sweet potato ice-cream

the end of the year is here and i have been non stop busy.

yesterday i attended an end of year party for one of my classes.  14 of us went to a sushi shop which was fantastic and at the end of the lunch we were given satsumaimo ice-cream (sweet, purple potato).  a little strange but nice.

after three days, i have finally finished making my chrismas cards.

my darling husband wasn’t so taken with the first or second design so i ended up making three.

i wanted it to have some kind of relation to the year of the tiger 2010 because that is the year my husband and i were born in.

they are a little darker than usual for a christmas card but they will have to do. overall i am happy with the design so i hope my family and friends like them.

the background of the card was done with a kind of sumi-e style (calligraphy).  it says tora (tiger) and the simple tree design was done by carving out some rubber stamps.  i had fun with that.

simple but that is the way dh likes it.

january paisley

i am not a big fan of red nor am i into paisley but i am completely in love this liberty fabric print at the moment.

i picked it up last week and it is super.

today, i got to wear it.

i made a scarf from a fat quarter.  it was really comfy to wear and didn’t itch or rub but you’d kind of expect that from a tana lawn cotton.

and yes i do have a big elvis dimple in my chin just like my dad.

doughnut shaped tape dispenser

just added these little beauties to my esty shop.

they are all the rage in tokyo at the moment.

get your mouth around this!

every year, my mother-in-law sends a fruit gift basket.

she usually sends pears but this year wasn’t a good year for them so she sent  12 nashi-pears instead.   they are bloody huge.  jumbo in fact.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

just in time for christmas

soon to be added to washimatta.

make christmas wrapping fun and exciting.

all things japanese.

soon to be a shop full of japanese stationary, handmade paper goods, fabric, household items and gifts.

i have finally started adding items for my new shop, washimatta, and i will be adding more within the next week.

feel free to have a look around.

where have i been?

nowhere really!

just cutting up old paper bags to make recycled envelopes.

 

two solid days to cut up this lot.

now back to getting my new online shop set up.

kinmokusei – sweet osmanthus

it is my favourite time of the year.   great food, weather and autumn colours.

the streets around my area are filled with the fantastic smell of fragrant olive.  known as kinmokusei in japanese.   the shrub itself isn’t anything to rave about but once autumn hits the tiny delicate orange flowers start to bloom and let off a fresh, sweet smell.

darling husband thinks the smell is similar to toilet spray but i think he is just going a little loopy in his old age.

hasami

i had to pick up a few things from the fabric shop the other day and dh decided to shout me a new pair of scissors.  they are fantastic.  i think i might have to drag him along more often.

yesterday, i spent the whole day making recycled envelopes from old calendar pages cause the weather was awful.  stuck inside the house again today because of typhoon #18.

this time last week…..

was my sisters last day in tokyo.  my lil sis and her boyfriend were in japan for three weeks and the time just flew by.  we miss them both already.

while in japan, both of them ate edamame (soy beans) non stop.  they ate so many that my darling husband ended up buying a huge box of them to be delivered to our place.  they didn’t last very long.

my sisters boyfriend also got into oil blotting papers.  he just loved them and he couldn’t stop using them. i think they ended up buying heaps to take back home with them.    i admit they are great for taking that oily shine off your face.  in japanese they are called abura-torigami. click on the link and take a look to see what i am going on about.

finally, the night before they left they gave my husband and i two gold fish as a leaving/thank you present. we named them baileys and cedder cause my sister drank like a fish while she was here and chedder cause it is somewhat related to her boyfriends name.  we wanted to call the other one cheesy but he wasn’t happy with that.

this is chedder.  the non stop pooping machine

and baileys

darling husband is smitten with both of them so much that they are next to his bedside.