Destroyer Of Domestic Chaos....

That's me! Or should I say, that is how The Japan Times described me. I was interviewed last week for a column they do on people with unusual jobs, or not run-of-the-mill jobs that most foreigners do here in Japan.

I have had loads of lovely comments and people writing to tell me how inspiring it is to see someone carve a niche out for themselves, which I am really chuffed about. I really do hope the piece shows that you don't have to take the English teaching route, if teaching isn't your thing and that these days, thanks to the internet there are so many more options available now.

Louise did a great job of pulling all the info together, makes for an interesting read, even if I do say so myself! Pop over HERE to read the full article.

What do you want to know?

To celebrate my 6 years I thought it would be fun to answer some of your questions... so here we go....

Q. You always ask on your inspiration posts what a typical day looks like, what does YOUR typical day look like?

To be honest I don't have a typical day - one of the joys of working for yourself! The basic run down...

6am - all get up, get dressed, have breakfast together, get ready for school/work

7.20am - Ebi-kun and hubby leave for work

~ 8.00am - I do household chores, laundry, cleaning, whatever needs doing that day.

8.00am ~ 12.pm I work, this can be anything from writing guest posts, magazine articles, coaching clients, putting together new programs, blogging, scheduling facebook posts, recording webinairs, research...

12.00pm - lunch & I usually catch up on a podcast

12.30pm ~ 2.30pm work (as before)

2.30pm try and wrap things up for the day, jot down what needs doing tomorrow. Finish off any other house chores etc.

3.20pm Ebi-kun gets home, he has a snack and we chat then he does his homework, I make sure I have everything out ready for dinner. Sometimes he will go and play with his friends, other days we will do something together, play on the wii, crafts, painting...

5.00pm start dinner - Ebi-kun often helps

6.00pm finish dinner & clear up, Ebi-kun is a slow eater so I usually clear up as he is finishing his meal then some evening we chat to my mom on Skype otherwise Ebi-kun reads to me and we kick back and relax.

7.00pm - Bath & bed routine

7.45pm - I jump in the bath

8.00pm - Usually catch up on course work

9.30pm - brain dead so I will do a bit of hand sewing or doodling and watch TV. Hubby usually gets back around this time so I fix his dinner whilst he is in the bath.

11.00pm - bed

Q. I have tried blogging but I can't stick to it, how do you do it and did you keep a diary when you were a child?

No! Well, I tried but I probably only managed a week at most. It is quite surprising to me that I stuck with blogging! I think to begin with, I knew my friends and family were reading so it was an incentive to keep going and now I see it as a document of what we, as a family have been up to so I want to keep going. I also write posts in my head ALL the time - luckily for you, only a fraction of them make them to the blog :)

Q. When are you going to write a book?

Hahahaha, I have no idea, I would love to write one but I'm not sure what the subject would be - open to suggestions!

Q. I hope this isn't too personal, you obviously love children, is there a reason why you only have one or are you planning to have more?

I think anyone with an only child gets asked this a lot. When I was 39 weeks pregnant with Ebi-kun I was diagnosed with HELLP Syndrome and was rushed into the operating theatre so they could get Ebi-kun out. Obviously it all turned out OK in the end but the hospital warned that I would be high risk if I had a second child and I would have to go into the hospital to be checked every week of the pregnancy.

*The whole birth experience was scary but I didn't actually know at the time what HELLP Syndrome was, when I got home a did what any 'sensible' person does - yep, googled it! It was terrifying to find out that I could have gone into that operating theatre and not come out.

For me, the choice was to be the best mom I can be to one child rather than risk leaving one child and possibly a baby too, with no mother and my husband with no wife.

Q. Do you plan to stay in Japan forever?

Certainly for the short term, now we have a house we don't have a lot of choice, there isn't really the 2nd hand house market that they have back home so selling isn't really an option. I would love to eventually have this as our base but spend extended time out of the country, I love travelling and finding out about new cultures so being able to spend 3 months here and 3 months there would be great - that would all depend on the rest of the family and our finances though!

Q. What made you stop designing and instead start My Organized Chaos?

There were a number of factors, after the 3/11 disaster I decided we needed to have an income that was location independent, so that if something happened and we had to get up and leave, we could do so and still have some kind of income. Then the number crunching came in, selling patterns I can only ever charge, at the most $12 and to make a decent income from that I need to sell a LOT of patterns every month. So, I started to look at other options, the concept for My Organized Chaos had been rattling around in my head for a while but I was thinking of it more on the lines of a book. Then I discovered online courses and everything fell into place. I really enjoy the helping people aspect and the  course is a lot more sociable than selling sewing patterns. There is still an element of design since I do it all myself.

