Refuse to be Usual 7 Heart Buckle Shoe Review

I really wanted a pair of normal-ish shoes that were not actually a boot or a rocking horse shoe, so I decided to go with these. I placed my order on 8-13-10. It says that it can take up to 10 days for the item to ship. I received positive feedback on 8-23-10 from Refuse to be Usual stating that my shoes had shipped the same day. They also provided a tracking number. I received the shoes on 8-31.

The shoes were packed in a box and each shoe was in its own individual bag and had paper inside them to help them keep their shape.

I ordered the shoes in size 8-8 1/2. I normally wear a size smaller but the sizing chart the seller used seemed to put me at this size. I'm glad I got the size I did though, despite them being a hair too big. They are not uncomfortable in the least bit and there is a nice amount of wiggle room for my toes. The shoes zip up in the back so you only have to go through the trouble of adjusting all the straps once, which is nice. The shoes are well made. They actually have a little bit of a grip on the bottom, so it will be easier to wear these than some other shoes by Montreal.

My only minor complaints are the bows up top seem to be slightly off to the side when I wear them. It's not at all noticable if it's not pointed out to you. More annoying though, is that the bows on the toes are slightly lopsided. I'm not really sure lopsided is the right word for it, but the bows both seem to curl up on one side, while they sit flat on the other side.

Overall, I am happy with these shoes. I do think that I should have gotten them much sooner since I did pay for EMS, but it does specifically state in their TOS that is can take up to 10 days to ship. Once it left their hands, it's obviously not their fault that it seemed to stay stuck in customs for like 4 days, but I honestly didn't think it would take them a full 10 days to actually ship them. I definitely wouldn't hesitate to buy from RTBU again. They did keep me updated throughout the process and I did like that they provided tracking without me having to ask for it. All in all, it was a pleasant experience.

After having worn these shoes for about 12 hours straight, I must say that they are quite comfortable too. The shoes have ample toe-room and seem to have enough support in the bottom that they don't need inserts or anything. I'm very happy with them. I own three pairs of Montreal shoes and I'm very happy with all three of them comfort wise.

AatP's Queen's Coach Print

I feel like I was just discussing how much I preferred AatP's prints to BTSSB. And now I have fallen in love with them all over again with the new Queen's Coach print.

More specifically, I have absolutely fallen in love with the OP version of it. I would love to be able to buy it right now, but it would be rather irresponsible of me to actually buy it I feel. I'm going to hope I run into it on the sales comm later. It always sucks to buy something at full price just to find out it's not going to be a popular print or it will go on sale a few months later at half the price. Everything about this OP is just perfect though. Hopefully someday it will be mine.

Aristo Kitty's Invitation Print

Not too long ago, Baby opened up reservations for their newest print Aristo Kitty's Invitation. I must say I am not impressed.



First and foremost, I will say I do not like that they have only shown us the print in the sax color way. I personally would never reserve a print if I couldn't first see what it would look like in my color of choice. I'm not a fan of the design of the OP and I find the skirt design to be very plain and boring. I like a basic skirt every now and a then, but I do like there to be a bit of thought put into my prints. Especially when this skirt would run me almost 18000 yen. The print itself is rather boring and for some reason the cat's face really creeps me out. Despite the strange cat face, I just find this print to be very un-awe-inspiring. I wish Baby would release some nice prints like their AatP line has. While I'm not in love with the St. Mephisto Cathedral print, I really wish I could have afforded the Dream in a Midsummer Night print, I would have in a heartbeat. While the designs didn't wow me for this print, the print more than made up for it in my opinion.



While the design does not save it, I really like the actually cut of the JSK. It seems to be really flattering to me. I'm not sure if they are just using a better petticoat, but the skirt seems fuller in this version which just gives it a better shape overall. Maybe we'll get a print worth having with a nice cut sometime soon? I sure hope so.

Winning is Awesome!

A while back, I entered a bunch of people's blog giveaways. I never expect to win any of these things since I've never had much luck with these kinds of things, but I was really surprised and happy to have finally won something! And what makes this even better was that the contest I won was the one contest that I said to myself it would be really awesome to win!

So what did I win? I won a cute little book full of crafts from Etoile Carnivale, which is a cool blog about Japanese Fashion. The book is an older Gosu Rori craft book from around 2006. There are plenty of little tutorials in it such as head bows, jewelry, and bags. My personal favorites are the two bead and ribbon crowns and the eye patch it shows you how to make. I think next time I find myself at the craft shop, I may pick up the materials to give it a try!

Japonica Market Shopping Service Review

For my birthday, I bought myself a the Marie Antoinette JSK in black from Yahoo!jp Auctions using Japonica Market. The process went easily and I highly recommend them!

I filled out their order form and emailed it to them and immediately received a confirmation email from them to verify they received my order on August 8th. Later that day, I received another email from them to confirm my order with them and to inform me they sent me an invoice for a deposit plus the Paypal fees. I paid the invoice and they immediately put in a snipe bid for me. I've been nervous about auction snipers ever since I had one not bid for me on Ebay once, so I asked them to at least bid my minimum on the auction. I also decided to up my bid just in case. They did both these things quickly without asking any questions.

They emailed me very shortly after the auction was over on August 10th to let me know I was the winning bidder and that they would invoice me for the rest of my balance as soon as my JSK arrived at their offices. They then again emailed me on the 14th to let me know that my item had arrived at their offices. They invoiced me for their fees and the shipping costs. On 8-15-10, I received yet another email to let me know that they shipped my item.

I received the dress on 8-18 as described in the auction. I was kind of too excited to take a picture of the packaging, but it was very well packaged. Whether the inner packaging was done by the shopping service or the Yahoo!Jp seller, I'm not sure, but I was definitely happy with how it was packaged. It was put in a plastic bag inside a plastic shopping bag with around the outside some bubble wrapping inside large water proof envelope that was taped formidably. That's a lot of protection! I was also happy with how quickly it got here, which was expected because I paid for EMS shipping.

Overall:

I was very happy with this service and will definitely use them again. They were communicative on every step and very easy to work with. The fee for auction sites is 10% which is a bit cheaper than most of the other shopping services I looked into. I highly recommend them! It was nice to pay less and get amazing service for once!

And now, on to the pictures of the dress!

The dress from the front. The bows can be a pain because they keep coming untied.



A shot of the back

A close-up of the print

Thanks for reading!