Android App Finds Part 1 (Deco Blend)

When I'm bored, I usually go on the Google Play Store to find random Android apps. It's usually hard to find nice apps, and I thought it would be a good idea to share the cute/fun/interesting apps I find for Android to you guys. <3

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Today's app is called Deco Blend! You can get it here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.fineseed.decoblend&feature=search_result

It's pretty easy to use and it's free! <3

You can use to make collages and decorate your pictures like Purikura booths.
Here are some screenshots from the app:

 

It feels like a real purikura booth because it has a ton of cute frames, stamps, pens, and rollers. It also has filters like most camera apps. 

The collage function is awesome~ I've been looking for a good collage app that I don't have to spend money on, and I was pretty happy to find this app. You can either select Grid of Free when making a collage. Grid has set layouts for your pictures, and you can choose different setups. For Free, you can stack your pictures on top of each other freely and choose the background.

I'd rate it as a 5/5. It has everything you want in a camera app (at least for me)! 

You guys should download this app and tell me if you guys like it!

♡ Rennie

How to Order from Taobao using Bhiner.com (Part 2: Second Payment)

All items that you have paid for (from Part 1/your cart) will now be transferred over to orders. You can see the order status when you click ORDERS at the top of the page.

Once you click this, you will be brought to the orders page. You'll see 4 parts:

Phase 4: Orders on delivery to bhiner

Listed under this are all the orders that you have paid the first payment for. Orders under here are being shipped to bhiner. If you have ordered from different sellers, they may arrive at different times. You can check the order status by clicking the order number. I will explain this function further later.

Phase 5: Orders arrived bhiner & waiting 2nd payment

When all the items you have ordered arrive at bhiner, they will calculate the international shipping fee, which is the second payment. There is a checkout button for you to pay the 2nd payment.

Phase 6: Bhiner to your home

Once you have paid the international shipping fee, the order will be listed under this. When you receive your items, click the button "mark completed."

Phase 7: Completed Transaction

All shipped and completed orders that you have made will be listed here.

Order Status

You can check the status of your order by clicking the order number (the order number begins with OR followed by 5 digits). This is my favorite function of bhiner. It is detailed and helps reassure you about the things you have bought. 

Once you click the order number, you will be brought to this window:

It has various information about your order. There is also a section at the bottom where you can write inquiries about your order. The most important thing on this window is it shows if each item has arrived at Bhiner. If you order from different Taobao stores, they don't all come at the same time so it's nice knowing which ones Bhiner has in their office. They also take pictures of the products once they have it. If you hover over the pictures of the items, you'll see a bigger image like below:

This is my favorite thing about Bhiner. I often wonder if the things I buy online look like the images they provide. Seeing pictures of the things I bought not only make me excited to receive them, but also reassure me that I'm getting the right items.

CHECKOUT PROCESS

Once all your items have arrived at Bhiner, you can pay the second payment (international shipping payment). Under Phase 5, there is a green checkout button that you have to click to proceed to the final checkout. Once you click this, you will be brought to this window:

There are 7 sections (excluding your Bhiner account value).
1) Shipment Details: This contains information like the shipping address you provided, the weight of the package (weight and volume weight), which shipping provider you selected, and which orders are included in the shipment.

2) Re-confirm Your Address: If you need your items to be shipped somewhere else than the address provided, you can change the shipping address in this section.

3) Re-confirm Your Shipment Provider: When all your items get to Bhiner, they weigh it and display the total weight of your package. Sometimes, it might be cheaper to change the shipment provider (shipping company) once you know the total weight of your package (Use the shipping calculator on the website to see which company will ship your items for the least amount of money!). If you do decide to change, they charge a 10 CNY processing fee (This is around 1.62 USD). This does not cost that much compared to the amount you can save.

4) Payment Method: Self-explanatory. Shows your payment method. Usually it's your Bhiner account. There are other options, but this is the most convenient.

5) Shipping Remarks: Here you can change the value declaration of your package. Some people do this to avoid custom duties. It's really rare to get custom duties unless you are buying a large quantity or if you are buying branded items. You can also put any other things you would like them to do when they ship your item.

6) Member's Agreement: These are the terms of Bhiner that you have to agree upon when you use their services.

Once you fill out all the information needed, press the green checkout button, and you're done! All you have to do is wait for your package to arrive and check the tracking number once in a while to see if your package is safe and on it's way. :)

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I know this post is long overdue, and I apologize for those who were like "WHERE'S PART 2?!?!" >.< But here it is~ The reason why I couldn't write PART 2 until now is because I haven't ordered from Taobao in a while, and there's this function that only shows up when your order is current.

