Month: June 2012

I was about to wind some Malabrigo up into a ball, when I noticed all the green stuff in my craft room right now. Just thought I’d share!   1. Malabrigo in Sapphire Green 2. Vintage apple green cardi 3. Jar of Plush Pickles bought from  Schmancy (sorry I forgot the designer’s name and the plush are not branded!) and a peek of my plush terrarium made by My Paper Crane 4. 70s inspired floral purse I started making for myself a few months ago using this pattern 5. Lucky charms

Hey guys! Don’t forget that Anime Expo is this weekend at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Info here. I will have a bunch of goodies for sale there with the Brands Boutique pop-up shop along with a bunch of other cute L.A. designers/artists/crafters. This is the first time I’ve tried shipping items in a box and having someone else set up my stuff, so if you are able to go and happen to pass by booths 339 and 341, please snap some pics! I printed a new sign for it!

A few weeks ago, Hairy and I went to see Moonrise Kingdom (which is awesome, bee tee dubs, see it!), and afterwards, we went to get a snack, and he freaked and said… “YOUR EYE IS BLOODY!!!!! Like not red like an allergy but like BLOOD ON YOUR EYE. LOOK AT IT!!! LOOK ATTTTT ITTTT!!!” This was interesting to me, because I felt no pain and had no change in my vision. But I was also SCARED to look at it because he made it sound SO SCARRRRRY. I wanted to share this with you so you don’t FREAK THE EFF OUT if this happens to you! The only reason I didn’t freak the eff out was because I knew this had happened to my mom before, so now that you know it has happened to ME before, you can calm down a little. So it’s not really call Explodey Eye, but subconjunctival hemorrhage. It’s when a tiny blood vessel on your eye bursts and leaks out underneath the surface and spreads all around. It takes a few weeks for the blood to get re-absorbed, so you look like you have a zombie disease for a while. At the time, I didn’t really know if I had to go to the emergency room or make a doctor’s appointment or what, but the 24-hr nurse hotline said that there wasn’t much anybody could do about it,  and to just let nature take its course, as long as there was no pain and no change in vision. If this happens to you, I would suggest you call your doctor of course, but I just wanted you to not be scared that your eyeball was going to fall out of your face. The nurse also mentioned that anything tiny thing could make a blood vessel burst – accidentally poking yourself, sneezing, coughing, “BOWEL MOVEMENTS.” So if you don’t do any of those things, you’re set! I am putting my photo behind a LINK in case you guys don’t like to get gross-out surprised.  I tried to chart the changes in my eyeball every day, and then I got sort of bored of near the end, so you don’t get the full range to recover, but it’s pretty weird to watch the blood move around. Enjoy! Don’t run with the scissors.

I wanted to blog today about the price of buying handmade. It’s an issue that comes up a lot in our community, and there are a lot of articles about it already online, but I read a Twitter comment about my pricing today, so I felt prompted to talk about that a little on my blog, not really in a defensive way, but more an informative way. As shoppers, we can make votes with our money. Nobody is forcing us to buy anything (as far as shopping for clothing goes). I’m leaving her Twitter name out, because I don’t want you guys to go and spam her 😛 plus this entry isn’t really about her, but the issue of pricing. I recently read this article whose point I think was to explain handmade/indie pricing and why we should buy indie. But what was more interesting to me than the article was the RESPONSE. You may not want to spend the time reading the comments, but I did. The article (I think to be funny?) mentioned that handmade designers need to pay their rent just like you do and need to buy their food just like you do, except, she used expensive cities like LA and NYC as examples and said that we needed to buy our Trader Joe’s yogurt and $9 dollar wine. To this, people would respond, “They should move to a cheaper city to live in, and I don’t want to pay for their Trader Joe’s yogurt and $9 wine.” I get it, but it’s like, we do need to eat, and we do need to live. The article made me think about whether my handmade was even a worthy cause to give money to. Are we all just dreamers, expecting people to pay us to dream? (On a side note, I have often wondered whether living in LA or NYC would be beneficial to me, simply because there may be more opportunities there as far as sourcing materials & labor, marketing & PR events, etc. I mean, there’s the internet and everything, but BEING there is much different! Anyway, I digress…) I just googled this article today, about how indie designers might price their wares. In her example, the person paid themselves $18/hr. If I paid myself $18/hr, my shop prices would be EXORBITANT, like even MORE exorbitant than they may seem now. Sometimes I end up paying myself more like $5/hr. Sometimes, on a brooch, my profit might be like 50 cents. Lexi also wrote a great article about it, where you can see that more than just making an item goes into the pricing. There’s also time for photographs, editing photographs, shipping, etc. And in her example, she is not even accounting for the fact that her final price is actually really a wholesale price, and retail is usually DOUBLE the wholesale. This keeps a lot of us indie handmade business out of other boutiques and shops. We simply couldn’t make any money at all. […]

I don’t know if I ever mentioned it to you guys, but Hairy co-owns an art gallery/studio space here in SF called Big Umbrella Studios. They throw art shows monthly, and you can also become a member in order to use the shared space as your studio. The next show, opening on July 13th, is inspired by Japanese pop culture, and I will be contributing a piece! I already have it planned out. Fingers crossed it actually looks like what it’s supposed to look like ;). If you’re in SF, you should stop by and check it out. Their openings are pretty happenin’.

