This is... my jewellery box

Well, I don't have a jewellery box in the traditional sense I suppose, most of my jewellery is either hanging on the wall in the bedroom, in wall pockets in the bathroom, in their individual boxes in drawers or in a jewellery roll in a drawer. Mmm... not wonder it takes me so long to get dressed in the morning...

I do have one little wooden box that I keep my favourite rings in though. It's a sweet thing that I picked up in a flea market, with you guessed it, a kimono fabric insert. I'm actually starting to get a little embarrassed... people will really start to figure out just how obsessed I am with kimono fabric and Japanese design...


So here it is, full of pieces that I love to wear.

This is a close-up of the contents. Other than the pieces either covered in kimono fabric, embedded with kimono fabric or structured from kimono fabric, many pieces are either silver or white gold, and big and chunky. Just how I like them.

Thank you to the hostess with the mostest, Three Buttons, for this week's theme!

In the next few days, I've got some photo to post of some of the bags in progress and Saturday's festivities! I had a ball, it was a fabulous kimono spotting day! Will tell more soon...

This is... the contents of my handbag

I have to confess, my handbag is not usually this tidy, but it went through a big clean up before I went away. I just got back from Australia a couple of days ago.

So this is what's in my handbag right now. Let's see... there's a purse, two eco bags (one for food items, one for non-food stuff), a hanko purse (more about that below), a lemon-lime lip balm, key case, my mobile phone (which I never answer because it's always in my bag and I never hear it), a pen, hand cream, my new sunglasses case, chopsticks and my Japanese bank book (you stick it in the ATM and it prints out your statements).

This is a closer image on my hanko. In Japan, you don't sign for things, but rather use your name stamp. When getting mine made I didn't want to have my name written in katakana (the script used for foreign words), so instead, I had "Gray", as in the colour, written in Japanese kanji. It always gets a laugh when I use it.

One of my pet hates in Japan is disposable chopsticks. Japanese use about 24 billion pairs of disposable wooden chopsticks (waribashi) every year which is a huge hunk of forest! The waribashi are given out at restaurants and then simply thrown out and burnt, it's a huge waste, so rather than contribute to the problem, I carry my own, red for my self and blue for my husband.

The little koinobori (carp banner) phone strap is getting rather shabby.... I think I need to buy a new one!

And lastly, I wanted to show off my new sunglasses case. It is of course, covered in vintage kimono fabric.

Thanks for the theme Sharon! I can't wait to see what's in everyone else's bags!