It’s no secret to those who know me that I adore cupcakes. I especially like mini-cupcakes but I will not turn away from a big cuppie with tons of frosting and sprinkles.

These are actually bath bombs! How cute!

Another set of adorable bath cupcakes.

These are little charms - unbelievable!

Can you stand the mini cupcake candle holders?

Real mini cupcakes. Yum!

More adorable springtime mini cupcakes.

A selection of mini cupcakes.

I especially like vegan cupcakes. How do they make them taste so wonderful? There are many genius vegan bakers out there. (Just so you know: I am vegetarian so I do eat dairy but also eat a lot of vegan foods too).

There are great books like the following:

This is my favorite vegan cupcakes book of all time. If you buy only one vegan cupcake book this is the one. It will astound you and amaze you and is from the authors of Vegan with a Vengeance. I love all of their books. It has amazing reviews on amazon.com , so click here to buy it. And no I don’t get a kickback or anything. I just love cupcakes!

This has desserts of all kinds that will blow your mind. From the bakery in NYC of the same name, this allows fans from all over the world to dig into gluten-free, dairy-free and some sugar-free recipes of noms! Is a picture worth a thousand words? Well the cover should be edible or at least smell like chocolate! Check out their website and buy the book too.

I love this book and the author has a seriously awesome blog too. Interestingly that is how I originally found the book. Heather also has a couple of awesome e-books too available from her blog. Her photos will make you drool. Buy the book here.

I have long had a deep obsession with the world of faerie. Since magick plays a huge part in my profession, especially magick having to do with faeries (and many other creatures of magick like dragons), I have been on the prowl for representations of my dear little friends. These faeries may not truly qualify as kawaii in the more colorful sense, but to me they are adorable and twee and that is a big part of kawaii. This is how I came to know and love Amy Brown’s Fairy Diva’s.

Amy Brown is a fantasy artist who began painting faeries in the 90′s and is considered one of the best faerie artists in the world (along with other artists like Jessica Galbreth and Nene Thomas). The 37 year old artist (who looks much younger) has her own empire and looks like she is right out of the faerie world herself (or at least perhaps from Twilight as she bears a striking resemblance to actress Kristen Stewart who plays Bella Swan) is a  mother of two litte faerie girls and lives in Washington state.  Check out her website.

My first Fairy Diva was this little lady:

I decided then to collect every single diva there was and make a Fearie Tree for Christmas. Here are some of the other lovely ladies I collected:

Finally here is my Faerie Christmas Tree that I do every year.

I am totally in love with Mally Roncal, the adorable make-up artist who has a pink and pretty line of superb cosmetics exclusively on the shopping channel QVC. Here is some info about Mally from her own site:

As a young girl, Mally began experimenting with color and makeup on her mother, an incredible beauty who undoubtedly served as her inspiration. Motivated by her parents, both doctors, Mally pursued a pre-med education, yet she never abandoned her inner passion for art, makeup and fashion. Luckily, with encouragement and inspiration from mentors (including fashion stylist team Mathu and Zaldy, and celebrity hair stylist Danilo, whom she met while designing for Kalinka), Mally soon put aside her pre-med education to pursue her ultimate dream – exploring the power of makeup.

Mally quickly moved to the top of the “it” list of “who’s who” in the beauty industry, quickly becoming one of the industries most dynamic and in demand talents. With her passion for art, color, and design, along with her charm, contagious enthusiasm and magnetic personality, it is no wonder that some of the world’s top celebrities turn to her to prepare for their most important career moments. Mally has also been featured on Oprah, the Today Show, Isaac, the View, and many more.

Mally is mother to twin girls and has another girl on the way! She is of Filipino descent (where she gets her exotic good looks) and has a love of all things girly and sweet. Her appearances on QVC are like beauty how-to shows and worth watching.

What I like best about Mally Beauty are the colors and unique double-duty products she offers. Everything she creates has more than one purpose and all of her colors are truly universally flattering to almost all skintones. She works with pink and coral pink a great deal, the blush colors look like a tinge of actual blushing and that is what you want from your blush. All of her products are like this – they are natural and when I do an entire Mally face I don’t get compliments on my make-up but on my face – as in, Wow, you look really pretty. That’s the kind of compliment a girl likes to get!

Mally knows make-up. As an artist she knows what she wants the colors to look like and how the application of the products should be for the untrained. We don’t spend our entire lives making up faces for photo-shoots so without her expertise you’d think, oh, well I could never do a face the way she does. Wrong! Mally takes this into consideration and creates products for ease of use.

Take her double-sided mascara (genius) for instance. One side is a full-brush that gives lush lashes, the other is scaled down and perfect for lower-lashes. Two in one, baby – it does everything you need plus more. She also offers a lipstick and lipgloss combo. I love this and always wonder why every cosmetic line doesn’t do the same thing? It is perfect for the handbag. I never have to look for my lip gloss once I have my lipstick on (and in my hand bag that could take forever!).

I’ve been using her cosmetics for a couple of years now and was so lucky to get one of her greatest deals from QVC called Mom’s Indulgences. I may not be a mother but man oh man this surely is the MOTHER of ALL beauty buys! I got it for my birthday – it was a total splurge (my birthday is at the end of this month), I usually try to get super bargains as you well know. But ultimately this was a bargain – 14 different items including the cutest pink violet make-up case.

