we feel fine book winner...

three cheers to the winner of our we feel fine book giveaway, mr. brian sikorski of wonderful time photography! it seems random.org wanted to see his flaming middle finger just as much as we did, and brian was nice enough to oblige with a photo!

still bummed you didn't win? it's ok, you can still order a copy!

free shipping shopping event this weekend!

you know heart and laserbeams always ships for free - this weekend my unique women in business group is gettin' in on the free shipping action with our first etsy team event! we're super stoked about it and hope you are, too!

both etsy shops and independent businesses are having sales. qualifying items for each shop vary, so check out each individual shop for their promotion. (as always, all hearts and laserbeams items will be shipping for free.)

most of the etsy shops participating will have a shop announcement: Unique Women in Business Etsy Team will be having a FREE SHIPPING event starting Friday, January 22 thru Monday, January 25. Search on UWIBTEAMFS to find all shops/items participating.

Here is the thread for more info, and to see who is participating: http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=6395648

To immediately start searching, click here.

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indie businesses not on etsy that are participating include:

Glitzy Events - Use coupon code UWIBFREESHIP at check-out on our website

The Angel Company - Rita Wetzel, Independent Demonstrator - Send email to Rita at stamp2stamp2@yahoo.com with a list of item numbers, description, quantity. Rita will email you order total. Payment via PayPal or Credit Card.

Charms~N~Things - coupon code FSJAN2010

Painted Laydies Mineral Makeup - Everything ships free all the time. No code needed.

Naughty and Nice Lingerie - Shipping is always free within the US! Fast, free shipping, dollar rewards and free gifts with certain purchases! Check out my store for more details or email sales@naughtyandnicelingerie.com. Ask me how to get an additional 10% off your purchase!!

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Please help us spread the word by blogging, Facebooking, or tweeting about this event.

You can learn more about UWIB by checking out the yahoo group.

behind the artwork: the fruit and nuts series

in light of our recent feature on regretsy, i'd love to share exactly where that strange little fruit and nuts series of paintings came from. step in the way back machine with us, back to 2004!

ah, 2004 - what a good year. i had been laid off from oshkosh bgosh, was homeless on my sister's couch in garden grove for a while, met the future husband... and started getting into art shows.

the very first art show i did was a group show at chango coffee house in echo park. it was a simple piece called "apple takes a stroll". a little 5" x 5" acrylic painting featuring a super happy apple with stick arms and legs walkin through a park.

after the show, my good friend angela bought the painting and made the comment "this is so cute - i really wanna see apple in a knife fight with robert downey, jr!" it was like a burst of comic genius that really got my wheels turning. coincidentally, that same week i had bought a trashy tabloid mag. i was flipping through it, and... well...

i didn't see any good pictures of robert downey, jr. but i DID see a great picture of will ferrell.



that just started an avalanche of wackiness. i flipped through a bunch of tabloid magazines, found some great celeb faces, and collaged them into twelve new paintings featuring that original Apple character along with his friends Orange, Peach, Grapes and more. They were quirky and fun, and within a year every one of the original paintings sold. The most exciting sale came at a Pasedena craft show, where the customer informed me that she worked with courtney cox-arquette on the show dirt, and the next week's filming was going to be directed by david arquette. so she bought the painting as a gift for them!



i ran into that same customer at another craft show a year later - she gave me a great update on my little painting, that the cox-arquette family loved the painting, and that their daughter coco smiled and laughed whenever she saw it. another satisfied customer!



etsy's shown some love for this series, too! they featured the martha piece in a storque post, and also commissioned me to create two new pieces in that stick figurey style to hang outside their conference room doors this past november.

and that's the story! they're a little strange, they're a little nutty, but they're a whole lot of fun and i love em - i hope you do too!

hearts and laserbeams on tv! WHAT!!?!?!

as you may or may not know, if you're ever in georgia you can pop into shopScad (in both savannah and atlanta!) and pick up hearts and laserbeams gifties in person.

amy from shopscad shared a video on facebook today of a news bit that was filmed in the atlanta shopscad, and i am alllll over it! how exciting! as you watch it, keep an eye out for our plate designs, glue gun tee, and in the background of one shot you can see our tiny magnet set tins!

click here to watch the video.

we feel fine book giveaway!

ok real quick cuz i gots to go make dinner -

the folks at we feel fine were kind enough to bestow on me a second free copy of the "we feel fine: an almanac of human emotion" book so that i might do a giveaway for all the rest of y'alls - and giveaway time is here! my second copy came in the mail today. whut whut!!!

SO! here's the rules:

1) i got in the book after the folks at we feel fine found a lovely blog post i had written featuring my middle finger. so to enter the contest, leave a comment here telling us something middle-finger related. it could be about the time you accidentally flipped off your aunt mildred, it could be about the time you did it on purpose. but in celebration of my middle finger picture, your comment MUST share something about middle fingers! maybe you know of a cool piece of middle finger art on the internets? share it and automatically be entered to win!

2) comment as many times as you wish, but one entry per person will be counted.

3) contest closes at midnight on sunday, december 13, at which point i'll use the website random.org to pick the winner!

the winner gets a free hardbound copy of "we feel fine: an almanac of human emotion", and if you like i'll autograph my middle finger on page 82 for ya!

get commenting people, i can't wait to read your middle finger stories!

beware the white t-shirt ambush!!!

so last week, josh got new white t-shirts. and he wasn't quite sure what to do with the old ones yet, like did he want to save em as rags or whatever, so he made a little pile of them on the bedroom floor.

they stayed there for a few days, and then i asked him about it - he mentioned "yeah, i'm not sure what i'm doing with that yet." and i can't tell you what the starting point was, but shortly thereafter we were in a huge snowball-fight style tshirt throwing frenzy! TSHIRTS EVERYWHERE!!!

since then, it's become a source of comedy and careful planning. on sunday, as i was leaving for patchwork at 7:45am and saying goodbye to josh, he snuggled down deeper under the covers and gloated a little about how nice and warm it was in bed.

and he got a faceful of shirts! he told me later "you know, i didn't do anything with those shirts when you left, they just stayed piled around my face cuz it made bed that much cozier."

curses, foiled again!

a favorite ambush is hiding around a corner with an armful of white tshirts, waiting for the other person to walk through the door - WHITE TSHIRTS!!!

last night, josh was getting his new work phone set up and i took his concentration as a golden opportunity for shenanigans:



this morning i woke up to being covered up, coroner style, in white tshirts.

i love my life.

we feel fine book update!

OMG guys! so in case you didn't know, a photo i posted on this very blog is getting published in the upcoming book "we feel fine: an almanac of human emotion".



you can read the whole story about how this happened by clicking here!

and you can read the original blog post they found my photo in here.

you can check out the preview of the book by clicking here, and can preorder a copy here.

i'm just a chock full of superexcited links! hooray!!!

hearts and laserbeams book report: confessions of a shopaholic

ok i picked this book up at the las vegas airport on the way home from... vegas! shocking! gayle and i went out there last summer for a few days and had a blasty - when we were heading home there were big chunks of time on the horizon and i had left omnivore's dilemma in my suitcase instead of throwing it in my purse.

honestly i picked this one because i knew it'd be an easy read, something i could read for a few hours on the way home and then put on a shelf until i'd finished omnivore, the kind of book where you could pick right back up where you left off like a month or two later and not feel lost because everything about reading it is just so easy. plus, i hadn't seen the movie yet and i always dig reading the book before seeing the movie. and with that, i give you:

hearts and laserbeams book report: confessions of a shopaholic by sophie kinsella

ok I LOVED THIS BOOK. super fun read, super fast read, and before you know it you're done reading! the main character rebecca is just so flighty and lighthearted, just la la la la la shop shop shop hooray!

but the weirdest thing started happening as i was reading this - while i was having the time of my life reading about her shoppy adventures, as a chick who's pretty non-shoppy and has lots of living paycheck to paycheck experience, this shopaholic girl was seriously stressing me out!! i'd be reading about her going deeper and deeper into debt, and throwing away late notices and my inner old-lady monologue would scream things like, "YOU'RE RUINING YOUR CREDIT RATING!"

which is a completely uncharacteristically absurd thing for me to think while reading anything. but seriously, girl was freaking me out. other things my brain screamed while i was having a grand ol' time reading this book:

omg you did not just lie on your resume and say you're fluent in finnish!! they're gonna check that!

omg you're poor why are you buying coffee at a coffee house every day! make that shit at home!

omg you did not just do that on your date what is your major malfunction!

omg no you did not just blow off the meeting with the bank when you're gonna start sorting your shit out!

basically, i think part of the fun reading this book was how much it made my practical side sweat. i'll probably pick up another one in the series sometime soon when i need another fluffy feel-good read! (me thinks that may be the case after my next book report selection, the bell jar by sylvia plath. yup, i'm back on the high school reading list stuff!

ratings:
hearts: 4 hearts - really fantastically fun read, well written and funny!
farts: 1 fart for keeping my inner monologue yelling at me throughout the 350 pages.

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so it's giveaway time! you want my copy of confessions of a shopaholic to check out for yourself? it's easy, just leave a comment here about anything at all before monday, october 19 at midnight and you'll automatically be entered to win! one entry per person, suckas!

new garden pics and uhhh... we got chickens!

ok so some major updates in our backyard:



our carrots got harvested last weekend! they definitely could have stayed in the ground longer, but we figured they wouldn't get much longer since our planters are so shallow. so we'll save carrots for another time (or big deep pots next year!), but these little guys were totally tasty!



and our sugar snap peas have started kickin out some peas - they're so freaking good! it's kinda crazy how tall these plants have gotten. we're thinkin about planting some more so we can have peas to share with friends or freeze or something like that.

but the biggest news in our backyard last weekend was...



WE TOTALLY GOT CHICKENS!

the one on the left is martha stewart. an easter egger type chicken, she'll in theory lay eggs that are blue, green, pink or brown. it's a good thing. the one on the right is paula deen - they said she was a silkie but we're not so sure, we're thinking she may be a hybrid of some kind.

and yes. we named em that because they're the dirtiest birds around! if we'd gotten a third it woulda been named oprah.

they're old enough to be laying eggs, but nothing yet. we read they'll most likely start molting because of the new home and then start again when they're done molting, so we'll see what happens! they're super cute, we've let em run around the backyard and they are crazy wily when it comes to trying to get em back in the coop!

check out the full flickr set here, including pics of the sweet chicken coop josh's uncle donnie helped us build!

we feel fine about getting published!!!

a while back (a LONG while back!) i had gotten an email from the website www.wefeelfine.org. their website is all about exploring emotions on the internets, and they had decided to create a book.

and they had discovered this blog post on the livejournal version of my blog, and could they use my middle finger picture in their book?

what's that you say? make my middle finger famous? YES PLEASE!!!

months and months and months went by, enough that i totally forgot about their exciting email. then yesterday i got another one from them, saying "hey sorry it's been so long since you've heard from us, your section of the book got cut but we liked it so much we found a way to put it back in - so you'll be in it!"

and there you have it! my middle finger will be in the book we feel fine, in stores december 1. you should probably go get a pre-order copy from amazon!

this morning's commute playlist, or you should check out these hot traxxxx!

lots of mornings on the way to work i'll hook up my ipod, pick a particular somethin' to listen to and that is it.

other mornings, i set the ipod to shuffle through my schizophrenic music library and pick some gems for me for the 40 mile drive - this morning's playlist was killer! your homework is to check out any of the songs you've never heard before:

1) "take me with u" by prince and the revolution
2) "happy rap" by junior senior
3) "talk dirty to me" by poison
4) "the other way of stopping" by the police
5) "rockabilly" by the mavericks
6) "like a virgin" by madonna
7) "interlude... the set up" by foxy brown
8) "fat bottomed girls" by queen
9) "she's automatic" by rancid
10) "won't get fooled again" by the who
11) "heaven must be missing an angel" by tavares
12) "only the lonely" by roy orbison
13) "dick lips" by blink 182

a quick thought for a monday evening...

i have quite a lot of times in my life where i am excited and happy about things that are going on.

and i am really fortunate and grateful for how freaking awesome my life and the people involved in it are.

T to the G to the I to the F y'all!!!

this weekend is gonna be jam-packed with awesomeness, here's what josh and i have on tap:

kickball championships on saturday - it's the last games of the season, and it's almost unnecessary to play the games because i know exactly how it's gonna turn out... there's 3 games being played. #1 top team will play the #4 bottom team, the #2 (us!) and the #3 team will play each other, and then the winners of those two games will play each other.

so basically, #1 team will win and we will win (cuz we've beat the #3 team twice before), then we'll play the #1 team and they will kill us because apparently they're amazing. but it'll be good times and there's gauranteed snacks!

after that josh gayle and i are gonna go to the sneak preview showing of whip it at the long beach towne center. i don't know if i've mentioned before... but i'm crazy about roller derby. if i'd discovered it like 10 years ago when i didn't have things like a sometimes-angry knee, and i had the money and time, i would so join a league! but alas, for all the reasons stated above, i must be content to sit and drink my beer from the sidelines.

