Hello Kitty Compact Mirror

*This is not a review post. 

A month ago I've designed a blog for my lovely friend, Latasha from Today I Adore. It was so fun to work on her design as she had clear idea on what she wants for her blog. She was truly nice and so patient with me whole time which I appreciated!

Today I've received a little surprise gift from her with a little note.  As soon as I saw it, I couldn't stop smiling just because I am a huge Hello Kitty FREAK!! I loved the colors and the little furry texture on the bow. Now I have two Hello Kitty compact mirrors and thinking of getting whole collection of them ;)

Again, thank you so so much Latasha. It is such a sweet gift, lovely! x

New Look @ Urban Hype Creative

Hello ladies. First of all, I missed blogging! I was working on my design shop from months and months ago, and finally managed to re-organize it with new look and new domain name.

urbanhypexo.com  to  urbanhypecreative.com ! 

But you can still use urbanhypexo.com since I've redirected the old domain to my new website ;)

 I wanted to offer little individual items like social media icons to vector images etc for an instant download however I launched 'Urbanhypexo' on blogger platform in the beginning. I had hard time trying to build instant download section for it, so that's when I started to build my website on Wordpress for potential e-commerce business. It still look little rubbish, but i will tidy things up once i get a chance to work on my own website. As of right now, a little busy with other projects :) For now, I am happy with the result.

Another news regarding my design shop, I am going to offer custom Wordpress designs [blog, website and e-commerce] starting December. I've been getting quite a lot of requests for Wordpress blogs however because of the complexity of the codes/designs, I didn't have time for creating it over my school projects and others. Anyway, it's almost (in my opinion) end of the year and now I am finally getting a little room to breath! So if you are the Wordpress users, please keep check on my website :)! Until then, I will make some Premade ones on my shop!

Well, hopefully I can blog more often next month and if you are thinking of getting your blog a revamp, please check on my design website for more details on pricing/portfolio.

Thank you for reading and have a lovely week!x

What I love to see #2 | Clouds and Blah

It seems like my blog is now 'less' focused on beauty and becoming more mixed-content maybe more personal posts.

 I do have some beauty products that I have purchased and would like to share with you. But you all know that the product review can't be posted in matter of second.  Also as I mentioned in my previous post, I still didn't organized my time schedule for my blog, school, business and house work.  So as of right now I am trying my best to figure out when is the best time to write blog posts, work on my business, and of course studying. (Keep fingers crossed)

I want to take care of my blog more and write things up however everything was little overwhelmed last month. I'm a bit shocked to see that i only posted 8 times last month but oh well again, I'm not running my blog to impress anybody but me. For the blog wise, I have a strong feeling that my blog is going to be focus more on designs, personal events with a little bit of beauty related post until December. But I'm sure it's going to be all mixed up again in about few weeks with no 'clear' category.

Anyway, I just wanted to say that my blog might seems dead but I didn't quit blogging ;)

We had 3days weekend over here and I thought I could finally relax and getaway from all the works.
Of course I was wrong. I had to finish all the school works,  organizing the business, and you know- little this and that stuffs :x!

However it's so funny that even when my life going nuts with all these works, I always have some time to snap some photos of clouds or flowers. I just love to see pretty clouds.

P.S - Last night I saw two shooting starts.
P.P.S - It was my first time ever.
(not a lot of stars in Seoul cause of high buildings and bright lights 24/7)

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Finally, New Lens for my Camera

 Image Taken with Samsung Galaxy S3 *Please excuse my phone's bad photo quality

 So last week, I thought that i might need a new lens for my camera. I was actually searching back yard stuff with my boyfriend and then saw these really nice photographs of plants. I really liked how it's only focusing on plants and blur everything out -also known as bokeh : *my kit-lens only did a subtle background blur..

Anyway that's when I started to searching up the lenses for my camera.  I've already had 55-250mm macro lens along with 18-55mm kit-lens, so was looking for something that I can capture the smallest things such as bugs or nectar of plants however fact that I didn't had so much $ in my account,  couldn't look for fancy-nancy lenses that are over my budget. Gosh, these lenses are pricy!

While I was searching the net, I found this quite affordable 50mm lens also called nifty fifty. I was so excited as this was the one that I've been looking for.  Something that's not so pricy but still does its job - I read that it has great bokeh with sharp focus. How perfect. So right away that night, I made a purchase and finally today, it was in front of my house when I came home, I got to play with it.

You might say I can achieve more blurry effect with kit-lens or any other lenses but, first of all, I am not a professional photographer. I don't have a full knowledge and understanding of setting and stuff to make it happen. So purchased the lens that can help me achieve what i've wanted it quicker without messing with the camera.

