It seems, wherever you go these days, if you pop into a cool designer shop, you’ll see the fabulous Momiji Dolls. They’re absolutely everywhere. In just about every major city in the world, sitting happily ready to be bought and given a new home. They come in so many different sizes, colours, it’s impossible not to have a favourite. We wanted to find out more about how it all started, so we asked Momiji co-founder and mother Claire Rowlands. Here’s what she had to say…

How was the momiji brand born?

The Momiji story began back in 2005 when we created our first collection of 12 message dolls; these days it’s difficult to remember life before Momiji, it has become our world!

We have a little office in Henley in Arden in Warwickshire and from here we work with great designers from all over the world to produce our collections.

Our inspiration comes from lots of different places; in the beginning we were heavily influenced by our trips to Tokyo and Seoul. These days we have developed much more of a global aesthetic.

The brand has evolved now, so as well as dolls we also have a range of wonderful stuff for the home, personal accessories and stationery too.

What’s been the best moment in momiji history?

That’s a tricky one. I always love the moment when we get a doll back from the sculptors and you see a new character in 3D for the first time.

This year we where very honoured when Gwen Stefani invited us over to LA to be part of a party she hosted to raise funds for families and children affected by the Tsunami in Japan. A Momiji painting and customisation workshop formed part of the event so it was really special for us.

I think the most emotional moment for me was when we ran a textile competition and asked people to make a fabric version of a Momiji doll. It seemed like such a big challenge and for weeks I felt sick with worry that nobody would enter! Then the entries started to arrive and each day the postman would arrive with armfuls of packages from around the world. Each one contained a handmade doll, everyone had put so much love and energy into them. I was completely overwhelmed to see how much people have embraced the brand. That was a top moment for me.

How many momiji dolls have ever been made to date?

We’re at almost 160 designs now and there are plenty more great releases arriving in the new year. We have an archive of all the designs we’ve done on our website, you can see them all here

What is the newest momiji arrival?

We recently launched a special limited edition trio in association with Sanrio to celebrate their 50th anniversary. We only made 500 pieces worldwide so they’re pretty rare.

What have you got in the pipeline for the future?

So much stuff from dolls to accessories and cool stuff for your home. Our new dolls are top secret right now but if you follow us on facebook and twitter you’ll be the first to know!

You’ll find us on Facebook as ‘Momiji HQ’ and you can follow our tweets on @MomijiHQ.

Competition

If you would like to win an incredible £75 to spend on Momiji Dolls and everything else Momiji, all you have to do is leave is a comment below stating:

Who you would like to send a momiji doll to and why?

Tip: That person, could be your closest friend or family member or someone famous who you think is a legend! Have fun, be creative!

Entries close Monday 12th Dec 11.59pm (GMT) and we will pick one winner at random, so there is enough time to spend your hard earned £75 on christmas presents if you so wish!

Good luck!

Extra Extra – more stuff to win!

Don’t forget to checkout the Facebook Momiji Page and enter another Momiji competition to win a Kindle + 6 Momiji Dolls!

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It’s summer, not that we’d really noticed. A time for BBQ’s, lazy days and generally having a laugh with your mates.

To celebrate this summer season, our good friends at WKD have given us a party pack full of totally useful things that will help ensure you and your mates enjoy the perfect hang out.

Well, when we say useful it’s really just a case of Limited Edition WKD Purple , four WKD cowboy hats and four WKD sun visors to share amongst your lucky mates

Sorry we can’t also help with the weather.

Just answer this simple question to be in with a chance of winning this amazing prize.

What colour is WKD Purple?

Just leave your answer in the comments below…

This competition is now CLOSED

Feel free to tweet or Like our facebook page to help spread the word and bring the party!

Terms

Entrants must be over 18 to enter this competition and must provide proof of age if chosen.

Have fun and GOOD LUCK!

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Be the envy of your mates this summer with the stylish new HTC Desire S. Boasting a sleek aluminium ‘unibody’ and a 3.7 inch touch screen – the HTC Desire S is the phone to be seen with.

To celebrate Three bringing the power of all-you-can-eat data to Pay As You Go from just £15, Always Thinkin is offering one lucky reader the chance to get their hands this cool handset. Pre-loaded with a PAYG SIM offering all-you-can-eat data, you’ll be free to stream, download, tweet and surf the web without ever worrying about the cost – there literally are no limits.

