Satoko's Origami Diary

Our New Studio space!

2010-10-10T15:04:00.002+01:00

I have been on UK Craft Forum a fair bit recently and it seems that everyone is posting about their workspace/studios so I thought I'd write a little about mine.You can see my small but well-lit space in the corner. Luckily my miniature origami pieces don't take up much space. Just next to it is the space I use to teach Japanese.

We are going for a 'white' theme in the room (thanks Ikea!) and here is the space my husband uses to work. It's actually a fair bit messier than this at the moment...

We have recently been working with new lacquering materials which involve quite a time consuming lacquering process. The new process we are using allows our pieces to have a similar strength to resin, but is water based and allows us to avoid the staining that occurs with chemical based resins. Sometimes it gives my workspace a slightly 'surreal' feel!

As you can see my desk is usually full of 'works in progress'. I have photos of my family and friends from Japan under the laminate desk protector so that I don't get too homesick! All these pieces are in the final stage of the lacquering process...

Here's a close up of one of the final pieces after all the lacquering has been applied. The new process gives it a much more durable waterproof finish. It also creates a much more gloss-like appearance. The whole process takes a long time but it is worth it to be confident in the strength of our pieces.

Thanks for reading! I am currently working on a bespoke piece of silver jewellery that for the first time, although it is made with the same PMC sheeting, doesn't use one of our origami designs. It has been a steep learning curve for me and I'll post some photos up as soon as it's finished!

J-Con Anime and Manga Convention

2010-10-02T23:59:00.000+01:00

Last weekend saw us at the J-con Anime and Manga convention at the assembly rooms in Derby. This was our first time at a 'Japanese', rather than 'craft' orientated event and we weren't really sure what we would make of it. It was quite an experience. Not being die hard anime or manga fans a lot of the strangely dressed characters were lost on us. There were one or two that we recognised from Death Note though. And there was the odd Pokemon walking around. Below are some famous, and some lesser known, anime characters. If you've ever seen Death Note, you'll find this photo hilarious. If you haven't, you won't.

There were one or two more mainstream characters - the one below being 'No-face' from 'Spirited Away'.

And we're not 100% sure who the next guy is but we're pretty sure that it's someone from Final Fantasy.

And I told you Pokemon was lurking somewhere.

All in all it was a really good day and our initial concerns that 'these might not be the sort of people of wear delicate butterfly jewellery' proved unfounded. It was also a chance to meet several talented artists working under the 'Japan' theme and one worth noting is a talented new anime portrait artist and graphic designer, Mair Perkins (visit her site here) and we were pleased to see our new larger lotus flower brooches prove popular. We'll definitely be there next year.

Thank you for reading, we'll write again soon!

2010-08-24T21:42:00.000+01:00

We mentioned in our last entry that we had been featured in Craft Business magazine. Here is a scanned copy of the feature. We hope you can read the small writing!

If you are interested in getting free PDF's of Craft Business magazine sign up to their website here.

The trip home to Japan...

2010-08-24T00:41:00.001+01:00

It's been a busy couple of weeks since our last entry. Satoko is busy with so many new students so I thought I'd write a quick entry.

The month of August was spent in Japan catching up with friends and family. We spread our time between Tokyo and the mountains and beaches of Joetsu-shi.

It reached 37 degrees on somedays so it was a relief to be able to venture into the cooler altitudes of the mountains close to Matsumoto and to step into the cool shade of Matsumoto castle.

And of course an ice cream is always a welcome relief (although this particular ice cream was 'wasabi' flavour...ice cream with a mustard aftertaste...yummy).

The last few days in Japan were spent at Japan's Glastonbury - the Fuji Rock Festival. We pitched a tent and did battle with the changable mountain weather and pouring rain.

Our ponchos were our best friends - even if I did manage to rip mine early on in the festival. A plastic bag with holes for arms and heads soon sorted that problem though. We sheltered where we could and enjoyed the variety of foods on offer.

And nothing keeps the cold at bay like a fish on a stick and a cup of luke warm beer...

But it was all worth it to see Muse, MGMT, Atoms for Peace, and many others too numerous to list.

And although we shut down the site while we were away we couldn't escape work. There was an early panic in Tokyo when we realised that our e-mail account had been compromised and I spent a few afternoons sat in an internet cafe creating new accounts and trying to remedy the problem. We also bought several new types of origami paper and saw the publication of the August issues of Craft Business and Popular Crafts, in which we were extremely pleased to be featured. We were unsuccessful in finding Mitsubishi PMC sheeting at wholesale prices but were pleased to find a Japanese metal folding company displaying copper versions of the origami crane (albeit a little bigger than ours!). We are also excited about the possibility of one day exhibiting at the craft tent at Fuji Rock Festival.

The reutrn to England has been somewhat of an anti-climax. We have moved house but it has been very much business as usual. We celebrated our first year of business and were pleased to spend it at Peak Fairs in Bakewell where we first started out. It's amazing to think how far we have some in a year.

We are now being exhibited at Yuko Sekiguchi's Studio at the Cromford Mills in Matlock and were pleased to be accepted onto the Creative Greenhouse's 'Partridge in a Pear Tree' Christmas Exhibition at Rufford Park Country House. We have had a busy summer and are looking forward to the run up to Christmas. There is much to do...

Castle Ashby Craft Fair

2010-06-27T22:03:00.003+01:00

Hi. We just got back from Castle Ashby. It was really dissappointing day today. We think everybody must have been busy watching football. We were really pleased with our new layout though and how the new logo looked. It's a shame it was too hot for Chris to wear his new 'Satoko's Origami' long sleeve t-shirt for too long. This is a photo of us before the start of the first day.

As part of the new logo Chris made a see through plaque with our logo. It looks quite sophisticated but it's really just a photo frame from MUJI with a sheet of OHP paper inside instead of a photo! Here is a photo of it...

As usual as Pennine Fairs there were lots of really nice crafts. There was even a candle maker that made candles that looked like cakes. To be honest this is quite a common thing to do but they don't usually look as realistic as these. The first time I saw them I though they were real cakes! I didn't stop to look properly becuase I wasn't hungry. It was only when I went back that I realised that they weren't real! Chris said he would have preferred them to be real cakes. I like them as candles though.
Cracking Creations

They also had candles that looked like beer...

But we didn't need that becuase you could buy alcohol at the craft fair. As it was a sunny day I had a Pimms and Lemonade. It was delicious. So even though the sales were dissappointing, we still had a nice time chilling out in the hot weather.

This was our last craft fair before we go to Japan. We are going to some more in Bakewell as soon as we get back so we'll tell you about them and our trip to Japan :)

Thank you for reading, I'll write again soon!

My 27th birthday

2010-06-23T12:10:00.001+01:00

Hi. Just a quick one today!
I just wanted to say 'Thank you! xxx' to all of you for the lovely birthday wishes! I'm 27 now, even though I look and behave (sometimes!) like a 14 year old X)

In the morning when I woke up this little guy was sitting next to me waiting for me to wake up. This is (one of ) my birthday presents from Chris.
He is so sweet and adorable. Actually I found out about Peppa Pig not long ago and since I saw them I've been in love with them. Especially I love their short and fragile legs X) As I have only him at the moment, I've decided to collect rest of them.

I went to estate agents in central avenue, West Bridgford to look for houses with our friend couple and after that we picked up some food from M&S near by and had lunch on the grass in the park in the sunshine. In the afternoon Chris joined us after his uni and we all went back to our house and I cooked chicken.
I didn't do anything special on my birthday but it was such a lovely day. I was so happy with the hot weather as well.

Oh Chris' parents gave me these.
It doesn't mean that I'm smelly, it means I love soaps :D

Chris and I are going to Matlock to take some more Origami jewellery this afternoon as more than half of the item we took have already been sold!!

