Have a wonderful Easter Everyone!
I love this little peep pushing an egg barrel full of grass and flowers. DH brought it home to me a few years back when he went on a business trip to Europe. Funny how global our markets are – I have the exact same yellow flowers in my craft supplies. I got mine at the dollar bin at Target :).
Today is Girl’s day in Japan – Happy Girl’s Day everyone!!! Tradition/superstition has it that you display your Girl’s Day dolls before March 3rd, and put them away immediately after. This is to insure that your daughters get married in a timely manner. I am number four of four girls. I don’t think my mother was always fastidious on this rule, and we all four managed to get married in a “timely” manner 🙂
Wishing you all a wonderful holiday with family and friends!!! May the season bring you much joy and happiness… From our home to yours:
It’s such a beautiful day today – I got up early and took some photos of my garden:
Happy Halloween Everyone! I made a frame out of my artwork combined with PSE shapes. I think I’ve made some improvements in my digital skills since last Halloween. Koko is still playing the witch :-):
Have fun & stay safe!
Happy Father’s Day to everyone!
And Happy Father’s Day to my dear Otosan:
Boy, with these old photos, I don’t even need to put an overlay on them to get the vintage effect – showing my age 🙂
And Happy Father’s Day to my DH:
Yes, I have the right holiday. DH is a great dad. Every year, I would take the children to have a photo taken by Santa. As they got older, it became much harder to do since everyone was going in all different directions. Well, DH came to the rescue – now he dons a Santa suit so we can still have our annual Santa photos :-).
Have a wonderful day everyone! And Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there 🙂
This is part of a 6′ posterboard Mother’s Day card that my children made for me last year. My eldest son just finished finals and is home now for the summer. My younger son came home for the weekend, he should finish in another month. So, we are all assembled. What more can a mother ask for :-).
May 5th is Boy’s Day in Japan, although it is now also called Children’s Day. My parents gave us a kabuto/warriors helmet to decorate for boys day, but along with all other things, it is lost in the deep beyond of our garage :-(. I did however find the little warrior figurine and koi-nobori/carp:
My boys are still away at college – I will have to txt them well wishes for boy’s day :-). If you would like to learn more about this celebration, go to Boy’s Day.
When my children were younger, I loved decorating the house for all the holidays. These days, it takes a bit more effort. Since the boys are home from college for the weekend, I decided to do some decorating. Of course, my daughter says she feels shortchanged, but in reality, she is hardly at home – or it seems so to me . I guess I am at the age where I am a bit young to be a grandmother, yet my children are too old to get really excited about all the holidays, oh well. Anyway, I went looking in the garage for the boxes of Easter decorations only to realize we REALLY need to do a major spring cleaning in there. I spent a few minutes looking, and decided to forget it. So, I am just making do with the decorations I had stashed around the house. These bunnies my daughter made in elementary school are one of my favorites:
And to give my boys equal time, here are their artful endeavors from elementary school. Not Easter themed, but this is what they liked making:
I do believe the creature on the left was meant to be me :-). I may resemble her on my off days :-). And to the right is no one in particular – just a monster I think. And here are a few more photos of decorations I managed to find:
Happy Girl’s Day! I made a cute geisha lampwork bead pendant. Her name is Sakura “Cherry Blossom”. You can find her in my Etsy Shop:
March 3rd is Girls Day, “Hina matsuri” in Japan. The origin of this festival dates back to ancient Chinese purification rituals for getting rid of bad luck. During the Heian period (794 – 1185) in Japan, people let straw or paper dolls float down the river or the ocean as their substitutes to take bad luck away from them. This tradition remains today in some regions of Japan as nagashi-bina (floating hina dolls). The purification ritual was unified with aristocratic girls’ playing with dolls, and hina matsuri was established as Japanese Girl’s Festival during the Edo Period (1603-1867).
Many families with girl’s celebrate by displaying “Hina” dolls. The dolls are displayed from late February to March 3rd. Traditional belief is that if the dolls are not taken down soon after the festival, girls may have to wait for marriage. In our family, the dolls came out occasionally, and then were put away “eventually”. I’m happy to say that I am the fourth daughter of four girls, and we all managed to marry in a timely manner :-).
Here are some of my dolls and things Japanese from my collection (the two sitting in the front on platforms are the Emperor and Empress hina dolls; gifts to my daughter from my parents):
Some “rescue” dolls. DH bought them during business trips at antique shops and museum stores:
A kokeshi doll, kimekomi ningyo (made by my mother), mini-babies, and mini daruma style hina dolls:
Some “tansu” trinket boxes:
American style ceramic music box (plays sukiyaki), trinket box, and sugar/cream set:
Lutka And Co.
Cutiepie Misfits
lutkaandco.com 