Rina  Matsui-Houghton is a Malaysian-born, Berlin-based handbag designer who focuses on creating beautiful handcrafted bags of unique distinction.

I met Rina a few years ago and was immediately blown away by her drive and passion for creating awesome bags and mini carry-alls, made from vintage fabrics.

Back in 1999 Rina felt that “Malaysia was ready for a unique label with underground roots and the design-ability to be sold internationally.” She started creating hand-embroidered affordable bags, and clutches for the fashion savvy consumer.

The company named Flowerdrum bags (www.flowerdrum-kl.com) was born, and now produces lines in batches of 12. Bags are created using quality fabric from all over the world; they aren’t mass produced, they’re fresh, different and  sport stand apart, clean-cut designs, a must have for any fashionista!

More recently Rina has been focusing on commissioned work, branching out to create custom-made items for her clients. Last year in Malaysia she took part in her first exhibit of embroideries and fabric collages, entitled 6 Words: Embroidered Stories. I caught up with Rina for an interview to find out more about her interesting grass roots company.

LQ: Where did the name for your bag company come from?

RMH: Unglamorously cribbed the name from a Flowerdrum Song poster at a local theatre!

LQ: Where do you find your vintage prints for the bags?

RMH: As a natural hoarder and digger, I started out with a fair collection of vintage fabrics from my childhood (curtains, mum’s dresses) which I supplement with pieces I find on my travels at markets, etc. There are also a couple of fabric shops in Malaysia that I have been going to for years, the sort of shops where stock hasn’t been updated since the ’60s!

LQ: When did you first start making embroidery projects?

RMH: Started a couple of years ago, to explore but also as thank you gifts for friends who have supported me on my bag endeavours for the last decade.

LQ: Suhana Dewi Selamat’s 6-word memoirs influenced your work for the embroidered stories project. What was it about the memoirs that struck you?

RMH: As a lover of words and the English language, I was struck first and foremost by the brutal honesty of her 6-word essays. How they were food for thought in their simplicity. I like my words on point and how much more “on point” could you be than 6-word essays!

LQ: What do you like most about your job?

RMH: Being the boss of my own time, the flexibility to travel/take time off, the independence of only being able to blame myself for cock ups!

LQ: What do you have in store at Flowerdrum Bags for this year?

RMH: Flowerdrum Bags works in mysterious organic ways! Along with the usual desire to push the label to boutiques in foreign shores, I am hoping to work on a new embroidery project. New bags will be up soon for spring/summer and I plan to drive more traffic to the web-shop. I’ll also continue my crusade to get more people to understand and appreciate VINTAGE fabrics!

Leanda is a writer based in Toronto. For the past 13 years she has hosted & produced music radio shows, managed bands & worked in online music PR. She now runs a music site & also writes for music & culture magazine `Relevant BCN`. Read more of her writing here - http://www.bloggertronix.com

I ‘m on a 21 day detox and was looking for an alternative to chips for me to snack on when I get savoury cravings. I saw kale chips in the store, but they cost an arm and a leg, super expensive for a really tiny bag, so I decided to make my own.

I found a kale crisp recipe online and it called for a dehydrator sheet. I don’t have one; I didn’t have a few of the other ingredients listed either, but I did have a bunch of kale and a few tasty seasonings so I decided to whip up my own version and what a success it was!

Kale is a wonder vegetable. In plants there are over 100 different glucosinolates, Kale contains 10-15 glucosinolates, these are what cause the bitter flavour in the vegetable. They work to activate detoxifying enzymes in the liver and help neutralize potentially carcinogenic substances, enabling us to clear them from our bodies more quickly.

Kale is also chockfull of nutrients (over 80), including substantial amounts of Vitamins C and B, calcium and iron. It’s delicious boiled, stir-fried and steamed. I put a handful of it in a golden veggie soup the other day and it brought the soup a lovely astringent earthy flavour.

These crisps are delicious!

Great as a snack between meals, as a topping on salads, on pizza or sprinkled on hearty cream based soups. They’re also very easy to make.

Ingredients:

Half a bunch of kale washed and chopped finely

2 cloves of garlic grated

2 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil

1 tbsp of flax seeds

1/3 cup of blanched almonds

2 tbsp of sunflower seeds

1 pinch of sea salt

Sprinkle of red pepper flakes

Generous amount of black pepper

Directions:

Pre-heat oven to 225°

Line a large baking tray with foil and place a wire baking rack over the foil.

