I Learned to Sew!

Man, it’s already July and 2020 has passed by both very fast and very slow. I can remember what I did the week that everything went into lockdown back in March. It was like any other week until it suddenly wasn’t.

To be honest, the first few months went by slowly a blur of both depression and anxiety of our new reality and that any life progress we wanted to make in terms of starting a family would be stalled another year for financial reasons caused by the pandemic.

However, the one thing I did find myself having more of was a valuable resource: TIME.

View this post on Instagram

New quarantine hobby ✌🏻

A post shared by Tiana Feng (@tianafeng) on

I had been looking at sewing machines for half a year. Almost buying myself one for Christmas, but stopping myself when I think about how much time it would take to learn or if I would have enough time to commit to the hobby. That all went out the window during the lockdown, when picturing an end to it is still unpredictable, so I bought the damn sewing machine.

View this post on Instagram

#Upcycled: Shirt made from mom’s fav dress shirt.

A post shared by The Bacon Collection (@thebaconcollection) on

It’s a continual learning process, and it takes a lot of patience. Every day it tests you a little, fabric gets stuck, thread gets bunched or breaks, but what I found was that making something was so satisfying. At first, I was just upcycling old shirts into new dog shirts, but then I got decent enough to use new fabric to make Bacon some original clothing.

Then we decided to open a shop to sell off any limited amounts I could make with the extra fabric. We called it The Bacon Collection because everything will be limited to a few, so shop it while you can! We’ve already got some sales which has kept me busy in the past few weeks.

Fabric shopping is so much fun and I can’t wait to continue to find fun prints to make into dog clothes!

 

Burnout and Letting Your Days Guide You

For the past few years, before 2018, I blogged here almost every day. Then last year I got engaged and in November of 2017 we brought home Bacon.

The blog was left a bit neglected as I planned the wedding of my dreams.

And Bacon’s Instagram started to grow in ways I had never imagined.

View this post on Instagram

When you and your friends are always impeccably dressed

A post shared by Bacon 🥓 (@baconthedoggers) on

I spend a lot less time recently and more offline at the dog park, hanging out with friends or family. I’ve been tweeting a lot less, though highly active on Bacon’s Instagram.

I felt less of the need to document life on the blog, and more to just live it. I’ll always love blogging, but I no longer feel the urge to do it every day. I started to burn out from doing that while trying to fill a day with activities and the result was the lack of recent posts. I felt the constant need to explain myself because of my self-imposed content creating goals which resulted in the lack of posts.

For now on, I’ll write when I am in the right mindset instead of just to fill the space.

 

Anastasia Beverly Hills Aurora Glow Kit

It’s been hard getting back into blogging after a break for wedding planning but going to get back to posting regularly again. I found this Anastasia Beverly Hills Glow Kit at Winners for half the price. Bunz Make-Up Zone has been a great place to keep up to date on where I can get things for a steal.

The colours in the Aurora are beautiful like a unicorn and have a sparkly pigment. I’ve been really into highlighters lately so happy to add this one to my collection.

Sailor Moon Eyeliner & Lipstick

I found these at a Japanese festival in Mississauga and I could not resist buying them just for the packaging.

They look just like the wands on the show, but are secretly an eyeliner and a lip stick

The lip colour I bought was a soft pink and the eyeliner is a black pencil.

Look how cute they are! There are other pieces of this collection but they are rather hard to find or too expensive in Toronto. I haven’t actually used them yet, so I can’t tell you how the quality is but they’re fun to collect.

 

Things I Used Up: January 2018

My New Years resolution was to try to use up more stuff before I acquire more of it. A lot of that is beauty stuff. I managed to not buy any of it the whole month of January and instead using more of my collection. It’s not just that I buy a lot, but I am frequently under the collector mindset that I shouldn’t “waste” anything, which is stupid since it’s more of a waste NOT to use the things.

My new vanity is helpful for displaying all I own so that I can be inspired every day to try out new products. I even realized I had so many free samples and minis that I decided to use up some so that I could have things to write in this list.

