Project 365 Collage #15

Oh, I am behind in my Project 365 postings! One was due the day before we left, but I totally didn't get time to post it so here it is now!!

The first one is me on the cool exercise equipment the council put in the local park, the park used to be pretty quiet, but since they put in a concrete path the whole way around the park and all these equipment stations along the path, it's super busy!!; ooohh, it's getting cold now so I've broken the heater out :) ; how awesome are my Gumboots? Totally AWESOME!! I got them at David Jones at the beginning of April and have actually worn them quite a few times (cos they make me look cool too {chuckles}); next pic is me making up the snack packs for our Trip cos we flew Jetstar and they don't include snacks in the meal package- we had little tubs of pringles, mini cookies, shapes, "ducks nuts" and meusli bars and we did need them too!; my diary is all ready for Japan! It is tradition for me to make a travel diary with pics cut from the travel brochures, I have done it with every o/s trip since my exchange to Germany in High School!; Scrappin in my giant fluffy dressing gown; Mother's Day Yum Cha with Will's family; delicious dinner- this time it was Chicken and mushroom Vol-au-vonts with veg, YUM; my friend Gordy's farewell morning tea at work cos he's going to do Camps in the USA for 6 months!

Well, I'd better run and check on my Raspberry Coconut loaf I have in the oven cos Alicia and Felicity (and Cooper!) are coming over to check out my ring, my holiday pics and all the cool stuff that I bought in Japan!! I had to quarentine from Fliss and Cooper for 6 days just in case of swine Flu but no hint of the sniffles (or snorts!) so they're all coming over to visit. Wish you could be here too Yvette!

:)C

Japan re-cap Day 3!!

Day 3- Back to the Imperial Palace to find it actually open today {hooray!!}. The gardens, giant rock wall, moat and bridges are just stunning. I am always awestruck at the age of buildings outside Australia. It's funny cos at home I think something that is 200yrs old is ancient, here, if it's 400 years old, that's normal!! You can't actually go into the Palace as it is off-limits (in fact we didn't even see it!) but just getting to walk around the grounds is beautiful enough! They even have "rest pavilions" which are enclosed rooms with seats, vending machines (of course) and interesting posters to read. Those Japs are awesome!
I love their trees in japan, they are just like on Mum's Willow pattern Tea Set! They are amazingly different to any trees we have here, I feel like getting a Bonzai now so I can have my own miniature version of their loveliness! I have dreams that the trees just grow in this cool way but they probably take a bit of trimming, anyone know? Cool either way!

I love that so many of the attractions in Japan are either Free or really cheap to get in. The Imperial Palace is free and you could spend all day there just hanging out if you wanted to!... although the sign disagrees cos it says "Don't stay here."!! I think it's one of the great examples of Jap-lish (Japanese to English translation) that just doesn't quite match up with the original. I'm thinking they mean "don't congregate here and move quickly through the exit" but "don't stay here" is much more succinct!

Another thing that we really noticed about Japan is the Kawaii stuff is everywhere! Kawaii is the word used for the cute, innocent little cartoon characters that they use on letters, leaflets, the Customs sign at the airport, Police Station signs, toys, clothes, shoes, trains, advertisements you name it... they use Kawaii characters! This guy is on the sign for a Construction site- it probably says "If you do not wear your hard hat, you risk death by falling objects" or something like that, but when you have a kawaii guy on the sign, it makes it so much cuter!! Lol :)

After the Palace we took the Monorail over the Rainbow Bridge to Odaiba, which is a modern man-made island in Tokyo Harbour that has shops, the big eye Ferris wheel, museums and Will's fave, the Toyota Showcase! I had read about it online and in the Lonely Planet, and most people didn't give it many stars on the "Places to visit!" chart, but we had so much fun there, and did some of our best shopping there too! I guess you can't always believe what you read!! We shopped first at "Decks" which had some cool shops selling the real "Tokyo style" clothes that the girls wear over there. Lots of layers on layers- think ' short strappy dress with shirt under, tights under dress, skirt under dress but over tights, cardigan over all, those little footlet stockings, high heels, and a big handbag with lots of those dangly character keyrings on it'! That's Tokyo Style! Then we walked across the island to Venus Fort shopping centre which looks just like the Venetian in Vegas cos it has clouds painted on the ceiling and all the shop fronts look like full buildings in a street! It has all the middle to upmarket shops like Zara, Mango, Barbie (hehe, not Will's fave!), and the cool Lego store!! How do you like this cute little puppy that was shopping in her denim dress and ribbons in her hair? LOL!!

