Monday, March 30, 2009

Change is good, change is great.

Someone recently reminded me how good change can be. It was something I embraced for a brief moment after gradution, but until a month ago, I had subconsciously tried to avoid. I think whenever you get too comfortable, there’s a chance you’re not challenging yourself. Being a tried and true Aquarian, I’ve taken on some new challenges:

Full-time job as the in-house graphic designer for Nuts and Bolts training (education program in cosmetology schools),

Freelance designing an advertising and copyrighting portfolio for a Chapman grad student featuring 15 print ads and 15 commercial storyboards and tons of illustrations (yay!)

Working with Chapman Graphic Design Major alumni and my mentor/professor Claudine on an international statistic design research project called “DD4D” under the IIID or International Institute of Information Design. (The finished material will be used in the summer conference in Paris).

Working with fellow Orange County crafters lead by Nina Brito of Tall Mouse Arts and crafts (and tacos and eggrolls) to organize an “Indie crafting month” in June. Even more importantly, we are officially creating and OC crafter club similar to the LB craft mafia and LA’s felt club. We’re tossing around idea of calling ourselves the “Handmade Brigade” (the same title given the Tall Mouse indie craft fairs). I volunteered to create the website and come up with some flyer and logo ideas. Here’s a preliminary sketch of a little something.





Goals in the coming weeks:
• Do some much needed updating to my etsy site
• Talk to my landlord once more about renting the studio space in my backyard
• Research low or no-sew projects that can be created from old clothes for the Handmade Brigade’s June “Swap-o-rama rama”
• Make some new things for heaven’s sake!

Monday, March 23, 2009

A healthy survey

What is your current obsession?
Trying to manage my finances.

Which item from your closet are you wearing most lately?
H&M jeans that are repeatedly mistaken for Joe's jeans, a Vintage J-crew sweater with pictures of hawaiian vacation spots illustrated on it, and red leather flats.

What's for dinner?
Other half of my Togo's sandwich from lunch

What was the last thing you bought?
Starbuck's Cafe Misto and fabric from the discount upholstery store for new collage flower scarves.

What are you listening to right now?
Beirut Pandora station

Favorite vacation spot?
San Diego and Portland, OR

What four words would you use to describe yourself?
Creative, independent, MacGuyver, open-minded

What is your current guilty pleasure?
Red wine, Toblerone, Netflix

What will be the first spring thing you do?
Well, I believe it is spring now, and the first thing I did was bake cookies. But the next spring-influenced thing I will do is go for a bike-ride in san diego with Ryan

Where are you planning to travel next?
Lynchburg, Virginia

Friday, March 20, 2009

Yes, I am in a craft club

Probably one of the things I look forward to each month is my craft club meetup at the Craft Kitchen in Santa Ana (Run by the girl who co-organizes the Patchwork show, Nicole). It's just a bunch of young crafty ladies  who get together and drink beer and wine, eat tons of baked goods and cheese and crackers, and work on projects while talking about how most of our friends aren't as obsessed with making things as we are. It is wonderful. 
I baked cookies for everyone, including my short-lived bosses at Logan Ad Group who were amazing and I will miss them.
They are SO easy to make! just simple sugar cookies with colored buttercream frosting and the petals are very simple: buy the big marshmallows and use kitchen scissors to cut thin petals from one end to the other, like slicing a jelly roll. The petal shape is created by the blades. Everyone is impressed by these little cookies even though they are so easy to make!




Monday, March 16, 2009

Go ahead, just keep piling it on!

Today has been nothing short of mind-blowing. I went to "The Hive" yesterday at The Lab as advised by my pal JoJo who told me to go and talk to the buyer (last saturday JoJo was wearing one of my flower collage scarves and some of the girls at the shop commented on it).
I dropped of a scarf and a mini-catalogue of my more recent scarves and today I got a call from the buyer who wants me to start selling them on consignment at the store! Yippee!

{The Hive}




I hope to have them in the store by next week!

(on another note, very exciting and perhaps life-changing, I just accepted a job today as the full-time graphic designer and web-developer for a company in the beauty/hair industry. YIKES!)

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Bra for a Cause

I met my pal Oatha while working at Michaels Arts and Crafts when I was in College. She was the floral designer and taught me everything I know about arranging flowers and plants. Since my days at Michaels, I've kept in contact with her, especially since we both love going out to dinner and ALWAYS get dessert.
Oatha is involved in possibly every charity organization in Orange County, one if which is the "Soroptimist" (I don't think I've ever pronounced it correctly). Next weekend they're hosting "Bras for a Cause" where they are auctioning off decorated bras to benefit disadvantaged women. Being that I am a crafter/artist, Oatha asked me to participate. With the theme being "Hollywood," I decided to literally and create the "hills" of hollywood. (to be the opposite of subtle, I was trying to refer to boobs as hills).  I even made the radio tower out of wire, thread and beads!



Started off by spray-painting a $5 Kmart bras green, covered it with moss, then cut out the hollywood letters from white foamcore


Radio tower!


Finished product.

See more pictures on my flickr site

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Phew!

What a fun weekend! I did 2 shows, the Orange County Roller Derby head-to-head on Saturday night, and the Dragonfly Boutique on Sunday. While sales were slow for everyone, I still had a great time and met some wonderful people.




New Knuckle Ring Display using a thread spool holder




New "Tattoo Man" book purse, soon to be made into "Happy Freaking Birthday" card





New to the craft empire: framed original collage, greeting cards, and art print cards




This time around, I invited my pal Rosemary, of Rosemary's Collection, to sell with me at my booth. Her Terrariums were a huge success! We will be doing some more shows together in the Spring and Summer. Hopefully she will teach me how to make fabric dye with plants from her garden (I want to dye some vintage floral prints for making collage scarves and tote bags).



The greatest thing I'm looking forward to is the possibility of an actual studio space that IS NOT WHERE I SLEEP! After the buzz and insanity that was last weekend, I've realized that I need a place for work, and a place for sleep (that isn't 6 feet above ground). I spoke with my landlord yesterday about using the workshop space that is literally connected to my backyard. She is probably going to work something out with me! Yikes! I can't stop thinking about what I would do with a space of my own to design in. Keep your fingers crossed!

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Bzz Bzz Bzz

I've been such the little worker bee...but not in the conventional sense (being that I don't exactly have a full-time job). Every spare second that hasn't been spent interviewing for jobs or freelancing, I have been CREATING. I have 2 boutiques coming up this weekend.
Saturday: I'm a vendor at the OC roller derby girls match, I'm hoping to sell lot's of knuckle rings!
Sunday: I'll be at the dragonfly marketplace from 11:00-4:00 in the Orange Circle.

Since last week, I've created several new pieces, along with 24 magazine subscription collages.



2 and 3 finger vintage heart button knuckle rings

I'm still making more!
I've been working whole-heartedly on affordable art and art prints as well ($5-$30, how's that for cheap?)

I have completely revamped my display table as well. I built a shelf, and got some great thrift store finds to help me with that.
I'm going to take a ton of photos this weekend to showcase all of my new designs.
Hope to see some friends at the shows!