20 posts tagged “stationery”

Visiting 40 Stores in 3.5 days, Tokyo

Jun 16, 2008
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Arrived Tokyo on 10th June 2008. From 11th to 14th's 3.5 days I visited Interior Lifestyle show, met 4 vendors and toured with a colleague 40 stores! Unbelievable in hindsight.

Stationery from Japan

Among dozens of great lifestyle and gift products I found, some of them are stationery specific. Shown here Autopoint's Twinpoint 0.9mm mechanical pencil and refill, Artecma Ltda's wooden ruler, letterset from COATED Design Graphics, Propeller Studio's natural paper notebook and a book called Interview with Kyoto Stationery etc. I'll be back to Tokyo again in July for the ISOT stationery show and explore a lot more of the stationery arena.

String/Ribbon/Cloth/Bead/Button Streets

May 6, 2008
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Strings From Sham Sui Po

I had an a great day-off today. Went to look for some strings for a friend and market researched several stationery, art/craft stores. Strolling in Sham Sui Po area where there are hundreds of outlets selling all sorts of fabric/fashion related materials, I rediscovered the area which once were part of Hong Kong's textile industry success, feeding 625,000 residents directly or indirectly in 1960s. There is no place in the world having such high concentration and variety of textile materials. If you are not familiar with Hong Kong, we even have streets full of retailers dedicated to selling birds, flower and fish.

String/Cloth/Button Street in Sham Sui Po

I could've spent hours but the weather was so hot I had sweat all over. So I just bought several yards of interesting strings, some coated with PolySomething (wax they said), some leather and some Polyurethane based. I couldn't even concentrate to take better photos due to the heat.

String Wholesales/Retail in Sham Sui Po

Price sold in small quantity varies from HK$1/yard to HK$5/yard for those I selected. Many stores allow you to cut a maximum 2 inches piece per style for sampling.

Later I went to Tak Cheung Stationery in Sham Sui Po, Chung Nam Book & Stationery in Mong Kok, Hands ARt & Craft in Wan Chai and lastly Paper Art in Central. Believe me, in such a tiny little place, Hong Kong is truly a shopping heaven. I turned out bought over HK$1000 Hero Arts stamps from Paper Art and became their permanent member :)

The Chameleon Notebook

Apr 21, 2008
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Jackie Poutasse created The Chameleon Notebook modeled after Traveler's Notebook with some nice twists. I received mine in end March and have been using it for a specific purpose: Tarot Book.

The Chameleon Notebook as a Tarot Book

Jackie posted ways to customize the notebook here, and instruction video on how to create your own refill without worrying where to get them. There is also a Chameleon Notebook flickr group so you can post your creative use of the notebook.

The Chameleon Notebook as a Tarot Book - elastic band

The Chameleon Notebook as a Tarot Book - charm

The size is not what I would use for travel despite the fact that it can be a great sketch book for travel. So I customized it as a Tarot Book specifically used for readings I made for friends. To have a place to record readings is great for reflections and handy as a specific place to find my previous readings. I'm not using Tarot as divination but as a reflection tool, it can be a great conversation consultation vehicle too. Check out Jackie's web site, you will be amazed by the color and combinations she can tailor made for you.

Treasures from Bangkok - BIG+BIH Show

Apr 21, 2008
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Bangkok Visit

I spent the last few days in Bangkok in the BIG+BIH Gift and Housewares fair. Visited the show 1.5 days and did some market research by visiting stores I love. (flickr this photo to see some notes about items inside)

Bangkok Stationery Treasure

I collected notes and name cards from my last year's visit and planned to see some very nice stores. Maps and info were pasted to my recent Moleskine pocket notebook. The best treasures I found were a store I love so dearly called Geo, a leather pen case made by Tactus I knew from last year and a cassette tape looking notebook by Wednesday Garden. (flickr this photo to see details)

Geo Store

From what I remember, Geo's 3 owners each has their own profession and love of objects - a fashion designer, a gardener, a photographer. Together they made dozens of great products from bookmark, notebooks, calligraphy sets, clothing and great greeting cards and wrapping papers. The store is located in a hip area called Thong Lo.

Tactus Products from Bangkok

Tactus imported leather from Europe and create their products right in Thailand. According to their director Ms. Sunaree, the cows in Thailand are so skinny and their skin have a lot of imperfection, that's why they need to import quality leather from elsewhere. She was also very keen to show me their design concepts and innovations. I absolutely love their products which are very thoughtful and useful. If you are in Bangkok, don't forget to visit their store/showroom in Lumpini Night Bazza (operates from 8pm to 11pm) at soi 6 zone Lobpuri.