SO EXCITED FOR THIS MOVIE! josh and i have been waiting for it to come out for months. and if you go to the sneak preview they're givin out free tshirts! they're showin it at more places than long beach town center, check out moviefone.com or fandango.com and you can find the theater near you!

also, sunday morning josh and i are starting a 4 week long sailing class - i don't know why this terrifies me... but i'm kinda freaked out by the idea of driving a boat. i'm pretty sure i know why, but it's a stupid reason so hopefully i'll be able to put that behind me and kick some watery ass!

and then mixed in there will be the usual weekend web design class homework and some writing for the next week's oc weekly blog posts. and painting a commission. aaaaaand what else. sleeping i hope! i definitely hope there'll be some sleeping in there.

like i said, this weekend's gonna be chock full of awesome! will hopefully get a post up this weekend with an update on our backyard garden - our plants have completely BLOWN UP!!!

fight for your right to carbs!

josh decided the other day he was going to start making ribbons out of spaghetti noodles to sell on etsy - to raise carb awareness!

concert fun and internetty news!

ok so last week josh and i went to see the killers play at the hollywood bowl, and it uberrocked!!!

i didn't realize until like a day before the show that the psychedelic furs were opening for them, and i was like uhhh that's cool. because it makes me wanna rummage through thrift store racks for pink things to shove in jenn's face while singing (badly) "PRETTYYYYY IN PIIIIIINNNNNNNK". i didn't realize at the time how amazing this one-two punch of musicness was gonna be!!

so we pretty much had the perfect concert experience - we drove up to hollywood early afternoon, got there before rush hour traffic had even begun. checked into the best western that's like 2 blocks from the bowl, and moseyed down to the hollywood/highland complex. it really kinda cracks me up how this place is billed as so hip and trendy and the oscars are held there, but really... it's just a fancy mall.

i'm not exaggerating. it's a mall. there's a hot topic. steps away from where they hold the oscar. it just cracks me up.

we were lucky! we were there the same day hot topic was having a q&a about that new jennifer's body movie, and i guess panic at the disco was gonna play. i didn't so much care about that, we were just there to gawk at celebs. so we hung out directly behind the sound booth, listening to them talk shit about everybody was awesome. and on the second level you could see celebs getting their pics snapped and doing interviews. saw adam brody from the oc, megan fox and diablo cody.

i don't know about you but i wanna party with diablo cody. she reminds me of my girl liz. i bet she rocks the karaoke stage!

anyhow, i found out after the fact that my old pal ed killmond from scad was there and thought he recognized me, and that is super awesome even though we didn't get a chance to say hi. hi, ed!

after we hung out there a bit, walked back to the hotel and packed up our snacks for the concert. i LOVE that you can bring your own snacks to the h-wood bowl. we brought enough for 20 people, but it was just me and josh... we may have overpacked. for certain shows you can't bring your own booze, and i declare shenanigans!

the show was AWESOME. every song psychedelic furs played i was all "i know this song! i know this song!" it was like sitting and listening to a john hughes movie soundtrack. and then they didn't play pretty in pink. and their set was over. and i was like "WHAT THE HELL!!!"

josh and i started figuring maybe they were one of those bands that was so sick of that song, maybe they refuse to play it these days. but then the killers started, and their sound is SO psychedelic furs, i started thinking. omg that's gonna be the encore. they're gonna do pretty in pink with the furs.

and they did.

and it was AMAZING.

seriously, the killers rock my socks off and almost every song has this nostalgic quality about it, every song is so awesome. i heart them hooray!

once the show was over, instead of having to deal with crappy parking lot traffic we just had a short 2 block walk to the hotel and that was it. bliss.

the hotel thing, it made all the difference. a while back i saw the police at dodger stadium with my sis danielle and some friends, and we were in the parking lot for like an hour and a half after the show.

so that's my recap - in other news, hearts and laserbeams was offline for a couple of days due to hacky shenanigans. it's back online and all fixed now, so thank goodness for that! i have to seriously thank raina from the queen's men for getting rid of all the hacker shenanigans, and bluehost for helping me get my hosting account unsuspended. y'all are the best!

he works hard for the money...

here we see my fabulous huzzz hard at work in the hearts and laserbeams sweat shop! we're sending a box full of tees to shopScad today; if you're in the low country you besss get in that shop later this week and pick one up! shopscad features work by students, alumni and faculty of the savannah college of art and design, and is located at 340 bull street in historic downtown savannah.

not fortunate enough to live in the south? don't fret my pet, our tees are also available online!

i've had the time of my life...

all right dude by now it's old news, but patrick swayze passed away today. i'm really sad about it - that guy made both the best and the worst movies ever and now you gotta sit there and listen to me talk about it!

number one, like most preteen girls in the 80s i LOVED the dirty dancing movie. had the soundtrack, had the second soundtrack, saw the movie about 8 billion times between the ages of 10 and 32. (lemme share with you that in the back of my head, i always thought it was kinda weird that johnny and baby hooked up because it was like the gabrielle carteris thing in 90210 - i could not get past the fact that swayze looked way older than the early 20s or so character he was playing)

yeah, i liked ghost all right when it came out. (SAM WHEAT!!!) but for me, it was all about coming out - one of my fave swayze movies ever was to wong foo, thanks for everything, julie newmar. PURE COMEDY GOLD.

no wait, what's better - patrick swayze as a drag queen or patrick swayze doing chippendales dancing with chris farley(r.i.p.) ?!? crap. this may take some thinking.

while i still haven't seen point break or roadhouse all the way through, i did get to see a chunk of roadhouse once a couple of years ago, and one of the best lines ever is "you're too stupid to have a good time". also, a couple of years ago the huzzz and his brother introduced me to the classic red dawn. that shit is intense and fully awesome so you should probably rent it. rumor has it they're working on a remake. rumor also has it they suck.

so back to swayze! true story, a couple of halloweens ago josh and i went out to south carolina to see our savannah friends for halloween, and when we got there our buddy trav had carefully placed a huge dirty dancing poster on our bed, complete with fake autograph from johnny castle himself saying "thanks for the great time at kellermans this year! i truly was the time of my life".

i think it was shortly after that, that josh and i found his older than dirt typewriter. we started writing random silly letters to the savannah kids. i don't know who got our patrick swayze letter, but it started as a fan letter to patrick swayze, and then slowly devolved into creepy fanness, and then joking anger that he may have pushed jerry orbach (r.i.p.) down the stairs. and i think it was the last line of the letter where we wrote "i hate you johnny castle".



which we later made into a shirt design that we sold via hearts and laserbeams for a long while.

also, one year for our anniversary i spent about 10 seconds photoshopping (badly) josh and i's faces onto the dirty dancing poster.



that's not all the reasons i love johnny castle, patrick swayze, vida boheme, the whole kit n kaboodle, but it's a lot of em. and that's all the reasons i'm wishin i had a watermelon to carry in mourning.

WOLVERRRRRIIIIIIINESSSSS!!!!!

stop that car!

i saw this car on the drive home last week; why is it that anytime i see amazing airbrushed artwork on the road there's no way i can get a decent picture?

this one was elvis - the other two airbrushed treasures i've seen were a scene of the last supper and a montage of pics of selena with her name in a fabulously scripty font!

gardening with the calverts: month 1

ok so about a month ago, josh and i started a little veggie patch in our backyard using the book square foot gardening by mel bartholemew as a guide for our gardening shenanigans.

here's what it looked like when we first built the planter and got the dirt and seeds into it:



and here's what it looks like now:


(these are just the radishes - check out everything else by clickin' the pic!)

josh and i had a tiny balcony garden for like 2 years before this, and expanding the operation now that we have a little more space has been so fun! we're both pretty effing amazed at how crazy some of this stuff is growing; in theory soon we'll have watermelons, peas, pumpkins, corn, radishes, chives, tomatoes, carrots... i think it all kind of depends on the weather - we started all this pretty late in the summer but the growing season in california's longer, so who knows! (we got to eat a few spinach leaves the other night, so freakin delicious!)

we also started a compost bin in the backyard, which both of us are a little unsure of - mostly because neither one of us has done that before, so there's a whole lot of "uhhh are we doing this right?" goin' on... we put this little vinyl fence up for like 60 bucks to hide the composting experiment:


(if you click to see the larger version of this pic in flickr, and you look at the telephone wires, you can see some of the zillions of birds waiting for me to go inside so they can get back to the bird feeder...)

so we'll see how that goes! we added worms to the bin tonight... the gal that we bought em from basically made us smell worm poo, she says to prove that it smells like dirt, but i think it was so she could tell her friends later she got people to smell worm poo.

i feel like i need to get a better handle on timing out what we're planting... what are good fall/winter veggies? anyone got any hot tips for what to plant and when in southern california?

hearts and laserbeams book report: ya yas in bloom by rebecca wells

ok it has been AGES. sorry about that folks. the only thing that's been constant lately is change, and lots of it - transitioning into having a full-time job again and still keep hearts and laserbeams alive has been a trick and a half but i'm workin it out and it's all startin to mesh, which is awesome.

plus i'm bloggin 3 times a week over at oc weekly now, did i tell you that? if ya click here, you can read all the gettin' made posts i've written thus far. and if you check out the one about twisted handmade and comment on it before midnight friday night you could win a set of courtney chesley's awesome telephone-wire bracelets!

so anyhow, i may have been missin from this blog but i haven't been neglecting my book reports, here's one i've been putting off for weeks! i've had my copy of ya-yas in bloom for a couple of years now and finally got a chance to read it!

hearts and laserbeams book report: ya yas in bloom by rebecca wells

ok did you read the divine secrets of the ya ya sisterhood? did you see the movie at least? both effing awesome.

ya yas in bloom was like those designer imposters at rite aid - did you like ya ya sisterhood? you'll love ya yas in bloom! the same, but a little cheaper.

like it was a fun girly summer read, and i LOVE the characters and getting to enjoy more of their adventures and shenanigans... but like most sequels, this one was a little weak.

ummmmm i was gonna write more but there's 2 problems.

number one, i finished reading this book like weeks ago and should've written about it when it was fresh in my mind.

number two, there wasn't a whole lot of substance or anything heavy to report. some crazy southern gals get together have lots of drinks and madcap mayhem results.

so uh, sorry this is so short but that's pretty much it... let's get to the ratings!

hearts: 3 hearts - these ya ya books are so much fun to read y'all; they make me wanna move to the south immediately!

farts: 2 farts - there was so little thinking going on while i read these that i kinda missed my dense high-school reading list books that usually have to come with a cliff notes for me to get through em.

as seen on oc weekly!

ok i was doing really well on posting for a little bit and then i fell off the wagon... life has been crazy!

part of the excitement is i've become a brand new blog contributer for the oc weekly! so if you get frustrated with coming here and not seeing freshness to read, you should make sure to check out the gettin' made feature on oc weekly. there's a tag to click on, even, to make it super easy!

AND - if you check out the inaugural post soon you can enter to win a free hearts and laserbeams print! good luck folks!

OH DUDE! ALSO!
renegade craft fair is this weekend! you better get there and come visit us or else!

makin rosettes and say, what kind of tree is that?

ok so today i was planning on making ice cream for the first time ever! got all my supplies together to make a delicious cherry garcia style ice cream, spent a good long while cutting and pitting cherries, cooked em up in the sugar water, went to read next steps and the instructions on the ice cream maker and whaaaaaaaaaaaaa?



you have to freeze part of if first?



denied!!!



so i decided to make rosettes with josh instead! if you click on the picture, you'll go to the entire photo set on flickr...







and if you click on the below picture you can watch a video of how the batter flowers once it hits the hot oil!







once the rosettes are done you just sprinkle em with a little powdered sugar and enjoy! they're an old-timey scandinavian dessert, a little funnelcakey, a little donutty, a lot deliciousy!



also, for you sleuths and plant experts out there - we have this tree in our backyard and have no idea what it is. any thoughts? it's got serrated leaves and a pit in the middle of the small fruit.

winner winner chicken dinner!

thanks to the awesomeness of random.org, the winners for the screenprinted tee and greeting card giveaway have been picked!

congrats to kb of kokoleo for winning an awesome tee, and to dao for winning a greeting card!

there's gonna be lots more giveaways in the coming weeks so stay tuned! (i may have a quickie one coming up later today even for you book lovers out there!)

the voodoo that yudu so well - part 2: all the screens that're fit to print! AND A GIVEAWAY!

now that we've covered how to burn screens with the yudu, i'm gonna share my experiences today in printing a big ol pile of shirts for an order i'm putting together for shopscad in savannah, georgia! there's a lot of info to cover, but if you can hold on til the end i'll tell ya about a fun giveaway we're gonna do!

first up you start with a big ol pile of shirts and a few fabulously burned screens!



you'll wanna iron your shirts before printing on em so there's no weird wrinkles in the design, fyi be advised!



first of you'll need to prepare the screen by taping off all the areas you don't want ink to get through. i use ordinary 3m blue painters tape for masking off stuff because it's not super sticky and comes off really clean when you need to take the tape off. also, notice that i burn more than one image onto a screen - thisll save you a ton of money in the long run - figure a yudu screen is 25 bucks - if you put 4 designs onto 2 screens you've effectively saved yourself 50 bucks! such a smart shopper! you can use vellum, plastic, acetate, or heavy paper to block off designs you don't want to be part of your current printing. i use vellum. so if you wanna be awesome... uh... use vellum?



i would also totally recommend springing for yudu's better squeegee. it just feels better with printing. i'm willing to bet if you already do screenprinting you've got a squeegee you like and i'll be honest with you that shit will work. it won't make the yudu blowup! so relax!

money saving tip: i think the yudu means well with their platens you can buy a bunch of and adhesive sheets, but for my one-color printing uses i find it kind of unnecessary. i left the protective sheet on top of the platen's adhesive and i don't put the platen inside the tee when i print. rather, i put a piece of cardboard inside the tee and set it on the platen and print away. here's some info on lining up your images:



see that dark shape behind the "i pushed" text? i put a piece of tape on the platen to mark where the top of the artwork is.



