The Shopping Monster In Me

Many new posts are up on the sticker monster blog:

Blinging Ideas
Blinging Forevermore
Lacey French Nail Art Stickers!
A Mish-Mash of Adorable Stickers!
Bling It All Back To Me!

*********************************************************************************************

For awhile, I was kind of worried as to where my shopping libido has gone to. The prospect of getting a new bag, top or a pair of shoes did not seem to excite me. It was a very empty 3-4 months for me. Yes, 3-4 months without going shopping crazy. My financial focus was towards my sticker business for that period of time.

But in the last month, all that has changed. T__T

With the advent of the great people who flock to Bijou Bazaar, the wonderful girls behind Emmagem and also the genius who runs A Shopaholics Den (who recently reviewed The Sticker Monster, go see! go see! She also reviews many e-boutiques. All top notch stuff.), there’s this bubbling desire to just own everything pretty.

Contrary to popular belief, I don’t overbuy online (but you’ll faint at the amount of tights I bought. Thanks to Emmagem for pointing out which online boutiques stock ’em and at 3am in the morning I went on a shopping spree.) because most of the tops cannot fit me. I’d prefer to go to bazaars to purchase them. Like this gorgeous satin dress that I bought from Bijou.

I really love the vibrant online shopping community. Everyone is here together for one common love – fashion! We do not judge each other by race, creed or colour but popularity is gained when one stocks the sweetest and prettiest things.

The Malaysian government wanted Malaysians to blend as a whole under their national service programme which did the total opposite for me. But I feel that the people in the shopping community are all of the same wavelength, we are lusting after the same things, we talk about the same things and we are enjoying ourselves! If the Malaysian government wanted unity among their people, I should send them Emmagem’s Malaysia’s Online Fashion Shopping DIrectory link.

A year ago, Shopaholics Unite was one of the first online shopping boutiques around. It was so different, so interesting! A few others popped up and they were pretty good (wussytoots, luscious-lips, clothesbucket..) and then there were some bad ones with terrible photography. It totally put me off online shopping. After a few poslaju disappointments too many (happy coz package arrived, sad coz cannot fit into the top/dress), I decided to forego online shopping altogether.

It wasn’t until I discovered how wonderful bazaars can be. Just simple blog shop hopping can be SO DAMN FUN. Who needs to buy Cleo anymore??

I’m literally a shopping monster. Sticker Monster put on hold. (must. stop. buying. stickers. sell more first.)

Before I share my latest guilty pleasures, here are some pictures from my stint at Bijou Bazaar!

Chee Kiang was so kind as to accompany me on my first ever Bijou Bazaar trip! I told him, “All the boyfriends teman the girls too one you know……” drifitng off to allow silent moment of contemplation for Chee Kiang to process my needs in his boy-brain.

He even learned how to read my sticker codes and I felt comfortable leaving him to sell some stickers while I went shopping. Towards the end, some of the janitors in Menara Hap Seng dropped by to buy some blings blings. We were rather amused because why would grown up men janitors want bling blings for? Maybe it is for their daughters.

Do you like my banner btw? I chose the prettiest stickers from my collection and made a collage of sorts with it. Took me so long!! *stress* I don’t know if many of you know it, but my trademark Sticker Monster is my own original art. Yeap, jolene lai took a pencil, drew it, rubbed abit, drew somemore, showed it to Lie Yuen and let Lie Yuen laugh at my lack of skills, edit a bit more, ran over with black marker, scanned, filled in the colours with photoshop and TADAH!

Bijou Bazaar was quiet on that day (26th of September) as they had to postpone the bazaar to a later date since Menara Hap Seng promised their premises to some Women’s Right Activist group. Only the accessories stalls were allowed. There was some Datin looking woman who spoke passionately about helping young single mothers to start up small time business and how it is very important to see them through their efforts etc. When she left the building, she passed my stall and didn’t even buy a sticker from me! Next time I must borrow Ethan when I set up a stall so that people will think I’m a single mother, pity me and buy from me.

*Commercial break* Here are some absolutely darling photos of Ethan, my one year old nephew:

Ethan and his mum Kwee Foong coming home from China. Such a happy boy right?

He would be perfect as my fake sympathy garnering son.

A very good actor too.

Awwwwww..:)

I miss him already. <3

Okay, back to Bijou Bazaar.

It was my first time at Bijou and here are the trademark rubber duckies plus windmills!

Windmills!!

There was a tiny fountain at the venue and I wondered why they didn’t want to put the duckies in it.

🙁 As a result, sales was not too good.

Accessories were being sold.

At least there were some sales..

Mimpi was there as well! Her stall is always so pretty!!

There were laptop bags from Gin&Jacqie. I bought the pink one. 🙂

For girls who have been hunting for earring carousels for the longest time, pity you missed on a good deal at Bijou Bazaar.

I think these girls are from Soak Republic.