As soon as I took several photos with it, I instantly knew that this lens will be on my camera's body for a long long time as I AM IN LOVE with it!! It gives such clear, sharp and bright images every single time I take a picture and plus oh my blur! I am so so glad that I made a purchase on this one. By the way, I've just paid little over $100 for this one so it's definitely a steal!

Image Taken with Canon Lens EF 50mm 1:1.8 II

Image Taken with Canon EFS 55-250mm

About the above image, I HAD to take this image of the moon last night. It was a full moon plus really bright. Also it was huuuuuuge! I couldn't believe how big it was. So for that reason, I took my camera out and snap! :)

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What I love to see..

As I mentioned before, my boyfriend and I are doing whole house/yard remodeling since last year. We are almost finishing up the interior of the house. It seems like took it so long for us to fix because we did it all by ourselves. From the drywalls to bathroom tiles, can't even name it all!  My awesome boyfriend did all the work to be honest - I just did painting, help him here and there and yes picking colors of course.. Now we are working on the kitchen cabinets and i assumed that it will be done by hopefully next month.

We are also working on planning the front/back yards. Recently we purchased whole bunch of planters and outdoor furniture however we, actually "i am" thinking this endless project will take another good year to complete it.

So at the moment, we are enjoy planting for the future 'awesome' backyard. I  Love to see colorful flowers and birds, growing our own chilli plant and other stuffs. It makes me so relax while just looking at it. Every time when I see plant head coming out from the dirt or flower bloomed, I feel like it's my child however I always fail to take care of flowers :( It seems so hard to keep them alive for some reason. Maybe I need some 'easy to care' plants/flowers?

Anyway, I can't wait to have our yard done so can relax at the cozy fireplace next to the beautiful flower garden.

What's your favorite flower? Any easy to care but colorful flower plants?

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Blogging Tips

   I, my self, only have running this blog for about 7 months now - not a remarkable amount of time compare to others, I know. However, I always find these kinds of post, Blogging Tips, are very interesting yet helpful to read. So I just want to share some of my thoughts with you on blogging - You know, you get lots of thinking going on at night? Well, that's how i am right now so if I'm rambling, please understand.

  *These are not the must-have-to-follow rules, but crucial/important rules of mine.

1.  I want to have my own blog but don't know where to start.
  Obviously when I first started my blog, I had no idea on what I was doing. I just wanted to have my own little space on the web to documents everything that I loved. I first started off as an 'everything' blogger which I posted basically everything or anything. Then, I figured since I have a huge interest on beauty, art and diy related stuff, thought I should start making posts about it. That was a month after blogging 'anything/everything.' What I want to say is that if you really want to have your little own space on the web, don't think about anything just go ahead and make it. I know, it would be much better and nice if you know what you want to blog about however you don't have to get stress over it because you will know one day when the time comes!

2. Oh followers.
  I know there are many people who get frustrated or stressed with number of followers they have. To be honest, in the beginning, I was the one who gets very frustrated with it. It's like I am writing and talking on my blog but nobody is listening to it. Well, that's how it is though. In the beginning of blogging stage, which I'd like to call it as a solo-play, of course there's not a lot of people coming over to your blog. It's a new and people don't know until you let them know you are there existing. As of right now- after getting some followers on my blog, I really don't get frustrated over the number of followers as much as I did before. if you blog for yourself,enjoy writing it and posting a quality contents, the number of followers is just a matter of time. But if you really want to advertise your blog, I have a suggestion for you. I've joined blogging community, blog hops, and advertising on other blogs etc.. however I found that the blogger chat on twitter is way more effective on 'letting people know about your blog / advertising' as well as advertising your blog on other blogs. If you are a beauty blogger, join the #bbloggers chat, lifestyle- #lbloggers , fashion - #fbloggers use the social media wisely.

3. Realization.
   I know in blogging community, there's tons of bloggers that are nice and very supportive towards others + thoughtful. However there's a ugly truth that not all of bloggers are going to be as nice as you want them to be. I mean you can't expect everyone to like you obviously. Not all bloggers are encouraging and they all have their flaws no matter how perfect their life and personality appears online. I'm not saying that i'm perfect. I've been snarky and rude at sometimes too; I’m human just like you. However i've seen some bloggers act like they are a celebrity and using their popularity in a wrong way. Also, have seen other bloggers leaving very rude comments on other blogger's blog? Well clearly that's not nice at all. But what we you do? keep thinking of bad comments and let it to ruin our entire day or just let it go and keep going? I know this sound terribly negative and ugly however you will experience some 'blog bitchiness' sooner or later. The point I wanted to make was just don't get involve in such dramas. Mind your own business and keep blogging for yourself, not for others. The negativeness over other bloggers will only hurt yourself and your work.

