Yesterday, I did a simple DIY project that was blast in the past: I wrapped the covers of my books! When I was in elementary school, we had to wrap our textbooks to protect them from damage. Back then, I used Hello Kitty gift wrap.

How little I change. I ripped out color concert photos of Miyavi and Kamijo (Versailles) from the Gaku-X magazine issue that featured my DIY Gothic Lolita crown article.

The book-wrapping process is pretty self-explanatory. Cut the paper to size, snip out the “spine” area, fold and tuck the corners, tape. Since the paper edge is exposed at the spine, I reinforce the area with tape.

Underneath the Visual Kei glamor are Japanese vocab and grammar books. The covers were blah, so I replaced them with colorful pretty-boys; I figured this would motivate me to pick them up. I’m also sick of people who come up to me while I’m reading, and try to make conversation about learning Japanese. Look, I’ll talk to you if you can recognize the J-rockers!

(Incidentally, wrapping books is very popular in Japan and offered in many bookstores. Why? Well, most businessmen don’t want to broadcast to the world that they’re reading Shojo Beat…)

Kawaii stationery is also big in Japan. How amazing is the Happy Panda letter set from Japanese dollar store Daiso? The caption reads, “Some day, I want to ride a camel.”

My high school issued free organizers, but being me, I refused to carry around the same thing as everyone else. So every year, I bought cute, colorful planners and notebooks. Here’s a selection from the archives; you can see the Death Cookbook in here. If you don’t have cash to spend on Sanrio goods, you can put stickers on the cover of a sketchbook, like I did.

Lastly, I keep a Rilakkuma ballpoint pen in my purse at all times. Whenever someone needs to borrow a writing instrument, I get a kick out of pulling out a yellow stick topped with a bear’s head.

If you’re itching for cute pens and kawaii stationery, Jlist is your one-stop web shop (come browse the website for your favorite Sanrio character goods). Are you a fan of cute writing equipment? I don’t think I’ll ever outgrow mine…

Kisses for Basil Farrow, my Scottish Fold cat who modeled for these photos. I leave you with a free recipe: Hockey Penguin Onigiri on CNNGo.com. For more, please take a look at my J-pop cookbook, Cute Yummy Time.