Last Sunday was one of the first wintery days this year, and perfect for staying indoors, which I wasn't sorry about as the Design Festa was on, an event that I'd been looking forward to for ages. It is held at the Tokyo Big Sight, in Odaiba, and is basically a huge showcase for art, craft and design. 
It is unjudged, so anyone who wants to can book a booth to show the world what they make or do. It is HUGE - we looked around for two and a half hours and probably saw less than half of what was there. It is amazing to see the variety of things that people display - there were cartoons, dolls, handbags, hats, badges, postcards, animation, photographs, paintings and, of course, the things to hang off mobile phones. 
I bought a variety of paraphenalia - a hiragana chart decorated with cute manga characters, badges with knitted chickens, embroidered bunnies and a cartoon dog on them, some writing paper and assorted postcards and stickers. Much to my companion's disgust I loved the stalls that sold goods with homemade characters on them... and being Japan there were masses of them!
I am now considering having a stall at the next Design Festa in May to sell handbags or whatever I can make between now and then...