In a big bowl mix the kale with olive oil and garlic, stir in flax seeds, almonds, sunflower seeds, salt and pepper; make sure all the kale is coated with the oil.

Next pour the kale mixture onto the wire rack and gently spread evenly, don’t worry if the nuts and seeds fall through to the foil they will bake just fine where they fall.

Place tray in the oven, on the top rack and bake for 45mins – 1 hour. Check every 20 minutes to monitor how crispy the Kale is becoming as oven temperatures vary.

Once the Kale has fully dehydrated remove tray from oven and let cool for at least 20 mins. Then lift the wire rack and gently scrape the mixture (which will have greatly reduced in size) onto the foil. Once the Kale crisps have fully cooled you can fold the foil in half and slide them into an airtight container… Delish!

Leanda is a writer based in Toronto. For the past 13 years she has hosted & produced music radio shows, managed bands & worked in online music PR. She now runs a music site & also writes for music & culture magazine `Relevant BCN`. Read more of her writing here - http://www.bloggertronix.com

This is my handbag, a purple Brooklyn Industries mini duffle, with seatbelt material handles. It’s a tough little item that’s built like Doctor Who’s time traveling machine, The Tardis, small on the outside massive within! It was bought for me in Williamsburg by a guy I was dating. I didn’t know I was dating him at the time; it’s all good though, no bad Feng Shui here, it’s a savage bag!

It wasn’t until I emptied my bag out that I realized how much stuff I carry about with me, loads of lady items, writing utensils and audio/visual recording devices. I clearly think it’s important to be moisturized and fresh, and I don’t want to miss anything that happens.

There is an outside zippered pocket on the front in which I keep a few things for easy access, and also pockets on either end.

Contents:

Itouch – I need music with me always. I hosted and produced a music radio show for 13 years and now write about music. I get access to so much eclectic amazing  music of all genres, I’m one lucky chick.

Book – The First Time I Got Paid For it, A collection of essays written by writers of film and television, in which they discuss the first time they actually got paid for their writing. It’s honest and frankly written; my favorite entries are by Cameron Crowe, Pamela Gray, and Peter Casey. It’s a good read.

HD Flip – This camera is awesome, and for under $400 it provides exceptional HD video footage. The audio is also brilliant. I’ve used it to shoot video at concerts, the quality is unbelievable.

Fruit leather – If my sugar levels dip, I become a psycho. I am Hypoglycemic and have to eat something every 2-3 hours to keep my blood sugar levels up, if I don’t I’m a complete unfocused weirdo!

Leatherman Juice – Don’t leave home without it. It’s bright pink, has 18 features, and I use it everyday, everyone should have one, period.

Wallet – Cheap and cheerful.

3 sharpies

3 black ballpoints

Cupcake printed tissues

Woolly $2 pink gloves

Mirror

One brand condom

EQ  natural peppermint spray hand sanitizer

Pictures of my niece and nephews

Eye-drops

3 lip glosses

Burt’s Bees lip-balm

Hand Food crème from Soap & Glory UK

$1 goodwill sunshades

Long distance calling card – You never know when you’re going to have to call a long distance number, a family member overseas, a band you’re supposed to interview, a tour manager you can’t find at a venue. It’s always good to be prepared.

Note book  - For scribbling interview questions, poetry, prose, blog post ideas, random snippets of conversations heard on public transportation etc.

Stamps – International, Canadian and US postage

Make-up – blush and eye shadow compact.

Cyber shot – Sony Camera.

Camouflage mini zippered bag – I put all the little things inside.

Fabric Strawberry – turns into an enviro-bag

Mini agenda – Orange book, keeps me on track.

Glass blue beaded rosary –  from Grandma for good luck. She’s a Jew turned Catholic, wonders never cease.

See parts one and two of The Things We Carry With Us...

Leanda is a writer based in Toronto. For the past 13 years she has hosted & produced music radio shows, managed bands & worked in online music PR. She now runs a music site & also writes for music & culture magazine `Relevant BCN`. Read more of her writing here - http://www.bloggertronix.com

The concept is novel and yet very appealing to me: an empty space is invaded by a group of artists that build and create new pieces of art over a 36-hour period. A temporary gallery is developed, and during the following 36 hours the public are invited to view the work produced.

So far the 72 hours gallery exhibits have taken place in Hamburg, where the first makeshift gallery was created, and more recently in Mitte, Berlin with host artists from the 44flavours arts collective.

