New Year's wishes + A look into my Christmas pressies ☃

Hello there!

Christmas came too fast and I can't believe 2014 is basically over! This year was super busy for me, and even though I did a lot, there's still so many things I want to do. Not enough time in just one year!!
I hope you all had a great Christmas, mine was a little different than usual but, all good. It's all about the little things that can make a moment special.  

As for the new year, I really wish you all a super 2015, even better than 2014. Full of love, family, friends, dreams and happiness.

This year was full of everything! But I am thankful for all I went through this year and for the people around me. Everyday is a constant reminder of how lucky I am to have amazing people with me. I keep learning from each experience and becoming a stronger and better person. Or, at least I try to. Hehe.
2015, please be great to all of us and let our dreams come true! I promise myself to keep fighting to make those dreams come true. Let's think of it as a...new year's resolution, maybe?

Ok, moving on, I kinda wanted to show you guys what I got for Christmas this year. I will try to keep this short because I can type too much~~~~~ This are both, gifts from work and gifts I got from family and friends.
Here we go!

I'll start with the yummies!
This are mostly from work. I got all kinds of chocolates! Chocolate can always make me happy. I usually wait until Christmas to open my early gifts but I have to admit, I started eating some from the moment I recieved them.

Along with the chocolates, I got cookies! Cappuccino ones and Hello Kitty cookies. (can you tell my kids know me well?) I'm not a BIG cappuccino flavored things, which is weird because I loooove to drink cappuccino but these cookies are super yummy! Better than I expected!

I also got a cute owl cup, an animal print scarf thingy, 2 bath sets (one is Hello Kitty's!!!), cute animal shaped post it, a mini me Christmas edition, a hair tie, a makeup bag and a new bag! I really wanted a new one and, yay! I got it. Oh! I almost forgot about my bunny blanket! It's perfect for the super cold weather we're having!

A Coca-Cola bear with a Christmas Especial Edition Coke, a super cute handmade bunny and a colorful cozy beanie(? I'm not sure if this one is called like that)
I got a surprise gift from Eonni Claus! Who gave me a new wallet and our Christmas photo with Santa, all framed and pretty.

As for clothes, I got cute blouses, sweaters and even bunny pj's!

I love the back of my black sweater! It's super cute! And yeah, I suck at taking clothes photos.

I'm really thankful for all those gifts! I loved everything. But, as beautiful as it is to recieve, I also think giving is a beautiful thing. And not only gifts for my family and friends but to people in need.
I know not everyone recieves gifts every year, so as I do on my Summer break, I go through my stuff and pick some clothes, shoes, accessories and even toys and give them away.
Why not helping others? Especially during this season~

Well, bye bye 2014...HELLO 2015!

Taking my choco-mint obsession to my nails

Hi loves!

Lately, I've been loving Kim Taylor Premium Nail Lacquer. I don't really know if it's a well known brand or not but they have a big collection of bright and fun colors to choose from. Their quality is pretty good too and they are super affordable.

Choco-mint has to be one of my favorite combinations ever, can't get enough of it! But I never thought I would find it on a nail polish too. I got all excited when I saw it, I liked it so much, i even got one for one of my friends/co-workers who is a nail polish lover like me.

It is called "Cookie Mint" (KT.35) and it's like having mint-chocolate ice cream on your nails. It looks yummy and creamy. It has little black thingies in it that give the illusion of having chocolate particles mixed with the minty color.

This one is Especial Edition and I think it is worth having if you are a choco mint lover like myself. Hehe.

Haul: Kiotis, Oriflame and nail polish

Hi dollies!
I feel like I've been buying a lot lately~! But I can't lie, I love trying new beauty products and makeup.

It's been a while since I last bought a nail polish, but the other day I was walking around the makeup department and I saw these cute little nail polish bottles with super duper cute colors. The one I got is called "Carnival" (KT.32) and it's a colorful mix of glitter. It makes me happy to look at it! Hehe.
The brand is called "Kim Taylor Premium Nail Lacquer" and honestly, I never heard of this one before but the durability of it has been great and there are so many beautiful colors to choose from. I definitely will buy more. This one is Limited Edition.

I'll move on to another brand I just discovered and started using, Kiotis. It is a Parisian brand from Stanhome, part of Yves Rocher. One of my co-workers is selling them. I works like Avon, you check their catalogue and order from them. Prices are alright I guess, it is more expensive than Avon though.
Here is what I got from them and how I like them so far.

