kao-ani

Trick or Treat

Natasja — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 16:13:52 +0000

Happy Halloween everyone!
If you’d like a treat, please leave a comment I’ll randomly pick out one or two commenters next week, who’ll receive some free kawaii stationery

It’s almost Hello Kitty’s Birthday, she turns 35 -you wouldn’t say so…- on November 1st. To celebrate this occasion www.artbox.co.uk will give 20% discount on their items tomorrow, just enter “birthday” at checkout. This also means that the Hello Kitty MMORPG has been around for a year. Needless to say that they’re throwing a birthday party over there.

Plugs: Scrumptious Delight for her sweet plush Candy Corns and N+ for their Evilz font.

Nana

Natasja — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 18:53:06 +0000

Last year a friend told me about a manga called Nana and how much she enjoys reading it. So far I’ve read a couple of manga’s, but didn’t really stick to a specific series. Untill now—at the moment I’m obsessing over Nana. Probably because I can relate to the story. Luckily I don’t fall in love that easily as Nana K. , but I can be insecure and I used to hang around with punk people. Not that I was punk myself, but I like people with alternative/non-comformistic opinions. Also I’ve always enjoyed music and like many people secretly dreamt of becoming a singer, lol . Since my singing voice isn’t really good and hobby bands I sang in didn’t last long, I just stick to listening to music or watching shows like Idols .

Back to the manga. Nana is a story revolving around two girls who are both named Nana. Nana K. -a small town-girl- travels to Tokyo to start a new live together with her friends. Nana O. is a punk singer who wants to start her musical career in Tokyo, after her boyfriend Ren went there to join the band Trapnest. Both Nana’s meet on the train to Tokyo by coincidence and find out they have a few things in common, although they do look completely different. In Tokyo they lose sight of each other until both Nana’s go house hunting and arrive at the same place. They decide to live together in appartment 707 (Nana means 7 in Japanese) and the story continues from there on.

If you enjoy the manga I can also recommend the anime, it does a good job at following the storyline. You can download episode 1-43 with English subs at nana-nana.net
The manga is also available online, but personally I prefer reading the real volumes and this supports the publishers. Currently creator Ai Yazawa has put her NANA series on hold due to a sudden illness. Let’s hope she’ll be back to good health soon

Clumsy me

Natasja — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 18:37:23 +0000

If you watch Desperate Housewives, you’re probably familiair with the character Susan, she’s is a huge klutz. I’m like her mini-version, a mini klutz.

Today I had to go to the dentist and because she always manages to make my gums bleed so much it wouldn’t look bad in a horror movie, I decided to do some comfort shopping afterwards. After 4 hours of serious shopping - I really needed all that stuff - it was time to get some food. Me and my hubby agreed on meeting at our favourite Indonesian take-away and I stopped on the pavement to cross the street. I told the woman behind me to go ahead and move along. She answered: “I would like to enter the store, but you’re standing right in front of the door”. Gosh I’m so clumsy

A few years ago I went to a business appointment and wore jeans for the first time in quite a while (being a skirt person). The sun was shining and the appointment went well so I was walking home in a happy mood. While walking through a super crowded shopping street a guy came up to me and said: “Excuse me, can I say something to you?” I replied: “Sure!”, wondering what it would be about. He explained: “Your scarf is so long that it’s hanging between your legs and comes out at the back, it looks like you’ve got a tail” I stumbled: “Thank you for telling me ”. And all I could think about were all the people who witnessed “my tail”… That long scarf had to go!

But then again, all of this isn’t so bad compared to the stories on: www.fmylife.com

Cute papercraft toys

Natasja — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 20:39:17 +0000

Here are some cute papercraft toys, to get you through these dark and rainy days (well at least that’s what the weather has been like in the Netherlands for the past 30 days ).

From left to right:

Paper Totem from Elebea - you can download the set at Dolly Obong
Pink from Jule - download the Pink Readymech toy
Deer from Macula.tv - go www.macula.tv downloads»papercrafts for lots of more craft fun

Other paper critters that you might enjoy are Nanibirds or have a look at my Papercraft Page.

Cute icons from Raindropmemory

Natasja — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 13:59:19 +0000

Today I stumbled upon these cute sketched icons, which you can use to brighten up your desktop.

This is just a selection, the set called Harmonia Pastels consists of many more icons. It’s free for personal use - to download it visit Raindropmemory’s Deviantart, where you can find even more icon sets!