Saturday, October 27, 2007

pwetty papers

I found a paper and stationery shop near where I stay. It's in fact opposite the co-op where I do my groceries. I only bumped into it recently when I was bored of working at home and realised that they only opened from 10am-6pm. No wonder when I do my groceries I've never noticed it before!


I was naturally pleasantly delighted. Since I've just moved in and started to get to know Tokyo, and everything's expensive, this little shop was like a dream. They were trying to get rid of old stock and were selling some items at a discount. So the stuff that I usually use back home, like wrapping paper, special recycled paper, those with nice texture, coloured papers, cards and notebooks, origami paper and stamping pads - they were all sold here!


Since I stepped out of the house with the intention of just taking a walk, I hadn't brought my purse with me. And I had just seen a stack of Christmas cards going for cheap! These were from Hallmark and were sold at 10 pieces for only Y1000! So I told myself I'd have to come back the next day.


Unfortunately, when I came back, the cards had a different pricing already. It was sold per piece at a discount. I think they realised there was more value to it than what they thought initially. But anyways, I picked a few which looked really good, and felt really pleased coz now I had good cards to send back home. The year before, I was stuck in Niigata and they didn't have such a good selection, most were either with Santa Claus or some Japanised version of a Christmas card.


Just a few days ago, I went back there again. I didn't want to buy so much at one go so that I'll always have something to look forward to. This time I spent most of my time near the entrance where they were selling Hallmark writing stationery. I've never seen so many choices of cute Japanese writing paper, postcards, envelopes and cards before!


So one of the ones that I bought was this postcard set with stickers where you can DIY according to the instructions included. It ain't that difficult actually, but it was quite fun figuring out which sticker had to be stuck first. In the end I get this 3D effect which is quite cool, considering it wasn't normal sticker, but those like Japanese textured ones.


When I first saw that I had to buy 12 of any to entitle myself to the discount, I thought no way, maybe I'll just get 6, and even that was quite a lot. People hardly write letters or postcards anymore. These might just go to waste. But after trying out and seeing how pretty these stuff really were, I'm now thinking of going back there to get more! I still have a few days more before I shift to Edogawabashi.

No comments: