The Washi Ball Bowl Project

Shopping craft stores in Japan has enabled me to combine my lifelong love of beautiful papers and newfound love of Japanese designs.  I find myself standing in washi paper stores for hours at a time, staring at beautiful papers, dreaming up projects I could someday do. It’s actually been a good thing that my favorite color green, is one of the harder colors to find, as this has curbed my purchasing abilities!

But slowly, over the last few months, I’ve been collecting sheets of washi paper until I reached a critical mass to begin the project I had in mind.

I first cut 1/2″ – 3/4″ strips of the washi papers and got out the rest of my materials.  I used Mod Podge, a foam rubber brush, a finger painting tray and polystyrene balls.  {You don’t want to use Styrofoam balls for this project as they will crumble as you attempt to Mod Podge the papers}.

You should decide what style you want to use for putting your papers on – a haphazard technique or something more uniform.  I put my paper on any old way as it was simply easier, but I think putting the papers on lined up side by side would look quite lovely – almost like temari balls.

{Do you spy the very last of my coveted Diet Cokes that were shipped over in a package we ordered along with some others treats from America?;-)}

Once you finish a ball, I recommend barely sticking two tall thumb tacks into it so that it won’t stick to whatever surface you are drying it on.  Also, while wet, it will look very cloudy and filmy, but I promise the Mod Podge will dry clear.

Here are some of my favorite papers and how they turned out:

This one looks a bit like American tie-dye, but is a Japanese shibori design.

This reminds me of an Ikat print, and has tiny little gold dots all over.

Having just been through our first Sakura {Cherry Blossom} season, I particularly like all the pretty Sakura on this paper.

This is The Cuties’ favorite paper with purple pavilions all over it, reminding them of our trip to Kyoto to Kinkaku-ji!

And here’s what I did with all the balls~

Now who in my family do you think will be the one to drive me crazy rearranging the balls the most?

Wanna place your bets now?

Covered Coasters

We laid pretty low this past weekend since the weather wasn’t very nice and Cute Husband and I were both recovering from colds.  By Sunday afternoon The Cuties were clearly over our mantra of rest and relaxation and needed something a little more concrete to occupy them.  While searching for something else, I came across these heavy paper coasters I found at Tokyu Hands.

I pulled out our ever-growing washi tape stash and The Cuties and I set to work covering the tops of all the coasters with strips of pretty tape.  The beauty of this project was that it was meant to be haphazard and asymmetrical, and thus perfect for children and multiple hands to work on at once.

After a little trial and error we figured that choosing our washi tape combinations in threes seemed to work the best.  When doing this project there’s no need to completely cover the back of the coaster, so just rip your tape long enough to overlap the sides a bit.

For The Cuties, they found it helpful to have some direction so I instructed them to alternate which direction they placed each piece of tape, and to rotate through each of their three varieties of washi before repeating.  This helped them achieve a nice blend of “randomness.”

Once we covered the fronts of all the coasters {we made two packages of eight}, I traced one of the coasters onto a scrap piece of card stock to make a template and cut it out.

I then cut coordinating colors of felt scraps for the backs.  This serves two purposes: one, to cover the mess on the backs; and two, to protect your table surface.  I hot glued the felt onto the backs and the project was almost complete….

Because really, no coaster project is complete without a cocktail!

And here are all of our combinations ~

And the backs ~

Which color combo do you like best?

Note: I have no idea why all my photos for this project look like they were taken with my cell phone.  I used my little point and shoot since I needed to use my hands for many of the shots and apparently experienced technical difficulties.  My apologies!

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Off to the Market

This morning I toured the Ohta Flower Market with a small group of women through the Tokyo American Club.  I had high expectations for this excursion, seeing as Ohta is the third largest flower market in the world, moving more than three million flowers daily.  And let’s be honest here, anything that necessitates my leaving the house dressed, wearing lipstick and deodorant at 6:00 in the morning really ought to be spectacular, don’t you think?

We first toured the actual auction floor.  Like most things Japanese this was extraordinarily high-tech {although we learned it was actually modeled after the Dutch Flower Market}.

This was a very serious crowd.  I’d have lost my sense of humor too I imagine, since these fellows had been there since the Market opened around 4:00 in the morning!

Here’s what they’re looking at ~

Actual flowers come down a conveyor belt and are opened up and held high for viewing.  A photograph of the species, as well as its Latin name, and the country of origin are listed on the monitors.  At the far right of the dial is listed a starting bid and then the dial starts to go down to the left.  Bidders have literally only a couple of seconds to hit their button and enter a bid before the item ends and the next item for bid is brought up.  When a vendor wins the bid the floor clerk electronically sees the name and attaches a sticker to the box and sends it back onto the conveyor belt.

Where it goes up, over, around and back down to end up here.  And eventually will be loaded onto trucks at the loading dock and shipped out to hotels for events and individual flower shops all over Tokyo.

Because one of our tour guides is a floral vendor we were able to shop at the end of our tour.  Generally speaking, the markup from the shops at Ohta to a regular Tokyo Floral Shop is about three times, making these prices much closer to what I was used to seeing back in America when I would buy flowers at Whole Foods and make up arrangements whenever we entertained.  However, at Ohta, the quality and quantity of the flowers ~ and the sheer variety of them ~ is far superior to anything I’ve ever seen anywhere else.

Flowers are priced by the stem, and bundled into bunches.  You must buy the bunch.  So a tag might read ¥120/10.  That means you’ll pay ¥1,200 for the bunch before tax.

I showed restraint, I really did.  Mostly because I don’t have a car and I was lugging two cameras in my big purse, thus limiting my ability to schlep home everything in sight!

Here’s what I started with ~

And here’s what I ended up with ~
And somehow when I wasn’t looking, this pretty little girl snuck her way into my bag.

I have no idea how that happened.

Springtime Door Decor

In the chaos of the whole moving to the other side of the world thing I’ve recently realized the spring wreath some how didn’t make the trip.

This should be my biggest problem

{said in my best yenta voice}.

Cute Husband is currently on a business trip back in the States and is armed with a list of items to pick up at Target and Nordstrom for me and The Cuties.  Even I realize the absurdity of asking him to choose and cart home “a spring wreath.”

So I shopped my stash and here’s what I came up with.

A foam paint brush, Mod Podge, a roll of wrapping paper, a finger painting tray and a ‘G’ initial.   Do you feel like you’ve seen that G initial a million times already?  You kind of have.  It’s had a good life, working as home decor in several houses in many rooms and has a regular template for other crafts.  It’s most famous for helping out on my Pottery Barn Moss Initial Hack.

Not bad for a purchase made back in 2007!

If I learned anything from the oversize initial I Mod Podged for Little Cuties room makeover it’s that you want to do as much prep work in advance before your fingers are covered with glue!  So I tore a bunch of pieces of wrapping paper and had them ready.

Then I used the Mod Podge to glue pieces all over the top and sides of the initial.  I’ll be honest here and tell you that whenever I Mod Podge {don’t you love that it’s a noun and a verb?!}, I have visions of staying neat and daintily using my brush.  And that all pretty much flies out the window within the first ten minutes and I start dipping my finger directly in the jar and using it like finger paint to smooth the paper more easily.  Trust me, you get better results this way.  Just keep a paper towel handy in case your husband should happen to call from a continent away and you need to answer your iPhone.

Not that it makes a big mess or anything.

When you’ve completely covered the initial in wrapping paper {washi paper would work great for this project as well!}, rest it on the edge of your tray to dry overnight.

I didn’t bother to cover the back completely with paper for this project.  You can opt to either do that or what I did, which was to cover it with felt.  I recommend the felt if you are planning to hang this on a door, as opening and closing the door will cause your initial to bang a bit and you don’t want it to scratch your paint finish.

I traced around my initial with a colored pencil and then cut about 1/8 of an inch inside of that line with my scissors to ensure I wouldn’t be able to see the felt from the front.

Then flip the whole thing over and hot glue it to the back of your initial.

{I could pretend that the whole manicure perfectly coordinated with the craft project was intentional and I’m just that on top of things, but instead I’ll confess that I was gluing this around 10:30 in the morning and still in my blue pajamas pants that I think are reflecting in the scissors.  Awesome.}

I grabbed some ribbon, tied a bow and threw this up on a little wreath hanger.  I think it will look much more glamorous someday suspended in the middle of an over sized moss-covered wreath in the middle of my door, but that will wait until we’re back in America.  For now, we’ll be petite and kawaii off to the side!

And I really do believe this should be the last reincarnation of the G initial now that slapped glue all over it.  Although I should really never say never….

Monogrammed Wellies to Chase the Clouds Away!

 It was raining today and I was wearing my wellies, and looked down and thought I really should have purchased them in a brighter color for a little more oomph.

And then it occurred to me I could give them a little more oomph in the blink of an eye thanks to my Silhouette!

So I quickly set up a three-initial monogram in the Silhouette Studio using the Baskerville Old Face font.  I both enlarged and vertically stretched the entire thing, and then ungrouped the design so that I could make my center letter larger.  Remember when designing with your Silhouette for a specific size that you can measure your space and then utilize the sizing frame to perfectly resize your creation for the project.

Next, I measured the positioning on my wellies where I wanted the top center of my monogram to be and marked a small dot with a pencil.