Thank you for reading, I'll write again soon!

Things have been going well!

2010-06-21T17:55:00.001+01:00

Hi! I'm back! We've been busy sorting out moving, packing up for a holiday to Japan, and of course working on our business. The craft fairs we've been to haven't been so great but other things that we are doing seem to be going very well. We've been asked to be featured in a couple craft magazines and at the moment Chris is waiting for a phone interview!

We went to a very good quality craft event the other day. It's called Patchings Arts, Crafts and Design Festival in Derbyshire. When we found out about the fair we had already missed the application deadline but our friend Jane, who is running a handmade soap company called Just Soaps with her husband and was at the fair, recommended going to have a look at the fair for next year as she thought the fair would be suitable for our jewellery. The fair itself was very good but there were already too many jewellers. The stalls there were very high quality and professional looking. We ought to try and get involved next year. At the fair we met a Japanese lady called YUKO SEKIGUCHI who is a watercolour artist. Her painings are amazing. I personally am not into paintings but I love her stuff. She paints Japanese images. We exchanged our contact details and a few days later she rang me and said I can have some space for exhibiting our jewellery at her individual exhibition in Matlock. She's been exhibiting in the area for 11 years. As we have a craft fair(at The Castle Ashbey) this weekend we couldn't take many items but we took about 16 items to the event last Saturday and we are very pleased about the fact that quite a few of them have been sold already :D

Here are some photos from the event.
These are some of Yuko's paintings.

She does demonstrations of Japanese Shodo.

Here is the space where our Origami Jewellery exhibited.

This event is held from the 18th of June to the 1st of July in Matlock, Derbyshire.

Oh, before changing the subject I have to show you this pretty bag! When we went to the Patchings Festival we met another crafty friend called Claire there. She makes handmade felted bags. Everytime when I saw her bags I wanted to buy one and this time I managed to persuade Chris to get one for me by taking advantage of my soon to be coming birthday :D
Check out her lovely bags at Created and Felted!

Right, I'm so excited to show this off; our new company logo!! Chris's been designing this for weeks using photoshop that my student gave us and he completed it last week!! I love this logo. We'd already orderd new design business cards, new banner and, shamefully, even matching T-shirts for both of us X) Photoshop is a great programme by the way.

We've also been experimenting some lacquer for our Origami jewellery and we found a great stuff and we managed to improve our jewellery. Anyway it's getting too long now so I'll write about it some other time!
Mick, I hope you read this entry. Thanks for the information about resins. We ended up using a different thing, not a resin but you gave us the ideas!

Thank you for reading, I'll write again soon!

Origami Lotus Rings!

2010-06-04T14:30:00.010+01:00

Hi. Just a quick entry today! I made these origami lotus rings for friends of Chris' family. The wanted these specific colours so we made these rings specially for them.

I have also been learning a lot about Microsoft excel from one of my students. Yesterday I learnt how to make it so that if the stock level for a certain item gets low a message 'Work harder!!' appears telling me that I need to make some more stock! It's pretty useful and helps me be more organised :)

Thank you for reading. I'll write again soon!

Hanko for Satoko's Origami Jewellery!! So cool!!!

2010-05-31T18:35:00.001+01:00

Hi, Chris and I have been busy working on our business recently. I've made many limited edition summer jewellery pieces and, as he is not as busy as he used to be when he was on teaching practice, he has had more time to spend on the business. He is making a new logo incorporating a digital Hanko (which is a Japanese traditional signature stamp) that he ordered off the internet. It's very exciting and much cooler than I expected!!

Here are some of the digital hanko stamps he ordered. It says 'Satoko's Origami' in Japanese.
We have a various sizes. These top two are the middle size.

These are the smaller size:

And these massive size. We don't know where we are going to use them! lol!

Japanese people use Hanko more to write their signature than writing with a pen. There are round shape and square shape hankos. We thought the square one is more Japanese-like so we chose it.

