These are some sweetly coloured tiles I spied at Melon Mosaic (in Japanese).

With ready wooden trays, the tiles are glued and cemented to make coasters, as shown here.

Thanks for the company this week. I’ll be taking a birthday break next week. But you can find me writing over here, Earth Rejoice will stay open, you can email me, follow my craft pins, and let’s see…or you can visit some of bloomize’s current popular posts:

• Asperand roses + fonts wallpaper
• Junktion
• Handwritten newspaper
• Ribbon bookmarks
• Coloured pencils subscription
• Winter palace bracelet

Take care, stay busy, see you soon.

The more I look at the Herz knapsack, the more I begin to think how more ruggedly handsome it will become as the leather ages.

All bags from Herz are hand-crafted.

The range of MOCO threads is simply one of the loveliest of its kind (I once offered a pack in my giveaway). When I saw how these threads were used on felt balls some time back, I couldn’t believe that it was happening. The effects are stunning!

More recently I happened to see them again in a tutorial, and thought I should not withhold sharing these images any longer. You can review the how-to steps with more inspiring images here. Enjoy!

The Ishinomaki Hibi Shimbun, a daily newspaper in Ishinomaki city, Miyagi prefecture, which carried on publishing despite the lost of power and its printing press during the March disaster was awarded a special citation by the International Press Institute on Sunday, 25th September in Taipei.

Image: Newseum

The efforts by the newspaper to bring the much-needed news to affected residents are commendable. For six days, handwritten daily newspapers were pasted at entrances of relief centres around the city, free of charge of course.

Indeed, the pen and paper shall always be mightier.

Artist Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba initiated the Breathing is Free: 12,756.3 as a running-drawing project for the refugee crisis. His recent project “JAPAN, Hopes & Recovery, 1789km” was prompted by the March 11th disaster.

Along with volunteer runners in Ho Chi Minh they ran with GPS locators so that the paths they took traced the image of a cherry tree branch while their counterparts in Yokohama ran to the shape of the flowers.

Spotted these nice soap bars in a zakkalicious shop called Billet located in Japan.

I will be taking a break to take care of some business but will be back in a jiffy. See you soon.

I love almost every piece of outdoor camping furniture and kitchenware from Snow Peak. I LOVE them to the point that I almost wanted to convert my home into a campsite, replacing every possible furniture with Snow Peak’s.

Left to right, top to bottom:
Take! chair
Bamboo table
Hozuki LED Light
Sink
Bamboo kitchen table
Rubbish bin

Left to right, top to bottom:
Japanese iron dutch oven
Spice rack
Stackable bowl set
Titanium bowl
Mini solo titanium cook set (I have this.)
3-pc titanium cook set
Cooking pot

Back in 1958, a Japanese mountaineer wasn’t too pleased with the quality of outdoor gears available to him. That was when he decided to make his own and started Snow Peak.

Japanese architect Shigeru Ban’s design of a partition for the East Japan earthquake survivors staying in evacuation centres consists of paper tubes and canvas curtains to provide the much needed privacy among residents.

His disaster relief endeavor has been financed with donations from around the world.

More:

• Shigeru Ban Architects news

• The Asahi Shimbun