4. Don't stress yourself out over posting every single day.
  To be honest, I am far from posting regularly however I remember once i was really stressed out over posting every other day to keep up my work with others. Long story short, I got burnt out quickly and seriously thought I should stop blogging if I can't post regularly.  Well, now I'm more like post things when I feel like it. Again, you should blog for yourself. Blogging should be fun, not to give you bunch stress and headaches. Also in my opinion, making a post every day is too much. Too much for you to write/plan and also to your readers to keep up. You should give your readers some times to catch up and read all your recent posts. If you have to write a post every single day or two, there's a feature to schedule your post - Also you can schedule your tweet too, if you didn't know about it!

5. Interaction is the key.
 Visit and read as many blog as possible - which i need to do more often. Get inspired by other bloggers and interact with them. If you enjoyed reading their blog/ specific post, leaving a comment is always nice thing to do. Once more, an interaction between other bloggers is the key of blogging success and here you are, on my blog, reading this post! Thank you and thank you.



Of course, there is no such rules when it comes to blogging. It's your blog, your style and your way - it's all about you. So enjoy your time blogging and let's be happy!

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Comic Con International

Yesterday, me and my boyfriend went to the Comic Con International at downtown San Diego.

My boyfriend knew someone who works there at the Comic Con, got two free tickets which was awesome!

I have my love for Hello Kitty since I was little girl, therefore couldn't wait to see the latest version of it. Lots of people dressed up like the comic characters, lots of stuff that I wanted to get but it was kind of pricey. While we were walking around and looking stuffs, we found this little cute doll that was in the display shelves. As soon as we saw this one, we thought it's pretty cool looking doll. My boyfriend could tell that I wanted it so bad (I couldn't take my eyes off of it and this was the only thing I wanted it from Comic Con), he decided to get one for me before someone takes it. It was originally asked for $70 however it has some smudged spots here and there, we got it for $50. - Smudged spots from when the guy who made this locking the paint. This is actually a smallest size doll that they had. They had some bigger ones but not as detail as this little guy! I was just so glad I could bring this guy home with us. 

Anyway, I first thought bringing my camera to the Comic con however I knew we are going to walk around a lot and didn't want to feel like ' oh, too heavy i shouldn't have brought this thing..' So, I didn't took a lot of pictures while I was there but it was just fun to be there looking around, watching people dressed up and buy stuffs.

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What have happened to me lately..

Last few days have been caused so much trouble for me. i spent quite unexpected $$$ over stuff that normally doesn't get messed up so easily.  

First, my DSLR memory card crashed while I was taking photos of my brother doing his martial arts demonstration outside. I assumed it got messed up from the heat so I ran to the nearest Walmart and got weather proof memory card. I was so upset because it was only like two months old at the most and not only that, I lost all my photos that were in the memory card. (Make sure you have a weather proof memory card for your DSLR if you taking it outside a lot!)

After when it happened, i came back to my mom's house and realized I need to charge my camera. Unluckily, I didn't bring my camera's battery charger from my house so i had to either buy it for a week or can't use it for blogging and stuff until I go back home. So at the end, I decided to wait a week until I go back home. -this might be a reason why you don't see much uploading on my blog..I feel terrible! 

Lastly, this just happened last night which I think it's crazy!! 

After did some designs for my clients, I was searching web looking DIY stuffs. Suddenly, the screen froze and I couldn't do anything but to reboot my laptop. By the way, i have a MacBook Air. I rebooted it, searched some more DIY and again, i had to reboot. This time I couldn't even get to the login part. It only showed me a gray screen with flashing folder with question mark on it. I tried every single solutions there's on the web (searched through my phone) and nothing seemed working. So I decided to wait a day just in case of it fixes by itself but it was still acting crazy when i woke up this morning. I decided to take it to the apple store near D.C but today is 4th July... Everyone was heading to the D.C. Which means so freaking much traffic!!! Anyway, I took it to the store and the 'genius' over there said my hard drive crashed. Oh okay..wait,WHAT? Yes, my hard drive crashed and decided to just disappear so I can't get any data out of it. Just letting you know , i never back up my stuff. So "hard drive failure" means I lost all my data, designs, codes, adobe softwares,  and some important documents plus precious photos that has my memory in. Moreover, my warranty ran out two weeks ago so I had to pay almost same amount of what I paid for my laptop. I know, insane. To be honest, I just wanted to cry right in front of everybody. I went there with my dad and he knew I need some sweets. He took me to the Cheesecake Factory and I had some fabulous Godiva chocolate mousse cheesecake. Oh yes I feel much better now.. 