Now I can go back to enjoying sewing as a hobby and I will probably release more patterns as I come up with them and I would still love to have a line of fabric from my designs...

and a few liners...

Q. What is your favourite Japanese food?

Sukiyaki or okonomiyaki

Q. What did you study at university?

Electronic Imaging & Media Communications (also have a HND in Electronics & Software Engineering)

Q. The old classic, if you could invite 5 people to dinner, who would you invite?

Assuming I can pick dead people too... Leonardo Da Vinci, P!nk, David Attenborough, Kate Adie and Jamie Oliver (and get him to do the cooking).

Q. What is your favourite film?

Hmm  don't really have one, I love films you can sing to like Wizard of Oz, Mama Mia, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Also a Star Wars fan and there are lot of films I have really enjoyed but I tend only to re-watch films if I can sing along LOL.

Thank you for all the questions, it was fun answering them! If you have any more, pop them in the comments box...

The one thing I promised myself for 2012

I can't believe we are already at the end of 2012, the last couple of months have seemed to have flown by! 

I don't really do New Years Resolutions because I know I will break them all within the week, but at the start of 2012 I made, what I like to call, a promise to myself. That promise was to step out of my comfort zone at EVERY opportunity that came along.

Now, if you have been reading my blog for a while, you will know that this year I have made some significant changes, I took a business course (I have a couple of posts related to that scheduled for you) and I started My Organized Chaos. I have done more things that I can remember that have taken me out of my comfort zone and each time something significant has happened. I have learnt many an important lesson, earned more money and re-discovered my long lost confidence.

Not only that I have made some fantastic new friends and partnerships and it all started with one teeny step out of my comfort zone, after taking that first step something else came along and it all kinda snowballed. Each time I could have stopped but instead I took that feeling of about to vomit on my keyboard and took the plunge - it gets quite addictive after a while!

This year I will continue stepping out and enjoying all the new things that come my way, will you join me? Tell me in the comments one thing you plan to do this year which will take you out of your comfort zone (maybe leaving your first blog comment could be it!)

BIG ANNOUNCEMENT - The Home Study Pack

Hurrah! The My Organized Chaos Home Study Pack is out!

Designed so you can print and go. Get started on organizing your chaos before the ink is even dry!

The Early Bird offer is on until November 14th so grab it quick!

ALSO

If you haven't already signed up for the newsletter, I have a great 3 part video training to help with your clutter, presenting new projects and ideas to your children and coping with 'the witching hour'.

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As the holiday season approaches...

I just wanted to give you an update. 

My Etsy store will be closed from December 8th, so if you are after a physical product you need to order before then.

Sewing patterns as PDFs are available anytime and you can get them from Craftsy or my new website.

I have just received the last delivery of treasure maps for the year, I have a couple in stock on my site or in the Etsy store. The new batch need the edges sealing and ribbons sewing on, which I will be doing this week. If you were hoping to get one of these as a Christmas present, I recommend you order sooner rather than later.

A quick word about Craftsy. It is a great site and I highly recommend signing up (it's free). They have loads of online classes covering anything from cake decorating to crochet; jewelry making to product photography; quilting to spinning; gardening to sewing! So if you want to take a class but don't have time to join a physical one, this is a great way to keep learning but in the comfort of your own home!

I also love people buying my sewing patterns from Craftsy because it is fully automatic and I don't have to do anything :o)

Just out of interest, OK I am nosey! have you ever taken an online class? What did you study and how did you like it? Tell me in the comments...

The story of a map...

Once upon a time there was a pirate, no I think it was a ninja, noooo maybe it was a knight. Anyway the pirate-ninja-knight would often go on adventures, sailing the high seas, battling baddies, slaying dragons and hunting for treasure. The pirate-ninja-knight would never leave home without his sword and map, the problem was his map was forever getting ripped and damaged and slightly singed by dragon breath.

