Winter came to say hello today. I awoke to cold grey skies and a cool wind with the scent of rain I don’t mind though, its a refreshing change from the blazing sun. It was actually nice having a hot shower this morning, and afterwards I got dressed in my favourite shirololi outfit (long sleeves again! ) and took some photos outside with my BABY waterproof parasol. The weather was very kind to me though, and didn’t rain at all while I snapped this quick shot. I think I need to make a white headdress with a side bow to match this outfit.

Miss Charlotte and I are sharing a hot chocolate and watching anime. I think I’ll make a nice spicy curry for dinner tonight. How I love winter!

Its a lot cooler today, which is a nice change, although the sun is still hot enough that I took my parasol with me on my morning walk

I had a special delivery in the mail today! Look, its Marie-chan! Isn’t she sweet? I’ve given up trying to win one on the UFO machines, so I cheated and bought her from Japan ^^; Éclair doesn’t like her though.. she has a thing against cats.

This afternoon I went furniture shopping with the Prince. I found a perfect day bed for my room! Its white and has a pretty border and drawers underneath to keep all my shoes and slippers in. Its quite expensive though, so I shall have to be a thrifty Princess and save up for it, it will look so beautiful in my room draped with a lace canopy

Visitors to my blog may have noticed recently that the site is loading very slowly and there are delays and possible timeouts for your browser. I am aware of the issue, and my web host has informed me they are have having a problem with the server I am hosted on but are working to solve as soon as possible. They have refunded my hosting fees for this month and have been very informative about the situation. If you have any other problems loading the site, for example error messages or downtime, please contact me so that I may pass the infomation on to my webhost. You can email me at skye(at)princessportal.com

Thank you for your patience and understanding

Yesterday I spent the day with the Prince, running errands and doing a little shopping I wore my pretty yellow dress and shoes that he gave me for my birthday last year and pearls in my hair. It was hot day so it was nice to be inside the cool shopping center, looking at pretty things. I bought a pair of slippers I had been eyeing for a while, they are made in the style of ballet slippers (but with a hard sole) and have pretty gold ribbons that lace around my ankles. They’re named “Arabesques” after the ballet stance

Today I went to the library to return some books and stopped by the curtain store to look in to getting some made for my room. They had some very pretty Voiles painted with pink rose buds, but its quite expensive so I will have to save up for them. All the cake is nearly gone now I think I shall have to bake some cupcakes next week to use the rest of the icing.

This morning I felt like baking a cake I had everything I needed except eggs, so I went down to the shops to get some. On the way I discovered a little store I didn’t know existed, it sells scrapbooking supplies, ribbons, stickers and that sort of thing. Unfortunately they are closing down next week, but I think I might go back tomorrow and buy some stick on jewels and pearls

I bought an orange at the store, and decided to make orange and poppyseed cake! Which is my favourite It took me about 2 hours to make alltogether and I decorated it with cream cheese icing and orange peel hearts. I haven’t had any yet, I’m saving it for dessert!
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Last night I watched Snow Queen a film directed by David Wu. I admit I didn’t expect it to be very good as it was made for television and the dvd cover was far from exciting. I felt like watching a Fairy Tale however, and as The Snow Queen is one of my favourite stories, I thought I’d give it a chance.

I was well rewarded. The movie was a beautiful, enchanting journey. It starts out by introducing Gerda and Kay and developing their relationship in a sweet, innocently romantic way. It made me want to go Ice skating with the Prince again. The film then takes a deliciously dark turn as the Snow Queen enters the plot, infecting Kay with a shard of her mirror and turning him in to a dark shadow of his true self. Eventually he is whisked away by the wicked Queen and Gerda must set out to find him (although the way in which she starts her journey gave me a shock!)

She embarks on a journey through the four seasons, each personified in a different way as the Spring Witch, the Summer Princess and the Autumn Robber. I liked the first two best, the Spring witch treats Gerda as a little girl, and Gerda skips cheerfully around her cottage in ringlet curls and plays with dolls. When she manages to escape she travels to the Palace of the Summer Princess which is in the ancient Chinese style. The Summer Princess is obessed with clothes and fashion and makes Gerda attend a ball where she must dance with hilarious gentlemen (Delfont Chalfont: Did I ever tell you all about my exploits with the 35th horse brigade at the battle of Tompkins Bay? Gerda: You couldn’t have. We’ve only just met.) as the Princess schemes to find her a husband. The Autumn Robber just imprisons her, which is a bit boring.

