Donut Day: Etsy roundup!

Edible donuts are wonderful, but there's something to be said for non-edible donuts that you can keep forever (or at least a lot longer than the real kind). I was browsing Etsy and found all kinds of great hand-made donut-inspired items, so since it's Donut Day, I want to share some of my favorites with you.

Via soapopotamus

Via Whipped Up Wonderful

These are both soap! The one on the left is by Soapopotamus and the one on the right is by Whipped Up Wonderful. They look so delicious that I would have a hard time keeping myself from taking a bite, especially since they're also donut scented. Apparently donut soap is a thing - lots of the listings I found on Etsy were for donut-shaped and -scented soap.

Via Sweet Art Miniatures

Moving on from bath products to hair accessories, I thought these donut bobby pins from Sweet Art Miniatures were adorable. I don't even wear bobby pins, but I would make an exception for these.

Via Self Rescuing Princess

Polymer clay really lends itself well to tiny donuts. These donut charms from Self Rescuing Princess were some of my favorites that I found - I like that you can choose between a Krispy Kreme and a Voodoo Doughnut box. I think these would be fun to have as stitch markers!

Via Emariecreations

One more cute polymer clay mini-donut thing: pushpins! These are from Emariecreations. I've never seen donutty pushpins before, but I can't think why not. These are perfect.

Via BeesFeltMarket

Moving on from polymer clay to fiber: I love these felt play food donuts from Bees Felt Market. What an awesome bakery you could pretend to have.

Via FidoTheCat

Kitties also deserve felt donut toys! These ones from Fido The Cat are filled with catnip, of course. I know my cat would go crazy for them, especially given how much she loved the donut I made her.

Via NerdStitch

And last but not least, something very close to my heart: adorable amigurumi coffee and donut by NerdStitch. They look so happy together!

I hope you enjoyed my Etsy donut round up. I encourage you to visit the shops I linked here - even if donuts aren't your thing, they all offer other cute and/or yummy things to look at.

Donut Day: Donuts in Japan

Happy Donut Day, everyone! I hope you have something sweet to enjoy today, donut or otherwise.

I thought it might be fun to share some donutty goodness here, so for today's Donut Day, I'll talk a little bit about my donut experiences in Japan. Whenever I travel, I try to hit up 1) yarn stores and 2) donut shops, and while I didn't find much yarn I wanted to buy in Japan, I more than made up for it in donuts.

I had heard of Mister Donut before traveling to Japan, and based on the name alone, I put it on my list of essential places to visit. According to Wikipedia, Mister Donut was founded in the States, and its U.S. locations later turned into Dunkin' Donuts. It's been the main donut chain in Japan since the 1970s (check out their very thorough history on their website - I used Google Translate).

We went to Mister Donut a couple of times, and the donuts were pretty good. They were less sweet and dense than the donuts I'm used to, and a little smaller. The pink glaze in the picture is strawberry, and is the same creamy coating that seems to be on all Japanese strawberry-flavored treats. If you like a less intense donut, you would probably enjoy these. I didn't sample the "pon de ring" donut that they are famous for, but maybe next time.

Image from Doughnut Plant.

We also made a stop at the Shinjuku location of Doughnut Plant, the New York-based specialty donut store. On our trip to New York in 2010, we made a pilgrimage to the Doughnut Plant store on the Lower East Side, only to find that it was closed on Mondays. I was sad. Fortunately, the shop in Shinjuku was open when we found it. We got a green tea flavored donut to sample, and I have to say, I wasn't that impressed. Maybe green tea flavor doesn't work that well as donut glaze. I also found the donut itself a little too solid and cakey (I like yeast-y donuts best). I do think Doughnut Plant is worth a try, but after two years of anticipation, it didn't live up to my hopes.

I'm embarrassed to admit that my favorite donuts in Japan came from Krispy Kreme. I can get Krispy Kreme right here in the States! But, I don't know, not only did the donuts seem a little tastier, but the experience of being in the stores was nicer, too. I don't spend a lot of time in Krispy Kreme stores here, and when I do, I kind of feel like I'm the only person there. I guess in America, donut stores are more for picking up a dozen on your way to work than for sitting and enjoying a treat. The Krispy Kreme stores that we went to in Tokyo always had lots of people in them, though (part of this, I'm sure, is that there are just many more people in Tokyo in the first place). It was nice to be with lots of other people also enjoying their donuts.

