Vivat Veritas

Birthday Weekend

Chie — Wed, 16 May 2012 12:08:24 +0000

Some photos from my birthday weekend – I just turned 28th! Quickly approaching 30! It seems like the past few birthdays of mine fell on the wrong day: two years ago I was on a plane from the U.S. to Japan ALONE on my birthday. I was taking care of some immigration issues on my b-day. last year Andy and I went out with a group of friends but it was right after Kiko was born so my breasts hurt so bad and I kept pumping my breasts in the restaurant bathroom. This year, we were planning on something fun, perhaps a trip to forest adventure in Hakone. Sadly, I had to be away for a business trip and although I came home before my birthday I was not in the mood for doing much in the way of activities. So, we just went to Shimokitazawa. I like this little town in Tokyo, with many zakka shops, thrift and vintage shops and cute cafes.

We had a lunch at a place called North Side Cafe. It was my second time there, and all the food is delicious. We stopped by at a thrift shop called “sanbiki no koneko” (three kittens), where lot of the items are 600 yen. We ended up walking from Shimokitazawa all the way to Ikebukuro, probably about 10 km since the weather was just beautiful. The last stop was at Nanja town in Ikebukuro. It is an indoor amusement park. Since it was getting close to Kiko’s bed time we had to go home soon and only got to stop by at the Ice Cream Museum. They have the weirdest tasting ice creams, like “viper” or “ox tongue”. I didn’t try them…but maybe next time

DIY Color Block Sandals

Chie — Mon, 14 May 2012 13:05:29 +0000

What you need:
1. Spray paint color of your choice (mine is aqua), White spray paint as a primer, Scotch tape, Paper, Gloves.

How:
1. Using paper and scotch tape, cover the area you don’t want to be painted.
2. Coat the shoes with 2 coats white primer.
3. Once the white primer is completely dried, spray the color of your choice. Wait until it’s dry and and spray again.

Voila! It’s pretty easy, right? I’m thinking of painting a pair of black platform sandals I thrifted next. For color block sandals inspiration, check out here.

Me Made May ’12 Week 2

Chie — Fri, 11 May 2012 07:31:02 +0000

Day 4 (5/5)
Dress: made by me, Purse: thrifted, vintage, Sneakers: forever 21

I love Saturdays. This Saturday was just beautiful. Sunny and warm. We decided to take a bike ride to a nearby park for a family picnic. I wore the white back cut out dress I made right before the Guam trip. I love this dress, and it was the best selling items of my shop last year. I made them so many times I think I perfected it. I can whip this out in a short time now:) It’s made out of white cotton seer sucker, and the back closes with a white rose shaped button (sorry no picture! forgot to take the back shots). Since I would be running around, I wore the dress with sneakers and a shoulder purse that I thrifted in Philly two years ago.

Day 5 (5/8)

Dress: made by me (Casey’s 40′s swing dress sew-along, worn here, progress written here), Jean jacket: thrifted, Sandals: bought in Korea, Earrings and bracelet: made by my friend

I had a day off this day. We went to an orientation at an adoption agency (more in Mommy’s diary soon). I hope I looked respectable yet youthful…

I made this dress last year during Casey of Elegant Musing’s sew-along. I like this pattern a lot. I made it without the sleeves, but I’d like to make them again with the sleeves. I’ve worn this as a daily outfit, and also to a wedding. So this dress has gotten a fair use!

Day 6 (5/9)

Top: made by me (also see on day1), pants: thrifted, originally from Uniqulo, Purse: ASOS, Sandals: bought in Korea, painted by me (tutorial coming soon!)

Everytime I wear pants, I fear that I look too momsy. I probably feel this way because my friend who used to be stylish, worked in apparel industry, now only wears T-shirts, skinny jeans and flats. She became a mom and let her style die. I mean, there is nothing wrong with the outfit, but I kind of miss her pre-mommy style.

So, I’m always weary of wearing pants, but today I just had to be comfortable. Today was not great. Nothing worked out well; cranky baby, rainy day, and quarrel with Andy.

Do you ever have one of those days where nothing seems to be working out for you?

Me Made May’12 Week1

Mommy’s Diary 50: DIY Baby Bracelet

Chie — Thu, 10 May 2012 12:57:57 +0000

Thank you for all your comments on Andy’s post on adoption last week! We both really enjoyed reading each comment. I’m thrilled to have so much support. You know, living in a country where the default answer to adoption is “no” or “bad” the negative reactions slowly start to affect you. I’ve found it rare to receive a positive reaction concerning our desire to adopt. The most common responses I’ve received are: “1. Why do it if you can have your own?” and “2. What if the kid you adopt is ugly?” . I think Andy already wrote the response to #1. #2 kind of makes me laugh. What if YOUR own kid is ugly! Be that as it may, thanks for the good comments, keep ‘em coming.