The pirate-ninja-knight mommy thought about making a more durable map, she suggested a plastic coated map but the pirate-ninja-knight scoffed in her face, as if pirate-ninja-knight's used plastic maps. So the mommy pirate-ninja-knight had another think and decided that what was needed was a cloth map. Something durable, believable and could be washed if the pirate-ninja-knight fell in a swamp on his adventures.

So, the mommy pirate-ninja-knight got to work, first she aged some paper using a combined technique of coffee stains, tea stains and lighter flames. To get a really good ancient look she stained the paper three times, leaving it to dry each time. Then she hand drew the different parts of the map and scanned them into her computer along with a scanned copy of the aged paper. Next she spent several hours conjuring up some Photoshop magic putting the map together and adding the colour. She deliberated for sometime about labelling the islands and other parts of the map but decided against it. She thought (and rightly so, if you don't mind me butting in) that the map should be left blank of names so that the pirate-ninja-knight could make up his own names and that if a copy of the map should fall into non English speaking pirate-ninja-knight's they would be able to use it too.

Once the drawing of the map was finished it was printed out with eco-friendly inks on a nice sturdy linen cotton fabric. But then a problem! the fabric, lovely as it was, was prone to fraying, it is bad enough that the islands were shrinking due to global warming never mind map fraying. So, the mommy pirate-ninja-knight rustled up some anti-fray to coat the edges of the map with and rigged up a special map drying rack. Once the map was dry she set to and hand stitched a ribbon to the map so it could be rolled up and tied when not being used.

The map was such a big hit with the pirate-ninja-knight and his friends that the mommy pirate-ninja-knight didn't think it was fair that only one pirate-ninja-knight should have a map so she got cracking and made lots of them.

If you would like a copy of the map for you little pirate-ninja-knight then you can get one by clicking on any of the words map in the story.

And you don't have to take the word of the mommy-ninja-pirate that they are great, listen to what the little  treasure hunters around the of the world have to say.....

"I love my pirate map because it came with treasure"  

                                                           Kanai (6) Texas

 "We had the boat, the eye patch and the cutlass; all we needed was a real treasure map and now we have one"  

                                                            H & N (6 & 8) Japan
                                                       

"Me and my sister use my map to help us find pirate treasure. We love it!"                                                

                                                            George (5) Lancashire, UK
                                                       

"My little pirates have had many happy hours of treasure hunting with this map. It is a wonderful idea for imaginative play, well made and a great addition to their dressing up box" 

                                                             Lesley Robertson, Manchester
                                                
And, because now you know how much time and effort went into creating this very special map and because the mommy pirate-ninja-knight thinks you are lovely, she is offering a 10% discount until the end of the month. Just put pirateninjaknight into the coupon code box when you check out.

The End

The story of a bag....

A long, long time ago when I was a little girl of about 8 or 9 my best friends were a pair of sisters called Emma and Sally. Not only were we good friends but our parents were too, their dad worked for mine  and their mom was a school sewing teacher. As far as I remember she never taught be any sewing but she did make us three girls matching-but-different bags, we all had the same style but she picked out different fabric for each of us and what was super-cool was the bag was reversible, a two-for-one yeah!

I think the fact that bag was made for me and my friends had the same-but-different was what made the bag so special. Mine was a plain chocolaty brown on one side and a pretty brown flower design on the other. I used it for school until the day that my black cherry yoghurt exploded, making a right old mess and in the middle of summer it didn't smell to great either! I used a studier bag for school after that little incident and it put me off yoghurt for months.

Anyway, I was thinking I needed a new bag (my husband is rolling his eyes as he reads this!), one a bit smaller than my usual bag and something a bit summery so I decided to recreate my childhood bag. In essence it is a simple messenger bag with two pockets on each side. The polka dots are actually little apples on linen and the yellow side is teeny tiny polka dots and a bit of Heather Bailey? fabric for the flap.

I am afraid it is a bit wrinkly, my iron is on it's last legs and only works when it feels like it and then it is hit and miss if you get steam too! What have you been making recently?

Ebi-kun's art carrier...

Oops! I just realised that I never actually blogged about this and I made it for Ebi-kuns birthday, his last birthday, which was in July! Last year Spoonflower had a fabric design contest for kids and Ebi-kun entered, I ordered some of the fabric but 'forgot' to show him when it arrived. Once he was in bed I got busy making this for his birthday.

I was inspired by the carrier in Meg's Growing Up So Liberated book but for reasons that I can't remember I ended up making it my own way. Inside the covers pieces are hard plastic.

