Picture of the Day: Crabs for Sale in Hong Kong

Hong Kong, China
11.12.2006 

Craft Room Cleanup Giveaway: Spring Supplies

At the end of October, my craft room looked like this...

A big, embarrassing hot mess, I know. Slowly I have been sorting through everything and purging old supplies that I no longer need. Here is what it looks like right now...

It's slowly getting better and I am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I wish that I had made more progress over the last three months but things have been hectic with work, travel and the holidays. Also, to be honest I've been struggling a bit since I had my little incident before Christmas and find myself constantly tired. I'm hoping to figure out what is wrong and be back to my old self soon.

Anyway, as I have mentioned before my craft supply hoarding problem is your gain because as I sort through all of my supplies and figure out what I don't really need I am giving them away. Because it is snowing here and I am yearning for spring this particular giveaway box is loaded up with spring goodies. I've got lots of papers (over 100 sheets) for scrapbooking or card making as well as a bunch of embellishments like buttons, stickers, chipboard letters, etc. I have some items that are specifically spring related as well as some non themed items that fit with the colors of the rest of the box. Below is a sampling of some of what is included.

All you have to do to enter is comment on this post telling me a favorite memory about spring or what you enjoy about the season.

You can submit additional entries with separate posts doing one of the following:
- Like my page on Facebook (Post what name you liked me under)
- Follow me on Pinterest (Post what name you followed me under)
- Pin one of my blog posts to Pinterest (Post a link to your pin)

Only posts on my blog (not on facebook) will count as entries and you can have a maximum of five total entries.

Some Rules:
- To be eligible you must be 18 years of age or older and have a shipping address in the US  (sorry, international shipping for such a heavy box is really pricey)
- Entries will close on Monday January 28, 2013 at 12:00 Noon EST
- The winner will be chosen by a random number generator based on the posts
- I will notify the winner by email and they will have 72 hours to confirm with a valid US address  
- This prize is being provided by Home and Away With Lisa from my craft room stash and I am not being compensated in any way for this giveaway

Updated to Add: The winner for the giveaway is Sharon. Thank you all so much for sharing your favorite spring memories with me. I loved reading them all! 

Picture of the Day: Rocky Coastline in Floripa

Floripa, Brazil
5.27.2007 

Picture of the Day: Volcán Poás

Volcán Poás, Costa Rica
5.2005 

Misadventures of Lisa and Trisha: Shirakawa-go in the Winter

 January of 2009 was my friend, Trisha's, last month in Japan. My time in Japan could easily be broken into three phases: before I knew Trisha, when Trisha and I travelled around everywhere together and after Trisha went back to the US. Needless to say, for her last weekend in town we had to take in some last bits of sightseeing together.

We spent an awesome day on Saturday in Takayama visiting a street festival and some sake breweries. That evening we met up with some friends who were skiing nearby to spend an amazing night at a beautiful ryokan (a traditional Japanese inn which is like a cross between a bed and breakfast and a spa). On Sunday after saying good-bye to our friends, who were heading out skiing again, Trisha and I set off to the little village of Shirakawa-go. I had been there in the fall and it was lovely so I was eager to see it again during the winter.

We chose to take the scenic way for a slightly longer drive and were rewarded with some amazing views of the mountains and the rivers that flowed through the valleys. We pulled over to the side of the road a few times to grab a picture. Incredible!

After a little over an hour, we finally arrived. Shirakawa-go is a small traditional village located in the mountains of Gifu Prefecture in Japan. A world heritage site, it is famous for the architectural style of its buildings known as gassho-zukuri (literally hands together style). This is in reference to the steeply pitched roofs of the houses which are designed to keep snow from accumulating on them in the winter. The village is comprised of over 100 historic gassho-zukuri homes some of which are still inhabited and some which have turned into museums.

We parked on the outskirts of the little village not too far from Shirakawa Hachiman Shrine so we made that our first stop. The shrine is known for the sake that it makes and its festival, Doburoku Matsuri, which is held in October. On the shrine's grounds is the Doburoku Matsuri Festival Hall which shares the history of the festival and offers free samples of Doburoku sake. The festival hall is closed from November through March so Trisha and I didn't have a chance to visit. The peaceful atmosphere of the shrine among the towering cedar trees still made a visit wandering around the shrine grounds more than worthwhile.

