Come join The Caravan II: Bespoke

Are you in the mood to go shopping this weekend? Ah, who am I kidding. It's not like you need to be in a specific mood to go shopping. ｡^‿^｡

Since that's the case, I'm inviting you all to come join The Caravan!

Following the success of the first The Caravan, The Caravan II is now here. Follow the tale of the thread and find something just for you with the second installment of The Caravan: Bespoke, An Affair of Monograms and Stories, in coordination with The Proscenium, Rockwell. Discover a diverse selection of customizable finds on July 26 to 27, Saturday and Sunday, 10 AM to 7 PM at The Kirov Model Unit (beside the Rockwell tent), Rockwell Center, Makati. From bags to shoes, jewelry, food, and beyond, it's time to make your mark and create something truly unique.

If you love customized and personalized finds, you'll definitely enjoy it there! Aranaz will offer bags monogrammed with letters of your choice, Mawee Borromeo will do illustrations, Adorno will sell repurposed jewelry and monogram charms and pendants, Risque Designs will sell bespoke shoes and carved heels, Coco & Tres will monogram leather goods on the spot, Twinkle Ferraren will showcase customizable swimwear and belts, while The Best Impressions will also sell personalized embossers and stampers. Other designers who will display their designs include Maureen Disini, Camille Villanueva, and Michelline Syjuco.

Guess what, you can also choose your own charms for your one-of-a-kind Stockton Row piece!

What I am most excited about are these Crow's Nest bespoke dolls, though. Just check out these samples of their dolls!

I'm sorry Hulk, but Batman holds a special place in my heart.

Your Local, Scarsdale, and Habitual Coffee will also be there for refreshments!

Come join The Caravan and join this new wave of cult shopping!

Share a Coke with me

Say what you will, but I didn't think I'd be this *kilig* when I saw my very own Coke bottle with my name on it.

These special Coke bottles have actually been making the rounds at the supermarkets and neighborhood sari-sari stores for a little more than a month now.

Look, even Tegan and Sara has one each!
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As I don't have any luck whatsoever in finding my name on keychains, notepads, and the like, I didn't think I'd find one of these. Thanks for considering my name and including it in your selection, Coca-Cola Philippines! Would you like to find out if your (or a friend's, or a family member's, or a lover's) name is already available on a Coke that you can readily buy in stores? Click here!

For over 128 years, Coca-Cola has consistently been finding ways to spread happiness all around the world. I certainly appreciated sharing a Coke with a friend I haven't seen in a while!

We solemnly swear that we are up to no good that we didn't plan on matching outfits that day!
Photo from Kira

Even though it's not Christmas yet, spread the happiness around by creating a virtual Coke and sending it to a friend together with a sweet message!

I made my friend Niel a virtual card ♡ 

If you're not contented with a virtual Coke and you want the real thing, you can actually vote for the names you want so that they'll have a chance to be included in the next batch of 50 additional names to be released in stores! Awesome!

Buuut if you're impatient (like me, heh), you can also get your own personalized Coke by dropping by the #ShareACoke tour! They'll be in TriNoma, Glorietta, and Market! Market! this weekend, isn't that exciting? You may check out the schedule of this tour as well as the official mechanics here.

Do you have your Share a Coke bottle already? Now I want a Share a Coke with Krissy, too. ^_^

"I love you more than I hate everything else."

Remember those all-nighters you pulled with your best friend, dissecting every word your crush told you at homeroom? Remember those times you used to call your crush's house and felt absolutely mortified when someone else answers? And when your crush finally comes on the line, remember how you wished those conversations would never stop?

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Remember when prank calls were all the rage? Remember that satisfaction you get when you slam the phone down when you're upset? Priceless.

Let's not forget about how everyone's on time and how you can't cancel on a friend since they would've already been on their way and you have no means of reaching them.

God I forgot how good that felt. We should totally use landlines again.

Whew, that was a long prelude to the main point of this post, which is a review of the book Landline by Rainbow Rowell.

