Month: February 2010

Okay, first of all, I drew on my eyebrows for the first time in a long time! My forehead needs to breathe. I have to air out my zit (sorry that’s gross… but it’s real.) That’s just a warning for my video below! HAHAH. Can’t photoshop the zits out of my videos…. Anyhoo, I’ve been sewing on a lot of buttons for my current project, and I thought I’d share my little discovery about how to pry buttons of the paper backing. This is probably not new news, but it took me a long time to realize it on my own! So I thought I’d share, just in case!! Crafty Tip! from Twinkie Chan on Vimeo.

Bibi has been finding all sort of old toys in random crannies of the house. Today she found an old tennis ball next to one of Hairy’s pairs of shoes and demanded I play fetch with her while I was trying to print out receipts for accounting!! I cannot deny her. Flickr, you so funny. Nice preview of my buttcrack.

Triple Axel. Triple Lutz. Triple Loop. In the spirit of Olympic ice skating, or, not… I threw on, THE TRIPLE WING. The other eye got all effed up, tho. I suppose it is the equivalent of eating it on the ice. There’s always the next Olympics, Russia 2014.

This weekend, my family went to Luce for dinner to celebrate my mom’s bday. The restaurant just got its first Michelin Star. It was pretty num num, and all the plates were really pretty! Since I’d just gotten back from Vegas, my mom told me not to sweat her bday prezzie just yet, but I wanted to sweat it anyway!!! I thought it would be yummy for Hairy to whip up a lobster bisque! We went to Ranch 99 before meeting everyone for dinner to procure our lobster. But apparently my mom also had a birthday request: zipper danglies! She wanted cherries, lemons, and grapes. I said, “That’s a LOT of purse danglies!!!” and she said, “Yeah, that’s what makes it HIP!!” I’m still working on the grapes, and then these guys will get felted. And I will be soon sending a re-fill to ShanaLogic.com. And I have to finish up my taxes. And I’m also working on a fun 5-part project to be revealed in about 2 weeks….here’s a sneak!

Pool Tradeshow in Vegas, Feb 2010 from Twinkie Chan on Vimeo. The tradeshow was a very interesting adventure. We got a great response to all the goodies. Just like at a craft fair, it’s a little nerve-wracking to be there and to feel like you and your work are being judged, but everyone was really delighted by what they saw, and that makes me happy. The booth was really cute, we had our own security guards to guard our booth at night, and the company I partnered up with hooked our booth up with breakfast and lunch every day, delivered right to Yummy You. It was pretty sweet!! I’m mentally preparing for what I am going to have to do next! Our team managed to put this all together from nothing, basically in 6 weeks. It was kind of amazing. Of course there is always room for improvement on things here and there, so the next one can only get better! I like the idea of having 6 months to prep :). Hairy asked if I saw any famous people. Well, not really. I saw Masuimi Max, and Miss Nevada, and Simone Legno was our booth neighbor, but aside from that, I didn’t have a lot of opportunity to walk the main Magic floor where there might be “celebs.” My crochet elf Rita came to hang out at the booth and walk around and she saw Jeffree Star, but yeah, about 99% of the population would probably have no idea who any of those people are. I did not see Puff Daddy or anything…. On Tuesday night, we had din dins with Scott and Lauren from Badge Bomb. They are like the nicest people you will ever meet, and they are from the Bay Area! And FYI, if you want to buy individual Yummy You buttons, you can get them directly from the site. On Wednesday night, Rita picked me up from the show, and we went to eat with her sister Kat, my other crochet elf, at a sushi buffet! I never see them since they live in Vegas, so it was soooo nice to hang out with them for a bit, eventhough I was completely brain dead! I have no idea how people can work the show all day, and then party in Vegas all night. I wish I could!!! I just wanted to fall down dead ever night afterward! And I basically did. I wish I had better pictures of everything, but I wasn’t sure if we wanted to release any of the new stuff to the public yet until it all hits the stores. Some of my fav online stores will carry it, too, but I’ll keep that a secret as well for now. But I’m so happy to finally have my product in places that I love and have shopped at, too! You’ll seee!! 😉

I’m about to post my Etsy listing for V-day! In the past, I posted the listings, and then announced them here and on my mailing list, but by the time I posted all the announcements, a few things would have been sold already!! So I’m trying to give you guys a bit of a heads-up first! I know it’s almost 4 a.m. on the West Coast… so kinda weird timing… sorry about that! Regardless, my items will be more of a celebration of candy and hearts year-round, rather than targeted for V-Day delivery. I just can’t guarantee you’ll get your items before V-Day anymore. I tried my best!!! I will upgrade all domestic orders to Priority, but again, no promises, sorry :(. I’ve just been back to back with deadlines for Yummy You and for my book, but I still wanted to squeeze in something cute on Etsy! Click on the banner to shop in a few minutes!! Not all items are represented in this collage! I have a total of 5 pairs of mitts for sale, but only one bracelet, one scarf, and one pin :(. I will try to make more puffy pins cuz I think they are fun, but that won’t be for a little bit! I also re-listed some candy-cane heart necklaces! Lastly, Hipster Puppies. The descriptions are hilarious…. I want to submit a pic of Bibi in my new glasses frames.

Seal your envelope with a crochet heart!! Sorry it’s the worst pic ever. I’m a girl on the move. Hopefully an actual Etsy update within the next 12 hours 😛 It will be small….but heart-tastic!