♥ Kiotis Paris Pavan'Elle Specific Intensive Facial Treatment (Wow! long name!) this is a kind of serum that helps your skin to regain its youthful. This product improves skin's firmness and reduces expression lines, especially in forehead and eye area. I've heard and read that once you reach your 20 somethings it's good to start preventing wrinkles, easier to prevent than make them fade. So I decided to try this one. I've seen a slight difference on my forehead area and my skin feels great after using it at night. I got it way cheaper than its actual price, and I'm glad I did cuz this one is kind of expensive. It absorbs into the skin super fast and it contains 10ml but you only need 2 or 3 drops. I'm still trying to figure out the best product to keep my skin looking and feeling young~ kkk

♥ Kiotis Colors Liquid Eyeliner in "Pearly Silver" (MAJ01) I was kinda unsure of how it'll look on me since I'm used to use white or a pearl-ish eyeliner to highlight my eyes. But I have to say I really liked this one, the silver is not as strong as I thought it'd be but it still looks kinda pigmented. It dries super fast so you have to work with it well...fast! Once it dries it stay like that until you remove your makeup. Other than that, it is very long lasting and it adds a cute pop-up to my eyes.

♥ Kiotis Colors Brow Pencil "Coffee". I've been experimenting with my brows lately using different products. I started with some eyeshadow, then a wax eyeliner (which I didn't like), then back to the eyeshadow and now this brow pencil. The color is slightly lighter than my brows at the moment so it works pretty well. Something I liked about it is it comes with a sponge to blend the color into your brows and make it look softer. I've been liking it so far.

For more info about Kiotis ←

And last but no least is the Oriflame Lip Impact Crayon. At first I didn't liked Oriflame because I had a bad experience buying lipsticks before, I got totally different colors than what I asked for, I didn't liked them and I had to pay for them~~~ Not happy. But this time I bought it with a totally different person (my co-worker) and I'm happy with my crayon! The one I got is the "Striking Rose" and it's a super pigmented hot pink. I am a bit of a mess using bright colors like thisone so it's been a little hard to use because it is very long lasting so if  I apply it wrongly I'll have a clown looking lips for a long, long time! I've been trying different styles to use this one and I think I can control it a little better now. The color is super pretty and it smells like grapes! Hehee. For those who are not familiar with Oriflame, here is some info  ←

That is it for now! I'm sorry if my posts are longer than usual lately! I guess I have a lot to say~!

Until next time!

♥

MonStar's Little Vlog!

Hi sweets! 


I finally made up my mind, I will start a YouTube channel and share some random vlogs with you guys. I don't have the most interesting life ever but I really hope you enjoy them. I also see it as a way of capturing moments in video so I can look back at them as memories.

I might use it as a complement to this blog as well. We'll see.
My sister found this easy-to-use video editor online so I'll be using that one for a while. Excuse my bad editing in advance, I'm still learning and I'm not really good with computer programs and stuff.

I will try my best to upload a vlog every week. TRY! Depending on how busy I am.
The channel will be up sometime this week and I'll leave the link as soon as have it all ready.

I want to clear this now cuz I get this question a lot, especially on Facebook. Why I blog and mostly write in English? I will vlog mostly in English too.
As some of you already know, English is not my first language, but I do love it as if it was. I've been familiar to it since I was little, I am also an English teacher and have a lot of friends and family living in the U.S. who only understand English. Somehow I feel like writing and now vlogging in English will be easier for everyone to understand. So pelase, don't take it wrong.

I think this is it for now, I'll let you guys know once my channel is ready!

xox

Random Haul: My weekend shopping!

Hi guys!

I'm finally having some time to blog! There's is a lot to do around the house and some work to finish though! But I think we'll finally put our Christmas tree today! Yay.

Yesterday my girls and I went to this anime convention, and even though we don't go /that/ often, we definitely do some big shopping when we go. I don't go all crazy over anime stuff anymore~ don't know why if I still like it but, yeah. I focus more on accessories, makeup, yummies and some random goodies that I don't usually find but, if I reaaaaaaally like something anime related, I could get it.

Sadly, this time we couldn't find any makeup or beauty products... BOO! My friend Kei-boo and I were really looking forward to get tons of them.

So, here is what I got:

♥ Shingeki No Kyojin eco friendly shopping bag. So yeah, I know I said I don't get much anime things but I couldn't resist to this, I think all of us got one! They were super cheap and I put all my shopping in there.
♥ Kim Hyun Joong small poster and stickers. I can resist to things with Hyun Joong's face on them! I swear I was ready to buy a scarf... can't blame me! I love that man! 

♥ Chocolate Mint Pocky and Milk Flavour Pocky. I usually eat more Pepero than Pocky so I wanted to change for a bit. I haven't tried this 2 flavors before so I'm excited! Especially with the mint-chocolate ones! YUM!
♥ Ramune Ichigo Soda. This is something I'll try for first time. My sister used to talk a lot about the so...I was curious. Especially with the marble thingy!

♥ Handmade headbands. I love accessories, and these caught my eye. They were a little more expensive than what I would usually pay for headbands but, these are unique designs so, I think it's worth it. They are super cute!

♥ Cat tights. I wanted to get them for so long now and I finally did. I usually see them online but I found them cheaper than expected. I'm in love!

