I've never really seen the appeal of New Years resolutions, to be honest. I was raised at a point when it was already common knowledge that they never truly work, anyway, so I never saw resolutions as worth the time of coming up with them, and certainly not worth the stress of fretting over breaking them for an entire year. However, because of the Lolita Blog Carnival's topic this week and the fact that I really need to get back into my stride with posting here again, I've decided that 2014 will be different, and that I shall resolve for one of the first times in my life!

So remind me, what's a Lolita Blog Carnival? It's when a group of Lolibloggers like myself all blog together about the same topic on the same day. The topics are voted on in the Facebook group and a deadline is set, and everyone works on their articles until the posting deadline. At the end, we all link to each others' entries at the bottom of our own, so all of our lovely readers can see what other participating Lolibloggers had to say.

I have three resolutions:

• I will share at least one outfit photo per month
• I will attend at least two meetups in 2014
• I will get dolled up and have casual meets with my friends at least once every two months

Here's why:

For the first, well, I got rid of a lot of stuff when I decided I was "quitting" lolita. Because I'm still in the process of rebuilding my wardrobe, I keep giving myself benchmarks until I start really wearing lolita again: after I buy some more brand, after I get my health under control, after I really get my accessory collection back up to par, THEN I'll get back to dressing up on a regular basis. The problem is, I've been putting off a lot of things in this manner- because I've been increasingly sick over the last few months, I keep avoiding doing things that would stress me out and make me ill until I'm well again. But really, that's a topic for a whole 'nother post- what I mean to say is, I'm going to get back into doing the things, even if there are things keeping me from feeling 100% "ready" to do them right now.

My other problem lately is, I've become a total hermit! I really WANT to see people, and I love hanging out with my friends, but between having moved two hours away from New York City and all of my other friends being either A. still in school or B. also having moved to far away lands, social interaction has become increasingly difficult. Therefore, my other two resolutions focus on pulling myself out of my comfort zone and making an effort to connect with my friends who are in the area again (both of which also enable my first resolution as well - it's a perfect circle!)

Readers: What are your New Years Resolutions for 2014?

Do you have any that are lolita fashion-specific?

If you want some inspiration, check out what these lovely lolibloggers had to say!

• Papillon de Nuit
• Asian Wannabe Girl
• The Cute Lifestyle
• Lolita Glamour
• Whimsical Adventures
• New Vogue Children
• Beyond Kawaii
• Mary Hazelbelle
• Breiðholt
• Lace Teapot
• Wearable Magic

That's right, Operation: LoliBlog now has its own Pinterest board devoted to cataloging blogging tips and resources specifically for lolita bloggers. The loveliest fonts, the sweetest social media icon packs, and also practical advice applicable for bloggers of all types and experience levels- all of this and more will be yours care of my lolita fashion blogging pin board!

     Follow Aly Buttonss's board Operation: LoliBlog on Pinterest.

And that isn't my only Pinterest-related piece of news over here on Her Lumpiness! Try hovering over this teaser for my next outfit post:

You can now pin images from any post by hovering over the image, and clicking the circular "P" button in the top left corner. It's already been very convenient for me, so I hope all of you can make good use of it, too! Here's a great place to start trying it out.

It's no secret that most lolitas' favorite way to find inspiration is to look at photos of other lolitas, and my favorite way to do that via Instagram. There are so many awesome lolita Instagram accounts that are super popular - and usually really deserve to be! - but, like every form of social media, there are always hidden gems that don't get nearly enough love. These Instagrammers can add a little more fluff to your daily social media routine, and really, who can say no to that?!

These fancy rufflebutts were picked on the following criteria:

• Fewer than 300 or so followers
• A good percentage of their photos are either of lolitas or appeal to the lolita aesthetic
• There are at least a handful of photos on their account of them in lolita, or a similar style
• In general, their photos show high quality and talent in regards to photography, editing, coordination, and/or makeup skills (preferably some combination of the above, definitely with an emphasis on the latter two)

So, without further ado, here is my list of the top ten most underrated lolita Instagram users!

Professional creative-types:

Clockwise from left: Kate, designer for Australian brand Rouge Aerie; NYC lolita seamstress and designer Aria of Dix Macabre; the lovely Dawn of The Snow Field; American accessory artisan, Sweet Mildred.

Fierce fashion inspirations:

nynfia ; thisiscurlyb ; scarrymii ; remilade ; artemiz_xv ; bandersnatchley


Instagram is an amazing tool for inspiration - makeup, food, and particularly fashion! I don't like the Instagram web app, so I've linked to the Statigr.am pages for each of these cuties.

Followers! Who are your favorite lolita Instagrammers?

Let me know in the comments below - you can never have too much inspiration!