Conveniantly located right across the walkway from the Venus Fort is the Toyota Megaweb showcase which Will was so happy to visit! We went on a ride in a self driven tiny toyota called the IQ. It wasn't even on tracks or anything, I think it was driven by GPS! It was fun, but we had to squeeze our giant shopping bags into the car with us, which was hillarious to watch!! Will loved checking out all the Toyotas which aren't available in Australia. It's sad, but he loves his Camry like it's going out of style, typical Asian!! So you can imagine he was in HEAVEN there!! I'm so glad he got to do something totally for him cos he was the best travelling companion for me, always going where-ever I wanted to, and always carrying my shopping bags for me!! He never complained when I took too long in a shop either, he just finds a seat then goes into a micro-sleep! Lol! So funny to watch :) I'm so glad this guy's going to be my husband!! How exciting!! Hehehehe. We ended up spending about 6 hrs at Odaiba! Take that Lonely Planet, it was good to visit!!

After we caught the Monorail back to Shimbashi and walked from there to Ginza which is famous for all the totally expensive shops like Hermes, Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Dior, Armani etc. (Can you believe they own whole buildings for their stores?! Not just a store front!!) I was quite happy with everything we had bought at Odaiba and had no qualms about snubbing my nose at all the fancy stores! Not that I could have afforded anything even if I wanted it! Lol. Ginza has lots of neon that Toyko is famous for, and those giant TV's on the side of the Department stores. An interesting place to wander around at least!! I did buy a tote bag for shopping with apples on it and a little purse with pears on it, in a tiny little stationary stores nestled amongst these fashion giants. I had seen the exact same tote at Craft Fest with Mum back in March, at a store with lots of Jap stuff and commented I was going to look for it in Japan... and I found it! Hurrah!! It was $12 at the show and I paid only 500Y. Ha!

So I thought you might like to have a look at some of the stuff I got on this day (yes, this is only one day's shopping..and not everything from that day either... oops!!) The really awesome hot pink and yellow Nike's at the back are my first pair of Nike's ever! We never have such cool shoes like that here in Aus, so I had to get them (even though they were still about $80AUD), the turquoise shoes are from Zara {love them}, the "Lazy Bear" pink shirt I had to get cos we noticed this character (whose real name is Rilakkuma) is always reclining or being lazy in all his merchandise! I even managed to get Will a phone charm to celebrate our engagement that was Lazy Bear reclining on Mt Fuji! So Lazy. Will hated him at first but we developed a love affiar with Lazy Bear and ended up getting quite a bit of crap with him on it!! Reclining of course {wink}! Also in this pic are Egg Cups and Salt and Pepper containers that are Lego Men heads! So cool! And the red lego block is a big container!! Oh, the apple stuff is a cutting board and apple coasters! Fliss mentioned after our last trip to Hawaii that I always come back with the most interesting everyday stuff, and I guess the cutting board and coasters fit that description this time!! The little piggy shirt top right is for my Nephew, it's a pig riding a donkey with a Cherry Blossom branch in the background. Those crazy Japs make the funniest clothes! The Sushi at the front are fridge magnets and you can see the apple tote and pear purse I talked about earlier.

Thats enough babble for today, you're probably sick of reading by now!!

:) C

Hello Bloggers! I'm back!!

Hello everyone in Blogworld, did you miss me?!

We had an awesome holiday in Japan!! Of course :) I was already having a great time when Will proposed to me on day 5, at Mt Fuji! How special is that?!