Anyway, I'm getting my laptop back on Wednesday next week and thought my design processes will be on hold but I managed to download most of my stuff back ,from my files online and USB drive, on my parent's iMac ;) So, design service will run like nothing ever happened ! 

Oh by the way, if you find your MacBook's trackpad feels weird and looks like it's possessed(clicking everywhere by itself while you try to navigate the screen), you definitely want to take it to the Apple store. I had that issue before my hard drive crashed and I asked today to the 'genius' , he said bad hard drive most likely caused all these problems. + if you have important data , make sure to back up every week...or at least a month.. I learned hard way ;( 

*image from weheartit

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Makeup Disaster

Ugh, I hate when this thing happen.. I had to go out with my mom to pick something up this afternoon. For that reason, I woke up earlier than usual. I really didn't want to go out in this beautiful weather without any makeup so I started to apply some makeup on. As I applying my foundation, I was so satisfied how it glides on my face and looks flawless without concealer because I usually had to use it afterward to hide my blemishes.

Anyway, It must got on my hand when I applied eyeliner. I tried to move my hair back that was in the way.. and bam! The black stuff got on my cheek. It happened so quick! I was a bit pissed. If it was a normal day when I don't really care about foundation and stuff, I probably and immediately grab my makeup wipe and wipe it off and re-do. But since I really liked how my foundation look on me today, i had to think if i want to re-do or cover it up.. Well, long story short, I went out with this black line on my cheek. The end. No, I was just playing.. So, i rubbed it with my finger carefully to see if this line will come out and luckily it did without looking dirty and smudged!

 I know many of you have had this experiences at least once. Every time when this 'makeup disaster' happen, what do you usually do?

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The Liebster Blog Award

I was kindly nominated for the Liebster Award by the lovely Jillian of  Jillicious Cosmetics .Thank you so much!

To participate after being nominated you'll just have to complete the following: 
1. Share eleven things about myself  
2. Answer eleven questions provided by the nominator 
3. Nominate 11 blogs (under 200 followers) that deserve the title and let them know! 
4. Think of eleven questions to ask these nominees
5. Thank the person that nominated you and link back to their blog

11 Things About Me:

1. I love dogs.

2. I enjoy doing stuff on Photoshop since I was 11years old.

3. My boyfriend and I were on a long distance relationship for 2 years.

4. I enjoy learning something new.

5. I spent money on silly stuff.

6. I had two monkeys as my pet .

7. I was a tomboy when i was young.

8. I'm a pretty decent artist.

9. I have at LEAST one coffee a day.

10. I can't go deep into the ocean. Just too scared.

11. I LOVE aquariums.

Nominator's (Jillicious Cosmetics) Questions:

1. What's your dream job? 
- My dream job is always changing consistently. However, I always wanted to be an artist- FINE ART.

2. If you could have an all-expenses paid vacation, where would you go?
-  Boracay. I would love to go to Boracay one day :)

3. What do you drive?
- Customized Volkswagen beetles.

4. Favorite blush?
- Benefit Cosmetic's blushes. They are just too cute and pretty colors.

5. Favorite pencil eyeliner? 
- I don't use pencil eyeliner as much as I use liquid liner. So, I can't say which is my fav since I didn't use it much. 

6. Is your goal to blog full-time?
- I wish I could but full-time blogging is not my goal. As of right now, blogging is just my little hobby :) 

7. What's your dream handbag?
- Balenciaga <3 I would love to have several with different colors/sizes. 

8. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?
-  Greece or Egypt! Greece seems so relaxed in the picture every time I see one. Egypt is just stuck in my brain. I love Egyptian myths. 

9. Would you rather live in a house or condo?
-  Definitely in a house. Condo is just lack of privacy and not much private place where you can go out and relax when the weather is nice compare to a house - nice little yard, pretty fence, garden etc... 

10. What's your most extravagant purchase?
- Electronics.. I am so crazy with new electronic things. Addicted!! Can't wait or ignore new electronics.  

11. How did you come up with your blog's name?
- I first ran my blog a name under 'Icecream8r' which was kind of silly. To be honesty, I didn't make my blog for beauty reviews.However as soon as I decided to blog things about beauty, 'Grace of Beauty' just came in to my mind.  