Once I peeled back my vinyl and moved it to the transfer paper I cut a small notch at the very top of the larger, center initial so that I would easily be able to see where that pencil dot was when placing my design onto the boot itself.  I made sure I actually covered the dot with the vinyl, but I can’t imagine anyone would ever be that close to the side of my rain boots!  When transferring vinyl I know many people use the side of a credit card, but I find a bone folder for card-making to be the very best tool!

Then I just peeled away the transfer paper and in about ten minutes total had custom monogrammed wellies!

Two notes for this project:

I used premium vinyl meant for indoor and outdoor use, which I would recommend since the boots will be exposed to the elements.  Also to pick away the excess vinyl from the details within the monogram I used the Hook to help without disturbing the integrity of the fine lines.  This would be especially helpful if you opted for a script monogram.

What will you do to make puddle splashing more fun?

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Organizing the Fun Jewelry

Now that the birds are chirping and the sun is shining I find myself pulling out more and more of my big chunky jewelry for “pops” of spring color to my wardrobe.

Except there’s a small problem.

This is what my costume jewelry boxes have been looking like for several months now.

{my head is hung in shame, I promise}

I hate that every time I wanted to wear something, not only did I have to search for it, but inevitably, it was tangled up with another necklace or two.  This simply won’t do.

So I stopped by the 100 Yen store {like a Dollar Store for Japan} and grabbed a few different sized bags and got to work dumping everything out onto my bed.  I used the biggest ones for my largest necklaces; the medium ones for necklaces and bracelets; and the smallest ones for rings and pins.

I separated each piece of jewelry, untwisted it, and closed the clasp before putting each piece in an individual bag {if you’re looking for bags like these in the States, I’d recommend a craft store that has jewelry supplies, as regular ziploc bags will be larger than you need}.  I then lined up the bags back in the boxes I was using and voila!  I can “shop” my closet shelf to easily find what I’m looking for when getting dressed.

In addition to making me actually wear my jewelry instead of trying to avoid the tangled pile on a busy morning, I think this system will especially come in handy when packing to travel as often as we do.  I’m envisioning just tossing the individual baggies into a larger pouch and on into my suitcase, and having everything easily accessible on my trips.

Now…..who wants to be the one to tell Cute Husband that in sorting out this mess I discovered I have three different versions of big turquoise necklaces?

Just Sit Right Back and You’ll Hear a Tale…

Our boat tour of the islands of Phuket was eight hours instead of three, and we had a Skipper and a Gilligan, but no Professor, Howells or Mary Ann.  Little Cutie did turn into a bit of a movie star, but I’ll get to that later…

We started our day bright and early at 6:45 am and headed about an hour away from our hotel to the Ao Po marina to join up with the rest of our group and Captain Sean with Phuket Sail Tours.  There were some lovely people aboard our speedboat, and we all settled in as we left the dock to start exploring Phang Nga Bay for the day.

As we hit the open waters, we began to see all of the small islands that Phuket is known for.  It had poured the night before, and the early morning was still hazy, but was burning off fast and furiously and it was a sight to behold.

As we sped closer to some of the islands, we could really see the amazing stalactites that form on the edges of the islands and their caves that have formed from years of pounding surf.

We anchored the boat at Phanak Island and climbed through a cave with flashlights and emerged at an amazing dry lagoon because it was low tide.  Sean explained that at high tide it would be up to shoulder-height and filled with fish and other critters!  The roots on the trees were especially cool ~

Next we were met by charming guides with inflatable canoes to take us around more caves, islands and stalactites.  There some really neat formations in the rocks that looked like Scooby Doo, Buddha, and giant fish, which The Cuties found very cool!

We then headed to James Bond Island, famous for the movie Man with the Golden Gun.  While striking, it was the most “touristy” of everywhere we went, but it’s kinda one of those places you’re “supposed” to visit when traveling to Phuket, so we could cross it off our list.

Little Cutie, however, was quite the Bond Girl at James Bond Island.  We think it may be her long, thick and curly dirty blond hair, but she was swarmed by the nicest women, all wanting to take pictures with her.  In classic Little Cutie form, not only was she unfazed by it all, but she told me it was probably a good thing for her since she wants to be a rock star some day, and now she’s had practice dealing with fans!

We then made a quick detour to Kao Kee-un to see ancient peoples’ cave paintings.  The Cuties were particularly interested in the role of dolphins in the drawings and hearing Captain Sean explain reincarnation and returning to the sea.

We stopped for lunch at the floating village of Koh Panyi.  We walked around the village and were able to see local homes, a mosque, shops, etc.  There’s even a school there, complete with floating soccer field!

The last stop of the day was the island of Koh Hong Krabi for swimming and snorkeling.

 It was really beautiful and peaceful and Sean took the girls out onto a sandbar with some bananas and showed them how the tropical fish will eat right out of their hands!

This was a much more fun use for leftover bananas than banana bread!