Trisha and I proceeded to walk around town enjoying all the beautiful sights and admiring the architecture of the gassho-zukuri construction. Three of the homes (Wada-ke, Kanda-ke and Nagase-ke) have been turned into museums and for a small fee (each one is ¥300 for an adult, ¥150 for a child) you can go in to see what life was like in these traditional homes. I didn't take any indoor pictures on this trip since I had already been inside on my previous trip so I'll have to share them in another post. If you find yourself visiting Shirakawa-go I would definitely recommend going inside at least one of the homes.

With the huge snowdrifts built up everywhere, someone had dug one out in the middle of town to create a cave with Shirakawa-go (白川郷) written along each side of the entrance.  All the Japanese tourists were using it as a photo op and I figured I should play along. 

Not all homes in Shirakawa-go are built in the gassho-zukuri style with the steep roofs. Snow accumulation on those flatter roofs could be a problem and we saw a man actually shoveling his roof.

Each of the old homes was surrounded by small plots of land for farming. The reflections of the buildings in some of the exposed rice paddies was really lovely.

After wandering around town Trisha and I decided to head up to Shirayama Viewpoint. The short, steep walk up to the lookout was definitely worth it to see the views of the valley below. It seemed like it was straight out of a fairytale.

Naturally, with that gorgeous view we would be remiss not to get a few shots of ourselves. It is so surreal looking that it almost looks like we are standing in front of a fake photography backdrop.

No place in Japan is complete without the obligatory warning signs about impending doom and disaster and the viewpoint was no exception so I had to snap a picture before we headed back down into town. 

As we headed back to the car we grabbed a few more photos as we walked through town savouring all of the magnificent views of the snowy roofs.

At this point is where a normal story would end, but this is not a normal story, this is a Trisha and Lisa story. When we got back to the car I went to put in our destination and the Navi remote was missing. Yes, that's right, I said the Navi remote. What? You have never heard of such a thing? I never had before, either.

Let me back up and explain a little bit about my car and roads in Japan. First, Japan's address system is totally different from Western countries. Instead of a building having a number on a street, towns are divided into neighborhoods, blocks within a neighborhood are assigned a number and the buildings within the block are then numbered. The numbering of the buildings, however, doesn't typically correlate with where on the block it is, but instead when it was built. Only major roads have names, and with the Japanese address system it is virtually impossible to drive someplace you are not familiar with unless you have a Navigation system.

Second, because I am cheap, I decided to lease the most inexpensive vehicle I could when I was living in Japan which turned out to be a used 2002 Toyota Funcargo. The Navi that had been put in the car was quite old and you input the destination through a remote. I've never seen a remote controlled Navi before and I've never seen one since. On the plus side, since the place that I leased my vehicle through specialized in leasing to ex-pats my Navi remote was in English.

Anyway, back to the story, Trisha and I were really stuck. Without the Navi remote we couldn't put in an address and we were pretty sure we would get lost going back. We searched all around the car to see if it had fallen out nearby with no luck. We definitely had the remote when we left Takayama, because we had input the directions to Shirakawa-go. Although we had stopped a few times along our route to take photos, because of the cold we mostly just rolled down the window to take our shots and only got out of the car one time. That spot had to be where we lost the remote. Luckily, Trisha remembered that there was an orange construction crane for some reason near the place we had stopped. 

We back tracked our way out of town keeping our eyes peeled for the orange crane. After over half an hour of scanning the roadside we finally spotted it and pulled over. We did a bit of searching and there it was, half buried in the snow.

I was so relieved to have found it that the momentous recovery had to be documented with a photo holding the remote in front of the crane. To be honest we were really lucky and I have no idea how we would have found that same exact spot if it hadn't been for the crane. I'm also super lucky that Trisha remembered that the crane was where we got out of the car. Miss Trish is awesome like that!

We used the remote to put in our destination and we were on the road again. Of course, we made a few stops along the way for more pictures, but after our little incident we prudently made sure to check that the remote was in the car at all times.

If you are interested, check out some more of my travel misadventures with Trisha here: Overnight to the Rice Fields of Banaue,  Getting a Ride to the Beijing Opera, The Great ATM Debacle, Japanese Pottery Fun in Seto

Picture of the Day: Door Carving at Manila Cathedral

Manila, Philippines
1.2009 

Picture of the Day: Dawn at Angkor Wat

Angor Wat
Siem Reap, Cambodia
8.18.2011

Pantry + Pictures for My Kitchen

In my kitchen I have a little nook in the corner between the doorway to the living room and the doorway to the laundry room. Ever since I have owned my house and remodeled the kitchen it has just sat there empty. Long term I have plans to build myself a hutch in that space with an outlet and a place to store my counter top appliances out of the way.

