Happy Package!

It's always a happy thing to receive packages, especially from my families and friends from Japan. I just received a package from my aunt yesterday, it's full of Japanese snacks and food! I love these cute cookies made by her friend's daughter, they are so cute, so buttery and not too sweet!

Tea Calendar (カレンダーティーパック)

{images via trendhunter.com}

I like this adorable idea of the Calendar Teabags designed by Cho Hee Ha. A variety of teas are packaged in for the dates of that month. A novel idea for tea buffs and those who appreciate niche products. This makes the whole drinking tea session a little more fun. Have Earl Grey one day and Darjeeling Oolongs the other--- you never know what you are going to get!

Chocolate Pencils (チョコレート色鉛筆)

{images via Nendo}

I came across another beautiful chocolate today, the Chocolate Pencils.

Chocolate-pencils is a collaboration between Design Studio Nendo with patissier Tsujiguchi Hironobu (辻口博啓), the mastermind behind popular dessert shops like Mont St. Claire and Le Chocolat de H. He created a new dessert based on his impression of Nendo, and Nendo designed new tableware for the dessert.

The chocolate pencils come in a number of cocoa blends that vary in intensity, and chocophiles can use the special pencil sharpener that comes with the plate to grate chocolate onto their dessert. Pencil filings are usually the unwanted remains of sharpening a pencil, but in this case, they're the star!

Better not eat this in front of very small children so as not to confuse them!

Chocolate Pie Chart

{images via Mary & Matt's}

Made of 70% milk, 20% dark and 10% white chocolate, the Chocolate Pie Chart looks so gorgeous and yummy. If I may, I would like to make it 75% dark, 20% milk and 5% white chocolate, cause to me, white chocolate is not chocolate. But I also think it's necessary to have some on the chart so it looks pretty.... Available at Mary & Matt's General Store.

Magazine Wall (雑誌の壁)

Do you collect magazines? If you do and you have tones of them, you can do this: make it a wall!

Designed by Elding Oscarson, the interior walls of this graphic design office in Stockholm are made up of literally thousands of magazines! I like how this original idea of a wallpaper reflects on a creative business company. Simple yet stunning!

{images via vectroave.com}

Announcement

{image via Fosten Greetings}

As many of you already know, the Japanese masking tape company MT has a new exclusive distributor in US now, which means I won't be able to sale the tapes I brought back from Japan on Etsy once my current inventory is gone. The new overseas version of the tape is 10m long while the Japanese version is 15m. I also won't be able to sale the new designs since it's not open to the overseas market yet. If you want these tapes, act now while they are still available!

Letterpress Dice Prints (サイコロポスター)

{images via Stukenborg}

These letterpress dice prints by Stukenborg are stunning! These are printed by hand in his studio. The compositions were built by arranging 720 dice on the bed of the press, and ink was rolled directly onto the face of the die for each impression. It is printed on a very light green Japanese handmade paper called Kitakata (喜多方紙), which has a deckle on all four edges.

This is absolutely lovely, such a simple idea with a beautiful outcome. I would like to have one in my living room! Isn’t letterpress great?

Umbrella Street (傘の町)

[via fuluk]

[via fuluk & Josè Rafael Navarro]

[via lizuc]

I saw this post on Lilli's blog That Saturday dot com and I just have to re-post it! J and I have been thinking about going to Spain for a long time but we haven't have time to make it happen. I want to go to Spain, of course for the architecture of Barcelona or the streets of Madrid, but I didn't know about this Umbrella Street in Alicante, Spain until now. When I saw these images I was overwhelmed. To tell the truth, I am not a romantic girl who likes rain. Usually unbrella made me sad because it associated with gray, rainy days….But this one is totally different! These made me feel happy, isn’t it amazing?

MT's Newest Masking Tapes!

{Red and Blue Tiles}

{Green and Lavender Colorful Dots}

{Red and Blue Marbles}

{Red and Green with Gold Diamond}

{Red and Light Blue with Cross}

{Colorful Stripes}

{ Pink and Yellow Argyll}

Finally I received my shippment of MT's newest masking tapes. I have posted part of them to my Etsy shop and will post them all by next week. Here are sneak peeks. If you are interested, please click here!

Gummy Bears (ガミーベア)

I have this horrible addiction to gummy bears. I cannot eat just one and stop. I can't eat 10 and stop. I have a ritual where I need to alternate different colored gummies--first the lighter one, then the darker colored one. There's no rhyme or reason for this insane behavior... I just do it. So on any given day when I've indulged myself into buying them...which isn't too often nowadays since they are not good for my teeth, I'll start out with the clear one, then move to the yellow, then the orange, then the red, then the green... etc. You get the point. Believe it or not, the first time I encountered these gummy bears was in a Zakka store in Japan. Why in a Zakka store? I am not so sure, I think it's because at that time only Zakka stores imported foreigh candies...? In the beginning I didn't think I would like this stuff in that they looked weird and it seemed cruel to chew on the little bears. But once I tried it, I got hooked.

Who created these tiny chewy morsels of pure sugar heaven? According to Wikipedia, the gummi bear originates from Germany where it is popular under the name Gummibar (rubber bear) or Gummibarchen (little rubber bear). As I write this, I am chewing on Gummy Sour Worms.... This is my new addiction, and I thought I'd expand my universe....