New Spoonflower Fabric Design: Mermaid Kingdom!

I've been working on this design on and off (mostly off!) for about a year, but I was finally motivated to finish it up in time for the free eco-canvas swatch day at Spoonflower.  I decided to call it Mermaid Kingdom because it features an entire population of mermaids!  One of the challenges of designing it was making all the different mermaids... I tried to give each one his/her own distinctive character.  I am in LOVE with it, and I think it came out so cute!  Did you notice the merlions?

I found that my original design size was a bit small for something bumpy like eco-canvas, so I increased the size a bit... now the mermaids are around 1" (~2.5 cm) versus .5" (~1.5 cm).     Mermaid Kingdom is Available now on my Spoonflower page!

More piggy pictures

I listed these in my shop last week or so, and posted to my Facebook too, but the pics are so cute!  So they are here too now :)

And the black one..... bam!

All the Korean Makeups

I had a spectacular day off on Friday, and I spent it shopping at MULTIPLE Korean makeup stores!  We are lucky in Hawaii, because within the past three years, three different Korean makeup brands have opened up shop!  This includes The Face Shop, TonyMoly and Nature Republic! Although I'm not normally a huge makeup fan, Korean makeup usually comes in kawaii packages (of which I AM a super fan!).  All three stores have comporable makeup and skincare products, such as lotions, cleansers, face masks, nail polishes, etc, at similar prices.  Together, they are a trifecta of amazing kawaii makeup products!  I'm actually going to Japan in a few months (the land of kawaii makeup), but I couldn't resist.  Here are my purchases:

Face masks on the bottom left (including Aloe, Mung Bean, and Honey).  The red box is a tomato lotion... Tomato is a very popular flavor/ fragrance in Japan, Korea, and other Asian countries.  The monkey box holds a mud mask and the green bunny is a green tea solid perfume!

Korean makeup stores are also really good about giving samples...The Floria tubes and Aura cream came as free gifts with purchase, and were included in the calendar box in the back!

 Panda hand cream.   I repeat.  Panda hand cream.  Not going to lie, I kinda wanted this just because it came in a panda.

Want to wage a war against your pores?  Use this egg pore toner!  

More hand cream!  This one came from Nature Republic, which is still relatively new in Hawaii... Their store is in Ala Moana.  See what I mean about packaging though?  From the minute you open it to the minute all the product is gone, you gotta love the whole "process" of using Korean makeup!  Additionally, the little sprout on this guy's head can be taken out and put in your cell phone's earjack, like a little plant is growing out of your phone (they're called pluggies!).  Isn't that cool?

So anyway, I'm going to have to not spend money for a little while, but I'll definitely have super nice hands/ smell super good/ clear skin in the meantime!

New spoonflower fabric design… Jellyfish!

There's a brand new fabric design in my spoonflower shop…. does it look familiar?  Its light blue jellyfish and orange fish prey swimming on a dark teal background.   To make this design, I used Inkscape, which is a free vector based drawing program.  I love jellyfish so much, so I hope you like this fabric!

February Sale ends at the end of February

Just a heads up!  My February sale is going to end soon... on Friday February 28th.  If it were a leap year you would have one more day to buy stuff on sale but its not so you don't, :D

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Chinese New Year!

Kaiyukan/ Osaka Aquarium

Yep, I'm still not done posting my pictures from Japan (especially now that I have my new computer)!  In Osaka we made a special trip to Kaiyukan/ the Osaka Aquarium, which was AMAZINGly fun!  I realize now that when I travel, I love visiting museums and aquariums and this one was definitely one of the best I've been to!  It was super easy to get to (just catch the bullet train) and walk a bit.  It's nice because there is a shopping center next to the aquarium (Tempozan Harbor), and you can also buy tickets to ride the giant ferris wheel there. The aquarium is one of the largest in the world, and it would have to be to house not one but TWO whale sharks… we were super lucky because when we visited in June of 2013 they had just gotten a brand new baby whale shark and were in the process of holding a naming contest for it (she ended up being named Ten-chan).  My sister and I specifically wanted to visit Yu-chan and Ten-chan! 

Inside the Aquarium…see how massive the tanks are!

Penguins!

Spider crabs! Eeeeeew.

I forget what these were (whale lice?) but they were gross!

Octopi!

Ten-chan the whale shark!

Yu-chan the whale shark!

The best touch pool ever!

Kawaii crab

An otter!  Seriously, this was the best picture I got… they wouldn't be still for a second!

Feeding the penguins!

Dolphins

more whale shark!

Tempozan Harbor and Temposan Ferris Wheel

Tempozan Harbor Ferris Wheel… to make it look like there are more people riding the ferris wheel, they stick a giant winnie the pooh doll in one of the carriages!

View from the ferris wheel!

View from the ferris wheel!

And that was the Osaka Aquarium!

If you still read this blog, know that there is a sale happening right now...

Huzzah!

https://www.etsy.com/shop/berrysprite

Also, do you like my old school signage skills?  I'm still working on getting all my lovely programs on my new computer.... soon I will have cute graphics again!

happy new year!

I made this with my new computer, which doesn't have any of my old programs… so it looks a bit elementary my dear Watson… but nevertheless, wishing you and yours a Happy 2014!!!