For more details, visit http://www.three.co.uk/Pay_As_You_Go/

So you’re saying to yourself What do I have to do to win?

There are 3 easy ways to enter:
1. Simply leave comment on our facebook page.
2. Simply retweet the following –

“Win a #htcdesires in 3 easy ways – http://bit.ly/kwXBCO”

3. Simply Leave a comment on this page.

(You can enter in all 3 ways to triple your chances)

THIS COMPETITION IS NOW CLOSED

Competition ends on Thursday 12th May and we will choose a winner at random and announce a winner within 7 days.

That’s it! Easy right? Good luck!

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We’ve teamed up with our good buddies From The Wilde to bring you a blinding beast of a giveaway. You can win an exclusive and beautiful A3 print from Sophie Backhouse as featured above. The original canvas is worth over £200!

About Sophie

Based in Merseyside, Sophie is one of a rare breed of female graffiti artists. She’s a practicing graphic designer, typographer and illustrator. Not restricted by size or medium she works on canvas, paper a computer and brick walls. She’s influenced directly by nature, calligraphy and many art nouveau artists such as Mucha.

To Enter

1. Go over to the From The Wilde Facebook Page and just leave a comment saying why you think the print should be yours!

OR

2. If you’re not on facebook, just leave a comment below.

Closing Date

You have until 31st January 2011 to enter. So get on it and good luck!

More Info

Visit Sophie Backhouse’s blog or follow Sophie Backhouse on twitter.

You can also see more of Sophie Backhouse’s work and other fantastic artists at From The Wilde

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The guys at Vannen Artist Watches have done it again! Not only have they teamed up with one of our favourite illustrators, Drew Millward (Read our interview with Drew Millward), they’re also being oh-so generous and giving ONE of only 40 of these limited watches to YOU!

There are 2 ways to enter.

TWITTER Tweet the following…

Win a #FREE @vannenwatches x @drewmillward designer watch. http://bit.ly/bCwSfr

OR

FACEBOOK
Go over to our facebook page and tell us why you it should be yours.

That’s it. Tweet/comment and give us some twitter/facebook love.

Closing date is 10th October 2010

We’ll pick a winner by the end of the week.

And if you want to know more, here’s the full details of the Drew Millward x Vannen Artist Watch

More about Drew Millward

Born in England in 1981, Drew Millward has already spent a quarter of his life drawing. Drew likes to draw “the old fashioned way,” using pencils, pens and a love of the craft of illustration. While his subject matter can vary dramatically, he hopes that the attention to detail and the love of drawing is apparent throughout his work. Drew was recently included in The Art of British Rock, which chronicles the last 50 years of poster art. He has exhibited throughout the US, UK, Europe and beyond, as well as having the pleasure of creating work for an ever growing international client base. In the words of Creative Tempest: “Had Drew Millward’s posters been around in the 1970s, they would have easily replaced the standard Farrah Fawcett poster in every guy’s bedroom.”

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Milk and Eggs are a Californian based tee company born out of the love for simple smart graphics. Their colourways are bright, bold and full of every day humour. And Since their inception early last year, they’ve released some killer graphics which remind us a lot of the early Buro Destruct sensibilities.

The good news is that we’ve teamed up with the fabulously generous Milk and Eggs to bring you a fantastic competition. You could win a “Party like it’s 2011″ tee (pictured above) by just following the details below.

This competition is now closed.

Leave a comment at the end of this post telling us your ideas for the last party on earth ever!

Be extravagant and creative as you like, it’s the last party ever remember! Make it memorable!!

Closing date for entries is Monday 12th July Midnight GMT. Milk and Eggs will choose their favourite entry and the winner will be announced on Wed 14th July.

But if you can’t wait that long you can always buy the “Party like it’s 2011 tee” directly from the Milk and Eggs website.

Good luck and get your party thinking hat on! We look forward to hearing your penultimate party plans!

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“Following the success of ‘Wonderland’, which was released in 2009, this August sees the release of ‘Bitten’, a new picture book for adults. Adapted from the well-known classic ‘Snow White’, the book follows the story of a mistress so desperate to keep her beauty she will do anything to save them, including harming her own family. But is she really the one to blame?

