Cute Farm Animals!

Catching up

Wow, I have fallen behind in my sticker blogging. Time to catch up.

One highlight of my fall was a trip to Russia back in September. You wouldn't think that Russia is a great sticker-shopping venue, and for the most part you would be right. But then I found these stickers at a souvenir shop:

Seriously, these are like the most adorable stickers I've seen all year.

And I bought them without giving it a second thought. Sorry to report, I'm kind of happier with puffy, colorful nesting-doll stickers than I would be with actual nesting dolls.

The other notable sticker acquisition this fall is a group of puffy Hallmark stickers made for teachers to give out to their students at Halloween and Thanksgiving time. My dear friend Amanda, also a sticker collector and a teacher, found them and purchased them with the understanding that when things are this corny they circle back around and become hilarious again, and that I should absolutely have them:

These have a kind of nostalgia factor, since I remember getting encouragement stickers from my teachers back in the 1980s.

"Gourd job" is a stretch; "You Rock" is probably the best one. And "Good Gravy" is just as cute as can be.

Happy fall!

Stickers from Japan

For my first post, I thought it would be fitting to show off my most recent acquisitions. My friend Frederick just returned from Japan, and brought me back some awesome stickers. If I were ever to go to Japan, I would spend all my money on things like this puffy sushi sticker set:

Are those little balls of rice at the bottom? I can't tell.

The stickers themselves are on a clear plastic sheet, and the backdrop is separate.

The thing about Japanese stickers is that, even though they are extremely cute, I always feel like I cannot fully understand them without a deeper comprehension of the cultural zeitgeist.

Who are these people? Is this a traditional Japanese play? Why is that small child paddling down the river in a rice bowl?

Is there a narrative? Or do animals wearing vests naturally accompany angry, hatchet-bearing children in the forests of Japan? They are cute enough so it doesn't matter.

Finally, these stickers reminded me of some of my favorites, whose provenance I cannot recall: either I bought them at someplace like Blick, or my friend Della brought them back from Japan.

Smiling, puffy tofu stickers! As a vegetarian, these have a special place in my heart. Everything else is anthropomorphized, why not blocks of fermented soy? Although, putting a smiley face on tofu sort of defeats the whole ethical purpose of avoiding meat.

My favorite tofu friend has to the one still in his Nasoya package.