We love to get creative at Christmas time. This candy wreath is a great little craft to get stuck into, it makes a great, colourful decoration that guests will love as they get to eat a piece when they come to visit (that is if you haven’t managed to scoff the lot first!)

It’s really easy to make. As always our faithful Momiji interns were here to lend a hand.

What you’ll need

- Lots of sweets, anything with bright colourful wrappers
- Lots of ribbon
- A hole punch
- Wooden ring, or strong wire that you can bend into a circle
- Scissors

If you’ve gone for strong wire, start by bending it into a circle and twist it at the top to keep it together.

Use the hole punch to make a hole in the wrapper of each sweet.

Tie the sweets onto the ring individually. If you’ve got long lengths of ribbon showing, curl them with a pair of scissors.

That’s really all there is to it. You can hang your wreath anywhere and some people even hang a pair of children’s scissors from the wreath so guests can easily snip their candies off.

As always, we want to see your pics, so don’t forget to post them to the Facebook Page.

Massive thanks to all of you who came to the party at Royal/T yesterday; we just heard from Gem that it rocked, she was buzzing from meeting you all. Check back here soon for photos. As promised, here’s our chat with the awesomely talented Joanna Zhou, about how she created Chiyo for Royal/T.

Hello Joanna!

We’re super excited about the arrival of Chiyo. How did you set about creating her?

Chiyo is based on the super cute maid outfits worn by waitresses at Royal/T. I started out by simply doodling tons of different doll bodies on one sheet. I find that it’s much easier to come up with variation if you work quickly and messily at first because you look at the doll’s overall shape instead of getting distracted by detail. Then I pick three designs that seem to work best and draw them much larger so I can try out different expressions and outfits. These get narrowed down further to just one doll, which of course became Chiyo!

Chiyo has lots of really cute details to her outfits can you tell us about these?

I absolutely love with Royal/T’s cupcake hats, which are so fantastically Harajuku. They fit in with ‘Decora’ style where girls adorn themselves with cute kitsch accessories in pastel or neon colours. And at the same time, the LA side of Royal/T stands for style and sophistication. So Chiyo’s look is more kawaii chic, a tailored outfit with just enough bows, ribbons and beads to make it playful.

Royal/T celebrates the Japanese concept of Maid cafes; you spent some time in Japan recently – what were your favourite things about the country?

I was really awed by the attention to detail to everything. For instance if you bought a small gift in a store, they would pack it up with cellophane, stickers and ribbons. And in a bakery, every slice of cake was iced so perfectly I initially thought they were plastic models! There is such a creative energy in Japan as well and you feel that no idea can be too crazy or unusual. It’s great to see the same concepts such as a maid café being introduced to other countries.

If you had your own cafe what would be your signature dish?

One thing I ate in Japan was a moffle, basically a mochi rice cake toasted in a waffle iron. It was crispy on the outside, gooey on the inside and strangely delicious. If I had my own café then I’d love to combine that with other desserts, such as a Banoffee Moffle with banana ice cream and dulche du leche or S’Mores Moffle with melted chocolate and marshmallows.

What else have you been up to recently?

I’ve been designing manga inspired make-up for Eyeko and writing a How to Draw Chibi book. Chibi style is all about those super cute characters with big heads and small bodies, which come to think of it, have fairly similar proportions to Momiji dolls ;)! Christmas time in Vienna is beautiful and I’ve also been going to lots of Christmas Markets, enjoying the snow and feeding my addiction for Starbucks Gingerbread Lattes. I’m really looking forward to the holidays as I can take a break from my projects and just spend time with many friends who will be back in town.

Today's festive treat is a downloadable gift for everyone. Our friend, Kipi Ka Popo, has designed this lovely Momiji Christmas scene just for you.

You can deck out your computer desktop, iphone or even your iPad with festive Momiji goodness. Simply click on the screen resolution below and save the picture as your desktop wallpaper.

Computer desktop - 1280 x 1024
Computer desktop - 1024 x 768
Computer desktop - 800 x 600
Iphone/Iphone 3G
Iphone4
iPad

It’s time to deck those halls, and when our lovely Momiji interns came to visit, we made these great Origami stars. They’re really easy to make.

You just need 5 sheets of origami paper (4 and a half inch squares) You can use any colour you like, our paper had a white side and a coloured side so it makes it a little easier to see where to fold.

Fold one sheet in half, then fold it in half again. Unfold it and it should have creases in a cross formation.

Fold 3 of the corners into the centre and unfold again. Fold opposite corners into the centre to make the shape above. When you’ve done that, fold the whole thing in half along the centre crease to make the shape above.

Repeat these steps with all the other sheets so you’ll have 5 identically folded pieces.

Tuck the coloured side into the gap created by the folded paper, make sure it’s tucked in at the back too. When you’ve done that, fold along the join. Repeat that until all 5 pieces are tucked in like a circle.
Fold along all of the creases again and gently pull the star out until it looks just right.

Now it’s ready to hang on your tree.

We’d love to see pics of your stars, so post them on the Facebook page.