We are thinking about renewing our company logo. Chris's been designing it and it's looking great already. He put the small size Hanko on the new design to finish off. As we still have many business cards left and we are also thinking about having a new proper website that is designed specially for our company we wont change the business card very soon but I'll show you when it's done :D

Thank you for reading, I'll write again soon!

One of those craft fairs (plus photos of new summer additions)

2010-05-23T19:27:00.000+01:00

Hello! It's been such a lovely weekend!! I'd forgotten how much I love the sun and hot weather!!
We went to a craft fair at White Post farm in Nottingham this weekend and it was rubbish! It wasn't very well advertised or sign posted so nobody came all day. It was one of those things. Almost everybody left early and my husband and I went to Holme Pierrepont in Nottingham instead as it was a gorgeous day!

I made some limited edition summer Origami jewellery that you can only buy at a craft fair and I'm so glad that they were very popular(we managed to sell some at least!).

So, here are some of the limited summer editions!
These are the Origami butterfly necklaces.

These are the Origami crane necklaces.

These are the Origami chokers.

And I also made matching earrings.

By the way, this is our stall at the fair this weekend. It was outside and the colours of origami jewellery looked beautiful in the natural sunlight.

It's not a very good quality photo but I hope you can see it well enough.

At the end of the day, the girl sat next to us gave us some free cup cakes because she hadn't managed to sell very many. Every cloud has a silver lining! They were delicious :D

And when we got back we found out we had sold some to friends of Chris' mum!! So it wasn't too bad this weekend :)

Thank you for reading, I'll write again soon!

Craft fairs, Sushi and Cafes (All in one entry!)

2010-05-20T23:23:00.002+01:00

Good evening all!
As I mentioned we have been to several craft fairs over the past few weeks and I'm going to write about one of the fairs tonight as I haven't uploaded photos that I took at the other fair.

We've been trying to go to craft fairs somewhere near us rather than the places where we have to drive for hours. However there weren't so many "good" fairs around us or all good ones were fully booked for months and there were no spaces for us. Luckily we finally managed to go to a craft fair in Nottingham. We went to Design Circus craft fair in West Bridgford, Nottingham 2 weeks ago.
Here is a photo of our stall at Design Circus. It was ok. We managed to cover our stall fee but it wasn't very busy and the wet weather didn't help.

Changing the topic, Chris made sushi for the teachers at the school that he worked at for teaching practise. Despite the fact that I'm Japanese, he is better at making sushi than me. I think it's because he is more greedy than me :D

Changing the topic again, I found one nice cafe in Nottingham town centre which is called The Walk Cafe. It is a continental style cafe with nice food and a good selection of cakes and tea. I recommend the Chai tea. It's the best Chai I've ever had. I like chilling out in a nice cafe and I usually like indie cafes better than chain cafes. I find them more comfy and the service is better.

By the way, we will be at White Post Farm craft fair this weekend. So if you fancy a day out come and visit us!

Thank you for reading, I'll write again soon!

My New Toy :D

2010-05-18T16:15:00.001+01:00

Hi everyone! As I have been so busy the past couple days I couldn't do any entries. We went to a few craft fairs over the past couple weeks but I'm going to write about them next time. So today I want to show you my new toy, my Sony VAIO netbook!

My(my husband's) 8 year old Mac broke down last week. It had been in bad condition for a long time so we were thinking about buying new one anyway but we didn't expect it to break so soon.

I bought the netbook because it's so compact that I can take it to almost anywhere. I made a contract for £25 a month for 2 years which gives me a mobile broadband so I can use the internet outside my house. So actually it's not too expensive after all.

Here you can see how small the netbook is!

It already has Window 7 Starter. After so many years using Mac I've been struggling a bit to get used to Windows though.

