Shin Enoshima Suizokukan (Enoshima Aquarium)

Two weeks in a row, we visited the local aquarium called, Shin Enoshima Suizokukan 新江ノ島水族館 as we bought annual passport. It's a short drive way from our home towards the Pacific. In front of the building, you can see beautiful small island called Enoshima. We're now so much into this fun place. The most interesting part is the dolphins show!
There're some 4th generation dolphins that were born right here and this is really rare in the whole world. Including those, 5 dolphins swim, dance, sing and jump along the young staffs who does great entertaining. It's so dynamic and fun. Even adults can enjoy every single moment of it! Last time, we enjoyed the show twice in a day! We strongly recommend to visit here!
If you don't have a car, don't worry.
You can take Shonan Monorail, bus, Enoden and Odaky line to get there. Just head to Enoshima 江ノ島, and you won't miss it as it's the one of the biggest building along the beach side! The admission fee is JPY2.000 for adult and JPY 600 for smaller kids. Enjoy!

Craft days again!

I'm so happy that I'm back again to have crafty days once again. After the fair, I kept working on the follow-ups with new customers. Now things get a bit slow down and I have my own time to
enjoy what I want to make. I wanted to make some beaded necklaces for myself and my little one. Here they are!
Doesn't Jade look so happy with it? She wants to be a princess in the future(!), and she thinks this necklace is just the right ticket to be closer to her dream! A three-year-old has such a cute dream!


It's getting so hot and wet with high humidity here in Japan! So my bags with Hawaiian print fabrics sell quite well to my Japanese customers. I'm now recognized as a Hawaiian bag maker! :D

The craft fair in Tokyo on July 19

The fair was fantastic. I met a lot of new people who shares the same work with me, "handmade". It supposed to open at 11, but there were such a long que, the organizer
decided to open at 10:30 AM. Before that, we creators had a chance to take photos and exchange shop cards and chat. I met great artists who does super great works. You can take a look on some
shots I took with the permission.

Of course, Jade was with me and she did a great job, handing the wrapped items to customers with a big smile! She and I had a great time and I did make a great $$$. Happy :D
I'm now invited to join some fairs in Tokyo and the local Shonan area. I won't hesitate, and will definately join to enjoy myself!

Craft Fair in Tokyo on July 17

It's a national holiday called "Umi-no-hi" (Sea Day) and there's a big craft fair in downtown Tokyo on July 17, Monday. You can enjoy 45 shops with all kinds of goodies for variety crafting projects.
It is supported by the Japanese biggest craft publishing company, Nippon Vogue Inc.
If you're gonna be in town, make sure to visit this one of the most popular craft show in Japan!!

The Name: Home Couturier vol. 3
The Date: July 17 2006
The Time: 11:00 - 16:00
(they'll restrict admission when it's too crowded,
so make sure to arrive before 13.00)
The Place: 12th floor of Nippon Vogue Inc. in Ichigaya
(near Shinjuku area)
Admission is free, but too many people will visit this fair from all over the nation. I hear some line up before 9:30AM!!

See you at my booth!

Cuties from the shop

Here let me introduce some cute zakka from Atelier JADE.
The first photo shows hedgehog stationeries. I've been looking for these kinds of cute goodies with hedgehog for months, and finally I found them at a shop in Tokyo!! Aren't they so cute??? All are made of wood (MDF). You can use the calendar forever as you only have to change the small wooden dice-like part every day!! Eco-friendly, eh? The middle one is a set of 3 magnets. And the right one is a tape dispenser.

And then you can see 2 photos of cute Cram Cram adhesive tapes. They're really popular at my shop, and I've been uploading new tapes one after the other. The pink cookies are coming back to the
shop again and yellow froggy is brand new ones.




And the cute goldfish stickers!! There're 2 kinds and you saw the other one in my previous journal entry. When we exchange the summer greeting cards in Japan, we can put those cute stickers on it!
And you see two kinds of cute Russian dolls. These are painted on the wood pieace and you can hang up anywhere.
There're new fabrics, too.