Seeing as I haven't done anything very creative lately (for obvious reasons!) I thought you might like a recap of our holiday! I hope you enjoy the next few posts, and live, at least a little, vicariously through me :) {wink}

Day 1- Fly in (nothing too exciting here, so I'll move straight on!)

Day 2- Ueno, Nippori- Fabric town!!, Akihabara

We started the day off by heading to the Imperial Palace only to find the garden is shut on Fridays and Mondays, and it was Friday!! Argh!!

But- don't let this get you down... we walked across downtown Tokyo to Tokyo Railway Station (massively busy, even on a Friday mid-morning!) If you realise you're standing on the wrong side of a river of Japanese people, take care crossing over between them, it's madness! We took the Yamanote line to Ueno for a look around Ueno park. The park has a couple of shrines which introduced us to the amazing traditional culture of Japan. I loved the prayers tied to the pole fences and the long strings of origami cranes hanging beside them. So beautiful. There were big orange Inari gates and traditional buildings with Gold lettering and beautiful glowing lanterns, just so stunning.

We cruised around the park, talking in the sights, and strolled through some market stalls selling pottery and octopus balls! I bought a gorgeous little Rice bowl with owls on it (of course) and 2 sweet little pottery figures of an owl and the traditional bunny that was on lots of fabric etc. So cute!

We went to the Tokyo National Museum and did some people watching in the 1hr wait to get in and see the special exhibit- the giant Buddas from the Golden Temple in Kyoto. Man they were massive!! They ranged from about 400-600 years old and some broken up idols that were even older, so amazing. The main ones were over 2 stories high! WOW!!

After the museum we walked all the way to Nippori (we were up for some foot punishement on the first full day!) cos I really wanted to go to Textile Town at Nippori. We passed through the cemetary at Nippori and found this massive guy which Will is impersonating, although Will has added the interesting feature of his Swine Flu mask!! After the massive breakout in Osaka I couldn't get a mask anywhere! I haven't started snorting yet, so I'm thinking Swine Flu may have passed me by :) {sighing with relief!}

Nippori Textile Town is a whole street of fabric shops that sell way cheap. I'd read a lot about it on the net and boy did it NOT DISAPPOINT!! The fabric ranged from about 350Y to 650Y. Totally awesome prices, and the quality of the fabric is just amazing! I got some beautiful printed cottons for only 350Y per m, and then some more traditional prints for Mum in darker colours for only 550Y per m. Wow!! So gorgeous! My absolute fave fabrics are the woodland prints, I got owls and Little Red Riding Hood, Deers and Mushrooms, and I got a cute one with giant Babushkas (yes, not woodland, I know, but so cute!!) Top left are the navy prints I bought for Mum, under that is a traditional print seersucker with flowers and a bird; top right are more fabrics I bought for Mum, all prepackaged for easy buying (what I liked!!) and in beautiful traditional prints. All the little tubes of fabric at bottom left are 30cm by 1m and were only 105Y each. WHAT?!! I know, can you believe it!! I got lots of beautiful patterns to make another Babushka doll like the one I made a couple of months ago. Bottom right is my fave print on top with the deer and mushrooms, under that is some awesome spotty fabric and gorgeous little deer at the bottom (to make something for the Little Lams in a couple of years time!)

My darling husband-to-be carried all this fabric (it was many many kg's worth) around for me for the rest of the day cos he loves me! {HUGS WILLY!!} He even put it in his luggage cos he said I was going to buy more stuff than him so he'd carry it. He makes me want to hug him permanently or carry him around on my back in a papoose.

After Nippori we caught the Yamanote line back to Akihabara which is the Electric Town of Tokyo. It was amazing, there was a spruker who was rapping, trying to get us to go into his shop and buy a laptop! They have the Maid Cafe's there, and there was lots of Neon and cheap electronics. Definitely full of tourists though. I got the most gorgeous USB owl that sits on your computer desk and when you plug him into the USB he blinks and turns his head and is just so darn cute! A little bit of good company for my blogging nights!

Ok, it's totally bed time for me now, stay tuned for days 3-12!!

:) C

Engaged!!!

Yes ENGAGED!!

Will proposed to me yesterday on the top of Mount Fuji!! WOW!!!!!! I said yes {chuckles} and so a fantastic holiday in Japan just got even more exciting!! My ring is just so beautiful, I cant stop looking at it! Will keeps slapping my hand cos I just stare at it endlessly :) He got down on one knee and everything, what a sweetie! He`d been paranoid about leaving his backpack anywhere and would carry it everywhere even though it was full and weighed a tonne. Ｓｏ　ｈａｐｐｙ！！

japan email!

Hi family! For some reason my email wouldn:t send... so I have to blog it instead! Sorry to all you blog readers who dont care about this... but I must get my message home;

Hello family!
Will and I are having a totally awesome time here in Japan! Youll have to excuse my emailing skills as a lot of the buttons arent in the same place and I have yet to locate the apostrophie. This is where the delete button usually is ¥¥¥¥¥¥¥. argh! sorry if you see it a lot ;)

The hotel (hostel) wehere we are staying is really good. we are in bunks on the top floor so the roof slopes down. The only normal height bit is where the bunks are LOL!! It is in Jimbocho suburb and we have found heaps of delicious places to eat dinner- have eaten noodle soups with dumplings, chickn katzu (crumbed and with a sauce kinda like bbq) and the little things called gyozen (I think) which are like spring rolls but fried crispy on ly on one side. yum! We also ate at Maccas where will had a teriyake burger. hahahahaah. it was interestng!

The first day we had a monster day and my legs are still aching from all the walking! We went past the imperial palace but it was shut, battled the crowds at Tokyo station, walked through Ueno park and saw a shinto and a buddhist temple and went to the Tokyo national museum. INthe line at the nat museum there were a few ladies in traditional dress! That was pretty cool to see real ladies in real kimonos and socks with thongs. LOL!
After Ueno we walked to Nippori textile town... Mum you should get excited! You should come here, the fabric is so so cheap, like you wouldnt believe. Between 380¥ and 680¥ per m. wow!! But fabric is heavy, which Will found out cos he carried my bags all around. What a great guy :) I am worried that i might already be over the limit with everyhing i bought yesterday also so i will have to curb the spending.
The only thing I have to say now is: SOS-- SEND MORE MONEY!!!

Yeah, I have spent about 5 days worth in 2 dys. oops. but its just awesome here, and i love everything that i bought! I have gotten lots of cute notepaper, some jap t-shirts with chracters, a pair of aweseom hot pink and yellow nikes, chopsticks, a lego brick container (love it), sticvkers, hello kitty phone charms- which by the way everyone has on their phones and bags including old ladies. oh yeah- eveyones phone is so blinged up here. jewells, stickers etc covering the phones. wow!
yesterday we went in to the imperial gardens cos they were finally open, and man they were so beautiful. the trees are all like on your willow pattern stuff mum! Its just amazing. they had GIANT koi in the pond, about 45cm or longer! the gardens were so serene, you cant hear the city traffic at all. the giant stone blocks the used to make the wall around the palace and the moat are amazing, who knows where they got them as there are no mountains close around here. there was some judo fighting going on in a hall which we could hear but not see cos it was closed to the public.

after that we went to odaiba whch was awesome shopping and we went to the Toyota showcase for will! He really loved seeing all the different models they have in japan and we took a ride in a self-driven electric car. wow!. ;) see, i:m doing stuff for will too!! I boiught so much stuff yesty so I have to curb it for a coupleof days! This is what i work hard for though ;)
today we are going to harajuku and shibuya, 2 fashion districs, should be heaps of fun.

will does keep getting mistaken for a japanese man! he:s been talked to about 8 or 9 times and not understood and we have to say... no, no, english!! lol. the people here are so friendly, twice we were on the train or in the station looking at the map and someone will come over to us and say ; where you want to go? and they will show us. so helpful! and the people in the shops always want to give you a big shopping bag to put all your small ones in and they are just so soft spoken and friendlt. tokyo is so clean too, the streets feel really safe and we have no probs wandering around at night. its so beautiful here.
my internet time is up, write again soon ;) emailme back!

