Hair baubles

I love these clear hair baubles with dried flowers embedded in them (even though my hair is not long enough to wear them at the moment!). I'm pleased with how the drawing has come out (apart from the fact that the cubes look different sizes!).

Mr Chin

This is Mr Chin (or more correctly King Chin), one of a set of two fridge magnets by Alessi in collaboration with the National Palace Museum Taiwan. I've been a big fan of the Chin Family range for a while, so I was delighted when my parents got me these magnets.

New toys

A new little camera to keep in my handbag on the days that I don't need my big camera - just in case I see anything I want to photograph, and for taking to concerts and on nights out.

Also, cute Piu Piu birds from www.pylones.com in France. I fell in love with these little birds after first seeing them in the paintings on parisbreakfasts.blogspot.com/ . When I saw them on another blog last week I decided to see if I could order them online, and they arrived from France today, just three days later!

Not only are they cute, but they are also magnetic, and can be used to hold paper clips or pins. They also make a cheeping noise when they are held.

Five-a-day bento bag

This is roughly based on Kate's Notebook Lunchbag on Design Sponge. When I saw it I knew I had the perfect fabric.

I made it smaller, because I wanted to use an old pillowcase. Using the pillowcase saved me sewing a lot of the seams! I embroidered the writing rather than using a marker pen, partly because I did not have a fabric marker, and partly because I thought it would look cuter!

The bag is a good size for my Japanese bento box and a piece of fruit, although I didn't really design it that way. I wish I had added some sort of handles, as they would have made it more practical. But I can always add some in the future.



As I did the embroidery it occurred to me that the last time I embroidered text was in my final year at primary school when I made a wall-hanging with the names of many of the pupils in my class, as a leaving present for the teachers. I used a piece of yellow tie-died fabric and embroidered the shape of a flower, with the names as the petals, leaves and stem.

Also as I did the embroidery I found myself thinking of some of Andrea Joseph's illustrations, in particular this one.

Lanterns

My latest set of decorations for my Ikea tree are little paper lanterns. Now I have decorations for every season - eggs for spring, paper cranes for summer, lanterns for autumn, and rustic hearts for winter.

Antiques fair

Some of my favourite finds at an antiques fair yesterday.

My favourite find of the day, in fact, one of my favourite finds of all time, is a set of vintage Japanese nesting dolls (the largest is a Daruma). I was just about to pay for something else when this jumped out at me! I knew I could go home happy after I found this, even if I bought nothing else.

I found it on the same stall as I bought quite a few other things, including the nodding horse which was only £1. It looks like it has an Asian face - anybody know where it comes from?


The perfume spray was found on a stall where I narrowly missed out on another bargain - another lady had just picked up the little Japanese plates I'd looked at earlier - and got them for just £2 each. But I was happy when I got this instead!


My last find of the day was a box with a Japanese scene on the lid, and when the lid is opened a little figure pops up.

Plum

I've been eating a lot of plums recently, and I thought this one looked particularly nice with its little leaves.

Charity shop finds

Some wooden things recently found in charity shops. The salt and pepper set was bought a few weeks ago and will be painted like Kokeshi dolls. The doll was 99p. I don't know what country it comes from, but I've seen a photo of some similar dolls from Hong Kong. I thought the clothes looked a bit South American though.

Japanese box

I love this Japanese box containing a fan - it belonged to a colleague who left recently. Before she did, I drew it and took some photos.

Paper glasses

I wanted glasses like mine for my Blythe doll Zoe, and finally realised that I could make some from thin card! They are not very sturdy, but now she has an unlimited supply in all colours!