Happy New Year, Sandwiches!

Sandwiches!!!

H A P P Y   N E W   Y E A R ! ! !

Did you have a wonderful start to 2015? I hope you had a gorgeous and relaxing break and feel super inspired for this year. It's going to be a goodie!

I still have some more pictures I want to show you from Antwerp and Copenhagen, but first, here are some new year pics. As I write this I can hear my neighbour playing the shamisen!

A new year kagami mochi from Mr Y.

New Year's Eve began with cava and Mr B decorating Hello Sandwich HQ.  So, so much laughter.

The fun continues with this little decoration on my apartment door.

Luke came on over, armed with his famous chicken to cook us for dinner. But as some light pre-dinner entertainment we went up to the park and let off some fireworks that we had leftover from Summer. How awesome is it that it's legal to let off fireworks in this country?! LOVE! Not quite the spectacular explosion that our friends and family in Sydney might have been seeing, but I did manage to capture this little snippet of Luke's efforts.

More cava, NHK and some special sparkling red from the Hunter Valley (a gift from Mama Sando's next door neighbour) to toast the new year and then it was time to head to the local shrine for Hatsumode (first visit to the shrine for the year).

I got the order wrong this year and accidentally ate Toshikoshi soba after midnight! Oops!

I can not tell you how exciting it is to wake up on the 1st of January and rush down to your letter box to collect your Nengajo (New Year greeting cards). As you probably know, or have heard me mention here before, Nengajo are held at the post office until the 1st of January so that they can be delivered right on this special day. Love you Japan!

THEN it started snowing!!! NEW YEAR'S SNOW!!! It's quite rare to snow of the 1st of January in Tokyo. I actually ran around my apartment squealing with excitement.

Osechi ryori at Mami-chan's family house!

Oshibori cuteness!

We took a wintery walk to the local shrine near Mami's family house.

The winter light! Divine!

We had to walk through this hoop in a figure eight for good luck.

Scattered patches of crunchy snow.

A beautiful dusk.

Perhaps this is my first 'Hello Sandwich-poi' photograph of the year?

Back to Mami-chan's house for ozoni (Japanese soup with mochi rice cakes).

Followed by some sake.

And there it was. The new year has began and it's back to everyday life in my little Shimokitazawa apartment.

These last few days I've been doing lots of relaxing and getting prepared for the new year. Writing letters, cooking Jamie's Jools' pasta, writing down some goals for 2015 (both personal and professional ones) - oh dear, the list is longggggg, movie nights with Luke (last night we watched Michel Gondry's 'The Science of Sleep' - A-MAZING!), editing photos, and osouji. In a few days it will be time for Nanakusagayu!

I hope you're having a nice start to the year little Sandwiches!

Love Sandwich
xoxo

Christmas Garland with the Circle Punch Video!

Hello Sandwiches!

Here is another little Hello Sandwich craft video to help you get into the Christmas cheer!

(Thank you Duncan-san!)

You can see the 'how-to-make' instructions over here.

Love Love
Hello Sandwich
xoxo

Kodomoe Magazine

Kodomoe magazine invited me to produce a gift wrapping story for their December issue.

It was a day or so after my new book shoot and I was soooo busy that I had to paint my nails (for the 'how-to-make' shots on the train on the way to the shoot! Hah! But it turned out okay, hey?

ありがとうこどもえ！

Love Love
Hello Sandwich
xoxo

A Little Bit Crafty

Sandwiches! I am playing catch up here. So many blog posts, so I hope you'll bare with me while I spam your feedly feeds. (Gomen!)

Here is the little Hello Sandwich craft project in the new Frankie craft book. So many fun projects in this book - it would definitely be a must for Chistmas presents for your crafty tomodachis!

Thank you always Frankie team for your ongoing support. Love you guys to bits.

Sandwich
xoxo

Hello Sandwich in the new Kate Spade book!

Sandwiches!

My photography is in the latest Kate Spade book! Such an honour.

Have you seen the book already? It's so divine. And the gold edging is to die for!

The Kate Spade team also recently featured Hello Sandwich on their website, and asked me to pin a few pins on their pinterest account. Then they sent me a bag of my choice! Whaaaaaat? Could not believe how sweet they are!

Thank you Kate Spade team!
xoxo

Video - Let's make a Christmas Garland!