Tonight, Hairy, James, and I went to eat sushi and watch Jurassic Park Live performed by the Old Murder House Theatre. If you visit their site, you can see snippets from their other shows like RoboCop Live and Aliens…On Ice! I was a little hesitant about the whole thing because my tolerance for theatre/musical theatre is quite low, but it was really quite funny, with great attention to detail on a low budget. In Oakland, they performed at Children’s Fairyland, which looked really cute in and of itself! It was pretty spooky getting lost in the dark there at night, though, when I had to sneak off to find the bathroom! I didn’t take a lot of photos, but here’s a sneak. Jurassic Park Live only has three more shows left of their tour, in L.A., Dallas, and Austin. If you go, I suggest trying to watch Jurassic Park really quick first, to refresh your memory and pick up on the funny references during the show! big p.s.: this show is not intended for kids, even though we saw it at Fairyland! I think what I liked about it was that it reminded me of little kids playing dress up, and of the cardboard sets and home movies I used to make with my little brother, but it was just grown ups having fun. I support that!

I decided to do a website-themed giveaway in order to celebrate the new site design and to spread the word since I stopped blogging for a month :P. When I got my iPhone 4, I needed a cover for it superquick, so I made one on Zazzle and also made a few extra! It’s my artwork professionally printed on a Casemate phone case and will work with the iPhone 4 and the 4s. I am also playing with different designs for notebooks, since I use one everyday and thought it would be fun to have a branded one. There’s a rectangle in the upper right corner to put either your name or the dates during which you used the notebook (I like to date them and keep them in case I need to find some important past information!), and the text on the bottom reads, “My little pink notebook of TO-DOs, TO-MAKEs, & TO-DREAMs.” It has a pretty, glossy cover, 80 lined pages, and is spiral-bound. At 6.5″ x 8.75″, it is big enough to be useful and small enough to stick in your bag and keep it handy always! I’ll be giving away 3 prize packs, so  we can have 3 different winners! Each winner will receive 1 iphone4/s case (sorry, I don’t have any for other phones), 1 notebook, and 1 20% off discount code for my Etsy shop. I’m using Rafflecopter for the first time to host this giveaway, so please tell me how you like it. I wouldn’t be surprised if I filled out something the wrong way! I used Rafflecopter once on Jenny Holiday‘s blog, and I thought it was so super cool! The giveaway will run until next Tuesday at midnight! Good luck! a Rafflecopter giveaway

I really like the idea of making the tools of our trade super cute and fun! You may recall the candy cane inspired hooks Manda and I made a little while ago, and also the blinged out crochet hook tutorial with Elsie. I wish we could keep churning out the candy cane hooks, but they are quite time-consuming to make and sell at a reasonable price. It’s still a fun project you can try yourself, though! You could also purchase  rainbow plastic hooks, but whenever I use them, I snap them in half. There are also the super cute Hamanaka hooks, but they have the Boye-style crochet hook that I can’t seem to keep any yarn on!  So I stick to my good old metal Susan Bates with the bamboo handle. It’s not PRETTY, but they are my favorite so far. I still love to think of ways to decorate crochet hooks, though, so the other day, to prep a booth space for Yummy You! at a licensing show, I busted out my nail polish and my washi tape. I used plastic crochet hooks as a base. I feel like the plastic WHITE hooks are a bit stronger/sturdier than the clear rainbow ones. I covered one (already blue) hook in glitter polish, and I wrapped washi tape around the other and painted the top of the hook with red polish. Maddy tried wrapping her hook in washi tape as well, but she said she had to take it right off (at least it’s easy to remove!). I haven’t actually tried crocheting with this hook yet, so maybe it’s for decoration only and not for actual usage! I just thought I’d share some of the hooks I’d modified with you guys for fun :). There are also some pretty cool polymer clay-handled hooks on Etsy you could check out on Etsy for DIY inspiration or purchasing!

Guapo, Manda, and I used to have a Sunday brunch club. I love me some brunch, and sometimes we would try to get together at different places around the Bay Area to brunch together. This was years ago, and now we suck and don’t commit to anything! My brunchy go-to is eggs benedict. It always seems very extravagant and indulgent to me, and it also reminds me of my dad, cuz he would eat it for breakfast a lot at home! Anyway, my longing for Sunday Brunch club reminded me to bring back some fried egg brooches in the Etsy shop!

