march...

I have decided for the month of March I will attempt to get no extra plastic bags. I have so many and its time to make a stand and see just how well I can go. I made this sign and stuck it above the door handle so every time I go out I remember to take my own bags. I'm a sporadic user of my own bags and need to make it a regular thing. I read a Melbourne persons blog that she never buys anything wrapped in plastic. I think this is an almost impossible task for a Tokyoite, so I'm just starting small and hope it will become my habit....maybe move onto other plastic things when I get over this hurdle. I also want March to be 'no extras' month, which means nothing extra except for food and bills. I did it a few months back and saved a lot more than I expected. Ganbarimasu :) On another note I'm sending out a prayer to all those people close to fire danger this coming weekend, may you and your families be safe.

most easy dinner...

Essentially you put all of this into one pot and boil it for about 20 mins. Serve it with rice and eat! Oh, the little tube of beans in the bottom right corner is eaten separately. Its just pickled bean shoots and is so delicious!. The bag at the back is the liquid base, a kimchi inspired flavour. In fact, when I got it all home and actually read the packaging (properly), I realised this dish, Kimchi Jigae, is one of my star dishes and I need not have bought the packet mix version!! Of course, this was very easy but the one made from scratch just tastes better, as always :) follow this Link to the best Korean recipes I have found in a long time!

illustration friday-instinct

I found it hard to connect with my instinct while pregnant and now even as a mother. Probably because I live in a modern world where I have been bombarded with so much information, rights, wrongs, alternatives, options, expenses, responsibilities, pressures, illnesses and conditions..... etc etc......I guess I rarely use any of my instinctive natures, not just the ones relating the bearing children.....I wonder if any of us modern day humans have many instincts left at all.....

my email address

I am so sorry I have not updated my email address here. I am no longer using my grassy garden address so if you would like email me please go here

tokyo dogs...........

Lena Corwin love...

My dearest bought me the lovely Lena Corwin's book "Printing by Hand" and vowed I would make something from it before the book got dusty or just dog eared from lots of leafing through and admiring the nice styling and great ideas.....so, more recycled gomi (the nice word for rubbish) and look at this.

The book comes with a pattern for all the stencils so its so easy...the old wooden boxes, I originally thought would be good for organising a small persons car collection, but I thought my sewing stuff could graduate from a cheese box to something a bit nicer...

I cut out the shapes directly from "contact", that sticky stuff you used to use to cover your school books.....(I wouldnt recommend to use it again.....tell you why later)
...looking like a pro already.....
...nice even before I pulled off the red stencils......
....the sticky contact separated when I pulled it off...maybe the pourous surface wasnt such a good combination with it...so the edges of the stencils were far from clean. I used a pencil eraser along with a stanley knife tip to scratch the excess sticky stuff off, then rub with the eraser....the whole process of cutting the stencils and painting took less time than the scraping....but, now it looks great....but...the final photo is on another camera so will post tomorrow! It was so much fun, I have been planning this design on every surface I can get my hands on....but then I thought, I can just do my own design, minus the contact.....g-e-n-i-u-s!! yay!!!

the blossom photos...

...while re-reading my last post I accidentally deleted these photos......


can you tell I like the pink ones?.........

the season for pretty things....

....not only the season when the earth starts to thaw and small secrets of nature become unearthed......

..where moles keep digging......
.....but also when the blossoms start to come out and make people feel light and happy and calm and wonder about the prettiness of such things and remember how fleeting they come and go....

...when witnessing these fluffs of colour in the distance means up close, some incredible and delicate beauty is waiting to be seen...and photographed!!



...not only a time for blossoms but also for begonia......one of my most favourite flowers.....
....time also for picnics...and appreciation for the humble egg sandwich......
.........fresh baked, soft, white bread and chopped egg with mayo......can only be beaten by butter and vegemite.....

morning snack

Here's a nice mini rice ball I made this morning.........it is made of playdough though! It is so real!

The playdough set came with this stamp which you use to make rice...it is the cutest thing I have seen for a while and maybe I bought it more for myself than the mooch?

The theme of the set was making bento lunch boxes and also came with the above moulds......and a small lunch box to put your creations in, also some mini chops sticks and some maps on how to mix colours and make the specific foods. The title of the foods are written under each mould "steak", "omurice", "hotcake" etc...it is so truly lovely, durable and cute and something I hope to keep well beyond my Japan days. Inside the blue mould above, is a circle in the bottom right hand corner, the small square you see inside the circle (a hotcake/pancake), is reserved for the 'butter' which sits on top of the hotcake.......amazing.......I also love how symbolised these moulds are. Everyone (well, almost) in Japan would instantly recognise these images as they are pretty uniform throughout the country.

delicious...

These are just the most tasty cookies given to me by a super sweet Ms S! Thanks so much! Its very cold today, spring forgot to come along today or maybe winter just bullied it out of the way! In any case, a coffee, cookie and some drawing time is just such a sweet luxury during the day. Mooch is asleep and I already completed most of my boring chores for the day so now I can do fun stuff!! Did I mention how much I love having my computer back? Well, I do! Life is so much more connected, however, since I have such precious free 'day' time I shouldn't spend all of it on the internet :)

happiness is a sunny day......

...and a good find at the local op shop....I don't get all my clothes from the garbage dump, in fact I was very surprised to find an op shop...not common here in Tokyo..........I was so happy to see these little guys not only a good, well, reasonable price, very cute style but also in my size......noice. I have been involved in a small crafty project which will culminate in a photo shoot tomorrow so I better go and finish off all my bits and bobs and clean this place up :)

a couple of bits...

