Monthly Archives: November 2011

HZ Zine Issue 2!

Posted on by in HZ Zine.

Over the summer we printed our first Hannah Zakari zine. We filled it with designer interviews, indie art and tutorials and it was pretty cool. Over the next few weeks I’ll be blogging all of the contents and linking you to many awesome designers and artists…

Today we picked up a sample copy of Zine Issue 2! Yep, we went the whole hog and decided to get it printed and everything – if you’ve ever tried to print, collate, staple and trim hundreds of booklets you will appreciate that we didn’t want to do it ourselves again.

Issue 2 will be a limited run of 250 copies and contains short stories, tutorials, art, etc. It’s edited by me and designed by Gill and I’m going to give you a few wee sneak peeks as to what you can expect inside and out…

We make the zine for free and everyone who contributes does so for free, but we hope that they get something out of it, be it visitors to their blog or new customers.

Issue 2 will be available from the 1st December (hence the advent style cover) and is on a first come first serve basis in our shop. If you are unable to come to the shop, we will post you one, just email us with your address and ‘I’d like a zine please’ as the email title. They are totally free.

I’m super pleased with it, can’t wait to get it out in the shoppe!

Rachael x

Competition time!

Posted on by in Competitions.

Not on here, but over on our friend Jayne’s blog. She’s been blogging for 2 years and thought she’d offer her readers a little thank you. So head on over and leave your comments and you could win an HZ Goodie Bag – yay!

All you need to do to be in with a chance of winning is leave a comment on Jayne’s Kitschen telling her what your favourite item on Hannah Zakari is – you get an extra entry if you tweet it to both me and Jayne (@HannahZakari @JayneJRead) or link to the competition on Facebook. You never know, you might find your favourite item in the goodie bag if you win!

Remember – you need to post on Jaynes Kitschen to win (not on here!) and you must @@HannahZakari @JayneJRead@ in your tweets and Facebook (@Hannah Zakari @Jayne’s Kitschen) posts for extra entries.

Good luck!

Christmas is coming…

Posted on by in Everything Else.

I feel like there’s a lot of ‘firsts’ happening at HZ lately, and here’s another – our very first in-shoppe shopping event! This is to say thank you to all the customers who have supported us at our wee shoppe over the last year and bit, and what better way to do it than with mince pies, mulled wine and discounts! And, you never know what other goodies we might be planning to *give away* on the night…

We’re also super excited about our window display installation by the wonderful paper artist, Mr Yen, who will be with us all day on the 21st November making our window all lovely and festive. Come and say hello and admire his work!

If you can’t make it to our shoppe, don’t worry, we’ll have plenty of nice xmassy things for our web shoppe customers to look forward to in the next few weeks, we would never leave you guys out of the fun!

Rachael x

Tokyo Day 7: Shimokitazawa

Posted on by in Japan Trip, Travel.

Shimokitazawa is hands down my favourite area in Tokyo. It’s full of indie, vintage and antique shops, pretty bakery’s, noodle bars,  music venues, and generally has a much more laid back vibe to it. When you come from Shibuya to here it feels like a completely different world.

First thing we did when we got here was to hunt down an awesome antique shop we found last time, and the very nice owner let us take some photos (so rare in Japan!). Just look at how much there is in here, I could spend all day just in this one tiny shop!

So many cute little shops, this one was full of vintage toys, fabric and other bits and bobs. It was so beautifully displayed inside but it was strictly no photos so I only managed one of the outside, which was also pretty adorable.

Lots of the shop fronts were super cute and had great names too!

I really wanted to know what was behind this door…

One of my favourite finds in Shimokitazawa this time was a beautiful little bakery called Kaiso. The constant flow of fresh baked goods being placed on the counter while we ate (they had one table for 2 which we managed to nab – result!) was wonderful and made in the kitchen through the back of the cafe. We each had a coffee, John had a little mushroom pizza and I had a little sourdough roll filled with chocolate chips – sooo tasty!

We finished off our trip to ‘Shimo’ with the obligatory visit to a Japanese Cat Cafe! Not much to say about this, it’s all about the visuals.

After all that fun we went and had an extremely tasty curry for dinner. Perfect day.

Tokyo Day 6: Yayoi Kusama and Tokyo Designers Week

Posted on by in Japan Trip, Travel.

Ahhh, day 6 was so good, I wish every day would start with a Yayoi Kusama exhibition. It was a small exhibition compared to the one we went to at the Mori Arts Centre a few years back and was focused on work from the 60′s plus some new videos and songs, seriously good.

When we were finished here, we went along to Tokyo Designers Week. This was the reson we decided to go to Tokyo at this time of year, and it was my first trade show ever. Unfortunately there wasn’t much here that I thought would be suitable to sell at HZ, but it was a fun afternoon none the less. My favourite bits were the Container Exhibition and the Design Boom Mart which featured designers from around the world.

Here are some pictures from my favourite containers…

Tokyo Day 3 and 4 (and 5)

Posted on by in Japan Trip, Travel.

I’m not very good at this blogging lark, am I? I’m not very good at taking photos either, and there’s also a lack of those from the last few days. However I’ve cobbled together a few pictures for your entertainment.

I don’t think this was for Halloween…

This cute window display was at Andersen in Ueno

Hachiko is Tokyo’s answer to Greyfriars Bobby I think I might start a campaign to get the Number 42 bus decked out like this in Edinburgh.

A very big wheel. I didn’t go on it. Nice weather though.

I did buy this and drink it. It was yellow and warm from a vending machine…

I have, of course, been doing a bit of shopping. This is my very favourite purchase, it’s part of the Hello Kitty Monster Cosplay range from LaForet.

I also bought this gorgeous ring (on my funny looking finger)

some pretty washi paper, might go back for more of this.

and last but not least some fabric from Tomato – I finally made that pilgrimage!

Top image fabric will be for skirts and dresses, and the poodles I bought because I couldn’t not buy them :D I got to Tomato 30 mins before it closed. Most shops in Tokyo close at 9pm but Tomato closes at 6. They played Aud Lang Syne for the last 15 minutes.

I’d love to show you more but there’s so much stuff in Tokyo you’re not allowed to take images of, mainly in shops or shopping centres. They put so much effort into making amazing displays it seems a shame that they won’t let you take pictures. Last time I was here I was actually man-handled out of a shop for merely holding my camera in view of the assistant. I’m not taking any chances this time.

Tomorrow we’re off to Tokyo Design Week, our main reason for being here – can’t wait!

Rachael x