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I received a beautifully done, wax sealed wedding invitation today from Harmony and Alex. Congratulations!
I met this young couple 2 years ago in London and remember we had a nice chat in an Italian restaurant one night, very inquisitive minds. I hope they still keep that in their spirits and don't let works bog them down. I'm not going to give you guys funny marriage quotes or advices, but let's see what I can find from an anagram of your names…… Harmony + alex…… "X-ray manhole"…. ok suppose marriage is like a manhole and... ok it means nothing….. here you go "Hoy! Relax man!" This I will sign in your guest book, and remember this gold sentence throughout your life!
Here's some more photos of the real Moleskine Surprise boxes I've received on Monday. Last year when the Volant series was launched, collaborating with Moleskine Asia, we created beautifully designed envelopes for people to put colorful Volants in and send as Xmas gift. From our experience with huge Moleskine display during City Notebook's TOKYO/KYOTO release, we know people would love a gift box in the form of a Moleskine notebook for this Xmas. In addition, the retail price is almost like 30% off buying the contents individually. Its never done before.
What's unique about these boxes is that when sending them as gifts, you can almost certain they are on the top of your can't-go-wrong gift list, no matter what the content is. That's one big achievement as a brand. But don't get it wrong, these boxes aren't one of those quick and dirty ways some retailers would do to clean up old stocks, they are thoughtfully designed into themes for customers to choose easily when they think of their gift recipients.
For a more elaborated present, you may find it hard to stuff these big boxes into a Xmas hamper, but that's the point isn't it, a hamper full of discovery… and surprises. I can tell you the Luxury, For Him and For Her sleeves are the most handsome, they can be easily adapted to your hamper's color theme.
To give you an idea how large these boxes are, I've put some pocket and large sized Moleskines beside the box. There's plenty of space still to add more stuffs to your present, and again the box is not only a nice packaging but can be doubled as a storage box approximately the size of an A4 paper (unfortunately because of the round corners, an A4 paper cannot be laid flat inside).
It will be great fun to assemble your own perfect stationery Xmas gift box based on these. Put in a few more interesting products like MT masking tapes, Amadana calculator, rubber stamps, etc and a personal note written with ink and paper, voilà! A thoughtful and useful gift. The Moleskine Surprise Boxes are going to arrive city'super and LOG-ON before this weekend. For a list of available countries in Asia, please contact Moleskine Asia.
Sorry people, I thought I could post some more photos of the Moleskine Surprise Boxes tonight but I screwed up with the photos I took today. The colors were just plain wrong under office lighting. I'll just post here a sepia preview first, hopefully I will be able to find a good spot to take photos again during the day. Stay tuned.
Here you go a collage book cover for 1Q84 made from scrap materials, MT masking tapes, printed photos and glassine envelope. Today I could only find time to read 2 pages because of errands to run. Call it tantric reading pleasure :)
Saddleback Leather briefcase. Overpriced? I think so but I own one, 100 year warranty, no breakable parts, smell great and handsome. Heavy? At least 6.5 lbs. by itself yes, but I carry it every day. Most of the time I use it as a knapsack, it can be converted back to a messenger bag or briefcase in seconds. Get ready to spend hours on their web site exploring all the stories and customer photos.
Dig deeper into Saddleback's Facebook fan page, you will find some lively discussions over there. Dave Munson, founder of Saddleback, is now hosting a Christmas Suitcase Giveaway here! Anybody can join, just take a picture of what you would carry to fill up a large satchel if someone were to give you one for Christmas, you can even draw or paint that picture and it is legit. The judges of this >US$865 prized suitcase are the Saddleback Leather fans, the person with the most commented picture in the fan page wins. Deadline is midnight Texas time 15th Dec, 2009. Go for it no matter what!
I'm gonna enjoy reading 1Q84 as much as possible and take it slow. A nice book cover will do the trick. Can you see the pleasure here? I'm enjoying myself making the book cover and this tiny pleasure of picking up a pleasant object will probably last from book 1 to 2 and beyond.
via Bloomberg, Nov. 25 -- Kokuyo Co., a maker of stationery and desks, will buy the rights to operate The Conran Shop home-furnishing outlets in Japan to expand beyond office products. Details here.
We've been wanting to produce a Moleskine gift box for Xmas for a few years now and this year it became a reality. Xmas in our stores are so crowded people have difficulty choosing products, our purpose has always been trying to reducing the think-time by creating gift sets good enough for gift exchange and proper gifting at various price range.
- For Him: HK$280
- For Her: HK$280
- Artistic: HK$380
- Traveller: HK$380
- Luxury: HK$580
This is where model making, stationery and craft meet. Gakken's Otona no kagaku (大人の科學) magazine volume 25 is all about twin-lens reflex cameras, you get to make one yourself and read about their history and shooting techniques in 98 pages all for HK$300 ( and even cheaper in Japan at 2,500 yen), what a bargain comparing to the inflated prices of typical toy cameras! I was surprised to find this being sold in 7-11 last Thursday and immediately grabbed one. I had so much fun this weekend assembling it, customizing it and play with it.
The kit also comes with two stickers in different styles so you can customize its look instead of settling with a black camera. I decided to use MT masking tapes to do the trick though. Assembling the camera takes about 30 minutes but I slowed myself down to enjoy the whole process more.
If you've bought this but you don't read Japanese, fuzzyeyeballs' ndroo made an English interpretation of the assembly based on his experience doing it. You can probably make it by just reading the diagrams but there are a few places you may get stuck so reading his guide helps.
The best thing with Gakkenflex is that it has a real viewfinder which allows you to focus accurately. You don't get a hot shoe, a film counter, a film advance knob which stops winding when next frame is reached and an aperture control, as you would find from BBF. But the true viewfinder made a big difference and impression on me.
After the assembly, I chose to customize it right away with MT masking tape. This is a relatively inexpensive way to customize anything. The washi paper is easy to cut after its being put on the camera body, just use a cutter, follow the contour and 20 minutes later its done.
Next I used Uniball Signo white roller ball to draw some flora patterns around the knob. Signo ink doesn't stay strong on surfaces other than paper, but I love the fact that it will soon give a distressed look of the camera. Besides, if I want a new pattern I can just easily put on some more masking tapes and draw again.
Lastly, this light weighted TLR deserves a thin leather strap so I added with ease. I took this lovely camera out for the day but because of the rain and poor lighting, I only took one photo. I'm expecting to see some awesome vignettes and lensbaby like effects. Visit Gakken flex / 大人の科学マガジン付録二眼レフ flickr group to see who the photos look like, or my Gakkenflex Customized flickr set for more photos of the finished camera.
Boy doesn't it look great with my Saddleback Leather briefcase? You don't have to tell me.
