This is... my favourite travel memory

Wow! This was another hard theme, but this time, to choose just one. I'm so proud of myself, not only did I choose only one, but actually only part of one!

I'd have to say, one of my favourite travel memories was my trip to Sapa in the northern mountains of Vietnam last year.

I've kind of cheated and taken excepts from my other blog, from when I wrote about it then.

This was the view from our breakfast spot on the first two mornings there.

"Day 3 Vietnam - Mee and See, my new H'Mong friends

The landscape in Sapa gives off such an amazing old energy. I could have just
watched the mountains for hours with it continual dancing behind mist and
clouds. Met many H'mong girls, a tribe that live in extreme poverty and continue to wear their traditional indigo dyed and embroidered costumes. We were adopted by a couple of the girls who told us a bit about their lives and showed us around the town."

Wayne being mobbed by Black Hmong girls selling their wares.

Our boots after the first day's hike.

Day 4 Vietnam - It's a good thing my husband is not a jealous man...

I spent much of the day holding the hand of a man who wasn't my
husband. We trekked from the township of Sapa into a couple of the villages.
What is usually a good walk in the dry season was very hard in the wet, sliding
down slippery clay slopes. Due to the difficultly of the terrain in many areas, the guide held my hand for much of the way. We visited a Black H'Mong village and saw the poverty that these happy friendly people live in. We stayed overnight in a Day (pronounced Zay) village in a farmhouse.

About to start the second day of trekking.

Day 5 - Heaven, Hell and my Vietnamese Angel

The trek was harder than the day before due to more heavy rain and the fact that I had twisted my knee. The view was breathtaking but the hike was hell. My
fabulous guide literally carved out mountains for me so that I could make it down the steep slippery clay slopes without getting covered from head to toe in mud.
By the end, I was only covered on one side. We visited a Dao (pronounced Zao)
village.

I don't want to overload this post with text, but if you'd like to read more about the trip, I've written more about it here and more about the textiles here.

Thank you to Hila of Your Cover’s Blown for a great This is… theme this week.

Still time

A couple of people have commented that they thought they'd missed out on the Tokyo Trip Giveaway , but it's not so, there's still time.

The confusion is my bad, I just wrote "next week" and not the date. That's what can happen when you're blogging past your bedtime. I'll be drawing the winner on Wednesday night (my time) 11 June.

I've loved reading everyone's thoughts so far on achieving balance in life. There has been some great advice and well as support. Thank you so much! I'm sorry I haven't been able to reply to the comments, but I really have loved reading them all.

So, for now, good luck on the giveaway!

Wrapped, Packed and Away!

I'm so excited! I woke up this morning to find that I'd made my first Etsy sale! And then later in the day, my second! What a good day!

News and a Giveaway

Today, my horoscope told me;

"Although you may attempt to keep your work schedule simple today, it will still probably grow out of control. Forget about fitting everything into your calendar for a while, for you are likely biting off more than you can control."

Seriously, I felt like it could have been talking about the last few months.

So, news! No, it's not that I'm pregnant. I just thought I should clear that up. One of my Japanese friends gets very excited every time I tell her I have "news". "You're pregnant!" she blurts out. I feel bad for disappointing her each time.

No, instead, a new baby of sorts. I finally got the Kimono Reincarnate Etsy store opened! I really wanted to have more listed in there for it's big "Hey world, I'm here" announcement, but well, see the above in this post.... I have so much more to list, some gorgeous fabrics and papers I've been collecting for months as well as lots of little crafty things I've been working on, but that will get done gradually.

Drop by and check me out sometime, I'm over at Kimono Reincarnate.

So, to celebrate, I'm giving away some of my Tokyo trip goodies.

Firstly in the package is a collection of artists' cards from the Design Festa. Some postcard size, some smaller.

Then there's also this little kokeshi strap made from antique kimono fabric and leather. She's another Design Festa find.

And.. there's ten not-so-fat not-quite-quarters of new Japanese cotton and cotton blends.

But wait, that's not all! I'll also throw in some surprise goodies. Some of my new Etsy-like products that haven't been listed yet.

So, how do you get your hands on this stash? Easy. To go into the win, do one, (or both) of two things.

1) Comment on this post. I WAS going to ask you what Japanese craft stuff you'd like to play with and what you'd do with it, BUT, as I'm trying to fit more into the hours of my days, I'd love to hear what you do to find balance in your life.

2) Who said money can't buy love? Well, I'm going to bribe you. You can get an entry into the giveaway by "heart"ing my Etsy store.

If you do both, you get two entries!

If you're a non-blogger, feel free to enter, but don't forget to put your name on the entry somewhere!

I'll draw the winner next week on Wednesday night-ish.

