Japan Trip 2014 - The Tokyo Design Festa in Pictures

My trip to Japan last month went by in a blur.  With just a week on Japanese soil there was so much to fit in, see and do.

My second day there I went to the Tokyo Design Festa, a favourite event of mine.  I always try to time my trips to Japan to get to this show.  It's full of work by designers, illustrators, crafters, painters and performers, there is so much to see and inspire.  Many of the 56,000 visitors to the festa have fun with their appearance  as well so there are lots of fashions and costumes to also amaze. 

There was so much more to photograph, but as it was, I didn't get to see all of the 3000+ booths that were there.  If I had stopped to photograph everything that interested me, I could have seen even half of what I saw.

You can see more photos from my visits to the Design Festa on previous years here, here, here, here, here and here.

Day Three in Japan - Tokyo Design Festa

After a morning trip on the luxurious Shinkansen from Nagoya to Tokyo, yesterday was all about the Design Festa.

I've always had trouble describing the Design Festa in a manner that really did it justice.  "An international art event" just was never enough.  Quoting from the brochure is better... "The creative chaos of original art..... jam packed with genre-crossing, off the wall artworks and exciting live performances guaranteed to inspire and enchant..."  And it's not just the 10,000 exhibiting artists / designers / crafters / performers spread over 3,000 booths and two stages that are a sight to be seen, but there are many visitors themselves dressed in expressive fashion and cosplay.  

Thanks Design Festa, it was mind-blowing as always!  See you again next year!

*If you're lucky enough to be in Japan at the time, the Design Festa is also in both May and November every year*

Market Display

It's now past midnight and I should have been in bed a long time ago, but instead I'm having one of those fabulous rushes of creative ideas.  I'm completely redoing my market display in time for Finders Keepers this weekend.

While sketching out ideas, I'm remembering some of the fabulous stalls I saw at the Tokyo Design Festa earlier this year.  

This one is one of my favourites.

It's amazing how she's created a little house complete with windows and a fireplace.

Little Pieces of Japan - Things I Brought Back with Me

Sorry for my recent absence from the blog of late.  I've had so many things that I wanted to blog about, show you from Japan that I found it all overwhelming and just didn't know where to start.

So here I begin, with a little series, a little show and tell of my treasures from Japan.

The Design Festa was huge and filled to the brim with so many talented artists and crafters, I believe there were 3000 artists exhibiting/performing.  With only a few days in Tokyo, I was determined to see as much of it as I could in one day (it's a two day event).  This meant that often I would cruise past many booths, stopping for a little while if something caught my eye.

There were a special few that I found it very hard to drag myself away from.  Happa Do's stall was one of them.  She makes the most magical little creatures, many of whom adorn fairytale-like mobiles.  I could just imagine her paper balloons carrying birds over fields of golden corn.

I really wanted to bring a mobile home, but knew that the quarantine officials wouldn't like the cute twigs, that the sweet wire constructions would get squashed in my luggage...

But one of her little birdies did fly home with me, and helped me carry some artwork of her other family members...

I did only bring the one bird, but she's different colours on each side....

Her catalogue that I also bought reminds me to dream of those paper balloons and fields....

She makes so many other creatures as well...

You can see more of her delightful work in the gallery on her website. 

Now lovely reader, I would love to ask a favour of you, a way to help me to decide what to write next... is there anything you'd like to know/see from my trip to Japan?

The Design Festa - The Cute Version

Here I am, safely in Japan and time is already slipping away, the first four days of the trip have rushed by.

My first port of call here was the Tokyo Design Festa.  It was truly amazing event with everything from cute toys and characters, jewellery, clothing as well as a lot of work by illustrators and artists.  With something like 3000 booths, I did a pretty impressive job at seeing a large percentage of the visual artists.  The event also has outdoor and indoor stages housing musicians and performance artists, so given time, I would have much preferred to do it over two days.

I took so many photos and they are going to take me a while to go through.  I have links to the artists for many of them and stories to tell of some, but in the meantime, here's a small taste of some of the cute versions of the Design Festa.