Look what I can get done without any internet...it says a lot about how much time I spend sitting here!! Here are some characters I made for a 'friends tree'. I'm not sure what is happening to my English but it also happened last time I was in Japan. By the way, this year is the 10 year anniversary of my first trip here! (and the 5th year I have lived here......kanpai) So really, my Japanese should be excellent.....why isnt it?

In celebration of my proud Japanophilia, I made this book bag using the fabric designed by a very cool Japanese designer Shinji Katoh. BTW, I never use a pattern for any of these creations ( a danger where things often dont work and fabric is wasted) so, it is something I hope to learn how to do this year! Noice :)

bunny

I made a bunny a little while back. The mooch had a cute owl to take to bed and use as a pillow but I left it on the plane, accidentally....so I thought, instead of buying another one, I would attempt to make a new soft toy kind of pillow. So, this bunny has been very well received. It may be a bit of a skinny pillow but he really like it! yay!!

table top remade

I have had an old table lying around which I found on the roadside......the one I lugged home in the typhoon, it is a great table and I saw some potential in it, it just needed a clean up and some oil cloth to cover it and in less than 15 mins I had a very cute new tabletop.

You can get an idea of the scale with my little helper here....

I just took the table measurement to another super craft store Okadaya which has at least 50 types of oil clothes to choose from....an impossible choice for me......got a cheapo staple gun and check it out.......

super dooper!!

legwarmers remade...

When it comes to leg warmers, Japanese women sure know a lot about them. I think Tokyo is the best leg warmer viewing place in the world...in terms of ways to wear them. There are never ending combinations of colours and textures...wonderful :) For the upcoming springs and autumns of the respective hemispheres they are just the ticket under a skirt or dress.......so Im going to get right into it this season.......I found a lovely piece if cord fabric sticking out of bag in someones garbage...ugh, I know, but I'm telling you, there are thousands of bags of clothes that go directly in the rubbish every single day, and its such a shame to see it go in the back of a truck. I dont get in the rubbish up to my elbows but if something is on top and hasnt yet been peed on by a dog, then I take it home.....much to my loved ones disgust...anyway.........This nice fabric happened to be a mans shirt, so I chopped off the arms, keeping the buttons and cuff facing towards to ankles, made a small hem and put in a ring of elastic and check it out!!!

.................and an even bigger bonus as that you can tuck your jeans into them for a nice way to stop your jeans getting stuck in the chain of your bike, even though a rubber band will do....but Tokyo is style city after all!!..........
and yes, the shoes arrangement is considered completely normal riding gear.......

carrot and museli muffins

If you are at all interested in making some very easy and tasty muffins you can try this:

150gm SR Flour
150gm mixed fruit museli (or plain museli or oats and some dried fruits)
180gm grated carrot (or apple, or both...which I did)
60gm brown sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 eggs
100ml melted butter

Mix it all up and put into greased muffin or mini muffin tins and bake at 180C for 12 mins (or so).

I got this basic recipe from a great website which I cant find now but will post later, I changed it a little to suit my tastes.

One bowl cooking, I like it!

blossoms

Every year Japan goes crazy for a few weeks doing hanami or looking at blossoms, the plum blossoms come first, followed by the cherry blossoms. This year has been quite warm in Tokyo, for winter, and it seems the blossoms are a little earlier than usual...which is very nice. The worst things about this season is the crowds that come to see/photograph and get drunk under the trees. We got to the park early in the morning where buses of people started arriving as we were leaving. It really is such a truly pretty thing to witness, and if you can get some quiet whilst doing so, you really can see why people love to see them so much........
I made this picnic lunch, very Japanese. In fact, I found a great Japanese food site called just bento which is one of the best food sites I have found lately. A couple of things in the bento above is from the site. The inarizushi, the brown bag things, are full of rice...my goodness, I usually buy them because they are really yummy and cheap, but I thought I would make them this time...takes about 2 hours........I dont think it tastes any better than the supermarket ones.....but good experience! The bento on the left has small meatballs in sweet and sour sauce, tamagoyaki (egg omlette) with spinach, a kind of blanced spinach salad with sesame seeds, and a stawberry....the bento on the right is simply rice with a cooked fillet of slamon crunbled over the top...a staple for mooch who loves it. I slipped a boiled quails egg in there too but he didnt eat it....and fruits....
Here is a small selection of the amazingly dedicated people shooting the blosoms.....

and here is one early cherry blosom tree. There were a lot of small green birds in this tree so it was so pretty with the pink flowers and small green birds...until the mooch ran under the tree and scared them away....um, sorry to all the photographers......we left shortly after that.....

hello, Im back!!

Hello, its very nice to be back. I just wanted to say hello and I have lots of pictures and things to tell of the things we have been doing for the past TWO months...gosh its seems like a long time to live without a computer these days. I'm so thankful to have one now (thanks to Miss Y and Miss A) and a big thanks to my loved one for setting it all up! Hooray :)

dear internet,

I miss you, it will not be long until I am back and can show you all my great pictures. I miss having you in my life and the connections you provide for me. It is true, I cannot live without you.....today I made a black bird today from an old jumper and I hope you can see it soon. Recycling old clothes into birds and rabbits is my new hobby since I have not been using you very much. The same goes to you, photoshop.....you died along with my computer and your source CD is far away in my Nanas garage....so if I want you back in my life I have to buy a new software or wait..............thank you internet, for keeping me up to date and connected. I will be back soon, maybe another week.......with a nifty small computer that only does internet things......talk soon xxx