Essentials/Blog

Being a relatively small boutique owner means that you can easily get bogged down by the day-to-day business of keeping the stores going.  This means that sometimes we are slower than we want to be in getting product on the website. Well, we put our foot down this week and have been taking TONS of [...]

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New at the store this week are Garron card files, and more Comic Book Notebooks. I like the card file holder because it is simple and clean and makes organizing the business cards and scraps of paper in my wallet much easier. The notebooks are a different take on the classic Artemis Comic Book paper [...]

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After a long absence, we finally received our shipment of Mighties. These magnets are coveted by our regular Essentials shoppers and rightly so. So small and powerful, these little guys can secure up to 12 sheets of paper on to a metal surface. We have limited stock online now, and much much more in the [...]

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Father’s Day is a notorious day in the calendar. It is a special event that brings dread to most children who have NO IDEA what to give dear old dad. A tie? Cologne? UGH!
Now, while Essentials is not known for carrying too many products for men, this year I think we have a good collection [...]

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We just added around 20 new kinds of bento boxes at Japanistic.com. Two-levels, one-level, with chopsticks, with forks, and more! Check ‘em out!

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Yippee! Whisky Stones are FINALLY back in stock. Well, almost. We expect to ship them as soon as June 1, 2009. Given the INTENSE interest in these the last time around, we strongly recommend you order yours as soon as possible. These will sell out fast.
Once we actually get them in our hands, we will [...]

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Howdy folks. We wanted to send a quick note to let you know that we are FINALLY back on-line. Thanks so much for your patience.
As our way of saying THANKS for not getting too grouchy about how long this took, we are offering FREE SHIPPING on your next order. Just use code - June1 - [...]

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Yusaku Hanakuma is one of the most well received cult “hero” illustrator and cartoonist in Japan. He is the recipient of The Choice 13th Grand Prix Award and one of his most popular works, “Tokyo Zombie” was adapted for the big screen which became a huge success. You can see in his chararacters, Hanakuma is [...]

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If you’re anything like me, you wait until the last possible moment to find something for your mom on Mother’s Day. To make matters worse, I often ‘forget’ (not the word my therapist would use) to take into consideration how far away she lives, causing me to not just be ‘last minute’ but LATE. Don’t [...]

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Whenever we see Eric, our UPS delivery person extraordinaire, carrying one of these special parcels, we start to hyperventilate a little bit. The very box itself is so enticing, wrapped in adorable Shinzi Katoh tape. And even though we’ve ordered what’s inside, it still feels like Christmas. And since our Japanese is, well, non-existent, there [...]

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