My heads not screwed on right

I had planned to mention this on the last post but completely forgot - sorry Jacqui!

If sewing or fabric isn't your thing, or even if it is and you are looking for some inspiration, Jacqui AKA Meeabee is also having a giveaway, she has a pile of great postcards and brochures that she has up for grabs, pop over and leave a comment for a chance to get your grubby little mitts on them :o)

A Box Of Goodies and a giveaway

The other day, this large box arrived. It turned out that it was from my husbands sister-in-law's mother. It is full of fabric from her mother's house. The mother's mother passed away several years back, she was a seamstress and dealt in fabric and notions and when they were sorting out her things they came across these bits and bobs and decided to send them to me! Yippee.

There was quite a lot of fabric, I am not entirely sure what most of it, some of it is the fabric used for yukata and kimono.
and there are some random prints and quilted fabric
Then a big pile of this bleached fabric, apparently she used to bleach the fabric and then hand dye it, the red and blue is hand dyed. I have already had a play with some of this, it is great for stamping on :o)
and then there is this, I am making an educated guess that it is the fabric used for the lining of kimono sleeves, a Japanese friend came round and I asked her what she thought it was and she said the same thing. I also have some old kimono's that my SIL gave me a couple of years back, they were all damaged a little so she gave me them to cut up and use. hmmm what to do with it all.
Would you like some? A surprised, mixed bag of Japanese vintage fabrics? If you would, leave a comment telling me what you would you do with this box of goodies and I will pick a winner next Tuesday the 6th. If you tweet or blog about it come back and leave another comment telling me you have done so, this will ensure you get another entry.

Apple Cupcakes #4

I saw this idea ages ago on Melissa's blog, she did it as her postcard snack recipe. At the time the only apples we could buy were your standard massive Japanese sized one but when we went camping I spotted a bag of 'English' sized apples (by that I mean apples that are the right size for one person to eat, not a massive one that has to be shared between the family!).

Apple Cup Cakes

you will need:

an apple

peanut butter

something to decorate - sprinkles, raisins etc.

I cut the apple in half and removed the pips.

Ebi-kun spread peanut butter on the top of one of the apple halves

Then added some sprinkles
here is the compulsory cup cake close up (come on, you know what I mean!)
then eat!
Testers comments: spreading the peanut butter is difficult, it keeps sliding. tastes good, can we make it again tomorrow?

Assistants comments: Ebi-kun wasn't happy about eating the skin, usually people peel apples in Japan. Personally, I wasn't fussed on the apple/peanut butter combo but I would like to try cream cheese and pineapple next time.

I have been slacking off with the snack time posts, since getting back from the UK, yes, that was the end of June, I have found it hard to get back into the swing of things, I am going to try harder, promise! We haven't even tried out all the recipes yet, tut tut tut.

Japanese Anime

I found this fabric a couple of weeks ago but then forgot to take photos of it, anyway, it is super kawaii and if you like Japanese anime I am sure you will love it!

Available in the shop now, and I only have 2 yds of it so get your skates on!

New Stamps

I am probably the last person to find out about these cool polymer stamps but just on the off chance that I am not I will share about my new favourite toy! I wanted some stamps to use for the shop, things like my address to stamp onto envelopes and stamps to make thank you cards with. Well, as you know I like carving my own stamps but doing something like my address would be too fiddly so I started looking on Etsy and came across onefourzero. I ordered a design your own A5 sheet and used a mixture of designs, some hand drawn and some computer generated, they arrived yesterday and I am more than happy with them. They come on a plasticy sheet and you just cut out the stamps, peel off the backing and then they cling to an acrylic block.

This means you can place several smaller stamps on one block

and because the acrylic is clear it easy to place a second stamp over the first. I made a blank rocket and then had different words I can stamp inside, works a treat!

