Animal Rubber Bands

For me, rubber band had been a disposable thing until I met these colorful animals. Animal Rubber Band, made of special silicone, return to its original cute shape after use. So they won’t be thrown away!
Attached instruction is also as lovely as the animals themselves. One of them goes “Don’t eat us! We are your friends.” ;)

H-concept, the producer of these eco-friendly animals, has introduced 4 types of rubber band set, “Zoo”, “Pet”, “Farm” and “Dino”. Their animals became quite popular even outside Japan, and more than 2,000 animals have found their owners worldwide.

Japanese Masking Tapes

Masking tape is a removable adhesive tape, which can be easily torn by hand, and released without leaving residue. It was originally invented and used for painting, to mask off areas that should not be painted.

Recently, new masking tape usage was invented and expanded by general users and Kamoi Kakoshi Co., Ltd, an adhesive tape company in a small town. They developed a new type of masking tape, using Washi (Japanese traditional paper), with a variety of colors and patterns. Their colorful masking tapes are becoming quite popular as craft supplies. Now many Japanese companies, including Kamoi Kakoshi, Classiky Ishow Practical Products and MARK’S, produce a wide variety of beautifully designed masking tapes.

As it can be written on to serve as labels, Japanese masking tapes are great for scrapbooking. For its lovely patterns and colors, they are also perfect for gift wrapping, card making and collages. As for me, I love to decorate my walls with them :)

Polar Bear Thermometer

It was in 2005 when Japanese government started “Cool Biz & Warm Biz” campaign as a means to help reduce electric consumption by limiting use of air conditioning. They encouraged officials to keep their jackets and ties off in summer and to dress warmly in winter. This energy-saving efforts eventually spread all over the country. It is estimated that the campaign’s economic effect was multibillion yens.

EMPEX’s Polar Bear Thermometer is one of the products developed in this movement. For temperature management, it has C(=cool) mark on 28°C and W(=warm) mark on 20°C. Now my thermometer reads 22.5°C, which means I have to reduce room temperature by 2.5!

EMPEX also produces thermometer in shape of penguin, another threatened species in Antarctica.