reasons, but I don’t love it. The only thing I like about it is being able to buy Dane a card and write a soppy as fuck message inside for him. I wasn’t going to this year, but alas on a mini food shop I ended up picking up a card. DAMN!

So instead of a soppy post like some people may be posting today, I decided to write about 14 things I love instead… 14 stands for the date by the way. 😛

1. Pokemon – Everyone knows this is one of the things I love and I have done for nearly twenty years now! I love every aspect about it including the games, anime, the figures, etc etc. I could go on about what I love about it. It’s just such an interesting series and is one of the many things that takes me back to my childhood. Mornings spent watching the anime on SM:TV Live, as well as playing the first and second generations on my Game Boy Color during the weekends off school and summer holidays.
2. Perfume/fragrance – I love wearing perfume, even though on the rare occasion I won’t be in the mood for it, so I won’t wear it. I wear all sorts of different ones, but some of my favourites to name are Thierry Muglar Alien, Britney Spears Midnight Fantasy, DKNY Red Delicious, Gucci Envy Me and Dior Addict. I’m sure I can think of more than this mind!
3. Food – I have always loved food, especially savory food. I would eat bags of crisps over a bar of chocolate any day! I love to eat food, cook food, watch food being cooked, thinking about food, everything you can think of to be honest. I especially love Japanese food, as well as Italian food as well. OH and you can never go wrong with American food as well. One of my favourite things to cook is probably my homemade piri piri fries, just because I don’t know anyone who doesn’t love them.
4. Lipstick – As the only make up I wear is lipstick I love them so damn much. I love all sorts of lipsticks of course, especially liquid lipsticks. When I first starting to wear lipstick properly I opted for dark pink shades, which moved onto red, then various pink shades and lately I wear a lot of dark shades such as dark raspberry pink, various purple shades and even a dark purple/navy shade lately. I can only see me going darker too! I can’t stand nude shades or light pink, they don’t suit me at all and look awful on me.
5. Holographic – I am a holosexual through and through and it reminds me of growing up as a teenager and wanting all these things… But sadly I wasn’t able to have them. Due to the whole 90’s trend coming back, of course holographic stuff has too. I only really pick up any holographic goodies if I really like the look of the, and I don’t know why but the holographic look just makes me so happy!
6. Foxes – These are my favourite animals with dogs and otters coming second and third. I don’t know what it is about them that I love, maybe it’s that they’re ginger… Maybe it’s that they’re cunning… Maybe it’s because they’re fluffy? I don’t know but I think they’re beautiful animals!
7. Studio Ghibli – One of my favourite anime film studios and the same place that has made one of my favourite films, Spirited Away. I love how creative and unique the stories and characters are that come out of Studio Ghibli, as well as how beautiful the art style is as well. Me and Dane own all of the Ghibli movies to date and I love watching them throughout the year, but especially with people who have never seen them before. I love seeing people fall in love with them.