Plus, the stamps just stick to a laminated sheet for easy storage which takes up next to no space. LOVE IT! I can recommend onefourzero, excellent customer service and I will be back for more. Now, you should pop over to my shop and order that item you have been eyeing up so I have an excuse to play with all these new stamps :o)

off to the farm

The second day at camp we wen to 'Green Bokojo' or green farm, it was actually smaller than we expected but we had a good day.

there was pony riding

petting animals

milking cows

watching a sheep dog show

meeting the start of the show 'Jim'

Ebi-kun has a bag of wool in hand from when they sheared a sheep.

It should be a fun activity learning how to clean it.

The farm was fun, it always seems odd to me, paying to milk and cow and the such like since I grew up next to a dairy farm. Ebi-kun said the best bit was milking a cow :o).

This was where we were camped, it was actually a free camp place so we could pick where to pitch the tent and we were allowed to park next to the tent. The annoying thing was that we had friends who wanted to come too but the campsite told them that they were fully booked, we could have easily got another tent behind ours and although the Sunday and Monday were really busy there was still plenty of room.

I had a bit of a shock one morning when I opened the car door, this is a picture of the shelf above the glove compartment, can you tell what is behind the sweetie wrappers?

A TOAD!

we still have no idea how he got into the car

or how he managed to get onto that shelf

Bookplate

We have an English playgroup in the area we live in, all the children are being raised to be bilingual and have at least one native speaking parent. We get together for celebrations such as Easter, Christmas and Halloween and also have picnics and parties and the occasional camp. We recently came up with an idea for the kids birthday for the parent of the birthday child to buy a book and add a bookplate then all the kids can sign the inside of the cover. We split the cost of the book between those who attend the party.

I offered to make a bookplate, so the one below is an adaptation, the text is different in the playgroup one. I like book plates, they make the book special, I remember having several books when I was a kid, some were Sunday school presents, others were school prizes or special gifts from friends. I hope the playgroup kids will feel the same with their books.

Feel free to download it and use yourself, they are for personal use only and in two sizes, the bigger one being more suited to a picture book. I am not sure how this works on a Windows machine, if you have a Mac, click on the image, it will open a new window and have it at full size. Click your mouse onto the image and drag it onto the desk top then you can print as usual.

Lockheart Castle

We had a great time camping, we picked a new campsite to try out, one of the main reasons was that it was near Lockheart castle. This is an actual Scottish castle that was disassembled and shipped via the Siberian railway all the way to Gunma where is was re-built. It was quite odd for me to wander around the grounds, I felt like I was at a National trust place, even the shop inside the castle had that National Trust feel about, they even sold tea-towels with the kings and queens of Scotland on it!

Ebi-kun enjoyed most of it, with his current obsession of knights, there was a lot of role playing going on, I wish I had packed his knight outfit for him to wear.
The castle is a popular wedding location and there are these little heart hung all over the place in and around the castle.
There were a couple of odd things, there was Teddy's House which was basically a house with a couple of rooms filled with teddy bears, and inside the castle there were 3 rooms filled with Santa's. I found out later that a famous actor (sorry, can't remember his name) funded the castle move and the Santa's and bears are part of his private collection. I suppose building somewhere in the wilds of Gunma was a good idea, I can't imagine there would be much room for them in a small Tokyo apartment.
The best thing though, was Ebi-kun meeting a knight, the entrance fee alone was worth this expression on his face - one very happy little chappie. Shhh don't tell him it was actually a suit of armour!

As you can see, we are back, I am just trying catch up, clean up and generally get myself organised. Today is another national holiday so daddy-ebi has taken Sir ebi-kun to the park for a few hours and I am trying to decided what to do first, put the kettle on, that's a start....

Dulce De Leche

Ohhh yum, have you ever tried this stuff? We got hooked when we were living in Ecuador. It is easy to make too, I made a whole load when I came back from Ecuador by boiling the cans of condensed milk, but it is rather dangerous and takes about 3 hours. THEN the other day, I found a much easier way to make it.