My diligent boyfriend studying while I sold stickers. He has a test like almost every other week.

Oh, he saw me.

While fending off flies that were hovering over my stickers, I blinged my Nintendo DS Lite! Very noob in blinging, despite selling them bling bling stickers. Partly coz I was malas to cut out each and everyone and come out with some funky design of my own.

Close up of the blings.
Now, on to some crazy shopping purchases from The Curve.

I bought these canvas trays from a stall at The Curve. I thought that it would be good for my stickers for whenever I set up my stall. And the stickers all fit really well! 🙂

A candy belt for RM10.

I’ve been meaning to try tights for the longest time. Yes, I know I’m a little late. I decided to play it safe and bought one in white.

One of the purposes of my trip to The Curve’s Flea Market was to buy a bag. I didn’t buy a bag. I bought BAGS. 🙁

This was from Hols(or is it Hol?). It is a bag shop inside The Curve. My current handbag is from Hols(Hol?) as well but the material started peeling away as I’m quite the bag abuser. This bag was originally priced at RM159.99!! It was at 70% off. So snapped it I did. *nods self righteously*

I got sweet talked by this shoe guy into buying two pairs of satin ballet flats from him. The design is quite unique though I’m not quite sure exactly which part of the shoe that I’m not so hot about.

Here’s a beige and brown polka dots one. Each pair cost me about RM35.

Quite comfy actually.

Um, and I bought hamster food for my hammies.

Oh before I forget, these are purchases from Bijou Bazaar.

A laptop bag for RM35. Which is quite a steal as most laptop bags go into the hundreds. Go to Gin&jacqie for a wider selection!

There’s this quaint boy called Yus who runs a statement t-shirt stall at Cineleisure. He was at Bijou and that’s how I met him. Too bad for Chee Kiang as they only had sizes for girls. He stocks pretty awesome stuff like the range of Little Miss Giggles etc which is quite common now but his ones are slightly different. I don’t know how to explain, you’ll have to see it for yourself.

Hahahha my infamous Starbucks shirt. If you bother to stick around, you’ll find out in future posts.

When I told Chee Kiang I bought a shirt that was SO me, he laughed when he saw it. It is no secret that I am one of the nosiest person around.

These shirts retail at Rm25 each. If you read his blog, you might even get a discount. 🙂

******

Forgive me for I have sinned.

RM200 bought me 7 articles of clothings from this shop in Sunway Pyramid (old wing lah, I can’t afford anything in the new wing). The name of the shop is Lola and the sales girl there, well Lola Boss if you’re reading this, please reward her. She’s the most well mannered sales girl I’ve ever met and she knows how to speak to her customers really well! She is absolutely pushy in the most endearing way. As a result I walked away with a stupid grin and a bag of 7 clothes. That’s about RM20+++ per piece! Okay what right?

RM10 for each tube top. Both are sparkly but you can’t see in this picture and I was too tired to sit up and take photos, let alone put them on and prance around camwhoring.

A green colour top with white polka dots. Perfect for class and it keeps me warm. You can tie it snugly around your waist too for the illusion of a silouhette.

A tube dress. This one might have been slightly rash.

A high waist skirt, also perfect for my more formal classes. But ever since we’ve been given clinical uniforms, it seems quite pointless to dress professionally as the only other times we get to wear whatever we want is during lectures.

Paisely tights! 🙂 Something new. Thought I’d give it a go.

My mother said, “oh, i washed your new night gown already!” T_T I was like, “ouccch. It’s my new tank-dress”.. Cute right?

Then this Lie Yuen damn naughty, she introduced Etude House to me. It’s a cosmetics shop at Sunway Pyramid too. RM12.90 per Shine-Up stick.

My three favourite colours in the whole wide world in the most perfect of shades.

A pot of gold glitter for when the occasion calls for it.

Without flash.

Like real gold!

So remember how I raved about the DejaVu Fiberwig Mascara? I might have found a new love. 66 Big Eye Vitcara.

Unlike Dejavu’s big ass brush, this comes with the tiniest of brush. It combs each and every individual lash out, coating it with a nice thick layer of mascara. I love it!
I really should blog more often and not allow my life to accumulate like that. T_T

So I went for the following Bijou Bazaar on the 11th of October(last week) and Mel temaned me to jaga stall for the entire day. She’s a really good assistant. She thought me a thing or two about how to make my display look prettier. She even learned my system and was soon able to sell without much supervision. Her perfectionist ways definitely helped make everything run more smoothly and look more need. I paid her with Sushi that night.

Mel doing her thang to my sticker stash.

Previously I would just stuff the chiffon clothe into the shoe boxes because the sole purpose of doing it was to prevent the stickers from sliding around. She painstakingly tapes the clothe to the box.

The canvas tray is a very good investment right?

I know a lot of you might think, “is jolene that hard up for money that she must sell stickers?”

