....or I hope it is going to be a tropical Christmas and NYE, anyway. I'm going to be away from here (the Philippines in general) from November 8 onwards. I have no idea when I'll be back here yet from wherever I'll be going. I'm also not revealing where I'm going on that date until later. Haha. So y'all will have to tune into this space for that or my stan/fangirling twitter, @kg_0917. You can also follow my whereabouts on instagram at @kristagraces_17 even when I very rarely update this one.
Anyway... So, hi! It's been a while! Long time no almost everyday outfit post! I never have been that consistent at it since I started this blog after migrating from LiveJournal either anyway. I'll probably try to make more of these kinds of posts? Maybe? I don't know yet. We'll see. This week, I'm, my family as a whole will be busy with some things. There are some guests of my dad's (some members of his family from abroad, the US) we have to entertain around here, our city, this week.
Oh and of course, I took this batch of photos last week so this is basically a VERY late post of it. Haha.
Before I reveal where I bought this dress, I'll just say that lately, I've been shopping various things at Shopee PH. I also window shop there so you can just imagine I have so many things in my cart yet until now. They will be checked out every now and then, of course. I'm just waiting on some things to sort themselves out one day soon. I also use Shopee PH checkout for buying stuff off of buy & sell twitter and instagram. That is, if GoGo Express option isn't available or offered by sellers there. Shopee PH has both J&T Express and GoGo Express as their couriers so there's no need for people, sellers, especially, to lug their packages over to LBC and other such shipping companies to ship them off one by one. I think that with Shopee PH, these two couriers will be the ones to come pick up your packages to be shipped to buyers everywhere in the Philippines so it's really convenient among sellers to connect with them when they peddle their wares in SNS. As everything is on Shopee PH, too, (well, some others are in Lazada PH but that's another discussion for another day...) buying stuff everywhere, on SNS and on Shopee PH's site/app is easier, more convenient!
Confession: I used to be uncomfortable with shopping at Shopee PH way back when but I'm just so much more confident now especially that I can use different options to pay for the stuff I get from there. I usually do COD now. COD - Cash on Delivery. I can control my impulsive buying better this way.
I have heard of couriers like J&T Express being bad at handling packages they ship of everywhere but so far, I haven't had experiences of packages being lost or damaged from them. This is a good thing, of course. It's just that J&T Express is international and covers a lot of South East Asia so I prefer GoGo Express for local or domestic shipping. Gotta support local. The latter is also a good partner courier for independent sellers around the Philippines, I believe. I have the app but I have yet to try this one as I haven't really been going back to selling stuff yet on instagram and beyond (twitter, I don't have facebook). I'll test this one out next time soon.
Okay, so where was I? Let's go back to the topic at hand. One thing I like about Shopee PH is that...I think and believe that it is a good app and online site to look for, buy from, and support local or domestic small businesses. I'm very much into supporting these types of businesses---you'll know if you've followed this blog and even my old (and still alive but hardly updated) LiveJournal blog---since time immemorial. I'm discovering a lot of local shops there lately that I want to support so yay! Oh and I will be sharing those local finds here so yes, definitely watch out for those posts to come!
Alright, so this dress... I found this in Jhewel Shop PH on Shopee PH which is pretty local or domestic. They ship nationwide like most shops on Shopee PH. I think their dresses are from Thailand...I'm not entirely sure... They're not and nor do they seem fully local but they are of good quality. I find them easy to wear anywhere and everywhere except maybe at work and some offices here and there. And by work, I mean work in a school I hopefully will find myself teaching Special Education students in soon. Next year, maybe? I don't know. No one knows yet. I still work from home most days rn so I can still wear this dress anytime, anywhere, and everywhere. It's just so easy to wear, it's stretchy, it's very, very comfortable for whatever activity y'all may have in mind with this on. How much does this dress cost? It's only 58 Php. 58 Philippine Pesos should be 1 USD rn with the value of the Philippine pesos increasing vs the US dollars thanks to inflation (and an incompetent current admin ruling over the Philippines like royalty rn). It's THAT dirt cheap so of course, I hoarded this in different colors and different prints!
I'm currently into tropical prints thanks to some characters' wardrobes in NCIS: Hawa'i and NCIS: Los Angeles. Haha. So it's timely that I hoarded dresses like this in different colors and prints some three or so weeks ago, maybe around a month ago, to be exact.
You'll probably see the other dresses from this batch of Jhewel Shop PH on Shopee PH purchases/hoarded wares over the coming days or so on this blog. I'll space the dates I'll be posting me in these dresses so you (and I) don't get overwhelmed here easily.
The produce net/mesh bag is from Ekkoganic on Shopee PH. I got three of these. The bag is probably not locally or domestically manufactured and produced, too, but I've long wanted one of these since they became a thing or a trend on instagram and even on some blogs like Un-Fancy not that long ago... Hmn...maybe around last year...? Or worse, 2 or 3 years ago? So yep, I thought, why not hop into the trend now, too? But of course, way later in Crysta-fashion, as usual. Just the usual Filipino time...even in following trends. Lol. I do see some women still use this bag in some instagram posts here and there today so it's not like it's completely untrendy now. Haha.
Ekkorganic on Shopee PH also carry other things and offer other services like personalizing some products they sell like the wooden hair brush! I got one of these to always have in my bag along with the long-handle mesh/net bags, one of which I am using in the photos here. If you're out of ideas regarding Christmas gifts to give to people, you can get personalized wooden, pocket-sized, very handy brushes to give to people from Ekkorganic on Shopee PH instead! You can choose to buy these wooden brushes in their respective linen or cheesecloth pouches so you don't need to buy wrappers for these to wrap them in when giving them out to people on Christmas. They have different fonts for the engraving or personalizing of the brushes you can choose from. Aside from the mesh/net bags and the personalized hair brushes with pouch, Ekkorganic on Shopee Ph offers other sustainable products that can help you live a more environmentally friendly life.
For the second part of the Chingkeetea series of blog posts, the second one will be coming out perhaps, in the next few days, if I can get started on it ASAP. Definitely wait and watch out for more posts on my very random Shopee PH finds. By this time, you'll find I've posted one more Shopee PH find on Instagram. Haha. I posted one there first before posting them here.
I'm, of course, very late on a lot of blog posts here and on Instagram and beyond (Twitter, mostly, as I don't have Facebook). I'll try my best to catch up to these! I still have so many things on my phone that should be posted here, too, soon. I'll also be working on those in the coming weeks, mostly on weekends so expect a blog post here at least every week from now on if I'm not too preoccupied with a whole lot of other things leading to November.
