We already showed you some Rilakkuma and Hello Kitty cookies from the Hong Kong bakery shop Icing Land, but they just have so many incredible cute cookies that we want to show you some more designs. Aren’t the Disney princesses just gorgeous? But we also like the traditional appeal by the cute lucky cat.
Super cute Litlle Twin Stars cookies
Kuromi and My Melody cookies
Super pretty Disney princess cookies
Chinese lucky cat cookie
When we were looking for kawaii Easter wallpapers on the internet, we found so many cute ones that we could change our desktop wallpapers every day. Especially with popular characters like Hello Kitty, Rilakkuma, Kutusita Nyanko or Chocopa you can find hundreds or free wallpapers provided by the manufacturers like San-X or Sanrio. Here are a some cute wallpapers all revolving around food, sweets and drinks.
Baby Boo wallpaper with cupcakes
Super kawaii chocopa cookies wallpaper
Kutusita Naynko wallpaper with milk and tea
Cute Korilakkuma with strawberries wallapers
Hello Kitty cream cone wallpaper
lkawaii girls with birthday cake wallapers
My Melody with coffee and cupcakes wallpaper
Rilakkuma with shave ice wallpaper from the latest Hawaii collection
I love eggs with strawberries wallaper
Time to show you more impressions of our trip to Sunshine City during one of our last business trips to Tokyo. Last time we showed you lots of bento accessories, this time it’s about chocolates, cookies and sweets. There are hundreds of super cute cookie and chocolate molds in the craziest and funniest shapes. Like the kawaii worm molds that make the most adorable chocolates. It was one of our favourites. It was really cool that there were lots of chocolates showing you what the shapes from the different molds look like.
We also spotted lots of cute cafes, here we show you the kawaii monchhichi shop. We didn’t buy anything there, but it definitely looks inviting.
A set to make kawaii bear cookies
Some cookies to display what you can do with the set
Kawaii sets to make macaroons, pies and cookies
DIY candy sticks in funny shapes
Incredible chocolate figures
For these chocolate skulls even different colours were used
Super cute: you can make these chocolate worms with the mold in the back
Many more molds – we love the koala one
Cute chococlate pies
Great ideas for funny cookies
More molds to make chocolate sticks
Tons of candy
Everything looks super yummy
A very kawaii monchhichi cafe
The monchhichi looks adorable
The cutest cookies ever! By accident we discovered the shop Icingland in Hong Kong that sells the most amazing cookies. Their icing and decoration is so detailed, it is really impressive. They have incredibly cute Hello Kitty and Rilakkuma cookies from different collections. Their website is just in Chinese, but obviously you can also send them pictures and they will make and decorate cookies for you.
Incredible Hello Kitty Cookies
It is so impressing how detailed the decoration is
These cookies are inspired by the fairy tale collection that was available at McDonalds in 2012
Cute Rilakkuma squirrels and mushroom cookies
Kiiroitori looks great on cookies
Great Rilakkuma Halloween cookies
During our last business trips to Japan we also visited Sunshine City. The super big complex is Tokyo’s first city within the city and contains lots of shops, restaurants, an aquarium, planetarium, museum, indoor theme park, a hotel and offices.
We were interested in looking at the shops to find kawaii products and were super impressed. It was a shopping paradise! We took so many pictures of all the things that we decided to split them up into different themed blog posts, so that you can see all of them. Today we’ll start with bentos and kitchen accessories. It’s so amazing how much super cute stuff they have there: thousands of chopsticks, bento boxes and all the bento accessories you could imagine.
Sunshine City – a shopping paradise if you like kawaii things
So many chopsticks, which ones to choose?
The most adorable bunny pot ever!
The bentos inside these boxes are fake and just to display the box, but they look super yummy
Many shelves filled with food picks
Lots of special accessories to embellish food
Very kawaii fairy tale bento boxes
Cute food cutters and other bento accessories
This is certainly our biggest San-X delivery ever. Today 5 pallets filled with more than 90 boxes arrived. They are filled with lots of new stationery and really maaaany plush toys. So finally we could restock lots of products that were sold out, but of course there are tons of new items too.
And some spectacular news: To celebrate Rilakkumas 10th Anniversary San-X released a series of zodiac signs plushies. We are allowed to sell them as one of the very few online shops outside of Japan, it’s such an honor. The whole collection arrived with the huge delivery, we will hurry to upload them to our shop.
Pallet after pallet arrives at the office
Our big office Rilakkuma lounging in front of the big delivery
The Rilakkuma boxes are super cute
Part of the opened boxes, there are more around the corner
We got lots of cute Rilakkuma plushies and cellphone accessories
Of course there are lots of stationery products too
A new Korilakkuma in a sleeping bag plush
So many new products
This plush is from the zodiac sign collection
Here are all the plush toys from the zodiac sign collection we will have in our shop
Japan is the home of kawaii, so it’s no big surprise that we mainly go on business trips to Japan to see the latest kawaii trends. But some other countries are really catching up. Some time ago we visited a trade show in Korea and of course also strolled through lots of shops to see what they offer. We discovered lots and lots of kawaii products that were very adorable. Especially cellphone accessories are a super big thing over there. Check out the cutest ones we found:
A super cute solar panda that moves his head
We saw that toy with lots of different animals
Lots of lovely keychains
This cellphone cover with a cupcake is super kawaii
The adorable candies and pastries on the covers stole our hearts
Button stickers for your mobile
Masking Tape – we also sell this brand in our shop
The most adorable earphone plugs for your mobile
We are in love with the owl
Again we spotted wonderful things that some of our customers made with our fabrics. After we already introduced you to the cute boy’s shirt Caroline from the Sew Can She blog sewed, she now also made a beautiful handbag from our echino fabric. The combination with the real leather handle is perfect, it is an absolute astonishing piece.