Love charlotte (and will who is still in bed cos its only 7;50am!) ¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥xoxoxoxoxoxxo¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥

I'm off to Japan tomorrow!!

Hi Y'all!!
The time is finally here! Will and I are off to Japan on a 7am flight tomorrow, wish us luck!! Neither of us speak any Japanese so it's bound to be an awesome adventure :) I have spent so many hours on the net searching and absorbing all the information I can about what to see and where to go, and still I feel a little apprehensive about whether we will get to everything we want!! I hope we can!!
I did you a fun little photo mosaic of Japan so you can feel a part of it too! This is the kind of "flava" I want our holiday to have... a little bit of culture, beautiful views, shopping, anime and kawaii and lots of fun!1. Imperial Palace, Tokyo, 2. This one was taken in Shibuya, 3. Bridge at the Lotus Pond, 4. Kyoto Lanterns, 5. Mt.Fuji ... snow on the top, 6. Kamakura, 7. Maiko, Kyoto, 8. Kawaii Cute Japanese Plush Case - Wanroom - Sabowan - Cactus Dog, 9. City Lights, 10. Nara, 11. Atom = Astro Boy through MONO COMME CA Harajuku Window, 12. Kinkakuji Golden Pavilion 京都 金閣寺 (Kyoto Japan)

I will try to blog while I'm away, so you can holiday along with me!! Don't miss me too much, I'm sure I'll have lots of beautiful pics and cool shopping to show you when we get back!!
:) C

Foot Happy!

Hi y'all!!

Sorry, it has been a quite week on the posting front!! I have only done one page in a whole week and I haven't even photographed it yet! Slacker!!

Do you know the blog Gypsy Feet? It's a fun little blog where you can email a pic of your feet, or your dad/mum/child/friend's feet and a little blurb to go along with it, and they might choose to use it! If you saw my pics from Hawaii you will know I was obsessed with taking pics of my feet all over Hawaii, mostly in and under the beautiful cool clear water!! Well, I got an email yesterday to say that they finally used my pics I emailed in Feb!! WOW!!! My feet are famous :) Check out all my feet (and Will's too) here.

Catch you later!

:) C

Still more pages from Yvette's!!

Yep, here are 2 more pages I finished during my visit with Yvette 2 weeks ago and still hadn't gotten to post!! Wow, you can call me slack.. I can handle it {quietly sobbing into dressing gown}. LOL! This first page is a patchwork of scraps from my stash. The OLD on this page are the lettering stickers I used for the title and some of the scraps of papers which I have had for a few years now (cough!) The chipboard flowers I've had for 2.5yrs now so that makes them about teenagers in the age of my stash :) Heheh.. the cute journal spot is a brand spankin new one though, so cute!
Then the other page is a silly one of Will and I from our Road Trip/Beach Holiday last year. I was just snapping some silly pics of Will when I realised I was in them too! If you look closely I am reflected in Will's sunnies!! Hehe, I laughed a lot when I realised I was there! I love this cloud paper so much, it matched a big snuggly dressing gown I have, which is like wearing a massive cuddly blanket around the house, sooooo good in winter! Yvette helped me choose the colour combo for this one so... Thanks!! {hugs!} The OLD on this page is the journal spot and the "squeeze me" sticker which I have had for a couple of years now! See the "everyday" word on the right? It's actually the name of the paper series which is printed on the cut-off strip at the bottom of the paper! I just cut it off and used a corner rounder to spruce it up.... Genious!! I think this page is my favourite, probably cos Willy has that silly little grin on too {heart!}
Did you know this time next week we'll be in Tokyo? Awesome!!
:) C

Project 365 Collage #14 and a page from Yvette's :)

