Introducing new items for Fund Raising 4

I am still making new items daily basis for Fund Raising Sales event this weekend!
The organizer made the facebook event page. Please check it out!
http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=209360425744012
I can see that many people wrote that they can’t come…
That’s very sad… I really hope many many come and join us!

Here is what I made today.

Vintage Lace Blue Necklace

Closer look of it. Umm… A photo is a little out of focus though…

I looooooove to use vintage laces. They are so elegant, pretty and fit to spring/summer!
I will make some more necklace with vintage lace in different design by Sunday.
Please keep checking my postings!!!

Work in progress “A Deer in the Forest” 3

Finally I’ve done with “A Deer in the Forest”! It turned out to be a necklace in the end.


I am gonna bring this necklace to sell in the Fund Raising Yard Sale/Flea Market which will be held on 4/3(Sun) 10:00-5:00 at Culver city.
I hope somebody likes it.

Fund Raising Yard Sale/Flea Market is postponed

Good morning everyone. Unfortunately the organizer of our Fund Raising decided to postpone it to next Sunday, 4/3 because of this rain.
I am so sorry if you planted to come today... I never hate the rain this much!!!!!! :-(

If I take this positively, I have more time to make handmade stuff till next Sunday! 
Please keep checking my blog for new items!!!!
I am going to add the new items also on  my Etsy shop
If you live in outside of LA and hard to come to the Fund Raising, yet still interested in my handmade stuff, you can visit my Etsy shop.
'cause I donate the profit from my Etsy shop to Japan, too!!!!

Have a great Sunday!
I am going to make more items from now on.

Getting ready for Fund Raising Sales

Finally tomorrow is the Fund Raising Yard Sale/Flea Market day!!!!
I am getting ready for it!
Just one concern is weather.
What happens to the weather in LA!? I can’t believe we have so many rainy days in March!!! And of course rain and yard sale never get along with together…
In worst case, we need to postpone the fund raising to 4/3 (Sun).
I will let you know by 7:30 am tomorrow if weather doesn’t corporate with us and the organizer decides to postpone it…
Please, come out, sun!!!!!!

Anyways, here is the last post for the items I am gonna sell tomorrow. Two different crochet necklace.


Everybody, please wish me luck everything goes well tomorrow!
If you can come, see you there!!!!!!

The Fund Raising Yard Sale/Flea Market info:
Date : Sunday MAR. 27th.
Time: 10:00~4:00
Place : 3333 Helms Ave. Culver City, 90232 

Introducing new iteams for Fund Raising 3

Just only 2 more days till Fund Raising sales event!!!!
I am still adding more & more stuff.
And of course everything is 100% handmade of mine!
 

Blue Fuzz Ball and Ribbon Hair Pins

Closer look

And Flower Hair Pins

Closer look for Green flower and Blue Flower

Once again, I took these photos under the room light.
I know I should have taken those under the natural sunshine…

According to the organizer of the Fund Raiser, we even have a bicycle to sell!!
I wonder who will be the lucky person to buy it.

Anyways, have a great weekend everybody!!!

Introducing new items for Fund Raising 2 & about anniversary

Today was a great day to me.
First of all, today is our 4th wedding anniversary!!!! Wow, I can’t believe 4 years have passed since the wedding… Time flies so fast!
I wanted to make something special for today and I made cream puffs for dessert


It was my first attempt to make cream puffs but I think I made them right. I used 2 different kinds of cream: custard cream and whipped cream. They were so good (The hand holding a cream puff is My husband’s. Thanks for helping me to take a photo!)

Second good thing was I had sales from my Etsy shop!!!! I didn’t expect somebody would buy something before the yard sale because my Etsy shop doesn’t have so much traffic, I was really really surprised and couldn’t believe it!
These are the sales I made.

Flower and Humming Bird necklace / Apple Green Fuzz Ball hair pins

A Teardrop in Rain necklace / Blue Flowers necklace

Flower Bouquet brooch

I really honestly couldn’t believe one person bought that much!!! As I announced before, I will donate all profits to Japan. I am going to post how much I earn and donate to Japan in the future on this Blog after I figure out how much percentage Etsy took as transaction fee.

Other than that, I was busy making more handmade Jewelry/Accessories for the Fund Raising Yard Sale/Flea Market held this coming Sunday March 27th.
Here are some new items.