then i jot down on the tape the measurement info on what points i want the tee to line up to to have proper placement. if you're only doing one color stuff, the registration isn't super important at all - if you're planning on doing more than one color, definitely look into the yudu's registration sheets and whatnot...



get your bead of ink across the top of the design and get to printin!



it's a good idea to test print a couple of times on paper beforehand to make sure everything's gonna go to plan...



money saving tip: you'll need to put ink at the top of the design again with almost every pulling of the print - if you look at your squeegee you've probably got a lot of excess on there that you can scrape off with a popsicle stick and put across the top of the design instead of using another bead of ink from the bottle!



and POW! before you know it, you're done printing your first tee!



and POW POW!!! before you know it, you're done printing a whole mess of tees! one of the things i love about the yudu is it really really helps me production-time-wise. printing tons of shirts used to take forever, but i did 60 tees in 6 hours today! that includes printing, stamping a logo inside at the neck and heat setting each tee individually. you really can't beat that!



i ran into a tiny problem with another screen of mine - the transparency was too high up on the emulsion when i exposed the screen, and part of the apostrophe got cut off!



no worries though, i busted out a tiny paintbrush and the yudu's screen blocking stuff and fixed it right up! i will tell you i think i may try speedball brand's screenblocking fluid in the future, because the yudu's seemed to wash out when i cleaned the screen later...



if you have a larger tee design, it may be good to put a bead of ink across the top of the art, and then another bead of ink across the middle just in case!

potential problem alert! ok i did find one thing with the yudu that was giving me some issues this morning. it seems like some screens don't wanna stay on their pegs and they shift slightly. you don't believe me? here's proof!



it's really not a huge deal for me because i do all one-color desigsn for now. BUT - i kept getting subtle double fingers from my neil diamond screen! maybe it's too close to the edge of the emulsion? i dunno!





printing these neil diamond tees i can now tell you the 2oz bottle you receive with your yudu machine will be enough for about 16 large graphics. if you're using it for tiny graphics you'll get more for the money...

but what would be even better for the money is using a different brand of screenprinting inks... i kept reading everywhere that you are really only supposed to use yudu brand inks with this system. but they're so flipping expensive! i started thinking about how i've always used speedball fabric screenprinting inks, and how they're water soluabe just like the yudu inks... and then this happened:



and i felt like i should probably give it a try and report back!



and survey says DING DING DING! the tees i did with speedball ink turned out just as good AND rinsed out of the screen just fine at the end! hooray!

ok so if you're using more than one design on a screen, how do you line up the bottom image when you wanna print it?



i do the same thing as with the top graphic - i put a piece of tape to mark the top of the artwork -



and then i measure out where i want the shirt to line up in comparison with that top of the artwork. make sure this piece of tape is long enough so you can se it on the side of your tee when you're placing it on top of the platen!



here's my classic steph's screenprinting pose! if you press your left arm down on the end of the screen and really lean into your print as you're pulling the squeegee across you'll get a nice amount of pressure and a crisp clear print. i like to pull my squeegee across twice so it's nice and dark!



check it out! i effing love this glue gun design and i've been wanting to burn a screen of this for ages - if you like it make sure you read to the end of this novel-length post for info on an awesome giveaway!

once i did one of those glue gun tees, i wanted to print that graphic on EVERYTHING! i'm not one for texty tees so i put tape over the words on the back of the screen and slapped that design on one of my sweatshirts!



and then i went for the yoga mat!





but due to the texture of the mat and the thin quality of the speedball ink i used, the design came out really smudged on the yoga mat. i recommend on highly textured non-clothes stuff it may be better to use the yudu inks cuz they're a lot thicker.



and all that smudging went up on the back of the screen, too - something i didn't think about until i tried screenprinting a pillowcase with the glue gun design...


(i still kinda like it though!)

and THEN i put it on a tee using the yudu gold metallic ink! i don't know if speedball has a shiny gold and silver fabric ink but if they don't the yudu brand is totally worth it!



and THEN i made some of these notecards! i think they'd be fun invitations if you're planning a crafty party night a your house - or if you're in a craft mafia chapter (like me!) and you're inviting new members to join they'd also be super cute!



and THEN i screenprinted my dog! i think it turned out pretty good, check it out:



and that about does it for my adventures with the yudu today! it's time to talk CONTEST! first place gets the kelly green "get made" tshirt pictured in this blog post - i only have one available right now in an american apparel unisex size small, so if you don't wear that size and you win you can maybe give it to a friend or bake it into a pie! second place gets a turquoise "get made" greeting card!

here's how it works - this'll be a random drawing, and there's a few different ways to get chances to win, and you can participate in more than one of these to get extra chances:

1) comment about this blog post!

2) twitter a link to this blog post and send me the link as proof

3) post a link to this entry on your blog and send me a link as proof

4) write a haiku about screenprinting in the comments of this post

5) share a link to this blog post on facebook or myspace and send me a link as proof

you've got until friday may 15th at midnight so get cracking and have fun! winner will be chosen from random drawing and will be notified via email! GOOD LUCK!

that voodoo that yudu so well - part 1, how i learned to stop worrying and love the yudu

ok i'm really bummed that i JUST found my camera that's been missing for a week or more - i wanted to photodocument getting to know my yudu better! it was gonna be perfect... photos of us taking long walks on the beach, romantic candlelit dinners, canoodling at the movies - but instead you get just boring old stupid words!

except sometimes my words have been known to be at least a little entertaining.

but still. the plans i had for the pictures.

ugh. i'm buildig a bridge and getting over it!

so as i mentioned before, my superawesome amazing faboo rad honkytonk husband josh surprised me (us, we're sharing it, i keep forgetting that!) with one of those spanky new fancy yudu machines a couple of weeks ago! and i was so busy getting ready for Unique LA and workin on freelance projects on top of freelance projects that i juuuuuust got to crack that baby open last night!

i have to tell you that i've done the regular way of screenprinting before, and i was a tiny bit skeptical the first time i saw a yudu. it's by the same people that brought you the cricut, which is great for scrapbookers but not so much for people that wanna make their own die cut designs... i don't wanna be rude but my first impression was i kinda thought that it would be a very lowest common denominator type thing that would make low quality stuff for folks who just don't wanna be bothered with learning how to really screenprint. then i saw the yudu display at michaels, and started reading labels and kinda learning more about it, and had to tell josh very sheepishly "uh hey i know when you mentioned it i said it was dumb, but, uh, i kind of really super want a yudu. like really bad. so uh... sorry, and my birthday's coming up in july hint hint"...

and he ended up buying it early thank god! so far i am a total screenprinting convert and i'll tell you why:

1) shit on the yudu is all the same steps as traditional screenprinting but easier (once you get the hang of it). there's still emulsion and darkroom scenarios, but it's less time consuming!

2)if you mess up on burning a screen, it doesn't take a crapload of work and scrubbing to reclaim your screen - it takes like a minute. in your kitchen sink. while you hum to yourself. i have old-school wood frame screenprinting screens that haven't turned out right (from like YEARS ago) that i still haven't reclaimed because it's a huge pain in the ass!

3) as far as i can tell so far, the quality of the actual screens and supplies isn't inferior to old-school screenprinting. they say don't use any other inks but yudu inks, but i did find a website that tested using riso inks (like for the gocco) on the yudu screens and it worked fine. and they're cheaper. i'll be testing using the speedball fabric screenprinting ink i normally use in the future, will letcha know how that goes!

if you've never seen a yudu before totally check out the demo from handmade detroit, it's a good one!

so here's how burning the screens for the first time worked out for me: i burned some screens after watching the demo video and following yudu's specific directions and none of those screens turned out right. i reclaimed the same screen like 3 or 4 times. and then i got tired. later i came back to it, tried a few different things, and EVERY screen came out effing perfect.

so without further ado, here's my tutorial tips on how to prepare the perfect yudu screenprinting screen for exposing!

1) mood lighting: keep your lights dim the entire time so you don't forget what you're doing and ruin your emulsion sheet! i wrecked one by going into the kitchen to get something and flipping on a light - FAIL!

2)wet it and forget it: forget about the "dont get the screen too wet" part of yudu's instructions. i ran my screen under the kitchen faucet from the front and reverse side. then i wipe off the extra drippy water from the metal screen edges.

3) lay it on me sistahpants! so now (IN YOUR DIMLY LIT ROOM!!! NO DIRECT LIGHTING!) take your emulsion sheet and peel the plastic sheet off the side that comes off easy - then put it sticky side down on the back of your screen (the flat side), being careful to center it as you lay it down. (can't tell which is the sticky side? lick your finger and touch a corner, you'll figure it out real quick!) run your squeegee down it lengthwise, and then widthwise making sure to press out all the air bubbles.

then comes my special trick to make sure it's wet enough - holding it in your hand, look at the screen from the opposite side. lightly lightly spray that other side a couple of times with a water bottle, and run your squeegee once lengthwise along the screen. (from that side you just sprayed).

at this point, the green emulsion should look really even on both sides. if you've got any areas that look splotchy (they call it spiderwebby) you're not going to have a good end result. it should look really good and clean and even after doing my special trick. if not, try misting it again from that reverse side.

note: if your emulsion looks effed up before you dry it and expose it, you will end up with a bad screen. best to try again with a fresh sheet instead of going through the whole process to find out later it didn't turn out how you wanted it.

also note: drying time for my techniques is significantly longer than following yudu's instructions to the letter, but the results have been great every time.

also also note: your mom called and told me you're out of the family. sorry!

so the rest of it is business as usual following yudu's instructons:

4)dry that shit! after your emulsion looks lovely, put that screen in the drying rack and run the fan on it! using my method with more wetness involved, i think i averaged three to four 20-minute dry cycles before the screen was dry enough for exposing. you'll know when it's dry enough when it looks really even (and not wet at all) on both sides. test it by picking the plastic backing off the emulsion in a corner and peeling a tiny bit of it off. if it comes off really easy you're done! if it doesn't DON'T FORCE IT! put that thing back in the dryer and let it dry!

5) picture perfect pictures! ok one thing i tried from my old-school screenprinting techniques is i ran outta yudu transparencies, so i used vellum instead to print my image on. and i don't know if it was because that was a screen i did at like 2am and i think i messed up a bunch of things or what, but the vellum did NOT work at all. so don't do it! i do really like the yudu brand transparencies - they have a little bit of a tooth to em, so the images don't get all smeary when they come outta my inkjet printer.

from that point on i did pretty much everything to yudu's specifications - exposed the image for 9 minutes instead of 8 cuz i like to go the extra mile just to be sure, rinsed out the screen with cold water, and every one i've done since i started following these techniques has come out AWESOME.

oh wait one more thing. when you're done burning your screen and you've rinsed the unexposed green gunk out, i don't think it's necessary to use the yudu's fan for drying it. if you've got the time just blot off the excess water and set it up against a wall for a bit to dry. if you don't got the time hairdryer that shit!

another exciting thing i wanna share about the yudu is that i have a graphic i designed like 4 years ago that i've tried burning to screens the old fashioned way like 4 or 5 times with zero success because the line work was a little fine and frankly i'm not the best screen-burner in town. but following the above techniques i was FINALLLY able to get a clean burn of that image onto the screen and i am really effing excited about that! because it's pure comedy and it makes me chuckle!

so anyways, that's it for tonight - i'll be testing out the printing tomorrow, and like i said i found my camera so expect to see pics of the screens i burned and the printing process! pow!

hearts and laserbeams book report: the complete short stories of ambrose bierce

ok so my little brother brandon is the reason i picked up this book - he totally digs this guy, especially the story "an occurrence at owl creek bridge". and since my bro has good taste, i figured i'd give this author a shot.

so i went through the titles they had at barnes and noble, and i figured go big or go home, i'd get his complete works! i don't think there's an author out there i've read all of outside of jim davis' garfield books so it'd be kinda cool to say i'd read every single short story this dude has written!

and with that i give you my book report!

hearts and laserbeams book report: the complete short stories of ambrose bierce by ambrose bierce

SNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i could end my book report right there, but that may not be quite informative enough... so here we go -

this guy is cool, i will give him that - check out this pic:


image from http://bierce.thefreelibrary.com/

dig that 'stache!! no wonder my brother likes this dude - he's got kinda a mark twainy feel about him. (another favorite author of el brando)

ok so on to the actual book - this book is split into 3 parts: part 1, bierce's horror stories. part 2, his war stories. part 3, his tall tales.

the best thing about old-timey horror stories is that they're nothing like today's scary shit! can't handle the hostels, the saw 1-2-3-4-however many of em there ares, the snakes on a planes? make way for the horror stylings of ambrose bierce, where every story reads like this!

"ok there was guy, see? and he was travelling through the woods one night - and he meets this mysterious stranger, and they start talking and it's just kinda strange! and then after they part ways and he gets where he's going, he later finds out HE WAS TALKING TO A GHOST!!!! WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!"
(that's my scary ghost noise)

i gave this book a shot, i really did, but MAN this book could not hold my interest! and so, after my valientest of efforts, i gave in an gave up on this book about 119 pages into it. (it's 496 pages long).

so uh... i guess i don't really have anything else to say about it! lemme know if you wanna give ol' biercey a try and i'll send you my copy, maybe you'll fare better with it! first come first served! (remember i post my blog on a bunch of different sites, so be quick if ya want this book!)

ratings:
hearts: 2 heart - i am pretty sure this guy had a formula and it seemed to work for him cuz he wrote a ton of short stories!
farts: 3 farts - but MAN i could just not get into it!

pics of dao's art show!

last night gayle and i drove down to laguna beach (which thanks to roller derby i cannot say without pronouncing it laguna beeyatch in my brain) to see our friend dao's pieces in an art show!

her pieces were really cool - kinetic art and more modern stuff generally doesn't hold my attention long but this stuff was neat because it actually had story and a point behind it, rather than "hey i was fuckin around with some stuff and made this thing waddaya think?"



this one was really great - she strung together TONS of led lights and programmed them to re-create a photo of her father. when the lights in the room were out it looked like this, and when the lights in the room came back on the leds changed so that he was still recognizeable.

it's weird how my own art is just meant to be fun and fucking around and not too deep, but i want stories and pertinance in kinetic art... need to just let go and enjoy it i guess!

anyways, moral of the story is i really liked dao's stuff, and if you have a chance you should check it out while it's there:

skin deep
dao nguyen and richard hutter
march 17 - april 25
235 forest ave
laguna beach, ca 92651
(949) 497-1880

la zoo pics!

ok i feel like i have about 20 billion things i'm working on simultaneously today, but i wanted to share some pics with you! josh and i went to the l.a. zoo last tuesday, and it turns out that when it's like 70 degrees and a weekday that's the best time for the zoo! it's not busy and all of the animals are out and it's totally sweet! click on the giraffe and take a look at all our rad pics - more blogging later today on a really cool art show gayle and i went to last night!

coming soon! crafty hearts and laserbeams workshops!

i worked like gangbusters last week to get together some proposals for craft classes i'd love to teach - it was really fun to have a few days where i did nothing but paint, sew, glitter and glue!

the great news is after meeting with the kids are alright here in long beach, i've got 3 workshops lined up for the upcoming months! better pics will be coming in the near future, but let me share these dates so you can mark your calendar!

on wednesday, april 22 (that's earth day!) from 5-9pm i'll be leading a painted flowerpots workshop and having a trunk show of my newest fun paper goods and housewares! so come paint some flowerpots (they make great mothers day presents!) with us and bring the kids - this project's great for all ages! it'll be $12 per painted pot to participate, which includes all needed materials and a packet of seeds for planting!

on thursday, may 28 from 6-9pm i'll be leading a painted wine glasses workshop, complete with boozey goodness for participants! this workshop will be $30 per person, which includes all materials needed to paint two wine glasses, wine for drinking, and guarunteed good times! (21 and over for this event please!)

on sunday, june 14 from 2-5pm i'll be leading a handcarved stamp workshop! learn how to make your own stamps with a woodcut flair and make some notecards with your creations! this project would be perfect for making a special father's day card and with supervision can be a great project for kids! (adult supervision required since sharp cutting tools will be used.) this workshop will be $30 per person, which includes all materials needed to carve some rad stamps! (cutting tools can be purchased at end of class for an additional $10)

that's it for now - interested in having a crafty class as part of your upcoming birthday party or event? i've got a whole slew of other classes available, shoot me an email at heartsandlaserbeams@gmail.com and we'll make it happen!

who wants to see something new!!!

this here is a photo of the huzzz josh cutting open one of those heineken minikegs with his dremel tool. lookit those sparks fly! there was a rattley noise coming from inside the empty keg so he wanted to see what was inside - i predicted an even smaller keg of beer! unfortunately getting inside this thing is hard work and we don't have access to a chain saw so the project was abandoned.

and that's not the only show and tell i've got for today!



check out our dog jimmy the greek on a brand new coaster set! 50% of the price of these coaster sets will benefit the humane society, cuz we're huge fans of helpin out the homeless animals!

there's all kinds of new stuff in the shop today, including mousepads, coaster sets, stationery and personalized easter plates!



order your easter plates soon soon soon, cuz it takes a little time to get em made up - unfortunately there's not quite time to get them if you're international, but U.S. orders can be placed until march 22 with guarunteed easter delivery!

this totally counts as a post!

sorry i don't have a faboo picture to share today, i've been super busy!

i worked on a freelance project this morning, and then a bunch of new things for the shop tonight - i hope to get everything photo'd and listed tomorrow! it's really exciting all the stuff i have planned for this line of fun designy things, i just hope it all works out!

i'm finishin off my night with watching some dancing with the stars. i can't help it i get sucked in every season - who's your favorite to win? i know steve-o's probably gonna get shitcanned in the first few weeks, but i'd love to see him take the championship and go on to star in save the last dance 3: revenge of julia stiles' ghost!

disneyland fun times!

two days in a row, we're back on blogging track!



friday i got to go to disneyland with my sister michelle and her kids for a few hours, it was so much fun! it wasn't too busy, we were only there a few hours, it was all in all pretty sweet!

we ran around on tom sawyer's island for a while, took jacob on star tours for the first time ever, and got to see my other sister danielle hard at work! make sure you take a look at the pics i took and keep an eye out for her - she's got a big red nose and carries an axe!



then that night i spent a bunch of time working on top secret projects! i hope to be able to share soon, it's gonna be a ton of fun for everyone! pow!

karaoke party pics!

aw nuts, it's been a couple of days since my last post! i'm trying to get back into the swing of writing every day like i used to; sometimes things are so busy it slips my mind!

like these past couple of days - wednesday night was my buddy shannon and i's last chance to karaoke together before her move next week to denver, colorado! we went to clancy's in long beach and it. was. awesome!

i'm getting ready for an open house right now because we're trying to sell our condo, otherwise i'd give you the full and complete rundown of the night's activities - instead i'll just tell you that you should click here to see the pics we took!

by the way, if you or someone you know is looking for a condo in downtown long beach definitely check out www.1919beverlyway103.com and also please buy it! i'll love you forever!

easy peasy nice and cheesy!

last night josh and i busted out our new fondue pot for some cheese-dipping delicousness!

we used this recipe!

and then, because i'm in the process of coming down with a nasty cold, i was alseep on the couch by 7pm. at around 9pm i woke up and realized i should just give up and go to bed. so i said good night to josh, grabbed my phone, and as i was plugging it in i was like OMG i got a text from my brother brandon!

this is news because el brando is an old school sort who is not too fond of things like the internets and texting. it's part of what makes him awesome. he's like the dude from big lebowski, but more sean penn looking.

so i read his text and it says, and i quote:
"best buy is giving away $250.00 gift cards to the first two-thousand callers due to some "lawsuit" i just got one; i was #381. 1-800-429-5683"

and i was like hot damn i will put off going to sicksleep for five minutes and get us some best buy goodness! i try calling the number, and it's busy.

i try calling again, and it's busy.

again.

busy.

again.

busy.

finally, i think on the 11th try i got through! SUCCESS!!! i hear some fun music and then a voice welcomes me to THE BIG GAY CHATLINE!!!

I GOT SERVED!!!!

i called brandon immediately after this and we shared a hearty chuckle and then i went to bed!

the end!!!

also, just a heads up i just got signed up as a contributer on the found handmade blog! make sure you check it out periodically throughout the day, there's a bunch of us folks that'll be sharing amazing links to handmade goodies on the internets for your shopping enjoyment!

what does it mean?!?!?

ok i very recently saw a dude who had a large circular/ovally tattoo on the back of his upper arm (can't remember if it was left or right arm). let's start a new feature on the hearts and laserbeams blog, where we the experts deduce what the hell that tattoo means!

1) he's a huge fan of oprah, and more specifically the oprah book club, so much so that he felt the need to commemorate his newfound love of literature. i'm guessing his favorite read was Black and Blue by Anna Quindlen, cuz lord knows i wanted to beat him up!

2) he could also be a current or past fan of using his vaccuum cleaner to give himself fake hickeys.

3) it's a zero, standing for how many other people should get this same tattoo. or standing for how many compliments he has gotten on this tattoo. or standing for how many minutes he spent deciding on whether a circle tatto was a good idea.

4) maybe he likes cheerios? or spaghetti-os?

zing!

best. job. ever.

the winner of "best job ever" has got to be my sister danielle, who is currently interning on the kevin and bean morning show here in l.a.

if you need proof, click here for the link, click on "kevin and bean" on the left sidebar and watch the kevin and bean tv video called "beermug eats prison cheetos". my sister danielle, rockin' a green shirt and short hair, shows up on the left side of the screen a few times as she follows the djs directions on how to make a prison recipe for cheetos.

lemme say it again.

best. job. ever.

revenge of the reinbeer!!!

ok check it out, for xmas this last year, our buddy gayle gave josh and i a couple of these awesome reinbeer!



and for whatever reason, the beer in our house is always slow to go. i don't know if it's because it's on the bottom shelf of our fridge and it just kinda weirdly gets forgotton? so anyways, here we are at the end of february and those little guys STILL hadn't been drunk! something i'm not proud of!

on saturday night i was hanging out with gayle and her buddy wes, and we were at the pike and having beers, and she ordered something deliciously hoppy and i got my wussy ladylike wyder pear cider, and she point blank asks me "have you drank those reinbeer yet?"

and in my head i was like OH SHIT. and in my mouth i was like "uh yeah! totally!" cuz i didn't wanna be rude and say no i always forget there's beer in my fridge because the rum is right at eye level!

i'll tell you what i TOTALLY got called on it!! the next thng out of her mouth was "cuz the last time i came over (which was recently) they were still in your fridge!"

and i had to fess up. and i had to dedicate a post to gayle, the reinbeers and her delicious HOPS HOPS HOPS!

and i also had to prove that one of them is now gone!



also fun for today, i got featured on found handmade! check out the link and let em know what you think!

imagonna stitch the shit outta it!

today was all kinds of fun! drove up to handmade galleries in sherman oaks cuz the crafty chica has written a new book and she was havin a book signing slash crafty demo, and it was just really cool getting to sit with some of my fave crafty peeps chattin and sewing and laughing and we just had a blasty!

this was my first time meeting the crafty chica (aka kathy cano-murillo), and she was just SUPER nice! her demo was puffy appliques, where you cut a picture from one piece of fabric and applique it to a contrasty piece of fabric - stitch around the edge, add some polyfill inside, and pow! adorableness!

i wish i had thought to get my camera out and snap some pics of the cool stuff people were doing; i was just so into doin my little embroidery thing i lost track of the photodocumenting! it's always kinda fun to just go with the flow without having any sort of plan - i sat there for 3 hours just adding more and more to my piece and here's how it turned out:



and i also picked up a copy of her new book AND 2 little bottles of glitter because i heart glitter like no ones business!



and also, jenny ryan of felt club fame had a book signing on friday at reform school which i also went to and it was ALSO faboo! stay tuned, in the future i'm gonna do a book report on her book, too!

book reports for everyone!

and now i'm kickin back and watchin the oscars!

guess what i like pancakes!

ok, just in case you haven't heard...

i'm obsessed with nannerpuss.

have you seen nannerpuss? he was the star of a dennys superbowl ad, and he is AWESOME. you can see for yourself if you click on this link. you'll recognize him on the page as the yellow octopus-like chap sitting jauntily atop a pile of delicious pancakes! deeeeeelicious i tell you!

my favorite part of the commercial, is if you watch real close he actually rips one of his eyes off half-way through. THAT is how committed he is to selling you hot tasty dennys breakfasts!

anyhow, i am cleaning up for an open house this morning, sat down for what was supposed to be five minutes to answer a couple of emails, and ended up making this:



the question for you the public: what do you think of nannerpuss and wouldn't you like to see more of him? comments please!

TOTALLY AWESOME UPDATE!! oh and also you know i'm totally entering my pic in this contest!

guess who's wickedly chic!

i was ceremoniously dubbed wickedly chic's "reader of the week" this week, and to celebrate i will now eat a hamburger covered in chocolate!

oh i'm sorry that's wickedly gross, not chic.

uh... this is awkward.... lookit the pic they used, i love it! it's from josh and i's honeymoon at the fanciest wendys ever in st thomas.



(that totally makes it sound like we honeymooned at wendys, and maybe we did. we just really heart frostys, don't judge us!)

25 things you absolutely have to know about me or else you may die...

ok so i've been tagged to do this a bunch of times on facebook and am juuuuuust now getting to it! let's all meet your friendly neighborhood steph!

1) i just had a cup of coffee, that is pretty important. it was delicious and i want another one. it had some of that flavored creamer in it, i believe it was "spiced vanilla rum" by international delights. and i agree, that shit was a delight!

2) i've always been a very casual swearer, i have no idea why. like this has been going on since grade school.

3) i was gonna put this first but coffee and swearing is more important - i started going blind in my left eye back in 2000, and finished going more blind by about 2002. it started with central serous retinopathy that happened twice in different parts of my left eye, and then all kinds of other wacky shit that snowballed from the scar tissue from the laser treatments. it was a really scary time in my life because they weren't really sure what the eff was going on with some of it, and i was tested for all kinds of things from syphillis to brain tumors. the start of it was unclear but most likely stress-related, and the end of it was a pretty large blind spot in my left eye. i still have peripheral vision in that eye so wearing an eye patch is unfortunately not an option because i can still sort of see outta that eye, which leads me to:

4) i heart pirates and eye patches!

5) i also LOVE trashy tv, some favorites include: bold and the beautiful, americas next top hobag, wifeswap, boston public, 90210, the bachelor, clean house, uhhhhh whut else did i forget OH YES also real housewives of atlanta is freaking awesome.

