Tsumori Chisato and paper crafts!

This week I popped into Kinokuniya to pick up my book on garland and mobile crafts that Jenna so kindly gave me the info after posting it on her blog, Hand Deco Interior. This is a super fun Japanese craft book with loads of creative ideas on making garlands, mobiles and ornaments. I must warn you the instructions are in Japanese and there are no visual instructions so it will take a little imagination and ingenuity on your part to make these. I was thinking maybe making a garland incorporating some of these lovely crepe paper flowers I found over on Oh Happy Day.


While I was at Kino I was browsing in the magazine section and I came across this Tsumori Chisato catalog with an awesome treat inside! I little golden kitty wallet by Tsumori-san! So exciting!

Hand Deco Interior
ハング・デコ・インテリア―ガーランド、モビール、オーナメントetc.
(MSムック カラフル手作りidea book vol. 2) [ムック]

Rain Cover For Your Bike Seat

Many New Yorkers do not have the luxury of indoor bike storage so along with thieves you have to worry about the weather ruining your bike. An easy solve for the rain is a plastic bike seat cover made from a plastic bag. Most people just tie a bag over their seats, I find two problems with this it's ugly and then bulky to shove in your bag when not in use. I also realized I have a few plastic bags that I hate to part with because they hold sweet memories of my trips to Japan, Sweden or other lovely place. With all this is mind I created a bike seat cover out of one of my beloved bags. It super easy to make but you'll need a sewing machine and some intermediate sewing skills.
You'll need:
*Plastic bag bigger than your bike seat when laying flat.
*Tracing paper
*Scrap of paper 8.5 x 11 or A4 or bigger.
*pencil
*scissors
*sewing machine
*thread
*1/4" elastic about a yard, you'll have left over.

1. Take your regular scrap of paper and go over to your bike and trace the seat.
2. Take your tracing and make a clean trace on tracing paper and add 1.5"-1.75" from the edge of your bike seat line, this will be the edge that will go over the sides of the seat.
3. Cut your tracing.
4. Take your pretty plastic bag, I used my Loft bag, and figure out the placement of the graphic on your bag how it will look on the seat. Then place the tracing on top and either trace with permanent magic marker or place a couple of weights on it and cut tracing. Use weights instead of pins because it will leave holes.
5. Measure the circumference of the edge of your tracing and cut a piece of elastic 1.5" shorter than measurement.
6. Now comes the tricky part because you can't pin the elastic to the plastic. Using a zig-zag stitch, take your cut plastic bag and you are going to sew the elastic to the very edge of the plastic all around. You most stretch the elastic the entire time you sew it while it's passing through the feeds, but try and not pull the sewn bits from the back. This will create a shower cap effect around the edge.
Voila you have a bike seat cover!

Sweet sweet craft books

I've gained a new interest in a couple of new accessories and one of them is fabric slippers. I bought a pair at Muji recently and decided I needed to start making some. Perhaps I will keep some by my door in a basket for folks to put on when they come into my home since I make everyone remove their shoes. As much as I love Japanese culture we do it out of cleanliness more then love of a culture. Anywho I stumbled upon this awesome little slipper making book, and plan to make a few soon I will check back and show you.
Then I found this other little gem, a Swedish inspired Japanese craft book. It's amazing! I love it because it's my two most favorite design aesthetics combined. All the lovely pics of Sweden remind me of my trip there two years ago, I'd love to go back.

Insta-moments

So sorry for the lack of updates the last month has been a little crazy, but I promise to have some good updates soon. Here are little bits of my life over the past 3 weeks. Little Nacho was adopted this weekend so we said our sad goodbyes. We went to Upstate New York with a group of friends and spent a weekend in a pool. Lots of beach days. Also lots of actual design work soooooo busy busy busy. I have a couple of rolls of film shot with my Nikon F3 that I will share with you too, just waiting on developing. I hope you've had a good weekend.