Georgie McCool (how cool is that name?) and Neal Grafton have been married for fourteen years. Georgie is a TV writer while Neal stays at home watching over their two young daughters. An opportunity to write her dream show with her writing partner/ best friend since college Seth comes up just before the holidays, forcing her to forego visiting Neal's mom in Omaha with their kids. With her iPhone conking out on her and being unable to contact Neal, she uses her old rotary landline phone in her childhood room instead. What follows are magical conversations with her husband from fifteen years ago. Magic. 13 Going on 30 and 17 Again kind of magic. At first she thinks she's going bonkers, but then she realizes this *magic* is happening because she has to change something. If she plays her cards right, her husband would come propose and they'd have the life they currently have now. But if he doesn't come, does that mean they'll never get together? Does that mean their kids will be erased from the timeline?

Riot Read said it best: "This is more than just a contemporary novel about life and work and everything in between. It's about the magic of fixing your future by examining your past." This reminds me of one of my favorite parts in {500} Days of Summer, when Tom's sassy younger sister played by Chloe Moretz said, "When you look back, look again." In the same way that it's true that you should always look forward, you should also look back every once in a while because maybe you're missing something. It's ironic how Georgie's past leads her to question the present and their future. Will Georgie and Neal be better off without each other? Can she live without him? Does she want to?

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I loved Landline so much it hurts. Sad tears, happy tears, airport scenes, pop culture references, a dash of magical realism — it has everything I want in a novel and more! (Also, Rainbow loves parentheses, I love parentheses.) It seriously felt like Rainbow's gift to me. Pop culture references! For something that I expected to be a light read before I start with Gone Girl (Who am I kidding? Eleanor & Park wasn't a light read at all! Loved it, though.), Landline was quite a ride. She knows how to take the unspoken thoughts in my heart and put them down into tangible, readable words. "I want to be happy. Like, seventy to eighty percent of the time. I want to be actively, thoughtfully happy." Fangirl may still be my favorite book of hers but this is a close second. (I also enjoyed Attachments but didn't like the ending that much.)

To think I almost didn't read it! I was about to, when a friend unintentionally spoiled the Easter egg for me. I don't mind spoilers that much but it's the Easter egg we're talking about here, people! Good thing Bea asked me to continue. The reveal is indeed worth it! I get a different kind of buzz when fictional worlds collide (which is why the Pixar theory excited me so the first time I read it), and when it happened here, it was all kinds of amazing. Did I mention the many pop culture references? "Your face is like an O. Henry story. The world's sweetest dimples and the boy who never laughs." LOVED. IT.

Charming, fantastical, a whole lot of adorable... Rainbow Rowell is magic.

"The future was going to happen, even if he wasn't ready for it. Even if he was never ready for it. At least he could make sure he was with the right person. Wasn't that the point of life? To find someone to share it with? And if you got that part right, how far wrong could you go? If you were standing next to the person you loved more than everything else, wasn't everything else just scenery?"

Reading this really gave me a reality check on marriage. (Not that I've ever been married but you know what I mean.) I'm currently reading Gone Girl and, oh boy. I'll wait until I finish reading it before I form an opinion. Anyway. When I get married, I will never not have the energy for conversations, for asking how my spouse's day went, for touching base. I will never not have enthusiasm and patience for my kids. I will never be too consumed by work that I won't have time for anything else. I know it's a logical fallacy since I really can't pass judgment on something I haven't experienced yet, but I'm just saying being a good wife and mother would be nice, is all.

Have you read Landline? Did you like it? What is your favorite Rowell book? I'd like to know the books you're currently reading, too. ♡

The Butterfly Effect

I used to just pair my clothes with my shoes, but now I make sure that my makeup also complements my outfit. One just looks more polished when everything complements one another.

For this OotD though, I built my outfit around my makeup. Specifically, my eye makeup. This is my Butterfly Look:

Doesn't this outfit remind you of The Secret Garden (which is incidentally one of my favorite classics)?

