Merry Christmas! and announcement where I donated my profit from Etsy

Merry Christmas, everyone!!!!
I can't believe that I didn't post anything LOOOOOOONG TIME.
The reason is this.

I am pregnant!
This is the reason why I was busy for a while and there's no time for me to keep up my blog.
My baby's due date is in less than 2 months, so I guess I will be a little more busier to get ready for that.

Not only my pregnancy, but I also have another announcement.
That is... I finally donated my profit from my Etsy shop!!!!
It was not that easy to make this decision. I didn't want to donate to somewhere I can't trust.
In the end, I found the project that volunteers giving the presents to the children who lost everything by earth quake.
Here's the link of the report that they giving out the presents to those children yesterday and today.
http://tonomagokoro.net/archives/11530
It's all written in Japanese, but you can see their photos of happy smiles.
I donated $55 amount of Christmas candies.
According to them, that covers presents for 10 children!!!!

I am glad that I could do something about it, and I really appreciate people who bought my products from my Etsy shop.
I wish everybody will have a great holiday season wherever you are!!!!!

Getting ready for Halloween :)

I am getting more and more excited about Halloween.
When I am driving, I can see many spooky house decorations all around the town.
That makes me more and more excited.

Here are some stuff I put up on my Etsy shop related to Halloween.

Skeleton Brooch

Jack-O-Lantern Brooch

A Bat Necklace

A Bow Tie Necklace

All of those products are made of 100% wool. I used special needle to make soft wool into solid felt.
They are still very soft and compare to the regular felt, they are three-dimensional.
Needle felted products will give you cozy and warm feeling especially fall/winter season.

I am going to create some more stuff for upcoming season for sure!
It would be very nice of you if you can keep checking my products at here or on Etsy.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Finally it's out!!!!! - Feist new album "Metals"

Yes! I am a big fun of a singer/songwriter/artist , Feist!!!!
You may know her through ipod commercial several years ago.

Since I fell in love with her music & art, I went to her concert twice; one in Gibson Amphitheatre and another one in Hollywood Bowl. I guess those were back in 2007 & 2008.
And both of her shows were beautiful, imaginary, and inspiring.

I was waiting loooooong time for her new album and finally today is the release day of it!!!!

I've already purchased her album through Amazon, so I will wait a few more days it's arriving.
(I am still a CD person but not a MP3 person. Because I love to see their artwork on CD and booklet. And CD sounds much better than MP3 anyways.)
Until then, I won't listen to her any of new song from the new album nor read any review about it.

If you are interested in it, you can check more info on her official site or her facebook :)
http://www.listentofeist.com/metals/
http://www.facebook.com/feist

She will be on U.S. tour from the end of October.
http://www.coasttocoasttickets.com/concerts/feist_tickets.shtml
My husband already booked tickets of L.A. concert at Wiltern Theatre on Nov. 12th for me. (Thank you!!!)
I can't wait!!!!!!

Tonight she will be on David Letterman show!
Please check it out!!

Recipe: Kabocha Squash Soup

Yesterday I was watching repeat of TV show “Seinfeld” with my husband. And they are showing the episode of “Soup Nazi”. One of the best episode of Seinfeld!(You can see the short clip of it here)

Seinfeld “Soup Nazi” Clip

That was so funny and made me wanna eat a bowl of nice soup
And I found a Squash in our fridge.
The squash I used for this recipe is called “Kabocha”.
You can see the image of Kabocha squash here.
(http://www.recipetips.com/glossary-term/t--35847/kabocha-squash.asp)
In Japan, we eat this Kabocha squash for fall/winter season. It's sweet kind of squash.
Here’s how I made the Kabocha squash soup. You can make this soup in 20-30min.

Ingredients:
-kabocha squash 1/4
-milk 1 cup
-onion 1/4
-celery 1 stick
-butter 1 table spoon
-chicken flavor bouillon 1/2 teaspoon
-salt, pepper, sugar a little
-bay leaf 1

1.Cut the squash and scoop seeds out by spoon.

2.Wrap the 1/4 of squash by plastic food wrap and microwave it between 5-8 min. Duration will be depends on your microwave and how thick the squash is.
Poke a tooth pick to check how soft it gets.
If the tooth pick goes through the squash easily, it’s cooked perfectly!

3.While you are microwaving the squash, start to chop 1/4 of onion and 1 stick of celery.

4. Put 1 table spoon of butter in the pod and start the heat.

Once butter starts to be melt, you can put chopped onion & celery.

5.When the squash is cooked, scoop the orange part from it’s skin.
You can put it’s skin into the soup if you like, but the color of the soup would be yellowish green. Probably it’s healthier to put the skin into the soup nutrition wise…but soup looks better without the skin to my eyes...

