in helsinki napa gallery and shop have nice taste in magazines and things!

the best thing i have seen for quite some time

ok, so this is something so great, i can barely contain myself.
the earth bag. how i wish i had a mind with room to dream these things up.

i would dearly, dearly love to own this piece of joy. which joins previous items such as:

the cloud umbrella here.
the balloon chandelier here.
and the sweet onigiri purse here.

edit: they are made of leather though, and very expensive, these bags.

all of the products in this post's pictures are via online store mistubai.
a really wonderful space. it is all adding up to bringing me ever closer to my heart's desire.
one day, i will.

"At Mitsubai Tokyo we are selling items and made-to-order pieces which we consider "hot!"...
We search and introduce items which have moved us personally in the hope one of them will connect with your heart like a Cupid's arrow. We are starting at a slow pace, and ask you to kindly watch over us."

dear claire from nine on seven led the way to this one.
via this blog. which is really great, and makes me think the young ones do it so well!
this post in particular is really wonderful, i think.

edit #2: seven news, this is not news. rather, it is a gallery of 18-year olds having a party.

is anyone else sick of online news sources (for overseas readers, seven news is one of the mainstream commercial channels here, with a nightly news service) and their shoddy pandering to the lowest common denominator of public interest? i have had it up to here. sorry to be all grumbly, but you know, at the same time this is the 'top read story' on this news site, the Liberal party (in opposition in australia) is brewing an afternoon leadership coup, based on the fact that half of them are climate change sceptics and they can't face their leader voting for an ETS. i would call that news. sad, and a gross rabble of out-of-touch politicians, but news.

the earth bag

summer yukata

the perfect use for troll dolls. it looks mildly flammable, however.

cochae origami i have also mentioned previously here.

humor

these are handkerchiefs by fuge, via online store humor.

handkerchiefs are so great, i wish they were in use more often.

for general hand drying purposes, as well as the sustainable nose wipe.

there is an explanation of fuge here (in japanese, but with nice pictures!)

and this is fuge's website (with a gallery of her work).

online stores #1 - badenbaden

i have a weird love of structure. of pulling together various threads and putting them in one place. for this, and because i love nice things to have and to hold, i added a new entry on my ever expanding sidebar. it is called online stores. straight to the point. it is all about collecting online japanese stores i find and giving them one home. i come across so many in my wanderings, i wanted to file them carefully away, but not so carefully i never find them again. so they have found a sidebar home. i hope that you can also enjoy them? you will find this growing list in the left hand side bar there, just under on my record player.

i guess the keibunsha post was my first one. so this is my second one: badenbaden.

they have recently featured these extremely cute purses by HIPOTA. i also like their other coloured purses. check out their homepage for more great pictures of their wares. they have an actual store in tokyo as well.

ちょっと、気に入る

like the rest of melbourne, i have had a bit of a cold of late. and also a little bit distracted with being busy at work and fiddling with laying out a little cook book of nice vegetarian japanese recipes that i hope to give to friends and relatives. and who knows, maybe if it works well, i could even try making it a little zine-y type one to put out into the world? but that seems a very far away dream at the moment...meanwhile...

cocca is a really nice textile house based in shibuya tokyo. i am a big fan of the 'kite apron' above and the 'honeycomb' below. cocca collaborations include d-bros and iida kasaten. the lovely three buttons did a post on cocca whilst in tokyo.

honeycomb

iida kasaten kasa with d-bros fabric