First Subscription Box: Doki Doki Bummertime.

::this has been in my drafts for a minute, so it is a little late. still wanted to post it for people looking to see if the Doki Doki box is for them::

I'm sure you've seen subscription boxes all over the internet. I am fascinated by them and had been dying to try one. How fun does it seem to get a monthly box of surprises in the mail! But which one?
Not a beauty box. I have worked in the natural beauty industry for the past five years so I have TONS of product and am kinda picky. Not a food one because none of the vegan ones are that interesting to me. I DO love kawaii Japanese stuff......I had been looking at the Doki Doki box from the makers of Japan Crate (a monthly kawaii food box) and when they advertised that their February box would be Studio Ghibli themed I decided to go for it! I was excited to post about it because I assumed it would be awesome.

Got that pink box in the mail, so excited!

Oooo look at how cute the inside of the box is!

So at first it looks really cute, I was even excited. Then I realized it was all bootleg stuff! Bad quality bootleg stuff! Licensed stuff from Studio Ghibli is pretty expensive, but with a $30 price tag for the box, you expect at least one or two official items. There were also only two Ghibli things. Womp womp.

Gudetama is one of my favorite characters (he is a lazy egg) but this little charm is such a bad bootleg. Not only does the chain come right out of his face for some reason, they didn't even sculpt a little butt. That is the best part of Gudetama! So disappointing.

This Jiji purse was the only thing in the box I actually liked. It would be perfect for taking out when I just need my id and some cash. But look at how wonky it is! That bow!

Here is the other "Ghibli" item. It is supposed to be a kawaii No Face from Spirited Away. That is my favorite Ghibli movie, and one of my favorite movies of all time, but this weird badly made little thing was not cute to me.

Here is everything from the box. There were some bootleg card capture sakura stuff, some 100 yen (or dollar store) items that were cute (like the little sticky notes and the wooden animals) and that plastic cat which is apparently a bootleg of a Japanese KFC toy. Definitely not worth $30.
After I received this box I looked online and apparently lots of people were disappointed by the quality. I was able to send it all back and get a full refund, but I didn't cancel my subscription in time so it looks like I'm getting the March box too. Hopefully it is better. I will still cancel, and see if maybe another subscription box is a better fit for me.

2015 Photobook! A Blurb Review

One of my goals for 2016 was to make at least two photo books with the hundreds of photos I've taken over the past few years. At the end of February I finished my first one, not too bad! I worked on it on and off for several months, so I'm not sure how many I'll be able to get to this year, but I think I will at least meet my goal of two!
I decided to make each book cover one calendar year and started with 2015. I didn't feel like I took that many photos last year, but this book ended up being three hundred and eight pages! Woah! I was so nervous waiting for it to come in the mail, hoping the quality would be good. I have used Blurb before to make two smaller books, but never something I invested so much time into. Here is how it turned out. Spoiler alert: I'm in love!

I went with an 8x10 hardcover book because of the size. I had a really hard time trying to pick something for the cover! If the book is about an event or a trip, you just pick a favorite image from that, but what kind of photo can represent an entire year? I googled lots of examples, and in the end decided to go with some of my favorite instagram photos from the year in a grid. Next time I think I'll add the year as well.

One of the few things I'm not happy with is how the title isn't centered on the side. When it is on the shelf that is all you can see, and I think it looks silly.

I picked a few more instagram photos for the title page as well. Since my book was so long I couldn't upgrade to the premium luster paper, but the standard paper feels fine. It is thick and my photos printed really nicely. Even the instagram photos! I was concerned they would be pixelated, but Blurb warns you if you are making something too big. I left one photo even though I had a size warning, and it was fine. I have only noticed one printing error, a tiny white spot in one photo (on Travis' face), but that is no big deal.
The templates were easy to make and use as well. I edited a few of the ones provided, then saved them and used them over and over in the book. Next time I need to name them better so they are easier to pull out, but that is my bad!

I did full bleed photos (up to the edge of the page) on every layout. Most of the examples I saw online had more white space and I worried about how it would look once it printed. I love it and I'm going to do something similar with the other years. The important thing for me is the photos, and I want to fill each page with them. The only text I added was a date and what was going on at the beginning of each section.  I also did a "best of" instagram at the end of each month. That app has become such a part of my life, I wanted to include it.

Another layout I love. Maybe I should have titled it Rae and Travis (and Crystal and Marc) 2015. They are in most of the book!

