♡ My First Time Shopping With Tenso + Kira Imai Mini-Haul ♡

Hi everybunny!

Today I'll be sharing my experience shopping with Tenso, as well as a very small haul of the things I bought!

If you're familiar with buying things from Japan, you might have heard of Tenso. They're essentially a package forwarding service; most Japanese shops don't ship out of the country, so you can't directly order something to your house if you live in a different country. You would need to use either a shopping service, to buy the items for you and then ship to you (what I usually do when shopping)... or you can use a forwarding service!

The way a forwarding service works is:

1. Upon signing up, you are provided with an address in Japan. This address is what you use when ordering, and you have your package shipping there when you purchase from the store!

2. When your package arrives to the warehouse, you receive a notification. You can either then choose a shipping method and have it sent to you immediately, or do a bit more shopping and combine everything together in one larger package!

3. After the items are sent to you, you just wait a bit longer, and then receive it! 

I'm not going to go into a detailed 'how-to' guide for using Tenso, since their website is quite self-explanatory, and I'm sure there are many tutorials out there (that are likely more eloquently worded than mine would be anyway). I just wanted to share my experience shopping with Tenso, since it was something that really intimidated me before! It ended up not being very difficult at all, though, and it's definitely something I will do again in the future!

I decided to start out by ordering something small from Tenso, just to get the hang of it! I didn't want to mess up in how I ordered and then end up losing a lot of money because of silly mistakes >< So, I decided to order from an artist I have loved for years-- Kira Imai! Her art is just so dreamy and elegant..!
Before I get into what I purchased however, I'll just do a quick walk-through of what I did in order to get it!

1. When I first made my Tenso account, I received an address to which I could have things shipped. When ordering from the shop that sold Kira Imai's work, I simply input that address in the shipping information! 
2. I received a notification from the shop when my order had shipped, and then a few days later, a notification from Tenso that my package had arrived. Yay! This part was the scariest, because I was worried that I might have input the address incorrectly, or something silly like that ;v; Luckily it was all okay though!
3. Since I didn't order anything else, I immediately paid for shipping from Tenso to my house. There were a variety of shipping options; I chose Air/Registered Small Package, which was the second cheapest shipping option. This had an estimated shipping time of 5-8 days. There was also a handling fee of about $3 USD, which wasn't too bad ^^" I think this is just a flat-rate fee; it wasn't related to the value of what I purchased.
4. After paying, my package was shipped the next day! I received tracking information, which is always something I appreciate ^^
5. About 5 or 6 days later, I received a notice from my post office that I could pick up my package (no one was at home to sign for it, so I had to go the next day to pick it up ^^" )



And here it is!

I was a bit surprised to see such a big and sturdy box, given that I ordered really small and light items! But it's good to know that everything was safe. I ordered four postcards, two stickers, and a keychain. Everything was in pristine condition, and sustained no damage during shipping.

In one bag was the paper goods, and in the other, my keychain!

I fell in love with this "Sweet Pea" acrylic charm, and I just had to get it! Admittedly I have too many bag charms now... but this was just so pretty ;v;

Everything that was in the other bag! Each item was really safely packaged; in one bag which contained had the label sticker, and then in another plastic sleeve. I really appreciate all the protection!

Stickers! These are both so cute ;v; I don't know where I'm going to put them yet, but I adore the art on both of them!

Two starry/astronomical postcards~

A creepy mori-vibe postcard, and a rose girl postcard!

The backs of these postcards were really pretty too!

And just a quick look at everything I got all together 

On the whole, I'm really happy with my experience shopping with Tenso! It was easy to figure out and not nearly as scary as I thought it would be... I'll definitely be using their forwarding service in the future! I'm also so happy with all the Kira Imai items I got ♡ Her art is just so charming-- I can't wait to get proper picture frames for these, and hang them up in my room!



I hope this little post was maybe helpful to you! If forwarding services are still intimidating to you though, you can always just use a shopping service ♡ Buyee is the the one that is affiliated with Tenso, and they're quite good as well! (My personal favourite is DeJapan, though!)

Thank you for reading! I might be on a small break due to my upcoming traveling, but I will have lots of fun things to write about after that! So for now, bye-bye!

Which item was your favourite?

♡ A Very Large Taobao Haul ♡

♡ Hello everybunny ♡

You might remember that a few weeks ago I wrote about some of my recent Taobao purchases that I was waiting for in the mail... and yesterday they arrived!

I originally wanted to do an unboxing video for this... but I was just so tired after work, I decided to simply take photos and make a blog post instead! ^^

If you read my last post, you might remember my mentioning that a lot of the items I ordered ended up being out of stock... so this haul turned out a bit smaller than I originally intended (a bit sad because some of the items I was waiting for I was quite excited about, but ah... oh well...)

Nonetheless, I'm really happy with everything that arrived, and thought I would quickly share it with you!

