J-Okini Shop Featurette

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Today I’ve got a review for you, featuring J-Okini: Products From Japan. This is a lovely little shop stocks a wide variety of beautiful gifts and accessories, focused on traditional crafts and materials. Founder Sumie Nakamura was kind enough to offer me a few items to review when I reached out to her, and I can’t wait to share this great shop with you!

The first item I chose was this beautiful pair of mizuhiki earrings. Mizuhiki is an ancient Japanese art form that involves creating tiny, tightly-wound cords out of washi paper and bending them into knots and shapes. They are often used as decorative items or tied in auspicious knots attached to gifts and cards.

These earrings are absolutely beautiful and very well-made, They arrived carefully packed in a sweet little gift box, which both helped protect them in the mail and would make for a beautiful gift presentation. What I love about these is that they will undoubtedly look great with kimono but would also look amazing with western-style outfits that need a bit of wa flair. I actually found a really great little black dress with traditional looking kiku and ume motifts on it at Wal-Mart, of all places, and these earrings will definitely elevate that dress to a more chic level! I can’t wait to pair them together.

Browse their selection of mizuhiki accessories here.

Next up is this charming tiny little zipper pouch. I can’t get over how well-finished it is for something so small. I’ve including the Canadian quarter for scale – it’s the same size as a US quarter or a 50 cent Euro coin. It would make a great change purse or a little case for a special piece of jewellery while travelling.

Despite its tiny size, it’s smoothly finished inside and out and the zipper is great quality and opens without any fuss. I love the cube shape so much, it reminds me of a large die. I tend to leave the house without my hearing aid or jewellery when I fly, because I know I’ll have to take it all off when I get to security and deal with the hassle of collecting it all afterwards. Next time, I think I’ll put it all in this charming little cube and equip myself properly once I’ve settled in at the gate.

Browse their selection of kimono fabric wallets and pouches here.

Aside from these items, they also offer a wonderful variety of teas and tea tools (bowls, whisks, strainers, etc); a huge selection of bento boxes and products ranging from the adorable (I’m in love with this Geisha set) to the elegant (like this classic kimono-inspired motif); and obiage that can be worn as elegant silk scarves, or if you’re a fellow kimono addict, can be the finishing touch to your coordination.

Whether you’re shopping for yourself or looking for a gift for a loved one who is passionate about Japanese culture, J-Okini will have something for you. They are based in Europe (Malta, to be precise) so if you’re in that area they’re an excellent place to shop from. They will ship worldwide, though! It took a while for the package to get to me, but I place the blame for that squarely on the recent Canada Post strike, not J-Okini.

 I received this item from the retailer or manufacturer for honest review purposes.If you have a topically appropriate craft, product, or service you would like me to review, please contact me. 

Olive, the Other Reindeer

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Hello! First off, let me say I cannot be blamed for the terrible title of this entry; it’s actually the title of a children’s book. It’s always made me laugh, and since today’s coordination features my favourite olive-green kimono and Christmas is coming up soon it seemed appropriate.

For those of you who aren’t aware, I work in a toy store so this time of year is always a bit exhausting for me, to say the least. I knew I wanted to do something simple and cute that wouldn’t take much fussing, and remembered that the salmon-coloured accents on this kimono are a near-perfect match for a black winter motif tsuke-obi I own. More salmon pink accessories including ume on the haneri pulled it all together.

I do have a few other things in the work for this month, but entries will likely be a bit sparse for a bit. I do post regular smaller updates and curiosities on my Facebook and Instagram, so be sure to follow those if you don’t already!

Items used in this coordination

Renovation Time!

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Just a quick note today as I’ve upgraded to WordPress 5! What does this mean for you? Ideally, in a perfect world, you shouldn’t notice anything, aside from maybe some quicker loading times. However, there’s always the chance some of my older posts or plugins might not work quite right. If you happen to notice anything that looks off or outright broken, please use the contact form and let me know. I’d greatly appreciate it!

Fudangi First Friday – Flirty Florals

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I’ve been pretty terrible at keeping up with my Fudangi First Friday project, but since this is the last one of the year I figured I had to make an effort! This gorgeous raspberry red hakata obi is one I got from Kimono Yuki back during the summer and hadn’t gotten around to coordinating yet. I love how rich the colour is, and it’s also super long, I can’t wait to wear it myself!

The obi is one of those strange colours that’s super bold and vivid but still manages to fall into the neutral category, at least when it comes to kimono. So I knew I could pair it up with almost anything. I haven’t done much with this multi-season komon recently but thought it could work and make a sort of sweet, feminine outfit that still felt a little mature due to the black base and richer tone of the obi.

I’d also never gotten the opportunity to use this adorable owl haneri. It matched some of the pinks in the kimono so perfectly, I’m very glad I thought of it. The finishing touch was a peach and white obijime that again ties in to some of the accent colours on the kimono. It was feeling a little drab against the obi, somehow, so I thought tying it in a cute bow would help balance things out a little better.

As much as I’ve loved doing the Fudangi First Friday project (and the MonoKimono challenge), I’m pretty sure that in 2019 I’m not going to commit to any challenge or project where I have to do something at a fixed and repeated time. I’ve just got too much going on. I hate feeling like I’ve failed and I don’t need that sort of stress going forward.

Today’s post was apparently brought to you by the letter F.

Items used in this coordination

 

Art Gallery – Floral Fans Colouring Page

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Recently while browsing Pinterest, I came across a lovely colouring page with fans on it. However, the scan was very small and blurry, which would have made it quite difficult to colour digitally. So I decided to redraw it from the ground up before painting it on my Surface. I really like how the end result turned out, so I thought I would share it with you.

If you’d like to colour this yourself, here is the clean version of the lines. Whether you print it out and colour it traditionally or do it digitally like I did, I would love to see!