Some reviews I read complained that the sides of the book weren't white when you did full bleed images. Who cares?? Another thing I was worried about was if the book was really thick, would it be hard to flip through, or flimsy. That was something I couldn't find much about online for some reason. It worked out great at 308 pages and the binding feels very strong and sturdy.
Another thing I agonized over was picking too many photos from each event or place. This book is for ME! Why do I care? Haha! I did a full page of photos of us standing in front of that striped wall because I loved them all.

This month, July I think, there were too many good instagram photos to choose from, so I did a two page spread. Over the years of blogging I've learned that I love looking at photos of the little things, like what my house looked like, things I saw at the flea market, pictures of our street. In ten or twenty years I'm going to like seeing those things just as much as seeing photos of big events so I tried to include a lot of those kinds of photos in the book.

The biggest complaint I have is that one of my photos just didn't print at all. That left page was a full page image (one of my favorite from the year) and it just didn't show up. It is in my file that I sent to Blurb, so I don't know what happened. I'm going to email them about it, and if it comes too it I guess I'll glue it in? Not a HUGE deal but still annoying.
But all in all I'm really really thrilled with how my book came out. I finished it right when Blurb was having a 35% off flash sale so I got it for $79 including shipping. Not bad at all!
As far as shipping, I picked the standard shipping which was $5 I think. The book came almost a week before the projected delivery date, which made me really happy! I might have screamed when I saw the box waiting for me on the kitchen counter.
I think this book will last for the rest of my life, and now I have a way to see what I got up to last year without digging through my external hard drives. This book makes me feel so happy and I can't wait to complete a few more, and maybe even finally do something with our wedding photos!

And just in case anyone is wondering, this isn't a sponsored post or anything. (I wish!) I made this thing on my own time with my own money. Even with the little mistake I'm giving Blurb an A+!

The Addams Family: The Musical.

We are big Addams Family fans around here. I've probably seen both movies over 20 times each. Travis has one Addams inspired tattoo, and it going to start on the second soon. We love the show. We love the comics. We hated the board game, but saved the pieces to use as decoration. So when a customer came through Travis' register at work at offered us free tickets to the Addams Family Musical at TPAC we were super excited! Our best friends Crystal and Marc happened to be available also, so we all went together.

And in case you happen to be an Addams fan as well, I feel like I must warn you.

IT WAS TERRIBLE! Talk about disappointment. The curtain rose on a cool graveyard scene and the opening number was great and we were giddy (well, at least Crystal and I were) with excitement! But it just got worse and worse. It felt like we were watching a terrible Disney Channel movie, the characters just happened to be the Addams Family.

I DID like the Addams ancestors. I love the idea of an elaborate costume, with all the pieces being white so you are a ghost. I might use that for my halloween costume this year! There was a great number (one of only three I liked) where Morticia sings "Death Is Just Around the Corner" while dancing with the ghosts and a Death figure. But almost every other song was awful. There were tons of pop culture jokes (Charlie Sheen? Really?) but almost none of the silly macabre humor that the Addams are known for. I just don't understand how the show is popular (and the audience we saw it with seemed to love it). The curtain was really cool though. 

The main story line is Wednesday is in love with a "normal' boy and wants her family to behave and not scare him off at a dinner. She basically acts like a brat for the whole play, with no characteristics you would expect out of Wednesday Addams. She GIGGLES and SQUEALS and runs around, and almost every interaction between her and her love interest is a fight, so you can't even understand why they are in love. Morticia and Gomez even fight for half of the play, which is just so wrong. Their extreme devotion is one of the things you love about them! 

One hilarious moment was when a cousin It puppet makes an appearance at the start of the second act. The way the crowd reacted you would have though some huge star was making a surprise cameo. The cheers and screams went on for probably two minutes!

There is a random secondary storyline about Fester being in love with the moon. That provides the other song that was actually fun, even though it seems really out of place during the play. It involved some puppet legs that made me cry with laughter.So in conclusion, if you love the Addams Family and see this play is coming to town, avoid it. It is not the Addams Family that you love. It is a super cheesy (and not in a good way) musical. I would have been SO pissed if we had bought the tickets. We did have fun singing "Full Disclosure" the rest of the night. That song ends the first act. And is terrible.And speaking of terrible, there was a "photobooth"set up with a girl to take your picture with the Addams family cut out. She wouldn't let anyone take their own picture, just kept insisting that you could see your picture on Facebook the next day. Here is the one she posted of us: Hahah! I can't stop laughing about how bad it is! And she took FOREVER looking through the viewfinder and lining everything up. What the heck! 