The French designer Les Bêtes de Céline showed us a couple of weeks ago a picture of how she was working on a shoulder bag with our echino laminate fabrics. Now she finished the bag and we totally love it. She combined two echino laminates by Kokka, so the bag is waterproof. It’s absolutely lovely!
We are in love with the echino handbag made by Sew Can She
Here Les Bêtes de Céline is still working on this echino laminate shoulder bag
By now the waterproof bag is finished and absolutely beautiful
echino canvas fabric birds stripes turquoise from Japan
echino laminate stripes fabric kikka yellow-red-blue
green echino birds and berries laminate fabric cherry
A couple of weeks ago part of our team flew to Japan and visited the Tokyo International Gift Show. You might have seen one or two pictures on Facebook already, but now we selected a few more to show you. Taking pictures on the Gift Show is really not easy, because you’re only allowed to take pictures of shows, but not of the exhibition booths. If you try to, security is there right away. Still we managed to photograph secretly to get some general impressions. One of the highlights was of course to see Rilakkuma and friends. They were dressed in Hawaii outfits, as this is the theme of the newest Rilakkuma collection that we will have in our shop soon.
Hawaii Rilakkuma and friends during a show
They were real stars, Kiiroitori has an assistant and security to bring him to the show
At the San-X booth we discovered lovely Sentimental Circus fabrics
A super cute machine to decorate your Pocky or chocolate sticks
In this funny game you have to build a high tower with Dango Mochi sticks
Lots of funny games and stationery
A kawaii Hello Kitty area with a traditional Japanese Hello Kitty
Everybody wanted to take their picture with one of the huge characters running around on the Gift Show
What a super kawaii panda bear!
Sandra with lots of Gift Show goodies
The very futuristic exhibition centre in Tokyo
This will be a long interview, but she just has so much to tell. Why? Because she started the company many years ago. Meet the boss: Sandra!
Hello, who are you by the way?
I’m Sandra, 31 years old. I am the Managing Director and founder of modes4u. My hometown is Bregenz in Austria, but I have been living in Hong Kong for more than eight years now. After I finished my Masters degree in Computer Science I was invited to join a summer university program in Hong Kong and Beijing. I liked it so much that I decided to stay. I moved to Hong Kong and studied Business Management. During that time I met my husband Alan and after graduating we started modes4u.com together.
What is your job at modes4u?
At the beginning I did everything from A to Z as there was only Alan and I. I looked for suppliers, ordered products, wrote product descriptions, packed and shipped orders, blogged, organised partnerships, answered customer emails etc. Meanwhile my tasks have changed, because now I have a great team that supports me a lot.
I am still responsible for purchasing, so I order products, look for new suppliers and do everything that is connected to that. I also visit trade shows all around the world several times a year to check out the newest products and trends and to meet business partners.
I frequently start new projects, as I have so many ideas for improving and simplifying the shop. Despite that I am still pretty active in the day-to-day business: I answer lots of emails every day and do paper work and administrative tasks. But when we have lots of orders I still help packing.
What is your favourite product or your favourite category at modes4u?
I like everything we have, otherwise I would not have ordered it. But personally I like our fabrics the most. I have done quite a bit of sewing with our echino fabrics, but I also like to use cute designs with matryoshkas, owls, deer etc.
Washi Tapes are on second position in my personal priority list. We have a very big variety now and I really like the beautiful prints.
What do you like most about your job at modes4u?
I am in the very special situation that I have founded this company, therefore I have to say: everything! It is a very special feeling for me to see the shop grow each year and get more and more professional opportunities.
Also I like the work attitude in Hong Kong. Everybody is working eagerly and without complaining. Our team is really great and I appreciate that a lot.
I feel like you can try lots of new projects here. In Europe many things would not be possible that easily and without a lot of bureaucracy. There is an innovative atmosphere, the people are not afraid of experimenting and also willing to take a risk.
You’re surrounded by creative stuff the whole day. Do you like to craft or to be creative in your leisure time?
I like to craft very much if I have a good occasion. Like when I sewed curtains with our echino fabrics for our whole house, because we needed some. It took super long until I was done, but even though it was lots of work, I totally enjoyed it.
For my little nieces I sewed bibs with our fabrics, as a mother can never have enough of those. And I also like to use fabrics as decoration, e.g. by just framing them.
I have also used Washi Tape to decorate vases and glasses or used them as name tags for glasses at parties and BBQs.
Big Rilakkuma is asking Sandra lots of questions at our lunch table
Sandra sewed these bibs for her little nieces
Not yet finished, but already very pretty. A Little bag sewed with our fabrics
Sandra used different echino fabrics to sew curtains for her whole house. Shown here: Living room curtains
A “shop” in Hong Kong where Sandra bought fleece for sewing.
Her cat Miu also liked the big sewing project. So comfy!
Sandra crafted a pinboard by stapling fabric onto cork coasters
A whole new vase design made with a couple of stripes of Washi Tape