You Need:

a tin of sweetened condensed milk

a microwave safe, deep bowl

a microwave !

and a whisk

Pour the condensed milk into the bowl, cook on 600w for 5 minutes, keep an eye on it, it will bubble up and if you're not careful make a right mess of your microwave. Whisk for a minute, return to oven, cook in spates of 2 minutes at 500w, each time, give it another whisk. You will notice it getting thicker, when you get as thick as you like it, stop and allow to cool. I cooked mine for about 15 minutes or so. Spoon into a jar. Don't worry about it going off, it won't last that long LOL.

Enjoy on freshly baked bread, also good on ice-cream. How do you eat yours?

Meg's new Book

I can't wait to get my hands on Meg's new book Sew Liberated. I have already pre-ordered my copy, you can pre-order yours at the Book Depository* (free worldwide shipping) or pop over to Meg's lovely new site and order a signed copy there!

I have a soft spot for Meg, it has to be said, I started reading her first blog a few posts after she started it, she guided me through the first part of my Montessori journey and inspired to start sewing again. Meg was also the first person I did a swap with, I sent her lots of Japanese goodies and in return she sent us some lovely things from Mexico.

She really is a lovely, kind and warm person, she is one of my bloggy friends I would love to spend a lazy afternoon with, supping cocoa and chatting, doing a bit of sewing.... maybe one day!

I hope her book does well, I am sure it will be a good read as well having some great projects, it will be an early birthday present to me from me LOL.

*the description on the Book Depository says 30 projects in the book but actually there are 20.

Off to the mountains

It is a long weekend here in Japan, so we have packed up the car and we are heading to the mountains, probably the last camping trip of the year. I have scheduled post or two, just so you won't miss me, one has turned out really long and I haven't quite finished, not sure if I will have time to finish it, we'll see.

Hope you all have a fab weekend too, see you next week.

I have been featured....

Well the footie pitch I made has over on

Ohdeedoh

Have you been over there? It's a lovely site with lots of beautiful ideas, I am honoured to be featured, off to do a happy dance round the living room.....

Scavenger Hunt

A couple of months ago a new yahoo group was started for Montessorians to organise swaps. You know I like a swap or too! I haven't had the time to organise one for quite a while, it is a time consuming process and I don't like to do things half heartedly.

Anyway, Colleen, one of the regulars for the swaps I have organised in the past, started a virtual swap, the brief was to take photographs of signs in and around where you live. I thought this would be fun to do but our camera was out of action, we got the camera back but by that time I had completely forgotten about the swap! Well, we did eventually get round to it, I let Ebi-kun have the camera so most of the pictures are taken by him whilst sitting on the back of the bicycle, hence the strange shots :o)

I have uploaded the rest of the pictures to Flickr, find them here. If you are interested in organising your own swap, then sign up for the ContinentSwap group.

JUMP

I didn't have time to do a post this morning. Daddy Ebi had to work Saturday, so he took today off, so we decided to go to Shinrin Koen for the day. It is a massive park about an hours drive away. It is 304ha, 1km wide and 4km long and you could spend a week there and not get bored.

We started off at the assault course, 22 different pieces of equipment to go at, it is supposed to be for elementary (age 6 and up) kids but I don't believe in labelling things with an age limit, unless it is obviously dangerous for an under sized child to use, I think children should be encourage to try and naturally children try to push their limits, so we did the whole course, there were a few things that Ebi-kun decided not to do or he wasn't tall/strong enough, he loved it though.

Then we took the little bus over to another part of the park, we had a picnic lunch and got the kite out, daddy-ebi had fun running up and down the field with it whilst Ebi-kun...

made friends with a tiny frog, he might have been tiny but he could j-u-m-p for Japan.

then....we made it to the giant bouncy white mountain, this thing is fab, like a trampoline but better. At the weekend the park is really busy so the little kids run the risk of near death trying to go on with the big kids, but most of the big kids were at school so the little ones were loving it....

and so were the daddies....

and the mommies.....

sometimes, you just have to let the big kid inside you out, for an hour of jumping and bouncing (and I am sure I will be paying for it tomorrow!)

