Blog — Travel
Guest Blog – Yoko Ishikawa, owner of Japanese boutique store Norr Kyoto
Guest Blog – Yoko Ishikawa, owner of Japanese boutique store Norr Kyoto In May 2023 we travelled to Japan for a 3 week adventure of a lifetime! We started in Tokyo, then travelled on the Shinkansen (aka. Bullet Train) to Kyoto, Osaka & Hiroshima. On our stop in Kyoto we met up with Yoko, a lovely lady that got in touch back in 2020 after we had just finished our trade show at Top Drawer to see if we would supply her with our stationery to her store called Norr Kyoto. It was such a pleasure to finally meet in...
A Guide to the Best Places in Japan for Stationery
Japan is the ultimate haven for stationery enthusiasts, offering a diverse and unique array of pens, notebooks, inks, and other writing tools that cater to both functional and aesthetic preferences. So when we visited last year I truly was in my ultimate happy place! Japan is well known for its emphasis on craftsmanship and attention to detail & this was reflected in its stationery stores. We didn’t get to visit everywhere mentioned here (yes I already am planning trip no.2 but safe to say it won’t be for a few years whilst we build up funds again!) 1. Itoya...
The importance of taking a break when you run your own business
There’s a glamorisation that comes with owning your own business. You picture getting up when you want, easing yourself into the day with coffee, croissants and casually reading the broadsheets that are so big they basically pick a fight with you at every attempted turn of a page. You then work a few hours, send a few emails, ‘do lunch’ then ‘work’ another hour or so before you call it a day. Now I actually did this, minus the aggressive giant newspaper, at the start of the business. As much as I’d love to say it worked a treat, it...
My passion for art
I’ve loved art for as long as I can remember. I still have my books from primary school and can remember that art was always my favourite subject, below you can see some of my early masterpieces! At my school we would also always do an end of year book where we made the whole thing from scratch and filled the pages with drawings and stories where we had to do a border round the edge in different colours. I’d have quite happily done one every week if I could have. I’m one of those people that struggles...