& More Lovely Gifts!

Purses and coasters and dishclothes and tea Oh My! Made by me for my lovelies!

Lovely Gifts

As promised! It simply wouldn't be Christmas Eve without a birthday cake for Baby Jesus. This year Grandma Joy make a lovely lemon cake, and I ate two pieces. I love you, Baby Jesus.







I made aprons, sleeping masks, dishclothes, bags, and a special Schroedercrombie & Cross shirt embroidered for Maddie, and all were loved to my great satisfaction. You may see this photo of David, snuggling into the afghan blanket my grandma chroched for him and think - why is David there? Wasn't he spending Christmas with his own family this year? That's what I thought too, when he magically appeared Xmas morning at my sisters house in a rental car, all sneaky and suprising with my present :) want to know what it was? I'll have to tell you in person,... its my best Christmas ever!

3 Words

Best
Christmas
EVER.


(pictures soon to follow)

Eisbar!!!

SO......
If you don't know this story already,.....
When leaving the late show of The Golden Compass one Friday night, wich is a movie which happens feature a race of armored polar bears called "Ice Bears" several times throughout the movie, we happened to turn on the radio in the car. On KCRW the dj said, "I'm going to play a song right now called 'Ice Bear' by a little known indie German band...." and he did. This song, Eisbar, is AWESOME and tonight David found it on iTunes and we conconcted this little video, just for you. Oh icebears, you are so big and silly. And sometimes bloody.

OMG OMG OMG

I can't help myself, I have to show off the best early presents EVER!
How delighted was I, in the midst of my mail, to find this sweet present from my TINY! Darling teeny tiny cupcake hair pins, i love them!!!! I want to eat them up!Also, this birdy plate from Christine and this tiny felt necklace of Elwood from Agata are the the tiptop of my happy list. You are lovely lovely lovely friends, and I am swept away by your thoughtfulness! It makes me want to give away all my Christmas presents even sooner to spread more happiness. I know Christmas can be so commericial and material and expensive, but down in my heart I think these are the gifts that are what make this such a special time of year (besides the whole religious and family reasons that are a given). It is possible to give tiny gifts of thoughfulness that show how much you love your loved-ones and cheer them up during a season of cold weather, cold & flu, and super-stress. I know we should let everyone know year round how much we love an appriciate them, but I don't think Christmas presents have to be expensive or stress you out big time when finding them to be good. They can be tiny and sweet, handmade and maybe not even material. Anyway, I didn't plan on rambling so and showing off my greedy material side, but poo. What's a blog for?

Lost in the Supermarket...

So there is lots to report, but i've been too lazy to connect my camera to my laptop lately. Here we go, last weekend was the amazing SuperMarket comic book sale put on by Hazel & Jessica at Meltdown in the back gallery. I had a great time chattin with other vendors, and got some good trades. I sold a few books and did some knitting, and enjoyed myself. We had a good corner spot to watch Jordan Crane and Steven Weissman pass a flask back and foth in their cute little way. Lindsay's friend Frank bought the Sesame Street journal, which is such a good one, and I was really excited. I hope he enjoys it and writes all about his secret crushes, and makes drawings!!

After the comic sale, we took Lindsay and Christine to a winter formal at Rachel's house. I had a blast, she had decorated the house SO pretty with ornaments and snowflakes hanging from the ceiling everywhere, and a delicious cookie frosting station in the kitchen! Well, I didn't keep track of how many glasses of wine I helpled myself too, and got a litttle tipsidy and enjoyed my friends very much. I have stolen pics of Christine's flickr account, because the drunky ones i took are not so great!


We did go to a second party (Rachel yours was my favorite don't worrry - the other one had this scary Kathy Lee Gifford children's Christmas special VHS playing) where as soon as we arrived Run DMC dissapeared for more beer and was gone for like, 20 hours. When he came back, as everyone was leaving and we were falling asleep on the couch, he had an entire box of 6-packs and had run three blocks with it cause he saw an ambulence and thought something bad happened. This was a great night of laughing, good outfits and ICE BEAR.

Whew!

Nudabranch books are all bound! I made them fabric covered covers from some really pretty swirly twirly Heather Baily material, it look a long time but I'm really happy with how they turned out. I think the fabric saved them as they are stark black and white line drawings and they needed some pop to make them more fun and adorable. Supermarket here i come!

Lindsys at the Margot

Last night 2 Lindsys went to see Margot at the Wedding at the fancy smancy new Landmark theater in the Westside Pavillion. Wowee! I'd only been to the crappy old theater there, this is a vast improvement. It had amazing concession stand where this Lindsey obtained a delicious warm La Brea Bakery pretzel. Our theater had couch seating, so we got to recline comfortably on one of the black leather couches in rows. I've only dreamed of such a thing. The movie was good too, interesting characters and horrible family dynamics. I loved it! Afterwards, we treated ourselves to Apple Pan across the street, Hickory Burgers and one very scrumptious piece of Banana Cream Pie......

;)

Eep! What a lovely illustration of tea as I'm sipping my breakfast tea cruising the All Over Print blog!

http://alloverprint.blogspot.com/

super*Market

Next weekend I'm going to be in the super*Market comic books sale at Meltdown. It looks like they have an amazingly talented list of vendors, making me feel like I need to get crackin on what I'm going to bring. Oh Comics, I feel like I've become just an admirer instead of a creator, especially since I've abandoned drawing for my sewing machine. It's time to get reconnected with my micron pens :) So if you've a free afternoon you should stop in and check out all the cool books and prints that will be abounding.

Here's info from the Meldtown blog:
Saturday, December 15, 2007. Held at Meltdown Comics (7522 Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90046) from 11am-6pm. Admission is free. Even to douchebags. You can find more info on our profile: myspace.com/supermarketla

Etsyriffic

My etsy sales have picked up for the Holiday season! Lets say goodbye to the journals happily making their way across the country to Hawaii, Texas, Illinois, Conneticut! I hope they are filled with fun drawings and writings, and make recipiants happy this Christmas!

Home

I picked up Mr. Fluffernutter from Rachel's tonight, and he was not pleased to leave, though he was pleased to find himself back in the comfortable familiarity of his own kitchen, where he plunked down and royaly pigged out. I am so so tired and ready for the weekend to lounge around at home. Yipes, it's cold in here, I need to find some cozy socks to keep my toes warm.

I Luff It!

I LUFF all the mail that has been coming! Tiny, you have sent me the best christmas card ever, I love the illustrations and I took it to work to sit by my computer so I can look at it while big files are opening/saving. Agata, you are crazy for getting me #2 in a series of excellent holiday gifts, first the tiny toy LindseyBee car, pictured be on presents under the tree, and now a Martha subscription? Crazy! I LUFF it!!! I need to get out my holiday cards in the mail, but I must get stamps first.

I am working on Nudabranch books tonight, and need to come up with a cover for them. Projects, projects, projects. What is Sad is that David has been working late every night because they are so so busy at work, but i miss him a lot. It's very lonely at home, especially since Elwood is visiting Rachel while my tub gets fixed. It's just me and the sea slugs now, so you can see how the mail excites me so.

Catfood Barf

I put Elwood in the car to go stay a Rachel's a couple nights due to our leaky tub, and as I circled the block in search of parking, he puked in his carrier. I sounded so gross, and the car smelled nasty like cat food barf, and the poor thing was trapped in there with it. Luckily, it only got a little bit on the backs of his feets, and he didn't require a full bath, but I felt awful for making him carsick.

The newest Readymades magazine arrived yesterday, i was starting to lose faith in their projects, but this month features a home made letterpress for maybe $100 of material, super cool. I am trying to crank out some Christmas cards, but feeling tired.

