I can’t believe February is over! It’s always one of the happiest months of the year for me so I just wanted to post some photos from this month… Hope these would make you happy, too :)

Valentine’s day strawberry pancakes from Randy:

Beautiful roses from Randy:

We went to Blue Note New York for Brunch:

Great show by Elin (Loved it):

Thelonious Monk Beer!:

Empire State Building in red and pink:

Anniversary cupcakes by me:

Maia wanted my birthday present:

“A View From the Bridge” — it was great! Enjoyed it very much. Scarlett Johansson was so lovely.

Babbo Dinner. Oh my god, it was awesome. One of the best meals we’ve ever had! He is truly an amazing chef!

Love the yellow flowers in my yellow kitchen :)

Till next year, February. I love you!

Posted under fun

About a month ago, we went to Porter House Restaurant for NY Restaurant week and had a great meal :) I saw their logo and the card and of course I took it home because I thought it was great and caught my eye immediately. It looks like it’s printed on wood, but it is a paper, but look at the beautiful wood stains and burned-like wood texture — that would have been so cool if it was a real wood and the symbol is actually burned in, but hey, everyone has a budget, right? The card is on really nice and thick stock so the quality is so there.

and then, I was looking around the lovely Louise Fili Ltd website (I admire her work soo much!) and here it is! The Porter House design! It was done by Louise Fili. No wonder it looks awesome.

I’d love to get my hands on restaurant designs — anyone opening a new restaurant?! :)

Posted under design

I love my cup of coffee every morning. I really do. Sometimes, I wake up just so I can have a fresh cup. It is my big motivation and inspiration everyday :) We actually love this coffee from San Francisco, called Blue Bottle Coffee (we used to live right around the corner from their Hayes Valley kiosk) and we just couldn’t have anything else after drinking that coffee everyday and now that we live in NYC, we actually subscribe their coffee twice a month ever since we moved here. (oh, I actually have blogged about it before! I will keep saying this over and over.) Yes, it is THAT good. And it is so worth waking up for.

Anyway. I’ve been finding some coffee related cool items here and there so I thought I should share my coffee love to you today <3 Enjoy!

Hello Darkness My Old Friend print (via scoutie girl):

Heart Coffee Scoop (found via etsy storque):

Love Coffee Mug:

Strong Coffee Poster:

hmmm these things are inspiring me to print something new… with coffee love in mind :) Something to think about… (sip sip)

Posted under Inspiration

I am still a bit tired from a fun night out on my birthday last night… (thanks so much to my husband, Randy!) so I wanted to share something pretty and soothing in my tired eye… this beautiful cascading flower wall art by Dashing Etc. Flowers are made of a light blue-gray wool blend felt in an embroidery hoop frame, so it is ready to hang.

There are more pretty felt flower art at Dashing Etc. etsy shop, make sure to check it out!

Have a great day, everyone :)

Posted under art

Thank you all so much for entering the SMILE giveaway! Each single one of your comments made me smile so much!!! Thank you!! I think when I’m sad or upset, I will read all your comments again and so I can smile! :) Thank you!

I wish I could give everyone my SMILE print… but I have a winner…

I printed all your comments… (If you tweeted, blogged, etc. and you told me that in 1 comment, I typed your name again and made extra entries.)

Cut each in pieces…

and folded them tiny.

I mixed them well…

picked one…

and here is the winner! Congratulations, Lindsay!!!

Thank you, everyone, for all your smile!!! xoxo Hijiri

Posted under miscellaneous

I was around north Park Slope over the weekend and passed by Fish & Sip restaurant — this bright and pretty blue wall with hand lettering menu made me stop and take some photos!

Hope you had a nice weekend — make sure to enter the SMILE giveaway, it ends tonight!

Posted under typography

Yes, you heard it right. I am giving away this new SMILE letterpress print in yellow that I just printed! “SMILE” is absolutely one of my favorite words and the gray ones got all sold out so I decided to print more… in yellow this time!

It is in 5×7 inches, letterpressed by hand using vintage wood type blocks on 110lb, 100% cotton Lettra Pearl White paper with soy-based yellow ink – means it’s very eco-friendly! Limited to only 60 prints.

Here are some behind-the-scene photos…

Adjusting its placement and the impression.

Wood type all set, yellow ink set, and ready to print.

Hot off the press…

and here is the final product!

((the dachshund is from DAXDACHS in Ginza Tokyo and the little jewelry box is from Suga Jewelry.))

———————–

To enter, please leave a comment in this post telling us “what makes you smile” by midnight EST on Monday, February 22nd and I will pick a winner and announce one on Tuesday, February 23rd (my birthday!). You can be anywhere in the world, I will ship it to anywhere :) Also, if you tweet about it or if you mention about it on your blog, that gets you more entries — make sure to tell me by leaving another messages so I can count that, too! You have today, this weekend and Monday so hurry!

GOOD LUCK and BIG SMILE to all of you!!!

Posted under letterpress, studio news

I should have grabbed this book called The Handy Book of Artistic Printing when I was at Barnes and Noble last week… it looked awesome! and I can’t stop thinking about it since… I mean, look at the cover and the subtitle — “a collection of letterpress examples with specimens of type, ornament, corner fills, borders, twisters, wrinklers, and other freaks of fancy.” — aww sounds super! (and I looked inside a little and I just couldn’t look at it all because it was too good to just flip through!)

I am ordering one after posting this picture of the book I took when I realized that I didn’t have the B&N gift card with me and thought I could find it online so I didn’t have to carry it around… can’t wait to get this!!!

Posted under Inspiration, letterpress, typography

I tend to grab whatever catches my eye and bring home… so my desk, bags, pockets are always filled with business cards, post cards, fliers… lots of papers and designs. and yes, I need to find better way of organizing them all because they are getting out of control and they make my husband’s head hurts…

Anyway. I just found this Tommy Guns Salon flyer from my bag, I forgot all about it, but I thought it was a cool flyer for a salon. I like the scroll borders and the typography, layout and color scheme… very nice.

The other side is a 20% discount offer — nice marketing piece right here.

and this offer was ended last August… that’s how long it’s been in my bag. haha

Posted under design, typography

Have you been watching the Vancouver Winter Olympics? I have a little, here and there… and I saw this Nike commercial while I was watching the Olympics and caught my attention — very beautifully done.

I didn’t talk about Super Bowl commercials this year now I think about it, but I was working while I was watching the game commercial so I couldn’t pay attention much this year to be honest. The only one I remember was this Google commercial. Simple, straightforward and still told the story (very cute one). Out of all the over-the-top Super Bowl commercials, this one was the most memorable one for me.

Hope you had a lovely (long) weekend (if you are in US)!!

Posted under advertising