8. Lady and The Tramp – I do like Disney but there’s only a handful of the films that I really love and fan over. Lady and The Tramp is my favourite Disney film and one I’ll always keep close to my heart. I just remember watching it when I was a little girl and falling in love with Lady, Tramp and the other dogs. Jock is definitely one of my favourites too! The story is just beautiful and at the time was probably a story line seen in romantic movies, so the fact they brought it to a children’s film was so good.
9. Goodsmile Company Nendoroid’s – These are little figures based on Japanese anime and manga series, however it has shifted more over to the Western trends such as Disney movie characters (Frozen, Star Wars, Marvel etc) and even some game characters (Animal Crossing, Metal Gear Solid, Uncharted, etc). Both me and Dane LOVE Nendoroid’s and we are constantly eyeing up new ones to buy… They’re not cheap though so they’re definitely a treat whenever we get any. I need to do a post soon about which ones we’re both lusting after.
10. Duvet Days – This is definitely something I love! I don’t get them as much as I used to due to being busy with work, or the house, or other things. BUT saying this I am currently sat up in bed typing up this post, watching The Last Leg. At this moment in time I cannot possibly complain. 😛 I just love duvet days where I can lie in bed for at least 3 hours on my iPhone scrolling through YouTube and Instagram. These make perfect weekend mornings for me.
11. Coffee – As a trained barista I love knowing how to make a perfect cup of coffee, but do you know what is even better? Having my own coffee machine to make coffee shop style coffee at home! I LOVE IT! Apart from loving coffee in that way, I also love coffee flavoured things, as well as coffee beans covered in chocolate. I am that weirdo who loves the coffee Revels and Roses. 😛
12. Bubble baths – I swear I was a mermaid in a previous life! Before all these trends of “being a mermaid” came around I always joked about this. I LOVE baths and I could spend hours in the bath reading books, scrolling through YouTube and Instagram on my phone, and even doing some writing in my journal. Even as a child and teenager I would sit in the bath for hours on end and just add more hot water whenever I felt chilly. Showers I’m not so arsed about, but baths are just heaven to me! I’ve always had a fascination with water too and I don’t know why to be honest, so much so I’ve written stories about water before and various novels as well.
13. My best friend Gabriella – I mentioned her recently on my Galentine’s Day post, which you can read here. I’ve known Gabriella for nearly 10 years now and I tell you it has FLOWN by! But I love her so much, she is like a sister to me and we get on so well. We talk daily and whether we’re feeling great or like shit we’re always there for each other no matter what. We’ve both supported each other the past month about different things and if I’m ever in the shit and need someone and Dane isn’t around, I know she’ll be there for me no matter what. I love her so much. :’)
14. Dane – I said Valentine’s Day is soppy but I don’t recall saying there wouldn’t be any on here… 😛 But of course I love Dane. He’s my boyfriend, my best friend, my soul mate and the best person I have ever met. He’s always there for me no matter what and even when I’m a miserable bitch and take stuff out on him, he’s always there to give me a cuddle and be understanding of whatever has happened. I just love him so much, I can’t even describe it. He’s my light in the dark, the apple to my pie and as I’ve started to joke, the stink to my fart. 😛