Wrap up

This weekend I worked on presents and the present wrapping! I got some paper and began bundling all the presents to go under the happy tree. I deem this year an 80% handmade Christmas! I couldn't pull it completely off but for the most part success. Half way through my wrapping I realized this will be the first year I'm not with my family at my Grandma's house at Christmas Eve, and I got really sad. There's no way I could drive there in time after work, and I got sort of down. But you know, its a part of being grown up and not living in the same city anymore so I need to cheer up and be happy that I'll be with them all day on Christmas.

Yesterday Agata and I went on a 5 hour shopping spree at the Beverly Center, followed by dinner with Kirsten and Norma and Tammy at Dominicks on Beverly. They have a lovely outdoor patio filled with plants and ample heating lamps and fireplace, $10 bottle of tasty house wine, and a delicious 3 course Sunday Supper special for only $15. We were happy and had some good laughs, and it was a nice close to the weekend.

Well, who's this little fellow with the charming ears and the reluctant goofy expression? Why, if you guessed "David Michael!" you are correct! He may look innocent in this picture, but he probably just finished burning a house down or something.

Nudibranchea

Hazel has invited me to join a comic fair held at Meltdown in December, so I am trying to pump out some books to sell. I am finally going to realize the long postphoned Nudibranch book. I made 16 or so illustrations of these tiny sea slugs and never got around to finishing the project. David Michael is making me eggs and toast on a beautiful poppy plate. I am very lucky.

Lovely Lovely weekend

We stayed 2 nights with my sister back home, and it was really nice to get in some family time. We got our little Christmas tree fresh from the farm, the farm wasn't supposed to be open for business until the next day, but those nice ranch people helped us anyway. Another thing I miss about living in smaller populations, a casual kindness and not minding to help out a stranger. This is David's first ever visit to a tree farm. After that we visited my folks a little and met Laurel, Justin, Amber and Chris in Buellton to go to beer and wine tasting at the respective Firestone brewery and vinyard. We got a tour of the vinyard and tasting in a private room, fancy.

I loved the visit, but it was time to go home in the morning. Laurel was going to attend her 10 year high school reunion that night, and had lots of preping to do as she is on some kind of committee for it (nerd). We drove home and the traffic wasn't bad for once - but we got a crazy view of the fires in Malibu - huge orange clouds taking over the sky. At home David put up the tree so I could decorate it with birdies! Poor Elwood faces a squirt of the water bottle every time he tries to catch himself a birdie, or eat part of the tree, but he's really happy we are home again.

We had a nice time over at Mark & Tiffany's new condo - Moriah this will kill you, they live like 2 blocks from Disneyland. They can go on the roof to see fireworks at night. We drove past it to get there, and I thought it was sort of cruel for David-Michael to take me so close to Disneyland and not take me in, but that's how it is. The condo is really pretty and they are making it lovely inside. The rest of the family came over and we all went to Buca's for a pizza feast. I spent Sunday back in my craft room, happy back on the Xmas Present wagon.

Thanksliving

David and I woke up at 5:30 am to make a traffic-free coast to Lompoc. We hit Buellton by 7:30 and stopped at 7:30 for pancakes at Ellen's, a Danish pancake local restaurant. We carried on to Orcutt, to Laurel & Justins. I helped her a bit with food prep, and had a great time relaxing with the family all day. Justin broke out a 1000 piece puzzle that everyone jumped in on throughout the day and they are still chugging away on right now. I have to say, Laurel did an amazing job with the food, everything was delicious and revamped a la Rachel Ray / Martha Stewart style twists on classic dishes. It's not even 8, and I'm super sleepy. I made an apple almond tart from the Everyday Foods mag, and it turned out well, despite my lack of a tart pan.

3 years ago...

November 28, 2004

Thanksgiving was nice. I stayed at Laurel’s house so I could paint her mural. It’s a tree with pink flowers in the entry to her house. It took two days and came out really nice. Laurel was painting the kitchen red and it was relaxing and fun for the two of us. We just painted the days away, listening to Ani and Bob Dylan.

