Ikebana Workshop At ALCC

Added on November 14, 2013 by the ikebana shop.

In the middle of their busy lesson schedules, some students and staff of the Apex Language & Career College found the time to attend an ikebana workshop last Wednesday, Nov 13th.

A small taste of what ikebana is like...

We hope you enjoyed it!

Thank you to all the participants and thank you to ALCC for making the workshop possible.

Special mention to Ms. Yoko Irisawa who did all the organizing and preparing!

O-sewa ni narimashita. Domo arigatou gozaimashita!

All photos are courtesy of Yoko Irisawa. Used with permission.

2013 Holiday Arrangement Offer

Added on November 10, 2013 by the ikebana shop.

We are preparing an arrangement for the holiday season for you! See the end of this post for details.

The poinsettias are kept intact in their pots so they will last through the season as long as they are watered properly. (Cut poinsettias do not survive for long and so are seldom used in ikebana!)

We hand-painted some dried branches and leaves to give it the season's glitter! The greens are fresh.

...and some fun holiday ribbon to wrap it all up! :-)

This arrangement will make your house ready for the holiday season. ..or they are great house-visit presents too!

Price of the arrangement:
40.00 plus HST.

Available for pick up at the shop on Dec 13th-15th.

Call or email us to place your order!

The Black Kenzan

Added on November 7, 2013 by the ikebana shop.

Black is one of the basic colours of ikebana flower containers. A shiny kenzan in a black container would be a distraction and draw attention away from the real focal point of an arrangement. It is something that one would rather not see! For a discriminating ikebanista, obscuring the shiny kenzan used in a black container could be quite the challenge!

You can put the covering pebbles aside... Say hello to the black kenzan!

It is a steel kenzan that is stained black by ionic bonding. The tone is smooth and uniform.

It "disappears" inside the black container!

Hardly noticeable! Don't you just love it? :-)

It's that little bit of extra detail that could sometimes spell the difference between a so-so and an outstanding arrangement!

Add the black kenzan to your ikebana arsenal!

We have a collection of black kenzans available. Click here to see!

The Haori Holiday Special

Added on November 1, 2013 by the ikebana shop.

It's almost that time of year when we think about gifts to our loved ones. We've added a lot of new haori in our online shop! and we'd like to give a special offer to our online customers. See available haori here.

For purchases between Nov. 1st and Dec 15th, 2013, we will ship haori orders for free to destinations within Canada and the continental United States. For other destinations, we will take off 50% from the shipping cost.

Choice of shipping method will be at our discretion. We will normally use Canada Post. Regular Parcel for Canadian shipments, Expedited Parcel for continental U.S. shipments, and International Parcel Surface for other destinations.

In fairness to our walk-in customers, we offer 20% discount for in-store purchases!

PLUS, for the first five haori orders, we will add a haori hanger (a $12 value) for free. In-store customers will also get one, while supply lasts!

First come, first served!

Hand-Sewn Picture Frame Brooches

Added on October 30, 2013 by the ikebana shop.

When we were working on our "owl project"....

...we had a lot tiny scraps of felt leftover. It felt (pardon the pun!) like such a waste to just throw them away. So, we decided to make little pictures out of them...hand-sewn!

Our inspiration? Nova Scotia! Does this look familiar? :-)

It's the iconic lighthouse on Peggy's Cove, of course!

Summer farm scenes...

Night time winter scenes...

...and a whole lot of others! Do you see the Adirondack chair? A personal favourite! :-)

It was a lot of fun making them. They're available for sale at the shop! ($8.50 CAD each plus HST where applicable.)

Nocturne 2013

Added on October 21, 2013 by the ikebana shop.

The annual transformation for our shop from retail store to gallery happened last Saturday, October 19th, 2013.

It was Nocturne: Art At Night in Halifax. We participate every year to showcase ikebana in our fair city.

Let's take a tour! Here is the show window display, arranged by Miyako.

Greeting us at the entrance with a gentle fragrance of eucalyptus is White Harvest, arranged by JB.

JB used an actual pumpkin as a container!

Two arrangements by Marina Sokolenko. Many people were intrigued by the roses. The mauvish-tan roses were from Marina's own garden. A new hybrid called "Choco Loco". As buds, they appear chocolate brown in colour but become paler as they bloom!

Choco Loco roses on the left. Protea pincushions on the right.

Showing Water by Miyako. In this arrangement, Miyako only wanted to show the surface of the water.

The flowers were almost incidental, made to float in order to emphasize the water!

This arrangement by Jean Henshall was all about autumn!

Cattails and wheat stalks!

Patti Vaison's arrangement used only dried material. In fact, Patti was not able to join us on Nocturne night. So, she had had to design an arrangement a week in advance...something that would not wither; thus, the dried material!

The hydrangeas were quite delicate. The eryngium retained their blue colour!

Strongheart by Val Spencer. This was an arrangement that needed to be seen in the flesh to be fully appreciated. The images do not do it justice.

The placement of the anthuriums were creatively done. It was no easy feat. But Val downplayed it and claimed that the most difficult part was deciding where to position the loose silver dollar! :-)

One of the crowd favourites, this arrangement by Sydney Feng imparted an incredible feeling of lightness.

It was as if the chrysanthemums were floating in the air. The thin blades of lily grass connected the two components together.

Hana-Mari by Miyako.

"Hana-Mari" means "flower ball."

Centrifugal by Miyako. This arrangement sought to show strong circular motion. Did you feel it?

The dried silver dollar and allium were given to us by our friend, Beverly. She just popped in the shop one day last summer with an armful of branches. The bittersweet branches were "donated" to us by Patti's husband, Bob. He braved the woodlands to get these branches for us! :-) Thank you both!

