TN Setup for Japan Holiday

Going on a holiday to Hokkaido soon, and although not visiting the city, decided to update my Olive Traveler’s Notebook with some TN Tokyo Edition items – after all, it’s the same country!

The taiyaki brass charm looks so cute around the TN, though it does spin around and I have adjust it every time I move the elastic band back around the leather cover. Hopefully the scratches it make would not be too deep though….

The sakura charm goes to the top, hanging from a crochet pin. I love the use of crochet pins – so easy to add & remove charms, and they take up little space. The entire leather TN goes into the Tokyo Station drawstring pouch my friend bought for me last year. This should provide a bit of protection from the other stuff in my shoulder bag during the journeys.

I prepared 2 inserts for the trip, the 1st being a blank one, which would be used for collecting stamps throughout the holiday. A thin yellow pencil board would provide a flat surface for stamping, and prevent inks from bleeding through to the pages below. A newly bought (online) butterfly shaped metal clip should help weigh the insert open while stamping. This insert would be slipped into the plastic pocket sticker on the inside back leather cover, for quick access when I come across a stamping station!

The 2nd insert (below) is a lined version, for writing down addresses and planned itineraries. I included the thicker TN pencil board for this, to provide more stability when writing during car journeys. I added Tokyo stickers on the 2 covers for simple identification.

My travel TN is usually filled with folders of different types, to hold all the name cards and brochures collected during the holiday. I’ve found that I can’t really journal on the go, but I would still need some stationery to amend itineraries and take notes, so that I can create my travel journal back home. Well, that’s the plan anyway. I still have journals from the past 4 holidays waiting for me to finish up!!

So I prepared paper clips and washi tapes (round a sample board), to attach maps to the relevant pages of the itinerary insert. A dark ballpoint or gel pen is a must, in case there are forms to complete or signatures to sign – this time I’m bringing the chubby Uni-ball One P.

I like to use a pencil for note-taking though – the Metacil Light Knock is retractable and the metallic pencil lead wouldn’t break nor require refills, should be perfect for travelling! I just wished I had purchased a more muted colour instead of this pastel green – totally doesn’t blend in with the rest of the set!

Using a pencil means requiring an eraser, but my plan to hang the cute Mono One from the pencil clip didn’t work out at all, so I’ve replaced it with the rectangular Clear Radar eraser (not pictured) instead.

I usually bring a highlighter to accentuate important points on maps or itineraries with some colour, but I find the highlighter inks can be easily seen on the reverse of the papers, making the pages rather unsightly. This time I’m bringing just another coloured pen – the Pentel Energel. Hopefully I’ll have a neater insert at the end of the holiday!

Shopping Haul from Johor, Malaysia

Two weeks ago we went shopping in Bukit Indah, Johor, Malaysia. No jam at the checkpoint at all and so we arrived within an hour of driving. Given the extra time, we explored the shopping mall more thoroughly and I was pleased to find an area with Gachapon machines!

There, each token only costs RM6 (compared to S$2), and on average every item requires one less token than in Singapore. I excitedly exchanged tokens to get a cute Sanrio baby (Pompompurin), then to my dismay found that the other trinkets I wanted are either out of stock or machine not working! So I ended up using the remaining tokens on a second Sanrio baby (My Melody).

This year is the 90th anniversary for Donald Duck, and the chain Mr DIY was selling related merchandise – again, with the good exchange rate (RM3.4 = S$1), much cheaper than those in Singapore shops! I indulged in a pack of gold-foiled stickers – at RM3 for 4 sheets, I didn’t expect good quality: the foiled areas are not detailed, but they’ll do for art journaling to record the anniversary.

Spent a LONG time in bookshop Popular, which was selling Hello Kitty 50th anniversary item collection magazines. Each issue contains a square message card and a version of the Hello Kitty merchandise that was sold that particular year. I didn’t see these being sold in Singapore, and with the exchange rate, the discounted issue 1 – containing the clear purse – costs only about S$5! Of course I couldn’t resist!!

Only the first 3 issues are available in the shop, and despite issue 3 (little square tote bag) being sold at full price of RM29.90, I decided to indulge, partly because I love the card design, partly because it also includes a folder to hold the message cards. Three items in one issue!

Interestingly, these Japanese magazines were first sold in Taiwan, then imported to Malaysia, so the main brochure in the magazine is repeated thrice: in Japanese, traditional Chinese and English! I’m keeping the Japanese language magazines for the pictures to art journal with – after I figured out how to fussy cut out Hello Kitty’s whiskers!

Stationery Blind Packs

Was busy with Covid in the family for the past few days, so haven’t been able to blog or craft much. Sharing now these stationery blind packs bought during my shopping spree to THINK & NBC last month:

The Miffy Slide Can & Memo costs a good $11.90 from THINK, but I thought the pretty smooth-sliding can was worth it – looking forward to using it to store some itsy-bitsy items!

The other 3 blind packs all feature Sumikko Gurashi stickers. The right-most silver pack from NBC is the most expensive at $5.90, containing a sturdy double-sided card (I got the blue Tokage dinosaur) and a super sparkly shaped sticker.

