This is... what I do with a spare ten minutes

That's an easy one for me, in a spare ten minutes, I get a quick fix of my latest addiction - Project Runway.




Yes, I know I'm very late discovering this show, but remember, I do live in Japan. Some wonderful people having been sharing the shows and putting them up on Youtube, and conveniently, they are in ten minute blocks (not sure how legal that is, but I'm not complaining).

I've been watching both the Aussie season and US show. Both current episodes and old. While watching a bit, I do always have a kimono in hand and am carefully taking it apart, so I still feel like I'm working.

Thank you to Hoppo Bumpo for this week's theme and to Handmaiden for guest hosting!

This is... what I want

A baby. How I really want a baby.
Picture borrowed from here.

A house. Somewhere that is all my own, somewhere I don't have to pack up and move out of. Somewhere I can paint the walls and change around as I like. Somewhere with a small yard and big trees.
Picture borrowed from here.

A dog. Preferably another Standard Poodle or a Standard Poodle cross.

Picture borrowed from here .

Don't get me wrong, I love my life in Japan and if I could have these here, I would. But that's not looking possible right now, so this is what I'm working towards, and these are the lifestyle changes that are hopefully not too far away.

Thank you to Angela who had us choose our own themes for this weeks This is….

This is... what makes me happy

1. My Superhero Husband, 2. Blue Water and Blue Skies, 3. Tanpopo Hanabi, 4. Rockpool, 5. Yamba Walkway, 6. My morning cup of tea, 7. Black Hmong girls.sm, 8. Girls Kimono Stack, 9. Under the Blossoms

Big apologies to One Little Acorn for copying her style!

My husband makes me happy.

Blue water and blue skies makes me happy.

Fireworks make me happy.

Rock pools make me happy.

Being free on my own for a while makes me happy.

That first sip of tea in the morning makes me happy.

Travelling to new places and meeting new people makes me happy.

Kimono fabric makes me happy.

Japanese festivals make me happy.

My friends and family, my students, having time to create and discovering anything new, all make me happy.

Thank you to One Little Acorn for a marvelous, uplifting theme this week and to Angela for hosting the event.

This is... what gives me goosebumps

Japanese ghosts.

It's strange, but elsewhere in the world, the thought of ghosts don't bother me. But maybe I've watched Ring and Grudge too many times, because the idea of Japanese ghosts just freak me out. When we go to bed, I have to make sure that the closet is closed properly, my husband and I always say, "We can't let the ghosties out".

Thanks to Juddie for this week's This is… theme hosted by the fabulous Angela.

This is... My Best Op-Shop Find(s)

I love a good op-shop. There's nothing better on a lazy weekend than browsing through a few. My favourite finds back home are some fabulous outfits for retro parties.

Japan doesn't do op-shops the same as they do back home, they only have a few second-hand bookshops, a few for home wares and rarely for clothes. But... they do have second-hand kimono shops, so I bet you can guess where I go!

Here are a couple of my favourite finds

A kimono, of course, this one an uchikake wedding kimono with my favourite motif, the crane. The table was also a great find. It's called a kotatsu. It has two table tops and a heater built underneath. The blanket is sandwiched between the table tops, and then you sit with your legs under the blanket, warmed by the heater. It's absolute heaven in winter. There's where a lot of my crafting, reading and of course eating gets done during the cold months.

It's summer here now though, so the blankets have been put away. Actually, I have to confess, my apartment no longer looks so zen, it's now become more of a kimono warehouse than a living space. Buy hey, what's a girl to do?

Thank you to Lino Forest for this week's This is… theme, hosted by the fabulous Angela.

This is... my style and My Playday

Firstly, I have to apologise for not getting a photo done in time for this week's This is… theme.

But really, this is my style (minus the parasol)



Just add a large pendant and a couple of chunky silver rings, change the shoes to Mary Janes and that's it. That's me most days (days when I'm not just hanging around the house that is). It's usually the choice of the shirt (though almost always black and red and a variation on this theme) and the jewellery that individualise my style.

Thank you to Kitty’s Kaboodle for this weeks fun theme (even though I slacked off) and to Angela for hosting.

The reason why I was so slack this week, was that I was having too much fun on my play day. Do you want to see what I did?

I made this fabric origami crane. I'm wanting to make a stack of them and make them into mobiles. My hand stitching still leaves a lot to be desired though.

