Bloggers United bazaar this FRIDAY!

Oh yes, you know you just HAVE TO drop by the Malayan Plaza this Friday. You can't miss out on this event! Manila's most prominent fashion bloggers will be selling items from their closets or respective fashion lines. PLUS if you donate to our chosen charity by bringing in old books or school supplies, you can get 50% off the entrance fee! So please come to our event and support a bigger cause.

"Mark the date: May 27, 2011 @ The Lounge (33rd floor), Malayan Plaza Hotel, Ortigas city. Manila's top fashion bloggers will come together in an event you wouldn't want to miss!

We recognize the bloggers’ massive power to inspire, and influence the public on how they think, behave and spend. But more than that, we want to use that power in order to make an action in spreading social awareness and issues to our fellowmen."

-taken from the official Facebook page

Visit the Bloggers United official blog here for more details...

Hope to see you there! My booth with Kryz will be on the 32nd floor, right next to Camille and Laureen's! And oh, sister and I will be performing. Seriously excited for Friday even though I know I'm already stressed to the bones. Hope the turnout will be great-- there will be a part 2 this December if ever!

♥

Spa party c/o Nail It!

Last May 13, a couple of bloggers and I got together at Nail It!'s Esteban Abada branch in Loyola Heights for a super-girly spa party!

Yes, we had a BUTLER!

Chatting like there's no tomorrow.

intergalactic nail polish!

Had to post this since I'm saddened by the fact that I lost the frame of that watch!!! Yes, all the Jeremy Scott x Swatch watches have detachable parts and I've misplaced mine. It still looks good without that gold frame because of the arms and the strap lock, but ohhhh what a waste!

Gia, Pauline and J

Bring out the bubbly!

photo from Gia

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The attendees were Kryz Uy, Alyssa Lapid, Gia Querubin, Pauline Suarez and Jariss Manlapas (who also hosted and invited us to this event). It was my first time to meet Gia and Pauline, plus Kryz introduced me to Alyssa that night (she goes to SOFA like Kryz). Jariss or J was my friend from Coro San Benildo before, and I've spent a lot of time with her during rehearsals and productions. We got to catch up on a lot of things when I first arrived. She handed us freebies from different bloggers' shops (I don't have photos of them but you can check out the blog entries of others) and she made sure that we were all being taken care of. Good job, J!

Kryz arrived and we were instantly chit-chatting like there was no tomorrow! That girl just has so much to dish out whenever we see each other (I hope we don't get carried away with all the chika this Friday during Bloggers United). Oh and that day I got to congratulate her for landing such a cool job at Preview! Kryz is definitely one of those Wonder Womans I know.

Alyssa was also really friendly and talkative as we were and I asked her so many things about M.E. in Ateneo, plus her subjects at SOFA.

We all continued to talk like we've all known each other for so long. We couldn't even pick just one color for our polish from being too excited and giddy. Nail It! was definitely a cool environment to have a spa party such as this! We continued to chit-chat at Starbucks right after getting our nails done and thanking the kind and (very) cheerful nail artisans.

Thanks so much to Nail It! for letting us try this type of kikay service and for letting us share it to our dear readers! They've just opened their new branch at Greenhills last Saturday so be sure to drop by if you're in the area.

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Maroon 5 concert hangover

We stayed at the gold section but my camera has a 20mm prime (no zoom). Oh well :)

Had so much fun with my sister and brother! I pity our little bro for standing between us girls, though... He had to endure an hour and a half of us fangirl-ing and SCREAMING cos of Adam's schmexiness! Seriously, why do rock stars exist??? He was so funny and talented! We were singing along to every song and I really want to watch them perform again-- they were THAT good!

Thanks to mum for gifting us these concert tickets! She rarely pays for our tickets and I guess she saw that Riz, Joey and I really wanted to watch them together... SMX was a really nice venue to hold the concert, too! It wasn't hot and the crowd was okay as we were going out of the venue... Wish more concerts would happen here but I heard that a new venue by SM was being built! That means goodbye to concerts at the MOA concert grounds! Heard a lot of horror stories about getting mugged or rained on during other events there... Thank goodness I never experienced those before!

I really want to watch Hillsong and Incubus next, while Riz and Joey are aiming to see 30 Seconds to Mars.

♥

I want new/pretty toys.

Blackberry bold 9900

I KNOW you all know I'm a sucker for all things Mac. Recently got the iPad 2 and I've been screaming "Team Apple" since forever BUT you can't imagine how many times I've gotten the "What's your BB pin?" question and honestly, I don't think WhatsApp is up to par with the BBM. I want this model since I instantly LOVED its design! I really don't have time to compare the long list of BB models right now, so please tell me if this sucks or what. I don't want the Torch since it's bulky and slide phones have never been my thing... I want something sleek and fast.

