About Us: What's Up - KAMIBASHI® ASIAN ART

We've just started our first-ever “Create Your Own String Doll” contest and we're accepting entries on the Kamibashi Asian Art Facebook page through March, 2010. The winning doll will become a member of the String Doll Gang and the winning designer will receive ten String Dolls of his/her design. For complete rules and more info see the discussion board “Create Your Own String Doll” located in the “Boxes” section of our Facebook page or click here. Only Kamibashi Facebook fans can win so if you're not yet our fan then now's a great time to become one!

14 new String Dolls Chuck and Seamus the Sheep and 10 outgoing “Adios Amigos!”

It's String Doll Fever here at Kamibashi where we just received our first batch of our 14 newest String Doll Gang members! There's a little something for everyone, such as Chuck, who keeps you out of the penalty box when you're skating on thin ice. Seamus the Sheep, who helps you sleep, is another doll whose special power we know many folks could use. To make room for these and other future new Gang members, and in honor of 2010, we are going to slowly retire 10 of our earliest dolls who will be saying their final goodbyes when we run out of stock in the coming weeks and months. To find out which dolls will be heading out into the world on their own look for the words “Adios Amigos!” on the doll's panel and the sign to the left of the doll's name.

Kamibashi Cares products have a philanthropic purpose.

We just debuted a special page on our website that details who we are donating your hard-earned money to when you buy one of our Kamibashi Cares (KC) dolls. With your support we sent checks totaling $1800 to five fantastic charities who are helping make the world a better place for humans and animals alike. Each quarter we will send these charities 50 cents for every "Kamibashi Cares" doll that we sell – many thanks to you for helping us help them! Also exciting is the arrival of our 7th KC string doll, Pacho the Parrot, whose proceeds will benefit the Amazon Conservation Team based in Arlington, VA.

New: Kamibashi.com

After many long hours put in by Markuz Wernli Saito, our favorite designer ever, we present to you our brand new website. Thanks Markuz for making our products look almost as good online as they do in real life – we can barely contain our excitement!

Squid Freak-o-Bag by Julie Armbruster

What do you get when you mix the characters of our favorite local artist with the handiwork of Opportunity Threads, a sewing co-op who live and work in the same beautiful mountains as us? The cutest little Freak-O-Bags ever, of course!! We are very proud to introduce four new FOB characters by Julie Armbruster, the first in a series of FOB characters that she has designed exclusively for us. Made entirely in the US, Julie's creations are cute enough to hug, and evil enough to fit in perfectly at Kamibashi. Way to go Julie and Opportunity Threads – we are psyched to be working with y'all!

The collection of "Kamibashi Cares" dolls.

We're always excited to introduce our latest String Doll Gang creations, but this time we have an added reason to be pumped up: our first 6 "Kamibashi Cares" dolls are part of the mix! Kamibashi will donate 50 cents for each doll sold to various charities that support either wildlife preservation, breast cancer research, or Hurricane Katrina relief. We look forward to adding more charity dolls in the future and thank you in advance for your support – we couldn't do it without you!

Animal photo © Jim Henson Company.

How excited are we to be working with the company that brought us the Muppet Show? The Jim Henson Company will act as our licensing agent starting this month. So who knows – maybe sometime soon you'll be hearing about String Doll Gang movies and DEBO video games. Only time will tell, but we are pretty pumped to be in such fantastic company! You can read all about it here.

Every day is Earth Day with a Freak-o-Bag.

In honor of Earth Day, we are rolling out our latest product – the Freak-o-Bags! FOBs are cute and weird little plush dolls that open up to reveal a sturdy eco-bag that you can use instead of those icky plastic bags that always end up in the ocean and harming our environment. Freak-o-bags also have a carabineer clip that you can hook onto your backpack, purse or keys so you'll never forget to bring it along! Made by the Koonin Family in Thailand, each FOB is one-of-a-kind and fair trade too. Yay for saving the Earth!


New: Zoe and Buffy

Say Hi to the newest Kamibashi crew members – Buffy and Zoe. They have arrived to help guide Kamibashi to the next level of success and we welcome them with open arms. You can find out more about them on the Who We Are page – glad to have you on the team guys!

Gus the Plumber helps you do the things you can't do yourself.

