Stamped Kimono

I have been having so much fun carving and stamping, I've decided to post a few things on my etsy shop.

Here is a newborn kimono onesie stamped with onigiri (rice balls).

Fabric sneak peak...

Okay, I just said I needed to get offline and here I am again....

I just had to gloat about my new Echino fabric that was on sale today! yahoo! Planning to make matching dresses for L and myself and a matching shirt for A. Okay, maybe that is going a little over the top - but I love it!

I LOVE Otsukaya in Essaka. Need fabric, go there.

Stamp addiction

With my last 2 posts being about obento, you may think that is my latest craze ... maybe. But what I have been doing a whole lot more of these days is stamp carving.

I love it. It is so addicting to carve the rubber sheets. It's the same sort of strange pleasure I used to get from peeling dried elmer's glue off of my hands. The material is so fun to cut. The handmade stamps have a rustic and imperfect quality that makes them look cool and unique. You can carve pretty much anything at all so it is a great gift for kids, parents, and great as a kit for older kids to do themselves.

Here's the material I love:
It is called Harunabi, made by a japanese company called Seed. It comes in various sizes and colors. The rubber itself is white but it has a thin layer of colored rubber on the top to make carving easier - so you can see what you have already removed. It is really handy.


The tools are kind of like linoleum carving tools. The one I use the most is a v-shaped gouger. The other one I use a lot is a flat edge like an exacto knife.

Here's my box of stamps of inks. It grows bigger every week as I just cannot seem to stop making stamps.




I am a sucker when it comes to immediate gratification.... totally immediate gratification here - draw, carve, stamp, done. Okay, I guess not quite immediate. Buying a pre-made stamp would be more immediate but not nearly as much fun!

Today I was determined to finish a very cute stamp of laundry hanging on a clothes line... I'll have to take pictures of it tomorrow because It is nearly midnight and my kids wake up early. Oh, and I still have to make obento.

Passion for felt obento

I have a weakness in my heart for cute things, so you can only imagine my delight when a friend presented L with this lovely handmade lunchbox of felt food. It's so cute I really don't want her to play with it!

From top, left to right:
rice ball with egg, fried shrimp, hamburger patty, 2 edamame.
piece of salmon, octopus shaped hotdog, rolled egg, rolled egg and nori, rice ball with furikake.
rice ball with nori, 3 snap peas, bunny shaped apple.

My 2 favorite pieces: the octopus hotdog and the cute edamame - so cute you could eat them!

Now doesn't looking at these cute little things just make you want to make them?? No?

So I went out and bought a whole lot of felt from the 100yen store, some stuffing from the craft store and I found a couple of really cute books! Here is the cutest one (at my friend's etsy shop).

Seriously, what am I thinking. I completely do not have time to sit around in the evening sewing teeny tiny little felt octopus hotdogs.

I made one very cute strawberry... but I think my fascination with making felt food is finished now. That was enough to quench my thirst for creating cuteness. I think it is satisfying enough just to look at the cuteness other people have time to make.

Passion for Obento

My daughter goes to Japanese kindergarten (in Japan). This means I have to make her lunch every morning. I can't just put a sandwich in a paper bag - that just wouldn't cut it. She needs to fit in here, so that means I must make obento - japanese lunch box.

The most important ingredient in a kid's obento is ..... LOVE. Yep. (hear the violin?)

After making obento for a good 6 months now, I have decided it is pretty easy to do. I make sure I leave some small portions of dinner from the night before. I make sure I have a hard boiled egg in the fridge. I make sure I have some sort of raw vegetable that my child eats without argument. I make sure I put rice into the rice cooker before I go to bed.

Somethings that work well in a child's obento:
boiled or sauteed pumpkin or fried butternut squash
hard boiled egg
whole cherry tomatoes
little bits of lettuce to separate foods and add color
chunks of cucumber
chunks of boiled carrot
left over spaghetti
mini sausages
nori
fruit for dessert



When I wake up in the morning I slap some rice into the bento box or if I am feeling really ambitious I roll two rice balls and coat them with nori or furikake (nori and seasoning flakes).
I put a spoonful of various leftovers into the little portion cups or mini muffin papers. In the bento pictured above there is some cooked pumpkin, bolognaise sauce (just tomatoes and meat), rolled pieces of ham, 2 boiled carrots in the shape of a dog and a penguin, under the ham is a hard boiled egg, lettuce for garnish but my daughter likes to eat it anyway, and little dog-shaped nori on the rice. Dessert is a chunk of banana and a few raisins.

Presentation is important. Kids like to eat food that looks appealing and appealing to a kid means cute. cute cute cute. The cuter the better. But be sure not to go over the top on cuteness or your little one will expect that everyday!

My daughter's obento is wrapped in a flower hankie, with chopsticks on top, inside her pink bento bag along with her place mat.

Just beginning

Because everything has to be about ME, I am starting this blog. I will tell the world how awesome I am and how cute my kids are. I will tell you my latest craze (usually crafty or kid-oriented) so you can try it too - because everyone wants to be like me because I am so great and everything has to be about ME.

No, I'm not really that cool.

I'm just a normal girl, turned engineer, turned wife, turned mom, turned domestic-engineer, living each day to the fullest. I love my kids a lot, but gripe about them a lot too. Don't think for one minute that my griping means I would trade them in for something else.

My kids teach me the same important lesson each day: love life because it is REALLY fun!



I have a tendency to get passionate about something and then get tired of it after a month or so and move onto something else. Some things I have been passionate about at one time or another:

beading
rowing (that passion lasted until I had kids... maybe I will go back to it when I get more sleep)
polymer clay
sewing baby slings
leather work
artclay/silver clay
cloth diapers
lino carving
rubber stamp carving
vegetable and natural dyes
wool spinning
knitting
paper making
paper cutting
japan (where I live for now...)


Some things I am passionate about and continue to be passionate about:

kids - specifically my kids
brand new babies
working with my hands
exercise (though *what* exercise changes frequently)
good food
dance
birth (especially drug-free birth, active birth and homebirth)
multilingualism in children
adult language acquisition
my macbook


and that... well that's it.