Boys will be Boys

BLAST OFF!!

he then raced round the room making farting noises!

A bit of this and a bit of that!

This post is a bit of a jumble, a bit of a waffle if you like.

Wednesday, I took Ebi-kun to Nippori with me, a brave act but he was really well behaved and helped me find what I needed. The shops were not very busy and it ended up being a great tactile experience, he went along feeling all the different types of fabric and explaining how they felt or comparing them to things from home. It turned out to be a successful trip and I managed to get everything on my list. Before we left, I took Ebi-kun into the bargain basement, where the rolls of fabric are ¥100 a metre ($1/ 65p) and told him to pick which one he liked, but it has to be light weight. He choose this one with tigers all over it, I splashed out and got 4m. When we got home I cut it in half and sewed it together to make a square, added some loops of elastic on the corners and hemmed the edges. Took about 15 minutes all in all. And now he has a tent making sheet.

Here is Sir Ebi-kun (as he likes to be addressed) in his new castle with some essential knightly reading - living in space and a book about clownfish. ¥400 well spent!

A couple of days ago I read Meg's post about her crafting shelf collapsing and then One Pretty Thing did a round up of lovely crafty rooms - so I thought I would share my space.....
It is actually the kitchen work top and so I have to clear it all up to do dinner, I think I spend more time setting up and cleaning up than I do actually sewing!

I am working on a great project at the moment, it has really got my imagination going and I am also in the midst of putting together a rocket-bag pattern, a simplified version of the original. I will be needing pattern testers at some point.

Then, totally un-related. Ebi-kun got his play-doh out yesterday, we keep the dough in tupperware type boxes, he opened the first, then the second one he asked me why it had changed colour, when I went over to see, this is what was inside. Yup, mold, but quite pretty mold don't you think? Obviously the lid hadn't been put on properly - oh well.
And there we have it, a messy, mold, tenty type of post - I did warn you :o)

That Little Bit Greener

The theme this week is cleaning products. I bought Clean House, Clean Planet a few years back and tried out many of the ideas that she suggests. Things I did and stuck with...

• use rags for cleaning and change to microfibre dusters - they can be thrown in the wash
• use soda water as a window/glass cleaner
• use baking soda where-ever possible - this is great for cleaning the microwave and the stove top as well as taking away stinky smells. Top tip, if you have a stain on the hob/over that won't come off, sprinkle with baking soda and a drop of water, then rub whilst wearing rubber gloves, works a treat especially on IH stoves.
• use vinegar, water and essential oils mix as a general surface cleaner

I did try and eliminate all chemicals but ran into some problems.

• Summer in Japan are very humid and it breeds mold, the only way I have found to keep the bathroom mold free is a weekly clean with bleach, it is my least favourite job but I tried many a different cleaner and bleach is the only one that worked. The toilet gets a once a week bleach treatment too. The rest of the time I use vinegar and baking soda but noticed that it needs a stronger cleaner once in a while.
• laundry detergent - we used an eco one for a while but it disappeared from the stores and the only one I have found recently is really expensive so we are back to the usual.
• Dishwasher detergent - I tend to mix in half detergent and half baking soda but would like a more eco way of doing it, any ideas?
• washing up liquid - again, we used to use the eco one until it disappeared.

Of course, the best way to reduce all these chemical cleaners would be to not do any cleaning! I wish I could pull that one off LOL. So, what are your best eco cleaning tips? I'd like to eliminate the chemicals completely (or at least use a greener version) with the exception of the bath bleach.

Now pop over to A Little Bit Greener and see what else is cleaning with..