With the help of dh, I made a huge stack of fabric covered buttons ready to make some more magnets for the store. They've been flying out. Luckily, dh does the hard pushing stuff for me while he's watching tv.



And some Matryoshka / Babushka (can anyone tell me are they the same?) buttons.




And, what I'm super excited about - a silver origami crane. I may do some more polishing of it later, but I love the sculptural quality of it. I tried a couple of different techniques, the other one didn't work so well, but I have another idea for it and will play with it again at a later date. I can't wait to wear it to school tomorrow, with the outfit above of course.

This is... the space in which I create

I was so excited by this weeks This is… theme thought up by Quilting Mick because it motivated me to do something I've been meaning to do for ages - put more up on my workspace wall. I have so many postcards by amazing artists from the Design Festa, so yesterday was the perfect time to do it.

So, this is, my space. Let's not use the word "manic"....

I still dearly miss the studio I had in Australia, with two walls of window with lovely soft natural lighting, but this space is still very special to me. I used to share it with my husband, until one day the dear man decided that he'd let me have it to myself. Now it's my own space to mess up (a lot of the time) and to keep tidy (sometimes) when I want.

I hung the postcards with fabric covered wooden pegs (bamboo - sustainable wood) and strung them with thin strips of vintage kimono fabric.

I also bought this cool room divider. It has adjustable poles that push into the floor and the ceiling to stay put. While I didn't need to divide the room as such, the mesh frame gives me so much extra hanging space. There are a bunch of hanging baskets on the other side too.

It's getting close to bedtime, but for a little while, I'm going to go and check out everyone elses spaces. Thanks for a great theme Quilting Mick!

This was... my pet

His name was Coltrane. And I have to say, he was the best dog ever. I grew up with many pets, always dogs but also ducks, birds and a cockatoo who is now 34 years old.

Coltrane was the first (and so far only) dog I bought myself, as an adult. I bought him with my then partner (TP) and he was our baby.


I took this photo of him the day we brought him home. We went to the breeder to look at the two standard poodle pups he had. One was bigger and more independent. The other smaller and seemed a bit needy. He went up to TP, nibbled his nose and licked his glasses. TP said to me "You can choose, but can we have this one?" And so, Coltrane came home with us.

We always said we'd never let him sleep on the bed (he was going to be a big dog), but then at six months he got really sick. That went out the window, and since then, always slept at the end of the bed, didn't move all night. In the mornings, he'd wake me when he wanted to go outside. He'd just hold his face close to mine, which would usually bring me out of my slumber. If that didn't work, he'd very gently rub my cheek with his wet nose.

He had an elastic fetish. He loved anything that stretched, and believed it was even better if it smelt of TP or myself. Being big, he'd reach up to the dresser and find TP's watch, a ski watch with an elastic band. He'd put it on his nose with the band through his month and wear it around for as long as we'd let him. He'd prance around as if to say, "Look at me, I look like dad", just like a kid dressing up in their parents' clothes.

We had to make sure the laundry door was closed properly, there were too many delights for him there. One night, TP and I were having a dinner party. We'd obviously not closed the laundry door properly. Coltrane came up to the dining room with one of my red, lacy bras. He had the cup in his mouth and was using the shoulder strap like an exercise band. Luckily it was a dinner with friends!

He was friendly, loving, obedient and ever so protective. I swear he was gay and used to pick up every boy of that persuasion on the street. He loved to play in puddles, but was scared of waves. He always wanted to be with his mum however, so if I'd go out in the surf, as much as he hated it, he'd come with me. He was super-fit and would run for six hours each Saturday and Sunday, up and down mountains beside TP as he went mountain bike riding.

When TP and I split, we made the very difficult decision that he would go to live with him. Both TP and I worked from home, but while I was actually out most of the day on photoshoots and in the darkroom, TP was physically at home so Coltrane would have company. He'd come back to my place for weekend stays.

He died before his time. The sickness he got at six months old, meant that he couldn't fight off illnesses. He got very sick and passed away while I was still in Japan, the Christmas before I was due to come back to Australia.

I still miss him dearly, but life is better for having had him in it.

Thank you to Two Peas in a Pod for this week's This is… theme.

AND, if you're still with me.... Tomorrow night is the night! I'm going to finally put up the giveaway and have some exciting (for me anyway) news... I had hoped to get it done last week, but it turned out to be an exhausting one at work. Sorry!