Check it out! All 80 String Doll Gang members now come with a woven fabric tag that will never rip or wrinkle, as well as a lobster claw clip and keyring that will ensure your little buddy does not fall off your bag or keychain. String Dolls and their owners can now stop worrying about loss – PHEW! As before, each string doll's name appears on the front of the tag, and his or her special power appears on the back. Best yet is that the price is the same as before – pretty nice, eh?

Gus the Plumber helps you do the things you can't do yourself.

Just when we thought there was no way to make our everyday lives a little easier, the DEBO Superheroes™ came into the picture to change all that. Made by the DEBO art collective in Thailand, these 2 - 3" vinyl Superheroes stay the same shape but change their features regularly so they never look quite the same. Each one comes in a limited edition of 50 (the number is stamped inside the doll's tag and ensures that no two orders are ever the same) and helps you overcome such irritations as delayed planes, bad hair days, and finding true love. Thanks DEBO Superheroes™ – we needed ya bad!

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Our new wood spinner display can be used with 1 product, 2 products, or all 3 products at once.

Happy New Year!! We've decided to "go green" in '08 and have eliminated the packaging that The String Doll Gang® comes in. When we started telling stores about this we heard back that many of them actually took the dolls out of the bags when they received them, so that was good news! This will also save us some "bagging" money and will allow us to improve the string dolls so that they are better than ever without having to raise the price, and that's always a good thing too! (stay tuned for news on that...).

Now that our String Dolls no longer come in a bag, we also have a new wood display for them which is free with an order of 50 dolls. This same display can also be used for our other two handmade dolls: The Koonin Family Pets™, and our newest product (coming soon!) DEBO Superheroes™! Order 25 each of two different products and get a 50 - 50 display with a different header on each side, or if you'd like to use it for all 3 we have a three-way header as well!

Finnegan makes sure your luck is always Irish!.

We are teaming up with Pocorn Posters, a great company out of Glastonbury, CT, to sell 11 x 14" and 11 x 17" framed prints (with different framing options) of all of Minoji and Kirieya's wild and wooly images.

We're still hammering out the details, so keep checking back for ordering information, prices, and choices. But you can still order some framed prints through us if you can't wait that long. Look here!

Plus, we now have a Leprechaun String Doll named Finnegan, just in time for St. Patrick's day. Give one to all your Irish friends for good luck!

Happy 2006!


What's new? Popular Minoji postcard-turned-greeting-card and Sid!

What's new is that we're going to update this section of our website a little more often so that it truly reflects all the goings on at Kamibashi and in a timely fashion too. The newest event as of this writing is that we've taken the most popular Minoji and Kirieya postcards and turned them into greeting cards. We've also started printing our cards in greater quantities which has resulted in a cheaper price for us and in turn you. Our web store prices will be updated to reflect this soon, so if we haven't done that yet please check again in another few days. We are also happy to report that all of our paper products are printed in the U.S. and always have been.

Also new on the Kamibashi shelves are Sid and Bella, the two latest members of The String Dolls Gang®. Both of the kids come in an array of different hair color and Bella's outfit also changes color. Although Sid is always wearing his signature black pants, his body comes in white, blue, and red, making Sid the most diverse member of the whole String Doll crew. Hope you love 'em as much as we do!

It's been almost 3 weeks since our return from the (wholesale) National Stationery Show in NYC and we are still sending out boxes! The show is really great – I mean, what's not fun about meeting all kinds of cool people from all over the US and Canada (some people even come from overseas!) and talking about your products?

Mini minimarket in Brooklyn is one hot little Kamibashi shop.

We got a great response from stores who bought from us last year (it was great to see everyone again!) and we met lots of new cool store owners too. Thanks everyone! We couldn't be happier about the kinds of stores that are into what we have to offer. If you live anywhere near one of our stores we highly recommend checking them out – not only for Kamibashi stuff (though definitely don't leave without buying some!!) but for all of the other great products they carry. These people have good taste!

If you don't live anywhere near one of our stores then use the Buy Now option that Chris has been working hard to put up. We are really excited about being able to sell online to people who don't get out shopping much or who don't live near a Kamibashi store. Have fun clicking away, and if you have any questions or would like to make any comments please write me at: kristen@kamibashi.com. Thanks and happy shopping!

