Looking forward to Easter!

Easter this year means four straight days off work for me!
Working two jobs and an on-line course is starting to take its toll a bit as I haven't managed to juggle all my tasks. Need some organization I do.
Plus my boyfriend will be home too so we can spend some quality time together, usually when he's at work I have time off and vice versa.
It would be really good if we could do something on the house but I think we'll be catching up with friends and watching movies :) which sounds awesome too!

I've been a bit slack lately on my Etsy shop, I haven't had as much spare time as I would like to devote to it at the moment but the March sale I had was great! I sold a few tsuke obi, some more obijime bundles and I had another custom order for obidome! I made two lily of the valley designs and a bright red camellia.
I switched to a better quality resin and the pieces feel a lot nicer too. It is a bit more tricky than the previous type but the results are worth it.
I've also managed to source a type of flat wire to use on the back which I'm using now and looks great as well, the thin, round wire served its purposed but didn't look very nice, but I'll use that on the small designs for the thin obijime.
Which leads me into...
I've started making up a few obidome designs for the vintage thin and really wide obijime.
I only have a couple of designs for both right now but I plan to sell them with the obijime as a set.
Hopefully I can get that up in a few months, I'm still sourcing the obijime.
The last things I've added to my shop are some obiage bundles: Here all in lovely colours :)

As mentioned in my previous post I've been experimenting with some metallic colours and those are coming along nicely. The pewter and bronze colours look fantastic!
I hope to be able to photograph some of the things I've made over the Easter weekend and get them ready for my shop :)

And now some photos, if you've managed to read all that without clicking away in boredom ;)

The pewter and silver colours.

Pewter is the darker one in the back and silver is in the foreground.

Bronze and gold colours. I was surprised how well it turned out when I put the two together on a piece.

I imagine the same could be done with pewter/silver as they share the same "cool" tone or "warm" tone for bronze and gold but I don't know how well a silver and bronze obidome would look, for example.

No doubt I'll give it a try at some time ;)

Kimono de Jack Aus Winter Challenge

So the Kimono de Jack Aus group have started doing monthly challenges as its so difficult for kimono lovers to actually meet up, just a good reason to wear kimono really :)

The first challenge was your first kitsuke, but I never took photos of my kitsuke because I was so embarrassed for a long time... So I didn't participate.
The next ( and current) challenge is winter themed.
Its a great chance for me to finally wear a bare tree houmongi I bought from Shinei last year that just got stashed away and never worn.
Part of the challenge was to stack on the wintery accessories. I'm not really an accessory person so I don't think this kitsuke is a strong as it could've been.

I would've worn boots but I don't have a nice pair, so instead I froze my ankles off while taking photos XD!

I mentally had this kitsuke prepared for a few days, all the icy blue and green hues came together nicely.

The michiyuki is also something that I've had for years and never worn with kimono ( I've worn it with tights tho, as I've done with a couple of haori, its a great way to get more use from your items) So it was really good to get both of them worn.

Hendrix also photo-bombed the shoot :)

What do you think?

I have still been working on the obidome range, but its going slowly as resin doesn't work well in winter...

A pretty bunch of roses..

Yet more roses, I really like these ones, very fiddly as I need to do multiple colours and do multiple layers of resin but I think they turn out beautifully and worth the effort :)

Spider kiku, the white is exactly the same but the flash has washed out the details but the pink picked them up nicely.

I'm not sure what to call the top green bar obidome... I'd seen similar styles in jade/coral/ivory and was just coping that, a more mature, refined obidome than a lot of the bright flowers I've been doing.

Lastly another flower, I'm not sure what type of flower but it looks sweet, there is a part of the outer layer of petals missing though, so I don't know whether I'll actually use it.

What do you think of those styles?

On a related note, as we're moving at the start of July I have closed my Etsy shop as all my kimono stuff is packed away, it will be opening again mid July with all the above obidome plus obiage, obijime and han'eri to complete an outfit!

New obidome! (IMG Heavy!)

I've been working on some resin obidome lately!
I'm really excited about the whole idea and its been a tedious few months of trial and error so far but its starting to come together now :)

The hearts are made from a bought mould but everything else I've made the mould of myself so its been a long process.

I'm really excited with the two kiku one (red and pink) I think they came out beautifully! Its a bit more tricky though as I have to pour one colour first then once that's dry the second colour can go in.

The white peony is a bit difficult to see, I've mixed up an orange "coral" colour for the next try and hopefully the details come out better in that colour. 

On the back I've made my own "brackets" for the obijime to go through, wide enough to fit the standard 1.5cm obijime but I was wondering your thoughts on that.

Would you prefer the traditional bracket or perhaps a brooch pin or even some other type of clip so you can attach the obidome if you're already wearing the obijime?

I like the bracket idea but in practice they are really fiddly to make ( even though I duplicate them they still look totally different) but I think they're a must for the clear obidome *see that last photo with the clear heart with blue swirls.

I will also be working on smaller obidome to suit the thin obijime and some bigger, bolder styles for those who like the wide vintage Taisho look ( but that's a few months away, sorry!)

The other thing is sometime in the next three months I'll be moving again so that's going to stuff up my creative process, not that I can help that.
So please head over to my Etsy store Kofuji Kimono and see if there's anything you like, I'm doing a clean out of my kimono collection so I have less things to pack.
I'm hoping be selling some obidome in about a fortnight's time so please look out for them too!