1. Embroidered Brooches, 2. Norah and Jam, 3. Oni Oni Town, 4. Button Lamp and Artwork, 5. Cuddle Me, 6. Monster Purses, 7. Stitching on a Sofa, 8. Tweet Tweet, 9. Kame

While here in Japan, I am getting less time to blog (and I have so much to blog about!), but I'm posting random pictures of what I'm seeing on my journey on my Facebook page.  Thank you to everyone who has joined me on there and has commented along the way, it really helps me feel like I'm not travelling so alone.

While I'm in Japan... Tokyo Design Festa

Surprisingly I haven't talked about it on the blog yet, but this time next month I'll be in Japan!  The trip has been planned for ages and booked for a while, but over the last month there has been a little umming and ahhing about whether it would go ahead or not.

I'm really happy now to say that it is!

I'll be in Japan for 18 days.  I'll be travelling about a bit, mostly following the antique markets to stock up on vintage kimonos.  But there are a few other must-dos while I'm there.

The first one is the Tokyo Design Festa.  It's a truly amazing, inspiring, mind blowing international art event, held twice a year.  I plan to plan my trips to Japan to ensure that I'll be able to go each year.  The show has over 2850 booths of work by indie designers and artists as well as performance artists and musicians.  This much creativity and creative freedom all packed under one roof is astounding. 

Here are a few pictures from when I went a few years ago.

You can see these pictures  and more, in a larger size over here.  And a few posts on a few of the artists here, here and here.

The big problem is that I'm going to the show my first weekend there, I could blow my entire 3 week budget in the first two days!  Luckily many of the painters and illustrators also sell postcards of their work, last time I came home with quite a collection.  Many of them used to hang on my Japanese studio/office wall, and a smaller collection is in my current office/workspace still.

I'm afraid after this trip, I'm going to need a lot more wall space to hang things on!

Watch this space for some more hints of places I'll be visiting next month.

A Dream, A Crazy Tokyo Dream

A little part of me had been hoping to go to Japan in the first part of the year next year. I had been thinking of planning it so that I could be in Tokyo in May for the Design Festa Volume 31. As plans have been put back, I'm thinking that maybe, just maybe I could make it to Volume 32 in November.

Then I had a crazy dream... one that I've had since I went to Volume 28, one of the most mind blowing events I've ever been to. A dream that I had cast aside quite a while ago... imagine, just close your eyes and imagine, not just visiting the Design Festa, but actually being a part of it, having a stall between all that amazing Tokyo funkiness...

You can see some more Volume 28 funkiness here and more images from that one and beyond here.

Purse Feet

I'm still working my way through the Tokyo Design Festa photos. Today, some more bags, one I couldn't resist and had to make mine, all mine....

A fabulous little bag with an image of a Japanese getta sandal. The straps are actual getta straps.

A backpack with a front detailed pocket with Mt Fuji, or rather Fuji-san as he's called here.

This is the one I bought (though with a pale blue background). Check out the purse feet! They are actual getta sandal bottoms and the inside of the bottom has been left with the bare wooden base as well. I loved the feet and kimono details as well. While I probably shouldn't have spent the money, I figured, I'd never find a bag like this one again.

Some more bags and a very cute salesgirl. How cute is that goldfish bowl, the traditional fish on wheels toy and the little red Daruma. You can find more of Coshell’s gorgeous stuff here. It's all in Japanese, but easy to just to click on buttons to get some eye candy. Oh, and worth it just to check out the bowing salesman on the front page.

On another note, it looks like we have an answer of sorts about the health stuff. It seems to be an autoimmune thyroid problem. Getting the treatment is still a bit of an issue (long story), but we're getting closer, much much closer. Hopefully in the not-too-distant future, I'll be back to being me! Yah!

More from Tokyo Design Festa - Bags by Ema

At the Design Festa, I just drooled over this woman's work! Not only were they amazing, original pieces of art, they were in fabric AND they had been made into bags! I had an ever-so-brief chat with the artist, and she was a darling as well.


Mmm... a lovely combination of red and black and cute and scary. Can you guess how tempted I was to buy this piece?

Check out these Japanese choir girls in their school uniform. I love the detail in the library too!

Talk about purse feet! This one has purse legs and feet! If you look close, you can see that they are dangling from the bottom of the bag. Actually, talking of purse feet... soon I'll show you the bag I did buy at this event... The funkiest purse feet I've ever seen.

You can see more of Ema’s work here.

Tomorrow, if all goes well, I'll be rearranging my workroom wall just in time for this week's This is… theme.