Posts Tagged ‘Hime Gyaru’

This story is a long saga. It’s about a wallet that took over my life for two whole days. It’s a story about greed, a story about recycling, an epic drama about craft… and one Prada wallet.

This silly little thing was the cause of many many hours of my life being wasted:

James and I were at a thrift store one day looking for some bits and pieces. While we were waiting for the clerk to ring up our purchases it caught my eye from under the glass counter. It was barely noticeable… just a tiny corner of pink peaking out from under a mess of costume jewelery and decorative soaps.

They lady brought it up for me to take a look at and I saw the price tag… as well as the gigantic Prada stamp on the front. I did need a new wallet, my previous Hello Kitty one was fairly thread bare… for only AU$5 even a fake was good value. But thinking of our budget I put it back.

Overnight, stories of friends finding pristine authentic Louis Vitton, Chanel and other high end brands among the thrift store junk floated through my brain. What if it was real, what if I had just missed out on the find of a lifetime? It was certainly decent quality leather whether it was a fake or not… it was just a bit beaten and up and dirty.

So I decided to venture back… and if it was still unsold I would take that as a sign from fate that it was meant to be.

And it was. And I bought it.

And thus started an obsession that lasted several hours.

I used Twitter to find out more about Prada and how to discern a fake. In the process I had a hilarious conversation with Cheesie and Aud and was given lots of advice from others!

I googled and googled, finding number after number of “Signs to tell it’s real” websites. I’m sure an aficionado of high end brands would have spotted in a moment what I was searching for but as someone who has never handled anything of a high end brand it was an adventure for me. Had I stumbled onto the holy grail of thrift store finds?

• Quality of the stitching…Check.
• Quality of the lining…Check.
• Leather stamp inside and out…Check

• Correct establishment date… Check
• Correct curve of the “R”… Check

• Prada branded zip and closure… FAIL.

Ok so it failed the final test… I have to admit I was slightly disappointed. The day dreams of selling it to pay for a trip to Japan or a puppy suddenly plummeted just like the bank balance of someone who had just bought a real Prada wallet.

But then I thought for a little while… even if it wasn’t going to be buying me a pony it was still quite a nice wallet. I liked the leather even it was a bit dirty, I liked the colour, I liked the size and I liked the idea of having a new cute wallet.

So out came the leather cleaner, glue gun, ribbon and lace… and my new wallet was born!

I scrubbed the leather clean with a combination of leather cleaner and a moisture sealant to make it nice and tough again.

I hot glued lace all around the edges on both inside and out to strengthen and disguise the cracked edges.

I found some matching pink polka dot ribbon in my stash and added accents to cover damage and add strength. I think it accents the card holder spots beautifully.

And finished off with a bow.

Even though it turned out to be a fake this pre-loved $5 wallet was worth every penny. It entertained me for two days, it gave me great conversations with my friends online and offline, it brought out my creativity and thriftiness, it sharpened my google-fu skills and it’s now holding all of my money, cards and old receipts. 1 month on, it’s in better condition than when I found it. Now it is the ultimate hime style wallet!

Very pleased!

And my idea is catching on, when I was in Melbourne,  Super Kawaii Mama thought the idea was so cool, she re-vamped her old wallet too!

The verdict= $5 for several days of entertainment and a fantastic wallet is a great deal ^_^

This is an outfit from earlier in the week when James’ childhood friend from Holland came to visit us!

I baked macarons that day which were an unfortunate failure. I was too overambitious and I doubled the ingredients and ended up with… one gigantic tray shaped macaron. Epic fail.

Outfit:

• Floral dress- made by me
• Jacket- Angelic Pretty
• Shoes- Wittner, modified by me
• Bow- by the awesome Susie!
• Jewelery- random places, described below

I made these earrings with some little cake charms I bought in Melbourne

I love the details on this jacket, it’s the perfect thickness to take out on nights when there is a bit of a chill but not too cold!

James bought me this ring. I told him if he ever wanted me to marry him, he would have to find something at least twice as big for my engagement ring mwahahaha!

I completely love this hair bow. I want one in every colour!

This little crown is my favorite detail on the AP jacket but I always find that because it’s so heavy it can swing around and damage things >_<

These shoes were my back ups for the Nuffnang awards ^_^ I bought them for $40 but I thought they were much too plain so I added the bow, flower, pearls, pleated ribbon and the diamantes around the buckles! I’ve had a request for a how to on a hime-style shoes tutorial out of normal shoes and I definitely want to do it but at the moment I can’t find any good shoes to start off with >_<

Bonus picture: OooOOOooOOOoo I’m a spooky ghoooooost!

Macarons… it’s become a serious obsession now. I blame Lolita brands for this obsession. If they didn’t keep including them in prints or in sweets deco maybe I could forget about how melt-in-your-mouth-delicious they are… maybe I could ignore the fact that they are incredibly pretty… and maybe I could stop thinking about how I desperately want one for breakfast today with a cup of tea…

But no!

And so it goes on until one day I got so frustrated I decided to make them myself. I suppose that’s in keeping with the spirit of this blog ^_^

I searched and searched for a recipe. Many were too complicated with things like measuring the temperatures in the room and comparing the humidity to get the correct amounts for different parts of the world!? Macarons are apparently the most fickle of all deserts.