I’ve been meaning to do this giveaway for a while~ I’m feeling generous since it’s close to my birthday~ :3 This giveaway is mainly to show my appreciation for my lovely followers on tumblr and to promote my blogger, so that I have more motivation to post on it. ;x

Prizes:

·         EOS Candy Pink pair of lenses (Plano/No prescription 0.00)

·         Pink animal lens case

·         Tony Moly bunny lip balm Strawberry #1

·         Pink strawberry bento

·         Pink strawberry chopsticks with case

·         Large pink plaid hair tie

·         Panda eraser set

·         Random snacks/candies (not included in the picture :x)

Rules:

·         You must be following korilakkumaprincess on tumblr.

·         No giveaway blogs!

·         This giveaway will be hosted on rafflecopter (widget is on my personal blog) and each entry will only be counted if it’s on there.

·         You can get entries by reblogging my giveaway post on tumblr. Do this ONCE A DAY and enter each reblogged post link on my rafflecopter widget. I know this is tedious, but this will help me keep track of your reblogs since tumblr only counts 1 reblog.

·         You can also get additional entries by following my blogger (enter your name or whatever you used to follow me on the widget).

·         You must be 18 or have your parents’ consent to give out your address.

·         Keep your ask box open so I can message you if you win. Whoever wins has 24 hours to respond before I choose a new winner.

·         Giveaway is open internationally.

·         This giveaway is not related/sponsored by Tumblr. It is my own personal giveaway.

·         Giveaway ends on April 25, 2013.

Goodluck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

How to Order from Taobao using Bhiner.com (Part 1: First Payment)

Recently, I've discovered the wonders of Taobao. I found tons of cute items that I wanted to buy, so I researched how to order from Taobao. First of all, you need a shopping service since most shops don't ship overseas. These shopping services are third party companies that will order all your items for you (which can be from different Taobao shops), combine them, and ship them in one package to you for a small service fee--usually 10% of the item price (including shipping costs). When you use a shopping service, there are 2 stages of payments. The first one is the total cost of the items + domestic shipping + shopping service fee, and the second is the international shipping fee.

I searched for reliable shopping services and came across many of them, but the one that stuck out to me the most was bhiner.com. I chose this shopping service because it's really organized and user-friendly, and the service fee is only 5%. Most of the shopping services require you to email the company, but this service has a unique system that makes ordering easier without the hassle of emailing! I will explain MY personal ordering process in the following sections.

The first thing you have to do is register for an account. You can do this by clicking on the Register Now! at the top right side of the page. Once you have an account, log in to start ordering.

Finding Items:

Finding items on taobao.com may be difficult since it's in Chinese. If you can't read Chinese, there are sites that can translate for you. I personally use baoseek.com, and the search bar on the top left of bhiner.com. The bhiner search bar is nice, but sometimes things don't show up, so I use baoseek to look for stuff. Once I find the thing on baoseek, I right click "click to taobao" and copy the taobao link. Then, I paste the url to the bhiner search bar, and the item pops up on bhiner. Then I pick the size, and color of the item and press "add to basket" as shown below (The example does not have options because it only has one size and color).

(edit: The search bar for Bhiner has been updated, so it should more useful now.)

Quote Processing:
Once you add items to your cart, click the cart button at the top of the website. You will be brought to a page that has 3 categories (labeled Phase 1, Phase 2, Phase 3). Phase 1 is basically the items you have added in your cart. When you are sure of the items, check the boxes of the items you want and click"confirm quotes."

Under Phase 2 are the quotes you are waiting to be processed. This just means that the employees at bhiner will calculate the first payment costs (item cost + domestic shipping fees). When they have calculated costs, the items will show up under Phase 3 "confirmed quotes."

Once they are under Phase 3, you may now proceed to the checkout phase.

Checkout:
Once you check the boxes of the items you want to purchase and click "checkout," you will be brought to another page where you are supposed to pay the 1st payment. The first section of this page "Bhiner Account's Value" is what you use to pay. If there is no balance in your account, click "Charge my Bhiner account." You will then be sent to Paypal to add money to your Bhiner account which you can use to purchase your items. There is a Paypal service fee from because you are transferring money to a merchant. This is nice because if you don't receive your items, you may open a Paypal dispute.

