Beautiful Garden

If you are a garden lover, you must go to Flora Grubb Gardens in San Francisco. I'm a huge fan now. It is such an inspirational and wonderful place!! I was so amazed the whole time there. The beautiful collections of succulents and tillandsias are beautifully displayed and made me want to decorate my house with a lot of plants. There is also a Ritual Coffee Roasters bar, so I was hanging out there for quite a while... I tried arranging my own Aerium. It came out pretty cute and I'm very happy with it :)  I also bought the cutest succulent I've ever seen ;) I will share more about it to you later. My photos are not good enough to tell you how amazing the place was......
You must check this place out!

 

Tohoku lacquer-craft

I would like to introduce one of the great things about Tohoku, the place I grew up. A few months ago, my mom visited me in San Francisco. It was such a short stay but we had a great time. She brought a beautiful broach for me which she got in Aomori ( one of the prefecture in Tohoku) . The broach has a lacquer-tree sap finish and its a Japanese traditional craft which is called Tugaru-nuri.  Tugaru-nuri lacquer work from Aomori has always been near me growing up, I love the beauty of lacquer finish look and the power of natural materials. Also I feel very strong spirits of the craftsmen of these. I appreciate Japanese traditional  craft even more since I moved to America...

It's been already 2 years since 3/11 (Tohoku Earthquake Tsunami). I won't forget it and I will continue to do my best to support them.

Spring is almost here

New Year's day felt like it was yesterday and now it's almost the end of February. Time flies! Lately it's been very beautiful in San Francisco and I feel the spring season is coming! I have been making some new items with organic cotton 55% / hemp 45%. I will announce the new items when they are ready in my shop. Have a great weekend!

Happy New Year!

How was your holidays? I used to go back to Japan and spend new years in freezing cold Iwate(my hometown). But the last few years I didn't have chance to go back there. So I tried my best to follow the Japanese/my family tradition here in San Francisco for new years:) like detail cleaning of our whole house and cooking Zoni(mochi soup) and so on... I had a great time! Hope all of you will have a great year with full of love and happiness in 2013:)

Happy Holidays!

We did a photo shoot for our holiday greeting card the other day. We really wanted the photo to have us all looking at the camera. Of course the challenge was with Haru. We didn't have a photographer so we used a self timer. It took forever to keep Haru's attention to the camera because the camera was about 5 feet away from us. It started raining and Haru started to shiver so we almost gave up to get the perfect shot, but a miracle happened. Haru kept looking at the camera!!!!! Of course we praised him soooo much after this;) Anyways, This year has been so wonderful to me and I really appreciate all of my family, friends and the new people I have met this year. Hope you have a great holiday and a happy new year:)

My annual project

Making mini calendars has been my personal annual project since 2009. I send calendars to my family and friends as a holiday greetings. Around summer time, I start conceptualizing and sketching when I have time. And in the middle of December,  I usually rush to finish it before new year. And I get lack of sleep lol... Everything is handmade, so it takes a lot of time. But I'm always very happy to see everyone using my calendar. I would like to continue this project as long as I can. My 2013 calendar which was designed with water color paint is almost ready to ship:)

Renegade Craft Fair in San Francisco

I went to the Renegade Craft Fair over the weekend. It was packed with so many people!! I had so much fun and was inspired by many artists there. Hopefully I could join the fair as a vender sometime next year. Here is one of the things that I bought for my husband. This is called magic wallet created by Ryan Hansen from Magic Industrie. His wallets are made from vintage books, so they are all one of a kind. I was amazed when he explained how it works and I had to get it lol... My husband always carries loose cash in his pockets even if he has a wallet. So I thought it would be a perfect one for him:) He loved it!!!