Good luck!

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!

Flickr Favourites Mosaic and How to Get Mosaic Links

One Little Acorn has recently been playing with the Mosaic Maker over at Big Huge Labs. She was wondering how to get the links to the photos. Of course, that seemed like far more fun to play with than marking tests like I should be....

This is a mosaic I made with some of my Flickr favourites.

1. Hiyori, 2. Labels, 3. Mushroom House: Red, 4. SPFW inverno 2008 - by Ronaldo Fraga, 5. cupids, 6. Grace, 7. Passport Wallet-Kokeshi Dolls (Interior), 8. Passport Wallet-Kokeshi Dolls, 9. shibori furoshiki

After you hit the "create button" it takes you (after a short wait) to a page with your new mosaic. Under that is a box that says "Copy this html...".

Do that, and you have your links! Mind you, this will only work if you've got the photos from Flickr (or I believe another online source). You can't get links for photos you've uploaded directly from your computer files.

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....

Random Photos from the Tokyo Design Festa

It may take me a few days to catch up on everything here before I get a real chance to write about my amazing weekend in Tokyo. So for now, here are a few random shots from the Design Festa.

And if anyone's interested, I have written in more detail about my capsule hotel sleep-over on my other blog.

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!

Confessions of a Shopaholic in Tokyo

I've had a ball my first day in Tokyo. We arrived here around lunch time after a three hour train ride that just flew by.



Our first stop for the day was Nippori Textile Town. Mmmm.. lots and lots of yummy textiles. Of course, I bought way too much, but really, do you blame me?



On the main street of the textile area were many small Mom & Pop fabric shops and we browsed through these as we worked our way up to the famous Tomato fabric store. It had lots of gorgeous stuff, which of course I indulged in, but was so crowded that I maybe didn't buy as much as I could have. Mind you, I don't think I could have carried more than I have already bought.



Here's a few pictures of a small selection of what I bought today. I also bought lots of kawaii fabrics from another store, but they were all wrapped, so I'm going to save looking at them again until I get back home in a few days.

I just love the two fabrics on each end (the black and the red). I bought 5 meters of each as I'm thinking of making aprons or skirts with them.

I would have loved to have taken some photos inside the store, but it wasn't allowed. So for a moment, close your eyes and picture five floors of fabric... good isn't it.

After Textile Town, we headed for the famous Electronics Town, Akihabara. Actually, other than our capsule hotel, we only made it to one store, Yodobashi Camera. It's not just a camera store, but is nine floors and sells most electronics and conveniently has a floor of restaurants. The wood-fired pizzas there helped us regain energy for a few more hours of shopping before the place closed for the night. I splurged. I was very good with the camera equipment, but went a bit nuts with the computer USB toys. I bought three, yep three laptop coolers. One for my home laptop, one for my husband and one for my work computer. I also bought a USB fan, good for these upcoming summer months, a USB computer vacuum cleaner and a new USB hub to help plug them all in.

I don't quite know how I'm going to carry everything home and am very glad hubby will arrive tomorrow night. He's a great Sherpa.

And this, is my bed for tonight. I'm capsule number 803.

It's now time to lay my weary head and get ready for day of Shibuya department store shopping. Good night!

Getting ready for a big, arty weekend!

I'm so excited about this weekend, and to make it even better, it starts tomorrow! Early-ish in the morning, I'll be hopping on the train to Tokyo. The original plan was to go just for the two days of the Tokyo Design Festa, then I scored a couple of extra days off. To top it off, it turned out that my mate from Australia, who is in Japan on business for a few months, had time off as well, so we're making a short holiday of it.

Our plans aren't set in stone, but tomorrow, I hope to go to Nippori Textile town. Mmm.. it's a good thing they don't take credit cards because otherwise it could be really dangerous! Friday, will involve a lot more shopping, as it's best to get my shopping fix before hubby arrives to join us. I'll also be meeting Fuji Mama for French crepes. She's the first person I'll have ever met from the blogging world. It's funny, I'm excited and nervous at the same time. The rest of the weekend will probably be taken up with the Design Festa and hopefully a trip to Harajuku to get some Cos Play photos and possibly to the Sumo.

To get to Tokyo, my friend and I decided to save a little money and take the slow, fast train there. This one takes three hours rather than the usual two. That means lots of catching up chatting time, but hopefully also some creative ideas time. I love to write on trains and get lots of ideas then as well. I'm not sure why. So, for the occasion, I've packed a special little bag. In it, I've popped a blank journal (with a kimono fabric design on the front of course), a couple of pens, some scissors, glue and colour pencils. Plenty to write and do some rough sketches with. I always plan to take my sketch book with me, but it's a bit too big, so I though maybe downsizing might help. I think it may be time for a moleskin.