This is... something I got, but still haven't used

Thanks Flossy-P for this week's This is… theme. Over on this blog, we could also call it Melanie's Hall of Shopping Shame, as it is going to be proof of how I really do shop far more than I make.

Living in a small apartment, knowing that in the not-too-distant future, I'm going to have to pack up and send everything home again, we have to think hard about the things we buy. I do however, seem to be able to justify craft purchases to myself all the time, and so am building up a large collection of things to play with once I get some energy back.

So, here goes...

A whole stack of resin jewellery supplies, some fun handbag handles and lots of patterns and kits. With summer on its way, I really should break out that skirt pattern.

And also a little hint... I'm planning a Tokyo Weekend Giveaway very soon (hopefully in the next few days). Here's a sneak peek at what will be in it....

This is... how I recycle

Ahh.. now if we're talking about real, every day recycling.... I could go on and on about how it's done in Japan. I've written a brief bit about recycling day in Japan on my other blog, but to go into more detail...

In Japan, everything has to be separated, even into different coloured glass. About once every two weeks, in each area, recycling day is held. It's between 6am and 8am on the day. You can't go before or after those times. Up the road from me is a vacant lot especially for the recycling day in our suburb. On the lot, different nets, bins and signs are placed for different recyclables and "non-burnables". This is everything from plastic bottles, glass, cardboard, punctured aerosol cans (god how I hate doing that!), batteries, old clothes, potplant dirt, broken umbrellas, bits of wood, anything other than food or paper scraps really. We go and put all our items into the correct area under the watchful eyes of the "volunteers" (volunteering isn't voluntary, rather a duty). It's quite a pain, but certainly does make you more responsible for your own garbage.

While throwing it away in the normal garbage may seem tempting, you can't do that either. "Burnable" garbage must be placed in a special clear, city-specific bag. The garbage is then placed out on the street in an allocated spot (everyone's together) on the morning of collection. If there is anything in there that is recyclable or non-burnable, the collectors will not take your bag. You then need to do the walk of shame and pick up your garbage, bring it home, re-sort it and wait a few more days before throwing it out correctly. A friend of mine, living in a small city in Japan, was reported by the city garbage disposal to the school where she worked, because they worked out that it was she who was disposing plastic tampon applicators! I kid you not!

BUT, if we were talking fun recycling, well, that's really what this blog is supposed to be about, though I'm off on tangents most of the time - how I recycle kimono fabrics.

So, this is how I recycle! I use old fabrics that time has forgotten and make bags and what ever else I think of. Lots of fun!

And, well, another tangent... I just got home from Tokyo. It was a real blast. I have so much to blog about - meeting Fuji Mama, the Tokyo Design Festa, my very first artist's date... but that's all going to have to wait until I get a bit of sleep. Soon I promise!

This is... the pair of shoes I would sleep in if I could...

Another great This is… theme this week, this time from Hip Hop and Banana Bread.

OK, so I'm back to something with kimono fabric... I couldn't resist! These are my favourite shoes. I certainly wouldn't wear them to bed because of their comfort, but just because I love them. They're handmade with leather and vintage kimono silk inserts. And of course, they're Mary Jane slides. I'm such a sucker for Mary Janes!

I love how the fabric is from the same piece, but doesn't exactly match. So very Japanese!

The label of the store they were made for. This is my favourite clothes store to wander and look at, though sadly, everything is way to small for this curvy western gal. The shoes feel a little too special though and the silk means that they're not really wet weather shoes. They also have a tendency to slide off a bit, so I only really wear them out to dinner, or somewhere that I won't be doing a lot of walking.

So instead, I usually end up wearing these! I had these custom made by the sweetest cobbler in Vietnam. I chose the design, chose the leather, had my feet measured and two days later, they were on my feet.

I have to excuse myself from the second part of this week's game. I didn't bring any old photos over with me and so can't do the This is... me pre-1985. All I have here is this is me pre-2002, and well, that's not terribly exciting...

This is... my favourite book!

The Prayer Tree by Michael Leunig. Funny, just a couple of weeks ago, I had him over for dinner.

