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Beautiful Japanese-Made Fountain Pens Make me Want to Learn to Write All Over Again

Beautiful Japanese-Made Fountain Pens Make me Want to Learn to Write All Over Again

As a man whose handwriting could be defined as infantile at best, I can’t help but admire those who can wield a fountain pen like a paintbrush. Thanks to the bizarre way in which I hold my pen (I’m right-handed but people often ask if I’m a lefty purely because my grip is so odd), writing with any pen whose ink is wetter than a cheap ballpoint’s results in my hand turning blue and an enormous horizontal smear of ink across the page as if the letters were warping through time.

After seeing this short video from Japanese pen makers Namiki, though, I’m genuinely tempted to sit down and practice writing my ABCs all over again if it means that I can correct my awkward grip and learn to write as beautifully as this…

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Amazing New Garbage Bags Just Made Cleaning Up Your Town Cool (No, Really)

Amazing New Garbage Bags Just Made Cleaning Up Your Town Cool (No, Really)

As much as it might sound like a speech that one of those creepy, smile-flashing, tracksuit-wearing guest speakers might have given at your school when you were a kid, it genuinely is cool to be seen cleaning up your town in Japan right now.

In a joint venture between Garbage Bag Artwork and Columbia Sportswear Japan, a range of artistically-designed garbage bags has been launched, along with a swanky new website that aims to encourage both local groups and handsome folks like you and me to get out and clean up our towns. Read More

Turn Trash into Stylish Accessories with “Pick a Jewel!”

Turn Trash into Stylish Accessories with “Pick a Jewel!”

If you were a kid in the era of pull tabs on canned drinks, you must remember pretending that you were giving your friend a diamond ring when you placed it on their finger.  Maybe you collected pull tabs and made chain necklaces!  With a little imagination the pull tabs were beautiful pieces of jewelry, if only for a moment.

These days pull tabs have given way to stay-on tabs and, sadly, soda can accessorizing is no longer possible.

What is possible is making lovely jewelry out of items you’d normally throw away.  Things like paper, leaves, and netting can all turned into stylish jewelry with Pick a Jewel, a series of simple clip accessories that transforms trash into treasure—if you’ve got the creativity to use them!  

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