Enjoy shopping at Atelier JADE, Japan.
http://www.h7.dion.ne.jp/~atelierj/

Summer Greeting

Here in Japan, we have a custom to exchange a card in the mid-summer saying "Good wishes in this hot summer" for years. The weather is really hard to survive, the heat and high humidity!!
Here I found some cute stickers of the summer greeting. Goldfish is one of the symbolic animal for the summer. Very popular during the season and you see it everywhere you go, on postcards, ads, magazines, books, etc. Cute, eh?
Have a great summer days, girls!

working for the show!

These are new item to be introduced for the show next month. They're 10 sets of a placemat and a coaster with comination of Hawaiian print and Lithuania pure linen. I made them dreaming of having a cozy meal under the tropical weather in Hawaii. I think it's quite interesting to mix those two different kinds of material. What do you think, gilrs?

lately...

Sorry for a silence. Jade has been sick with flu, and we're still visiting to the otological clinic to check her ears. And I started to work on the bags I'll take to the show. I set my concept on "Holidays in Hawaii". As I mentioned to you before, my living area "Shonan" is called Japanese Hawaii, and my bags with Hawaiian print sell very well here. Now I'm making 2 kinds of the most standard styles in my shop with different colors of fabrics. Also I'll make some
Home & Decor items later on. Oops, I'll have to prepare shop's card and other promotional materials, too. But I'm now concentrating on sewing up all kinds of bags! I need more time!! You know, I still work for the German firm and I go to work to Central Tokyo almost every weekdays as I'm managing a big project to publish our latest catalog in Japanese language. So I cannot take days off at all... Need more time!

These photos are from the local botanical garden here in Kamakura. They're both Japanese wild hydrangea. Isn't it so beautiful? I love the way they displayed them, too!

I'm so excited!!

Just yesterday, I got an e-mail from a famous tezukuri artist and she's inviting me to join her trade-show next month! Lots of famous handmade artists join the show to show and sell their works!
Gosh, I'd never talked to this lady (she's well-known handmade artist making candles and other zakka in her own style and her house is introduced in many books and magazines and so COOL!!). She said she likes my style and it would be fun for me to join the event! At the last show, there were more than 2000 visitor for the 5-hour-event! Gosh, I'm so thrilled and excited. I don't have much time left and don't know what to do as this would be my very first show or event in my life to join!! I'm kinda panicking right now.

brunch at home on weekends

Since my husband and I both work, we take turn for cooking. I cook every weekdays, and he dose over the weekends! Fair, eh? Last Friday, we had our friends at home and they stayed until 3 AM!! So we had a lazy weekends at home. On Saturday, we had sunshine until the afternoon (Yes, we're in the middle of the rainy season right now!!). So we had our brunch at the patio. Isn't it great to have a meal outside with some sunshine? We just love it!!
The menu was a plate of sandwiches with bacon, cheese, fresh tomato and lettuce, cherries and banana!! Nothing special but cozy brunch at home under the sun!!
Hope you had a great weekends, too!!

Let's make Shiro-Tama Dango today!

These days, I enjoy cooking with my 3-year-old daughter every weekends. She’s so much eager to learn new things and wants to try out. I discusses with my hubby that we’ll give her a beautiful “real” houchou (Japanese cooking knife) for children as her 4th b-day gift in autumn. She’ll be thrilled

This Sunday, we made Shiro-Tama Dango (White ball Dango). Dango is one of Japanese traditional sweets made of rice powder. Curious to know the recipe? It’s so simple and easy, but I wonder if you can buy the Shiro-Tama powder in your area.
Okay, here we go!!
First of all, pour the one packet of Jyosinko (上新粉: rice powder) into a bowl and then add some warm water. Mix it up until it gets the hardness of earlobe. Make small balls about 2 – 3cm dia. Just like my daughter is doing in the photo! She did a great job on that.
Put them into boiling water and wait until they pop out from the water. I’d say it takes about 3-5 min. or so.
And rinse well with cold water. Pour some “anko” (sweet black beans) or “kinako”
(soybean flour) to serve.
Got it?
Enjoy!

The rainy season started...

Here in Japan, we've just got into the rainy season "tsu-yu" from today. Yuck. From now on we'll have lots of rain and higher humidity for a month. Sigh...
But we need it for the trees and flowers, and also for our daily water. You don't wanna know how gross the Japanese humidity is...
Okay, girls! Have a great weekends!

