Daft Christmas Jokes...

I made a printout with some silly jokes, one for each of the advent stockings for Ebi-kun, if you would like a copy you can print it out here.

Daft Xmas Jokes

Sweeties

This is the post where I post far too many pictures of a sweetie/candy/lolly box! But just look at them, how cute are they? and it gets better.....

Of course, this little red panda is my favourite, you know I have a soft spot for red pandas. Now, as if the packaging isn't cute enough, just wait to see what else the box does....

Carefully open the box and take out the sweeties....

Pop the sweeties into the back of the box....

Close it up, then carefully...

Pull down the flap...

Put the box down... and your little red panda will poop a grape flavoured chocolate (which incidentally tastes foul but who cares when the packaging is so darn cute?

little purse

Yesterday, and today by the looks of it, was cold, wet and miserable so I got my emails and computery jobs out of the way then spent the rest of the time sitting on the heated floor, with a hot drink, doing some felty stitchery and trying out some new ideas. I love this fringed effect but I discovered it doesn't work so well with fleece, back to the drawing board with that one.

Today, I WILL finish off the latest pattern I am working on, I hate having a break from pattern writing, I find it so hard to get back into it but it only needs editing and the photos for the cover and it is done, then I can get back to stitching...

New favourite drink

We picked up this yuzu drink a couple of weeks ago, it is basically like marmalade, you put a spoon of it in your mug, add hot water and stir. Surprisingly lovely, who would have thought of making jam into a drink? The Koreans apparently! What is your favourite wintery drink?

Aki matsuri

Sunday was the yochien aki matsuri (autumn fair). We had to be there bright and early to help set up and then I was on yaki-soba selling duties. It was already made and boxed up, all I had to do was pop it in a bag with some chopsticks and we sold out in 40 minutes - yee haa! 

Each class has a stall, they have some kind of food to sell and some kind of game of activity for the kids to join in with. So, apart from the yaki-soba our stall had the kids making masks and other small toys. They charge the kids ¥10~30 for each activity, I gave Ebi-kun about ¥200 before we arrived and told him to spend what he liked. He said he would save some to put some in his money box to go towards the Lego he wants!

Ebi-kun and his best friend making masks

the scary duo!
and no, mum doesn't cut his hair - daddy does!

One of the classes run a treasure hunt, you have a sheet with various famous books on it and you have to find moms that are wearing the matching book placard, when you find her she will stamp your card. Once the card is filled you win a prize.

The yochien also has various mamas circles so some of them had stalls too, selling things that they have made. I found it rather amusing that one stall was selling Christmas decorations, the yochien is part of a Shinto shrine! Those that hadn't had chance to view the artwork are free to do so all day, it was really busy, kids running round excitedly, spending money like it was going out of fashion. All the money raised this year will go to the victims of the earthquake.

And yes, Ebi-kun did save some of him money and it went straight to the money box as soon as he got home.

THE Art Show....

It has been a busy few days, starting with Thursday when I had to go into the yochien to prepare for the art show, which entailed sticking all the kids art work onto pieces of brown paper, we had little card rulers to that they were spaced properly then all the big sheets are hung. Every classroom and the main hall is turned into part of the gallery.

The yochien is very much into art and this year I understood more of what goes into it all. For the cows, the older classes go out for the morning on the bus to where ever the cows are. They take their oil pastels and sketch the cow they want to paint, then when they get back to the yochien they paint the cows and these are big pieces of paper! and the kids are encouraged to fill the whole paper. It was amusing to see how many kids had included their cow doing their 'business'

This is the main hall. The yochien also invites three artist to view all the work. One is a sculptor, one a book illustrator and the third an artist. They mark the kids work with stickers, Ebi-kun got a couple of gold stickers so he was very chuffed. They don't however have a grand prize or make it anyway competitive.

The older kids also get to paint on glass, first they do a test painting then some kids are give the big pieces to paint on, Ebi-kun actually missed the glass painting day but sensei let him do one another day.

This is ebi-kuns whale, you can choose whether to buy the glass painting if not the glass gets cleaned and used the next year.

They also do carving and printmaking, these ones are carved in wood, my mind boggles to thing of 20 small children, one sensei and lots of sharp carving tools! 

The yochien has quite an menagerie of animals and birds so the kids get to study the various creatures, they have 3 peacocks so for this picture Ebi-kun sat outside with his pastels and drew the peacock, the male is a right poser and almost always has his tail out. Ebi-kun says that in the morning when the kids arrive by bus the peacock is always showing off his tail - so cool!

A wall of sunflowers, the kids study these in the garden then come back to paint but they are free to go out and look again if they want to.

They also do abstract work, these are using oil pastel (favoured at yochiens here over wax crayons and after using them myself I understand why, they are far more vibrant and softer to use)

Plus mosaics made from fabric scraps, last year they did something similar but with paper.

And finally, the clay room. This is ebi-kuns stegosaurus for which he got a gold sticker, again you have the option to buy them but they are not fired, it weighs a tonne and we have no where to keep it so I took a load of photos instead! Once I get all his artwork back at the end of the year I will make a new art book like this one.

The whole event is taken very seriously, the yochien is open for viewing for three days and in each class there is a beautiful flower display, I think they are done by the ikabana mothers circle. Yesterday was the autumn festival, more on that tomorrow then Wednesday I have to go in again and clean everything up.

A few favourite books....

I rely heavily on book reviews for choosing books for Ebi-kun and so I would like to share a few of our favourite books with you. The first is Dragonology, there are many of these books in the series and we were so impressed with the book that I have ordered the Pirateology book for Christmas and my mom has ordered the Wizardology one. There are lots of others too, Egyptology, Monsterology.....