6) i should've met my huzzzz josh like years before i actually did, because he'd been friends with my sis michelle for ages beforehand!

7) i've had braces for almost 2 weeks!

8) i've been self employed for aaaaallllmost a year and it's the best and i am so grateful for it. commuting and corporate environments are not necessarily the best fits for me

9) i met my bestest buddy jenn when i moved to wisconsin to work at oshkosh bgosh, and once we got in trouble for work for being too loud and jovial about having gone to work dressed as pirates. (see number 4)

10) my favoritest movies ever include the life aquatic and zoolander. and i saw pulp fiction 6 times in the theater when it came out. i also hated no country for old men.

11) i learned to knit in the winter 2003 because i was bored as hell in wisconsin, but have continued with it and love it! i've picked up a little crocheting here and there but knitting is definitely my yarny weapon of choice

12) when i was like 3 or 4 i danced with my dance class in a HORRENDOUS ruffley pink costume at dodger staduim during the 7th inning stretch. if my photo albums weren't packed up in storage i would totally show you that crap!

13) i miss savannah georgia like crazy and cannot wait to move back there someday soon.

14) i can't handle eating kraft macaroni and cheese without having apple sauce on the same plate - it just seems sick and wrong.

15) i like to shoot a lot!!! i'd never been around guns and stuff before meeting my rad husband josh, and have picked up a lot since we got together, and totally like shooting! everybody freeze!!!

16) i have an idea for a book that's been rolling around in my head for years and i think it could be really cool but i have yet to write it or even start it. i just know that someone like cameron diaz would be perfect for the lead should they ever take my unwritten book and make it into a movie.

17) i almost joined the oc rollergirls about a year ago, but the distance to practice coupled with the money involved made it not really an option for me... i am still entertaining thoughts of skating as scary poppins, because the savannah roller derby team practices about 15 minutes from where we'll live and is only $25 a month as opposed to the $65 the oc league charges.

scary poppins totally isn't my first choice in names; i really want helen killer but there's already someone skating under that name and there can be only one. it's like highlander with shorter skirts and more asskicking.

18) i went through a phase in high school where i was REALLY into the band queen. to the point where i think at last count i had like 13 cds of theirs...

19) i heart karaoke like no ones business, because i am a huge fan of making an ass of myself in public.

20) i buzzed my head twice in college - twice because i didn't learn the first time around. as a girl, when you buzz your head it looks awesome at first, but then because all of your hair is the exact same length as it grows in it's very puffball and stupid looking!

21) don hertzfeldt is my animation hero. except for his newer experimental stuff... i remember watching "the meaning of life" and going uh... what happened to this dude?

22) 2 of the worst jobs i've ever had: working at mr. wok at the oglethorpe mall handing out samples and scoopin chinese food (and cleaning their bathrooms which perpetually had pee EVERYWHERE), and cleaning houses. cleaning houses SUCKS.

23) i caused a ruckus in 8th grade when my class went to the white house - i had one of those combs that looked like a switchblade in my purse and when it went through the xray scanner, security went apeshit and searched the next bag that came out of the scanner and found nothing. because they weren't looking in my bag. aka i got to keep my comb. aka AWESOME.

24) an email i wrote got read live on good day wisconsin once - i wrote in to pete petoniak's weather whys feature saying "please explain the phenonemon of raining men and predict when it will happen again". and they did a whole feature on it about how it rained frogs somewhere once and how presumably that means it could quite possibly rain men someday. and they played the it's raining men song a lot, and had an awesome animation of raining frogs and i have that shit on vhs in storage and i wish i could put it on youtube for you. PURE COMEDY GOLD!

25) i stole a fire hydrant once and it sat in my living room for about a year before my friend brian gruhn helped me lug it outta there because all the plans i had for making it into a table or a lamp or something never happened.

i did not throw up!!!

that is one of the awesomest things about whale watching yesterday with josh and his friends - I DID NOT THROW UP!!

the last time i went whale watching, i think i was in 8th grade, and no lie i spent 87.5% of the trip back then hurlin in the bathroom. this time josh and i were totally prepared and took the max dose of dramamine an hour before activity, and no chunks! gods be praised!

it was a really fun trip followed by margaritas galore - we didn't actually see any whales, but we DID see a buttload of different kinds of dolphins and it was totally effing sweet. we were standing right along the railing at the front right corner of the boat, so these dolphins that were swimming with the boat were literally RIGHT below us. totally sweet.



click on the dolphins to see all the cool pics i got of em!

love is in the air!

i had so much fun working on valentines for fred flare's snail mail event i kept going and made some new designs for your v-day enjoyment! thanks for looking!

rock the vote, don't rock the vote baby, rock the vote don't tip the vote over!

dear dudes and dudettes,

i implore you to please pay a visit to http://misshb.org/vote_2009.html and vote for our friend emily z for miss huntington beach; she'll get a rad scholarship for college that would be super appreciated by her and her family!

sincerely,

steph

ps did you vote yet?

brace yourselves...

really the best way to show you these pics is to give you the conversation i was having with jenn as i shared em with her:

dehdohdee2: BRAAAAAAACEFAAAAAAACE1

pantone220: YESSSSSSSSSSS
pantone220: LETS SEEEE

dehdohdee2: thats what all the nurses chanted at me as i left the dentist
dehdohdee2: and then they threw things at me

pantone220: HAHAHAHAH

dehdohdee2: containers of wax and toothbrushes

pantone220: good good they got my message

dehdohdee2: HAHAHAHAHAHAH
dehdohdee2: ok i'm gettin the pics off my camera give me a couple of minutes

pantone220: yeah!

dehdohdee2: here's what's awesome about braces
dehdohdee2: i'm trying like hell to stop biting my nails and it's damn near impossible with em on

pantone220: more imporatantly what CANT you eat now

dehdohdee2: and they give you tons of NO SODA propaganda so that'll help
dehdohdee2: no sticky stuff like taffy and shit like that
dehdohdee2: no beef jerky is the killer

pantone220: bahahahah

dehdohdee2: cuz i dont eat it much
dehdohdee2: but i heart it so

pantone220: im sending you a ten foot tall taffy basket

dehdohdee2: HAHAHAHAHHAHAH i'm sending you to hell!!!

pantone220: hahahahah!

dehdohdee2: ok so here we go

pantone220: OMG

dehdohdee2: the nurse who was setting me up

pantone220: yea

dehdohdee2: when she got all the contraptions in my mouth that hold it open so they can do their dirty business,
dehdohdee2: she's all aw it's too bad you don't have someone here to take pics!

pantone220: hahahaha

dehdohdee2: and so i gestured that i had a camera and she took a pic for me



pantone220: yeah!

dehdohdee2: HAHAHHAHHAHHAHA

pantone220: HAHAHAHA OMG
pantone220: LMAOOOOOOOO

dehdohdee2: and then an hour and a half later i finished gettin my grill on



pantone220: HAHAHAH OMG

dehdohdee2: it totally feels like a grill too
dehdohdee2: i'm so hip hop

pantone220: so weird!

dehdohdee2: HAHAHAHHAHAHA

pantone220: HHAHAHA

dehdohdee2: it's like alien torture devices

pantone220: omg i cant believe it
pantone220: awesome
pantone220: you are goign to be americas next top hobag in no time

dehdohdee2: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAH sweet!!!

new sponsorship!

check out our new sponsor!



(site not actually sponsored by calvin klein, but i think you already knew that!)

my thoughts on toasted everything bagels with extra butter...

i was talking with jenn this morning about bagels and how much i heart them, and she told me there used to be a bagel place on broughton street in savannah that she'd go to with fanny all the time. and that it closed down, and there's a jewelry store there now. i was wondering... if you tied the above note to a brick and threw it through their window in the middle of the night would they maybe start offering toasted bagels along with their baguette diamonds?

SPACE CATS!!!

ok so last night gayle and i went and checked out cats at the orange county performing arts center! it was super awesome and we had a blasty gettin all dressed up and acting like classy ladies! (notice i said acting. jury's still out on whether or not i'm actually for realz classy.)

one of the coolest things about it was that i've had this "highlights from cats" cd for years and years, but i've never actually seen the musical or really knew anything about what it was about.

so i knew most of the songs by heart, but since i'd never actually seen it, there were surprises! some good, like the fact that the rum tum tugger is a total manslut cat, which was really funny. the one bad surprise is when that theater cat is singing about being a theater cat and then all of a sudden decides to perform one of his plays... and it's weird, and you can't understand anything he's talking about, and it kinda goes on too long... there's cool siamese cats prancin around but i really coulda done without that part...

it totally cracked me up that grisella the old raggedy tore up from the floor up cat keeps coming back to sing basically different versions of the same song - i kept picturing in my head that she was popping her head back onstage going "uh, hey guys, i'm super old, can i get reborn please? lookit how crappy my fur looks!" and it's like JEEZ give it a rest old duteronomy's tryin to decide stop pressuring him!!

aaaaaand what else. ok 2 awesome things - i recently bought this shirt from delias:



and am now obsessed with space cats. and at the end of cats, when old duteronomy gets tired of listening to grisella bitch and moan about being old and picks her, and they're on the platform floating up so he can send her to the heavyside lair to be reborn, and there's flashing lights and crap everywhere and it was all i could do to not yell out SPACE CATS!!! in the theater!!! and then of course i had a massive giggle fit, only stopped by the fist i shoved into my mouth.

the other supremely awesome thing about last night's show was they were having some technical difficulties with the wireless microphones, equalling a bit of buzzy feedback here and there. not an excessive amount, not enough or constant enough to really be an issue, but at the end of the musical, there's this huge group number where all the cats are singing, and there's a big ol' BZZZZZZZZZZT!!! that happens mid song that just sounds like a humongous fart. it was quite possibly the best thing ever.

which i guess answers the question about whether or not i'm a classy broad...

jingle bellzzz, batman smellzzzz

ok tonight josh, his bro chris and i went caroling with a group of folks from our building at the old folks homes one street over. i think the last time i went caroling was about 20 years ago back in grade school, and what's awesome is i'm a full grown adult and i STILL want to sing all the alternate jackassy lyrics to these songs!!! and i started really really wanting to make up alternate lyrics to santa claus is coming to town, because really how stalker is it to watch someone when they're sleeping, watch em when they're awake, watch em when they're taking a dump so make it a good one for goodness sake!

for the most part we were all good. but i could NOT resist, and the few times we sang silent night i did the obnoxious little kid thing where at the high notes (sleep in heavenly peaceeeeeeee) i went as high as i could, but i kept it kinda quiet so it wasn't too overpowering...

there was one kinda scary guy at the first old folks home that yelled at us a lot and seemed to single josh out almost making us think he wanted to fight, and then as we were leaving the room he got in his face and asked for a polaroid camera - maybe he was the long lost best friend of savannah's polaroid dude? i dunno!

after caroling was the afterparty at one of our neighbor's, and it was fun! we actually met and hung out with more neighbors! it was totally fun! i learned all their names! will i remember where they live and what their names are tomorrow? probably not, but stay tuned!

also, just fyi be advised, there's only a couple of days left to save 20% with free shipping at www.heartsandlaserbeams.com by using coupon code SPIKEDNOG08! offer good through 12/15!

why i heart the wii

ok if you have your wii hooked up to wireless internet it is awesome; they have a channel where you can download miis that other people have made. and all your miis, they show up in the various games in the wii fit, and just now i watched josh catching hula hoops thrown by hitler. and just now, he went on a "long distance run" and was waving to michael jackson as he ran through the park.

we've also downloaded chuck norris, britney spears from when she went crazy and shaved her head, and zoidberg from futurama.

and that's enough to keep me working out, the end! i give me and josh the golden robot award for being awesome!!!

plopcorn for everyone!

hope y'all had an awesome thanksgiving! ours was cool, nice and chill and good times all around ending with a ton of tasty food and me conkin out on the couch by 8pm! it's because i'm an old fogey, you see.

so there were some amazing deals out there for black friday, so much so that josh and i actually got up at 430am on friday to go to target! we got there by about 545am, and the line was HUGE. and really, honestly, one of the biggest reasons we went (aside from sale cameras!) was this:



josh had seen this popcorn maker at target a few weeks ago and fell in love. he's been wantin an air popper for a while cuz he hearts popcorn like no ones business and who knows what's in the microwave stuff!



here he is waiting oh so patiently for his first batch of old-timey-popcorn-popper-air-popped popcorn...



here's a shot of the popcorn popper's hole... yuk yuk yuk...



and the moneyshot!!! this popcorn maker's awesome, it shoots the kernels out pretty violently, like they bounce outta the bowl onto the floor sometimes! but oh so delicious! (the popcorn from the bowl, not the stuff from the floor, you understand.)

best thing about air-popped popcorn? you can put all the unpopped kernels back into the air popper for round 2! hooray!!!

also awesome about this weekend, i've been workin on 4 new paintings for the january bird show at cactus gallery - stay tuned for pics! on that note i gotta jet, caddyshack just came on ye olde television and it's totally beckoning to me!!!

notes from work - the thanksgiving edition!

ok so with tomorrow being thanksgiving, i have like a billion things on my to do list today - i thought i was being smart, and tried to get a bunch of it done before work. which left me running late to the office, as usual.


and of course, strangeness from the moment i get to my desk.


who the hell would leave a frozen turkey sitting on my laptop?!!?


i mean, there's all kinds of water, ice, condensation, things that are generally BAD FOR COMPUTERS!!! almost everyone here at hearts and laserbeams headquarters is pretty competent, so there's really only one person it could be--


and JUST as i was thinking that, guess who's boss comes breezing in.
"HI!!!" she says brightly... too brightly... i couldn't help thinking to myself what the eff is going on?!


i guess she could read that all over my face, cuz the next thing outta my boss's mouth was "what's your problem?" so i ask her what this thing is on my desk.