Under the Bhiner Account's Value section are 5 other sections:
1) Shipping Options: This is where you enter the address, recipient, and other shipping info. This is also where you can select which shipping provider to use. There is also an "eco friendly" option, which is nice because it sort of lessens the weight (negligible, but still sort of useful).
2) Basket Contents: Shows what items you a checking out.
3) Payment Method: Shows the total item cost (domestic shipping included) + the 5% agent service fee.
4) Order Remarks: Write any special requests you have.
5) Member's Agreement: Terms and conditions of Bhiner.

Once you are done filling everything out, you are done with the first stage!

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This is only part 1 of MY ordering process. I will update my blog and post part 2 after my exams. There is a tutorial on Bhiner.com on how the order and use the site. Feel free to check it out~

Also, just to make things clear, I'm writing this out of my own accord. I am not affiliated with Bhiner. I'm just a customer who was extremely pleased with their service and their website, and decided to post about this to help other people.

♡ Rennie

Relacing My Sneakers ♡

My bf laces his white Supras lattice style, and I thought it looked cool so I decided to relace my pink and black Swimmer sneakers lattice style since the original lacing looks really ugly...

We used this site for instructions on how to do different styles of lacing. Here's how the lattice style ended up:

The bow/knot is inside the shoe because my bf showed me how it looks better that way instead of it just dangling in the front.

I looked at other styles of lacing and found the pentagram lacing~ I thought it would be really cute and fun to do for my other set of Swimmer sneakers (the bunny watermelon one) and here's how it came out:

I had difficulty pushing it through since you have to insert the lace two times in one hole. -.- It was a pain, but I think it was worth the effort since my shoes look even more interesting.

I think both my shoes look better now. Only downside is I can't tighten them, but that's not that big of a deal because I don't really tighten my shoes anyway.

♡ Rennie

Meitu Xiu Xiu Tutorial (Part 2: Tools)

This tutorial will focus on the tools on the first tab that I didn't mention in the first part of the tutorial. When you click each of these tools, you will be brought to a pop-up window where you can make edits/changes to the image.

LA County Fair (9/1/12)

Last Saturday I went to the LA County Fair with my bf and friends. It was opening weekend so it was only $1 to get in from 10am - 1pm. It was extremely hot so we just went into the shopping center buildings to look at random things when we got there. At 1 we watched the Chinese Circus of Beijing and it was pretty entertaining watching the acrobats jump around, juggle, and balance things. The main event was this guy who stacked chairs (the first chair's legs were balancing on 4 wine bottles) about 2 stories high and did handstands on them. Everyone watching was like "WTF, more chairs?" every time a chair was brought out for him to place on the stack.

At around 2-3 pm we went to get food. My bf and I bought stuff from Pink's. I forgot what it's called but I ordered fries with chili, bacon, jalapenos, cheese, and some other things (I can't even tell what they were). x_x About half way through, I felt like a fatty. >.< I ate about 3/4 of it before giving up on eating it completely. We just sat around and took pictures because we were waiting for 4pm to come so we could play carnival games for cheaper. Here are some pictures we took:

Even with my overalls + blue sleeveless shirt + boater hat, it was still pretty hot. I probably got 1 or 2 shades darker. :/

Finally, 4pm came so the carnival games were cheaper. They were $2 instead of $5+. We took advantage of this and mostly played the water gun game since my friends knew the trick to winning. My bf and I split off the group after that to find a bathroom and we never went back because I wanted time alone with him. >.> The 1st of each month is our monthsary, so it was kind of a date... 

We tried the ring toss, ball and bucket toss, fish bowl toss, and balloon and darts (except they replaced the darts with those small plush balls). We won 4 prizes in total. A huge Tuxedo Sam plush (from the water gun game), a really soft cow plush (which I proudly got in 1 try from the ball and bucket toss), a duck plush (from the fish bowl toss), and a Despicable Me minion (from the balloon and darts game). It took a couple of tries for my bf to win the Tuxedo Sam plush, and the guy at the booth (who had this really cute Aussie accent) already knew him because he sat there for several rounds. You need to win 2 times before you win the large prize, and my bf won on his first try but he didn't win after that for a few rounds. :x When he finally won, the guy at the booth was messing with my bf and said he didn't want to give the prize to him. xD

We went back to the group, and took some pictures before leaving.

My bf and I agreed that we should give the duck plush to a random kid because we didn't really want it and we both wanted to make some kid's day. On the way out, I saw this little girl and I tapped her mom's shoulder and said, "Could you give this to your daughter? I don't really want it, so she can have it." After saying that, I scampered away embarrassed while the lady was telling her daughter to say thanks to me. (/ω＼) My bf looked at me and smiled at me because he thought it was cute that I was shy. 

After that, we left the fair and went to Genki Living to get some crepes, and headed home.