♥ Bear ears beannie. They had a HUGE variety of hats, caps and beannies to choose from but I got this one. I think it's cute, cozy and perfect fot the cold Winter coming soon.

♥ Random anime stickers. Basically, Sailor Moon and Shingeki No Kyojin. I'll put some on my laptop and think of a place for the others.

We also had some Japanese food from Hakku' Japanese Gourmet which I think is pretty good and I had to try the Green Tea cheesecake with green tea ice-cream from a Maid Cafe / catering thingy. Honestly, I expected a little more from the last one~ I couldn't find a strong green tea flavor in them.

Now that I put everything in a list, I think it wasn't /that/ much, but it felt like I was buying too much! I also got some non-Asian makeup last week but I'll show them on a separate post.

That's it for now! Enough shopping for now!

xox

Life update: Work, changes, my heart, friends, my kitchen disasters and...vlogging?

Hi lovelies! I feel like a lot has been going on lately, with  work, family and just life in general.
Somehow I wanted to blog about so many things but at the same time, I didn't had a lot of time to do it and ended up forgeting about them.
I know Thanksgiving just passed and I hope you all had a wonderful one (for those who celebrate it) even if it's a little late.


Big changes happened this year, somehow I thought changes would be over last year and everything would just settle but, I was wrong hehe. And I don't mean changes are necessarily bad, it is just sometimes hard for me to get used to them.

Work has been going great! Even though it consumes most of my time, I enjoy it. I keep learning
from my kids and my co-workers. I am lucky to work with amazing people who have become close friends. I thank them for their advice, wise words and fun times. We all make a great team!

Speaking of friends, I've also realized who my true friends are. I am the kind of person who wants to
be surraunded by a few good and true friends more than having a bunch of people I can't really trust.
As the year went by, I couldn't help to think about the plans and dreams I have. I'm a small girl with big dreams!! Hehe. I wish I could do everything and have my dream life right away even though I know I gotta work hard to get what I want. Somehow I noticed some people around me had no dreams or aspirations and it kind of affected the relationship. Those people slowly walked away from my life, for whatever reasons. I don't wanna sound bad or anything but, I guess we were in different pads in our lives(?). I don't know. You guys get me?
But as some people walked away, some other came into my life and I'm glad I've met such nice people.
Of course there are some special people that are never walking away like my bestest friends ever (my sis included) who are there for me no matter what as I am for them. We share our dreams, plans, encourage each other, go through the good and not so good experiences and learn from each other. I couldn't feel happier to have lovely, crazy and caring friends like you babies! I am sure there is a lot more to come in the next year. YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE! (Kei Boo, Dee Eonnie & Panda boo)

My heart had some ups and downs lately but just know that my heart hasn't changed a bit, I still dream of having that life with my zombie love. People say, good things are worth waiting for. Period!

One of the biggest changes I had to experience this year has to be my mom's trip to Spain. Even though it is not forever, we've never been apart from each other like this. (only for vacation trips and stuff) I won't get much into details here cuz it still is kinda personal but yeah, it is hard to say goodbye even if it's temporary (who knows for how long!)
As far as I know she looks super duper happy and I'm happy for her, she keeps messaging us and sending photos. I've never been to Spain before but the place she's staying in looks really pretty. Kinda Medieval, with castles and all. I might share some of her pictures in a separate post sometime, Would you like to see that?

This year I'll be spending Christmas away from both of my parents. Which would make sense in some situations but it is kinda sad in a way. I was used to spend Christmas a a family holiday. But I'm definitely not letting that change my spirit! I'll remain happy and ready to celebrate!

And well, aside from that emotional ride, I think I never wrote about it much but, I wanted to start vlogging and have a YouTube channel to share with you guys a little more of my life. I actually have some footage of my mom's last week at home and our trip to the airport saved in my laptop I just...never found an easy to use video editor. I think vlogs would make good memories! Good idea or, bad idea?
My sis was kind enough to offer me some help but I want to be in total control of my videos. If anyone knows a good video editor please let me know!

To finish this update...I have to mention that no matter how hard I try, I am no good at cooking! Lately I've felt like I want to help a little more in the kitchen, I get all excited and prepare a few things such as rice and French toasts for breakfast but...they never turn out the way I want them. Burnt rice, raw egg...burnt bread~~~~ Really? Food is not fair to me. 

Oh! One last more thing!!! I still have a big passion for dancing, due to more changes and personal situations we had to be on hiatus but, we have some plans for next year. Can't wait to start rehearsing again and get on stage! It might not be a full time thing but, we want to be as constant as possible.

Ok, I think this will be it for now, I'm typing too much and I don't want to make this boring to read! Hehe.
I hope you all enjoy the Holidays and have a lovely Winter break!
Yay for vacation time! Who's already doing some Christmas gift shopping? I am!

xx