She is the One! ♡

HHey everyone! ♡ I recently received a big box of awesome Sailor Moon stuff from my friend Jess, and so I figured I'd take photos! This isn't even all of it, just some of the bigger things. :) If you click the photos they will get bigger!

Some cute folders!

The one on the right is like a folder with coloring pictures on the inside part, on the left is a notebook, and the bottom is a notebook diary thing with a lock on it that I can't figure out how to unlock, haha!

The inside of the folder on the left in the above photo.

Picture books!

The pages of some of the picture books.

A magazine with an interview in it.

A big collection of various things like little notepads and postcards.

This has a CD inside it! See below:

I haven't listened to it yet though!

The back.

The lunchbox!

Washtowels I will never use, haha.

Playing cards!

Lockets!

Inside the lockets.

I have three whole boxes of these, haha.

Cutest bandaids ever.

A little toy phone.

A huge lot of trading cards!

Pencil bag!

There were a lot of other things too like stickers, magnets, and pens, but it would have taken forever to photograph all those little things! If any of you want to repost any of these images on Tumblr or something, I only ask that you please give me credit and link me as a source! I hope you all enjoy them as much as I do!

Hello!

I just wanted to announce the winner from the Sophie & Toffee New Years Giveaway:

Hannah ( http://resplendentvein.livejournal.com/ ) ! ♡

I will be emailing you shortly. :)

Congratulations Hannah, and a big thank you to everyone who entered! ♡

New Years Giveaway from Sophie & Toffee!

Click the image for a larger picture. ♡

Hello everyone! To bring in the new year, Sophie & Toffee is giving away a handmade decoden iPhone 3G case! It is crafted from Sophie & Toffee supplies and genuine Swarovski crystals. It is considered our half case deco, and it is worth SGD$80, which is about USD$60.

To win, you simply have to leave a comment here on my blog saying a little bit about why you would like to win, and be sure to include your email address so we can contact you if you win! The deadline for entering is January 31, 2011.

For more chances to win, you can do a few different things!

1) Post a comment here on which @SilverLeica Handmade Decoden Case you like best.
http://sophieandtoffee.com/category.php?category_id=49

2) Like this Giveaway Album on Facebook.

3) Tweet about it: @SophieandToffee Enter now for our New Year Giveaway: Swarovski Crystals & Sweets Decoden IPhone 3G case. ♡ http://tinyurl.com/2e86l84

The more entries you enter, the higher your chances of winning!
Results will be randomly selected based on the entries.

Please try to use the same name or same email for us to consolidate all the entries together.


Be sure to check out the decoden cases in the online store here as well, they're so adorable! 

Also, you can "like" Sophie & Toffee on Facebook to stay clued in on new items and special offers! ♡

Ho ho ho~

Hi! I had a little lapse in updating due to my digital camera breaking-but alas, I have a new one now thanks to my dad, and I am in love with eet!
Christmas was wonderful, my mom is wonderful, Matt is wonderful, etc. I feel so lucky to have the family I have, and I feel so lucky to be so fortunate. ♡


 Let's seeee...well my mom cooked breakfast, but we also ate a lot of dinner food too like baked macaroni and cheese (yummm). Then we opened presents while watching the Disney Parade! Best ever. I got Matt some lifting gloves for the gym and an Admiral Ackbar action figure, and I'm giving him a large chunk of money from my next pay check since that is what he wants the most! My mom gave us a new TV which is really nice, since our old TV was starting to go bad and it had a line across the screen! My mom had some really interesting gifts for Matt:

Le Shake Weight~

THE MAN CAN

I found this to be a really good gift for Matt, considering he likes to have knowledge of lots of weird things. I now know that tampons were first made out of wooden sticks wrapped in wool...eugh.

A gift for both Matt and I, an AWESOME Pokemon calendar for the new year!

My mom also gave us some new knives, a cool change jar with a lid that counts how much money you have, a new scale that tells you your BMI, water percentage, and muscle mass, and...

Squirmles!! I am beyond amused at these odd things, they are just these cute fuzzy snake creatures tied to invisible string that dance and are just generally cute!