6.Put the squash into the pod, then add 1 cup of milk.

7.Add 1/2 of chicken flavor bouillon, bay leaf, and a little bit of salt, pepper, and sugar.
Check the taste and if you need more spice, add some more.

8. Pick the bay leaf out from the pod and put whole soup into the food processor, or juicer to puree. You can eat without pureeing it. I just prefer to have a smoother texture soup. 

THAT’S IT!!!!!

Now ready to eat it!

Today I also made some dinner rolls.

BON APPETIT!!!!

(As the garnish, I add some cream and parsley on top of the soup)

Even though I didn’t buy a soup from the Soup Nazi, my tongue and stomach was so satisfied with this soup

New products on my Etsy shop

Today I am so happy that I could spend several hours to make new products for my Etsy shop!
Here's the new products!

 Needle Felted An Orange Flower Brooch

 Needle Felted Brooch A Blue Flower

 Needle Felted Brooch A Lavender color Flower

All of those flowers are made of 100% wool.
They are soft yet solid and give you warm, cozy feeling.
It fits the fall / winter season for sure :)

Besides, those flower brooches, I also made a brooch for upcoming fun event; Halloween!!!!!
I love Halloween! It is one of my favorite event!!!
And here's the finishing product.

Needle Felted Brooch Jack-O-Lantern

I am going to make more Halloween related jewelry / accessories to celebrate it.

If you are one of the Halloween lover, please stay in tune on this blog ;)

Needle Felted Brooch: Skeleton

Wow, it's already September!!!!!
I was quite busy past few months and there's no time & energy for writing my blog nor adding new stuff on Etsy.
Finally today I add a new product of mine on my Etsy shop! Hooray!

Needle Felted Brooch：Skeleton

Actually I originally made this for celebrating the opening of "Pirates of Caribbean" 4.(http://hirokohandmade.blogspot.com/2011/05/pirates-of-caribbean-is-back.html)

I tried to finish this as a brooch and wear it for the movie, however I didn't have enough time to finish it.
In the end, I've never wore it and it stayed in my unfinished project box.

Now I realize that it is good time to finish it because HALLOWEEN IS COMING!!!!!!
And here it is! The finishing product of skeleton brooch!!!!

You can put it on your scarf, or

You can put it on your cool hat. Wherever you like :)

I am going to switch my gear from "Summer vacation mode" to "Going back to my regular life".

That means more handmade stuff are coming up here and my Etsy shop!!!! (I hope...)

Transform: Summer dress–> Apron

Do you have any particular shop you like to shop at?
I have a bunch. And ANTHROPOLOGIE is one of my favorites.
Their designs are so unique and pretty. Every time I go into their shop, I easily spend an hour or two to check all of their merchandise.
Of course I love their clothes, but I also adore their aprons.
You can see their great designs of their aprons if you click here –> http://www.anthropologie.com/anthro/catalog/category.jsp?popId=&navAction=push&isSortBy=true&navCount=264&pushId=&id=HOME-KITCHEN-APRONS
It is very inspiring and would be fun to cook, wearing it.

Today I was cleaning the clutter out of my closet, and found a summer dress which has several holes. I guess I washed it in the washing machine many times, and it got holes.
That gave me an idea: “Why don’t I transform this dress into an apron?”
And here’s how it looks.

The bottom part was a summer dress originally.
I added the top on it with some vintage lace.

I wish I could have better matching fabric for the bottom… but this bird printed fabric was all I had that was close to the color of the bottom.

Tonight I started to cook, wearing this, and somehow it made me more motivated for cooking. Maybe my husband will be happier than I, because of this apron

Transform: T-shirts

Last week, I purchased something I've wanted for quite a long time.
That is a MANNEQUIN!!!!
Well, actually I wanted a dress form to do some sewing, but I found a second-hand mannequin of my size, so I thought, "Why not?"
To celebrate it, I transformed a T-shirt as follows:

BEFORE

AFTER

You may remember this T-shirt from “Tutorial: stencil on T-shirts”(http://hirokohandmade.blogspot.com/2011/05/tutorial-stencil-on-t-shirts.html),originally it was a plain, pale pink T-shirt.
I stenciled some birds with white paint on it about 2 weeks ago.

And today I cut out around the neck wider and attached a motif of a feather. Cutting wider around the neck is not easy to do on the table. Definitely having my mannequin helped me cut it out evenly, nice and round.

Now it’s my turn to wear it!

What do you think? Does it look good on me!?

More and more strawberries!

This year, the weather in LA is very strange. We had some rainy days in May. That is very unusual in LA.
I am still wearing long sleeve shirts every day. Why it's not quite hot yet!?
What is going on with the weather these days!? I really hope nothing's gonna happen in 2012...

