Cheap, but chic

ollar stores are one of my favourite places to shop in. You can find some real gems in these places. I knew that one of the places that I wanted to check out when I went to Vancouver a week ago was Daiso. It's a huge Japanese dollar store chain. Everything is supposed to cost $2 each unless otherwise stated. The most I saw a product for was $4 which is still pretty reasonable considering the quality of the items. I went with my sister-in-law and although it was quite a trek to get there it was well worth it. Daiso was situated inside an Asian Mall called Aberdeen Centre in Richmond. The mall itself was pretty nice. Very different from Western malls. I found an Asian beauty store that I carried the infamous Dolly Wink Eyeliner. It was quite overpriced at $20CAD, but I decided to get it anyway.The food court was pretty good too. I wish I can go back and try all the different foods in that food court.


It is pronounced 'Dah-Ee-So'. I thought it was pronounced 'Day-So'.




I picked up these 3 printed aluminum foils. Aren't they just so cute?! I'm planning to save these for future use. Maybe I'll use it to pack baby A's future lunches.



These reminded me of my Shiseido cotton pads that I have. They look to be about the same quality, but the Shiseido one is $8CAD while this was $2CAD.




I just had to get a bento box for baby A.



I got some blotting papers, but I think this one was a miss. It's definitely not like the Boscia blotting papers. However, I'm going to be using the plastic sleeve case to store my Boscia papers in. 



I brought scissors with me to the airport on the way to Vancouver and didn't realize that you can't bring scissors into the plane. I brought them to cut baby A's food to bite sized pieces. Since they confiscated it I bought these scissors from Daiso. I think they are so cute.



I bought a few packs of animal picks. Baby A is turning 2 soon so I want to start thinking about his birthday party decoration. I thought these would be so cute to stick into cupcakes.



Going back to the bento box theme these are seasoning containers. 



These are sauce containers with the lids shaped as transportation vehicles.



Again, I thought these could be cute ideas for baby A's birthday party. 



I bought pastel animal picks. My twin sister is currently pregnant so I have to start thinking about her baby shower. I thought these would be cute for her shower.




These are laver punchers. One cuts out bear-shaped heads and the other apple shapes. You would never be able to find these at regular dollar stores!



These are rice molds that form into a bear head shape, a girl's head shape and a boy's head shape. Perfect for my bento box!



My last item that I purchased was a cutlery set. I'm still shocked that something of this quality was only $2.


I wish there was a Daiso where I lived. I literally could spend a whole day there!

I'm still alive

just came back from vacation and I'm still recuperating. It was a great trip, but too short! I'm hoping that I can take time off again in June. It would be great to go on another mini vacation before the baby turns 2. The plane ride is free for kids under 2. However, that being said, they will have to sit on your lap. Not so good...

Anyways, I am so excited to share with you everything I got while I was away. Nothing crazy, but I had a chance to go down to the States to go outlet shopping on one of the days that I was in the West Coast. Let me just say I love shopping in the States! Low tax and major sales! Plus, they have stores there that we still don't have... Like Nordstrom!

I leave you with me posing in front of the Olympic Torch in Vancouver. Have a great week!

Green with envy

emember a short while back I mentioned that I was going to buy the Zoya topcoat for my Zoya polishes? Well, I picked it up last week and I'm glad I did because it truly made my Zoya polish last longer. Usually Zoya polishes start chipping after a couple of days even with Seche Vite topcoat (which I think it AMAZING). I'm only going to be using the Zoya topcoat for my Zoya polishes because I think Seche Vite does such an amazing job for my other polishes.
While I was picking up the topcoat I also saw a deal for buy one get one 50% off. I couldn't pass it up so I picked up 2 colours- Zoya's Ivanka nail polish and China Glaze's Metallic Muse. I got those 2 colours because I wanted to try using them together. I painted Zoya on my index finger on my left hand and on my ring finger on my right hand and painted the rest of my fingers with the China Glaze polish. I love how it turned out.

MAC's Quite Cute Collection + Tarte blush

Here I am wearing MAC's Candy Yum-Yum lipstick from the Quite Cute Collection. I'm also wearing Tarte's Amazonian Clay Blush in Natural Beauty.

AC comes out with new collections almost every single month, but I've been anticipating the Quite Cute Collection (launched in North America April 7) since I first heard about it a few months ago. I just loved the pastel colours of the collection. I was a little disappointed that they didn't do a different packaging than their permanent collection packaging, but that's ok.

My most wanted item in this collection was the Quite Cute lipstick (the pale lavender colour). It reminded me a lot of MAC's limited edition lipstick in Lavender Whip. I don't have Lavender Whip so I wanted something similar to that. Plus, one of my favourite lip glosses of all time is Revlon's Lilac Pastelle. I knew they would pair really well together. Considering my anticipation for this launch, I was surprised to find myself only getting 2 things from the entire collection. I bought 2 lipsticks- Quite Cute and Candy Yum-Yum. I just wasn't that impressed with the other stuff. I wanted to love the blushes, but I hate frosty blushes. I'm more of a matte blush person.

Here is the promo picture for the Quite Cute Collection. Love it!

My 2 lipstick purchases. The left is Candy Yum-Yum (matte neon pink) and the right is Quite Cute (creamy bright whitened lavender).

Here it is swatched on my hand. The 3rd colour is a blush that I'm going to get to.