Finally just as I was about to give up a friend sent me a link to Not Quite Nigella’s Recipe. It seemed easy enough but I wasn’t too keen on the idea of pistachio as I wanted James to actually eat them too. I kept searching until I found the Tasted By Two version. Seemed easy enough… and so the experimenting began! After maybe 10 batches I have modified the recipe for our kitchen/temperature/humidity/what ever other ridiculous things macarons are scared of. I am not a baking purist, I just did what worked! These techniques might not work for you but I assure you that my result was freaking awesome

So here is everything I’ve learned about macarons and my modified version of the Tasted By Two Recipe:

What you need:

Ingredients for chocolate macarons with chocolate filling-

For the outside bit:

• 65 grams Almond Meal
• 80 grams Icing Sugar
• 40 grams  Caster Sugar
• 1 table spoon Cocoa Powder
• 50 grams Egg White at room temperature
• Oil spray
• Pinch of salt

For the filling:

• Cooking chocolate
• Butter
• Thickened cream
• Icing sugar

Utensils-

• Scales
• Sieve
• Aluminum foil
• Mixing bowls
• Electric beater
• Baking trays
• Spoon etc
• Piping bag/Small plastic bag

Gather everything together

Line your trays with aluminum foil. Yes in the photo I’m using baking paper… and you know what, it sucked. Every recipe I found said to use baking paper but EVERY batch that I did using baking paper failed miserably. So what I ended up using for the successful batches was aluminum foil *very* lightly sprayed with olive oil. I’ll talk more about the failed batches and how to avoid that later!

Measure out your almond meal. Having the correct weights is very important so be quite careful. Now about the almond meal… many recipes I found said that you should crush the meal even further in a food processor to make it extra fine. I don’t have a food processor so I used it straight from the pack. No problems so far.

This is how fine it was:

Do the same  with your icing sugar and sift them into your bowl. Make sure there are no lumps.

Then mix them together very well and make sure the consistency is even.

Now weigh your castor sugar.

And your egg whites. Egg whites are another highly debated point of this recipe. Some say you should leave them out over night, some say leave them for a week. I made macarons with eggs right after cracking them, over night and week old… and they were all exactly the same in my opinion. I really don’t think it makes a difference. Just make sure they aren’t too cold or else they won’t froth well.

Put your egg whites into a mixing bowl.

Add a pinch of salt to them

Now using your electric mixer beat them until they become slightly frothy.

When they look like this you should start adding the castor sugar a little bit at a time…

Keep beating…

… until it looks like this The eggs should be light fluffy and peaky.

Now this part is quite fun! You should take your mixed up icing/almond and add 1/2 of it to the egg mixture.

Mix it up carefully, don’t be over zealous otherwise it will end up like cake. Once the first half is mixed in, add the rest and repeat.

According to a lot of recipes it should form ribbons off your spoon when you’re done.

Now mix in your spoon of cocoa

Delicious yes?

Ok time to get ready to pipe them. You can use a proper piping bag but if you’re not keen on cleaning one you can just use a plastic bag and throw it away after ^_^

Put your mixture into the bag!

And tie a knot into the top of it.

Now cut off the corner with a pair of scissors and pipe circles onto your tray.

Apparently some people will actually draw circles onto the baking paper to make sure they are completely perfectly shaped… I don’t really think that is necessary. If I wanted perfection I would go and buy them, I like he idea of mine being a little individual ^_^

Ok! So we’ve done the hard part! You should take your tray and bang it on the counter a few times to get rid of any air bubbles. Then leave the macarons on the counter for 1 hour to settle. While they are settling let’s talk about some other variations!

James doesn’t like chocolate much either so he asked for some blueberry flavored ones.

I used tinned blueberries, crushed them and added to the mixture just before piping.

This is easy enough, you just need to add slightly more of the dry ingredients to counter the wet of the blueberries. If you’ve made a couple of batches you should be able to roughly guess at what the correct consistency should be.

My absolute FAVORITE flavor is green tea with pistachio filling. OMG this is seriously awesome. All you need to do is add 1/2 a teaspoon of matcha powder to the mixture instead of your chocolate powder. I’m using one from Tea2 but any will work.

Green!

They all look so pretty!

When you come back to the macarons the icing should have formed a very slight shell, you should be able to touch the top without getting your finger wet. Pre-heat your oven to 160 degrees Celsius. When the oven is ready you can put in the tray and cook for 5 minutes. After 5 minutes you should be able to see the little crinkly bottom feet, if not something has gone wrong! Cook for another 4 minutes and then allow them to cool on the bench.

This is a picture of the first time I tried to make them, they weren’t very pretty but you can see the little crinkly feet I’m talking about…

Leave the macarons to cool while we make the filling.Basically all that is involved in that is melting chocolate in the microwave, adding a little cream, butter and a little icing sugar so it doesn’t go solid again. Very delicious. Be sure to taste it along the way

The pistachio variation on this is basically crushed pistachios with butter and icing sugar to make a delicious paste:

Now it’s time to remove the macarons from the tray and turn them over… the bottoms should look like this:

Below is a good example of failed bottoms. The reason this didn’t work is because they weren’t cooked long enough so the insides were liquidy. They stuck to the (stupid) baking paper and collapsed when being removed. Still tasted good though.

Take a half and spread some filling on, pop another half on top and you’re done

Taadaa! Success!

And here are the delicious green tea ones:

So there you have it! No longer will I be a slave to sweets deco and brand prints! Next time I crave macarons I’ll bloody well make some! Mine may not be the prettiest ever made but they tasted damn good and nobody complained so I’m happy!

Hope you all enjoyed the adventure as much as I enjoyed eating all of the failed and successful batches!