Easter Cupcake Dress, Size: S

The shop has been updated with a new piece! I’m going to be posting more spring items to my shop soon.

This two tone color dress reminds me of Easter cupcakes. You know in Easter, Reese’s have special peanut butter cups in egg shapes? I love those. I’m not sure why they taste much better than regular Reese’s peanut butter cups, but they really do!

Kiko has a very strange a collection of toys. Regular baby girls have rattles, stuffed animals and other such things, right? Kiko does have proper baby toys that were given to her from family and friends, but she never uses them. In her little toy box that she frequents daily, she has an old spoon, wallet, ketchup bottle, and some plastic wrappers… Strangely she shows more interest in those than the regular baby toys. I have some colorful and cute baby toys that are supposed to “stimulate the baby’s brain and encourage its growth” as the label states, but she gets bored with them and prefers to chew on house hold items like empty coke bottles.

I had a plan to hand make her toys. I could have done stuffed animals and what not, but I’m pretty sure, at this point, the time would be wasted because she is oddly attached to an old Starbucks spoon at the moment. I wonder when a kid start enjoying regular toys… I remember my favorite toy of all time was a Jenny doll (fake version of Barbie doll). I really had to work to get that thing from my parents(they didn’t give out toys so easily…). Sadly, the night I got Jenny, I trimmed her hair without my mother knowing. I thought her hair would grow back. Surprisingly, it did not.

I haven’t done the inspiration posts for a while – not because I am not inspired but because Pinterest completes my inspiration board, and I forget about posting them here! I love Pinterest. I could spend hours on end scrawling down the pretty photos.

While I was out today, I picked up a catalog by a Japanese label, named mystic. It’s really cute, and I thought I’d share, so I scanned some of my favorite pages from the catalog.

Any sewing/wardrobe plans for the Spring? My brain is full with pretty pastels and color blocking with them..sky blue + lime, purple + emerald, pink + mint…<3

P.S. I’m running a 48 hour sale on my shop! Use coupon code “SALE48″ for 20 percent off. I’ve moved my shop to Big Cartel!

Photos by Photo Pink

Back in January, I had an opportunity to work with Holiday for a dress for her maternity photo shoot. She came up with an inspiration board and color scheme while I developed and put it together the pieces. It was fun, and I love the photos from her shoot. She is pregnant with twins, one boy and one girl!  I also made a matching pocket square and a bow tie for her husband.

Did you have a nice President’s day? I had a day off from work and Andy, Kiko and I went for a nice long walk today. I definitely felt that Spring is approaching. It was still chilly and windy outside, but the sun was out and it was a nice day to walk around outside.

I’ve been working on some pastel color items recently. I’ve been obsessed with mint color after seeing this botkier handbag. Unfortunately the bag has been sold out…so while I was out today I bought a mint color nail polish instead:)

Andy made a new rule: No sewing or working on anything related to my small business on Sundays, since I’ve been working non stop the past…I don’t even remember the last day I did not sew. I sew at least one hour, usually a lot more daily. This Sunday since I was banned from sewing or doing anything related to my shop or blog, I decided to take the new craftsy course by Gertie, “Sew Retro: The Starlet Suit Jacket“. I took her previous class on bombshell dress, and I loved it. I’m excited to learn new skills by her – pad stitching lapels, bound button holes and more.

Happy belated Valentine’s day! Hope you all had a nice day On Valentine’s day weekend, Andy and I went to a jazz bar in Tokyo, called jazz bird. It’s in Omotesando. It was really nice, and reasonable. The cover was 1600 yen. We’ve been looking for a place to go with  live jazz but, most jazz bars here in Japan are so expensive..jazz bird, thankfully wasn’t bad, and I’d definitely go back again sometime!

Kiko turned 10 months today, and we took some family photos, using my trusty Nikkon and a self timer. In two months, she will be a year old. I can’t believe it! I’m starting to think about what I want to do for her first birthday..any recommendations for decorations, fun games etc? Please help or Andy will have a Rocky themed party for her.

