Today at work we made Kadomatsu for the New Year. Everything was cut from the Japanese Friendship Garden of Phoenix. We didn’t spend a dollar! My coworker and I had a great time. Because the bamboo is really strong, we asked one of our gardeners to help us. He cut the long stocks from the back of the garden, trimmed them and sanded off the knots.

Then we collected different kinds of pine, some Australian bottle brush and Nandina for decorations. We arranged them when we got back to the office. My boss had mizuhiki from Japan that she made for the front good luck knot. My coworker even brought her calligraphy brushes for the greeting.

The last step of production was adding the mizuhiki. The knot is fairly complicated. We didn’t have glue, so I’ll have to add pictures of it tomorrow.

It was really fun to work with my coworker and boss on this project! It’s my first real cultural event like this.

That’s all for now ~