I'll begin with the smaller items, and work my way up from there~

Accessories

I often wear ruffle socks, and I've been needing some new pairs-- so I picked up these tan and pink ruffly ones! I could have benefitted from getting a pair or two in white, but unfortunately they were out of stock ^^"

The Sanrio ones are replicas from a series from a little while ago-- I generally am not very supportive of replicas, but I think with small items like this it's not as bad ^^" These are adorable, and they came in a lot of other designs too! I might have to get some more the next time I order~

I also got these hairbows from the shop "Fox Cherry"-- they make a lot of really cute accessories, and they're quite cheap too! Each bow was only around $1 (and the pink gingham one was a freebie!)

The bordeaux ones with crowns are so luxurious feeling, and I love the way the tails of the bow on the pink one looks! These seem really nice quality, I'll definitely be buying from Fox Cherry in the future!

Lastly are two hair accessories! 

This dusty pink-coloured hairbow is so pretty, and made of such a lovely soft fabric! I like that the headband isn't very tight on this, since often headbands can give me headaches >< But this one is quite comfortable! I hope I'll be confident enough to wear such a big bow out ;v;

The flower crown looks so pretty and fairy-like, I really like it! I'm a bit worried about wearing this with wigs though, since I imagine all the metal bits on it would be quite tangling to the wig hairs... but I guess I'll see ^^"

Wigs

I ordered two wigs from the shop Dream Holic, which is probably my favourite wig retailer ever! Their wigs are such nice quality, and the colours and designs are just so beautiful and unique!

I ordered two 'natural' wigs, since for the most part I own really colourful wigs, and thought it would be nice to try something different for a change!

Their wigs always come in these really nice bags with the shop's logo on them~

My wigs!

I don't have any try-on photos, but here are the stock photos for the wigs!

"Miss Poppy" Wig in the Macchiatto Colour-way (Right)

"Miss Scarlett" Wig in the Cocoa Colour-way (Left)

I'm so excited to wear both of these! 

The "Miss Poppy" wig is a really pretty colour, a super light blonde with hints of baby baby pink at the ends!

I think it looks so sweet ;v; And the "Miss Scarlett" wig is essentially how I wished my hair would look right now, so I'm quite excited to wear it!

Look forward to seeing outfits featuring these two wigs soon ♡

Clothes

As I mentioned, many of the items I ordered were out of stock, and sadly most of those were clothing items, so I don't really have many clothes to share...

I got a new petticoat, finally! This is from the brand Chess Story, and it's quite a subtle amount of puff, which is perfect for me! I want to start wearing lolita more, but having a massive skirt can be a bit intimidating, so I think this is a good place to start ^^ It's really comfortable too, and not at all itchy!

I also got this simple tank top with lace detailing on the collar; I thought it would be nice to wear under other items~ The quality of it isn't great, but given that it was quite cheap, that doesn't surprise me ^^"

Next is the item I was looking forward to most in this haul... my mushroom dress!

This dress is from the brand "Crucis" (I think?) and ever since I saw it I fell in love... ;v;

It's a really lovely dress, and the print is quite pretty! I love the style the mushrooms are drawn in, they look a bit like vintage water-colours!

This dress came with two satin belts, which I didn't think I would need, but it's actually a bit baggy on the waist (and it sits a little higher than my natural waist) so they were quite necessary to make the dress look flattering on me ^^"

The dress itself is really nicely made-- the printed fabric is a sort of cotton blend and it doesn't feel cheap at all! Plus it's lined, which is quite nice~ It's very comfortable too!

I do wish that it had a slightly longer torso... but on the whole I'm very pleased with it!

~photo spam time~

I'm glad the belt was long enough to be able to tie it this way-- I think it looks really cute like this!

Also I'm wearing it with my new petticoat in all the photos ^^ 

It's a fairly subtle amount of puff, but honestly, that's perfect for me.

I'll be going to London soon, and I think I'll bring this dress on my trip with me! I really want to go to the Museum of Natural History, and I think this dress will be perfect for that~

Miscellaneous

Lastly, a few things I didn't really know how to categorize!

Stickers, because who can resist stickers! Two with Little Twin Stars theme, and one with a cat/chocolate cornet theme! One can never have too many stickers hihi~

Makeup organizers! The larger one is absolutely perfect-- I've been needing something like this, since I have too much makeup and not enough ways to organize it... ^^" I'm glad the size of this is perfect too! It looks really cute in my bathroom~

The smaller round one I haven't found a use for yet, I might keep jewelry-making supplies in it! 

Lastly is this cute little My Melody lollipop charm! Another Sanrio replica I'm sorry

I might hang her somewhere more 'proper' at some point, but for now she's hanging from my (nonfunctional) intercom system~ So cute!

And that's everything!

I'm really happy with all the items I got~ Overall Taobao can be a really nice and cheap place to shop, and I was able to get many cute things~ It ended up not being the cheapest of hauls, but that's due to the wigs and the mushroom dress (however I don't mind paying extra for high quality wigs and unique dress designs).

I'm very excited to use/wear everything!

I hope you liked seeing what I bought~ Thank you for reading!

♡ Which item was your favourite? ♡