Maneki-neko 招き猫 (Part II) : Sakura --- Two's a company, Three's a crowd or a charm?

This is a sequel to Maneki-neko 招き猫 (Part I) where I have mentioned acquiring two porcelain fortune cats, namely a male & female.

Shortly after purchasing this cat couple and placing them on top of our shoe cabinet, I had been wanting to stop at just 2 relatively large fortune cats (19 cm & above) to avoid clutter in our home.

However, I couldn't resist this purchase when I came across such a cute lil' cat & ended up buying a supposedly up-market version of fortune cat which came with a certification.

 

I am happy with my purchase even though the seller has mentioned to me that it was a display set & I proudly present this new addition to our humble family of fortune cats.

As you could see from the photograph above, I bought another she-cat. 

She comes with certification.  Apart from the certificate, there are no serial numbers identifying the cat and no engravings that gives rise to any indication that it's made in Japan.

Bearing in mind that I am new to the world of fortune cats, I am ignorant where accreditations & authentications of such products are concerned. 

The bottom of the cat looks like this with a red stamp that's embossed onto the white porcelain:

* (I kept the fortune cat in the box that came with it after a tired day of photography & am simply too lazy to bring it out again.  As such, I used the photograph that had been sent to me on iphone by seller during the negotiating process prior to purchase.)

Nevertheless, I am a willing buyer whose happy with my purchase.  And the seller, Serene, is a personable & approachable young lady whose a very young & budding entrepreneur.

For those of you who are willing to pay more for fortune cats, please touch base with Serene at the following link:
http://www.olx.com.sg/japanese-fortune-cat-iid-309181135

For easy reference, I would refer to this she-cat as Sakura since she is adorned with Sakura embellishments from top to toe.

Despite being a display set, she's in great condition.  The 2 huge jingle bells are also looking good without any tarnishing that's visible to myself & Hubby Dearest.  She's definitely a worthy addition to the family.

 

Sakura's body is pretty well-made but smaller built as compared to Peony.  Weight-wise, she is also heavier than Koban though lighter than Peony.

Like in Peony & Koban's case, Sakura came to us with a quintessential accessory - a cushion pillow for her to sit on.  While I didn't notice any difference to the fabric between her pillow & that of Peony's, Sakura's was larger & thicker as I guess that there's more polyfill found in there.

Sewing for Sakura's pillow differed too.  The centre of her fat pillow had a depression made using a bunch of red threads that were tied into a dead knot (right at the top) where Sakura would be sitting on.  Please refer to the photographs for illustrations.

If I do a comparison of Sakura & Peony by placing them side by side, I could see an obvious difference to the colour tone of white porcelain.

Sakura looked really white whereas Peony's white porcelain had a creamy tone to it.  Sakura seemed to "glow" a lot more in her pristine coat of white porcelain even though Peony had a thicker glaze painted over her body. 

I had tried my best to capture this colour difference between the white porcelain for both she-cats in this photograph but the difference is a lot more obvious in reality:

Let's take a closer look at the embellishments that are found on Sakura.

Bells
The huge jingle bells that Sakura are carrying are characterised by a double-bladed oar-like opening at the base but you could see that they were heart-shaped holes.
* (the red cord strings were a different type from Peony's too when comparisons are made)

There are such cats with similar representations as Sakura, holding onto large jingle bells with the same heart-shaped openings at the base.

In Peony's case, hers didn't come with such heart-shaped holes at the bottom of bell.

Sakura Blossoms
Not unlike in Peony's case, Sakura's head is adorned with flowers depicting Sakura flowers too.  The difference is that flowers made of dark pink fabric & white plastic stigmas which are rolled into a miniature bouquet using white paper tape.  It was completed with a little bow made of gold-coloured thread.

 Sakura does look gorgeous with the sakura blossoms atop her head.

As her name has suggested, she has many Sakura-themed embellishments which are shown clearly in this photograph.

However, I do not have any idea what that bunch of willow-like flowers are & what they represent.  They look nice on Sakura though!

I see similar auspicious intricacies at the back of Sakura & they are similar to those of Peony's.  However, the colouring on these symbols on Sakura are a lot more vibrant & saturated in terms of colour tone.

I loved how the yellow flower is protruding right above Sakura's fleshy short tail.  It reminded me of a bustled gown worn by ladies during the Victorian era.

Given that my flat isn't large enough to make way for too many fortune cats, I had been telling myself that Sakura would be the last cat I am getting for ourselves.

As the saying goes that two's a company, three's a crowd ... Or is three's a charm?

Anyways, I displayed both Peony & Koban side by side on top of the shoe cabinet.  Aren't they cute?  Kawaii!

Sakura is still kept away in the box that came with it when I bought from the seller.  My home is a very dusty place that's subject to "desert storms".  As such, I'm saving her for our new home which hopefully wouldn't be that dusty as our current home.

Perhaps I will remain a passive buyer of miniature fortune cats in the near future.  But let's keep it a secret from Hubby Dearest whose hot after my heels for adopting so many fortune cats within such a short span of time.  Shhhhh ... :D

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Disclaimer:

Kindly note that this blogging article is created strictly for the purpose of sharing my humble & objective views of products sold by the seller.

 

I am not affiliated to the seller mentioned in this blogging entry. 

 

Reader's discretion is therefore sought when viewing this thread and making any purchases from the seller.

 

Thank you for your kind understanding.

Maneki-neko 招き猫 (Part I) : Peony & Koban

My recent interest in fortune cats had been piqued by my dad who had been deeply fascinated by them himself for quite a number of years.

 

He had quite a vast collection of fortune cats which had been bought or given to him as gifts from his loved ones.  As his home had been roomy enough for a shelf to be dedicated for the purpose of displaying his cats, you could see from the photo shown below that he had a good variety of these fortune cats which range from figurines to coin banks.

 

 

Recently, my hubby & myself bought him a reasonably priced fortune cat from Young Generation located at NEX (Serangoon central) for his birthday. 

The birthday gift is to be added to his current collection as he had plenty of room on the shelf for fortune cats & other meaningful figurines such as his favourite fishes.

 

We placed in 18 one-dollar coins as a symbolic gesture which is best encapsulated in Chinese as "一直发" (Meaning getting lucky all the time).

The first fortune cat that I bought for myself dated back as far as 12 years ago when I first bought a really tiny figurine from a book store.  I bought it just for fun and it had since then been seated on my study table until I had forgotten all about its presence.

As you could see from the photograph attached below, my first fortune cat isn't exactly well-made & apart from wearing a collar bell around its neck, it is holding on to a "crystal" ball (likely to be a glass bead) in its right paw with its left paw held high up too.

Due to the age of this figurine, the dark red colour is bleeding out onto the pastel pink which had aged beautifully into a light peachy sort of tone.  The expression on this female fortune cat is one that is smiley & beckoning and I am still quite fond of this cat.

However, the red cushion in which it had been sitting on had been reduced to a flat piece of red cloth with unimpressive yellow threads serving as tassels.  If I could find the time & energy, I might just stuff cotton into the cushion to give it a boost in terms of height & puffiness.  Do you think she'll like it?  Yes I supposed so if it's well done! :P

Shortly after we presented the above miniature fortune cat to my dad for his birthday, I did a search on-line casually & browsed through local sources selling such cats.

Then, I came across a seller known as ilovesales.sg on qoo10 selling such cats.  Instead of purchasing online, I had decided to make a personal trip to their office at A'Posh Bizhub located in Yishun to see the fortune cats for myself.

For those of you who are interested in their fortune cats, kindly get in touch with them at the following qoo10 link as copied below:

http://list.qoo10.sg/item/JAPANESE-FORTUNE-CATS-NG/409567567

They have quite a nice variety of fortune cats, ranging from coin banks to decorative figurines.

After browsing through & much contemplation, I bought the following female cat from the seller as I felt an instant "connection" or affinity with this cat design:

Perhaps the floral motifs struck a cord in my vanity streak as my style of dressing had always been soft & feminine.  I love flowers such as lilies, roses, peonies and osmanthus which has been commonly used to worship deities in Buddhism.

Isn't she cute looking?  Kawaii!  (meaning cute in Japanese language)

I love the fact that she has a chubby & dressy outlook with a wide smile.

Let's call her Peony.

It took me quite a while to figure out where I should be placing her as we had the intention of purchasing a male version so that this female fortune cat wouldn't be lonely.

Initially, I had the idea that I should be placing on the shelf behind our headboard.  However, we had decided to place it on top of our IKEA shoe cabinet which resembled a TV console so that Peony would have a larger space for fanning in wealth & luck as compared to being confined in our bedroom.

Let's take a closer look at the intricacies & details which are found on Peony.

Bells :

Bells seemed to have a great significance in the Japanese culture.

 

Starting from the collar bell which is typically worn on home cats that belong to owners, the bell would start jingling when a real cat (wearing a bell) is approaching.  And it does make the fortune cat look more adorable when a collar bell is worn on.  It is also probably a way of suggesting that the cat had been adopted already.

 

However, I am not sure about the larger hand-held jingle bell although I guess that it's to invite an abundance of good luck & wealth while chasing away the bad energy?? 

 

If any of you bloggers out there know of the significance of hand-held bells for fortune cats, please share with me -  Thanks in advance!

 

Fan :

As for the folding fan (known as "ogi" in Japanese language) which is also hand-held on the right paw of the female fortune cat, it is probably to fan in all the good luck & wealth for her owners.

 

Sakura flowers :

Sakura blossoms (桜の花) are found on her body, hand-held fan and supposedly in the form of a bouquet of paper-made flowers perched at the top of her head.

 

 

In the Japanese culture, sakura flowers represents an omen of good fortune, an emblem of love & affection and a reminder of the transient nature of life & mortality as these flowers have a very short lifespan.  And this idea is closely aligned to the Buddhist beliefs on the impermanence of human life & nature.

By displaying such a fortune cat with sakura blossoms, it would have served as a valuable reminder to us that we are to contemplate death regularly as nobody is exempted from life's final journey) and in letting go of negative emotions so as to remain happy which is extremely important in one's lifetime; and to live our lives to the fullest ...  Afterall, isn't being happy the most important aspect of one's life in view of the impermanence of what we have now?

 

A close-up look at other interesting symbols found on Peony...

 

 

 

 

 

Other note-worthy details to take note of as I would be comparing Peony to another version which I acquired within the same week:

 

This version shows that the sakura blossoms are made of paper & decorated with glitter dust.  It looks interesting under lighting effects though the glitter dust had been falling off the paper flowers.  However, I figured out that I could easily get these miniature bunch of paper flowers replaced with artificial flowers.

 

 

 

The huge jingle bell for this version of fortune cats had been characterised by an opening shaped like a double-bladed oar at the bottom.

 

 

 

The second fortune cat which I bought from the same seller (ilovesales.sg) was a male cat which is carrying an ancient gold "koban" coin that says "10,000,000 ryo" as shown in the photograph below:

 

 

Since he is holding onto the ancient Japanese coin, let's call him Koban.

 

There are other symbolic items painted on the body of Koban, such as gourds (which means longevity as mentioned earlier in this write-up), hammer & a sakura flower drawn above its tail.  You could take a closer look at these intricacies on Koban by viewing the photographs shown below:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Koban is definitely smaller in built and a lot lighter than his female counterpart (Peony).  Not unlike his companion, he too is holding on to a huge jingle bell but in his right paw instead of the left.

