miscellaneous | Heartfish Blog

SMILE Winner

Posted on February 23, 2010 by Hijiri

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

Off to Japan… (and Happy New Year!!)

Posted on December 27, 2009December 27, 2009 by Hijiri

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas time with your loved ones… I had an another great Christmas with my family in low in Massachusetts, we came home with tons of goodies (thank you so much!) and now, we are off to Japan! Just wanted to wish you all a very happy and exciting new year 2010! Thank you all so much for visiting Heart Fish, being with me and being here for me all this year, I will be getting lots of pictures, inspirations, ideas, cool and neat things while I’m in Japan, I can’t wait to share them all with you! I will be saying hi sometime in next year from Japan… until then, have a great holiday season and happy happy new year 2010!!!

*Picture is from my last day of letterpress printing — I printed business cards for Randy :)

p.s while I am traveling, I am having a winter vacation sale so make sure to check it out :)

Merry Christmas and Mistletoe xxx

Posted on December 24, 2009December 23, 2009 by Hijiri

Hello! It is Christmas eve here today. I am visiting my family in low here in Massachusetts — our traditions every year :) Just wanted to take time and wish you and yours a Merry Christmas!!! Hope you are having a peaceful time with your loved ones…

A couple of weeks ago, Randy brought home my first real mistletoe! (I knew what it was, never had one for myself or for the home!) And did you know why you kiss under the mistletoe (I didn’t know why…)? The box that my mistletoe came in had a little cute story behind it so I thought it’d be a perfect thing to share on a Christmas eve…

“Mistletoe Lore:

Mistletoe has been the subject of many legends and traditions for hundreds of years. Ancient Druids considered mistletoe sacred because it grew without roots in the ground and assumed that it must have been planted by the gods. Mistletoe was thought to ban evil spirits and bring good luck and great blessings. When warriors met beneath mistletoe, they had to lay down their weapons and call a truce. From this, it became a sign of peace and good will. But why do we kiss people under the mistletoe?

It all started with a goddess called Frigga. Her son, Balder, was shot with an arrow made of mistletoe. Frigga’s friends succeeded in conjuring up powers to save the boy. Balder lived anew and Frigga ordered that the mistletoe should never again be used to harm. Instead, she made it a symbol of love by kissing anyone who passed under it.”

Don’t forget to xxxxxx

:) :) :)

Merry Christmas!!!

“I Blank You” Goes To…

Posted on January 25, 2009February 5, 2011 by Hijiri

Thank you so much for your sweet comments on my blog birthday post! It was a small giveaway so I decided to do “Amida-kuji” — a Japanese ladder lottery. Growing up in Japan, we always played this lottery game and thought it’d be fun to share it here, too!

So this is how you play.

There were 8 contestants so draw 8 lines on a piece of paper.

Put the contestants’ names down under each line — I put down the names from the first one who commented to the last one. (yes, vertical here… Japanese way!)

and fold the paper a few times so you can’t see the names any more.

Now, you draw some “random” horizontal lines to connect pairs of adjacent vertical lines. Very randomly. You don’t think about anything, just draw lines as many as you want for as long as you’d like. Just make sure no two of the horizontal lines would touch each other.