Image via Weheartit

Random thoughts were going through my mind while I was taking a shower this morning. One of them was the realization that I do most of my shopping online, except for groceries and gas. Although….nowadays you can buy groceries online and have it delivered to you, and it sounds convenient so  maybe Ill start doing that too, but for now I go to an actual store. Anyway, I’ve been buying a lot of supplies online, and thought I’d share some of my recent favorites! These are Japanese online stores, so if you live overseas it might not apply to you as some of the stores don’t deliver overseas.

After having Kiko, it is more convinient for to be able to click things on computer than going to a store to get them. Also, it turned out that most of the time it is cheaper to buy online even with shipping fees. The closest craft store to my house is a couple of train stops away. It costs 180 yen per way for the train fair, so for a round trip, it is 360 yen. Plus, I might stop and get coffee or donuts or something, which adds a couple of more bucks.

On the other hand, if I buy supplies online, I won’t have the temptation of sweets or coffee, and shipping fees for small supplies are about 120-180 yen, which are cheaper than train fair. My trick is to ask the shop to switch the shipping method to “mail bin (メール便)”. It does not come with tracking number or signature confirmation, but I’ve never had problems with the mail in Japan. Postal services are pretty efficient here and not much mail gets stolen (as opposed to Philly! ugh). So even if the shop states “shipping fees for orders less than 5000 yen is 500 yen” or something, if you ask for “mail bin” and the package is small/light enough, they switch the shipping method for you.

Anyway, here are some stores that I like to shop supplies from!

Itoyasan – bobin (インターネットの糸屋さん　－ボビン）

I like ordering zippers from this store. I often find myself frustrated since I don’t have the matching zipper color or right length zipper in the middle of the project. This store has good selection of colors for flat knit zippers and invisible zippers. They also sell them in bulk (100) with some discount, which is great.

hands matsuke (服地・布地のマツケ） 

I came across with this shop while I was searching for light weight stretch fusible interface, which I use very often. If I am out in Nippori fabric district, I go to ZakZak for this (2nd floor of ZakZak has a good color selection of light weight stretch fusible interface for very reasonable price). But sometime I don’t have enough time to travel all the way to Nippori. At matsuke, 2 meters of 122cm width interface is 380 yen. I was pleased with my purchase:)

Novita pointed out that some Rakuten has English pages, so perhaps you can shop at matsuke in English.

Related post: Japanese Online Notions Store

For my photoshoots and lookbooks I try and take the lead. I have an initial concept, Andy will help focus it with a title and from there we get the ball rolling contacting all the necessary people. This time, I was contacted by the lovely and talented Rhiannon Corbett. She is a stylist and so (of course)had the concept but she also had the Photographer, MUA, Models, absolutely everything. Some of the shots were taken by her and the pink dress (last photo) was modeled by her as well. So this very cute set of shots (produced by her with my designs) was really very hands off for me. What do you think?

Also, for this lookbook I discovered the neatest site called issuu. There you can produce and actual book like look book.   It was a great shoot and am really happy that Rhiannon contacted me about putting this together.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Black Heart Pocket Hoodie

Happy Friday! My shop is updated with this black hoodie. I’ve been a bit slow on updating my shop since I’m working on a wholesale order at this moment. I have so many different ideas for new designs, but just haven’t had time to make them… Hopefully soon.

As to the Shopbop $100 gift card giveaway, congratulations to comment #22, Helen!

You will receive an email with details soon:)

I wrote in the past that I’m big on making family traditions. Saturday breakfast cooked by Andy is one of them. There is something so relaxing about Saturday morning. Last Saturday, Andy cooked pancakes for everyone. For Kiko, he made a special pig shaped pancakes using a cookie cutter. We both loved it! Why pig shape? If your a regular on my blog you know, but if not the reason is that one of Kiko’s many nicknames is piggy. When she was first born she kept snorting like a pig while she was sleeping. Thankfully it eventually stopped, but the name stuck so we still call her piggy.

What is your family tradition? Do you know how it started?