 

I just realised after browsing through websites that Koban is a calico cat, which is supposedly, the luckiest of all cats as he has the best of what cats represent in the Japanese culture of fortune cats.

 

For now, Peony & Koban are seated side by side on top of my shoe console.  Don't they both look cute?

 

 

 

If this blogging article interests you, please stay tuned to part 2 of it where I would introduce another relatively up-market version of the fortune cat ... named as Sakura.

 

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Disclaimer:

Kindly note that this blogging article is created strictly for the purpose of sharing my humble & objective views of products sold by the aforesaid company.

 

I am not affiliated to ilovesg.com mentioned in this blogging entry. 

 

Reader's discretion is therefore sought when viewing this thread and making any purchases with the seller.

 

Thank you for your kind understanding.



My newly customised curtains from Hong Fu Fashion & Design @ Tampines Street 43

After procrastinating habitually, I finally got down to getting full length curtains done up in gold tone for my TV room.

Limited budget
Shopping for curtains with a limited budget was quite a challenge for us given my high expectations as I was notorious for being fussy.

For a change, I have decided not to tap on informative sources such as the forum as I didn't seem to have much luck in finding a suitable fit between our expectations and what's recommended.

I went through almost all the curtain making shops located at Joo Chiat Complex & Tanjong Katong Complex but I wasn't exceptionally impressed by what's displayed in showrooms.  Perhaps my confidence with posh-looking curtain showrooms had been somewhat corroded after reading about complaints of the wide discrepancies in workmanship quality for customisation of curtains.  As such, I viewed most of the curtains on display in these showrooms with a sceptical perspective.

Selecting a curtain maker

I know that many of you out there might just gag or find it a huge turn-off when you observe that the name of the curtain maker is somewhat far from being glamorous... And quite old-school to start with.

 

From my perspective, there isn't anything wrong in engaging the services of a small establishment in the heartland region if they are able to deliver great results. 

 

As such, I would suggest that fellow bloggers, especially new home owners who are in need of curtains, follow through this write-up prior to passing it up.

 

For those who are interested in exploring customisation of curtains with the shop that we have selected, kindly touch base with the lady boss (程珠莲女士) based on the following contact details:

 

Contact number : 6-7896723 / 93201277

Hong Fu Fashion & Design

鸿福时装设计

Blk 475 Tampines Street 43

#01-135

Singapore 520475

(next to the wet market)

 

I chanced upon this curtain shop at Tampines Street 43 while I was visiting my Chinese sinseh whose clinic is also located in the same neighbourhood. I was pleasantly surprised that her curtain fabrics are of very decent quality even though the lady boss herself informed me that they were imported directly from China by herself. 

 

Not that there is anything wrong in China made products but I wasn't expecting to find such curtain quality in the heartland region.  The sewing for her curtains is excellent too!

 

The lady boss is a humble, petite-looking and polite, Chinese speaking PRC national who deals with every detail from taking orders to customising curtains (sewn from scratch or requiring alterations) and alteration of garments.  I never fail to notice how creative she got in widening the girth of a black Punjabi dress when I first stepped into her shop.

To start with, the shop's location is definitely unimpressive as it's located at the exterior of the wet market where human traffic is at its peak during the mornings and weekends.

Our curtain requirements

As we had specific colour requirements for our curtains because of personal preferences, she had been kind enough to import a roll of gold tone dim-out fabric during her return trip to China sometime in June 2013 (this year).

 

Apart from the gold tone for the fabric, we also require a 100% black-out effect which would have cost a lot more should we purchase it from a curtain specialist - I did my homework on that. 

As such, we gave very specific instructions that we require a "double-sided" dim-out curtain to achieve that 100% black-out effect.  Although we would have preferred the fabric to be smooth without any texturizing, the embossed version of gold tone fabric that she had ordered for us was acceptable too.
 

