A quick inspiration post! After I redesigned the website, I realized that all of the mish-mash on the top sort of reminded me of my favorite jewelry designer, Michal Negrin. If I ever were to start my own jewelry business, it would definitely be in this style. I love all the little details and trinkets! I own a couple of pieces, but they are not here with me in Japan, so I couldn’t take pictures of the pieces I own. However – it is all faux jewelry, but the quality is really good and long lasting.

// & I am going on a trip today, so no new posts until tomorrow night! Have a lovely weekend darlings!

I made an attempt at sorting my faux jewelry today; having all away in little boxes makes it harder to take out and use, so I wanted it out.

My strawberry boat is filled with… a glass, earrings, some rings and lots of fake flowers.

I think it looks like one of those small chu-chu-boats that runs slowly down the riverbank filled with gifts and sparklies.

This is the final sketch for three big pictures (each is about 50 x 60 cm) I will start this weekend on canvas. I wanted something Japanese-inspired. To match the furniture we have upstairs I will paint the background red instead, but on screen that just looks awful, so I changed it on the sketch. It might take me a while to project this huge image and redraw all the lines on a larger scale, so I better start while I still have some free time on my hands.

Oh dear. I seem to have redesigned the website. Now – if more is more calls for a price, I think I have already won. I know it is a lot of stuff going on here, but I just needed something happy and fun! I wonder how long I can stomach looking at this before changing back… Oh well, it is summer and fun in the sun after all!

Here are a couple of pictures from the book 花と苺がいちばん可愛い (Flowers and strawberrries are the cutest). There are so many cuuuute books filled with different themes of clipart, they have popped up all over the bookstores in Japan, especially over the two past years. There is at least 5 other books I want to get just because they are beautiful, but I hardly use these kinds of books. One will have to do for now, so I chose the ones that had birds, cakes and deers. It is just 100 pages of super cute clipart, and the CD that comes with the book, everything is in good resolution in both JPG and PNG. 本当に可愛いでしょうね？

// Drunk on twitter – I usually think that having one more glass is a damn good idea, I come up with extremely embarrassing cuddly names for my peers before I want to sing karaoke and dance the macarena.

This can barely be considered making anything at all, because all I did was toss together some random images from the new book I got (picture post of said amazing book to follow shortly!). Yet, I have to remind myself that all this 365 thing is about is sketches and having fun. So I am posting this anyway. Total time spent on this: 2 minutes.

Another book post, with some more books I am planning to read this summer.

花と苺はいちばん可愛い: This is not really a book to read, it is just filled with wonderful clipart! I prefer to take my own photos when I make collages, but sometimes I just have to buy a small book or two filled with inspiration and just put things together and doodle. It seems like digital clipart is really popular in Japan these days, there tons of beautiful books filled with ready-to-go clipart in the bookstores these days. I will make a seperate post showing some of the pages from this book (coming right up!).

Read Real Japanese: I have been wanting to read more Japanese, and this book has English translation on one side, and the original Japanese text on the other.

Talk less, say more: I have no idea what this book is about, and I simply bought it because the title seemed appealing. If anyone has read it, please let me know if it was decent or not.

Wednsday is indigo blue: This is a book about synesthesia – mixing of the senses. Some people have various part of the brain connected in different ways then the rest of us, and that can lead to some really interesting result. For instance, this German guy could recite the numbers in pi for about 5 hours, and he explained it because he saw each letter as a figure and a color, so when he recited all the letters of pi, it was like walking through a beautiful landscape. There are different kinds of synesthesia, people can taste colors, see letters or numbers in colors, hear shapes and so on. I have been really interested in synesthesia for a long time, but I have not found that many books about it. Looking forward to read it!

Bad Science: I have been wanting to get my hands on this book for quite a while – it is basically a big collection of alternative treatments and why they do not work, Ben Goldachre uncovers alternative flawed treatments one by one, everything from homeopathy to food supplements. I am not one of those people who hate alternative health care, quite the contrary (I’ve had alternative health experiences myself that I can not explain, but which did work for me) , but I do think it is nice to know what is fact and what is simply placebo effects.

Two new dresses that I got last weekend. (+ a couple of books with more book reviews coming right up in a separate post.) I love the whole sailor themed thing these days, I can not wait to wear the blue dress out. The top part of it is completely see-through, so that i good considering the hot summer here atm.