In the back of the journal I've also created a pocket to keep some small pieces of Japanese yuzen. Some of the designs I do, I like to use colour patterns, but am not so great at sketching, so am going to get back to doing mini collages.


I've also packed my new copy of the Artist's Way which I'm dying to get into. Of course my camera bag is ready to go but I'm still umming and ahhing about taking my computer... Now, I just need to pack some underwear and I'm ready for the weekend!

A Very Happy Mail Week

I'm a self confessed postaman stalker. And he was in my good books this week! Mind you, that will happen if you shop online too much. I try to be "good" and save money and then blow a bunch at once. Mind you, it is fun.

This parcel arrived with some resin moulds and jewellery making supplies....

This parcel arrived with some more jewellery making supplies and some other fun stuff to play with....

This parcel arrived with some gorgeous work by Kylie. The photo really doesn't do them justice, but her work is just beautiful with a touch of whimsy, and Japanese influenced to boot! Check out her Etsy store, Mizu Designs, here.

And lastly, a parcel of books. So far, I've only flipped through the Resin Jewellery book and am very excited. I haven't started the Artist's Way, but have nearly finished Bar Flower, which I'm loving.

To be honest, these all came at a great time, I needed a bit of cheering up. I haven't really talked about it much, but have been sick for the last six months. Not seriously ill, but frustratingly, exhaustingly sick. That's why not a lot of crafting has been done on this blog of late. But hopefully, I'll have some answers soon, even though answers seem to take much longer to come by here. Then I'll be back to my usual happy, productive self and I'll have lots of fun stuff to play with!

Kimono Kokeshi

Ahhh.. what to do on a sick day when you don't feel like staying in bed. Sit on the sofa and play on your computer of course!

I've had a lot of fun playing more with my kokeshi design. I'm pretty pleased with how she's going. I've got a few plans for her later down the track as well. But for now, I've put her into my Café Press store. I have to confess, I haven't done much with my Cafe Press store, so it was about time there was a new design.



It could just be the whole nesting thing I'm going through, but I think she looks particularly cute on the maternity shirt.
This time, I did two versions. One with her cut out and on a white background....


.... and another on a kimono background.

Leni & Rose commented on the first version of her and asked how I got the background to fade out. On Photoshop, it's actually quite simple;

Make sure you've flattened your layers first. I now always try to save the photoshop document before I flatten the layers (which I'll later save as a jpeg or png depending on what I'm using it for), as so many times I've done work and then wished I could go back and tweak a layer but couldn't. Use the lasso tool to go around the edge of the object (in this case, the kokeshi) and once it's all selected, go to the "Select" tab at the top and choose "Inverse". Then use your eraser on the largest size possible, dial down the opacity (I used 40%), rub over the image and all done! To get out of it, just go back to "Select" and choose "Deselect".

Happy photoshopping!

A Poem For Bec

Today, Bec, the sweet girl, dedicated a Leunig poem to me on her Monday Verse. I thought I'd like to dedicate one back. A Japanese Haiku by Basho

Orchid breathing

incense into

butterfly wings.

Thanks Bec!

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...

Designing my Etsy Banner

I've been having so much fun playing with designs today. Of course I SHOULD have been photographing stock during the daylight hours, but instead started playing with ideas for the banner.

I started out by flicking through my pile of kimono and Japanese design books....

Then started out with this sketch that I scanned.... The plan was to make a series of them, all nesting dolls with the last one opening, hence the line in the middle....

With the aid of photoshop, she soon looked like this... as a rough sketch, I was pretty happy so far.....

But then once I put her into the banner dimensions... she looked rather lost..... so that was all scrapped (well not totally, I will go back and work on her at a later time)...

And for now, my banner looks like this... what do you think?

Happy Golden Days

It's officially Golden Week now in Japan. Golden Week is a run of public holidays that sometimes, depending on the days of the week they fall, end up in a week off. This year however, it's more "Golden Days", not that I'm complaining, I have a four day weekend!

AND, I'm doing something very exciting, I'm opening my Etsy store! I'm busy working on it now, and just taking a quick break. Watch this space for more news....

There won't be much relaxing going on over the weekend. After getting the store up and the eBay listing done for the weekend, we've planned a shopping trip into the "big city", Nagoya, and then I'm preparing the apartment for the coming summer. That's always a big job as I put heaters away, get fans out, winter clothes away, lovely light summery things out.

The weather is just glorious today. A sunny spring day, floral scents in the air and more than a hint of the summer to come.

So, once again, I'll leave you with a spring photo, this time of one of the floats from a festival a couple of weeks ago. Hope the day is just a beautiful in your part of the world!