Deathly Hallows Part 2: Review!

every time a new harry potter movie comes out i have to see it at least twice to like it. i spend the first time being pissed about the things they changed and left out. which is pointless because if they included every little part of those books that i love they would be overly long, boring movies. i think i have finally come to terms with that. haha.
our midnight showing was kind of miserable. it was in a tiny tiny theater that was boiling hot. they played the previews twice and started late so i was already irritated when it started. so i thought it was ok, then we went to see it again the next afternoon, and i liked it a lot.
i loved the whole gringott's sequence. the special effects were so good! and the dragon! it looked perfect! i loved polyjuice belletrix. one of the changes i loved was the changed they made to the final showdown between harry and voldemort.

in the books it is kind of anticlimactic after how hard it was for harry to get to that point. i liked that they made it an actual fight in the movie. and voldemort falling to pieces and floating away was a nice visual (even though it looked like skin flakes and grossed me out) instead of him just falling over dead.
I thought they did a pretty good job handling the snape back story. it was visually beautiful and gave enough information so it was almost as heart wrenching as the book. alan rickman really is a perfect snape to me.
i really didn't cry as much as i thought. a little during the snape scene, then of course once harry uses the resurrection stone. that part in the book makes me SOB every single time.
there were some things that i REALLY hated though. i hated the scene they added with ron and hermione in the chamber of secrets. if they were going to show hermione destroying a horcrux they could have made it put up a fight (like all the others did) and give us something more interesting than a wave. ron/hermione was my favorite part of the books, and i knew they would have to invent something to lead up to their kiss since they cut out the house elf story line but i found what they chose to do really lame.
the part that bugs me the most is when harry talks to ron and hermione before going into the forrest to die. why did they add that? i think it would have been much sadder/more effective to have him walking out under the cloak, seeing everyone he loves, and knowing he can't speak to them because he knows that if he does he won't be able to leave. and ron doesn't even give him a hug like hermione does? they hug about a thousand times in the other movies! that is something i always loved about their relationship. exuberant hugs when they are reunited after summer break. and ron doesn't do ANYTHING when harry tells them he is going to die? ugh.

speaking of hugs. this was probably my favorite part of the movie. hilarious.
i could probably go on and on, but i won't. because i doubt anyone has read this far. but in the end, i loved it. i can't wait until it is at the dollar theater so i can go see it a few more times. and i'm sad there are no more movies to look forward too.

The Hunger Games

i know this is likely old news to everyone but i picked up the hunger games on my way home from work and read the entire thing this afternoon laying in front of the fan. it was awesome! i kept setting my alarm for another hour and saying "ok i'll stop at 4"...."i'll stop at 5" "i'll stop at six." and i never did. it took me about 4 hours with a few pug breaks. it was so fun! i'm going to try and resist buying the second one because i'm not supposed to be spending money right now. we'll see. but it was really exciting and the characters are great and it's bloody and great!

Water for Elephants

i went to see water for elephants by myself tonight because no one wanted to go with me. and i loved it! it wasn't as good as the book of course (nothing ever is) but it was still great. and the styling! amazing! all the costumes and the sets and just everything! it was beautiful! i couldn't find any really great pictures online. reese witherspoon looked so beautiful with those curls and her circus costumes! and i really enjoyed robert pattinson, and christoph waltz is so good at playing a bad guy!


so i give it an enthusiastic good review and you should go see it! if you are interested, read the book first so you can experience the story. i kind of want to go see it again.
also, a SMALL popcorn at the theater was six freaking dollars! i was like, oh i'm using my birthday money, i'll splurge and get some popcorn but i just couldn't do it. a large was 11! last time i bought popcorn a large was 8! haha, i kept texting travis about it cuz i couldn't get over it.

pushing daisies

target had the first season of pushing daisies on sale for 13 dollars so travis and i bought it even though we had never seen it. AND I LOVE IT!! why didn't someone tell me the show was so awesome? i'm sad to find out that it got cancelled and they didn't finish airing the second season. i was looking forward to liking something current for once! oh man i'm so glad to be home. travis and i have been laughing all night. i was reading aloud from a john waters book earlier and we were both CRYING. i talk a LOT when i get home from these trips. i bet travis misses the quiet. haha.