Thanks to both my mom and my dad, I now have enough money in Starbucks gift cards to buy myself 25 drinks! YES. My mom got me a lovely new coat, a new shirt and dress (I haven't taken a picture of the dress yet, but I will), a share of Disney stock with a framed stock certificate which is really awesome and cute and generally a really cool gift, and some cash as well. My favorite gift from her has to be this new perfume:

This one is my favorite, it smells SO GOOD I just want to bathe in it. You know when you are wearing a perfume and you just feel prettier when you smell yourself? Yeah.

This was the first Christmas with my mom's new puppy, Mepup, and she was so cute! Henry, my mom's other dog, was being a poophead and kept barking at Mepup because he was jealous, which wasn't that nice, but I think Mepup had a good first Christmas!

I also took a lot of random photos around the house, since I was trying out my new camera.

My mom loves Nutcrackers. You have no idea.

My mom really wanted me to take a picture of her new potholder, haha.

Little Christmas tree in the dining room.

SHE IS NICE TO ME.

These were Matt's gifts to me, I am in love!! My old DS was breaking from opening and closing it so much over the years, and plus I think Matt was tired of me using his DSi to use the camera so much, haha. I love Cooking Mama, I am set for life.

After that, we headed over to Matts moms house and hung out there for a little while. I am now an owner of a leopard print Snuggie! I recently saw Tron Legacy and Black Swan, which were both amazing! I want to see them both again and again. Right now I am at Sara's house and there is an absolute blizzard raging outside right now. We just finished watching Cry Baby and eating pizza, and tomorrow I want to go to the mall and see Black Swan again, if the weather isn't horrible and Sara doesn't have to go to class! I'm sure we will be taking lots more pictures tomorrow, I love you Nikon Coolpix.

What I Wore Today ♡ Shirt: Kohl’s Cardigan: Forever21 Shorts: Forever21 Tights: Target Shoes (not shown): Black flats from Payless

I am going off to bed now! Last time I saw the clock, it was 10PM, and now it's 4AM so I have no idea what just happened, but goodnight!

See the Shiny Light ♡

      Hello! ♡ Gosh, it's been a little while. I have been pretty preoccupied lately with cleaning, work, friends, and Harry Potter. I started rereading the books again last week and right now I am in the middle of Prisoner of Azkaban, so I have been reading pretty much nonstop! Taking a break from the internet is nice though, to be honest! 





      Last week on Black Friday (after I worked), Sara and I went to see Tangled and it was so adorable! I loved it, we both want to see it again. I worked Black Friday, and it was a really good day actually. I was in at 4AM for the store to open at 5AM, and I worked until 11AM. I like when it's busy at work, I like to always have something to do.

      Besides that, not much has been going on I suppose! I bought Epic Mickey on Friday and I have played about an hour, I really love it so far. I always make my enemies like me, Sara gets so upset because she wants me to be "Bad Mickey", haha! It's really fun and interesting and I've only just started, no wonder why it was called "The Best Wii Game" by IGN and won 15 awards at E3.

      Sara and Andrew slept over this last weekend and we went to a Pokemon tournament Saturday morning, one of the City Championships. I had a ton of fun, it was a really good day! Andrew came in second place, also! I am very proud of him.
I did pretty well, although not as well as last Saturday when I went 3-1 and had to drop to go to work, but I ran into some bad luck in my match against Sara! I just love my deck (and Sara) so much, I can't complain! ♡

      It makes me feel very proud of myself that I am gaining more and more respect from the other players for how long I've stuck with my Porygon-Z deck, and how much better I am getting. I get so flustered when I'm told by my opponents that they are scared of facing me because my deck is tough, or when I am facing a really good player and I can tell he is visibly nervous, hands shaking! That sounds awful, that it makes me feel good to have my opponents worried, but don't get me wrong, I love everyone there and they are a great group of people that I'm happy to know. There are many amazing players and I used to feel like, as a girl, that I wasn't taken seriously as competition.

Eric and I playing in top cut for one of my second place wins in 2009 Autumn Battle Roads.

       Honestly, most girls there aren't taken seriously simply because most girls that play don't take it as seriously as the boys, and they aren't very good because of it. They mostly don't have the desire or passion to get really good at the game, from what I can see, which isn't always a negative thing and that's not meant to sound negative. A lot of girls just have bigger priorities than practicing every night at a card game to win a trophy, and while they have fun playing it and hanging out at the tournaments, they don't care if they are good or bad so long as they're having fun. Don't get me wrong, I always have fun at tournaments, and I wouldn't go if I didn't. I have said many times that I wouldn't play Pokemon if the community and the players weren't as fun to be around as they are and if I didn't love the game. However, I aslo have the desire to win and get better, and I would love to have a medal around my neck or a trophy in my name, just because I love the game so much and feel so dedicated to it, I want my dedication to be rewarded by winning! That's natural for anyone who is passionate about a particular-anything!