Shop updates!!

Finally, I finished the uploading work!! Now you can see the brand new Atelier JADE!! Let me know what you feel about it compared with the previous one. I wanted to do it on the first anniversary day (June 2), but couldn't make it!! Aagh!
Anyway, I hope you enjoy!!
http://www.h7.dion.ne.jp/~atelierj/

cross stitching!

My daughter is suffering from inflammation of middle ear again. She had an operation in Jan. and was hospitalized for a week. Every other day, we visit the local otologic clinic for the treatment. I didn't want waste the waiting time at the lobby, I started and finished my cross stitching project. It was an order from my Japanese customers as a gift.
The letter is "R". Can you see? It took me quite a lot of time as I haven't done it for a while. But it was fun!! I usually make bag or other stuffs using a sewing machine, but it's also lots of fun to make something with your own hands without any help of the machine.

and another crafty project... GREEN

I love pink as many of you already know. But I came to love green as well these days. Look what I had made for the past one week. All in green (and white)!!
The first one is a summer outfit for my 3-year-old-daughter, Jade. I don't make many clothes for her (because it takes a lot of time and patience. Oh, and skills, too!!), but one day it all came up mind all of a sudden. I mean the fabric and design of it. And here it is!! I know my instinct was just right!! I added two coconut flower shaped button and lace for her sleeves. Cute, eh?

And I made two bag with white/green fabric I found at a local store. A kind of thick canvas-like fabric with beautiful flower all over. I like this kind of print fabric a lot! I made 2 designs of bags, the smaller one to carry my Canon EOS camera with a big telephoto lens to walk around the town. And the bigger one was made-to-order for my Japanese customers.

crafty days

I know I haven't posted any crafty shots these days. I'm spending a lot of times to renovating my Atelier JADE site for a month now. I'm not a professional or anything regarding building up a website, so it's taking me so much time! But I get order for crafty works so here're some photos from my recent works.
One day I got an order from the US for 150 chopstick sleeves for a wedding!! What an exciting order! The wedding color is pink and the customer liked the pink on my Washi (Japanese Crepe Paper). I wish her a wonderful happy wedding!!

1st anniversary!

Last year I opened my 4th online shop, Atelier JADE on June 2. And I'm celebrating the first anniversay today! I thank to all of you for your support. THANK YOU and ARIGATO. I've met so many great people from all over the world and so happy about it. I'm renovating my website at the moment, and I'm hoping to upload it next week to have a fresh look. Of course, I'm adding more cute Japanese fabrics and goodies.
Okay, have a great weekends!!
xoxo
Kumi

more roses for you

These two roses are specially developed by a company in Fujisawa, a neighbor city of Kamakura. Aren't they so special? I guess they're not sold yet, but love to buy them both. So delicate and gorgeous! I love the gradation of the colors on petals.

Photos were taken by Kumi at Ohfuna Flower Center, Kamakura, Japan

Roses

What I like very much at the moment is ROSES. I cannot stop thinking about it. I've read lots of magazines and books how to choose and grow roses. But I still cannot decided which one to buy. There're too many great roses with beautiful colors. So hard to choose one or two to start with.
So I visited the local botanical garden called, Ohfuna Flower Center here in Kamakura with my daughter. This is a Kanagawa Prefectural Institute and famous for its collection of roses. And It's in our neighborhood!! There're more than 360 kinds and 1200 trees of roses. The rose garden is full of beautiful colors of roses. And of course lots of people were there!! I've never seen anything like that before. Simply gorgeous...
It's so amazing that those professional people can bloom roses so beautifully and so richly. It's an art of work!!

love for cute fabrics!!

As you may know, I collect tons of fabrics at my atelier. I don't know how many pieces I own, let's say countless. And I'm still collecting them! Nobody or nothing can stop me, he he he!!

I adore cute fabrics and here are some photos you can check at my online store.
And if you like to see them in bigger size, feel free to visit my flickr!







http://www.h7.dion.ne.jp/~atelierj/
http://flickr.com/photos/atelier_jade/