A beautiful outcome
(Due to lighting limitations, our curtains are not accurately depicted in all the photographs where the gold tone of the fabric is concerned)
 

Even though the curtains are extremely heavy due to the double layering of fabric, the sewing is very well done from my perspective as a discerning (and fussy) shopper for our home.

 

Please allow me to share her beautiful workmanship for our gold curtains as shown in the photographs attached below.

 

I do not profess to be an expert in ascertaining what's best with curtains but I noticed that the lady boss doesn't cut corners by piercing curtain hooks straight into the fabric as what I have observed with some heartland curtain makers.

 

For the purpose of demonstrating how she had sewn curtain pleats such that the curtain hook could be inserted without causing any damages to the curtain, I had taken the liberty to pull out one of the curtain hooks and re-inserting it as shown in the photographs below.

 

The pointed & sharp end of the curtain hook is inserted into a "groove" that had been created by pleats sewn on the other side of the curtain: 

 

The hook is then pushed into the "groove" carefully as shown in the photograph:

 

 

 

 

Getting ready to mount the curtains on the curtain track running at the entrance of our TV room!

 

As both sides of the curtains are made of the same dim-out gold tone fabric, the section that shows the curtain hooks is the reverse side of the curtains which would be concealed by the L-box for our false ceiling.  The pleated side would be visible to visitors.

 

The reverse side of the curtains (Photograph taken during the night):

 

Photograph taken during the day - you could visibly see how the curtain was able to shield the glare coming through the windows of our TV room into the living area.

(In view of the lighting limitations when the photograph was taken, the curtain looks a lot better & expensive looking when seen in reality)

 

A close-up photograph of the embossed texture for gold tone fabric of our curtain:

(due to lighting limitations, the actual fabric colour differs from the actual product)

 

 
More photographs of the gold tone curtains taken during different times of the day:

 

Bronzy-gold coloured, double-faced curtains
Prior to us acquiring this set of gold tone curtains, she had also done up another set of dual-faced curtains for us.

The fabric texture is such that it is reversible and "double-faced" in that both sides of the curtain fabrics could be used.  The so-called front side was a richly textured silky bronzy colour with floral prints & a hint of goldish undertone (depending on lighting) as shown below :

The reverse side of the curtain fabric has a suede-like texture and looks like this:

In view of lighting limitations in my TV room while photograph is done, I had great difficulties capturing the actual colour tone of these bronzy curtains when I hung it up on the ceiling curtain tracks.

As such, the presentation of the curtains in the following photograph isn't a true reflection of the actual product in terms of colour (for the true colour of the curtain fabric, please refer to the photograph preceding to the above which shows the reverse side of the curtain fabric).

Other collections
The lady boss from Hong Fu (Tampines Street 43) has also done up a set of cushion covers for 2 standard sized square pillows for complementing our mustard coloured sofa set.

I left an old cushion cover with her so that she could use it as a reference.  It so happened that the zipper of the old cover opens at the mid-section rather than at the edge (side) and I was pleasantly surprised how the print placement made the cushion so nice to look at!

(Square cushion covers from Hong Fu @ Tampines Street 43; Upholstery & sofa cushion covers from Boey Lee of Lee Meng Huat Cushion & Sofa Maker)


However, I was shocked to see that green zippers were used!  Anyways, it still looked good on the front. :)

The lady boss also customised a table runner for a shelf that was installed right behind our headboard in our bedroom as shown in the photograph below:

Of late, Hubby Dearest extended the shelving length-wise so we would be getting the lady boss to sew us new runners ...

If this blogging entry does interest you, please stay tuned for further updates once they are available.
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Disclaimer:

 

Kindly note that this blogging entry is created strictly for the purpose of sharing my humble & objective views of products and services provided by the aforesaid company.

 

I am not affiliated to any of the persons & companies mentioned in this blogging entry. 

 

Reader's discretion is therefore sought when viewing this thread.

 

Thank you for your kind understanding.