"mmmm, looks like a frozen turkey, genious," she says, "you oviously can't work like this why don't you go home early?"


"what are you talking about? i just got here," i tell her.


"whatever, happy thanksgiving, give me a hug and get out of here! but be here before 4am on friday, i'm going to kohls to buy gloves on sale and i want someone in the office just in case."

so... do i win because i got to go home early, or do i lose cuz i have to be here at 4am friday? i dunno... i'm just thankful my boss isn't a jerk ALL the time. have a great holiday folks!

jazz hands and the razzle zazzle!

it started innocently enough... this morning i thought i'd order some hearts and laserbeams logo stickers to include with my orders. you know, just a fun little packaging item. set up the file, ordered it on zazzle...

and before you know it i was finding all kinds of awesome things to make and it was 2 hours later! i love zazzle for being able to make things i can't, like printed skateboards and shoes - oh, the shoes. made 5 different pairs using the spoonflower repeats i created last week and they're adorable! these are my faves:



you should check out the rest of the stuff i made today, will be adding to it again soon!

portland weekend recap!

ok so as you know we went to portland last weekend! we were visiting our buddies rachael and justin (of the ruckus fame, it was halloween, justin is currently in an agatha christie play, so it was a busy few days chock full of fun!

we flew on jet blue, and normally telling you about our vacation wouldn't include saying what airline we used because it usually leaves us super-surly. but omg jet blue is the bomb. you know those commercials where the music is superhappy and feelgood and it just makes you all bubbly inside watching it? it's all true! friendly employees! free snacks! leg room for days! tv at every chair so i didn't have to miss the halloween episode of the office! it was fabulous!

ok so our first day there, rachael and justin took josh, gayle and i to a little breakfast joint in downtown milwaukie (where they live). after breakfast we walked around town a little bit, and near the library there were a bunch of ducks engaging in duck butt showing activities:



we also saw possibly the coolest logo ever:



later in the day, justin went to play rehearsal and rachael was cool enough to take us WAY out of the way to the pumpkin patch. this was seriously the high point of our weekend cuz all josh and i wanna do is run away and start a farm. we went through a corn maze, where josh adopted a lonely ear of ground corn and ate almost all the kernels off of it through the course of the rest of the weekend:



after the maze we all hiked out to their pumpkin patch and picked out some faboo pumpkins - my camera's battery died while we were out there so i didn't get to document what our jack-o-lanterns ended up looking like, but rest assured they were awesome!

went home to don halloween costumes to wear to the opening night of justin's play - i had a pocket full of clear plastic rhinestones with me, and every stranger i talked to that night i gave them a handful of "diamonds" and told them very seriously, "these have always brought me luck". and NO ONE knew who i was, which made it that much more awesomely hilarious. the halloween party following the play was also a hoot, lots of good costumes all around! this worked out well, because when josh and i were tasked with coming up with what the no costume penalty would be, the best we could come up with is "you must drink a cup of pee and get raped."




the next day, justin had his play all day and gayle, josh, rachael and i met some of rach's friends for a tour of the shanghai tunnels underneath portland... can't post any pics of that because they watch that stuff like a hawk, but it was kind of sort of more than a little anticlimactic and i don't know if i'd recommend it to a friend... basically you don't see tunnels you see one place's basement and hear a LOT of references to tv shows that talk about tunnels, and way way way way too many little stories that don't necessarily need to be part of a tour. it was fun hanging out with everyone so i wouldn't say it was a total goose egg, but i don't think i would need to go back to that...

sunday started out as a bummer of a day - somewhere in the course of saturday night burroughs the cat got out of the apartment, and it sucked. totally sucked. burroughs is an awesome cat. so we all spent most of the day working on getting him back. he came home that night though, which is completely awesome. (i was way more excited about the cat coming home than i was that i just saw a basement in downtown portland, by the way...) he came home while a bunch of us had gone out to hang out with josh's buddy jerry that he's known since childhood and his wife also named rachel. this is what rachel looks like holding a camoflauged beer:



that night was pretty sweet, we went to a bar called dots in portland and hands down any place that has velvet paintings on the wall = best places on earth! after that we paid a visit to powells books and had our minds blown by the sheer size of it, and finished the night off with a trip to ground kontrol, this bar with a crapload of video games. got to play the elvira and addams family pinball machines, which are my favorite ones ever, so i count that as a win!

came home on monday afternoon, taking the train to the airport was super easy and highly recommended! the flight home was on-time and just as rad as the flight out, so lemme just say again jet blue rools!

that's my story and i'm sticking to it, there's a buttload more pics of this adventure at my flickr page so enjoy!

notes from work: halloween costume contest

omg guys, i love halloween!

y'all know i'm working full time at hearts and laserbeams now; i was so excited to hear that they have a halloween costume contest! hearts and laserbeams really knows how to treat its employees well, and 1st prize in their yearly contest wins a bottle of wine and a nap on company time. these are both things i feel very strongly about, so i knew my costume had to be tops.

a couple of weeks ago i was looking through a thrift store, and i found it. the winner. perfection. as soon as i saw this polyester blue dress, everything in my field of vision went to soft focus and i heard a heavenly voice say "these have always brought me luck".



it was that moment i knew i absolutely had to be liz taylor circa the white diamonds commercial for halloween.



so this morning, i got to work bright and early and started checking emails. i brought a bunch of rhinestones to spread around my desk for effect, and was feeling very, very sure of myself that this contest was in the bag.


that is, until our receptionist came by my desk to drop off the latest issue of craft magazine.


i couldn't believe it - our new receptionist, steph, had THE EXACT SAME COSTUME AS ME.


"what the hell is this?" i asked her.
"i don't know what your problem is," she replied, "white diamonds liz taylor is huge this year."


"like have you seen steph the janitor?" she asked, "she's liz taylor, too."


"and so is steph in I.T., and our accountant steph," she continued.


well this just sucks! turns out our jerky bosslady's got a penchant for ol' lizzy, too. effing wonderful.


"what the hell you want?" my boss asked "you know i'm tryin to watch people's court."
when i reminded her we were supposed to be having the contest first thing in the morning, she told me to get everyone together so she could judge it real quick during the commercials.


"hmmmm.... this is pretty tough," she says, "you guys all look so... lame."


she continued, saying "yeah i can hardly even tell who you're supposed to be."


she whips out her bottle of white diamonds and yells "obviously my attention to detail means i win, suckas!"


"and lemme just say, i wanna thank all the little people... i couldn't have won this prestigous award without you all looking like crap and i really appreciate that."


with that, she drank the whole bottle of wine and passed out for the rest of the work day.

as soon as she was unconscious, we all stole from her wallet and went home for the day so i guess in the end, everybody wins!

happy halloween everyone!

custom hearts and laserbeams fabric on the horizon!

have you heard of spoonflower? i found out about this site through a friend a few months ago - you can basically create your own fabric repeats, send it to them, and order fabric with your artwork printed on it! super exciting because the mix of art and math that comes with a good repeat makes it one of my favorite things ever to do.

the site's in beta mode right now, so if you sign up you do have to wait a while for your invite to go through, but rumor on the street is they'll be up and running for all in just a few weeks!



yesterday i ordered a fat quarter of this plaid i designed a while back - if all goes well, i'll be designing a bunch of different fabrics and offerin em for sale, AND i'll be able to make things like pouches and skirts and aprons and so on completely one of a kind hearts and laserbeams style! SO EXCITING!!!

little bits and pieces...

1) we've been watchin a lot of movies lately!

i saw secret life of bees last weekend without the boy - i generally don't make him take me to chick flicks unless it looks like something that maybe he might be into - like the baxter, that movie ended up being one of our favorites ever. anyhow, he went out hunting last weekend so i went and checked out the latest oprah recommendation. and it was really, really good, loved every minute of it. if you get a chance, totally go. my favorite part was that the movie sort of had a honey-tinged gold color to it. i don't know why i liked that so much; it was just really pretty and subtle and oh dear lord all the scenery in the south is gorgeous. it's a little weird seeing dakota fanning grow up.

sunday night we rented no country for old men, and i know it got really high marks and all that last year but holy crap could not get into this movie. like to josh and i, it pretty much just flat out stunk. and then the next day we ended up at the $3 theater and saw house bunny, which may be the worst movie of all time, but still better than no country for old men. is that possible?

2) one of my photos is on it's way to being in a book!

i got an email from the fabulous folks at www.wefeelfine.org last week, asking permission to use a photo from my blog in an upcoming book of theirs. they scour blogs on the internets and find blog entries that talk about feelings and things, and found my blog entry about when i bought my current printer last summer, and how much i effing love my printer and want to make out with it.

and i had posted a pic of what i did to try out the copier function:



i love love love that this is the photo they want to use. here's the entry they found on livejournal - aside from my own website, i post my blog to myspace, livejournal, facebook, and so on to increase readership and i guess it worked so hooray!!

3) i ordered a photo studio kit off of ebay today so i can take cooler photos of my artstuffs for the shop, so i can't wait for it to get here!

4) i'm hungry

5) you should make me a hamburger!

6) i haven't done a book report in a while; i'm currently reading a marketing book and it's slow going because non-fiction honestly isn't as fun but i'm still gonna finish it and report back. after that it's back to good-ol fiction!

7) i'm still hungry

8)josh's mom sent us a bunch of halloween candy today and i plan on eating every bit of it tonight!

notes from work: jury duty

so yesterday i had jury duty, meaning i didn't have to go in to the office, which was rad.

it was a pretty interesting day - sat in the jury waiting room for 2 hours, and then got called with a group to go into a courtroom. was one of the first ones called up to get interviewed as a potential juror, and as they told our group the specifics of the case, and named all the witnesses prosecution would call, they mentioned four long beach cops. being a cop wife myself, that was the moment i knew i would be cut. and when i had to tell them about myself, and what i do and what my husband does, i really knew i would be cut. and four hours later, i was, so no big fatty 4 day criminal trial for me this time suckas!

it's kinda too bad, i was really digging the inside scoop on people's court style procedures and would've liked to have seen the entire trial... but at least i could get back to work!


so this morning, i got to work and started checking emails.



i was all relaxed, had my proof of jury service certificate sitting there for my boss.



i hear her barge into the office (she's a bit overdramatic sometimes about mornings) - she comes right over to my desk and demands my jury service form.



"calm down pumpkin, it's right here", i told her and handed it over.



"you know this shit looks forged, right?" she said. "didn't you write your name in yourself? this is totally your handwriting. i know your handwriting. did you bring your fifty bucks?"



"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT" i yelled at her, "you guys are supposed to pay me, or not pay me for jury duty days it's not the other way around!"


"listen dude i don't make the rules," my boss says, "all the laws are different when you're self-employed."


"also, did you see that adorable cupcake hat on etsy? i'm totally gonna go buy one right now."


and then to add insult to injury she demanded that our secretary take a photo of her giving me back my jury form all official/graduation day style. my boss is a jerk.

beer me!

omg is it wrong to kind of sort of in a weird way think this is a cool purse?

it's right up there with novelty purses like this one that i love but will probably never carry...

hearts and laserbeams book report: the sun also rises

ok so my new thing is i'm trying to get back to reading, and i thought maybe i should share with you the viewing public what i've been reading and what i think about each book, and it's gonna be awesome, with a rating system and everything! and away we go!

the sun also rises by ernest hemingway

ok now here's what i learned early on about classic american literature. buy the cliff notes right off the bat because 71 pages into this book i had no idea what the hell i had just read. so i got the cliff notes (actually they're called "spark notes" if you buy em at barnes and noble these days) and read the chapter summaries of everything i had just read, and turns out the main character's weener doesn't work cuz it was shot up in world war 1.

ok maybe it wasn't shot off. but it doesn't work anymore. that's the main thing you need to know about main character jake barnes. then when the author subtley says "his ding don't dong no more", you'll know "oh, see his weener got hurt in the war, probably from carrying heavy artillery." (yuk yuk yuk)

so basically, this book is about jake barnes and his slutty girl friend brett. not girlfriend, mind you. she doesn't wanna get with him because he can't sleep with her, so she just sleeps around and then when she gets her heart broken she hangs out with him and picks up the pieces. and she's constantly talking about this other broke dude mike that she's going to marry because he's rich, and it's really hard to tell if she's making an ironic joke or is just delusional... in either case she talks about it so much i think she's kind of just an ass.

so the main message of this book - effed up releationships are timeless.

the other main character of the book, robert cohn, in a word, is a douchebag.

basically everyone in the book gets with lady brett ashley (don't get confused by the lady title, she's a ho)because she's the village bicycle, and it's all drunken one night stands, and then she goes away for a weekend with robert cohn and he falls for her hard and thinks it's true love and starts following her all stalkerlike even when she's hanging out with her main man mike...

there's a big fight scene where robert punches out mike and jake and then he wants to shake hands and make nice after... same thing happens with a bullfighter brett's sleeping with, except after he goes to shake that guy's hand he punches him in the face. which is totally effing rad.

also, there's lots and lots of boozing it up in this book. everyone and i mean everyone's getting drunk. except back in olden times they called it getting "tight". which sounds pretty dope.

uhhhhh what else. there's bullfighting, but it's kinda sad and gross cuz they talk about cutting the bull's ear off and things like that.

aaaaaaaaaand that's my book report of the sun also rises. if you like books about booze and sluts this one's for you! i tip my hat to you hemingway, only you could make something like this sound so damn classy.

ratings:
4 hearts - loved the boozin it up, was a fun read, once i found out the guy hurt his ween in the war i had a good time watching for subtle references about it. lots of great descriptions of the spanish countryside.