… cuz I’ll spend more money than usual!!! Hairy and I had a morning/afternoon in the East Bay today. We don’t venture across the bridge very much, but we had a couple of new places to visit. First, we were super late to have breakfast with Elysse in Berkeley at Herbivore. She was very gracious about it and was studying her book on parasites. I had a super yummy tofu scramble and felt like I was pregnant with a food-baby the whole day. Then we went with her to visit Emily of BirdMafia who was vending at a little craft event at Knit One One, and I did end up buying something from Emily for my sister in law! Then we headed over to Oakland where I wanted to check out Phoenix Optical. I’d heard about it after reading a blog entry of Star’s. Her new vintage specs looked awesome so I wanted to check this place out!! I have a really wide face with a strange shape, and apparently most eyeglasses look really bad on me and are too small and make me look like a granny with a pie-face. Cat-eyes glasses? Not on this pumpkin head. So I thought it could be a fun opportunity to check out some eyewear that you don’t see at, like, LensCrafters. This place was a lot of fun. I didn’t intend to buy anything. I’ll blame Hairy. He is a shopping-pusher! I didn’t have my glasses Rx, cuz the last time I got my eyes checked was in Hong Kong…so I just bought the frames, and they don’t have lenses in them yet. I’m still trying to get used to whether or not I’d be brave enough to rock these everyday: Hmmm, ehh? They are pretty weird. They are just kind of thicker than I am used to. I kind of always wanted weird glasses, but I don’t know if I have the cajones to really commit. I will run around the house with them for a bit and see what happens! They were actually vintage sunglasses, and I asked them to punch out the lenses so I could see what they were like. There was a cute white-framed pair that I wanted to try on, too, but apparently when whey tried to get the lenses out…WITH A HAMMER….the frames broke. That was sad. I felt really bad! But Hairy said if someone else wanted to buy them anyway and get the lenses punched out, they would have broken at that point, too. Then Hairy wanted to check out Bake Sale Betty. Apparently they have a legendary fried chicken sandwich. There was a line out the door. We got in that line. And got the sandwich. And Hairy said it was really effin good. I was still full from breakfy, so I got a piece of pumpkin pie to go. In fun and unexpected news, Bake Sale Betty is also next to a yarn store, so I picked up some Cascade 220 […]

Sooooo I have been alluding to a big announcement for a little while, and I wanted to wait for some of the paperwork to clear up before mentioning anything. Then, I lagged on saying anything because I got mired in the stress of it all, and then it didn’t seem like such exciting news anymore…. and then it was like… what is the statute of limitations on hinting at something exciting….being able to announce it…and then failing to mention it anymore and let it fade and pretend like you never mentioned it in the first place? Hehehe, Ok maybe I over-think! Anyhoodles….!!! My news is this: YummyYou! by Twinkie Chan There’s not really anything up there yet, just a placeholder, but everything has been happening at lightning speed and this is all I got right now! 😛 (btw….does the pic have a blue-ish hue to you? Let me know how it appears on your monitors!!! I am still having weird color issues I think!) So yes, I partnered with a company to help me mass-produce (but still hand-make) my scarves and stuff and bring it to a bigger level. It’s what I’ve wanted for a long time, and I’m excited and scared that it is starting to happen. I could have tried to go bigger on my own, but I really didn’t want to end up spending all my time managing more helpers, dealing with quality control, handling fulfillment on a larger scale, etc. In fact, perhaps un-like many crafters, I never really dreamed of running my own business. I don’t have the entrepreneurial blood. I have the creative blood! Some people have both. I kinda don’t :P. I want to have lots of time to design new things…and considering how long it takes me to design/make ONE scarf … I need all the time I can get! We went into super warp-drive, because the company was excited, and we were excited that they were excited, and we are prepping for a booth at the Pool Tradeshow (or the Magic Tradeshow) in Vegas on February 16-18. We kind of attempted to create something out of nothing in just TWO MONTHS. Sourcing the crochet goods. Making/designing new and exciting samples you’ve never seen before. Designing tees and hoodies. Packaging. Everything. It’s been crazy. Plus I’ve been working on my book! So this is why my Etsy shop has been like a ghost town! The cool thing is that you will soon be able to get all your favorite Twinkie Chan goodies at a more affordable price, and there will definitely be more than, like, two cupcake scarves available at one time :). I will still be here as Twinkie Chan, with my Etsy shop, designing new stuffs and handmaking old-favorites. Yummy You! will be the icing on the proverbial cake :). So I can’t wait to share more about all of this as it happens! It’s really weird and bizarre and I have no idea how it will all pan out. […]

You guys. I am so pumped to post this!! My friend and crochet-helper Marissa has FIIIIIINNNNAAALLLLLY put up her new Etsy shop!!!!!!! You’ll be sad if you don’t check it out. When I vended at the New People/Bazaar Bizarre event, I displayed some of her items on my table, and I ended up buying a pin :). I have one that looks kinda like this one: but they are all one of a kind, so no two alike!

Here is a video clip of Bibi and I playing tuggy the other day. She especially likes to invite you to play tuggy when you are your most busy. Also, while I was working tonight, Love and Other Disasters came on the tube, and I saw My Dream Jacket!!!!! Does anybody know anything about this coat??!??!

Doing some taxes today (yeah I waited till the last minute…) so here’s some fun stuff I rounded up!!! (p.s. I broke down and started a Formspring page thingie for people to ask me questions, anonymously if desired! Click on the images to go to their pages!