Andrew and I playing for first and second place, in one of my only first place wins in the 2010 Regional Championships DS Tournament. I won either a Nintendo DS or a check for however much a DS costs, so before Andrew and I played, we made a pact that whoever won, we would split the money!

       A lot of girls there, and I have to add that the number of girls to guys is severely unbalanced in the first place, generally play either because of their boyfriends, or they just play to socialize and because they think Pokemon is cool (and it definitely is!). Surely, there are also plenty of guys who don't take it as seriously as some of the others, but with the guy to girl ratio so skewed, all of the best players are guys. I asked Judge Steve if a girl has ever won a National Championship or World Championships, and he said he couldn't think of any since he had been judging. I would love to be that girl! Also, I have to add that Sara and Meg are both wonderful players. Sara is great, and she has won more tournaments than me I reckon! She doesn't get to play very much and thinks about quitting sometimes, because she has a lot going on in her life between school and her career, which is understandable. Meg judges more than she plays, but when she plays, she does really well! Although I don't talk to Meg as much anymore, we kind of had a silent falling out from us both being so busy, us three gals have to stick together and be the best we can be. Girl power, anyone? ♡ 

Like I said-girl power!

      Although I started playing Pokemon because of my boyfriend, (but I did collect the cards when I was younger), I gradually began to take the game more seriously and I want to be considered a serious player, a serious competitor, and respected! It really hurts to be doing something you love, and have your opponents brush you off as an "easy win" when they are paired to you, because they don't think you're anything to worry about, just playing because of their boyfriend or because they think Pokemon are cute.

Matt in the Top 8 at 2010 Regional Championships, I am standing in the back with Andrew, Con, and Alex talking to Judge Steve!

       Now that I'm getting better at the game, thinking outside the box more, and really understanding my way around the different metagame decks and strategies, I'm winning more than I'm losing, and if I'm losing, I'm usually putting up a really good fight to the end. It feels nice to finally feel accepted and respected in the community not only as "Matt's girlfriend with the pink sleeves who plays Porygon-Z religiously" but as myself, a legitimate player who is worth respect, who will always bring a good match to the table, and whose oddball deck, that no one else plays, is admirable and actually tough to beat!

Myself at the Nintendo Store/Pokemon Center in New York City last winter.

       I finally feel like I am beginning to gain that respect I have always wanted, and I am even happier that I have stayed true to myself the whole time. I can honestly say there are no guys at Pokemon, except maybe one or two I can think of, that would feel ashamed or embarrassed to ~lose to a girl~, and that is also a wonderful feeling, to be treated as an equal among mature guys, and to be all-around respected, not just as a player but as a human being. It's nice to beat someone and hear them talking about your match to some of their friends, and instead of hearing them saying I got lucky, or some other excuse for why I didn't win legitimately or fairly, I hear them saying how awesome my deck was, how well I played, and how good I was. I feel like I've come a long way and I'm just so happy!

Con, a friend, at 2010 Regional Championships. He is also our 2010 National Champion!

      Through Pokemon, I have made some amazing and loyal friends who I couldn't live without, and I just can't imagine never playing Pokemon, it's just a great game, a great, diverse and friendly group of people, and the healthy competition makes me feel so good about myself at the end of the day. I will be deeply sad when I have to stop playing, or when all of my favorite players and friends stop playing. I imagine Matt and I will play Pokemon until we have children of our own, and then when they're old enough to read, they'll play Pokemon and we'll be a Poké-dad and Poké-mom! ♡

      I have been drawing a lot recently too, as if reading, playing video games, working, Pokemon tournaments, and hanging out with friends haven't been enough to keep me off the internet. I have always loved Rainbow Brite since I was little, and I used to draw them a lot, so I started to draw them again! Here is all I've done, and they both took me way longer than they probably should have:

Shy Violet

Krys and Rainbow Brite

      Anyway, I'm off now, it figures that the moment I decide to go online today, Tumblr is down! I recently received my first clay kit from Sophie & Toffee so expect some sweets and a review coming from me soon! ♡ Bye!