Some of you might already know but we were seriously thinking about getting a terminal for credit card payment at craft fairs but actually it's not very reasonable so we were kind of giving up on the idea but now we can accept card payments as customers who wish to pay by card can pay through our website with the netbook! How clever I am :D(not really)

I'll also start taking the netbook to the cafes where I teach Japanese and it's going to be really handy!

So, I'd recommend a netbook to people who are thinking about getting a small laptop!

Thank you for reading, I'll write again soon.

Origami Bird Earrings (Simple Origami)

2010-05-05T20:54:00.004+01:00

I have been asked by the owner of the shop where our jewellery is for sale to make the Origami Bird design earrings for ages. I haven't been able to do it though as I didn't have the beads I need for them but I've got them now so I made the earrings finally!

Here they are! These are 'Simple Origami' Bird earrings which has no Swarovski crystals. It's simply origami paper and some beads.

I only make these 3 spring colour ones at the moment. I might start making more versions over the summer. It depends on how well they sell.

Today, I received this pretty necklace with a lovely message card from my student who just got back from holiday in Egypt. She bought this for me! :D It wasn't the last lesson for her but she is going to do an internship job over this summer and she doesn't know where she can do that yet. It will be most likely to be in London, she said. So, we won't be able to have lessons until she's back in the end of September which is sad. I really like meeting my students. Even though teaching is a hard work I enjoy it very much :)

Tomorrow is already Thursday! Time goes by so quickly these days!

Thank you for reading, I'll write again soon!

Something you never see in Japan

2010-05-03T20:36:00.003+01:00

I've been living in England for almost 5 years and found this country very interesting as well as frustrating which is normal for forigner when they have lived in a different country and experienced a different culture. Anyway, I found something very funny the other day so I though I'd share it with you :)

Here it is! It's a Clock but you have no idea what time it is by just looking at this 'clock'. The clock is in Nottingham station. What's more, nobody except me even noticed it! I guess it's because this kind of things happens all the time in England.
If anyone is there, check it out! I bet it still won't tell the time!

I'm sorry but you might not find this funny at all but for me(Japanese people), this is hilarious X)
It's something like that you never see in Japan. Some people might get annoyed with this neglected clock, especially when they are in hurry but for me, it was rather entertaining. Even though I was in a bit of a bad mood then, it put a smile on my face.

I really like the fact this sort of funny thing can happen in England.

I made lots of jewellery today and will gloss them tomorrow. I have to get everything ready by Friday for a craft fair this weekend :)

Thank you for reading, I'll write again soon!

It's about time I blogged!

2010-05-02T22:13:00.002+01:00

Hello. I hope you are still there to read my blog.

I've been away the blog for a long time because spending hours writing it has not really been compatible with, working on our business, making jewellery and teaching Japanese!

I didn't know the business would become this busy. There are always something to do. Just because I'm busy doing stuff, it doesn't mean that I'm selling a lot though. However, I believe that all this hard work will pay off in the not too distant future.

I'm 100% self employed which is good for me and it suits me well but it sometimes can be difficult as I'm the one that has to control my schedule and work. I'm normally well organised when it comes to making jewellery or getting ready for craft fairs but I'm terrible at feeding myself properly. I really am. Maybe because I wasn't eating well enough I looked skinny or something so I was told that I should eat more the other day. I don't get hungry when I'm concentrating. That's the problem!

Is anyone like me? Forget to eat lunch?

Speaking of making jewellery, I haven't made any new lines of Origami jewellery recently but I'm still busy making general lines for coming craft fairs.

Today was one of my students' last lessons as she is going to Japan for business next week and she gave me these beautiful flowers to say thank you. As I wasn't expecting them at all I was moved as well as surprised. Actually, this last lesson was the first official 'last lesson' for me. I didn't know it could make me feel so sad. She was always cheerful and fun at lessons like my other students. I'm looking forward to visiting her in Tokyo in July :D

Thank you for reading, I'll write again soon!

My first sale on Etsy! Yay!