The star of the show is the L'Oreal Paris False Lash Butterfly Mascara. (See my review of this product here.) It gives the illusion of having false lashes, without the hassle of applying glue and worrying it might come off at inopportune moments. To create this look, I also used the L'Oreal Paris Color Riche Les Ombres in Velours Noir and the L'Oreal Paris Super Liner Gelmatic Pen. I can say I have above average eye makeup skills because of makeup school but I'm sure everyone with even the most basic knowledge of eye shadow application can do this.

Watch the video below.

Here are the other products I used for this look:

L'Oreal True Match in W6, L'Oreal Paris Shine Caresse Lip Gloss in Luna, Ellana Eyebrow/ Eyeshadow Quad for my brows, Ellana Pressed Mineral Blush Duo in Kitten/ Peach Passion, and Ellana Sheer Velvet Mineral Finishing Powder

Do you have your own tube of L'Oreal Paris False Lash Butterfly Mascara, too? I'd like to see your Butterfly Looks!

(Disclosure: The photos in this post did not go through any post-processing. This is my official entry to the L'Oreal Create the Winged Eye Look contest. L'Oreal products have been sent to me for free but all opinions are my own. Read my blog's disclosure policy here.)

Thoughtful Thoughts: Time

Nothing reminds us of our own mortality than the death of someone, even more so when it's a loved one. It's a rude awakening of the fact that we are not invincible, that life is but a series of hellos and goodbyes, and that we are just passing through. We are encouraged more than ever to make the most out of life and make sure that when the end of our days comes, we won't be accompanied on our death-beds by regrets.

We are just passing through. Are you enjoying the path you're treading?

It always feels like time is not enough. So many pursuits, not enough punch. There are so many things I want to do, but not enough opportunities (and resources) to go do them. I'd like to watch more movies, read more books, take more classes, see more of the world, create more... but I can only do so much.

Yup.
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Still, I am making the most out of what I can do. This weekend, I started taking an interest in gardening.

My mint plant and succulents from the Aranaz farm

I got these from the Boqueria-themed press preview of Aranaz's Resort '15 collection held at the Privato Hotel last Wednesday. (More details and photos from that event soon.) Unlike my mom, I don't have a green thumb so I am really hoping and crossing my fingers that these plants won't die on me. I did my research and read up a lot of materials online on how to take care of them. I am actually planning to bring the mint plant to my aunt's garden because it is bigger there but the succulents will stay with me. I also woke up yesterday feeling this intense desire to make my own terrarium so I also read up on it. My only problem is I don't know a lot of stores selling plants here in Manila so I don't know where to get the materials. Craft MNL will have a terrarium building workshop under Wawi Navarozza on August 10 so if this desire hasn't waned by then, then I will enroll. I really enjoyed Craft MNL's Stamptabulous dye-and-stamp workshop last year so I'm sure this will be just as helpful.

Regarding the romance novella I'm writing... Well, I was supposed to finish it on the end of July but I hit a roadblock so I don't think I can. I promise I will finish it, though. In the meantime, I'd like to share this with you:

The GALvanizers
Visit the site and be a part of this community!

The theme of the first issue is You are the Sun, which centers on "acting on your choices, dreaming big dreams, going easy on yourself, and being the writer you want to be." I was emailed by its editors Bea and Isa less than a month ago to ask me to participate, and there is no shame in saying I felt extremely flattered and giddy being a fan of their work, I said yes straightaway! I was asked to write about "my writing journey", and you can read my article here, accompanied by Lari Gazmen's beautiful artwork.

DREAMING SIDEWAYS
BY KRISTEL ANN CRUZ
When you start out with the dream of becoming a writer, the future glows with potential. But the journey is paved with fear. Krissy writes about the dreaming, the overcoming and the eventual doing.

Thanks for asking me to be a part of this special project, Bea and Isa! My heart is grateful.

So, yeah. So many things I want to do, so little time.

Somehow, I make do.