On a less serious not, I really like a store, called “PLAZA” in Japan. They are a chain, and they have it all over Japan inside the bigger department stores. They sell cosmetics, imported snacks (that’s where I found Reese’s Pieces!) and other cutsy stuff. The other day I found this baby bracelet and necklace set made of big clear beads in different colors, and though they were really cute I could not bring myself to pay 700 yen for baby accessories because I am first and foremost cheap. I could easily make these items so why spend money on them? So I bought some elastics and clear beads at 100 yen shop and made Kiko a bracelet.

She seemed to like it well enough, but she kept trying to put it on her foot!

Inspiration: Color Blocked Sandals

Chie — Wed, 09 May 2012 11:58:54 +0000

1. Pour La Victoire 2. Sam Edelman 3. Juicy Couture 4. Rachel Zoe 5. KORS Michael Kors 6. Madewell

I’m loving the weather now. I am no longer requires me to wear pants, socks or tights so I can be bare-foot! I’ve added these pretty sandals to my wish-list. I love the color block. I’m thinking of buying a cheap pair of sandals at thrift shop, and using a scotch tape and spray paint and DIYing my own color block sandals. I also want to try this DIY neon cap toe pumps!

Beijing Trip

Chie — Tue, 08 May 2012 13:37:18 +0000

From left top: 1. Street of Beijing, 2. Hotel room, 3. Electric bicycle I saw all over the city, which goes up to 30km/hour! 4. Tricycle 5.&6. Restaurant I ate at

Quick post to show you some pictures of Beijing. Sorry I don’t have a whole lot of interesting pictures. I didn’t take my camera for fear of loosing it so I only had my iPhone. Also I was there on business so I really didn’t have much time to hang around the city.

China never ranked high on my travel dream list in the past. This is mostly because my sister did not like it there (Beijing). Hearing her talk about the city, it made me not want to go. To my surprise, I really like the city and told Andy that we have to go back there for vacation! I’m not sure what the other parts of the city are like, but at least in the central part of Beijing, it made me feel like I was in NYC. I was quite surprised. Things were cheap, and people were nice. Sadly, the only recreational activity I did during this trip was to get a massage. The massage places are open 24/7, and cost less than 10 bucks, I had a nice hour long massage:)

Me Made May ’12 Week 1

Chie — Fri, 04 May 2012 14:25:46 +0000

So for the first time, I’m participating in the Me Made May ’12 challenge! I was hesitant at first, but why not, I like to reflect upon what I’ve made in the past and take that to improve my wardrobe to be more practical. My goal is to wear something I made at least 3 days a week for the month of May. I would like to wear some of the thrifted and vintage items I’ve acquired over the years, plus, taking outfit photos more than 3 days a week is probably too much for me to pull off but I’ll give it a tr. Here you go!

Day 1 (5/1)

Knit top: made by me, Dress: second hand Abcrombie, Shoes: bought in Japan, Bag: Forley + Corrina

I made this top about a year ago using the cotton knit fabric I bought in Nippori. It was super easy to make, since the sleeves are dolman sleeves and I did not have to set in the sleeves. Literally it was a 30 min project. It turned out the top is quite versatile too. It’s funny, I end up wearing a top like this much more often than dresses that I spend a couple of hours to make.

The dress was from some blog flea market, this girl was selling her old Abcrombie dress for $10, so I bought it. The thing I like about this dress is that it does not scream “I’m wearing Abcrombie and Fitch!”. I don’t really go to that store because I don’t feel welcomed unless I’m a Vally girl – also the strong smell of perfume when you step into the shop overwhelms me.

Anyway, I ended up wearing this outfit on a Spring rainy day to work, run errands and rest of the other stuff I do daily.

Oh, do you like my polk-a-dot nails? I love them! I did it using Sally Hanson’s polk-a-dot nail stickers.

Day 2 (5/2)

Dress: made by me, Cardigan: thrifted for 200 yen

It rained all day today. I needed to be comfortable. So I picked this dress I made about two years ago yet still love. Andy is not a big fan of this dress, he said the floral pattern is too much. I wore this dress a lot while I was pregnant, it is so comfortable as you can see!