The other 2 blind packs from THINK cost $1.90 each – one contains 3 card-size sparkly stickers (love this uniformed version!), while the other contains 5 small square sparkly stickers with patterned backs. I’m no fan and thus have no urge to try to collect entire sets, but find these 2 collections good value for money to craft with. The little stickers would fit nicely on my mini art journal pages!

Unboxing videos of the blind packs are on my Youtube channel tryingtocraft.

Recent Stationery Haul

Went shopping after lunch with a friend, and went home S$120 poorer!! Here are some of the stuff I bought from my favourite stationery shop THINK:

I love Antik Piac products, but they’re always so expensive!!!! That day I decided to indulge in these message card sets (S$4.90 each), thought it would be nice to try to create another European style vintage scene to peek out of the envelope window. Now if I can just find my Anitk Piac stickers to incorporate……

I have no use for Mind Wave’s Stand Stick Marker sticky notes (S$5.90 each), but impulsively decided to buy the Piyokomame chick (illustrated by Tomo.N) and the Muchicoro dog (illustrated by Yasuteru Ogoshi) versions to art journal with. Thought they’ll serve as cute little tags too!

I thought the watercolour cats (Nekobiyori $5.90) was a letter paper pad, but it turns out to be a postcard set! Well, guess it’s more value for money then, with only 12 pcs of 4 different designs. Just that it would be a tad harder to fussy cut the cute cats!

The musical notes acrylic clips ($3.90) had different colours available, but I always feel black is the only choice for such symbols!

I finally succumbed to the illustrator mizutama, as the circular memo papers in the round tin can (S$12.90) would serve as a good background for the melon characters on the memo pad ($5.70). Looking forward to art journal with them!

The set of 20 Peanuts envelopes ($13.30) was an impulse buy. I’ll probably cut them up for art journaling, unless I can think of another project that shows off the vintage designs.

That same day I also visited the NBC, Raffles City branch, which had 2 shelves full of San-X products! The Sumikko Gurashi letter set (S$8.90) is my current craze – envelopes with windows that showcase the pretty letter paper inside! Think this is the most value-for-money item I bought that day: 8 envelopes and 16 pieces of letter paper in 2 different designs. Half of one paper allows the writing of addresses, while the other is the dining scene that can be displayed!

I also bought a set of memo papers ($4.95) showcasing Pokantotan. The new character (released Oct 2023) isn’t really my type, but the paper designs feature a lot of speech bubbles, which I thought would be useful for journaling. The simple lines of the cartoony characters also make them easier to fussy cut.

There are way more stuff I purchased that fateful day, will share on separate posts…

May Stationery Haul

Was busy working in May to pay for my new progressive lens, so less time (and money) to check out my favourite shops. Still, doesn’t stop me from buying stationery, sometimes in unexpected places: museum gift shops! Walked through the National Gallery of Singapore on my way home after work last week, and the spare 20 min went to checking out the wall of postcards in The Gallery Store by ABRY.

I ended up buying a set of 10 postcards (S$19.90) by Chinese painter Wu Guang Zhong. I remember enjoying his works when visiting his exhibition at the Gallery a few years ago, and the postcards incorporated some meaningful quotations, so the set called out to me.

The ransom note sticker book wasn’t cheap at S23.90, and doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the National Gallery, except that the author is also a designer & art director. But the pages of alphabet stickers (2 pages per letter) would be great for crafting, so it was a no-brainer purchase.

There was also a shelf of pretty Peranakan beading items by brand Maneknya. Couldn’t afford – nor want – the bags & clothing offered, but found the cat designs too cute to resist, and so bought an iron-on patch for S$5.40. The cat designs have just a few beads on either the legs or the cheeks, just enough for a special touch. I thought I could try to turn it into a brooch to wear…

Visited my fav shop THINK earlier in the month, and had to consider long and hard to purchase “only” this one Sanrio A5 clear file (S$11) instead of all the letter sets and envelopes and memo cards bearing the vintage prints of Hello Kitty and My Melody.

Instead, my sole letter set was the fluffmoumou ($7.90), where the fat kitty on the letter paper peaks out of a backpack envelope! Took me a good 10 minutes to pick this design out of the 4 available!

The foiled Shinzi Katoh washi tape (S$7.90) was another difficult decision. Fortunately the shop displayed all the 16 (or more) tape samples, and so I picked a design that seemed most versatile for my crafting – a whole row of different houses.

The Miffy memo pad ($8.90) was definitely another impulse buy, since I’m not a great fan of the Dick Bruna character. But I thought the simple designs of this new series of memo pads would be easy to art journal with – and to use as memos – and so decided to try one out.

My shopping in Daiso was less restrained: one tends to think the item is “only” $2 and hence forget that there’s now 9% GST to pay and that every single thing does add up to an enormous bill! I took stickers of every colour scheme for every design I like, and also the stained glass patterned sticker sheets (shown below), even if I have no idea what I’m gonna use them for.

I only have a vague plan to use the set of message cards to create art clusters for gifting – it seem such a good deal, I decided to buy first and think later!

Was definitely pleased to see the round film sticky notes in palette form – obviously a reaction to the popular Hitotoki Coffret Cosmetic versions! The Daiso versions are definitely thinner and not individually backed, with only half the circle glued and hence not suitable to be used properly as a sticker. But definitely good value for money when it comes to quick crafting and journaling!