Popin' Cookin' Sushi Candy Set~!

I love doing craft things, and I love food. I also love my sister, so obviously it works together.

A few weeks back she brought back Japan's popular Popin' Cookin' self-make candy series, where you are given sachets of powder and everything needed to make miniature food that looks exactly like the real thing. It's amazing. Also I don't dare to eat it.

It has Japanese words! Hence, imported! *wild applause*

Apparently the Japanese are nuts about packaging everything.

These are your materials!

So the point is to transform everything you see in those small packets of powder and make it into candy in the shape of sushi. MAGIC.

The good thing about the Japanese is that they're really detailed, and literally you need nothing else. Just water, and even then they have this small space in the middle to hold JUST enough water for everything, it's amazing. Everything fits exactly right, right down to the amount of power to even how many drops of water you need.

This is 'rice'. Considering how it is just water + powder, after mixing it 

for a minute or so, it becomes fluffy and airy. IT'S MAGIC.

Powder for the "tamago".

After following instructions and mixing everything, this is what you get.

That's also how you make the fish roe to top off the sushi... just drop 

a certain solution into another solution and it will instantly become 

the texture of fish roe. It really is magic.

The rice placed on "plates" that's on the packaging itself...

Making sushi! (Look at that roe!)

Final product~

All in all it was a really fun experience! We didn't dare eat it because it even smelled super sweet and it literally is just sugar powder + water, so we didn't quite bother.

It did subtly show us the amount of detail the Japanese put into their work, as well as how innovative they are. Instructions guiding you through the whole thing were done on the packaging itself, eliminating need for an extra piece of instruction leaflet. And even though we didn't understand Japanese, the diagrams were clear enough to guide us through the whole thing, and it was pretty straightforward as well!

Sprucing Up Old Things

I need to update I know, but I've been stuck on the post-GE13 post for much too long so I figured I might as well take a break and write about something else.

Since I've been hit with the craving to make some stuff ever since going for the Pipit Zakka exhibition, which has been hugely inspiring, I got around to buying a whole lot of wrapping paper to make my own notebook.

Okay that sounded much too impressive. I simply found an old notebook I had which was lying around, forgotten, in a drawer and spruced it up a bit.

Yay for blue themes!

The front cover.

The inside of the front cover.

The back cover.

The inside of the back cover.

The front cover at a long glance.

Since I was unprepared and silly, I didn't take before and after pictures... And even until now I don't take before + after pictures. I suppose I'm not really one to stop halfway and take pictures LOLOLOL

It's my first attempt at redecorating a notebook and I honestly can say I think I did pretty well! Hahaha! What tested my patience was trying to cut the square holes for the rings... with a blunt paper cutter. (After many distressing rips in the paper I ditched the blunt paper cutter and bought a new one.) I'm sure if I wasn't so excited making it I would've just lolnopedon'tcare.jpg and simply poked holes.

I was lucky to have the shell-star lying around. It was previously a necklace my mom bought for me, which I adored... Until the string broke one day and I couldn't fix it. So I kept the pretty shell pendant and luckily I didn't throw it away! Just to make it clear, I am not a hoarder!

....Except maybe I have a slight tendency to keep all sorts of things.

The blue ribbon was actually a very old strip of ribbon that was from the dark corners of my drawer. Basically I don't where it came from. But it works and I'm just glad it does.

In a way, fixing up this notebook also spawed a very very very very very deeply hidden organization urge. I managed to dig out all the bits and pieces of ribbons I had kept throughout the years and kept them in a small bag to make it accessible - and easily distinguished for future projects! :D And the organizing didn't stop at ribbons - my buttons, my colored pens, my glitter glues all have a proper space to themselves. At least they're not lying haphazardly everywhere. >_> (My room is rather neater now, even I am amazed at the change.)

At the end I suppose I have to thank my sister for bringing me into the whole hand-made craft world... It has opened my eyes a great deal. To the extent that when I go out now I think to myself, 'Hey, I don't need to buy this; I can make it.' as though I am gifted with the talent to do so.

But hey, it looks pretty good for a first attempt. And at least now I know how to gift people personalized notebooks without actually having to fork out a whole lot of dough! xD