Day 3 (5/4)

Skirt: made by me, Top: forever 21, Cardigan: H&M, Bracelets: bunch of friendship bracelets made by me, Shoes: Bought in Korea last summer, Bag: Foley + Corrina

This skirt is one of my favorite right now. It’s so trendy, and I guess I like anything that’s trendy..I’m so vain. The top is from forever 21, which I bought on sale for $7 a while ago. I’m certainly getting my moneys worth, since this is so versatile. It’s white, it’s long, and loose. I wear this at least once a week and I’m sure you’ll see it again in upcoming MMM’12 post…

Daddy’s Diary 8: The More The Merrier!?!?

Andy — Thu, 03 May 2012 14:26:35 +0000

Hello VV internet confidantes. I should have had an update recently about my sewing progress but……there is none and there has been no sewing as of late. Ooops!

But in any case, Chie asked me to drop in and update you all with our parental lives. A magazine contacted recently and asked to speak with me. Apparently my skills as a father have become well known in the community and they wanted to just come talk with me and bask in the glories of my fatherly care. Ok, that isn’t entirely true….but I do think that myself and Chie have done a respectable job raising this here piglet. So my thought on the matter is this, since #1 child is good let’s push our luck a little and try adopting.

Personally, I have felt adoption was a good and necessary thing for years. It upsets me that it is not done more and astounds me the rarity of adoption here in Japan. I will let Chie take you through some of the cultural Japanese stuff with adoption at some point but basically in Japan adoption is weird, scary and to be avoided ( a little like me I guess). Thankfully, Chie does not fall into the standard category and is all about the adoption process. I don’t remember when we first started talking about adoption but I don’t remember her ever putting up much resistance to the idea. I would be uncomfortable with pulling the trigger on adoption if I had to force Chie kicking and screaming. It is probably a hard enough venture without having one of the parents opposing the idea.

So, 5,6 months back, Chie and I could see that Kiko was turning out ok with no foreseeable ( as much as one can foresee such things) major physical/developmental problems we started to get that famous parental itch for more children. With Chie swearing off the idea of child birth ever again and literally crying at the mention of doing it again we figured now is the time for adoption. We had always sort of planned on the structure of our family being like this; make a baby, buy a baby, make a baby, buy a baby. 4 in total, 2 conceived and 2 acquired.

So we started contacting local agencies about adoption and foster care (I am interested in doing both but that is a little different and might require its own diary entry). In any case, we contacted 3 agencies to begin with. The first was the local governmental adoption agency. The second was a private group called ISSJ and the third was a private agency named Ai No Kesshin.

The governmental agency is hard to figure out. We first met with them a few months back. We went in for an interview, brought Kiko and were immediately told that our baby was beautiful, growing beautifully, being raised well and they had no interest in working with us for adoption/foster care. They said we had our own baby so would not want some orphan. In their opinions the other child would never be as attractive and wonderful as our child. Needless to say, I was taken aback. 1) I love my daughter but unless I’m missing something she has no angel wings and was not at the time of her birth brought into the world surrounded by a singing chorus of cherubim. She is my daughter and I love her but she is just like the other normal little baby girls born to mothers in the same hospital on the same day, nothing better nothing worse. 2)What in the @#$$%%^?!?! How could these government workers talk so flippantly and cold heatedly about orphaned children in their care? Long story short, they told us “NO”. I told Chie in my particular vernacular “Screw that and screw them who are they to tell me no!” After a few months of back and forth, we are now in the adoption/foster care classes offered by the government. They are still telling us no but in Japan I am pretty sure that “No” is the default answer to every request. Japanese people say no first and ask questions later. The easiest way to deal with this is to ignore them, say “Yes” and usually if your patient you will win the starring contest.

The other two agencies are great. Ai No Kesshin is a Christian org based in a prefecture named Shizuoka. They are not the quickest moving individuals but they are busy so I will cut them some slack. The other org, ISSJ is a Tokyo based social services agency. Both are very easy to work with. We received numerous application forms from Ai No Kesshin this week and have a meeting on Monday with ISSJ. You want to know the highlight of both these agencies? They both are English based services!!!! God bless them. My Japanese still isn’t winning any awards and sitting in the required meetings with the Japanese govt agency is a supreme stretch of my Japanese abilities.