My Nominations:
http://thenonbrit.blogspot.se/
http://mashasmumbles.blogspot.co.uk/
http://petitpromise.blogspot.com/


Qs:

1. When did you start your blog?
2. If you could start all over in life, would you change anything?
3. What are the best five words that would describe you?
4. Neutrals or bright colors?
5. What inspired you to start your blog? Why?
6. What are three things that you are grateful for?
7. What is the latest trip you went to?
8. How did you come up with your blog's name?
9. The latest beauty purchase?
10. Are you an organized person?
11. Your favorite blogs (pick 3)?

Birthday Card for Him

As I mentioned on Twitter yesterday, I literally forgot about my boyfriend's birthday. I didn't realized that it was his birthday until one in the afternoon. Of course, I didn't have any present for him and even worse, I ignored him in the morning just because I was in a sleep. I felt really really bad. Yeah, you can say it out loud - I'm the worst girlfriend ever(sigh.) Some of you might ask why haven't i went to some place to get his present. Well apparently, one of my car tires got flat and I was waiting for my boyfriend to fix it for me(basically I was trapped in the house.) Bake some cake? I really wanted to but currently we don't have proper kitchen due to updating our whole kitchen. isn't it sucks or what?  Anyways, only thing I could do for him in the little house was make some little birthday card, clean up the house,  be pretty and wait for him to come home. The card I made it for him isn't so great but I could managed to finish it in a such short time!Anyways, he really thought that I forgot his birthday because I didn't text him say 'Happy Birthday!' He came home, looked all down. I was like 'You've got mail, I put it on top of the kitchen table.' He went there, looked at it and looked at me back with happy face, saying " I thought you forgot about my birthday!" :) I loved how he got so happy with a little card. We went out to eat, and went to another bookstore that's little far away from the house. Yes, literally, we did went to the bookstore instead of movie. I hope next year will be a better birthday for him.

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Spring clean up: My desk

I usually check comments right away and reply as much as i can. These few days, I couldn't speand more time on blogging since I was little busy cleaning the house. My boyfriend and I have so much stuff that we don't need/use at all so we decided to throw some stuff out and re-organize. Well, I started to re-arrange whole furniture in the office/bed room and couldn't finish it. The house is still messy and a lot to clean.I hope I can finish it in few days and spend more time on fun blogging :)! My desk area isn't interesting nor special but it is my favorite space to spend time in the house. I'm thinking to get a little picture frame for the wall (in between two big frames.) What do you think? should i get it or just leave it? Also trying to find little stuff for the shelves. I'm not good at decorating the shelves so throw some ideas for me please!

Las Vegas

So, I was in Vegas for several days for spring break + my friend's birthday. We stayed in MGM signature suite and it was one of my favorite hotel that I've stayed in so far. I was too busy playing around and drinking, I really didn't take a lot of pictures just like last visit. Personally, I love to be in Vegas. Me and my boyfriend were actually going to stay little longer than we planed, but we had to come back for our little yorkie Leia. We went to many places. Many hotels and casinos were pretty but out of all, Venetian made me take my phone out and take pictures. It was so pretty. I felt like I was in Europe for awhile. Now as I'm sitting in my home, I feel bad that I didn't take pictures when I visit places. Well, here's FEW pictures that I took.. Sorry my phone is not in best quality.  

Fising at the pier

My boyfriend and I like to go fishing a lot. We tried fishing at the lake, but did not catch any for two visits. So we decided to go fishing at the pier near us start early in the morning! I personally don't like to wake up early but I opened my eyes first and told my boyfriend 'Let's go!' :-) That's how much I like to go fishing. Recently my boyfriend got me a pink fishing pole that lights up every time I reel it in! How cute! I was definitely wanted to catch some with my new fishing pole and didn't mind the size of the fish. While we were fishing, I saw a lot of people coming towards us saying 'oh, look at that!' 'omg' ' take a picture!'... and I looked over and saw at least 5 dolphins swimming around the pier. I tried to take a good picture but cellphone picture sucks!

Day at the lake

 Me and my boyfriend went to fishing at the lake. I was soooo excited to catch some fish! There were so many birds and ducks at the lake and I thought it will be little hard to get some fish. We went to the lake about 12 noon? and came back like 5:30p.m.. I was wearing little light cardigan because I thought the weather is nice and will be hot during the day but well, I guess i was wrong big time. After 1:30? 2? it started to get cold and super windy. I thought i was dying for real. My clothes were inappropriate for fishing i guess. Also we were so close at the water (cold x 2)! We couldn't catch any fish and hardly saw people catching them so I would say it was a 'no fish day.' We learned our lesson from yesterday at the lake that we need to wear something warm! If it gets too hot, we can take it off... So, maybe today we will go try salt water fishing at the pier. I'm not sure but if i get to go, I will post more pictures!