Here are some products I used up:

Here are items I panned (hit bottom but didn’t use up quite yet):

  • Mac Eyeliner Gel black – I hit pan and threw it out because it was getting old
  • Nars Orgasm/Laguna Duo

I decided to record when I hit pan because it’s just as rare as using something up! I have so many eyeshadows that I’m going to feel accomplished the one day those touch bottom.

Anastasia Beverley Hills Lip Kit

I couldn’t resist getting the Anastasia Beverley Hills lip kit when it was half-price at Sephora.

Look how pretty the colours are up close!

It came with a little palette to mix in. That’s the main purpose of this kit is to allow you to make your own personal colours. The difficult part is being able to replicate it each time.

For my first attempt, I mixed a deep pink colour with blue and made a nice purple colour.

This is me after a few hours of eating and drinking. Though some of it rubbed off, the colour was still bright at the end of a night. Since it’s a bit cumbersome to try and re-apply and remix colours, the kit is really only for experimenting or showing off for a few hours.

What are your favourite ABH lip kit combos?

I Went Rock Climbing and I Liked It

View this post on Instagram

We climbed some rocks @climbbasecamp

A post shared by Tiana Feng (@tianafeng) on

On Friday, I took the Introductory Climbing Lesson at Basecamp. The package came with 2 weeks of unlimited climbing and I already went back on Thanksgiving Monday.

I don’t do a lot of exercises or physical activity, but I surprisingly enjoyed it. It was challenging, and I definitely felt a bit of pain the next day. However, I’m already excited to go back!

It’s fun, and goals seem measurable. I felt like I lost a lot of anxious energy in the process and felt certain rushes that were a bit addictive. I was frightened to jump off an auto-belay (still am a bit) but the rush of falling on it is alluring.

I’m going to keep going when I can within the two weeks, but I can totally see myself continuing and buying my own gear. Maybe eventually I can lead climb and do real mountains!

SNES Classic Mini

I loved the original Super Nintendo, so I was super excited about the SNES Classic mini. I was lucky enough to get in on a Best Buy pre-order, so I didn’t have to line-up on release date.

It comes pre-loaded with 21 games including the never-before released game Starfox 2.

It’s so small and cute. I placed it beside my Mimikyu and Sailormoon plushies for size comparison.

It fits right into the palm of my hand.

It took me a second to find where to plug controllers. A flap at the front opens up to reveal the slots. 

You can easily toggle between the 21 games and any save states. Let’s be real, to play like the old days, there will be no save stating!

I already unlocked Starfox 2 by beating the first level of Starfox (it’s harder than I remember). Now to continue reliving the past and playing through all 21 games!

 

Pikachu Tamagotchi Pin

Ever since I went to the Pin & Patch Show, I’ve been really into looking at pin artists online. One of these artists is @reallybigdill who has a lot of adorable Pokémon pin crossovers.

I couldn’t resist this adorable Pikachu Tamagotchi pin. I almost wish it was a real virtual pet!

Making the Most of the Night at #CRJProm

Last night, my friends and I had front row tickets to see Carly Rae Jepsen play with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.

View this post on Instagram

The @exclaimdotca #crjprom photo

A post shared by Tiana Feng (@tianafeng) on

Before the show, we dressed up and had a mini prom party at a friend’s house. It was a fun surprise when we found out CRJ noticed our prom party and actually shared it with all her followers.

I’m still freaking out about this hahaha.

The show itself was pure joy. It was cool to see the Toronto Symphony Orchestra do arrangements of her biggest hits. We had a moment during “Call Me Maybe” where she sang directly to us in the front row for a moment. The way performs with huge smiles and a positive attitude stole all our hearts. We couldn’t resist getting up to dance, which is probably abnormal for normal orchestra concerts.

These pop-orchestra crossovers hopefully encourage younger people to go see the TSO. Back when I was in choir, we performed the entire Mozart’s Requiem with the TSO. It was a lot of hard work, but it was one of the coolest experiences.

Anyways, after the CRJ concert, we topped it off by heading to The Abbey for karaoke. They only had a few Carly songs but by the end of the night, we treated the entire bar to all of them. #CRJprom was perfect.

UPDATE: I MET HER 3 DAYS LATER