So those were 14 things I love! I’m sorry this post isn’t anything special but I wanted to do something for today but only worked something out at the last minute. 😛

What 14 things do you love? Please make sure to let me know in the comments down below!

Until next time all, take care and whatever you’re doing today, have a lovely day. ^_^

My Perfect Galentine’s Day

You’re probably wondering what Galentine’s Day is… Well I wondered the same thing myself recently when Eventbrite introduced me to the idea. I loved the idea and jumped at the chance!

Galentine’s Day is the day before Valentine’s Day and is a day to celebrate your best friends. I know what you’re thinking, another day, another “special” day for it. BUT I actually really like this idea as whilst Valentine’s Day to me is an excuse for shops to make money and couples to be even more sickly and soppy than they probably usually are this is a nice day to celebrate your best friends.

When Eventbrite told me about what the day means I instantly thought about my best friend Gabriella and all the things we could do together on Galentine’s Day.

With a week to go until Galentine’s Day I decided to come up with a list of things that me and Gabriella do on our days together and what you could do with your besties on Galentine’s Day too!

First of all I’ll write what we would do if we go out.

• As we live an hour’s journey away from one another it’s always good to have a long catch up over a cup of coffee… As well as a bitch. We love bitching. 😛
• Depending where we go will depend where we go for coffee, but our coffee place of choice is always Starbucks! You can’t go wrong with a lovely Starbucks coffee.
• If there’s any around we’ll always go into a geeky shop or two. Wolverhampton is one of our shopping places of choice and Forbidden Planet there is amazing! It’s not the tidiest Forbidden Planet in the world but you’ll always find some goodies in there. It’s like a jumble sale full of exciting things.
• We always have a nose in Primark for any snug jumpers, or t-shirts we can pick up. In the past we’ve bought matching jumpers that resemble one that John Watson would wear in Sherlock. We’ve also bought matching pajamas, because why not, you can never go wrong with Primark pajamas!
• We don’t just go and look around geeky shops though, we do also look in shops with Yankee Candles as we love them! Gabriella’s favourite is Season Of Peace, a Christmas scent and mine is Sweet Strawberry. We both dislike cinnamon scents, they give me massive headaches and I’m sure they do the same thing for Gabriella.
• Talking about joint loves is always a must and lately we’ve both been talking about Yuri On Ice, a new anime to come out of Japan. I’ll pop a trailer about it above so you can see what it’s about for yourself.
• Sometimes we’ll go for food at Nando’s, which is a habit we have tended to keep doing when we go shopping in Wolverhampton. Can never go wrong with a “cheeky Nando’s”… Eww did I really just say that???
• Something I love about going out shopping with Gabriella is when we head back to mine or hers. Depending if we have food out or not will depend on food wise when we get in…

So the best thing to do on a girly day out is go shopping in both of your favourite shops, maybe buy yourselves a matching treat to remember the day! Keyrings are good, as well as clothing. As I said me and Gabriella have bought matching jumpers and pajamas before.

Going for hot drinks is always a good thing if you want to have a long catch up, or a break from shopping. If it’s chilly outside it’s always great for having hot drinks! Although in the warmer months you may just want to drink colder drinks… Starbucks cold coffee and Frappuccino’s are the best for this!

Then finishing the day off with a meal is always a nice way to rest after lots of shopping and gossip! Nando’s is one of our favourites.

However not everyone wants to go out for the day. Maybe the weather is rotten and you want to stay in? Well this is how we would have the perfect Galentine’s Day girly evening!

• If we don’t fancy going out we stay in and watch films and TV shows, play games, chill out and eat and cook yummy food.
• In the past we’ve had a marathon of our favourite actor’s movies (two in particular are Benedict Cumberbatch and Tom Hardy) as well as some of our favourite series, such as Sherlock and Lord of The Rings. We are yet to marathon The Hobbit trilogy.
• We don’t just watch films and TV shows though, we also play games as well… Or we watch Dane play games and talk about whatever is on the screen. We’ve played the Lego games in the past… But we do mostly just watch Dane.
• Whilst we do all the above things we have to have snacks and drinks! Some of our snacks of choice are Pringles, chocolate, soft drinks and of course coffee! We love coffee so much!
• We also cook yummy food whenever we stay in and depending on our mood depends on what we cook. We’ve cooked pizza before but my favourite is Gabriella’s macaroni cheese recipe, which she recently showed me so I can make it from scratch at home. It’s the best macaroni cheese I’ve ever had and sadly I don’t make it as good as she does.
• Of course we get into our comfiest clothes or pajamas and settle down for the evening. Sometimes I’ll light a candle but I always have a candle on in the house. Lately I’ve been burning salted caramel and mint chocolate scented candles.

Sadly I won’t be able to see Gabriella on Monday so we made up for that by going out yesterday instead. We went to Trentham Gardens and walked around admiring all the dogs that people had taken with them. We of course had a look around the shops, grabbed something to eat for lunch, drank coffee and chilled out. It was lovely and I had an awesome day. This is where I’ve taken all the pictures for today’s post!

Hopefully I’ll be able to have a proper girly day together with her soon. I’m so damn proud of Gabriella this past year as she has worked so hard for what she has right now and I knew everything would work out for her in the end. I am proud to call her my bestie. :’)

What would be your ideal Galentine’s Day? If you’ve got a lot of best friends and people to keep track of, whether it’s Galentine’s Day OR Valentine’s Day you could always set up your Galentine’s Day event and track registrations online. Make sure to let me know your Galentine’s Day plans in the comments down below!

Until next time take care all and I hope you had a lovely weekend.