Merry Christmas!

Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerry Christmas!!!!
Today was a great Christmas for Nic and me! Well, at least for me haha... I imagine that since Nic has been playing on the ipad for a lot of the day that it counts as a good day =). We opened lots of presents and ate a delicious lunch/dinner. Presents. Nic and his family got me many nice things-- from jewelry to books to video games.*Does a dance*. I'm so happy and grateful!! Nic got me "Alice: Madness Returns" for PS3 , so I got to play that for a little while. I'm really dumb at PS3. But it's SO COOL.
Nic and I used to work some pretty ridiculous hours- getting up at 7ish and getting off work at 10pm to crash and repeat the process... five days a week. With our morning job finished, we finally get time to relax and be kind of lazy. In my 'lazy' time, I decided to make part of Nic's present as my "shiny bits" post.
Here it is:


It looks like candy, but it's 1000 origami stars! I think this is the... third time I've made a set of 1000 stars. It's not cranes, but--- if you can wish upon ONE star, I'm sure one THOUSAND stars is MUCH better. Therefore, I told Nic to make a wish. I hope it's a good one.
We didn't know the "process" for making a wish, so Nic just held on to them, shook the container a bit, closed his eyes, and made his wish.

Oh yeah, and he tried to eat them.



I've been wanting to make an etsy store for a while, and am thinking of using the stars as a first item to open it. While I'd prefer to make accessories to post, I don't know exactly what I want to make yet. Anyway, I think if they were put in a nice clear container and decorated with a bow it'd make a nice gift. After all, making wishes on stars is kinda fun, no?

Nic's tid-bits:

Always check the delicious candies before you eat them. They might be made of paper. The stars Debra made this time resemble nothing so much as marshmallow cereal and under the right light look edible. Apparently this is what happened to Debra's old roommate's boyfriend. I did indeed wish upon those stars, and no matter where you are your wishes can come to you. Which is lucky since I'm pretty far from my normal place to live.

In other news, I have now definitely been here over a year now, since this is my 2nd Christmas. It's kinda weird to think about it like that. And yet, Deb's been here longer without me than with me. I feel like I've changed a LOT this past year, and the growth is pretty hard for me to see unless I picture the me of before. Well, I'm pretty happy with it overall ^_^b

Debra and I move into our new spacious living quarters next week, so I hope we can give you a shiny new tour of our shiny new apt next week!

Tis the Season to be... SHINY!

It's almost Christmas! Today I made myself a Christmas-y present. A new headband! Headbands are my new favorite accessory. It's kind of annoying to wear in wintertime though- there is no way to stay warm in a headband and no way to wear a headband with a warm hat! Yet, the inner Debra child gets really excited about her new headbands!

It's not really shiny in terms of shiny jewel things that I like and want to post on this blog, but it IS shiny in terms of "OH YAY! I FEEEEEEEEEL SHINY!" (see our shiny-looking faces below!)
In other news, Nic and I spent a lot of time in Itaewon this weekend. Itaewon is the foreigner-filled area of Seoul. We ate Taco Bell and Thai food this weekend and lived in Starbucks reading books and writing reports on crazy, I mean cute, students. All the girls have super cute headbands, too. I think I scare them a little by staring longingly at their headbands during class...



Nic's Tid-bits:

It's true that we spent a lot of time in Itaewon this weekend. We spent a huge amount of time alternating between reading/not doing anything constructive and writing notes on all of our adorable little half-humans. We're looking at apartments in the area, hoping to find a nice place to move into together. Pretty sure we found a nice three bedroom that we like.

Itaewon is kind of a dangerous area in the sense that there's many tempting things to buy at cheap prices. The red sweater in the picture was a side-of-the-road impulse buy (the second sweater I've bought in the area. Good sweaters there). Debra bought a... well... i think it's a poncho. (Debra: Hey! It's cute!)

Christmas is coming up this week, so Debra designed something mildly festive (the shiny bit in question). We've got a pile of various presents waiting to be opened and a place where out tree should be. I hope to have a pretty good weekend, but we don't have any plans this weekend (beyond relaxing now that our elementary job is over and watching the Muppet's Christmas Carol).

Also, there's this buffet place that we could just... spend all day in. Bring some books, eat for awhile, rest repeat.

'Tis this Season!

SUUUUUUUUPER SHINY!

I like shiny things.

And I don't know what to write about other than shiny things. SOOO... here is:

SUPER SHINY BITS.

This is Debra. I started living in Seoul, South Korea about 2 1/2 years ago (wow, it's been 2 1/2 years already?!) and I started a blog at the time... and then it died because I started getting really boring. And well, at times I'm still pretty boring. But at least now I have a purpose!!

I've decided to try again on this blog thing, mostly just so I can post pictures of all the (hopefully) cute accessories I make. I hope most of them turn out super shiny. And if they don't, non-shiny things can be pretty awesome too.

First item:


I've recently started liking skull things. My hair is dark, so the black ribbon against my hair isn't all that great.
Here it is by itself:





I made Nic take at least 20 photos of me with my clip, so he gets a to add his tid-bits as well:

Nic's Tid-Bits

Hiya! I'm Nic, and I have the distinct honor of being the boyfriend of Debra. As someone who has watched Debra work to make, wear, and buy parts for all her shiny bits, I can provide the smallest bit of insider information on each post she creates (as well as my own personal take and anecdotes).

For this particular clip, Debra and I adventured to Dongdaemun. For those not in the know, Dongdaemun has a giant, city block sized labyrinth of ribbons-buttons-strings-what-have-yous. There are hundreds of cart sized stores arranged over five stories. There are no points of reference inside so you are left to your own god given talent for navigation.

I always find the trips themselves interesting, if not for the content of the shops than for the adventure in the building. We had to double back and fight a dragon or two to claim the skull buttons, but now it sits happily in Debra's collection next to her skull barrette and my skull bow tie.

Hopefully, we can have more adventures out in the wild wild concrete jungle so as too claim shiny treasures in the future. As a last treat, here is a recent picture of Deb and I: