I've been doing quite a lot of online shopping lately. Even if I don't necessarily end up making a purchase, just "window shopping" on the World Wide Web is a thrilling enough sport for me.

One of the best parts of online shopping is probably the money that you save (compared to the exorbitant "Recommended Retail Prices" physical stores slap on their merchandise here), especially if you know where to look.

Of course, the not-so-best parts are shipping prices, the heart-stopping possibility that your precious ware might get lost in delivery, and - if patience is not one of your strengths - waiting for the item to show up at your place, but...

That brings me to another "best part of online shopping" - coming home to a package with your name on it. Don't deny that that feeling brings a certain sense of excitement to all ye who has ever experienced this!

Anyway, here are some of the stuff I scored from scouring stores in cyberspace over the last couple of weeks:

China Glaze's "Capitol Colours" (inspired by The Hunger Games!) nail polish collection in Agro, Riveting and Smoke And Ashes. These babies cost around $20 (I think?) in stores, but thanks to Smoochiezz, I got my hands on them for a mere $10 each. And they're in perfectly good condition and are genuine. I couldn't wait to try them on so I coated my nails in Agro last night, and I'm so happy with how the colour looks!

(Pardon my messy manicuring skills, heh.)

The varnish has a nice thick, creamy texture that's glossy and ever-so-slightly shimmery. The colour is a to-die-for shade of khaki green that I think complements my skin tone really well :p I never knew I'd get into green nail polish but after trying a similar shade of Mavala, I am a proud convert.

Laneige's Water Sleeping Pack. Read about this product a few months ago and it was promising some pretty good stuff, and its reviews didn't seem too bad either. I was quite keen to get it for myself but it was kinda expensive (almost $40), so I refrained.

Fast forward to last week, and I saw it being offered for only $20 on Gmarket! I placed my order almost immediately, and I finally received it yesterday. I tried it last night and it was pretty cool. It has a nice, light texture that doesn't feel greasy or sticky, which is good because you're supposed to go to sleep without washing it off (it's an overnight mask).

Effect-wise, I didn't really see that much of a HUGE difference because my skin isn't in that horrible of a condition anyway, but my face did feel slightly more "plumped up" and smoother when I woke up in the morning. Guess I'll have to continue using it regularly (once or twice a week is recommended) for my complexion to achieve Song Hye-kyo status :p

(Do you think she actually uses it?) Anyway...

Travel-sized perfume atomisers. I just love these little fellas. I can spritz sweet scents on the go without having to lug the entire bottle of fragrance around with me. I got these for $8.50 each from Gmarket. Travalo's ones are over $20. Yeah, they're probably more durable (are they?) and they're slightly larger, but these get the job done and are good enough for me.

Another thing I love about them is that they're really convenient to fill up as well. You just take the spray top off the perfume bottle and pump it into the vial from below. Super easy and spill-free!

Portable mobile phone charger. This little thing is so important. Once I was out the whole day (from 8:30AM until night) and I completely forgot to charge my phone the day before because I got back late and went straight to bed! I had to run on 50% of battery for the entire day, which meant extremely reduced use (I couldn't even listen to music on the way home on the train D:). By the time I got back home there was 6% left. Ha. And I use a Samsung! If it was an iPhone the battery would've been completely depleted by lunch :p

I bought this one from Gmarket too, and it cost me around $16 including shipping, which was quite expensive, but in all I still managed to save a bit of money. As far as I've seen, portable chargers cost at least $18 in stores. And this package arrived less than a week after I made my order. And I like the simple design and pretty colour! Most portable chargers out there insist on having Hello Kitty or an awful graphic printed on it, or they're just plain boring black -_-

As you can tell, I shop at Gmarket a lot :p However, stuff I would never buy online are shoes and clothes, unless the clothing item is baggy and looks like it'll look decent on me even without trying.

What are some good [Singapore-based, preferably] stores you'd recommend?

I feel like I absolutely must write about the epic weekend I had because so much happened, and all of it is worth remembering. There's pretty much nothing fashion-related, but here goes!

It all started on Friday night, after meeting up with Irenes for a very, very last-minute, spontaneously planned dinner (she texted me asking if I wanted to hang out like, literally half an hour before I got off work. Before that, I was planning to go home before leaving at around 10PM again to meet Matthew and Nicholas to work on a video we planned to screen at Daniel's (dT) surprise birthday party on Sunday evening).

Matt and I met up at The Cathay's Starbucks at around 11PM, but there weren't any available seats near the power outlets for our laptops, so we adjourned to the outlet at Pacific Plaza instead. We settled down and started work on the video until Nik arrived. At around 1:30AM, we were asked to go to the outlet at Liat Towers instead, so off we went again (I did SO much moving around this weekend, gosh, hahaha).

Unfortunately, the Liat Towers outlet was really crowded (Orchard area on a Friday night. Go figure.) so we settled down in Wendy's next door instead. But I guess it was better because it was a lot quieter than Starbucks, and we got to sit on comfortable sofas while getting to plug our laptops in.

Just then, Matt realized that he had forgotten to transfer a few more videos from his computer back home to the thumbdrive he had with him that evening. He called his dad to try and transfer the files into a Dropbox folder, but since the files were HUGE (video files, duh) and the internet connection wasn't exactly the most stable in the world, that plan was not meant to be.

We ended up taking a Night Rider bus back to Matt's house. It was already 3AM by then.

At around 4AM, poor Nik couldn't take it and fell asleep on one of the sofas in the living room, while Matt and I continued to try and put the video together. At 5:30AM, it was our turn to "K.O" (me on another sofa and Matt on a chair). Gosh, I was still wearing my contact lenses and a skirt (a knee-length A-line one, thank goodness. Anything shorter would've been uncomfortable, embarrassing and disastrous) when I fell asleep.

I woke up automatically about an hour later and tried to wake the boys up (Matt is incredibly difficult to wake up, HAHA. Nik, on the other hand, just required me to shake his arm a little). We got back up and tried to do some more, and Nik went home at around 8AM. Matt and I stayed back a little longer, but at around 10:30AM he had to make his way to church for hospitality duty. I took a cab home and slept - IN MY OWN BED, HALLELUJAH - from 11:30AM until around 6:30PM.

I made my way to church at around 8:30PM to have dinner with my friends and to meet up with Matt to, yes, continue working on the video. We only managed to start doing so at 10PM (he was still on duty before that), and we sat outside the church office.

At first I thought we would be able to finally finish before midnight, and I could catch the last train home. But 11:30PM snuck up on us, and we were pretty much FAR from done. Matt suggested going over to his place again to continue and stay over, because I had to go back to church at 7:30AM *GASP* the next morning. So I went back to my place to get my stuff (he charged the laptop and transferred videos at SMU while waiting for me), and we headed to his place.

BUT NOT BEFORE WALKING ALL THE WAY FROM SMU TO 313@SOMERSET. Because that's where the nearest stop with the right Night Rider bus.

Poor Matt (who didn't sleep at all besides that short nap that early morning) fell asleep on the bus. Thank goodness we didn't miss our stop.

By now all that was left to do was to render the video out, which flashed an estimated "time left" of a whopping hour and a half. We took this time to go to the 24-hour food court downstairs to grab a bite of fishball noodles. We also hit Shop n' Save for fruit juice and chocolate.

When we got back to his place there was about 10 minutes left to wait. BUT...

With just 5% left to render, a modest little window popped up, screaming: "NO MORE DISK SPACE."

Needless to say, Matt and I were both majorly peeved. We decided to give up for the time being and just get some shut-eye. I slept from 4AM til 6:45AM, and had to rush to church. BUT...

Apparently, there was a misunderstanding, and instead of 8:30AM, I thought I had to be there at 7:30AM. So there I was, with nothing to do. I decided to rest some more at the tables on the balcony overlooking the stage. But the worship team was practicing for the afternoon service, and they were amazing, so I guess I got SOMEthing out of going so early :p

At 2PM, I went to Subway for lunch with Serena, Matt and Nik. We transferred the FINALLY RENDERED video to Nik's laptop, and he was to finish it up using iMovie (no more dealing with Premiere Pro!!!).

After service at 5:30PM, we planned a fake birthday celebration for dT to throw him off the scent (the REAL celebration was to take place at a function room in Grismond's condo). After that, he went off to a meeting, and the master plan began to unfold...

We were all whisked off in different cars. Before heading to Grissy's place, Javen dropped Matthew and I at United Square to pick up the Chocolate Gateau birthday cake from Bengawan Solo.

Alas, our troubles with the video were not over. It was going to take a whole hour to render the vid out, time we simply did not have. We decided to play the video straight from iMovie, BUT the projector adapter we had did not fit Nik's MacBook Pro! The solution? Rachel drove Nik to his place to pick up his projector adapter.

Our video hurdle was FINALLY over.

Unfortunately I was not there to witness the kidnapping of dT. He was ambushed from behind and blindfolded with a bandana and trash bag (HAHA) and pushed to the back of Gris' car. I think they drove round in circles and made several stops to make delay because not everyone had arrived at the venue yet. And according to dT, he recognised Grissy's reckless driving, HA!

One sight I will never forget is Javen carrying (he literally had dT draped over his shoulder) a blindfolded dT down the stairs to the function room. Beyond hilarious. But yeah, we sat dT down, removed the blindfold, shouted "SURPRISE!!!" and rolled the video.

He was very touched by the video, and that has made the sleepless weekend all worth it :D

Beyond cool. These'd make fab paper dolls (gosh, how I miss those!).

Yesterday I attended the media screening of a new short film by jewellery giant Cartier. The movie, "L'Odyssee de Cartier", premiers tomorrow, and features a gorgeous panther as its "heroine".

I wasn't feeling too well at the event, but I did have enough appetite to dig into the canapes, of course, including this "oyster with caviar and vodka jelly" shot:

It was, literally, quite hard to swallow (a chilled, raw fishy taste plus alcohol isn't exactly a trait of comfort food), but I did it! One of this was enough, but I'm not ashamed to admit I had around four or five salmon-topped Hors d'oeuvres :p

The film is stunning. Beautiful settings, graphics, even special effects. I believe you'll find more information on where to catch it on Cartier's Facebook page. Major cinemas will also be playing the short film before each movie during this month, as will several television channels.

All attendees were given this stunning Cartier press kit. Actually, I'd say it's more like a gorgeous photo album-slash-storybook.

Inside are lovely illustrations of scenes from the movie, as well as a somewhat poetically penned paragraph or two describing each one. The panther is even drawn in gleaming gold.

Besides that, there are also plenty of gorgeous, high quality photo/illutration prints inside carefully packed folders (which are also gorgeous and worth keeping for other purposes). I chose a few favourites and stuck them on a wall of my office cubicle :p

If I had the money and social status, my name would be on the waiting list for these amazing Christopher Bailey creations, namely, the diagonally ruffled skirts.

So pretty. So awesome. I wonder if Zara or Topshop will come up with similar interpretations...?

Well. If there's ever going to be a big screen adaptation of "Snow White & Rose Red", casting directors will know who to call.

Found on Tumblr.

I think I've actually become quite a fan of Jason Wu's clothes. They're really nice to look at, even though - price tag issues aside - I probably wouldn't wear them until I've hit my late twenties.

Anyway, his latest collection exudes a very prominent Chinese influence. Now, to be extremely frank, I have a bit of an automatic slight aversion to most China-ey things (you can't exactly dub me a racist for this because I myself am of Chinese descent), but Wu has, in my opinion, managed to stay clear of the dreaded "cheena" zone.

I'm in love with the colour palette, especially the red and black combinations, as well as the gold embroidery against fabric of ink. The lines are clean yet ultra sexy. I think a lot of the collection's appeal lies in the embellishments. Check out these fab detail shots:

And here are some of my favourite outfits from the showcase:

To be very, very honest, the collection as a whole didn't really impress me that much. That said, I certainly appreciate these super princess-y, tulle-bombarded ballgowns, even though I don't think I will ever wear one.

Spotted this really cool blazer at Millenia Walk this afternoon. It looks right at home with the vintage paper effect I used on the photo.