I haven't been blogging the past few weeks, because work has been fairly crazy! However, I have been working on some internal workings of the blog, such as figuring out what happened to my comments when I switched to a custom domain name.

But I've also decided that it would be worthwhile to offer new visitors an explanation of the three styles I discuss most often here: lolita fashion, steampunk fashion, and mori-girl fashion, so I decided to put some of my typical blogging time into creating a short guide on these three topics.

For more information on a beginner's guide to alternative fashion, click the picture above or right here!

For this week's lolita blog carnival, we're discussing how we began to wear lolita fashion, which I'm really excited about, because I'm always so curious! Most average people coast by every day completely unaware of how many alternative subcultures exist around them - how is it that so many people (particularly girls) in the Western world found out about this random Japanese street fashion?

The story of how I got into lolita fashion:

The first time I witnessed lolita, I was fifteen years old and on my second trip to Tokyo. I spent a week and a half living with a host family in... Meguro or Minato, one of the neighborhoods outside the main bustle of the metropolis, and attending an elite Japanese all-girls private school. For my first weekend there, my host family took me shopping in a few of the bigger fashion centers - Shinjuku, Shibuya, and... Harajuku, of course. This is when Gwen Stefani was at the height of her reign of terror, in 2005 or so, and despite her obsession with "Harajuku Girls" (or maybe because of it), I found myself totally unprepared for what I found there. Walking down Takeshita-Doori, the main drag for alternative fashion, was like tumbling down a rabbit hole; the girl working the counter at Seven-Eleven had green hair and five facial piercings (I counted), teenagers in visual-kei sat at tables in the McDonald's window, and outlandish clothing styles stared down at me from store windows stacked three or four or five on top of each other.

One of these buildings, two or three floors above me, featured a mannequin wearing set I don't know if I'll every forget: it was a blazer with sharp, pointed ends, a skirt that was basically tiers of ruffles, and a janutily-cocked mini hat, all in bubblegum pink. Next to it was something deconstructed visual-kei coordinate in black and purple plaid, but I barely noticed it: that pink monster was like nothing I'd ever seen before, and it was like a magnet.

"Haitte mo ii desu ka?" I asked, my eyes glazed.

My host, Asuka, rushed to agree, but her mother gave a shudder and shook her head.

"Demo... kawaii desu...!" I defended plaintively, in my second-grade-level Japanese.

Ms. Aihashi shuddered again. "Kawaii? Kowai deshou."

So we were whisked away down the street, and I was placated with my first taste of bubble tea in an outdoor foodcourt that has been long since converted to more shopping complexes. I was captivated by lolita, but every time I saw anyone wearing it for the remainder of the trip, all I could hear was my host mother's voice in the back of my head: "Cute? I think it's scary."

It wasn't until lolita got a foothold in the American convention scene that I found my way to actually wearing the stuff. After casually experimenting for a few years, I started amassing a wardrobe of altered blouses and handmade skirts the summer before my senior year, and the first day of school saw me in knee socks and mary janes. There were all of ten days my senior year that I didn't wear lolita or some derivative (I know; I counted). For the most part, my school was fairly accepting; sure, I got bullied a little for my clothing choices, but really - what high schooler didn't? More often, because the magnet program in my school was renowned for misfits, I was just considered one of the other weird "artsy" kids who could occasionally be poked fun at but was mostly accepted, tolerated, or ignored.

On one of the days sanctioned by the school for practical jokes, a friend and I switched clothes for the day, to the outrage of my classmates. One girl gasped when she saw me. "Child, what are you wearing??" she demanded. I looked down: an Abercrombie polo shirt and a denim mini skirt. So what?

Hanging out with my fellow art kids in my first brand dress; senior year of high school.

"No, no!" the girl insisted, appalled. "Man, what'd you put THAT on for? You always look like you be going to a ball or something. You gonna go back to the dresses tomorrow, right? Because I don't think I can HANDLE more than one day of this!" And then the entire class went on to discuss how elegant my clothes usually were, how different it was, and how.

And that was probably the best day of my high school career, and I can only thank lolita fashion for it - or at least the hackneyed "lolita-inspired" wardrobe I cobbled together over the course of my senior year.

So that's probably longer than what most people will have to say about it, but I have lots more I could share. And I probably will, eventually - this was an off-the-cuff pieces written in a few minutes and one sitting between projects at my job, but it's a topic I really enjoy sharing my experiences about. Until I get the chance to do that, though, take a look at these other lolibloggers as they share how THEY got into lolita fashion!

The Cute Lifestyle

Gothic Strawberry

Sidhe Banshee
Northern Star
Oh Velveteena!
All Sweet Indeed
Alice in Lolitaland
Wild Jackalopes
A Sweet Lolita's Disney Life