Zen Garden Candy Kit

I’m home from California for now, so I’ll be back to posting pure unadulterated kimono content very soon! However, the night before I left Keith and I had fun with this adorable little kit where you make a zen garden out of candy and I thought I’d share it with you all.

Kansai_Gal sent us the kit (along with a candy bonsai kit which I left there and we’ll probably do next time I’m in California), and since I had to fly out the next day we decided to have a quiet night inside and I thought it would be a fun thing to do after dinner, and I was right.

The kit came with everything needed, even the little tray. I admit I was a bit sad the tray was cardboard and not actual wood, but it probably saved on weight and product cost so I understand. The fish were printed on the bottom of the tray, and you make a neat little jelly candy in the included mold that fits over the top to make the “pond” effect. Next step is to spread out the candy “sand”, which reminded me of Pixi Stix and tastes like Ramune soda. The realistic little rocks are actually candy-covered chocolate, and were surprisingly delicious.

It even came with an adorable little rake to make designs in the sand, but they honestly weren’t very visible.

I wasn’t expecting this to taste very good, frankly, but we ended up demolishing the whole thing within minutes. I highly suggest cutting off a little piece of jelly “pond” and dipping it in the “sand”, they balance each other out very well.

Overall this was a lot of fun! If you come across these kits I highly recommend getting one, just for the novelty of it. I’ve tried to find places selling it online and everyone is sold out, but maybe you’ll luck out.

Katsura Ningyo – Japanese Doll with Six Wigs

I’m still in California, which means still no access to my kimono, but I do have something utterly charming to share with you today! I have wanted one of these Japanese Dolls with Six Wigs for as long as I can remember, having stumbled across one on eBay years ago. Unfortunately, they’re slightly awkward to ship due to the wooden box and often in very bad shape due to years of play and/or neglect. They were created primarily for the post-occupation tourist market, as little souvenirs to bring home for your sweetheart or daughter. Most often the doll’s name was Hanako, but I have also seen Fukiyo. There was also a Noh-theatre style male doll who is much harder to find.

I recently found out that Goodwill auctions off items online and when I saw this one that would ship here to California. Her box was in rough shape, broken in places and missing a lid. I also suspect it’s been repaired at some point in the past, as I’ve never seen one in this arrangement of six wigs on one side and the doll on the other – the doll is almost always in the middle of the box with three wigs on either side. However, the box is really secondary here – the doll herself and most importantly the wigs looked to be in quite reasonable condition, especially for the under ten dollars the bidding was at. The wigs are the most frequently damaged pieces, as they’re so small and delicate. I threw out a bid and left it to chance, and somehow nobody else bid. I guess Goodwill isn’t quite as well-established for the Japanese art and history community as eBay is! They even included this lovely folded furoshiki gift box. I haven’t had the heart to unfold it yet, it’s just so cute as it is.

The first step was cleaning up the doll and creating some sort of a display base for her. Her face was very dirty and I’m not sure if she ever had a stand of any sort, but she definitely is not built to hold herself up. Her body is made of stiff paper that’s crumpled over the years, and her hands and feet are held on with very thin wire that won’t support her weight. Cleanup was thankfully very easy, I simply ran a moist cotton swab very gently over her face and it brought her from a dingy grey to a lovely bright white. Unfortunately the gofun over her face is cracked on one side, but I still find her adorable. The base was made out of a decorative wood plaque and a chopstick, of all things! I simply drilled through the plaque, glued the chopstick in at the correct height, and then cut the end off. It tucks up into her kimono and holds her quite solidly, but she’s very easy to remove. Repairing the box was easy – a bit of wood glue, some tape to hold things together as the glue set, and voila. The wigs themselves needed hardly any attention, I just smoothed out some errant hairs with my finger tips.