Hi y'all!! I'll start today with the page, seeing as I have been slack in posting up all the page I did at Yvette's! I have no idea where my week has gone, if you see it hiding under your lounge can you pull it out and give it back!! It's almost Thursday and I haven't sat at my desk all week! Which means Mum hasn't gotten a Mother's Day card yet... sorry Mum!! It'll be late {hugs as compensation!} Totally, this page isn't as dull as this IRL, I just didn't have time to take it out of the plastic sleeve (and right now I can't even remember the proper scrapbooking name for the plastic sleeves... argh {pulling at hair}!! You know what I mean!) So I love baking, as you know, and my friends were lucky enough to get Easter Cupcakes and these cool Chocolate Marshmallow M&M cookies recently. YUM!! As this was a page I did at Y's, it had to follow the rule of something old, something new, so the OLD on this page are the KI ovals on the right- I have had them for Donkey's years!! Nice to have some of them used up and the orange makes a nice change to have with the pink :)

Now onto the last 9 days:

My last day at Yvette's!! Still scrappin in my PJ's I see!; this is what I have to deal with when I try to take a pic of Will and I. Thankgoodness for digital cameras cos I could see what he was doing straight away! I got 4 pics like this- Will looking up, down, left and right... what a dweeb!; my Assyrian friend Tara's birthday. You might recognise Tara as Jasmine from Aladdin!! Lol, well they do both have massive eyes!; baking! This time it is Katherine Hepburn's Brownies... so chewy and delish!; looking hot getting my hair done; sleeping in my old childhood bed which now resides in someone's sewing room- this is the view as I go to sleep when I visit! It reminds me I am home :) No Mum, it's not a bad thing!!; Mum's craft sale.. a success!; having morning tea in tha back garden, soaking up the last of the Autumn sun and eating the left over cakes from the sale!; my pantry shelf. If the Swine Flu does break out and we are all quarantined at home, I'll survive for a few weeks!!

Thats it for the second-last collage before Japan!! Excited!!! Getting the Flu Vax tomorrow- being given out free at work. Hope it doesn't make me sick cos we leave in one week! Woot {cheering!!}
:) C

Another page from Yvette's!!

Here is another page I finished on my visit to Yvette's last weekend!
These pics are from my trip to Nelson Bay with my friends back in February. It was really relaxing and cheery being in the pool in the sunshine with our drinks and snacks (so naughty!!) We had so much fun there, I can't wait to do it again! I wanted the page to have a resort kinda feel so I used the candy pink cardstock with the gorgeous blue spot paper and stripey paper, I love the combo, makes me feel very summery!! The OLD on this page is the "relax" rubon, I'm afraid thats it though! Everything else is pretty new (within the last 12 months). But, at least I got "relax" out of the stash!! Yvette and I ordered some stuff from 2 peas a couple of weeks ago, which I picked up when I stayed with her, so the flower stickers and the journal spot are brand new from that order. I love those journalling spots, there are so many different styles. Bummer they're all one colour though!!
Wow.. Monday already, where did the weekend go?
Oh, Mum's sale went really well too :), we were so proud of her! She has such beautiful stuff and it's awesome to see other people loving it and getting stuff for gifts (or sneakily for themselves!!) Relax Mum, your "exam period" is now over, so it's time to party!! How about a cruise? Lol.
:) C

Stimulated..

Thanks K-Rudd, I feel stimulated!! This piece of cake's on me....
Now, point me at the closest scrapbooking store!! LOL!
He said to spend the money to stimulate the economy- did he specifically mention the Australian economy? Or can I save this money for Japan?? He he he he he.. jokes. Kevin is buying me a Tivo!
:) C

More from my visit to Yvette's.

Here's another page I did on my visit to Yvette's! I'm proud to have this paper out of my stash {happy dance!} I got it from my ex-bf's grandparents (it was nice of them to buy my scrapbooking stuff! But I sold some on ebay and now it has taken me ages to use up this paper- as seen by the fact we broke up 2.5yrs ago!! Lol!!) The OLD on this page is the paper (of course) and the photographic stickers which I've had for absolutely ages!! Years!!! Oh yeah, and the Basic Grey stickers... everyone has had them at some point! Oh, how cute is Cooper!! Gorgeous boy!
I'm going to Wollongong for Mum's famous craft sale tomorrow! Should be fun! Her stuff is so beautiful :) so I hope it goes well!!
:) C