Welcome!

Asking For Trouble is the crafty pseudonym of Marceline Smith, an artist and designer based in Glasgow, Scotland. I make handmade accessories, art, stationery and gifts inspired by Japan.

Email me at hello at askingfortrouble.org

 Subscribe in a reader

Need a designer?

Designer for hire

I'm also a freelance web designer specialising in affordable sites for creative folks. I can do full sites, online shops, banners, blogs and more. View my portfolio >>

Tokyo Shopping Guide

Tokyo Shopping Guide

My guide to shopping for crafts, fabric and kawaii in Japan

Blog A Day Giveaway!

Click Here

Win an Asking For Trouble notebook in the Sweet Figments Blog A Day Giveaway.

Around The Web

Recent Work









Good Stuff

Miso Funky
Super Cute Kawaii!
Glasgow Craft Mafia.gif
Shopify
Find me on Folksy.com

Please Buy Me These!

Ideas and Inspiration

Randomness

Tuesday, November 4th, 2008

My good friend the Random Integer Generator has picked some misprint bag winners! Donna and Fuji Mama - I will be in touch! If you didn’t win, there’s still the Sweet Figments giveaway which runs for a few more weeks yet.
Have you guessed what the photo is? During my stationery box rummage, I sorted through [...]

Happy Things

Tuesday, October 14th, 2008

How tempted am I to buy these?! I believe I did know that the Royal Mail sells customisable stamps but somehow it never quite sunk in that this meant CUSTOMISABLE STAMPS. It is a bit of a cheat since The Queen won’t let anyone share her stamps, so you can’t customise the actual stamps. Instead [...]

Drawing buttons

Thursday, April 24th, 2008

Anyone who has been following my twitterings (see right sidebar) will know I have spent the last few days drawing buttons. And here they are! One reason why I am drawing buttons, I would think is perfectly clear from the picture above - they’re so pretty! The other reasons are being turned over in my [...]

Tokyo Extras: souvenir stampers

Wednesday, April 16th, 2008

When we were planning our second trip to Tokyo, we kept reading mentions of souvenir stampers. These are large custom stamps situated at major attractions and the suggestion was that you should give your child a notebook and get them to collect stamps during the visit. Now, call me childish, but I love stampers so [...]

Charity Finds

Monday, March 31st, 2008

Don’t you love a good charity shop rummage? My favourites are the ones stuffed with randomness from floor to ceiling and managed by lovely gossipy pensioners who will happily sell you a bag of stuff for £1. The big name charity shops are too clean and well-organised for my liking so one needs to travel [...]

Inspiration contact sheet

Friday, March 21st, 2008

As I go about my daily business, flitting around the interweb, I like to save images I come across that catch my eye. Sometimes they give me an idea for a future project, sometimes it is something I want to buy, sometimes it’s something that makes me laugh and sometimes it is just something beautiful. [...]

Tokyo extras: Mori Art Museum

Thursday, January 31st, 2008

A few extra Tokyo posts coming up that don’t fit into the main shopping guide.
Although we were organising everything ourselves this time (last time we went on an organised tour with just-bankrupted Travelscope), we did sign up for an organised Evening Tour of Tokyo to re-introduce us to Japan. It went to two famed Tokyo [...]

Instant inspiration

Monday, January 28th, 2008

I’ve been having a bit of a designery week, initiated by me finally sitting down and catching up with 2 months of posts on the Creative Review blog and things magazine and culminating in me spending £5 on a magazine about Japanese architecture. I also started reading some of the awesome design books sitting in [...]