Teardrop Earring 

Bird Brooches

Closer Look at them

Mmm… These photos are not good at all because I took them in the night.
I hope you can get a grasp of what they look like.

The Fund Raising Yard Sale/Flea Market will be held as follows:
Date : Sunday MAR. 27th.
Time: 10:00~4:00
Place : 3333 Helms Ave. Culver City, 90232
Right now we seem to have 16 different vendors so far. It would be fun! Please come and join us!

Introducing new items for Fund Raising 1

I recently announced about my joining the fund raising yard sale/Flea market for Japan.
I am making some more new items for that.

Here is the new crochet flower brooch.

You can wear this one as a pin or a clip.

You can put it on the bag like above.  Or if you use as a clip, you can wear it as a hair piece, too. (Unfortunately I don’t have a photo of that)

I received some updates from the organizer of the fund raiser.
Besides selling the handmade or used stuff, we will have the following activities, too.

- Japanese pastries, food, and drinks.
- LIVE MUSIC by Aile at 2:30pm!
- 2 hair stylists join us. If you need hair cut, please come to the yard sale!
- Shuji (Calligraphy) Art by Saki Miata can write your favorite word or your name in Japanese
- We have a color therapist to find the best color for you
 
Doesn't it sound fun?
I don’t mind if you do shopping or not. Just come and see us and have fun together!

Yard Sale for Japan Earthquake Disaster Relief. 100% Donated

Since I updated my blog on March 14th, I was looking for a way I can support Japan.
Day by day, the news sources reveal how awful the earthquake and tsunami was, and I feel I am useless.
I decided to donate my profits from Etsy but I don’t have so much traffic there. And nothing was sold yet.
At least I donated money to Red Cross and hope that will help a little for reconstructing the disaster stricken area.

And I found one more thing I can do for Japan. That is attending the following yard sale with my handmade jewelry & accessories to help raise donations.

Please come and see us if you have time. Not only jewelry, but we also have live performances (a Japanese singer will be performing), and many many more fun activities!!!

Other than my Etsy displayed items, I will bring my recent handmade stuff as follows:

Spring/Summer Scarf

Hand printed brooch

My favorite motif “Blue Birds”

And more!!!!!

 Please come and see us and let's have a fun together!!!!!!

What I can do for Japan

A few days has passed after the earthquake hit Japan. Every time I watch the footage on the news, I can’t stop my tears… It is really horrible what happened there. And I was frustrated that I couldn’t do anything for my home country Japan from here.

Today when I was driving Mulholland Dr., I saw the following sign.

I couldn’t hold my tears when I saw this.
And while I was taking this photo, I was so lucky that the house owner just came back. I thought maybe they were uncomfortable about a random person like me taking a photo of part of their property.
But they said “Thank you so much for taking a photo and sharing with the other people. We have many Japanese friends  and wanted do something for Japan, so we asked one of my Japanese friends to help us to write this sign. We hope this sign gets many people’s attention to support Japan.”
My tears came out more when I heard that.
They also said they talked to their neighbors and decided to donate some money.
All I could say was “Thank you” to them. As a Japanese, I was so happy to know that people careabout my home country, Japan.

I am also going to donate money through Red Cross. But I am not wealthy enough to donate millions of dollars unfortunately.
I was thinking about what I can do for people in need these days.
And I came up with the idea that I will donate the profit I can get from My Etsy Shop, in addition to my personal donation.
In these case, people need money for the long term. Not only a month or two but many years for reconstruction. And nobody knows how long it’s gonna take. I will donate there, long term.
I would be so grateful if you could pray and offer support for Japan.

Earthquake hit Japan

Last night, after I just posted "some ups" on my blog, I heard the news that an M8.9 earthquake hit north east Japan…

I contacted my parents in Hokkaido right after that, and they are fine.

My brother lives in Chiba (near Tokyo). He is working in Tokyo, and it took 12 hours for him to drive back home, because all the public transportation, and all the freeways in Tokyo were stopped. He finally got home at 5:15AM.

American TV news networks like CNN try to give us info but it’s not very specific I think. So I started watching the live Japanese news on following link:
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/tbstv
You can get what is going on right this moment in Japan.