In the words of “Sneaky” (aka Simon Houghton), who performed live improvisational music at the gallery’s launch in early February, “72 hours gallery is a breath of fresh air in the all too often stuffy world of art galleries and exhibition spaces.”

44flavours (www.44flavours.com) is an art collective based in Kreuzberg, Berlin. It consists of Sebastian Bagge and Julio Rölle. Combined, the duo have a great knowledge and understanding of many forms of art, creating unique and stimulating visual works using whatever elements are available to them. They grew up surrounded by graffiti, immersed in the sample and remix culture of hip-hop. This is evident in the style they have developed over the years, a look and aesthetic uniquely their own.

44flavours invited Sneaky to join them at the 72 hours gallery launch, hoping that his music would add another dimension to the event. Sneaky says, “I decided to bring along just my cello and an old wooden metronome that belonged to my grandmother. The timing on the old metronome was pretty abstract to say the least, and so playing along to it is an exercise in concentration but somehow the wonky clock sounds marking time and me scraping away on the cello trying to get lost in the ever temporary moment made a lot of sense at the time.”

The founder of the 72 hours gallery series and main organizer of the event, Kai Klinke, says, “Street-art, painting, photography or video, the artworks evolve free and spontaneous. Our goal is to give our artists as much space as possible. Whether our artists will work alone, in groups or with the audience is completely up to them”

Ben Seebode, a DJ with Hot Source, who spun records during the event said, “I loved it! We witnessed some nice painting and silkscreen printing on wood, glass, paper, the walls. One thing that stuck in my mind was how well the combination glass and the wood objects went. I think printing on glass can be very clean and cold, but in combination with the wood and 44flavours graphics it worked really well.”

All proceeds from the exhibition were donated to Licht für die Welt, a non-profit-organization providing eye surgery and therapy in third-world countries.

Klinke isn’t sure where the next event is going to take place, and is currently looking for new sponsors.  For more information and to find out where the gallery will be stopping next check out their site www.72hoursgallery.com

Leanda is a writer based in Toronto. For the past 13 years she has hosted & produced music radio shows, managed bands & worked in online music PR. She now runs a music site & also writes for music & culture magazine `Relevant BCN`. Read more of her writing here - http://www.bloggertronix.com

I started Bookcrossing about a month ago and haven’t stopped telling people about it since. Bookcrossing is the act of leaving books in public places for others to pick up, read, and then do likewise. It’s a great way to get people reading, and to share the books that you’ve read or aren’t interested in keeping anymore.

So how does it work? First you go to the Bookcrossing site (www.bookcrossing.com ), set up an account, and register the book you wish to set free. You’ll be given an ID number; you then write a  journal entry on your profile about the book. On the inside cover of the book you can either print out a label from the site, or hand-write a note which will tell the reader that the book is free, and that if they register the ID they can write about what they thought of the book once they have read it.  When they are done reading, they can once again set it out into the world to be picked up and read by another person.  Books can be tracked by journal entries all over your city and in some cases the world.

There are two different ways to release a book: wild releases where you leave books in designated places in the city for people to pick up, and controlled releases where you recycle a read by giving the book to a person, or group of people you know.

Bookcrossing was started in America by Ron Hornbaker in the spring of 2001. He was inspired by two community-driven and public-motivated schemes; first the Amsterdam bike system, where the public are encouraged to get around their city using bikes which are available to them at different pick-up and drop-off spots around town, and secondly by the “Where’s George? & Where’s Willy?”  money-tracking projects that were set up to trace US and Canadian dollar bills as they move around the country.

The Bookcrossing site has created an international network, a place that allows you to track books all over the world.

In Canada we just came to the end of the country’s annual Freedom to Read Week (Feb 21^st-27^th), a week that encourages Canadians to think about intellectual freedom. Bookcrossing along with the Freedom of Expression Committee saw this week as a great time to ask people to share books that are considered to be challenged books.

By registering challenged books such as To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, The Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger, and Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, and sending them out into the world, these organizations  hope to  make others aware of books that have been in some cases blacklisted within schools and libraries across the country. What a great idea! There are many challenged books that I have read over the years that I could pass onto others via the Bookcrossing site, maybe you should check it out too!

Leanda is a writer based in Toronto. For the past 13 years she has hosted & produced music radio shows, managed bands & worked in online music PR. She now runs a music site & also writes for music & culture magazine `Relevant BCN`. Read more of her writing here - http://www.bloggertronix.com

I have been an avid letter writer since a small child; I grew up with family that lived overseas, and I also had many pen-friends all over the world. From very early on I became accustomed to the excitement associated with receiving mail from abroad.

