today

I will certainly miss the bento lunches, especially very cheap ones, these two less than $10 together....fish, veges, rice, eggs.....simple, convenient and very tasty.....downside is a lot of plastic so I don't get them very often and try to use my own chopsticks.....
Sun shines today!...Yoyogi park is so nice when it is quiet.....
..and Long Long can have a little off leash time and pretend to be a hunting dog....
he spotted a cat.....amongst the autumn leaves....I'm quite sure it is now winter, 7 degrees this morning, but very nice....
..even though there are still lovely leaves to be found here and there....

other things..

Our plans to celebrate my loved ones birthday, with party decorations and cake, mostly for the mooch to enjoy, even though it is 4 days after the event...loved one finally coming home after a very long business trip...
(We) I made a book for a present, one that is called "A Day" which outlines a day in the Mooch's life, so they can read it together and then to keep it so in the future when we forget all the little details, we can look back on this and enjoy the nostalgia!.....
...I'm sure favourite toys will be lost, broken and forgotten over the years....and a nice surprise is how much the mooch LOVES to look at this little book, its all about HIM, and that's what 3 year old's are ALL about!...
..a special order from my loved one was to make his jacket a bit more groovy without being too out there, he has to wear it to work after all, so I hope this does the trick!...
and last but not least a LOVELY omiyage package from the wonderful Miss Miho, from her recent trip to the Netherlands, look at the process of her book. Keep your fingers crossed for good news about a collaboration we have been planning.....

recent makes

Preparing papers to make party garlands...
stamping to make wrapping paper....just cut out a shape from a styrofoam meat tray and attach with glue or strong double sided tape to a cork....

and a recent sew...using the beautiful echino fabric...I wanted to preserve the design as it is just sooo cute...so I just made a simple elastic waited skirt that has an uneven hemline...very comfy and good for layering with leggins/spats underneath...
for anyone in Tokyo looking for YUZAWAYA, its now in Shinjuku at 11fl Takashimaya...but you may have known it...I just realised it opened on 1st Nov...so easy to get to now and BIG and open aisles, and a very big echino section....there is supposed to be a closing down sale in the old store in Ikebukuro....better check it out too....

I know the carving rubber stamp thing has pretty much had its day in blogland... thats fine for me to be a bit delayed then it feels like I'm at the start of something new! Anyway, carving, printing, stamping, it isn't new but it sure is fun! We (the mooch and I) are making a collaborative project, magnets.....the mooch's job is to prime the wooden disks, put the rosy cheeks on and with a bit of help, stamp the stamp.......so far so good. Fun, cute and happy! In other news.....teeth news....gosh, I think I have spent 50% at my life at the dentist....had 2 general anesthetics for different reasons, many, many teeth removed, crowned, posted, recreated, snapped, capped goes on and on.....for a weird reason, one of my molars has been giving me grief.....I was just putting off going to another dentist and find out the problem but, after 3 weeks I was imagining ANOTHER root canal.....so...off I went......we have no dental insurance to cover any visits here, (far various reasons) so I was also worried which part of my body they would need to amputate to pay for whatever was the problem.....anyway.....as it turns out, I'm simply grinding my teeth at night (when I can sleep) which in turn is breaking off small pieces of tooth making it sensitive...so there, I should arrive home, back in Oz totally toothless and that diagnosis cost only $50! PHEW!!......will deal with the lack of teeth at a later date....

long long

The whippet lunge.......I have been waking up at night...and cannot get back to sleep when I think about the process of moving...not the physical...I've moved about 1 million times in my life so that part is the easy bit...its the people and animals side that worries me............this dog has to travel apart from us and then spend 30 days in quarantine so my thoughts go all crazy about, travel duration and the stresses associated with being in a cage in the cargo of the plane....all the tooing and froing in different vehicles to here and there and various the peoples handling him, then the 30 days in another cage where it might be getting very hot in Oz by the end of the year....I guess I should be thanking someone that these days make it easy to actually take your dog with you when you go overseas!...and then bring it home again.....you don't think about these things when you first buy a dog!...well, we didn't anyways.....
...poor darlin' dog!...such a wonderful companion as a family member and so gentle with the mooch....lovely animal, I will keep worrying about you until we are together again xxx

cuteness

I don't often blog about other peoples things because I feel there are just so many other peoples blogs that talk about and promote other peoples works, ideas and products...so I just rabbit on about what I'm doing, of course.......but, I do it every now and again because some things are just so cute and such a great idea, its worth sharing! This is small sheet of stickers or seals, each one is a month of the year for 2010. You can use them as a quick reference or simply for decoration, which is the option I chose because the illustrations are gorgeous. I'd love to do some illo's for this place. Look at this lovely site for the artist who did the illo's for the seal calendar. Ok, back to me now :)

flowers blooming....

It's not just the season for lots of red, yellow and orange leaves, in fact, in this park, its still a little early.....which is great because it gives us a reason to go back, if we have some time of course...only approx 6 weekends to go.....of course, the first stop was the parked budgie (buggy)...
and many pretty dahlia....huge ones and beautiful colours....
and the most beautiful displays of chrysanthemums, the ones that Japanese designers have used for centuries. In fact, when I look at the care and devotion needed to raise such flowers, it almost feels like a step back in time. It seems like almost nowhere and no one in our modern life would have the time or patience to grow such things of beauty, just for looking at and for display......I guess this makes them even more special, and the fact that soon they will wither and die....
..to indicate the size of some of these flowers...
...incredible, like soldiers (or students) in rows, uniform and steady....
...with amazing variations of bonsai, topiary and these beauties, like a waterfall of flowers.....all on a bamboo frame....

such prettiness, so many people with cameras soaking up the day and even a school of grey haired photography students focused on catching shots of a beautiful kingfisher who was busy catching little silver fish from a big pond....we took the last time out from the day to sit by the koi carp pond and watch them silently swimming and the crows interacting in the matsu pine trees, singing and dancing, being silly and jumping down to splash in the pond..... unlike the really angry squarking ones we see around our house fighting over the garbage.....