Typhoon in Hong Kong April 19th - Redirecting

The ending of this trip was not so pleasant however. It looks like I must experience one hiccup every year to fulfill a cycle, missed flight, full flight, hotel infested with bugs, raining like dogs and cats, emergency landing because someone had a heart attack, etc. This year in 2008, my flight back to Hong Kong from Bangkok was diverted to Manila because of a typhoon striking Hong Kong (the earliest typhoon in recorded history), so my plane was circling near Hong Kong 3 rounds and finally got a landing permit to Manila instead of Taiwan. It took me nearly 10 hours to fly from Bangkok to Hong Kong! Not to mention a final diarrhea on the plane :P

Rewarding? Always.

Blog Book

Apr 15, 2008
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The Scription blog you see here is just 5% of what I wrote on my blog book. Talking about so much to share in so little time and I hate to post ugly pictures.

Scription Blog book

I usually keep my blog ideas on Moleskine which I carry all the time, but recently I received some great notebook samples from Midori (which is the maker of Traveler's Notebook) and I decided to use their notebook stand and MD Paper notebook to keep my blog entries organized. Midori makes some very fine paper products, even though the covers are acidic (even MD Paper), but the inside pages are so smooth and the notebooks lie flat I enjoy a lot to just put the notebook in front of me at home and start writing/drawing/thinking. I shall share with you more about their MD Paper later.

Blog book

In a few days' time our long awaited LAMY 40th Year Anniversary exhibition will be launched and I will have so much to talk about in this blog. Here you can see right beside the MD Paper notebook is a pen designed by Naoto Fukasawa for LAMY - the first Asian designer for LAMY's pen. This limited edition ball pen is printed with Naoto's signature. More great stationery news coming up......

Random Acts of Stationery #36

Mar 28, 2008
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His first name, "Unreliable". Mr. Witness likes to play with words and recently his stationery too.

Arrow4

Random acts of stationery #36 from An Unreliable Witness.

Holbein's Image Transfer Liquid

Mar 26, 2008
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I haven't seen in my limited exposure to the art supply world anything similar. A friend of mine gave me this "Fancy Print Pen" from Japan 2 months ago and I immediately went to Yuzawaya to buy the bottle version of the liquid. You can transfer images from any magazine to your notebook/scrapbook etc. Just applying the liquid to the back of the image and scratch the back with a spoon to mirror the image onto whatever paper you want.

Image Transfer Liquid from Japan Holbein

The company producing this is called Holbein. I haven not yet been able to grasp the proper technique to transfer a perfect image without the scratch mark, but do check out Mr. Iijima's blog to see how he did it. Thanks a lot Joei for giving me this great gift!

Image Transfer Liquid from Japan Holbein

Fresh News from PaperWorld and Maison et Objet

Jan 31, 2008
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A post supposed to appear 3 days ago but here it is:
I have tons of news about stationery to update on this blog after my Frankfurt PaperWorld 2008 trip. "Express by Holiday Inn" was providing very slow "high speed" internet, so I couldn't upload any images before. Come back in 2-3 days' time and you will find news and images about: Moleskine Leather version with very special packaging, Moleskine new Volant improved cover and color packs, LAMY new pen designed by Naoto Fukasawa (first time Lamy contracts an outsider for design), LAMY new Al-star ROSE! More notebook offers from companies like X47/X17, Greenwitch, etc. I have more than 20 news and interview with stationery people and store owners waiting to blast off.

PaperWorld and Maison et Objet

So now I'm in Paris visiting Maison et Objet, which is a great great show and very inspiring for me. I will fly back the day after tomorrow. Tonight my boss took us to a very nice French restaurant for dinner (great decorations and foie gras) and we paid a little visit to the Eiffel Tower and Champ de Elysee.
....
So stay tuned for lots of exciting news.

Globes and Beyond

Dec 6, 2007
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I've been searching for nice globes for the past few years for our stores. There are not many good quality globe makers in the world, I just need a few more to make our collection the best in the world.

Authentic Model Vaugondy Globes.jpg

People buy globes mostly for decoration, a few would dwell into the history of globe or map making. It can be so educational when you try to find out all about explorations expeditions and contemplate how we as a species could reach the current era. Anyway, I made some POP laminated to put in our stores in hope to spice up some customer's curiosity. In addition to globes, I made several other POP for some great products I found. You will be amazed if you are in our stores.

3+Magi Mags

Oct 27, 2007
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I was attracted by the colorful packaging design when I walked pass the manufacturer's booth. Turned out it is not just a brand new product with nice packaging, it won several invention awards globally with its patented design.

3+Magi Mags

First it is a row of adhesive backed magnetic tape you can tear to desired length by hand thanks to the tear lines. Stick one on a surface and the other to the item to be posted in seconds. Tear lines can also double as ruler (so to speak) coz each 18 segments equals to 1 inch. At this stage there are 5 metallic colors available but yet to reach consumer market.

Kairong 3+Magi Mags

3+Magi Mags is designed and manufactured in Taiwan by Kai Rong Industrial Co. Ltd. As of why it is named "3+Magi Mags", I have no idea, certainly not age hazard related coz it is not recommended for children age under 5.