Japan is still being hit by earthquakes right this moment. They're not big as M8.9, however they're bigger than M4. M4 is still quite big.
And those aftershocks make more Tsunami attacks.

Also you can see the footage of the earthquake from this link.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1365318/Japan-earthquake-tsunami-The-moment-mother-nature-engulfed-nation.html
The stricken area is still very cold. It’s not like the weather of LA. It is really freezing cold. It still snows in March.
And there isn’t enough food for everybody.

It is very frustrating that I can’t do anything…
I can’t give any blanket or food to people in the stricken area.
At least I will pray that nothing worse than this happens…
Please pray with me for Japan, everybody.

Some “Ups”

These 2 weeks, I had some blue moments as I wrote. 
But now, I am in a better mood now! Here are some ups recently that happened to me:

1. Finally a new cell phone arrived at our house yesterday! Yay!!! It's a smart phone! Very useful and compact. I haven't gotten used to it though... I wonder if the day when I really use 100% of its ability will come or not...

2. I was working on some crochet projects, and now I finished! Yay!!!!
Here are photos of the:

"Pretty Cherry"

"Spring Flowers"

"White Flower"

Those are now on sale on my Etsy Shop.

This is not the end of my “ups”.
I have one more and it’s the most important one!

3. My husband’s birthday is around the corner!!!!!!!
We don’t plan to have a big party for it, but I am planning something nice & handmade for him
I will post about it after his birthday!!!

I’m still feeling blue.

A week has passed since my phone died. And I am still feeling blue. There are four reasons.
1. I caught a cold on the day my phone died. Sore throat was really annoying and now I am still bothered by mucus in my lung and sinus.

2. Because I was sick, I couldn’t do any crafting nor updating of my blog. I didn’t have any motivation or any good inspiration. It was quite frustrating to me.

3. My husband and I went to the cell phone shop last Saturday to buy a new phone for him and me.
However we found that the internet price and shop price of the phones are different. And the price on the internet was cheaper. In the end, we decided to order the phone through the internet and wait for them to be delivered to our house. It means my phone-less days will be continued, maybe till this weekend.

4.Yesterday, our house was attacked by bees. Yeah, not beads but actual insect bees.
We could hear their buzzing sound from the air vent in our bathroom. And we found at least 15 bees in our house!!!! OH NOOOO!!!!! In the end, my husband found that those bees came into our house through a tiny hole between the roof and wall. He sprayed tons of insecticide into the hole and those bees died instantly.

Anyways, those are the downs recently I went through.
I should mention some ups, too. My husband and I decided to update our antique cell phones to smart phones.
And this is what we chose:

 HTC inspire 

I hope this phone is cool. First thing is I need to learn how to use it. If you have this phone, please let me know how good/bad it is.

A Little Feeling Blue

Last night my cell phone died…

After dinner, I tried to call my friend and I noticed that my cell phone was not in my bag.
I looked for it everywhere but I couldn’t find it.
So I called to my cell from my home phone, then I could hear my ringtone from the outside of our door…
Quickly I went out and I saw the light was blinking on the street!!!

And I understood what happened…
Well, before dinner I drove my car to finish my errands. And I put my cell phone on my lap while I was driving.
When I got home, I totally forgot that my cell phone was on my lap, I stood up from my seat to get out of the car.
Of course my cell phone fell from my lap… But I didn’t notice it…
My poor cell phone fell off on the street and it was driven over by cars…

And RIP…
How stupid I was!!!!!!!!!!
Maybe I was preoccupied by something else, but it was really stupid mistake of mine…

Now I need to survive several days without a cell phone.
The earliest I can go to the shop will be this Saturday. Until then, I am cell phone less in this high tech world…
It is real survival in some way.
What if my car stops in the middle of the freeway!? Or I'm involved in an accident!? How can I contact AAA!?
I really need to drive extra carefully. And I should leave early from my house not to be late for my appointment time.
Think about these things, I realize how much I  rely on a cell phone.

Anyways, I should cheer myself up. I should not cry over spilled milk.
Let’s listen to my favorite songs to feel better.
Here is one of my favorite songs, “New Soul” by Yael Naim.
Maybe some of you know this song from the iPhone commercial 2 years ago.
She is also singing about mistakes.
Yes, people are making mistakes. That is how we learn.