Japan souvenirs - paper and craft items

Here are some more of my souvenirs from Japan. Kyoto truly was my idea of shopping paradise, and the paper and craft items in particular were irresistible!

Postcards, tiny envelopes etc. I love the graphic style of these. Many of them were bought from a lovely shop in Shinkyogoku arcade that I remembered from my previous trip to Japan. The envelope with the horse was to celebrate the new year, which is the year of the horse. The shops had lots of cards, rubber stamps, ornaments, etc with horse designs.

A little rubber stamp shop in Shinkyogoku arcade was another shop I remembered from last time. That's where I got all the stamps in the middle. The circle and square stamps at the back are made up of tiny dots, and in the shop there were some good examples of these being used as backgrounds on cards. The green and blue blocks on the left are for carving my own stamps, and I couldn't resist the Totoro stamps which I bought on the way to Kiyomizu Temple.

 These were some lovely gifts that my friend Miki gave me - a notepad, calendar and gold paint.

These are Hanafuda cards, or flower cards, and are a type of playing card. I've always wanted a set, because of their beautiful designs, so I was looking out for them. I found these in the shop at the Museum of Traditional Crafts at the Miyako Messe Hall, and they are even more interesting than the standard hanafuda cards, as they show various Kyoto landmarks.