And my favourite part, the pen's pencils and erase/sharpener are all attached with velcro (this idea led me to the fridge velcro pens shown here)

Ebi-kun really likes the fact that it has a handle so he can easily carry it and everyone loves pulling the things off the velcro strip. He has used it outside and taken it on road trips as well as just using it at home.

But the best thing was seeing Ebi-kun's face when he opened his present on his birthday, his first words were 'It's my fabric' 

If you are interested in buying some of his fabric you can get it here and Ebi-kun will get the profits from it, he will be very happy for any purchases as he is currently trying to save enough money to buy some Star Wars Lego!

Sneak Peek...

I don't know about you but we had rather an uneventful weekend here, the spotty one is getting better, he had a fever Friday and was rather grumpy but he is back on form now, just a spottier version of his former self. He has been really good at not scratching and most of the spots have scabbed over now, we will go to the doctor again tomorrow and hopefully get the OK to go back to school.

Other news, my sewing machine broke again! Same thing, the APC plate again, there is a small moving part on it that keeps breaking off and once it is off the whole plate needs replacing, there must be a design fault and it is really annoying. That said, I love the machine when she is in working order!

Oh yes, and the sneak peek...

This was part of a present I made for a little friend then I made a similar one for my niece, I have decided to write it up as a pattern, I have become rather addicted to making these little fellas! This week looks like a week of hand stitching and pattern writing...

New goodies....

I have put some new goodies in the shop, first up is this mini quilt. It is made with Cloud 9's organic forest friends flannel and cream cotton, very cute! You can find it here.

And then there are this adorable little brooches, these are a perfect, evening stitching project and I am happy to do custom orders, if you would like different colour skin/hair/expression. let me know and I will see what I can work out for you.

These were born from the massive collection of doodles in my sketch book, I thought it was about time I actually made something with them. 

Don't forget, if you want a discount, all newsletter subscribers get one, just pop your details in here...


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Spring Yellow

I have just listed some new brooches in the shop and made this bright and cheery treasury to celebrate, can you spot one of mine in there?

I have also added a discount code for newsletter subscribers, so if you like getting a discount (who doesn't) you can subscribe here...

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Thank you pouch...

One of the yochien moms, Eri-san has been super kind and helpful the last couple of years so I wanted to make her a little thank you gift. She makes her own soap and is into the handmade scene so I figured she would be happy with something I had made.

My first project got off on the wrong foot and I messed it up big time so had to have a re-think, I had a piece of fabric with embroidery samples sitting around, I had just been practising different stitches with nothing in mind for the final piece so I used that to make the outer part of the pouch.

Opened flat so you can see all the stitches.

I used bias tape on the raw edges and selected one of the fancy stitches on my machine, I quite like the effect, I have never thought of sewing it on like that before. With wider tape I could use a larger variety of  stitches, I will try and remember for next time.

Do you like free goodies?

I have been wondering about starting a newsletter for a while now, come April Ebi-kun will be in school proper which hopefully will give me more time to concentrate on my business. I have got lots of fab ideas in the pipe line that I can't wait to share, some have been on the back burner, some are brand spanking new, some I have been trying to decide what exactly to do with them and so the newsletter has been born.

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Those who sign up will get freebies, early bird deals, discounts and great offers plus inside information about the comings and goings of jojoebi designs. You can pop your name in the box above or over in the side bar, the more eagle-eyed ones out there might have already spotted it!

*edit* if you are reading this through reader or similar you will have to click through.

Have you heard of Craftsy?

Craftsy is a community based site with online classes, workshops and projects and recently they have added a patterns section too. That means you can now buy all of my patterns via the Craftsy store, pop over here.

Pirates Ahoy.... (giveaway)

*edit* this now includes the Pirate Ahoy Party pack too*

In my effort to get better organised I realised that I often have a collection of sketches that live in my sketch book as half baked ideas or doodles that never come to fruition and I was trying to think of ways of using them, suddenly the penny dropped.... Embroidery patterns!

So, with keeping in with the pirates and treasure theme that we have had going all month, here is my first PDF embroidery pattern. There are 30 images and I have reversed them too so you can use them as you like, I have also included a page on how to transfer the patterns. Available right now, in the shop.

AND (update)

I have just added the Pirate party Pack to the shop so I am throwing one of those in too!