Wow, we're back for good here in the U.S. (it's been 4 weeks and 2 days now since we moved from Japan!) and everything's going great!! We're in our new place outside of Asheville, NC (very cool town, put it on your list of places to see) and are working feverishly to strip wallpaper and also get ready for the Stationery Show in NYC next month (Booth 5023 – it's only open to store owners so if you're one of them then please come have a look – you won't be sorry!)

Little Prince – one of 16 String Doll Gang characters

Up til now we've mostly been working to get Kamibashi ready for our big move back from Japan, and now that we're here it's time to really get things rolling and get all the great stuff we've put together out there for folks like you to see. In addition to finding fun new stores to carry our stuff, we'll be working on putting "Buy Now" buttons on everything so you can buy direct from us if there's not a store near you – be on the lookout for that later this spring.

The latest fun product news is that we found another really cool score on our travels this winter and we can't wait to have it in our hands. We call them The String Doll Gang™ and they're these awesome little characters that are handmade in Thailand using just one piece of string + some tiny accessories to really bring out their personas. They're best used as keychains or hanging off your backpack (though you can use them however you want – hey, why not put a couple on your Christmas tree this year!) Pictured here is Little Prince, and if he could talk Iwould bet you a tenner that he'd win more than one princess heart. Get acquainted with The String Doll Gang™ on our site in just a couple of weeks and then we'll have them for sale (with those Buy Now buttons I was talking about) to send out to you as soon as we can get enough of them for ourselves. All kinds of exciting things to look forward to...including wallpaper free walls!

Minoji – Coming to a t-shirt near you!

More Minoji products are on the way and we are psyched! In addition to the postcards seen online, we're going to be adding some new great designs and putting them onto greeting cards and t-shirts. We'll be putting everything on the site before the National Stationery Show in New York in May (Booth 5023 – it's only for wholesale so come have a look if you're a store owner!) We'd have even more cool new products ready but we're in the midst of moving back to the US from Japan (can't wait till that's over!!), so we'll add more before the L.A. Gift Show in July.

Just as exciting will be the addition of 1 more great Asian artist this spring – Ryo Takagi of Kirieya has just joined us with his very cool hand-cut silhouettes that we've put onto postcards and greeting cards. Other new artists joining us by mid-July this summer will be Taiwanese designer and all-around creative guy Mr. Eyeball, and Thailand-based Japanese painter Kyoko Abe – check back then to see postcards, greeting cards, and t-shirts with their art as well. We just can't wait!


Work samples from the Oriental Stamp Group

The beautiful card featured here, made with one of Kamibashi's yuzen papers, was sent to me as an "RAK" (random act of kindness) by Heather Taylor, a member of the Oriental Stamp Art group (OSA) management team. OSA is a web group whose members all share a love of oriental art and stamping. They produce handmade cards, calendars, and bookmarks, etc. which they send to their friends, family members, and each other. I was introduced to this group by Gene Limtiaco, who came across our site while doing a search on Kimono and then posted our address on the OSA list so that others could check us out. I too joined the group to see what it was all about, and found not only an extremely talented group of artists (have a look here at examples of the beautiful cards they make!) but a close-knit community of kind, friendly, and generous people from all over the world who support each other in their creativity and everyday lives as well. How cool is that?!

Textile and Tobacco Box Designs from all over Asia

Kamibashi and Markuz Wernli will be organizing a show in Kyoto on exquisite Textile & Tobacco Box Designs from Laos, Thailand, Japan & China. The exhibit takes place in a traditonal old style Japanese merchant house.

Reception is on Friday, June 11 , from 18:00.
Open: June 11 - 27; 10:00 - 20:00
Place: Honenin Noriba, Kyoto (near the Philosopher's Path) 36-1 Shishigatani, Sakyo-ku, Honenin-cho, Nishimachi.
Please e-mail Kristen for further information.

We are pleased to announce the launch of our website! Shop for Japanese papers and Asian textiles using our easy-to-use online catalogue. Our goal is to convey not only the beauty of Asian craft on paper and fabrics, but also the story of the people behind the products. Your comments and suggestions are appreciated – please write to: kristen@kamibashi.com

In our first act of charity, a Kamibashi shawl raised $500 in a silent auction for the Alliance Française in Chicago. The auction was held at a benefit party at Union Station (Chicago's main railroad station) on May 14th, 2004.