Post-work Post

Yes, I am home from work on monday, and doing internet things while Mr. Pudding and I do our cuddle time. We have a very necessary 10 minute cuddle after work. If I try to put it off, he puts me in check, climbing in my lap and I hold him under my chin while he face rubs whatever he can reach and does his paw-flexing and making air-muffins. If I don't let him do some nose kissing I'm going to get bit under my chin. Better pay attention to the munchkin.

Me oh my i love pie

This Saturday Joel had a birthday picnick in the park, and as a gift I baked him a cherry pie. It came out ok, but in my opinion, the crust was a little too flaky this time. But it was really cute and lovely. This weekend blew by so quick, in a flurry of errands and ornament making and birthday party and suprise visit from my lovely Tiny and our Souplantation + DWS date. At least this week will be short with a Christmas tree waiting at the end of it!

Tweet tweet

This evening I am going to start working on my tree ornaments, I am sewing little birds out of small fabric scraps to stuff with more scraps. It will be instant gratification crafting! Also, to add to my girly time, I am watching The Bridges of Madison County. I love this movie, oh do I ever love this movie. Every time, when she's sitting in the truck in the rain with her hand on the door handle, ready to bolt and unable to give in, I cry. Come my little birdies, lets go watch.

Shleepy

Krisen came over to work on her Christmas cards and we chatted and had Black Currand tea and the last of the cookie bars. When i went to bed, super sleepy, Elwood curled up next to me very close to my chest, he ususally sleeps at my feet or the back of my neck, this was really cozy and nice. Poor David was up all night working, he needs a vacation.

Oh Stinky

I came home today to the toxic odor of paint. We had some water damage in the bathroom ceiling, and today they repainted the bathroom and hallway, and no one left any windows open, so by the time I got here I choked on a wave of fumes. I seriously am feeling very ill right now, and I've opened all the windows, so not only is is smelly, but it's so cold I am like an icicle. Thanks repair guys, thanks a lot. AND there was a big wet globule of white paint waiting for me on the toilet seat, along with assorted white paint smears, and a cloud of paint dust in the toilet paper. Pretty!

Big Time Crafters

What a fun crafty time was had yesterday afternoon at our little apartment. Some lovely ladies came over to enjoy pots of tea, cookies and orange zesty blondies. We stiched and sewed and embroidered while Elwood paraded around romancing the ladies. David gave up Sunday football for us and joined to work on a knitting project, 'twas delightful. Christine was working on a really cool yellow hoodie that she's embroidering a peacock pattern on the back, Lindsay worked on hankies, Agata put a cute felted little girl with a balloon on the back of a tiny sweater for her niece. I was making coasters and dishtowels, Rachel was crocheting a big striped blanket, and Krisztianna made a silly stuffed kitty, adorable! Yay Ladies ;)

Tea for me

I have to thank my first ever roomate, Emily Glotch, for converting me to the world of tea. On late stressfull college nights she wooed me with big soothing cups of Ginger Peach as I came down off of rediculous Form and Space projects. Although coffee and I flirted sleeplessly, I found it too jittery and overpowering in the long run, tea, my heart belongs to you. This is the lovely cup I enjoyed last night, Assam Gold Leaf, in the lovely glass given to me by Agata to make a snow globe out of, which I lazily never got around to. On Sunday I'll be hosting a cookies and crafts session at my apartment at 1 pm (anyone invited who loves to craft!) and I'll be making chunky thick blodie cookies and brewing up a big pot of Lompoc flower tea. It's a fancy black tea mixed with dried flowers from the local fields - and it smells & tastes wonderful.

Tonight we're going to see a midnight show of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas at the same place we saw The Big Lebowski last week.

