I'll take you in my backpack

8/18/15 After breakfast I found a tuk tuk and started my adventure. Adventure would definitely be the accurate way to describe things. We took some back roads which lacked serious infrastructure while my tuk tuk seemed to lack shocks. Then my tuk tuk driver got lost trying to find the location I was going to which was actually just a few km from the hotel. And of course he had to stop for gas which is an interesting experience in itself. It's not exactly a gas station! Yes that's gasoline in those...water bottles? liquor bottles? what happens is she uses that rusty old funnel and just fills you up. It was the same in Thailand. I'm not sure of the price here, but it was 40baht in Thailand! I made it to the Handicraft Association (which in itself is an amazing organization...non-profit, they sell goods from local villages and give the money back to them, they had some great items, weaving, pottery, you name it, all kinds of crafty things). I was there to make som...

11/23/12 cups and dishes Rather than flocking to the nearest Best Buy or Walmart (they don't even exist here, and if they did I still wouldn't be there!) I went running in the opposite direction of Americans! I ventured off to the Tsuboya Pottery Festival and Kokusai Street (note: nowhere near the BX madness!) chopstick holders Tsuboya became a pottery village because of the quality of the dirt (perhaps they call it clay, I'm no potter). Because of this crafters started settling here, and up popped this little village of amazing artisans. The Tsuboya Pottery Festival was hosted at a local school in the outside school yard. On a beautiful day this would have been wonderful to stroll around. Unfortunately today was less than "beautiful". It was rainy, and that combined with this wonderful clay/dirt resulted in my shoes getting little works of art formed on them. I look forward to scraping it off tomorrow when it finally dries! It was really neat to se...

11/1/12 Well after feeling relatively successful with the little boy's shoes...I attacked my converse...I couldn't be happier with how they came out. Before After. So much more...me! Everything is fair game right now for some serious studding! I did an older pair of low chucks this weekend (with shiny silver studs) and they came out fantastic! When I looked on line for pre studded converse the prices were ridiculous $150-$200 for some. I will tell you that on a site like 6pm.com you can get really great prices on Chucks (some for $20) and then if you go to Etsy you can find the metal studs for about $2 for 100 pieces. I used one pack of 100 for the high top shoes above and had some leftover. So for under $40 I was able to stud the shoes above. Much better than $150 or $200.

11/1/12 So after spending way too much time on Pinterest, and then Etsy, and then eBay...I decided that I would try to make my own studded shoes. I wanted to stud my Converse to give them a custom flair. Looking on eBay and Etsy resulted in nothing impressive (other than the ridiculous amount of money people were charging for these shoes). Being a "non crafter" I thought that maybe this was out of my skill level. I'm happy to report after doing a custom pair of Vans for my favorite little 6 year old, that this was well within my abilities...and FAR cheaper than buying them! Plus, I might even admit that it was fun! Once you find the right studs and get a good method down, it's relatively simple, and not too time consuming. Up next are my Converse...just have to decide how studded I want them!

3/8/11 Tonight I enjoyed another evening of Origami and wow have my skills improved. I made an amazingly beautiful box and all kinds of little baskets. As usual I was loaded with gifts before leaving class, this time receiving an Origami Shisa dog, and an origami purse with matching high heel shoes! I hope to be able to recreate some of these items at a later date, but we'll see! I've purchased a Japanese Origami book here in the event that I can't. Books Read:  Dress Your Family in Corduroy Gifts Origami baskets

2/14/11 My paint over the pattern Tonight was class 1 of 2 of Bingata (traditional Okinawan art of textile dying). It really is quite a process and we're only doing part of it for the class. We arrived to fabrics that already had the patterns on them and the glue applied, we had our colored pain next to us so it was our job to paint according to the picture, or to use whichever colors we desired to complete the project. In two weeks we wash off the glue and apply the darker accent colors and then we are finished. The painting of the fabric is done in a special technique. When I read about bingata it said that two brushes are used, one in each hand, while simultaneously painting. We did not do that. Thankfully. But, what you do do, is paint in a circular motion. When the glue is removed it then leaves white accents on the fabric (ex: lines in a flower or leaf) I finished my painting early and was lucky enough to score a bonus origami lesson (I made several variations on t...

2/8/11 Tonight I attended an Origami Class. I figured this time around in Japan I should really try to dive right into the culture (starting with the language would have been wise, but since I haven't even mastered Spanish yet, I highly doubt I'd get far with Japanese!) Origami class rocked, we made lots of fantastic things, mostly Valentine's themed, which makes sense since it was the February class. I decided that next month I'll sign up for both the adult and child classes since they make different items and they run back to back...plus, let's face it, I need practice on my straight lines. What I learned in Origami is that straight folds are ESSENTIAL. You can't make even a fraction of a mistake, if you do, you're whole project will be out of line. No room for error in Origami. Not a great place for someone with OCD...not pointing any fingers (ahem, me) The instructor showed us how to fold money into nifty things as well. After class we made our...