If I am being realistic, however, there is no way that I am going to have time to build the hutch anytime in the next few years with other projects taking precedence. I finally decided to get myself in gear and give my little nook some love to make it useful for myself in the meantime.

Since this is only a temporary solution I wanted something inexpensive but that would also match the style of the white cabinets in my kitchen. I searched around a bit and found a small pantry on Overstock for $115. The style was pretty close and the price was right so I bought it.

When the pantry arrived I opened the boxes and set out the pieces to start to put it together. It was at this point that I noticed that the back was actually two pieces hinged together with a piece of tape. It looked a little cheap so I decided to cover the back with some cute paper that I bought at a local stationary store.

I've had luck with hanging wallpaper on the back of my bathroom built in with double sided tape so I decided to use the same method again. I put tape along the edges of the board and down the middle. The board needed two pieces of paper so I lined one up along the left side edge and the middle of the board and the second piece above that but aligned to the right edge. This made it so that my seam would be hidden behind the middle shelf and so that the repeat of the design would be staggered. Also, the tape is super sticky so to attach it I rolled it up, aligned it and then rolled it out over the tape, smoothing it as I went. To finish I just trimmed the excess paper from around the board.

With the back decorated I set about putting the pantry together which took about half an hour. In addition to adding the paper to the back of the pantry I also decided to swap out the knob. The knob that came with the pantry was a plain square wood knob painted white, which didn't really go with my other cabinets. I had already purchased extra knobs and pulls (Season from Restoration Hardware) for when I build my hutch someday since I was worried that maybe they would be no longer available by the time I got around to it. Using the knob that matches my other cabinets is a small detail, but I think it really helps to tie the pantry in with the rest of the kitchen.

Assembled, I think the pantry is pretty cute and I quickly filled it up with food. You can't see much of the paper once the pantry is full, but I still like the added touch. 

The pantry looked a little bare on the wall by itself so I decided to hang my French fruit prints over it. I bought the prints on my first trip to Paris back in 2002 from one of the little book stalls along the Seine. As an aside, when Frank and I were in Paris this spring I spotted the same exact prints for sale as we were walking along the Seine so I bought another set, just in case my old set fades over time from sunlight. They were only 50 Euro cents each so I couldn't resist.

Years ago I had put the fruit prints in Ribba frames from Ikea (the ones I have are no longer available) and have hung them in the kitchen of my previous homes, but I've never gotten around to hanging them up in my current home. This seemed like just the perfect spot.

I have ten prints but a three by three grid seemed to fit the space best. To make sure to have even spacing I used some painters tape and my level to create a level line where I wanted my bottom row to hang. I then measured up 8-3/4" (giving a 5/8" gap between frames) and put up another line of tape, again making sure it was level. I repeated one more time to have three rows.

Next, I measured to the middle point of the wall on the middle piece of tape and made a mark. I then lined my level up to the mark, made sure it was plumb and then used my level to mark the top and bottom piece of tape. I measured to the right of the mark 6-3/4" (giving a 5/8" gap between frames) on the middle piece of tape and then marked the top and bottom piece using my level again. I repeated the same steps to the left to finish my marking.

I sunk a picture nail at each mark and then pulled the tape off the wall, leaving me nine nails in a perfect grid to hang my pictures.

I really love these prints and seeing them up reminds me of walking along the Seine and all the wonderful memories of that very first trip abroad for me. I can't believe it has been nearly eleven years. I also can't believe that it has taken me so long to get these hung...

As a last step the pantry needed a few items on top to balance things out. My coffee grinder that I bought in Sicily has a wood tone that is a great match to the wood frames of my prints so I started with that. I then placed an antique tea tin that I found at a shop in Ontario in the back with a tiny tea pot I picked up in Taiwan in front. Cute, simple and full of memories: just the way I like things.

I am really happy with how my nook turned out and very glad to have the extra food storage space. For me it is a great temporary solution until I build my hutch someday. Someday...

Have you given an unloved space in your home an update recently? What did you do?

Picture of the Day: Carnival Headdress in Rio

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
6.01.2007

Picture of the Day: White Bay

White Bay, Jost Van Dyke
British Virgin Islands
11.26.2012