The book features an all star cast including cabaret star Joe Black, actress and New York Conservatory for Dramatic Arts’ student Emily Marshall, fahion model Daniel Dewhirst, burlesque performer Lily Belle, Spirit Model Management’s Kristina Frenchum and alternative model Sally Parkinson. There will also be a launch exhibition at Iksentrik in Bath on Saturday 7th August which will run throughout the month of August.

The book retails at £18, however for a limited time only, you can pre-order the book at a sale price of £15 from Tigz Rice’s website

This competition is now closed.

To Enter…

You can win an exclusive copy of Bitten by just leaving a short comment below stating why you deserve to win and Tigz Rice will herself will choose her favourite.

The closing date for entries is Midnight GMT Monday 21st June, so get creative! Good luck!

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Oh my! What a competition we have for you! The unbelievably generous folk at Relentless NASS 2010 are letting us give away a pair of weekend tickets to the action sports / music festival. You and your bezzy mate can head down to Relentless NASS 2010 on the 9th – 11th July by answering the following easy question…

Question

What is Relentless?

For all info and clues visit: www.relentlessnass.com

This competition is now closed.

Just fill in your answer below

Closing date is Friday 11th June, so get your answers over to us thick and fast – we’ll pick a random winner and notify them by Saturday 12th June.

We’ll be covering the weekend too, so we’re just as excited and hope to see you there! Good luck!

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Having smashed the biggest clubs across the UK, including the legendary 
Ministry of Sound and Matter amongst others, the forward thinking youth brand Under The Radar is now proud to present its biggest party yet in the form of Under the Radar Summer Break!

Enter this competition and you and a mate can brace yourself for 5 days of rib rattling bass, sunsets and surf as thousands of students flock to Newquay’s silky white shores to see off the end of exams in style.

With the likes of Drum and Bass man of the moment Sub Focus (with MC ID), the mighty Pendulum, the true first lady of UK garage Ms Dynamite, bass loving grime pioneer Joker and Boy Better know heavyweights: grime boy Skepta and younger brother JME along with old favourite Shy FX already confirmed for the beach bonanza there’ll be no complaints from the bass heads! By day, you can surf, try your hand at zip wire-ing, coasteering or cliff hanging or simply lie back and catch some rays on the UTR private beach. So forget cheesy student holidays, as UTR Summer Break is the only place to celebrate this summer.

To Enter

Just leave a comment below telling us why you deserve to go to the Under The Radar Summer Break e.g.

“I’d love to go to Under The Radar Summer Break because I need my pumping summer bass fix and to get my surf on!”

We’ll choose our favourite from all the entries and the one winner will receive both tickets. Closing date is Wednesday 9th June, so get your entries in quick! Good luck and get creative!

*This competition is now closed*

Check out www.utrsummerbreak.com for more details.

Hold on a second WAIT! Important stuff!

Please note this is an 18+ event, so all entrants to the above competition must be 18 on or before the 27th June and must present a valid form of ID upon arrival.

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Ok, So here’s a neat little contest for all you budding creatives. Fenchurch are asking you all to go crazy and reinterpret their iconic logo, in return for a top top prize…

OFFICIAL DETAILS

Welcome to the Fenchurch Tee Fest!

Get those creative juices flowing: we are on the hunt to find fresh new talent to
join our creative world!

The Fenchurch Tee Fest is a competition to design a new tee to rock the upcoming festival season. All you need to do to enter is come up with an original, innovative way of interpreting our iconic logo. We’ve always handpicked the most respected freelance designers out there, and now we’re opening it up to the public. Go online and download the graphics pack and get involved!.

The Brief

Create a graphic incorporating the iconic Fenchurch logo using the summer festival season as a reference point.

The design can be produced in any medium, from photography to illustration so long as it incorporates the logo and is based on the summer festival theme. Interpret the theme in any way you like. Fun, mud, music, friends….you know the score.

The Prize

The winners will be announced on 11th June 2010. There will be one winner for the men’s Tee and one for the women’s, they will both receive a £200 prize as well as seeing their T-shirt design being produced and sold in stores and on www.fenchurch.com

For more details visit www.fenchurch.com/teefest for details.

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