If you would like to get your mitts on a copy of both then leave a comment below telling me what your pirate name would be!

RULES

Ebi-kun will pick his favourite pirate name on Feb 6th at 8.00am JST

One entry per person

You must include a contact email address, no email - no win.
The pattern and Party Pack are PDF files which will be emailed to the winner.

For more competitions try ThePrizeFinder - UK Competitions

Looking for a pixie friend?

A friend asked make a pixie for her friends new baby and well, long story short, I ended up with twins! So one has gone off to live in New York and the other is looking to be adopted, would you like her to come and live with you? You will need to pop over to my Etsy store sort out her 'adoption' if you prefer to make your own pixie, I have a pattern available too.

Where is the treasure? (giveaway)

I am VERY excited to tell you about this snippet of jojoebi news. Firstly, I have a new item in the shop, the more eagle eyed of you might have spotted it, it is a cloth treasure map for all you little adventurers to use on their expeditions. It is printed on cotton/linen fabric which makes it hard wearing and printed with child and environment friendly inks. My chief tester has taken his on adventures to the underworld, the caves of doom and Lilliput so far this week and he says that it comes in very handy!

I have teamed up with the creators of BIG Kids Magazine and Lilla a to give one of these maps away as part of the Treasure Boats Exhibition.

BIG Kids Magazine is a biannual Australian publication, the brainchild of Jo and Lilly. They wanted to create a creative arts magazine which encourages children to discover, experiment and engage in conversation about art and the world, where child and adult artists work side by side.  Needless to say, their way of thinking and the whole concept behind the magazine is right up my street!

And onto the Treasure Boats... Lilla a is a beautiful Danish blog where Anna shares the art she creates with her two children and is where the collection of treasure boats is taking place. For the chance to win a treasure map, pop over to lilla a's blog to find out what the treasure boats are all about and how to enter.

Tropical birds and hedgehogs....

One of my regular customers asked me to make her a bag and an apron for her daughter for Christmas, the bag was for carrying books to and from work and the apron needed to be all cotton. I like making custom orders as long as I have enough time to give them proper attention, I hate rushing things because I usually mess up somewhere along the line. I based the bag on the pattern from Sew Liberated, The fabric is upholstery weight cotton and has a pretty (but not too girly) print of tropical flowers and birds in blues with a hint of yellow. I used some nice cheery bright yellow to line it and make the piping and finished it off with a yellow flower brooch, I loved the finished bag, it was hard to pack it up especially as my everyday bag is on it's last legs!

The other item was a Montessori style apron and apart from the condition that it was all cotton I could pick whichever fabric I liked. I LOVE this little hedgehog print and I had a couple of small pieces of the walk the dog fabric left, it was just the right size for a pocket. I actually made two of these aprons so the other is in the shop.

My goal for this month is to get the shop restocked and finished off all those half done projects, I have a couple of patterns that I just didn't have time to finished before the holidays and several other projects that I need to finish, so I declare January to be the month to end all WIP's.

Thank you...and a small gift

Call me old fashioned, but I think it is important to send a proper thank you for gifts, I don't go as far as the Japanese thing of calculating a third of the original gifts cost then sending a present back worth the third but a card will do nicely.

Now, I didn't want to force Ebi-kun to sit and write a massive pile of cards, no fun and it will turn into resentment so I came up with a plan.... using some of his new Ninjago Lego and using the business card holder idea as a base we made a stand to hold blank cards.

Then we cut out a pile of cards and Ebi-kun wrote little thank you's on each one, we popped it into the holder and took a photo. Once we had worked through the pile I loaded them onto the computer and cropped them to size and printed them onto postcards.

I wrote the addresses on the back and Ebi-kun wrote a message or drew a picture on each one, pretty painless and a lot more fun!

If you don't want to go through the hassle of making each card I photographed a blank one so you could print this out and write a message on the blank area. This image is low resolution so I recommend printing it form the Flickr image HERE. I sized it for a standard Japanese postcard so the image is 140mm x 90mm but you could resize it if your local postcards are a different size.

Of cute little pixies....

I spent most of yesterday working on these cute little pixies, I am going to start writing up the pattern today and I will need a couple of testers soon, if you are interested drop me a line. Please only apply if you can make the doll and send me feedback within a week, a tight turn around, I know.  I will send the pattern and instructions in PDF format so you will need a printer too.

I need a name for these cuties too, any suggestions?