As a little Antwerp breather, I'd love to share with you the video we made at Hello Sandwich HQ today!

Take a peek over here.

I hope you'll enjoy!

More Antwerp posts to follow.

Love Love
Hello Sandwich
xoxo

This is Antwerp (Part Three)

Sandwiches! Helloooooo!

More from the 'This is Antwerp' tourism Antwerp trip.

There was a choice of two workshops on this particular day. Make a leather bag and take a visit to the fashion museum, or silk screen print at Ctrl Copy. After my residency at Harvest Workroom (some more pics here), I was keen to see how screen printing factories worked in Antwerp, so boarded the taxi van with the guys to the outskirts of Antwerp.

We had a bit of time to kill upon arrival so Pants Off climbed on a car. We all took photos of Pants Off on the car. Then we headed to the river side in search of photos and abandoned buildings. 

This morning was one of my favourite memories from the trip. The grey. The cold. The slow time. The brilliant company. Walking slow. Looking down. Looking up. Enough time to see. Taking photos. Laughing. Climbing through corrugated metal walls. Skipping over puddles. Listening to different languages. So far removed from my regular life. No phone service. So comfortable.

"That's the grey I can't get in my paintings", said Luke's voice in my head as I took this shot.

Antwerp Fujifilm club for life.

The human Antwerp logo.

Art direction by James and Itay.

Sander's little foot sticking out.

Miss this guy!

"A little bit to the right. Um, no, back a bit now. Okay! That's it!"

For Luke.

Mint tea on arrival at Ctrl Copy.

At this stage I still hadn't been to a supermarket in Antwerp so this was about as close as I had been to experiencing the local food packaging design. So lovely!

Almost like a genkan with all those little shoes lined up.

食べたい！

I think we all had in mind that we would each make our own design and then print it, but it turned out that we would make a collaborative design and print it as a group. Can you imagine a bunch of maybe 7 creatives trying to decide on one design that we all liked?

Pants Off's re-enactment: "We don't want to put any words in your mouth, but it would be great if you could use the letters D.A.T.E. But again, we don't want to put any words in your mouth".

*Editor's side note - D.A.T.E = Discover Antwerp Through Experience

"How about we write Mayonnaise in fries"

Itay: "Everyone save some fries. I need a combination of long ones and short ones"

James: "Why don't we write D.A.T.E. in hands?"

Sandwich: "I was art directed out of my design!"

At one stage I was outside acting as a photographers assistant to James as he photographed leftover chips. I was holding an A4 piece of paper as a DIY reflector board! Whaaaaaaat?! I guess it's my punishment for not shooting RAW.

I loved peeking into Sander's bag. He was there next to me, supervising, of course. He was carrying around a tin of pencils and a sketch book. Brilliant! What a dude.

It was brilliant sitting in this room. Coffee. Belgian waffles. A mac per meter. Access to printers, scanners and wifi. Walls lined with nicely designed flyers and posters. Some of the best guys on the planet. Antwerp. Antwerp's outskirts. I could happily work away in a studio like this.

The founder of Ctrl Copy, Sven, expressed such enthusiasm for his screen printing. It was infectious. I really thank you Sven, for your kindness and time, and sharing your expertise with us. I took my little Ctrl Copy tote bag to my local Shimokitazawa supermarket the other day, too.

We each printed a grey sweater with hands spelling out 'D.A.T.E' and a bitmap of a hand from the celebrated 'Druon Antigoon' sculpture in front of the town hall. There were a lot of hands. It was very boy. But I love those guys to bits.

Dinner was at Het bos. I loved the atmosphere of this place.

"The red tokens are for drinks and the green one is for dinner upstairs".

They had beautifully designed flyers, too, which always helps. The below flyer was designed by JJ funhouse. (Picture courtesy of JJ funhouse's instagram)

Later that night we ended up at an advertising agency party at the MAS. It seemed to be an unwritten dress code rule that acceptable colours to wear were black and grey, with very minimal usage of neutrals. I, however, arrived in true trademark Hello Sandwich style, in a ditsy floral sweater. The even better part about wearing this particular sweater to this uber cool Antwerp fashion party was that the said sweater was $6 from Kmart at Broadway. Hah! I'm saving the pic of us all on the dance floor for the archives.

Miss these guys to bits.

Love Sandwich
xoxo