Fuji Finepix X100

Because I know I'll never be CRAZY enough to buy the limited edition titanium Leica M9 for $29000 (or any Leica M series cam for that matter-- I'm too rough on my cameras!),I'll settle for this. It's pretty cool and even if I know I won't be able to change the lens (I don't even change my Lumix GF1's), this would be a pretty awesome pocket camera. The viewfinder and built-in flash is something my Lumix lacks (the flash pops up on the GF1/2) and this has a rangefinder system thing going on... You won't be able to use it properly if you don't know how to use a manual camera, though... There are no intelligent auto settings. I want to be able to practice fixing the settings on a camera again! Whenever I shoot or pick up my DSLR, I keep having to force myself to stay away from my Lumix.

And just look at it... It looks so cool and oldschool! PRETTEH!

Nikon D7000

I'm not a pro, so I'm not touching any of those FX cameras. For now, I can only wish to upgrade my Nikon D80 to this DX camera. Google the specs if you please...

I know you're all going to grill me for saying "Oh please, the camera doesn't matter." But the noise levels and grain once I pump up the ISO's (for clients, not my blog) starting to bug me. I never thought I was going to do a lot of things when I first purchased my D80 way back when I was in first year college. I mean, why would we need a camera in Interior Design? Oh that's right, we don't.

But now that I plan on actually pursuing photography after school, I'm considering investing on a better camera. I have Nikon lenses so it only makes sense to stick to Nikon. I've never had a problem shooting with my D80 and my grandpa was a Nikon guy.

This is priced at $1,200 (body only) but hmmm if I am dead serious about pursuing a phophographyyy why not go for an FX cam like the D700? Priced at $2,700... Hmmm...

GAH I wish I didn't have to earn and pay for my own gadgets. I wish I loved clothes more than gadgets since they're far more expensive, your world will crumble if they get stolen, and unlike clothes, they don't make YOU pretty. HAH..

Okay these are accessories... But...

Why, Nixon? Why???

♥

Goodbye My Shadow music video

Barbie's new music video for her song "Goodbye My Shadow".

Decorated and rearranged the whole room on the first day of shooting... Can't believe I got to contribute to the "clutter" in this awesome video! Heh.... The room was really empty and different when we got there. They didn't decorate or fix anything yet since they had just moved in that are of the house. After day 1, they were saying how much they wanted to keep the arrangement of the furniture that way! We used everything that we could find in their house & nothing else was bought.

This was done by the very creative Luis Daniel Tabuena! I can still hear him discussing the concept over and over again in my head. Because really, you can't imagine the whole thing if you were in my place just looking at the set. And can you figure out the number of hours they took to shoot each photo, put each one in position and then take a photo of the photo on the set? MY GAWD. They should just make a stop-motion app. :))

From Barbie's YouTube page:

"Goodbye My Shadow" is the title track of the new album--coming out this week. We will bring CDs at our next gig in Route 196, Katipunan (Tuesday, May 24). Hope to see you there!

MUSIC VIDEO:
Directed By: Luis Daniel Tabuena
Produced By: Luis Daniel Tabuena
Director of Photography: Takeyuki Onishi
Cameraman: Mark See
Editor: Luis Daniel Tabuena
Colorist: Luis Daniel Tabuena

SONG:
Written By: Barbie Almalbis Honasan
Arranged and Performed by: Alden Abaca (Drums) Barbie Almalbis(Guitars/Vocals) Karel Honasan (Bass Guitar)
Produced By: Maly Andres
Executive Producers: Tommy and Ynel Tanchanco/12 Stone Records

Thanks to:
Kodak, Rolly Bombio, Patti Malay, Julianne Tarroja, Raleene Cabrera

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Okay, can I just fangirl for a bit? AAAH Barbie's one of the few Filipino artists I looked up to. I remember saying how pretty she looked with minimal or no makeup at all, and I remember wanting to be her when I was really young. I wanted to be a real rockstar like her! And now that I've met her, it's so awesome that I find her even more admirable- so down to earth, cool and blessed in life. She was the first to say hi to us at our gig, kept saying thank you when all I really did was to arrange furniture and de-clutter for a few hours. She's the only true female rockstar who's "made it" in our country and you just know she deserves it. (That's disregarding all diva-like or noontime show-related female singers... You get my point.) The first day of that shoot was just like a day with her friends, they were choosing outfits from her closet while we were sprucing up the place. The elements in the set were so simple but it turned out to be a really cool vid, don't you think? Props to Weedge for directing, editing, producing and tweaking the colors for it to look like it was Instagram-ed!

♥