2010-04-21T21:50:00.001+01:00

I feel like it's been a while since the last entry... I like blogging so I'm trying to write everyday but I've been too busy to do that past few days.

First of all, it's a pretty good news. I made my first sale on Etsy!!!
I've had Etsy shop for a while but it seemed to be doing nothing. When I saw the mail from Etsy telling me that I had sold something I couldn't believe it. It took me a while to realise that the mail was telling me that I had sold my jewellery.

Anyway, here's my first sale on Etsy!!

I was happy for this sale but I was also worried about whether the ash cloud had been affecting air mail. It had. According to Royal mail twitter updates, the service is still not normal yet. I've sent the costumer a message letting her know about this situation but I haven't got any reply yet. However I went to the post office this morning and made up my mind and posted it as a recorded mail after listening to staff advice. So, I hope that it will arrive at her place safely without not taking too long. Fingers crossed X!!

Thank your for reading, I'll write again soon.

We are moving! (only a couple miles away though)

2010-04-17T21:03:00.005+01:00

A couple of days ago, I wrote about my husband, Chris, panicking about his job interview.... and the evening of his big day, he came home with a bieeeg smile! Yep, he got the job!!! According to him, there were 21 people trying to get the teaching post and he did the best lesson in there :)
I wasn't expecting the result so soon but he was told straight after everyone's lessons. We are so pleased with it.

So, from now on we`ll be thinking about moving house which is very exciting!! We are going to rent a small flat (I don't really like big houses) for just us two as we've already got a house which has been rented out in Rugby. We are living in Chris' parents house in Nottingham at the moment and his new school is also in Nottingham so we don't need to move somewhere miles away. He was trying to get a job in Nottingham so that I could keep teaching my students.

We went to have a look at the outside of a flat we are interested this afternoon. It looked lovely. It's a 2 bedroom flat as we need some space for our business and my tuition. We are thinking about moving around sometime before July. We are doing quite a few craft fairs at around the time we are moving so we will be very busy but I'm really excited about it x)

Thanks for reading!

My Craft Work Room and Brooches

2010-04-15T17:53:00.001+01:00

I really like Folksy now:) As soon as I renewed my Folksy shop I got 2 orders!! They both were not direct order on Folksy but they came to my actual website thought my Folksy site. I've also been kind of addicted to Folksy forum... as so much thing are going there...

Also I'm really pleased to tell you about that Owl Loves Panda picked up my jewellery and featured it on her blog! Thanks again, Hayley :D
My little Butterfly earrings are looking lovely on her blog.

Anyway, today's entry is about "My Craft Work Room" as I saw a thread where people posting their blog entries about their craft work places and I though I would write about mine as well! It's not so interesting though -_-

Here's my workplace where I spend all day and night(till 11) and also where I teach.
I know I know, it's really messy. You are probably feeling sorry for my students, having to study here X(

So, what I've been working on are these. Origami Butterfly brooches. They sold out at the last craft fairs so I made 30 of them today. Having said that I only started making them today so they are not quite finished yet. They need more layers of gloss which will take a half day tomorrow.

The last photo is of the back of the brooches.

I'm off to teach now!

Thanks for reading, I'll write again soon :)

My Improved Folksy Shop!

2010-04-13T21:12:00.001+01:00

I've got back into Folksy again after 8 months. I found Folksy really annoying when I started selling my jewellery last autum. I'd sold 8 items so far but it says I've only sold 3! I had also problem with payment -some of my customers could pay me no problem but some couldn't and when customers put items in their cart and then decided not to buy them they couldn't remove the item from the cart etc. I contacted admin about this but they never got back to me. I got really fed up and tried to delete my account but I couldn't do that either(you can do this now). It seemed like other people were having the same problems. Oh that was awful really. Actually, this is one of the reasons why we opened our own website.