We would like to thank everyone who visited our little exhibit. We hope you enjoyed it.

We would also like to thank our students who put in a lot of time and effort to create their arrangements. We could not have done this without you!

A more complete set of images can be seen in our flickr gallery.

Nocturne Is Tonight!

Added on October 19, 2013 by the ikebana shop.

The annual Nocturne: Art At Night event is tonight, October 19th, 6PM to 12 midnight. Our shop is transformed into an ikebana gallery! Miyako and her students will have some beautiful ikebana arrangements for you to enjoy.

Here is a sneak peak of what we're working on.... :-)

We will temporarily close the shop from 1PM today as we move things around and prepare the exhibit. But if you really need to get something, please come on in and we'll help you the best we can! Sorry for the inconvenience...and please don't mind the mess!

There is a LOT to see in Halifax tonight. We are on the fringe of the Nocturne circuit but we hope you visit us. We do put our heart and soul into all the arrangements! We are #64 in the Nocturne Guide.

See you tonight!

My Ikebana: Extending Horizontally

Added on October 8, 2013 by the ikebana shop.

Here is another blue vase that I picked up in my recent trip to Japan. You must have guessed by now that I went crazy and bought a lot of flower containers in Japan! :-)

Joan, a regular customer at our shop, is the owner of the nearby Marigold Bed & Breakfast. She knows I love getting branches so when it is time to prune her garden she invites me to go over and take my pick. My latest haul were branches that had many, many smaller stems.

The tiny branches were interesting but because I wanted to show a strong horizontal line, I decided to remove the small branches. The intricate little branches had the effect of diminishing the momentum of the horizontal.

In contrast, I used the branches in their original form on the right side of the arrangement. I created a slightly widening fan-like shape as an offset to the narrow horizontal line on the left.

Here is the whole arrangement. I hope you like it. --Miyako

My Ikebana: The Blue Vase

Added on September 24, 2013 by the ikebana shop.

Another flower container that I was able to unearth during my recent trip to Japan was this blue vase. Isn't it pretty? This is my first time to use it.

For today's ikebana, I did have a variety of colourful flowers to choose from but I decided that the simple yellow of the alstroemeria would be the perfect companion to the blueness of the container.

I also had some wonderfully leafy weigela branches to work with. But, as much as I loved the little stems branching out of the main branch, I found my clippers snipping away at a furious pace until I ended up with only a strong, simple line. My guess is that it all came back to that desire to show off the container. That was also the reason why I left the lower portion empty.

Here is the whole arrangement.

I hope you like it. --Miyako

P.S. If you are wondering if we have this vase for sale at our shop, the answer unfortunately is "no". I only found it in a little antique shop in Tokyo!

Rakugo And Sushi In Halifax

Added on September 23, 2013 by the ikebana shop.

Sunday, September 22nd. We made our way to the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 for an afternoon of Japanese culture.

Did you know there is a great view of the harbour upstairs? :-)

First on the programme was the Rakugo performance by Katsura Sunshine. (We had introduced him briefly here.)

The "stage" was makeshift--a table on risers covered with red cloth--but it was good enough to create the proper atmosphere for a rakugo performance.

The purple cushion is called a "zabuton". That is where the rakugo artist traditionally sits on one's heels. As Sunshine explained, sitting in this position is called "seiza" in Japanese. In English, it's called "PU-NISH-MENT!" :-)

We have no pictures of Sunshine during his performance because he asked us to listen and enjoy the show rather than get ourselves all preoccupied with our smartphones and cameras. Good advice! We thoroughly enjoyed the show and it was a very quick one hour!

One thing we'd like to share... Sunshine's comment about how funny life can be. He is Canadian. (In fact, he is the only Canadian AND non-Japanese bona fide rakugo artist!) His parents immigrated to Canada from Slovenia 55 years ago and first set foot on this country right here in Pier 21. Who would have thought that their son will find himself here 55 years later, dressed in a kimono and telling Japanese jokes?

After the performance, Sunshine took time to chat with the audience outside. We really appreciated the show, knowing that such an opportunity was quite rare in Halifax.

Next was the washoku (Japanese cuisine) powerpoint presentation by Consul General Tatsuo Arai. He gave us an overview of the different kinds of Japanese food and eating habits. He also made us very hungry!

Consul General Arai admitted that he was not a comedian like Sunshine but don't let the serious countenance fool you. We loved his deadpan jokes as well.

"Japanese breakfast consists of rice, fish and miso soup. Western breakfast consists of toast, eggs, and coffee. I like Japanese breakfast. My wife and son prefer Western breakfast. Conclusion: We have Western breakfast in my home everyday!" :-D

The second half of his presentation was an explanation of how to make sushi. We were lucky to have Fukuyama-san, master chef of Sushi Shige, to do a demonstration.

As Fukuyama-san deftly made nigiri and maki sushi, making it all look very easy, the Consul General reminded us: "It takes at least 10 years of apprenticeship and training to become a sushi chef."

It might take a master sushi chef only a few seconds to come up with your sushi but behind that is years and years of hard work and training!

After the presentation...the part everybody was waiting for: Sushi tasting! The audience was most appreciative.

Yum! Yum! :-)

We would like to thank the Consulate General of Japan at Montreal for sponsoring these events in Halifax. We're a long way from Montreal but you still made things happen and we truly appreciate that! Domo arigatou gozaimashita! (...and we hope that expression is near the top of Sunshine's list of the 47 ways to say "thank you " in Japanese ! ^_^)