My love of Kawaii - all things cute

 I didn't realise until quite recently that I have a love of rather cute things that take on a particular style - like the little rabbit head in my Easter themed bag charm.  In Japan this is known as Kawaii (pronunciation and meaning here from the Urban Dictionary), and it wasn't until a couple of weeks ago, when I met up with Katie (a big anime/Manga and therefore Kawaii fan) that I learnt how to pronounce the word!

My realisation of my Kawaii love came to light when I had decided to pretty up my rather dull Filofax diary.  Having seen some beautiful journals on Pinterest I started to realise that the things that really caught my eye were the cute journal entries.  This lead me to source pretty stationery to form a Kawaii stationery board and naturally this progressed to finding adorable stationery to buy.

I had already been using Kawaii washi-tape to pretty up my packaging - there are hundreds of designs to choose from on Ebay.  Now I have started my collection of Kawaii sticky notes, labels and stamps.  The shop Tiger is an absolute favourite of mine - so many lovely little items (not just Kawaii) at excellent prices.  It reminds me of the very early days of the Market Place at Ikea - the time before the only thing you come out with was a pack of tea-light candles!

It came to mind that cute things had often played a part in my life.  As a teenager I'd spent many Saturday afternoons in a shop called Bizarre in Southend-on-Sea, just loving all the little darling bits and bobs available to buy.  Along with my sister, I'd collect novelty erasers - never to be used, just to be admired (my two nephews now collect the modern day versions).

Two items I've kept in my "memories" box date back to my early teenage years.  The fountain pen certainly came from Bizarre.  Previous to this I'd had transparent blue and purple pens - the lids often split and would be kept in place with blue-tac!  This one, although a little grubby, survived school life a little better.  These pens took the very thin cartridges of ink that lasted a very short time.  Remember cartridges?  You'd keep spares in your school bag and they'd always leak somehow!  These skinny ones were tougher and never leaked a drop.

The pretty pink writing case is very dear to me and has never been used until this year.  I can't for the life of me remember if it was given to me or I bought it, but it was just too cute to use!  The case is padded plastic with pretty flowers and two little children under an umbrella.  Inside there's ten coloured pencils with the words "gentle treasures" and Kutsuwa on each one, there's also a sharpener and eraser.  I've started using the pencils to draw in my diary - they're really lovely to use - nice and soft with good deep colour.

There's plenty of Kawaii sellers online and I believe a Kawaii shop is opening or has opened in Covent Garden.  I can see me spending my pennies on many more cutesy items over the coming months.

The little anime character below is me!  I made this many years ago when I first started blogging.  You see - my love of the cute has been going on for a long time!