I would so love to show you through it, but with moving to another country and 20kg weight limits, it was left behind in Australia. This copy may well be another that I have now lost due to problems with our storage container and so termites may now have Leunig whispering in their ears as they lay to sleep on beds made of his book. It's funny, I somehow have this image that Leunig wouldn't be so sad about his work returning to the earth.

I love the quirkiness of Leunig's work, but as well as being humourous (though not always), there's a message underneath that makes you look at things in a different way, appreciate more, or question things around you. As I mentioned (when I had him over for dinner), one of his poems from this book was my mantra for a long time.

"Let it go, let it out, let it all unravel, Let it free and it can be a path on which to travel."

There was so much letting go of the past I needed to do at that time and to me this was a reminder that that past, both the good and the bad, was going to be my strength for the future.

I was so blessed to get to listen to and then meet Leunig a couple of times. I got him to autograph a book each time of course. I had so much I wanted to say, but was so tongue-tied when it came to it. In this book he drew a little "gargling angel" and in my copy of the Curly Pajama Letters, he drew a duck.

My brother on the other hand, was not so tongue-tied. We were at the launch for his animated works. Leunig had earlier demonstated how he draws. During question time, my brother raised his hand and commented "You know, watching you draw, I realised how similar your technique is to Mr Squiggle. Is there anything we should know about?"

Thank you to Dees for this week's This is… suggestion. For now, I'll leave you with a couple of pieces of wisdom by Leunig, one for those on the net when they should be doing other things (that's me most of the time) and one, in honor of the ANZAC Day weekend.

This is... my latest discovery!

... or rather, discoveries...

I loved this week's This is… ... theme by Knit Owl. Not because I had any great recent discovery to reveal, but rather because I was so excited to see what everyone else's were!

For days, I've been trying to work out what my contribution would be. I thought it could be personal revelations such as "there IS life without chocolate" (don't worry that one surprised me as well), and "I really can't do everything".

I then thought it could be the new sushi rice dish I had yesterday, but then I would actually have to pretend like I could cook or something like that.

Or... it could be my fab new "Smocking Navi", a smocking guide, but I haven't actually used it yet, the same would go for my new iron-on bag pattern I bought.

So, instead, I'm going to pretend that I'm a domestic goddess (which I really am not). My latest discoveries belong in the laundry.

Wash balls! In my bid to reduce my negative impact on the environment, I've almost completely stopped using softener in the wash, and pop these in instead. I find the Japanese water to be very hard and so without something, clothes come out very stiff and crinkly. These funky little things go in with the clothes and help add air which then helps soften clothes. Or something like that. But they work! And, they save me money!

These little do-dads are "kutsushita clip"s, or more simply, sock clips. I have to confess, I forget to use them most of the time, but basically, they keep your pair of socks together in the wash, which saves sorting time later. Especially when you wear as many plain black socks as I do.

I'm off now to see what everyone else has discovered lately!

This is... my perfect dinner party guest list

Wow! I found this one such a challenge! Firstly, the "dinner party" bit threw me into a panic. Dinner party! I have to host a dinner party!?! One of my greatest fears. I mean, I know it's not real or anything, but my heart rate increased, my palms started to sweat, just at the thought of it. And then - guest list.. I have to think of just six? What if someone feels left out? Ahh.. you can just imagine how hard I found it to create the guest list for my wedding.

But now, after a margarita (my final for what may be a few years... more about that later maybe), I've sat down to try to do this...

My first guest, whom I see is very popular tonight, would be the Dalai Lama. I had the honor of hearing him speak when I was in university and his words have always stuck with me. I would love to hear more and just to bask in his presence.

My next I have to confess would be partly for the eye candy - Johnny Depp. More than that though, he is the star of many of my favourite movies and has worked many times with one of my favourite directors, Tim Burton, so I could just imagine the interesting stories he'd have to tell.

At this point of the evening, I've realised that most of my choices are male (don't tell my husband) and all are living...

So, my next guest, I would have to ask to bring along a translator is Haruki Murakami. He's my favourite Japanese author and one of my favourite authors of all time. His writing is so out there, he must have an amazing mind, I'd love to get a sneak peek into it..

Dr Karl Kruszelnicki would have to be in there. Again, another amazing mind accompanied with loads of energy and humor. Ahhh.. I don't think this dinner party is ending until the wee hours of the morning somehow...

And then to add another fantastic mind, another creative soul, Michael Leunig. For many years, his poetry, his writing and his artwork have been a guiding light in my life. I have heard him speak a couple of times and do (or rather did) own a couple of books signed by him with my own special cartoon drawn in (one duck, one angel). I say "did" as... well, something I'm trying not to face until I move back to Australia... almost everything we own there, almost everything we put into storage including my very large and very precious book collection have been destroyed... So, if I had Leunig over, I could get new books signed!

This poem by Leunig was my meditation mantra for many years.

And lastly, finally, a female! I don't think a dinner party like this would be complete without my great mate Christine. I mean, I need to have someone there to go over the stories of the night with again and again for the rest of my life. And Chris is always the life of the party, can talk to anyone and would hold her own with any amazing mind.

So, there's my dinner party! A fun night indeed me thinks! I'm off to go and gatecrash other dinner parties now! Thank you Lily and Agathe for the theme this week!

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!

This is... my creation!

.... and I'm so excited!

This post could also be called "This is... what I've been doing instead of all the other stuff I should be doing considering I fly out for my holidays in a couple of days"... but we won't worry about that will we? Thanks to Betty the Geek for this week's theme.

This was my second attempt using the silver clay. You can see my first attempt here. While I'm a complete beginner, I still thought you might be interested in how it all works and the mistakes I made along the way.

I found myself moving to different areas of the apartment for different stages. So this really was workspace number one.

What I have here is a packet of PMC3 and the PMC3 syringe. I've covered my cutting board in baking paper so that the clay doesn't stick. Under the baking paper is a mark out of the pieces I want to make and their sizes. On top of the baking paper, on either side of that markup is a few pieces of cardboard stacked to equal the height of what I want the clay pieces to be. In one bowl is water, the other olive oil. The olive oil is good to stop the clay from sticking to your hands and utensils. There's a straw to help shape the bead at the top and a film container to collect dry bits of clay. I put some of those bits into the lid with a bit of water and use a paintbrush to create slip, to help join pieces together. I have a dry and a wet hand towel. There's also a rolling pin, some kitchen towel and a knife.

The clay comes out like plasticine. It's really easy to use. I rolled it out and cut out the pieces in the sizes I'd marked out. I then let the clay sit to dry out a little. I left the olive oil coated straw in the bead to help it keep shape as it dried. When the clay was not longer so soft, I stamped a little butterfly into the back of the main piece using a normal rubber stamp.

Once the pieces were harder and could be moved around without changing shape, using the slip from the syringe, I joined the pieces together to create a box.

This is the back of the box.

And this is why I won't make a box shape again. It was so fragile. When I went to sand it pre-firing, bits broke off. Using the syringe, I repaired it, but was again too rough with it so once again, it came apart. I believe it would be much stronger after the firing, but I didn't want to take the risk. Instead, I reconstituted the clay (added water to it and stuck it in cling wrap overnight) and used it again.

This time I rolled a thicker piece of clay and used a baking paper covered rubber stamp to dent in the space I wanted. I rolled a little snake of clay and joined it at the top.

Once the clay is bone dry, it's ready to fire. There are a number of ways to fire the clay, but with the space considerations we have here in Japan, my husband bought me the "pot" kit. It's really cute. The heat comes from a solid fuel and once it's burnt out, as long as the piece isn't too big, it should be done. It all sits on a fire-resistant board. I love the little rosy-cheeked face the pot has when firing ;)

When it's fired and cool, the piece comes out looking very white. It's not a coating but actually the silver particles sitting straight up.

I had a few little explosions with my piece, I suspect there must have been a little moisture still in there (this is where my lack of patience comes in...). Luckily though, the three bumps were not in a critical place.

With a wire brush, you rub over the piece to bring out it's silver look. I also used some little files to sand off as much of those bumps as I could before I lost feeling in my hands. I also used them to file the top loop to make the shape a bit better. To get the piece to really shine, I then sanded it again, and again and again, each time working with a finer sandpaper, and then in the end with a silver polishing cloth.

The piece was then ready for the fabric. I backed the obi fabric with iron-on interfacing, cut it to shape and used a really good craft glue to adhere it. I had planned on using resin over the top (hence the original box design) but this piece wasn't deep enough for it.

I have to say, this is going to be a very addictive, but expensive hobby. I went to pick up some more silver clay the other day and boy, it's not cheap!

Before I go... here's a sneak peek at another work in progress....