So I wasn't so comfy using Folksy until I saw quite a few of my crafty friends using Folksy and they don't seem to have the problems I had. Also they seem to have improved the site a lot so I went back to my Folksy shop today and listed 17 more items of jewellery on my shop :)

Here is my Folksy shop!

I'm off to cook dinner now. My husband and I usually cook in turn but I have to cook tonight as he's got a job interview for this Friday which is so soon and he's been panicking. Oh dear >o<

Thanks for reading, I'll write again soon!

Origami Jewellery For Men!

2010-04-12T18:48:00.001+01:00

Easter holiday has finished and my husband went back to school as he is an English teacher(well, he is doing teaching practice until May.). He was a bit depressed this morning about having to go to work after a long holiday and the maths test he had to take after school didn't help at all >o< Even though he wasn't having a chilling out holiday as he needed to prepare his lesson plans, he enjoyed his days off I think.

Anyway, what made him less depressed was this Origami tie pin made by me. He doesn't wear it everyday but he went to work wearing this today :) It's origami shuriken(Ninja star) design.

When I saw him wearing the tie pin I thought it would be nice to show you my origami jewellery lines for men. These were a Christmas present for my Dad last year and I gave my Mum red origami crane earrings. I wanted to try a different design as well as Shuriken design so I made this Menko design tie pin. Of course they were so pleased with my presents and loved them so much :D

At the moment, I'm not sure about selling the origami tie pin as our general line unless I get a bespoke order but it's a possibility that I might make some and take them to the next craft fair ;)

Thanks for reading, I'll write again soon.

A little bit about me...

2010-04-10T21:04:00.005+01:00

It's been a very busy day but also great day today.
Saturday tends to be the busiest teaching day as most of my students are working from Mon to Fri. I had 3 students today and after the fist lesson one of my students bought an origami necklace and earrings! Actually she bought some of my jewellery for her daughter before Christmas last year. She said that her daughter loves them and she is wearing them all the time! I also showed her our new lines of PMC origami jewellery and she fell in love with them and she said she's going to buy them this Christmas! I'm very pleased to hear that :)

I was teaching at the cafe in the town centre and one guy who was sitting near us came up to me and asked me to correct his project he was doing on his laptop in Japanese(He was listening to us talking in Japanese.). He's going to Japan in Aug for a year and he wants me to teach him Japanese before he goes :)

My first year in England 2005, I was working in an old people and disabled people's home. I was one member of the therapist team. My job was to help physiotherapy and play scrabble, indoor bowling, do craft activities (including teaching them Origami) with residents and so on. It was one of the loveliest year in my life. I like working with elderly people and disabled people. I always get on with them well. Since I left the job, as my one year contract was completed, I had been trying to get a good job but it wasn't easy at all and I ended up working in a cafe and Korean, Thai and Indian restaurants. It was alright and I appreciated the fact that I had managed to get a job in England but I wasn't very happy because I was always feeling like I want to do something more interesting... So I decided to take a course where I can get a certificate in teaching Japanese as a foreign language and now I'm a Japanese tutor with many lovely students!

After all this nattering away.... what exactly I wanted to say is that I'm just so happy that finally I can earn money by doing things I enjoy :D

Thanks a lot for reading, I'll write again soon!

Craft fairs in West Bridgford

2010-04-09T22:07:00.001+01:00

We went to the handmade shop called Design Circus in West Bridgford this morning to hand in our booking form for a craft fair in June. Actually we tried to do some fairs at the shop at the end of the last year but we couldn't do it as most of our stock ran short after a couple of good fairs. We are going to be there on Saturday th 12th of June. It's a really lovely shop and has very crafty atomosphere :) The lady of the shop was saying that she is going to open another room for more crafters in a few weeks and hopefully we can stock our jewellery there!

Another place where we are keen to sell our jewellery at is in the central avenue in West Bridgford. This is a very very popular fair that we've been struggling to get in as there are already too many jewellers. Even though our friend who is a photographer and a regular person for the fair has been trying push us, we still have to wait. We are going to go to have a word with the organiser in person at some point soon though.