Live happy

I just stumbled across this post on 37days. It is a set of 5 videos about a teacher in Japan, truly inspiring, if only all teachers were like this. It is not something that can be leant at teacher college or from a text book but I think we can all take a leaf from his book. I hope that when Ebi-kun reaches school, he will also find a teacher like this.

Make yourself a cuppa, get the hankies at the ready then click over here.

New Bags

This is one of the five new bags I have just put in the shop, go and check them out, all different but all so cute - would make great little Christmas gifts. I know, it's still September but there are those who like to buy their presents early - like my aunt, who has probably finished all her Christmas shopping already!

MTD

Tonight's MTD was put together (under instruction from) Ebi-kun

We have the taco wiener posse

and the funky banana gang

plus a dancing clown

so, taco wieners on corn, rice balls made with chicken and veg steamed rice, grapes and salad (can't have a meal without salad, not unless you want a screaming child on your hands...!)

Now pop over and see what Michelle is having and if you want to order bento supplies

the link is over there ------>

operation trapped leg

I forgot to mention that Friday evening Ebi-kun got his leg stuck in his chair. He is looking quite happy in the photo but he was close to tears, luckily I found an allen key that fit so I could take the chair apart, the idea of firemen and big saws did cross my mind though!

Saturday stitching

Way back in March, I won a pattern for a cute EMO/goth doll by Melly and Me, well, it has taken me this long to get round to making it! Daddy-ebi took Ebi-kun off to football practice Saturday which gave me some quality sewing time :o). So her she is...

EMOtional Anna and SeBATstian

She was really easy to put together and the instructions were clear and simple to follow. I picked up some new techniques, which is always good! Even though, when I was reading the instructions I was sitting there thinking 'do what?' But once I had done it, I had one of those 'aha' moments! I made her using bits from out of my stash, another plus. The patterned fabric was given to me by Kym, I am sure when she bought it she didn't think it would end up as a goth doll. My only gripe was that although the requirements on the back of the pattern were in metric and imperial, when I started working through the pattern it was suddenly all imperial, and although I have no problem using inches, I grew up using both, I don't have anything in the house with inches on it, Japan is very much a metric country. So I had to sit and convert everything which was a bit of a pain. That said, I loved the pattern and the doll is mine, all mine, just need to find a home for her.

And recently the lovely Melly gave away a cute stitchery doll pattern. My gran, great-grandmother and great aunt were all excellent at embroidery, My gran would say that you could tell how good someone was by looking at the back, if it looked as neat as the front then you were doing a good job. I'm not quite there but I am always thinking about it when I embroider, it's not too shabby though :o) (the one on the right is the back LOL)

She did start out with the intention of being made into a doll but she ended up as a bag.....

So, if you haven't made it to Melly's blog yet, get over there, she has some really cute patterns and a book, not only that, she has a talented sister too, Rosie, who designs lovely fabric.

The final thing I made was a new basket cover for my bike, the last baa-chan-silver-revolting-thing finally fell apart and when I saw this funky material last week I had to get it, it is the fabric you use to make umbrellas with, it wasn't as bad to sew with as I expected and I am very happy with my funky new look.
Ebi-kun is enjoying the football practice and I am enjoying the bit of 'me' time, Ebi-kun has been really hard work the last few weeks, tantrums ahoy, John McEnroe has nothing on this kid. I used to be able to judge when we were about to have a meltdown but these come out of the blue and seem to be over nothing, by the end of the week I need a break! Anyway, I am hoping daddy-ebi is happy to keep taking him off on a Saturday, I can get so much more done!

Sorry to keep harping on...

I have put most of the new fabrics in the shop, I will be adding the Christmassy prints tomorrow or maybe later today if I get half a chance. So no picture, if you want to see what there is you will have to pop over and have a look :o)

Item of the day - musical panda's

How cute are these little guys? Not sure what kind of tunes they are making but it looks like fun. Quilting weight cotton on a white background, available in the shop now!