Even though the weather is strange, my strawberries are growing very well :)
They are small but they are so beautiful, aren't they!?

The other happy thing that happened to me was: I bought a CD of Ingrid Michaelson, whom I discovered through the internet radio station, Pandora.

I loooooove listening to her CD while I am driving my car. Her CD makes me happy & stress free, even though I am stuck in the traffic. That's very important, when living in LA :)
Here's one of her songs I really love:

"You and I"

And here's the live version, which Jason Mraz joined her. How nice!!!!

The Lyrics are very cute and nice, too.
I would like to share the lyrics of the first verse and chorus with you ;) 

don't you worry, there my honey
we might not have any money
but we've got our love to pay the bills

maybe I think you're cute and funny,
maybe I wanna do what bunnies do with you,
if you know what I mean

Oh, let's get rich and buy our parents homes in the South of France
let's get rich and give everybody nice sweaters
and teach them how to dance
let's get rich and build our house on a mountain
making everybody look like ants
from way up there, you and I, you and I, you and I,

 Check out the rest of her songs on her albums! You would like them!

Pirates of the Caribbean is back!!!!

Tomorrow Jack Sparrow will back on the screen!!!
Yes!!! "Pirates of the Caribbean : On Stranger Tides" will be released tomorrow, 5/20 (Fri)!!!
I love this movie series, even though I have a hard time understanding what they're talking about... Ha ha.
Is it just only me!?

To celebrate this movie's release, I made a skeleton with wool:

Needle felted Skeleton

I am going to make a brooch with this, and wear when I go to see the movie :)
Not only a brooch for me, but I'll make one for my husband, too!!!! I hope he doesn't mind to wear it with me to share the excitement! (Pirate voice:) "Arrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!"

And next weekend, another movie that I am interested in will be released!!!

That is.... "Hangover 2"!!!!!

Should I make a needle felted beer bottle next time!?

Tutorial: Stencil on T-shirts

It’s getting warm and good season for T-shirts!!!
Have you ever thought “I want to have an original T-shirt!” or “I can’t find the T-shirt I really like!”?
Then why don’t you make one!

Here’s the easy way to create your original T-shirts.

1.Pick the T-shirts you like.

2.Draw whatever you want to stencil on the mat side of the freezer paper.

This time I draw some birds on it.

3. Cut it out.

4. Put the freezer paper to make glossy side attached on the T-shirts and press the iron from the mat side of the freezer paper.

5. Stencil must be attached by the heat of the iron like a following photo. You can put a cardboard in the T-shirts to prevent paint going through to the back of the T-shirts.

6. Apply the paint. Use ink for fablic.

7. DONE! When the ink is dried, you can take off the freezer paper. Enjoy your original T-shirt! (Before you wear it, I recommend to wash it one time to make paint stayed on it)

Report: Unique LA

Two days ago, on 5/8(Sun), my husband and I went to Unique LA (http://uniquela.com/).
Unique LA is the art & craft show gathers local artists here in LA.
It was really nice to see the one-of-a-kind clothes, jewelries, and artworks, etc.

To enter this event, you need to buy a $10 admission ticket.
But the cool thing is you can get a free tote bag which is designed by a local artist when you entered!

 There were many things to see!!!!! I was too busy to look around and forgot to take some photos for this blog... At least I took one photo :)

Next Unique LA will be held sometime in December according to one of the vendor.
I hope I can be a vendor next time :)

New cushion on our couch

The other day I purchased such a gorgeous fabric.

I loved the color, texture, and design.
And I decided to make a cushion out of it.

Here is the finishing product.

It took me about 1 hour and 30min. It was fun and very refreshing to add a new cushion on our couch!

Besides the cushion, I also finished one crochet scarf and added it on my Etsy shop.

It would be perfect for the chilly spring/summer day. Please check it out ;)

First strawberry of this year!

Yes! A first strawberry of this year is becoming red in my planter!!!
It's tiny, but I will eat tomorrow morning before squirrel eat it :-p

Bluebirds and blackbird

Today I worked on my craft from 8:30am to 4:30 (30min. lunch break between)... Wow, that's quite long!
And I finished 10 of needle felted brooches!!!!

9 of them have a motif of blue birds and one has a flower motif.
All of them are different from each other.
They are similar but the beads, color of flower, lace, etc, are little by little different each other :)
That's the beauty of the handmade! Always each of them are one-of-a-kind and just only unique one is existing in this world.

I will put them on my Etsy shop (http://www.etsy.com/shop/HirokoDT) one by one. If you are interested in, please check it out.
Price range is between $6.50-$9.

When it comes to the bird, here is my favorite song related to a bird.

Blackbird by The Beatles

 And here is the rare video that Paul is getting ready for the recording of the song.

What a beautiful song!!!! I really love it!!!