At Momiji HQ, we jump at any excuse for cake and with 2 birthdays in the office over the last few weeks we’ve been spoilt.

First up was Claire, we gave her a bottle of bubbly and some very strange-looking plants.

Rich’s birthday is this week, but he’s gone and taken the week off to enjoy himself. So, we decided to celebrate with him on Friday instead. He was very happy with his beer and cake slices.

Everyone seems to be strutting about like Tyra Banks in MomijiHQ today.

I don’t think we quite have the ‘Smize’ technique down, and we’re a little more feral than 'Fierce' but it doesn’t matter because we’re not the ones who are going to be modelling our new Momiji products.

Today marks the start of the search for Momiji’s Next Top Model. There’s lots of new Momiji goodness on its way and who better to show it all off than you.

If you’re aged 16-30 and would like to be one of our models then we want to hear from you. It doesn’t matter whether you’re male or female, and we love a bit of quirkiness. If you can get yourself to Birmingham or Warwickshire (we can give you a lift from the station/bus) on the 6th of September, then send a photo and a little bit of info about yourself to Hello@Lovemomiji.com.

We’ll be starting the shoot in the afternoon and will more than likely run into the evening. If you’re picked, you’ll get to hang around in the new Momiji HQ and we’ll give you a Momiji goodie bag too.

Get your photos in soon as competition will be ‘Fierce’.

Love Momiji x

The Momiji Flickr pool is looking great. There are so many creative shots in there, it really is worth a browse.

It’s my duty this month to pick a winner and while I’d love to give you all a prize, there can only be one. This month’s shot comes from Deborah Stella.

Congratulatons Deborah!

Don’t worry if you didn’t win this time, get the camera out and start shooting. You could be next month’s winner.

Alternatively, if you don’t know what I’m on about, take a look at the rules here.

Debbie is our Customer Services Manager Extraordinaire, she spends her days making sure Momiji HQ runs smoothly and that the right products reach the right people at the right time. Recently we’ve noticed she seems to be calling for some back-up, judging by the small army of Momiji dolls that have assembled on her desk. Deb has formed a sort of Momiji hospital, offering refuge to damaged or abandoned dolls that she’s rescued from around the place.

This month we’d love to see photos of Momiji dolls in your workspace. Do you have a Momiji doll standing guard by your computer? Do you drink gallons of tea each day from your Momiji mug? If so, we want to see. Show us a picture of how you’ve pimped your desk Momiji style by the end of July and we’ll send an office friendly pack of Momiji goodness to the winner. It could be a sneaky snapshot on your phone when the boss isn’t looking or you could go for an artistic angle on your digital SLR. You can be in the picture too if you like and there’s no limit on the amount of photos you can send.

Click Here to email us your picture and make sure you use Momiji Workstation Contest in the subject bar or post it on our Facebook Page. We’ll announce the winner in August.

If you’re eager to add a touch of glamour now we’d recommend getting your hands on our brand new mouse pads. They’re in the shop right now.

Our friends across the pond in America have been getting their creative-caps on and making beautiful Momiji window displays in their stores. We challenged them to make something wonderful and we found something very special indeed.

The good folks at Hot*Pop created this stunning display of Momiji heaven in their store in Milwaukee. Their display completely blew us away. It’s obvious that they put a lot of time, thought & effort into it and it’s really paid off.

Brandy from Hot*Pop said…

“Our customers love the display! It’s really boosted our Momiji sales, and we get a lot of compliments. It was originally meant to be a window display. When we read the email about the contest I immediately pictured giant cute Momiji heads, so we bought giant bouncy balls, covered them in Papier Mache and painted them. It took nearly a month! “

“To our despair, after one days hanging in the 80 degree scorching sun the air in the bouncy balls began to expand... you can imagine the effect it had on the Papier Mache:( Luckily we wouldn't give up, so we mended the Momijis and made a nice in store display (thank god for air conditioning!)
So all in all, melting aside, we are extremely pleased with the outcome!”

And so she should be, it looks great and we’ll be sending Hot*Pop a big box of Momiji goodies. Well Done!

Our friends at Travelling man have been putting on some exciting Momiji events over the last few weeks.

Loads of you have turned up to design and paint your own Momiji dolls, much to the envy of the international collective members. Here are some photos from the workshop in Newcastle. We'll have some more pictures soon from last weekend's event in Leeds.

Emma and I are back from our little trip to Hong Kong. It was a bit of a flying visit but we packed in some shopping, eating and drank gallons of rose tea. Our lovely friend Jason sent us home with two huge tubs of dried rose and chrysanthemum buds but it looks a little bit daunting now that we’re back in England. We’re in need of a dainty Chinese teapot to do it justice. For now it’s just looking pretty in the kitchen. It’s not great for dunking hobnobs in.

We’re moving offices in a couple of weeks. Despite the fact that it’s only little way down the road, packing everything up is going to be a mammoth mission. We popped in yesterday to see how the new place is taking shape and it’s looking good. We can’t wait to get in there; lots of space, humungous windows and bunnies jumping around in the garden. We’ll show you some pictures when we’ve settled in.

If you’re in the market for news, views, giveaways and regular updates on our cake intake, may we suggest you head over to our Facebook page?

By becoming a fan you can enter our competitions, talk to other Momiji fans and tell us what you think about stuff in general.

Just click here and become a fan.

Thank you kindly.

A few snaps for you from our trip to New York for the Gift Fair. As well as plenty of hard work, we packed in a good deal of shopping and eating. Favourite dinner was at Schillers – stop by for their macaroni cheese if you can. Gemma reckons it’s the best she’s ever tasted, and she’s carried out some pretty extensive research over the years.

Other highlights included stepping off the plane and heading straight to Ikea with our suitcases, several excellent hot chocolates in Soho and many hours of flat-pack furniture assembly.

We also met some wonderful people; special mentions to Jennifer and Sharon...we look forward to seeing you again very soon.