If you’re in LA this weekend you should definitely cancel any plans for Sunday head over to Royal/T. Our favourite Culver City hang-out are throwing a party in our honour. ‘Get the Message’ will take place from 11am – 4pm and you’ll be able to paint your own doll, find out more about Momiji and do some essential Christmas shopping. You’ll also be able to buy our new and exclusive Royal/T Momiji doll Chiyo. Designed by Joanna Zhou, she’s inspired by the pretty maids who serve delicious food in Royal/T’s beautiful cafe. Royal/T have 190 hand numbered Chiyo dolls available for those who get in quick. Don’t worry if you can’t make it to LA as you’ll be able to buy Chiyo here on lovemomiji.com from Monday, but stocks will be super limited so don’t hang about. At the moment we’re sorry that Chiyo isn’t available in Australia, but if that changes we’ll let you know as soon as possible.

We caught up with Royal/T maid Mayumi, who has been with them since their launch.


Hello LA! This is England calling...

We’re super-excited about the launch of the Chiyo Momiji doll. We’d love to know a bit more about Royal/T maids.

Can you tell us about the origins of the Maid Cafe concept?
The concept originates from the Akihabara electronic district in Tokyo. The area is populated by cosplay cafes which inspired Royal/T's Lolita-esque touch, fusing French and Japanese style.

We’ve read amazing reviews of your food; when we stop by what should we definitely order?
We serve a Japanese/Fusion food with local California flavor. We have an amazing high tea set, which is served with a pot of tea. High Tea comes on a three-tiered silver tray with sweet and savoury small bites (enough to share with two), I prefer ordering it with the Royal Milk Tea, our specialty.

The Royal/T Momiji doll named Chiyo. Is there a story behind the character?
Chiyo has been part of Royal/T since inception. She is our fictional maid who serves tea and yummy food, sleeps in a teapot bed and loves art. Chiyo means eternity in Japanese.

Momiji have been a popular part of your store for a while now. Why do you think Royal/T customers go so crazy for them?
People love Japanese pop art and fashion. These colourful dolls remind me of the Harajuku girls in Japan.

What’s the best thing about being a Royal/T maid?
Meeting new people everyday including artists, photographers and cosplayers – lots of interesting people!

Thanks!


Gemma from Momiji HQ will be there on Sunday so if you spot her be sure to say hi. We’d love to see any photos of you at the party; upload them onto facebook so we can take a look. Check back here on Monday for an interview with Joanna Zhou about how she created Chiyo.

Where would we be at Christmas time without a couple of jingly tunes to get us in the festive spirit?

For today’s Advent Calendar treat, we’ve put together this fab video playlist of our favourite Christmas songs of all time. Our favourite Christmassy activity is to settle down with a glass of mulled wine and wrap all our gifts accompanied by these songs.

These are just a couple of our favourites. What songs get you in the festive mood? Let us know on our Facebook page or in the comments below.

We’re spreading Christmassy messages today so while it’s chilly outside we can all feel a little warmer inside.

Our good friends and Momiji interns, Charley and Charlotte have made us this amazing Christmas tree. We want to decorate it with Sparkle Tags featuring Christmas wishes and messages from all our Momiji friends.

If you have a Christmas wish, message or dream, email it to us and we’ll put it on our tree. It could be something simple like hoping you get lots of goodies in your stocking or it could be a message for someone very special. Tell us about it and we’ll put it on the tree.

We’ll be announcing some of our favourite Christmas wishes over on our Twitter feed and Facebook page throughout December, so keep an eye out for yours.

Today is a very special day, it’s Thanksgiving. It’s time for our American friends to share a big Turkey dinner together and think about all that they are thankful for.

It’s also exactly one month ‘til Christmas so the countdown starts here.

To make the next 29 days wait seem shorter, and to spread a little festive Momiji love, we’ve just launched the Momiji Advent Calendar!

Click here to sign up and you’ll receive a daily dose of jolly directly from Momiji HQ. There’s Christmassy projects, printables, downloadables, offers, discounts and a whole manner of Christmassy shenanigans ready for you so sign up now.

Get your party hats on, the festive season starts here!

Thought Bubble festival is a comic-book convention held annually in Leeds. We went there, armed with blank dolls, paint and a whole manner of Momiji goodies, at the weekend and loved every second of it.

There were loads of Cosplayers dressed as their favourite characters from Anime, Manga, Comic Books, Films and just about anything else you could think of. A large number of comic book artists were also there, signing comics and looking at everyone’s work.

The workshop was fantastic and the painted dolls looked amazing! Who would have thought of creating a Momiji inspired by a pineapple? Or even a steampunk themed doll? The level of creativity at this workshop was off the charts and we had a great time chatting to all the Momiji fans who came along. We’re donating 50% of all the workshop ticket prices to Médicins Sans Frontières so a big thank you to everyone who came along to paint.

Dear me, we’ve been busier than the busiest of bees this month so this one is a little late.

Let’s give a massive belated congratulations to the winner of the latest Momiji Flicker contest; Pat Castañeda.

We were blown away by her attention to detail as she made all these Lady Gaga inspired headdresses from scratch especially for her Momiji collection.

The dolls look fab, the background is stunning and we just can’t get enough!

Congratulations, Pat, your Momiji goodies are on the way.

If you’d like to be in with a chance to win this month, click here for all the details.