The book is written like an old fashioned study book with all kinds on notes and information about dragons around the world. There are dragons skin samples and lift the flaps sections, quite a lot of information fits into the book but it is broken down so you can just dip in and out. The message within the book is that dragons are an endangered species and therefore we should protect them not slay them. The whole book is beautifully illustrated and I am sure it will be a firm favourite for years to come. I can't wait to look through the other ology books!

Ebi-kun says: I like that it has lots of types of dragons and information and tells you where the dragons are from and stuff.

Available on Amazon or the Book Depository (free international shipping)

Next up, The Boys Book Of Survival, this is quite an amusing book, written in the style of a 1960's guide book for boys. There are sensible pieces on things like how to make a tracking stick, how to make a ladder, how to send an SOS, and how to use a compass, the sort of things that you hope soak in so that if they are caught in a situation they will know what to do but these are interspersed with things like How to survive a zombie attack, how to stage a jail break, how to survive at a school disco. Some of this advice is a bit too old for Ebi-kun but he enjoys reading it and often takes in to read when we are out in the car. Daddy-ebi and myself have enjoyed reading this too although when I bought it I was hoping it would be more like a scout manual with camping type of advice and info in it, it has some of that, a good chunk of tongue in cheek and some just down-right silly stuff, perfect for a boy!

Ebi-kun says: It is full of funny things and helpful things too.

Available on Amazon or the Book Depository (free international shipping)

Finally, re-bound by Jeannie Stein which is a book about book binding/book making. What I like about this is that there are lots of ideas on how to repurpose things to make them into new books or journals, I have only tried out the simple ideas so far but considering how much packaging we get through I really like the idea of making some of it into something useful. There is a section with templates and instructions and then a gallery when various artists have recycled things to make new books which is a good place to start when needing a bit of inspiration. There is also a good breakdown of bookmakers equipment, which I found quite useful. I am hoping when things have quietened down a bit I will have time to try some of the more difficult looking projects.

Available on Amazon or the Book Depository (free international shipping)

A new gadget...

I bought a new ruler the other day, but it is a special ruler, there are holes in it so you can draw circles but that isn't why I bought it. I got it for the nifty staple section at the end. Hands up those who have gone to staple a booklet together and the stapler hasn't been long enough so then you have to try and roll up the booklet to fit it in or risk stapling the table? Well you would love this too and it was a lot cheaper than a long arm stapler, I think it was ¥200

With this, you slide your booklet in, you can use the markings they give for bigger booklets, mine was smaller though so I guestimated it.

Then staple away! simple. love it. I had printed off some colouring sheets from Patterns For Colouring and we took the booklet away at the weekend, the site had loads of patterns to colour, I had forgotten how relaxing just colouring in can be!

Close Up...

My brother gave ebi-kun a microscope set a couple of years back, usually I have to set it up but he can pretty much do it and get things in focus by himself now. We started off at looking at the sugar crystals, then got out the flowers from the press, they were really cool, then he went outside to see what other small things he could find. Daddy arrived home half way through our experimentation so we had to do it all again with him.

Other news, just before we went to Hakone I managed to break the sewing machine, the engineer came out but couldn't reach the tiny spring that had fallen inside so he had to take it off to the sewing machine hospital. He did leave me another to use so at least I could get the custom order I was working on finished. *phew*

Most of the time I love Ebi-kun's yochien but not this week. Saturday and Sunday is the autumn festival so this week, Tuesday was a half day, Wednesday a national holiday (can't hold that against them), Thursday there is no yochien but the moms have to go in to prepare for the festival, Friday a day off. Saturday and Sunday we have to go to the festival then Monday and Tuesday are off and Wednesday I have to go in again to clean up after the festival. Basically a whole week of faffing around, this alone is enough of a deterrent for having a second child, you can bet you life that the work that needs doing could be done in an hour but it will take at least three. grumble, grumble, grumble.....

You know it's coming....

BLACK

FRIDAY

or shopping spree in other words! and for my lovely readers, place an order from my shop between now and Saturday and I will refund you 10% as long as you tell me that you are a blog reader in the message to seller box.

A blast from the past...

Here is Ebi-kun at two and half months old, front seat of the Romance Car, he obviously wasn't impressed by the weather either!

Hakone - homeward bound....

We had a couple of hours free in the morning so we decided to try the ropeway again since the weather was a bit clearer in the morning, the trees are changing colour so the view is quite spectacular. We just went up to the top and jumped on another car coming down, then we caught the train and headed back to the main station where we needed to catch the Romance Car.

First though, we had to buy omiyagi (souvenirs), the Japanese have got this down to a fine art form. Each area sells things that they are famous for and it is custom to take omiyagi for your co-workers, even if it was just a day trip! I thought these little bentos made of candy were cute...

This is kamoboko - a type of fish cake, you cut slices from the block so you would have police car slices, doesn't look very appetizing to me but I can see little boys loving it in their bento boxes. Ebi-kun was in his element trying all the samples, the kid loves trying new things!

And here it is, the Romance Car, I'm still not sure what is romantic about it, if the seats were all red velvet with heart shaped cushions I would get it. The driver sits in that bit at the top so the people at the front get a cool view, we were 2nd row back this time.

We finally got a peak at Fuji-san too, I was expecting more snow on her.

Of course we had to have the Romance Car bento and chopsticks, at least they are washable and we can use them again. 

All in all it was a great break, could have done without all the rain but never mind. Came back down to earth with a bump when we got to the supermarket and discovered that 90% of the fruit and veg is from the affected areas, we seem to be getting less from Hokkaido and Kyushu, it makes meal planning impossible and every night I feel like I am on an episode of Ready, Steady Cook! time to look at ordering our veg online I think.

Sugar Crystals

We took the sugar crystals out of the solution yesterday and let them dry, they are so pretty! We will try and look at them with the microscope later.