The acting was quite talented for a TV movie. Kay was charming and sweet but also played his dark side scarily well. The Snow Queen was ruthless, seductive and a little frightening. I think she would have played Narnia’s White Witch far better than Tilda Swinton. Gerda was very pretty, but a bit weak in some scenes.

What I enjoyed most about this movie was the artistry of the production. The worlds are created in a stunning vibrant way, I think the film was shot in Northern Europe. In each season there is a certain coloured hue to the lighting which sets the mood and brings out the colours of costume and set delightfully. Gerda gets a new outfit with each change of season to make the distinctions even clearer.

If you have a spare 3 hours to spend in an enchanted world, Snow Queen is well worth the visit.

Today has been very relaxed, I did a little food shopping this morning and came home to watch Sugar Sugar Rune and cook cute bowtie pasta with this yummy sauce that has pine nuts in it (my favourite ) I bought some stuff to bake a cake too, but I need to find a nice cake tin somewhere first:cake:

Looking at the pretty jewelry pictures by miffitoki and Tiffy has inspired me to take my own. This is not all the jewelry I have but just my rings and a few other bits and pieces. The Cameo ring is from my Prince, The Ribbon ring is from BABY The Crown ring is from Yonaki and the two Tiaras I found at accessory stores. The bow pendant is from Tiffy. Most of my jewelry was given to me by people I love so it makes it even more special

Thanks to a kind and generous stranger who donated to the Princess Fund, I was able to purchase a pro flickr account! This means I can organise my gallery much better and upload more pictures! If you visit the gallery page and click “refresh photos” (the little grey button in the top right hand corner) you will see the changes I have made. I’ll also be uploading some artwork and bento pictures later today!

Please look out for more changes to the Princess Portal, coming soon! And thank you again to those who have donated

Today was a very busy day. Mirai-chan and I got up early to begin by baking for the picnic. We made Quiche Lorraine (which got a little burnt because we forgot to take it out of the oven while we were curling my hair) and Heart Shaped scones with strawberry jam and cream We spent the rest of the morning running around, getting ready and doing the usual clothes + makeup + hair routine. Amazingly we were all ready to leave by 2 when our escort arrived, three handsome Gentlemen including my Prince and we set out for the Picnic.

Finding the park turned out to be a bit of a nightmare but once we finally arrived we met the other’s in a little Gazebo. We were among the first people there, but shortly after Clara rocked up with more food and drinks, and then everyone else and we laid one of the marble benches with a pretty white cloth and put out all the delicious food. There was cakes, and cookies and sandwiches and candy and iced tea to drink. I nibbled through quite a bit, although I didn’t get to have any scones, so I’ll have to make more this week

Some of us sat down on the picnic rugs, which were later moved to a shadier spot and a lot of time was spent posing for pictures. I kidnapped Clara’s Marie plushie for a while and resisted the temptation to take her home with me Éclair got to see her sister Anastasia and together they polished off a plate of strawberry wafers. The were a lot of bunnies at the picnic as it was Alice and Wonderland themed Some of the outfits I remember were Clara in BABY as Alice, Sheena as the Mad hatter, Steph as Alice and the pirates, Mirai in country lolita, Shasta in a cute bodyline Wa-loli outfit and Cesca and May in matching bxw.

After we finished taking photos, I was approached by a photographer who has been doing a cosplay photo collection with some of the other people at the picnic, she asked if the Prince and I would mind posing for them. I told her that Lolita is not really cosplay, but she still seemed interested so it might be fun to do. I’d really like to have some professional photos of the two of us

Unfortunately we had to leave a bit early to make it to the Prince’s family’s Chinese New Year dinner. So we said tearful goodbyes and made our way back to the car. Chinese New Year dinner was more fun than I expected, there were only about 15 of his relatives so it wasn’t too big and we went to a nice restaurant where they had lion dancers come between the tables! they even had drums and everything, it was the highlight of the evening. I ate a few things, raw salmon, prawns, fried pork, rice and some spring rolls, I think something didn’t agree with me because my stomach is a bit yucky now. I think the Prince had fun though, and we got lots of Um pow this year so it was a good night

I finished by Head bow this morning! I’ve never made one of these before, and its huge, so I’m a little nervous about wearing it. As I don’t have a round face I’ll try to make my hair curlier and bigger this weekend when I wear it to the picnic.

I can’t wait for Sunday! We’re going to bake scones and quiche in the morning to take with us I hope other people bring savoury foods this time, everyone always brings sweet. The weather is nice and cool today, a little overcast hopefully its stays cool over the weekend. We’re having Chinese New Year dinner with the Prince’s family after the picnic, I hate chinese food so I think I’ll eat before I go ^^;