Here is Candy Yum-Yum on my lips. I'm surprised to say that this is my favourite of the 2. It is neon. It is bright. It is matte. All the things that I would stay away from, but for some reason it intrigued me. Plus, I'm really obsessed with the colour blocking trend for spring. I thought that this colour would only suit blondes and fair skinned people, but the MAC makeup artist that was wearing it the day I bought it was ROCKING IT and she had dark hair like me. One thing to note is that this is a cool-toned neon magenta/pink. I find that cool tones look better on me so for those of you who look better in warmer tones this might not be the shade for you... I just checked the MAC website and this colour is the already sold out. That must say something, right? As for the Quite Cute colour I tried it on last night and I wasn't sure if I loved it. I have to play around with it still. The lavender colour really stood out. I for sure need to pair it with a lip gloss to tone it down a bit.

Oh, one more thing! The Candy Yum-Yum lipstick is really long-wearing. I've been wearing it since this morning (9am) and I had breakfast and coffee and the lipstick was still on after I ate. It's almost 1pm now and the lipstick is still on. Very impressive. I think there's a bit of a stain to this lipstick, but not as much as the Cover Girl Lip Perfection lipsticks.

Next I'm going to talk about a blush that I got last week at work. We had a whole bunch of Tarte's Amazonian Clay 12-Hour Blush that we had just shot for the magazine so my colleague was handing it out to see if we wanted to personally try them out. I really wanted the bright pink one, but my colleague had already claimed it. I ended up getting the scary-looking red one called Natural Beauty. It photographed more coral-ly than red, but it is a true strawberry red.

I was hesitant to try this colour because of the red colour, but I only need to dab it lightly with my brush and blend it onto my cheeks. You just have to be light-handed when applying this blush. The great thing about this blush besides the uber cute packaging is the 'Amazonian clay'. I tend to get really oily around the cheek area so this is a great blush to have. Plus, it is free of parabens, sulfates (I didn't know that makeup would have sulfates in it in the first place. Usually sulfates are in shampoos), phthlates, synthetic fragrances, and all that bad stuff.

The girl with the Banana Taipei bag

hought I would share with you my outfit of the day this morning. I'm wearing my new Banana Taipei bag in Supper Champagne Grey. I love it!

I'm wearing an H&M jean dress underneath and an Anthropologie spring jacket. I'm still waiting for the weather to really warm up before I bring out my more flashier Banana Taipei bag in Tiffany Blue. I have the perfect outfit for it, but you will have to wait and see!

Hi, my name is Jane

orry about the quality of these pictures. I was in such a mad rush to photograph them last night because I was so excited to share this with you. I mentioned a few months ago about Banana Taipei bags and I had put myself on the waiting list to get these. I can't believe these bags have waiting lists too... The good news is that their waiting list isn't years and years long like the real Birkin bags. I put my name on the waiting list at the end of February and I got my bags yesterday. So it took a little over a month. I'm not sure if that's still the case. I know these bags are getting more and more popular... So those of you who are thinking of getting these bags I will show you what you get with your order and what my finals thoughts are on these bags.

The bags came in this white plastic bag with a really cute Banana Taipei sticker.

Both bags came with their own dust bag.

Here's how it was packaged.

This one is in the colour Tiffany Blue.

Side look.

Back.

Bottom.

The handle had the Banana Taipei tag as well as the care card.

I'm not sure what the left tag says. If any of you know, please do translate it for me. The right tag has the information on how to wash it and what it's made out of.

A close-up of the print. If you look closely at the gold hardware you can see that it says Banana Taipei instead of Hermes.

Here is the 2nd bag. This one is in the colour Supper Champagne Grey. This is part of their 4 new colour ranges that it comes in. The 4 new colours are more neutral colours- Supper Champagne Grey (a taupe gray), French Honey Caramel (a light beige), Mystique Brown (brown), Champs Lavender Grey (cool-toned lavender).

Here's the side.

The back. It looks a little wrinkled, but once I carried it with stuff in it the wrinkles were less evident.

Here's the bottom.

The Banana Taipei label that is on the side of the bag.

The inside has a back pocket with 'Banane Taipei' printed on it.

Here's a better look. The banana tag has the serial number printed on the back. The bag also closes with a magnetic closure that you can sort of see in this photo.

Each bag came with a little booklet.

Here's the first page.

This page has more information on the Banana Taipei bags. The English translation is a little awkward in the wording, but that's ok I guess. All Asian products that have English on it is always a little awkward.

A proof of purchase and serial number was on one of the last pages of the booklet. So cute! Even if these are much cheaper than the real Birkin, they still took a lot of care into making this. The packaging was great and the care they took in presenting it was excellent!

It also came with a Banana Taipei logo printed on card stock with the information on where you can find Banana Taipei products.

Yes, this looks similar to the last image, but this is a Banana Taipei sticker.

Overall, I think these are fantastic bags. I got mine for $64.99 USD each + $20 shipping for the 1st bag and $5 shipping for the 2nd bag for a total of $154.98 USD. I know that seems like a lot for a canvas bag, but the canvas is a really heavy material and really well crafted. The print is also well-done. They do note that through time the print will eventually peel, but I don't think it will be for a while... My co-workers all wanted one and they were even trying to get me to sell one. I think these bags will be great for the summer-time and I will proudly be sporting mine all around town!