The adoption process in general has been interesting. My parents are cool with the idea. Chie’s parents are coming around to the idea. As I said earlier, the idea of adoption for Japanese folk is weird. It is especially weird to want to adopt when (like Chie and I ) you are physically capable of making your own children. I forgot to mention that earlier, the other really weird comment from the Japanese govt agency people was that they told us how the adoption agency and the adoption process was “for couples who could not have their own children or for older couples who wanted to give back to society.” That’s weird, I thought adoption was for, you know, the orphan and for the love of this child here and now.

The adoption agencies keep asking us what “kind” of baby we want. That’s a weird question to answer, as though I’m at McDonald’s ordering a #4. The questionnaire literally has racial, gender etc criteria that you can check off as ”Yes, I want” or “No, I don’t want”. What kind of ridiculous S.O.B conceives of adopting but then thinks to themselves “No, no a black kid just won’t do.” or “I want his baby to be a male child born of rich parents and genetically predisposed to towards professional athletics.” Ultimately, I am cool with whatever. Chie is also up for anything but seems to really be hoping for a Halfanese. she wants half black/half Japanese or half Filipino/half Jap. The more I think about it the more fun that would be. A few years from now, we all as a family go out to the store, me (very, very, very white), Chie (obviously Japannese), Kiko (some kind of weird mix but looks like me), and then a couple mixed kids who look nothing like Chie or me and are black, dark yellow or some other shade in the rainbow. People would be really confused.

I’m looking at the post, I’ve run a bit long. Sorry about that. I hope to fill you in more soon. What are yours guys’ thoughts on adoption? People usually have strong feeling and would be curious to know what this little global group thinks. If anyone has been through the process and/or been adopted and wants to drop their opinion I would love to hear it.

Three New Sewing Books

Chie — Tue, 01 May 2012 11:13:02 +0000

Andy’s grandmother surprised me with these three new sewing books for my birthday. She spent more money on shipping than the cost of the books themselves, sending them all the way from the U.S. I’m so thrilled to have finally gotten these books that had been on my wish list for a while!

The Colette Sewing Handbook by Sarai Mitnick

First off, The Colette book! Who doesn’t know about this book in the home sewing world? If you don’t you have to check out the Colette blog, which is full of tutorials and inspirations. This book is full of pretty pictures and illustrations, and I think it’s great for beginners. It comes with a couple of patterns, and I’m excited to get my hands busy working on them. These patterns seem perfect for the upcoming warm seasons.

Next up is Make Your Own Dress Patterns by Adele P. Margolis. If you are interested in drafting your own patterns, this is a great reference book. Even if you are not particularly interested in pattern making, knowing about pattern drafting basics will transform your sewing experience! This is kind of like a text book for me, where I sit down with highlighter and make notes like the good old college days. I’ve read one amazon review that said “the illustration of the book is old”, but I love the retro feel of the illustrations! There are no pictures, but plenty of vintage-ish illustrations through out the book.

The last one of the 3 is Design-It-Yourself Clothes Patternmaking Simplified by Cal Patch. This is last on my reading list just because the book seems very basic and the contents might overlap with the Colette book and BurdaStyle book. The book includes a section on sewing pants, so that’s a plus!

Besides these sewing books, I recently finished the last Steig Larsson book, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest. I was relieved to finish it. It was long. Right now I’m reading The Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. It is a rather sad book, but I’m really enjoying learning about the lives of women in Afganistan.

What are in your reading list? Any recommendation for both sewing and non-sewing books?

Sagami Ono Arts & Craft Fair

Chie — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 08:30:28 +0000

Right now, Japan is in the midst of”Golden Week” Golden Week is a bunch of national holidays in a row. So some people have an entire week off from work or school. Because of Golden Week, there are some events, festivals and fairs going on in the city. Last Sunday, we stopped by at Sagami Ono Art & Craft Fair, where our friend, Taren was a vendor.

Taren and I met at the Love Handmade event hosted by Etsy Japan. I was selling Vivat Veritas clothes there and she stopped by with her friends. She has an etsy shop, Oslo and Alfred. Check out her shop, her illustration is so cute. I bought some post cards, and now I want this pretty necklace.

There were close to 200 vendors. I love strolling around checking out little shops. Below were my favorites…

The second from the top picture above, is an illustration by Minoru Takenaka. I bought his post card – I just thought his illustration was so cute, and the fact a man was drawing it was kind of unique. The illustration is so feminine and sweet! He is having an exhibition in Shinjuku from 5/21-27. More info here if you are interested.

The last picture, the macaroon cases were made by another etsy seller, Yecco. Aren’t they so amazing? Although I sew, I have no patience to make such a delicate thing like this!