But I’ll have you people know that I enjoy doing it. It’s fun buying these stickers by bulk, getting them from overseas suppliers and then putting it out there and seeing them go one by one. 🙂

Here’s Karen Marie. I always thought Emmagem was run solely by her, seeing how she wrote most of the earlier posts. She could very well be one of the reason why Emmagem is where it is today. Well done, Karen!! Well done!

Candy necklaces! Can’t get enough of them!

There were all sorts of accessories up for sale.

Vintage clothings are very popular these days. I do wonder if they are new stock…or vintage as in really curi from mummy’s decades old wardrobe kind of vintage? If so, I have this 80s party dress that I would like to show case. My mum wears it with white gloves. T_T

Statement t-shirts!

I went bag mad. i seriously went bag mad at Bijou.

Arghhhh…my weakness.

I bought a cincher from here! 🙂 I can’t remember what’s the shop’s name. Do drop me a line if you recognize your own shop aights? I’d like to give credit to people who have beautiful things.

More Vintage Stuff.

Mimpi Murni again! We’re always at the same bazaars. 🙂

So cute right?

More clothes…

oooh, nice patent clutches at the side. See them?

At the Bazaar, the organizers were selling this drink called Soda Kampung or something. It’s very old school and tastes heavenly!

Mel and the umbrellas – part of Bijou’s trademark quirky concept.

Wanna botol?

if you’ve already seen my Blinging Ideas post, you’d have seen this photos. Here’s Mel cutting up some blings to bling her phone.

Blinging…blinging…

I decided that it would be fun to jazz up my glasses. 🙂 I’ve gotten nice comments so far!

ok ah? Not too Datin-tak-sedar-diri?

Mel trying out her new look.

She kept telling me how much she loves it. 🙂 Glad to be of service.

Mel and I! Thanks babe for the great day. *big hug* She actually enjoyed herself. Bijou Bazaar is evil I tell you. Bring cash if you’re coming. 🙁 Which is why my facebook status was “Jolene had a good day at Bijou Bazaar. Sales = Shopping expenses”

Just another idea I had with this random pink bling that got away. Didn’t want to put it up on the sticker blog in case some customers go, “WAH WHY STICKER MONSTER REALLY LOOK LIKE MONSTER ONE AH!!”

But you all know how I usually look (up to you lah if you still think I’m a monster ..) so this photo can stay here just fine.

We thought it looked more like a badly inflamed pimple. Hehe.

My bling bling glasses.

I even put three dots, but it was bordering on becoming one of those jeng sunnies one can buy from Petaling Street.

Mel flirting with her bottle.

Okay, time to show you my damage:

My beauuuutiful Satin dress from The Chic Bootique. They had it in a few colours too. White, Blue, Grey…:) Too beautiful! RM50 only, if I’m not mistaken. The best part? It wasn’t even up on the blog. So bazaars are for snapping up awesome buys.

Testing angles.

Ooooh and the cincher I bought. Looks really good with the dress.

How do I explain the cincher to you? *taps chin* Mmm. Do I call it a crochet kind of material? It’s like stretchy at the back which is why it’s called a cincher in the first place. -_- Oh I’m bad at this. Luckily I won’t be writing for fashion magazines for a living.

But my best buys thus far has to be the two bags that are pitifully left behind in my room in Subang.

This pink bag was retailed at RM60… but towards the end of the bazaar, the sellers sold it for RM55. I got it from a nice girl at Dude & Dudette.

The inside is even pinker than the outside! <3!!

When I look at this I think of creamy buttery goodness. It feels like leather, it looks like it would smell of leather (but quite shy to sniff people’s bags at their stall right?) but for RM50? It’s a freaking steal!!! There was another one in black. I held both up to Mel and shouted at her from the 1st floor (where the clothes stalls were, my stall was downstairs.) and got her opinion. SHe thought the brown one was nicer too! Shopaholics can be so crazy.

Can anybody love a bag this much? If you want the black one, head over to Sassy Stuffs. Here’s to hoping that they still have one in stock! *clinks wine glass*.

Now now, I can’t remember from which stall I got these but it was quite a bargain too. Rm3 for one bracelet! 🙂 And I’ve been hoping to get a good price for these bracelets for the longest time.

I love Bijou Bazaar.

Okay……..and remember I mentioned how Emmagem listed out which boutiques stocked tights? I went quite crazy. Bought like 6 pieces from various online boutiques.

Pink tights! I mean com’n, you have to understand that I can’t wear anything too revealing to uni. So my mini skirts can finally see the light of day again with these tights.

mmm, what you got there sweetheart. *propositioning myself ahah

Black and white stripey tights!

Yellow three quarter tights.

You can’t see it here but it’s a pair of full length dark green tights.

My tights! Two more were still on the way. Hehe.

I think I’ve taken up too much of your time for reading this entire post. Now go stretch yourself or something.