1 fart - hemingway could've been a lot more direct in telling people about this dude's weener malfunctions.

tips for public transport by justin rueff

next week i'll be trying out the train/bus system for the first time, going from long beach to the santa monica area. i had posted a myspace bulletin asking people for tips and tricks if they knew anything helpful that i maybe didn't see posted on the websites i had visited, and lo and behold my good friend justin rueff of the ruckus had a list of gems. for the betterment of all public transport users, i post them here. read them, learn them, live them. especially the part where justin gets presents, he loves that shit:

tips for using public transport
1.Don't distract the driver. He has an important job to do.

2.Don't fall asleep, you'll get mugged. That will make you miss your stop.

3.Don't make out with dudes under a blanket. The other riders will think poorly of you.

4.Wash your face. You should not travel with a dirty face.

5.Familiarize yourself with all escape routes in case of zombie outbreak on the train.

6. If you are on a bridge and the train jumps the tracks, don't panic. Usually Spiderman will come to your rescue in an exciting climactic scene where his mask rips off his face, and it's your duty as a citizen to say, "don't worry Spiderman, I'll protect your identity."

7. If the train should jump the track, do you want your money back? Yes? No? or Maybe-so?

8.Y-E-S spells yes and you are not it, you dirty old dish rag you.

9.Update your will to include giving all of your art supplies to Justin before leaving the house always.

10. If you decide to read a book, make sure it's one with a hilarious title like, "I fucking Hate the other people on this bus - by Steph Calvert"

11. On the back of the book it should have a giant black and white photo of your face so that they know it's coming from you.

12.Wear pants. The seats on the train don't get washed as often as you might think. Unless you think never, then they get washed exactly that often.

13.See if you can touch people's butts when they walk by you.

14.Back of the hand doesn't count.

15. If anybody starts staring at you and they look scary, start cleaning your nails with a knife.

16.Are they still looking at you? Clean your nails with a taser.

17.Please keep your hands and arms inside the train at all times.

18. If you're going to third street you should visit Puzzle Zoo. They have toys.

19.I like toys.

20.I also like presents.

21.I'm also leaving in like two weeks forever.

22.*ahem.

23.This helpful advice was provided to you completely free of charge.

24.Wasn't that nice of me?

go start a ruckus!

folks, josh and i were guests on rachael and justin's podcast this week and it was a blasty! the topic was disaster preparedness, something josh is WAY into - and it's funny to boot!

check out episode 9 here: www.theruckus.wordpress.com

also please enjoy the poster art by yours truly, with apologies to will smith...

today's debate...

a couple of weeks ago, josh and i were on our way home from popeye's on 7th street, and there was a billboard up that caught our attention.

it was all white, and said "i'm so over you sarah marshall" in a handwritten sharpie-like font. like this:


(photo by peter bretter)

we dismissed it as a teaser billboard for an upcoming teen movie of the john tucker must die variety, and the theory seemed to stick as we saw more of these billboards that said things like "my mother never liked you sarah marshall" and "you suck sarah marshall".

but then last night, josh and his buddy jay went to the website that's listed at the bottom of each of these billboards, and now we're not sure but it might be an actual for real thing.

or is it a stunt for a movie?! you make the call!!!

cute as hell...

you may or may not know, but my sister danielle has a radio show on her college's online station on tuesdays, 4-530pm.

now that i'm work-from-home girl, i get to listen to it again, hooray! she always plays a fun mix of stuff and almost always plays tenacious d when i ask her to, and for that she gets 20 gold stars.

so yesterday i tuned in, and it was the most adorable thing ever - every time, and i mean EVERY time the music stopped and danielle started talking again, our dog jimmy would run into the room with his tail wagging, looking for her.

it got to the point where he started looking in all of josh's hiding spots he uses when they're playing hide and seek - is danielle hiding in the shower? is she behind the door? where the eff is she, i can hear her i know she's somewhere!!!

it was awesome. the end. tune in next week when i find out if their call-in phone line still works, signalling the return of prank calls to the show hooray!

you can be a winner at the game of life!

pow! i came in fourth in craftsters' "craft your resolution" contest! thanks to all that voted! you can read all about it here.

aaaaaaaaand what else. i have 2 more days in the office next week before i'm officially a full-time hearts and laserbeams employee! freelancing and artsy fartsy adventures, here i come!

oh and kraft mac n cheese may just be the tastiest of all tasty dinners!

i've rearranged and added a couple of things on here; nothing too major, whaddaya think?

they eat candy!

they eat candy!
11" x 14" artwork in 2" black frame
acrylic on canvas
$175

available through january 31 at siren
2240 east 4th street
long beach, ca 90814

they drink too much part 2!

here's our partybot again, this time the party's in full swing and he boasts full lampshade regalia!



they drink too much #2
8"x10" artwork in handmade strip frame
acrylic on canvas
$125

available through january 31 at siren
2240 east 4th street
long beach, ca 90814

join us at the closing reception on january 26 from 6-8pm, won't you?

they drink too much!

part one of a three part series, here we see the party just getting started!



they drink too much #1
8" x 10" artwork in handmade black strip frame
acrylic on canvas
$125

available through january 31 at siren
2240 east 4th street
long beach, ca 90804

they get flat tires!

poor little guy, stuck on the freeway with a flat tire! won't you take him home?



they get flat tires
8" x 10" artwork in 2" black frame
acrylic on canvas
$100

available through january 31 at siren
2240 east 4th street
long beach, ca 90814

don't forget to come to the closing reception on 1/26/08, 6-8pm!

they go incognito number 2!

here's the companion piece to yesterday's painting, also a personal favorite!



they go incognito number 2
5" x 7" artwork in 2" black frame
acrylic on canvas
$100

available through january 31 at siren
2240 east 4th street
long beach, ca 90814

and why does it have to be sunday already? i'm declaring shenanigans!

omgomgomgomgomg!!!

ok not only is the district (long beach's version of the oc weekly) doing a review on my show in this wednesday's issue, but they're putting one of my robots on the cover for the january 2 issue!!!

I AM POOPING MY PANTS RIGHT NOW!!!

so seriously exciting - thanks so much to everyone who came out to the show on saturday night, it was such a fun night and it was great to see everyone's positive reactions to my work! if you didn't get a chance to come to the show saturday there's still time; it's hanging until january 31 at:

siren
2240 east 4th street
long beach, ca 90802

I AM POOPING MY PANTS RIGHT NOW!!!

so yes. get a district this wednesday to see the article on my show, get an oc weekly this thursday to see their article on it, get the district again on january 2 for the puking robot on the cover.

effing. rad.

que hora est? what time is it?

it's time to remind you yet again that the opening reception for my first ever solo painting show is tomorrow night from 630-930!

siren
2240 east 4th street
long beach, ca 90814

really why do you keep making me remind you? you should have it penned into your calendar by now! what the eff! none of this "i'll pencil you in" business, just write it in big fat sharpie markers already! here's all the info!

still on the fence about going? what if i entice you with a youtube movie i got to be in? i'm kandy kane and baby mama, fyi be advised...


that was cool, right? i'm worth coming to see tomorrow night, right? what if i bring cupcakes and drinks and snacks?

aw COME ON!!! do it for your country!

see ya tomorrow night,
steph

public enemy number 1!

AHAHAHAHAHAH ok my sister danielle found this clip on youtube and it's AWESOME. years ago wayne brady sung to my sister michelle on who's line and for that you should probably send me fifty bucks!

keep an eagle eye out, you may be able to see yours truly when they're gettin' my sister outta her seat!

lets all jump on a trampoline! it's thanksgiving!

happy thanksgiving, chumos!!! i'm thankful that josh was able to get the day off! now instead of hanging out at home working on painting all day and then eating with him when he got home from work, we're actually doing thanksgiving style plans, goin' out to see his aunt and uncle and cousins in riverside for the day, hooray!

what this means for you is we're putting the shake and bake turkey on hold. maybe we'll cook it up for xmas? don't be sad homies, there IS a shake and bake turkey on the horizon, it's just a question of when.

other news... dates were set for my painting show! and i'm 3/4 done with the paintings for it! i'm hoping to finish the last four over this long weekend, and then it's just framing and hanging! pow!

aaaaaaaand if you're in the l.a. area be sure to stop by the handmade for the holidays show at fairfax high school on friday and saturday, it's gonna be awesome!

happy thanksgiving!

i carried a watermelon!

sweet jesus it's been a year already!

josh and i can both safely say we've had the time of our lives and thoroughly enjoy putting babies in the corner. except no babies for us, thanks, we gave at the office.

relive the magic that was THE AWESOMEST WEDDING EVER here!

i'm almost sad it's friday!

so the new job starts monday - while i'm super excited about it, it has been so much fun being a fulltime hearts and laserbeams employee this week. i got so much accomplished that's been on the back burner for ages, including:

- did 7 (almost 8! maybe 8 by the end of the weekend) new paintings. 2 for an upcoming halloween show in echo park, 5 (or 6) for a robot series i've been wanting to do for freaking forever. i'm hoping to be able to wrangle a solo show sometime in the future with these robots...

- updated the shop and the etsy store with like 70something things that should've been listed a longass time ago

- learned more about and started to perfect my screen burning technique for screenprinting by burning a total of 7 screens (4 of which need to be cleaned out cuz they stank! thanks to everyone who offered their tips and tricks, i'm really starting to get it!)

- designed four new tees

- screenprinted some tees

- hung out with brian who was in town on business!

- sewed some new scarves

- knit 2 earflap hats for me and the boy

- started xmas shopping

- bought supplies for new purses that i'm super excited to start making this weekend

- did a buttload of laundry

- washed all our windows

- spent lots of time at the dog park

- watched oprah a bunch

- laughed at how dumb tyra is on her talk show

so yes! happy weekending, i'm hoping i can stay productive in my last couple days of housewifeness, and i'll regale you with tales of the new jobby job soon!

in some ways, it never left

so angela tells me wait 5 minutes before you leave your house and we should get to bob's big boy at the same time. i figure this is the perfect time to tell you the story about how the bob's big boy in bismarck, north dakota has 2, count em 2 big boy statues in front. because the original one got stolen. and later, when the restaurant finally got it's replacement statue, the people who stole the first one brought it back. so now there's a shiny new one and a shitty old one out front. i went looking for a picture of it on google images and i didn't see it, but this came up in my search - enjoy!

i don't do windows!!!

except i totally do.

there's nothing like new beginnings, fresh clean open windows and awesome friends.

awesome friends, you do not follow the windows cuz they brighten the whole place, i just saved the best for last.

i'm really looking forward to a week and a half of painting and making stuff. stay tuned!

and if you could keep your fingers crossed that i get into felt club this time around, that'd be grand - here's hoping!

you like punk rock don't you? and movies?

don't forget to come to punk rock at the drive in on saturday!

music! movies! barbeque! awesome crafty vendors like hearts and laserbeams! suzi boneshaker! mixed breed! urban construction! lots of exclamation points! poop!

except for the poop. don't come for the poop. but stay for the pie!

unless there's no pie there. but there will be barbeque!

here's some info from the punk rock at the drive in folks:

Throughout the summer people have brought the following items to PRDI...we're sharing some of the good ideas ...

Coolers
Big Red Cups
Lawn Chairs
Blankets
Portable Radios

FINAL PRDI of the Season until next April!!!!

Bands start a little earlier AT 5pm Saturday...don't be late!
Use STATE Street Entrance and mention your there for PRDI!!!!!
Allow a TON of extra commute time due to the LA county Fair!

Bands:
The Triggers
The Disgustingtons
and special guest!

~Charity raffles ~ DJ Skids ~ BBQ~ Vendors~

$9
Kids 9 and under are FREE!