There is something truly special about hand-written notes, thoughts relayed straight from the heart, to the hand, to the paper. No room for editing or re-writes, genuine human to human contact… it’s permanent, and I think we’ve lost a lot of this warmth and effort in our tap-tap send culture.

Someone else who feels the same way about connecting with others through mail is Portuguese born, Slovenia based, self proclaimed computer geek, and lover of the written word, Paulo Magalhaes.  Whilst at University Paulo decided to take his off-line hobby online, and created a website that would enable people all over the globe to connect through sending postcards.

Postcrossing (www.postcrossing.com) is a site that allows people to “Send a Postcard and receive a postcard back from a random person somewhere in the world.” It’s a pretty cool project and really simple to get involved; the idea is that if you send a postcard, you will receive at least one postcard back from a postcrosser elsewhere. First you have to register your address and set up a profile, say a little about yourself,  and state what type of postcards you’re interested in receiving (for example,  postcards of animals, city images, country landscapes or famous people.) Then you request an address. This address is connected to the postcrosser’s profile, and has an ID number attached to it. You then write your postcard, include the ID number, and once the person you have sent it to receives the card, they register the number and somebody else in the world gets your address, so that you too can receive a card.

The site has been running for over a year and so far has registered over three million postcards. There are many nifty Postcrossing stories on the site, like the Finnish and Australian couple who wrote to each other and ended up getting married, or the old man in his 60’s who has been enamoured with lighthouses since childhood, and now receives nothing but pictures of  the sea front buildings from all over the globe.

So far I’ve received two postcards, one from a 50 year old woman living a small village in Japan, who’s interested in architecture from around the world, and another from a 21 year old girl living in Poland, who loves music and small animals. Part of the fun is you never know who’s going to write to you next!

So why would you want to Postcross? As I’ve said there’s something exciting about receiving mail from another country, maybe from a place you’ve never been before, a far away country with customs and traditions that are different than your own, it’s also a great way to establish new friendships whilst learning about another way of life.

Leanda is a writer based in Toronto. For the past 13 years she has hosted & produced music radio shows, managed bands & worked in online music PR. She now runs a music site & also writes for music & culture magazine `Relevant BCN`. Read more of her writing here - http://www.bloggertronix.com

As a single woman, Valentine’s Day is a time for me to focus on reaching out to the people I love the most in this world, treating myself well and spoiling myself rotten!

1. A jojoba and lavender oil bath with beeswax candles – Baths are the best! Growing up, working class in the UK, we didn’t have a shower, so we had yummy warm splish sploshy baths. Once I moved to North America showering became the new mode of cleaning; they were quicker and faster, pretty much like most things in this culture, but I still love a nice relaxing, steamy bath once in a while. Jojoba, a lovely carrier for essential oils, is a great moisturizer and lavender is a calming fragrance. Beeswax candlelight is super cozy; it also improves indoor air quality, because as it burns it produces negative ions that have air purifying effects, much the same as some houseplants.

2. Pomegranate green tea – This is my go to tea during the winter months. I also enjoy it chilled with ice and honey in the summer. Both pomegranates and green tea contain antioxidants, and have a brilliantly refreshing taste alone and more so when combined.

3. A bottle of Jackson Triggs Delaine Vineyard, Riesling (06) – One of my favorite rieslings from Ontario under $20. This wine is a golden wheat color, has medium body, and sports the flavor of apricots and peach with slight petrol notes. Sounds gross, but tastes delicious!

4. A cup of Casi Cielo coffee and mini almond biscotti – Yeah, it’s a Starschmucks coffee… but it’s not acidic (most of their coffees give me gut rot!) and only comes out for a limited time in the winter months. It tastes like coco and blackberries and it’s smooth and mild. “Casi Cielo” means “Almost Heaven,” ’nuff said.

5. A snuggle with my coon hound/beagle cross – Brooklyn is my 2.5 year old dog. She’s energetic, mischievous, stubborn as all hell (just like her owner!) and is a super-duper suck, a 40lb ginger furred beauty with big, floppy ears  that are as soft as velvet. This dog is awesome. I’ve had her since she was seven weeks old and love her to bits!

Leanda is a writer based in Toronto. For the past 13 years she has hosted & produced music radio shows, managed bands & worked in online music PR. She now runs a music site & also writes for music & culture magazine `Relevant BCN`. Read more of her writing here - http://www.bloggertronix.com