Dear Kristen,

you are so crazy to go to Malaysia by yourself on vacation and have this amazing time and take so many amazing pictures. I wish I could travel to these crazy places and see the glorious sites, especially small monkeys running around the street and licking spilled soda off the pavement. I can't wait to see you and hear about your adventures. Sigh....

Thanks a Latke!

The Latke Who Couldn't Stop Screaming is hardcover, foil-stamped, and full of colorful illustrations, well-suited for giving, receiving, or clutching selfishly in trembling hands. And it's mine, all mine! It's the second book I've received by mail thanks to my McSweeney's Book Club suubscription. What this pic doesn't show is the beautiful foil stamping on the canvas surface. The story is by Lemony Snicket, and illustrated by Lisa Brown. I can't wait to read it, I've paged through and seen several illustrations of said Latke, screaming.

Pleased as Pleats

Last night I made my first ever pleats!
Yes, if you know anything about sewing, you know that pleats are really very easy and not a big deal, but I was feeling pleased and triumphant as I learned how to make them and managed to sew over them and not make a fabric disaster.

It's getting colder every night, I got out blankets from the closet last night and added them to the bed. I left my quilt at my folks the last time we visited, and I'm counting down to Thanksgiving to get it back ;)

Tonight I'm going to watch Ten Canoes, the first full-length feature made entirely in Indigenous Australian languages. I hope it's good, it looks pretty interesting.

Hello

Good Morning, Monday, and here I am at another work week! I had a nice weekend though, lots of sewing and a trip the the fabric store that I got some really great new cotton prints from for cheapy-cheap. I am gearing up for some slightly more complex sewing projects than I've been doing, I'm going to try and make the Amy Butler apron from her In Stiches Book. Last night i washed everything I bought after dinner and pressed it all neatly, so glad that I don't have to iron clothes regularly. David spend the whole day into the evening working on the How She Move site, editing music contest entries for profanity and uploading dance clips. You can go to the site and see all the entries uploaded so far to understand what our sunday sounded like. There are all these goofy people who entered the Unsigned Dancer contest, and they all chose really interesting places do do their sexy dances, like, Mom's living room. The Kitchen. A 2X2 foot hallway. Outside, at night, infront of car headlights. Well, I guess this is the age where everyone is getting their 3.2 minutes of fame. Thanks to the magic of ONLINE.

Art School Crap-adential

Yesterday was perfectly lovely!
I began the morning with tea and letter receiving/writing. I got a wonderful letter from Warren (in Brooklyn now and from the tone of it very happy) and I wrote him back on some of my awesome J. Paul Getty Museum daguerreotype cards with the wonderful thick stock envelopes. The rest of the day passed with me humming away on the little sewing machine. I've decided it needs a name, thus I christen her Emmaline. I have a list now of my gift receipients and am checking them off as I go, and stacking them up in a cozy pile of presents. Since I am mainly tackling small, kitchen-type items, it's difficult to think of sewing presents for boys :( The wonderful thing is, knowing how accident prone I am, every time I jam Emmaline, or break her or wedge fabric in her in some way I can't fathom how to disentangle, our savior, David-Michael swoops in and creates resolution, fixing her and saving my poor projects. Three hoots and a hollar for David-Michael, fixer of things!

In the evening, we had some tacos, and went to the Brewery where his friend (and also once-teacher of Cypress college) Paul Paiement had an opening in a small gallery there of his (in his own words) "fresh ones." He does a long running series of insect bodies morphing into electronic devices, based on the shape of the insect and the object. These were all insects turning into small handheld objects like sidekicks and ipods and cellphones. His work is really cool, and it was odd to me that the show out front of his space was this crap-tacular display of the worst drawings I'd ever seen. It was like something out of "Art School Confidential" only not as funny. I've posted my 2 favorites, this guy that looks like Cousin It, and ET with a kitten in his eye. ET was my favorite, and it did make me laugh, but it's still terrible.

Please see more of Pauls work here!