Mission Tiki Drive-In
4407 State St, Montclair, CA

sploooosh!!!

it's funny... any given razr phone has the same smell.

it's this weird mix of B.O. and electronics. grab someone's razr and take a whiff, that's what you'll smell.

except for mine. which now smells like coffee.

yesterday morning i get to work, sit down with my little cup of joe from the coffee machine. set it on the desk. see josh calling my cell phone. reach across the desk to get the phone and SPLOOOOOOSH!!!!! there was coffee everywhere, and i mean EVERYWHERE. one of the side buttons on my phone is iffy now, but it sorta works, which is better than nothing, which is what it was doing yesterday.

at least it smells like coffee now, that's all i gotta say about that.

and go buy yourself a copy of blades of glory, it is muy deliciouso!

come on down and see me sometime!

i just updated the calendar of upcoming arts and crafts shows and HOLY CRAP september's gonna be a busy month! you should try and come out to one of these and pick up some new never-before seen stuff!

at the horsin' around craft fair i'll be debuting hearts and laserbeams-sewn reversible tote bags in a lovely horsey theme!

sometime soon after that show (hopefully for little monster market!) new designs will be available in the melamine plates and lemme just say they're deeeeelicious!

i'll be peddlin my wares inland for the first time ever at montclair's punk rock at the drive in on september 15th, if you're into punk rock or drive ins you should come on out!

aaaaaaaaaaand what else. IT'S JUNIOR SENIOR DAY! the other steph and i are venturing out to hollywood tonight to see the junior senior show at the roxy and i can't wait!

also, it's really effing hot out. i can't wait for winter. i got a new jacket and everything!

one more thing: poop!

peace out!

things to do in denver when you're dead:

number one: lay there

number two: decompose

number three: get good and smelly

number four: i bet there's lots of time for soduko

i know it's late, i know you're weary...

every now and then i'll go back to grouphug to read messed-up anonymous confessions, and when i inevitably do a search for tony danza this gem i wrote a few years ago it always makes me giggle:

i have a shrine built to tony danza in my medicine cabinet. god i hope my parents never find it.

and this one that jenn left on there afterwards:

i wish i'd just get a bottle of southern comfort for xmas and rent the tony danza filmography and drink myself to death.

if those ever get discovered as fake confessions and taken off the site, i confess i will kick someone's ass.

margarita-cha-cha-cha!

last night was fun - josh and i decided to take jimmy for a walk. thinking ahead of time, hey it'll be a lark to take him on the long walk down to ocean blvd and along it a bit before circling back, and maybe we should stop at the grocery store on the way back for some margarita mix.

so i just mapquested our whole trip last night and it ended up being a 3.5 mile hike. i just didn't think we'd actually walked that far. i do know we saw lights on at my sisters upstairs apartment, and yelled up to it for like 3 minutes telling her what a chump she is with no answer. tried calling her cell and she wasn't even home. way to waste electricity, chump!

and the margaritas were delicious and saturday night live STILL isn't any good. the end!

free postcard set contest!

ok i'm upping the ante - if you're the first person to put that pitch video from sesame street on youtube and send me the link, i'll send you a free set of postcards from hearts and laserbeams! you could also win if you find the video pre-existing on youtube and just tell me where it's at. here's the scene you're looking for...

**********

text comes up on the screen, saying how some tv execs are creating a revolutionary new show for kids. fades to a board room scene, with muppets sitting all around it dressed in suits. the one at the head of the table says something to the effect of "how about we call it the itty bitty kiddy show?" another muppet pipes up "it's all about learning letters and numbers and all that, how about we call it the nitty gritty itty bitty kiddy show?"

text comes up on the screen saying "they just couldn't agree on what to call it"

it goes back to the boardroom, obviously hours later - a pile of papers on the table, some crumbled up, all the muppet execs look haggard from being in this meeting all day. one of em slumped at the table straightens up and says, very tiredly, "hey. these kids that are watching the show... they can't read or say their numbers or anything, right?" the other muppets agree. he continues, very slowly and deliberately, "why don't we call it 'HEY, STOOPID'." kermit pipes up, "you really think they'll put that on the air?"

**********

aaaaaaand scene!!! if you can find that on the internets and share with the rest of us, or put it on youtube yourself, be the first one to do it and i'll send you a free set of postcards! because i die every time i even think about it.

jeepers it's the fuzz!

etsy is a wonderful magical place. a place where i've listed all the stuff in the shop on my own site, which has gotten slim to none traffic in the shop area since it's gone online, and within 2 weeks on etsy i've sold 3 things. if you do any kinds of handmade goodies i highly reccommend the exposure etsy gives ya!

in other none-businessy news, FOOLICE TONIGHT. foo fighters. the police. dodger stadium. me sending out an s.o.s. i'm sending out a uh uh uhhhhh uh uh! ohhhhh man this is gonna be sweet - i've never been to a big fatass stadium show for a huge band.

AND! almost more exciting! (or maybe just as...) junior senior's touring the u.s. this summer! AND THEY'RE COMING TO L.A.!!! if you know me at all, you know thier first cd is one of my all-time faves, and that the junior senior show jenn and i went to in madison a few years ago was one of the most fun shows i've ever been to - just a big fat dance party is what it was, and i have been dying to see them again ever since! it'll be at the roxy, which is a smaller club again, which i'm VERY excited about - get your tix, it's gonna rock your sox off!

what else... i tooted.

annnnnnnnnd it's the weekend, which i'm very excited about. today i'm going to my first long beach craft mafia meeting. i keep hoping when i walk in they're gonna say the first thing you have to do for craft mafia is crochet a horse's head and leave it in someone's bed. i've told this story to many a folk over the past few weeks and it cracks me up every time.

OH SHIT AND EVEN MORE THAN THAT!!! yesterday at work, guy and stacy had us watch a couple of chunks of sesame street video, to get a better feel for what sesame workshop is all about and how much they do for underpriveledged kids all around the world. me, i'm already way on board with sesame street - it was one of my favorite shows as a kid. cuz it's just wacky-funny stuff that's slipped in there for the adults, things like colambo (a lamb dressed as columbo going around solving crimes) and the billy idol muppet singing "letter L" to the tune of "rebel yell". good good stuff. the most important thing to mention though is i'm not so into the new watered down sesame street. in a word, i'm gonna say it just flat sucks.

but apparently there's a box set of old sesame street clips from the 60s and 70s - and there's a clip on there that we watched yesterday that made me laugh so hard i had tears streaming down my face and i almost couldn't breathe. apparently it's the 1-minute bit jim henson showed pbs to get them to put sesame street on the air. i'm so mad it's not on youtube so i can just show it to you, but good god it's amazing. if you can netflix that box set, do it. and then put that pitch video on the damn youtube so i can watch it again.

bahahahahah she's a fiend i tell you!

new items in the shop again! jenn norwood is a picture-taking fiend! check out the latest, 2 new colors for dino necklaces and power rings pow-kaPOW!







also, we fried up some squid steaks tonight... and like the actual animal, they came out a little weird. like i would totally use our breading concoction again on something else, but the consistency of squid is a little hard to take after the first five bites. it was kinda good but mostly weird. we still have squid left over, so we'll try a different recipe next time...

also, why the hell is it sunday night already? i feel like i should've had more weekend than this! on the upside, i did do 3 new little 5x5" paintings for a hot dog place/gallery in los angeles today - i'm showing em to my contact on tuesday along with other paintings that are going up for sure, so if you take a shine to one of em i'll letcha know where you can get em soon!

squid fishing!

HOLY CRAP IT WAS AWESOME.

i can't wait to try cooking it up!

hump day, we hardly knew ye

holy cow it's thursday already. where did the week go? karaoke, that's where.

last night was awesome, in this order:

-got my back adjusted
-ate a wendys hamburger
-finished and sent off a t design for josh's uncle's high school reunion
-found out josh may join us at stitch n bitch in the future
-went to stitch n bitch
-went through AMAZING 80s knitting magazines with patterns and everything for some of the most horrendous sweater travestys known to man
-started knitting something i'm probably gonna end up unravelling, just because i didn't have an actual project i was working on and just wanted to be knitting something
-went to karoake with some of the knitting group and had a blaaaaaasssssss!

this was the best part of my night, because i heart karaoke like no one's business! went with gayle, angela, the other steph and alicia and all kinds of wacky fun was to be had, including a shout out to our best friend paris hilton. we figured we should probably sing jailhouse rock for her. i also did a rousing rendition of 9 to 5, a little ode to my buddies in the south. steph busted out some moves with maniac, angela did an awesome spoken-word morning train, and alicia got her groove on with some black velvet.

i gotta tell you i love the prospector, but next time we'll probably go somewhere else for our karaoke needs since it was supposed to start at 9, we were there and ready for it at 915, but they wouldn't start it until 1030 because they were, quote, "waiting for more people". balderdash! you're wasting our valuable jackassery time!

pastry pasties!

ok i am totally in love with these and you should probably buy em! because they're cupcakes! for your cupcakes!

p.s. did you write So.Co.Bazaar on your calander yet? you probably should!

making cupcakes...

it's amazing how much quicker and easier it is to crochet cupcakes when you actually know how crocheting works... i'm workin on bustin' out a bunch of the tasty treats for SoCoBazaar on june 2 and they're so much more fun to make now because they don't take 8 hours and they all look pretty decent! deeeeelicious!

in other very important news, josh bought this computer game called the ship this last weekend and it's awesome. it's set in the 1940s on a ship that could arguably be called a rip off of the queen mary, and you're basically sent around to kill various passengers on the boat. josh just shot through a window to kill the captain of the ship. how's the thing gonna drive now that's what i say. also, my favorite part is you get dollars depending on the awesomeness of the weapon you use to kill someone, and they put mannequin arm near the top of the list. we have yet to see a mannequin arm, but when we do... gods be praised!

battle of the bands 2007!

ok so last night was la palma's battle of the bands, and it was the 3rd year of my sister's band the black dots entering. and it was the last year they were eligible to enter since robert's an old fogey and just gettin' older. we were really really hoping for a win and lo and behold the mutual funders got first place in 2 categories! i believe they got first in the old fogey category, and then also the overall category so they gots themselves 2 big fatty tropies and $75 bucks! they still won't give me any dollars so they can suck it, but it was awesome seeing their show; every time they do one they just sound better and better.

thank you thank you thank you to everyone who came and showed their support and rocked out with their socks out, and double thank you to everyone who stopped by the merch table and bought stuff - while it was too busy for me to tell every customer, half of the money we make at the table covers the cost of making the stuff, and then half goes towards things like studio time for the band, so it is much appreciated!

if you're interested in buying more black dots merch, visit the shop and check out the tshirt and stationery sections. if you don't see what you're looking for size-wise or whatever, email me at heartsandlaserbeams@gmail.com . i make all the stuff myself so i'll totally work with ya on gettin' what you're looking for.

again, thank you, and go black dots!

update: check out pics from the show here.

so it's been a while!!!

sit back and get ready for a nice long update because it's been effing FOREVER since i've been on here and lots has happened!

mostly lately i've been working on the shop section of the website, gettin' all the goods i've got that were available on the old site into the new site. and that is officially sort of done! on to making new stuff! i bought a slathering of paint and et cetera yesterday because i realized i was sort of out of a lot of things...

ok so last week josh and i had the opportunity to go to a hollywood movie premiere! his mom's friends thais and jimmy had passes that they shared with us because they rock! so last tuesday we saw what love is. it was kind of a smaller movie, like it'll be one of those arty ones that's only shown in a few theaters instead of everywhere, you know? so the opening wasn't this humongous red carpet craziness - also meaning there were like no celebs we recognized in the lobby beforehand. i took some pics just in case someone was famous that i didn't recognize...

we got in the theater with our group just a few minutes before the movie started, so they ended up splitting us all up amongst the two theaters they were seating people in. josh and i were told to sit in this row where there were strangely like 5 empty seats... and as we were sitting down we saw a paper on one chair that said cuba, and one that said matthew. josh and i are freaking out, like ARE THEY SITTING NEXT TO US!!! but it turned out that usher had put us there not knowing they were cuba's and matthew's seats, meaning we were booted outta our seats for them, which was fine by us because there were like right there as we were standing in the aisle waiting for the ushers to find us other seats.

and our other seats ended up being just 4 seats away from mutual fundin' ERIK ESTRADA!!! here is a photo of the back of his head, he's the dude on the right:



as for the movie itself, it was good and i liked it a lot! it was lots and lots of monologues, very funny stuff, and that is that! when it comes out you should probably go see it, especially if you heart matthew lillard or mars callahan.

AND!!! i forgot to mention, as we were driving from the theater to the afterparty, (how very ra-sha-sha hollywood of us) we passed the much-bigger premiere of the hills have eyes 2 and saw phillip seymore hoffman on the red carpet!
what else has been going on...

started going to stitch and bitch and lemme tell you it is AWESOME actually planning 2.5 hours each week to sit down and work on this sweater i'm making! in the biggest small world story since jenn and i met in wisconsin, i found out one of the girls in the group is actually my neighbor in this building! we'd never seen each other around home but then like two days after we met at stitch and bitch we ran into each other in the parking garage! craziness!

i'm having a lot of problems staying consistent with the gym; i'll go for like 3 weeks and stop for like 3 weeks and eat lots of junk food at the same time. what the eff is up with that? i can't help it if happy meals taste like god!

i can't remember what else has been going on over the past couple of weeks... but i've gotten really bad about blogging. how can i make it up to you? can i offer you some muffins?



also, jimmy i think might be hitting that special time in a puppy's life when he starts becoming a dog, and by that i mean he may be hitting puberty and by that i mean he's been a total a-hole for the past couple of days! he tried to bolt outta the house twice yesterday and once today and even told me he wished he was never born! that ingrateful beeeeeeast! fortunately he'll be 2 in a few months, i think that's when they're supposed to start calming down again.

aaaaaaaaand did i tell you i was knitting a sweater! it's like 2/3 the way done! and it doesn't look like cacadoody!

help your fellow crafter!

i had told ya about jenny from felt club being slapped with some heinous fines for well-meaning people putting felt club posters up where they shouldn't have in downtown l.a. - she got another fine in the mail the other day, bringing the grand total to something like 600 bucks. ay yi yi, no me gusta!!!

so she and some friends put together three crafty smorgasborgs for you to bid on to help alleviate the costs - they include handmade items from all sorts of arts&crafters, including me. i've got a postcard set in each basket, and a little skull painting in basket number 3, so get over there and get to bidding!

in other news, josh and i have been making dummies swear for the past hour. i apologize in advance for the multitude of profane emails you may have received on these dummies behalf. 3 cheers to jenn and trav for alerting us to this marvel of modern technology!

aaaaaaannnnnd i'm very excited - after 7ish years with my current printer, it's started to not print nearly as nice as it could be, and a new one's on the horizon... but what printer it is, i'm not sure yet - still deciding. what's your printer of chioce?