The last craft fairs we went to at Bakewell and Northampton were both quite far from us and we got shocked by how expensive petrol was. The price of petrol's been getting much more expensive than last year. We kind of had to plus £20 on top of the stall fee x( So, then we realised that we really need to get in some good fairs near us. The central avenue one and Design Circus are a walkable distance. Literally it's only 5 minutes on foot!

In June, my husband will finish his teaching course and we are going back to Japan for about a month(I haven't seen my family and friends for almost 2 years...) and after that we should have more free time. As we just started our business in August we couldn't do many fairs last year so we are trying to do as much fairs as we can this year :D

Thank you for reading, I'll write again soon!

I'm so happy :)

2010-04-08T20:56:00.001+01:00

It was a lovely day today! Finally Spring has come to England!! I wonder how many people went out to feel the sun today?

It's so nice to wake up to a shiny morning. I feel so good about not having to wear a big coat.
I had never been so concerned about the sun or weather in Japan but since I moved to England I've become more appreciative of them.

For my non-English friends and my family in Japan, this is a Spring flower, daffodils. Everyone likes them. They are pretty bright yellow. There are daffodils in Japan and it's not an especially rare flower either but it's more attractive to people in England than in Japan. When I see them I get very excited as it means Spring is coming soon!

For my non-Japanese friends, this is a cherry blossom which Japanese people, including me, love. The difference between the English ones and the Japanese ones are the colour and the number of them I think. English ones are more white than Japanese ones.

My husband and I have a lovely memory of them. When I met my husband, in April 2005, it was cherry blossom viewing season in Japan. As I had been invited to the cherry blossom party in a park by my English teacher I went to the park and then my husband was there too. (Actually he organised the party.) So that was our first meeting :)

I hope these lovely spring days won't disappear so soon.

Thanks for reading, I'll write again soon!

Silly Me!!

2010-04-07T18:43:00.002+01:00

Have you ever made a silly mistake with your business(hobby)?
My first mistake was found a couple days ago... Good job I was the one noticed the mistake rather than a costumer. I got an order for one pair of crane earrings, a picture below, a week or so ago and posted them to the costumer the next day.

There was no problem until I started sorting out jewellery stocks for craft fairs before the Easter weekend. When I was going through the stocks I found one pair of the crane earrings which were the same design of the earrings I just posted a few days ago but something was wrong. They had different size hooks on each piece. So, then I realised that I must have accidentally sent the costumer two pieces from different pairs!! This mistake was because we recently changed our findings supplier. I e-mailed the customer and let them know about that and I told them that I would be happy to send the replacement immediately via 1st class post if they require. They got back to me today and they want the replacement. Luckily they were really nice to me. So I'm going to post it tomorrow morning!!

I can't believe that I didn't notice the difference... I'm usually very very careful about things like this though. So it was my first mistake. I learned my lesson.

Thanks for reading, I'll write again soon.

My crafty friend!

2010-04-06T13:26:00.001+01:00

I hope everyone had a lovely easter holiday!
Things are back to normal now. I started sorting out my jewellery stock and will start making more for the next craft fair.

I'm going to show you my friend's handmade jewellery before I go to the town centre to teach a Japanese lesson this afternoon.
She makes beaded jewellery using the Japanese beading style and sells on her website and her folksy site. She's been beading for 8 years. My craft friend who is working at the bead shop where I buy Swarovski crystals and some findings introduced me about her as she is a beading tutor at the shop.
Her name is Machiko and she runs Bluestar Jewellery.

Her works are all original in that she designs them and they are so delicate and beautiful.
(We went to the same craft fair in Bakewell.)

These are my favourtite, Strawberry Earrings.

Sorry for the poor quality pictures again... I hope i didn't let her down >_<
Please visit her sites and have a look at the pretty jewellery. She takes very professional looking pictures!

Thanks for reading, I'll write again soon!