By chance, our hotel was very close to the Shinjuku Krispy Kreme, so we ate a lot of donuts. Donut day, every day (it was okay because we were walking several miles each day, right?). Part of the appeal was that they were selling their special Christmas donuts, and could you resist that adorable snowman, especially if you walked past him every time you went to or from the train station? He was delicious and filled with chocolate cream. So, so good.

Cat donuts at Floresta. Image from Serious Eats via @floresta_mama.

One place we didn't get to on this trip was Floresta. They are known for using natural ingredients in their donuts, and for making the adorable cat-shaped donuts that the Internet discovered a couple years ago. I spotted one of their stores in Kyoto from the bus window, but that was as close as we came. If we make it back to Japan, Floresta will be at the top of my donut list.

I hope you enjoyed my Japanese donuts mini-review! The next Donut Day is two weeks from today and I'll have another donut topic to chat about.

If you give a cat a donut...

...Make sure you stuff some catnip inside because that's what they're really after.

I made this toy for my cat using Melissa Trenado's mini donuts cat toy pattern. It was inevitable, really. And she seems to like it:

And I, of course, like watching her gnaw a tiny donut while rolling around in glee.

I'll be making this pattern again, because after two weeks of fun, the donut is in a very sad state. Fortunately, it only took an hour or less to make. I used odds and ends of yarn, so the frosting and sprinkles are acrylic and the bottom part is cotton. I would definitely recommend using cotton for the whole thing, because the acrylic is very fuzzy and splitty. It has not held up nearly as well as the cotton to my cat's affections, plus I want to minimize the bits of fuzz she could potentially ingest. To keep the catnip in it from leaking out, I cut a couple squares of old pantyhose, put a pinch of Cosmic Catnip in each one, and tied them off, then put them into the donut with the stuffing.

Donut Day

I've had this blog for almost a year, but I think I've neglected to explain the name I gave it. It's the number of donuts I eat in a year (give or take a few, realistically). My work schedule is such that I have every other Friday off, so to get me through the week and make the work-Fridays bearable, I get myself a donut. 26 work-Fridays per year = 26 donuts. It's silly, but knowing there's a delicious juicy donut waiting for me at the end of a five-day week really does make me happy, and the gleeful anticipation usually starts somewhere around the Sunday evening prior. Donut Day is a really big deal for me.

Today was the first Donut Day of 2012, and here is the first donut:

I'd give it about a 6.5, maybe a 7 on my 1 to 10 donut quality scale. Not bad.

Belated donut post

This is it... the ultimate in adorable donuts: donut kitties!

Via Epicute.

Edit: the rest of the internet has discovered these donuts as well, so now I can note that they are from Floresta in (of course) Japan.

Donut tower

I seem to have forgotten that I have this blog. I have a few projects I've been working on, but my main project has been trying to relocate my brain after summer slowness and two weeks of grad school seminar have caused me to pretty much lose track of where I am in space and time. I'm usually mildly surprised by how quickly months pass, but today I was sure I was somehow mistaken in my suspicion that this is the beginning of July.

Anyway, to get back to what matters (donuts), I will resume the tradition I never really got underway of posting about donuts on Fridays. Here is a collection of photos of a tower of donuts for a baby shower, via Craft. To be honest, I'm slightly torn on this. I prefer my donuts without naked babies, but it's a tower of donuts. I would not turn that down.

Friday donut post

Another reason to love Flickr: The Day of the Donut!

So beautiful...

DOUGH Donuts: A Far Cry From The Old Fashioned from SkeeterNYC on Vimeo.

My first and so far only New York donut-hunting expedition was a bust (nobody told me Doughnut Plant is closed on Mondays), but this place is going on the list for next time. Crispy on the outside, soft on the inside, gigantic but fluffy... I think I'm in love.

Via The Mary Sue, originally from Food Curated.