I will fully admit that katsura (traditional-type wigs) and traditional hairstyles in general are not something I’m particularly knowledgeable about. If anyone can tell me what wig or hairstyle these are meant to represent, I would be forever grateful. I’m fairly certain the one with the yellow front is meant to replicate a male chonmage style, like a performer would wear for playing a male role, and the one with the blue comb seems to be a sort of tsubushi shimada, but I may very well be wrong!  Here are some close-ups and detail photos of each of the wigs.

I am so happy I finally got my hands on this little darling and can’t wait to introduce her to my other rescued vintage dolls back home.

Kiku The Bucket Ikebana

Behold, proof that I have not kiku’d the bucket. I’m sorry, that was a terrible pun but you put chrysanthemums is a lovely bucket-like container, that’s what you get.

I have been in southern California for the past few months and will be here a while longer, which is why I haven’t updated in so long. I don’t have access to my mannequin or any of my kimono, but I do have a few things I can share now so be prepared for more regular updates again!

The first is this charming ikebana I arranged after not having done one for so long. I have to say, it felt really good and I regret not sticking more regularly to it. The vessel, while looking very Japanese-inspired, is actually from a local ceramic artist who unfortunately does not have any sort of online presence (I did suggest he consider at least setting up an instagram or something, but he was, in his own words, “old and set in [his] ways”, alas). I saw it and fell in love, and had to buy it. I had no idea how much it cost, but when he said I could have it for twenty dollars I was over the moon.

The rangiku were actually from Wal-Mart, of all place. Mixed in with all the generic flower bundles were these little darlings and I knew they’d be absolutely perfect in this particular container. I’m so happy with how they combined!

I might try to do more ikebana in the near future, but it will likely all be in this container because I don’t have others with me XD

Spring Fling

I have a confession to make; I used to hate shibori. I suspect it was due to my aversion to certain textures and patterns. But as I’ve gotten older I’ve learnt to appreciate the beauty and incredible craftsmanship that goes into it, but it still wasn’t something I had much of in my collection (aside from some obiage). I also named my pet uromastyx lizard Shibori, due to the spots on his back.

This fully shibori beauty with pink botan and fans showed up on ebay, ending the same night as the rangiku piece in my previous entry. I found it with only minutes to go and only one bid. I threw out a ridiculously low bid and to my shock I won it!

It’s absolutely lush and gorgeous and I am completely in love with. What I was not expecting was how difficult it would be to coordinate!

The olive accessories were a given, they coordinate perfectly with the leaves on the kimono. However, this shade of warm salmon pink clashed with… basically every obi I could find. I settled on this silver one with tiny pink accents and it’s… fine? I guess? I don’t hate it, but it’s not as punchy as I would have liked. I’ll definitely have to hunt down the perfect obi for this piece and coordinate it again soon!

Have you ever changed your mind drastically on a colour, technique, or motif? Something you hated at first but have grown to love?

Items used in this coordination

(I haven’t had the chance to catalogue this piece either yet, but it will be added eventually!)

Chic Modern Kiku

I found this piece on eBay when it had less than an hour to go, and I just fell head over heels. I love how bold it is, how minimalistic it is despite the motif itself being huge and dramatic, I love the very simple colour palette. And of course, rangiku is one of my favourite motifs. I really lucked out here, someone actually bumped it up to my maximum bid in the last few seconds, but didn’t bid any higher so I ended up winning it by the skin of my teeth.

I was so eager to coordinate it that I haven’t even had time to take a photograph for my catalogue – I just wanted to get it on to the mannequin as soon as I had some free time.

I paired it with a mofuku nagoya obi, since I really wanted the punch of black contrast. I think the rest of the outfit is obviously enough not mofuku that I can get away with it. Ideally, I would have used accessories in the same blue as the accents on the flowers, but I don’t own anything in that specifically “blurple” colour. I went with some of my favourite blue pieces, my icy blue obiage and beaded obijime. The haneri is actually my silver spiderweb one turned inside out. That made me chuckle a bit, since in English rangiku are often referred to as spider chrysanthemums. Maybe one day I’ll coordinate it with the webs visible.

Items used in this coordination