Check it out:

This is the kit and here is what it includes:

• Believable Bronzer in sexy tan
• Perfecting Blush in rosy pink
• Sheer lipstick in Tokyo glow
• Go the Distance lip color lipstick / lip gloss in forever natural
• Lip gloss in love is pink
• Shaping Secret pencil /shadow in charcoal
• Lightwand eye brightener pencil /powder
• Two Lash Illusion lash-filler pencils
• Mally’s patented eyelash curler
• Xtra-Hold maximizing double-end mascara in black
• Eye shadow in natural
• Eye shadow in knockout
• Travel bag

Total make-up bonanza!

It can be sad when your favorite cosmetics brands bite the dust but then – there is always ebay. Of course that cannot always be the best place to purchase cosmetics. I am sure many people have experienced that same – “Oh crap, this is some old old old stock here.” when buying cosmetics from ebay sellers. For the most part that has put me off purchasing cosmetics on ebay unless they are absolutely brand new products (like the Hello Kitty MAC line) because I had some terrible experiences with spoiled make-up.

I am happy to report that I have found a great seller on ebay who carries many of the kawaii brands that I adore. The stock is limited but the quality is superb. Everything is boxed and sealed and brand new. Oh and the prices are right on too! If you post in the comments I will email you the sellers name but I don’t want to put it out here for just anyone since I intend on purchasing at least one of all the SUGAR cosmetics!

Before I show off my haul I have to tell you why I love SUGAR so much. It’s the lipgloss – it has the most wonderful flavor – ever! They call it sugar flavored but that really doesn’t explain it. It is sweet, like butter-cream frosting on a cupcake, but also like sugar on a jelly donut, or the crusty sweet sugar on top of a blueberry muffin or the sprinkled on top sugar of a still warm sugar cookie. I mean this stuff is super tasty and since all lip gloss (and lipstick) should be flavored since it goes on your lips (duh), this is one of the best, if not the best. Which of course is sad because they aren’t making it anymore. Bummer.

Here is my haul:

Wonderful double-sided palette with candy bright colors, gloss, lip creams, blush and bronzer. All you need is a mini-mascara and you are good to go. This is perfect for travel. It is super kawaii, sturdy and pink. I got this for a steal only $20!

This is the adorable SUGAR cube. 2 eyeshadow palettes, blushes and two mini lip glosses. It is really small, so it is also portable and has the happy colors that SUGAR is best known for. It is a metallic hot pink and just would look crazy cute on your bathroom counter with your other kawaii cosmetics.

I got all four of the above lip glosses, called SUGAR Lip Slicks. They have a neat angled sponge tip applicator and a squeezable tube so you can get every last bit of gloss out. Why don’t all glosses come this way? Oh can you stand how cute they are? I just want to nom them they are so adorable. They are like candy sticks for your lips.

I also got this lipgloss called SUGAR shellac and I just had to share the teeny tiny little lip brush with you. It is so twee it almost hurts but it really is a great applicator too. Many glosses I try have big brushes which can be less than accurate. This one is terrif!

This is the SUGAR big pink body brush (or face powder brush which is my plan for it). I would not use it with bronzer because I don’t want to kill the pink-ness. It is so fluffy and sweet its like a cupcake brush!

I cannot wait to use all my new goodies. In fact, that’s what I am going to do now – post this, shine up my face and get SUGAR-y!

I just got my new Re-ment Hello Kitty edition series. Wowee! It is so much fun and I cannot wait to get another MUJI case to put the new display in (to see my other display please visit my Kawaii Flickr page). If you are going to make minis why not make them Hello Kitty right?

Here is the series I just got:

This set comes with (from top row Left) Hello Kitty birthday cake, Hello Kitty bento box, Hello Kitty pancakes, Hello Kitty rice omelet ( a popular children’s meal in Japan), Hello Kitty croquette dinner, Hello Kitty curry dinner, Hello Kitty apple pie and Hello Kitty custard. What is especially neat are the plates, cups and utensils which can be used in a variety of other displays too.

This is the original Hello Kitty mini series I have. It came in a red version and a pink version. From top Left there is a Hello Kitty bento, Hello Kitty box of chocolates, a Hello Kitty Salisbury steak dinner, Hello Kitty tea service, Hello Kitty hot pot and the Hello Kitty serving platter for the hot pot.

This was another set of Hello Kitty mini’s. Highly detailed though some were unfortunately not the most popular characters, like Patty & Jimmy and Mr. Penguin.

This is a new teeny tiny Hello Kitty room series. I haven’t gotten this yet but it looks super pink and kawaii. They need to come out with a little mini dollhouse to put all this stuff in. Oh wow – I would love a little Hello Kitty doll house!

Finally above is the Hello Kitty mini play set (not sure if the furniture series would fit in this). It is intended for kids to play with and looks like lots of fun because there are stickers to customize everything. There is also another set that is a playground and a conbini (Japanese convenience store).

I am crazy about conbini’s so I actually thinking of getting this. I won’t actually play with it of course – well – much! It is truly too cute for words. Sometime I will have to do a photo shoot of my Re-ment conbini. It is one of my favorite Re-ment set-ups. Next to the sushi bar that is. Oh, sometime I will have to share that too!