This is my new favorite dress. My new favorite thing for summer is to buy DIY dresses from Etsy made of vintage sheets. You might see this dress a lot. I wanna wear it EVERYDAY!!! Even though the bust part is really bubbly and weird. OH WELL. I wore this outfit to have lunch with Vivs a few weeks ago at the Ferry Building. It was the first time we had hung out outside of craft fairs. I heart her! Fun Fact: I have a really ginormous phobia of my dress getting stuck to my butt and revealing my underwear. I often wear bloomers underneath my dresses. Here’s an EXTREME CLOSE-UP to show the cute Little Miss Delicious necklace I adore. (p.s. I always wondered if polymer clay jewelry could survive the shower. This one can. Bonus for lazy people like me.) Deets: Dress: ShopEBV on Etsy // Necklace: Little Miss Delicious // Tights: Pamela Mann on eBay (p.s. I already busted a hole in mine by jamming my thumbs in too deep while putting them on at a later time. I’m a brute!) // Shoes: Doc Martens

I’ve always been sort of AFRAID to collect things. When I was little, I hoarded A LOT of stuffed animals. At a certain point, I vowed to stop collecting them, because they ended up in big black Hefty bags in the attic, and it made me feel really sad! In college, I experienced a grand nostalgia for Care Bears and started collecting them on eBay like craycray. I had a book shelf dedicated to them, and at night, they would CareBearSTARE at you creepily and silently in the dark. During a room-rearrange, they ended up on my bedroom floor in a big pile for a while, and when I went to clean up this pile, it appeared that many SPIDERS had made a nice home out of this dark and cozy mountain of rainbow fluff. This only further proved that collecting things led to DUST AND SPIDERS AND YUCKY THINGS. So, I never had a doll collecting habit, and I’m really careful about collecting too many tchotchkes, but when I saw this collection of Momiji Dolls, Dippy-D, Bakey-C, and Cuppa-T,  I KNEW I HAD TO COLLECT THEM ALL. It’s kind of like …. I WANT TO BE THEM ALL. It looks like they are available from this site in Canada, but I can’t seem to find them available from a U.S. website. If anyone knows how I can get my grubby paws on these adorable morsels, please let me know!

You guys!! I’m so excited to finally show you the new site re-design!! Please note that the blog page has a new URL now: blog.twinkiechan.com (it used to be www.twinkiechan.com/blog). The old url automatically forwards to the new url, but as far as your RSS feeds or blogreaders go, you may want to update the link. Sorry for any confusion! I needed and wanted to change the site design because: 1) The previous design was super cute and fun, but not easy to edit. So, for example, when my book came out, it was not easy to add a new book icon to the animated refrigerator to link to book info. I needed a layout that would be more flexible for me to change around when new exciting things happen that I want to share. 2) For years, Hairy has been hassling me about how having Flash on your site is no good, because people on iPhones/iPads can’t view that Flash. I was always kinda like … “Too bad for those losers!!!” I kid, but you know what I mean. I wanted an animated fridge, and Flashdarnit, I was gonna have one! As luck would have it, this new design does not have any more Flash, but I will always love opening that refrigerator door, animated by my beloved Kei of SuperGood. 3) Some of you may have noticed in the past month that my blog and other parts of my site were giving you an “attack” warning, because my site got hacked. We kept finding the bad code and fixing it, but then new bad code would pop up again! It was an endless cycle of ARRRGGGhhGHGHGH and really made it obvious that it was time to sweep out the old and build the new. (p.s. clicking on the BOOKS link will still give you an attack warning, but my webguy/brobro assures me the bad code has been fixed, so we’re just waiting for it to register or whatever.) 4) Change is good! When I first started my site, I wanted everything pink and girlie and filled with hearts and rainbows. Then, I thought, that everybody’s site was pink and girlie and filled with hearts and rainbows, so mine had to be different. I also tried really hard to sort of make my site unisex, so that dudes wouldn’t be afraid of it. But I finally gave into my girliepink tendencies. Dudes, don’t be afraid. It’s the dawn of a new age.

Okay, so my friend James had a birthday a few months ago. He wanted everyone to go to Smuggler’s Cove, a piratey rum bar with a bajillion different rums and crazy mixed drinks inspired by different continents. It sounds really cheezy, but the drinks were actually pretty interesting and quite delicious! The night before James’ bday party, Manda and I still didn’t have pirate costumes. I was really struggling with putting an outfit together from things I already owned. We went to the mall and tried to find pieces we’d use again in our regular wardrobe, but I still couldn’t get with the pirate program. Finally, Manda said, “You don’t have to be a pirate. You could be the mermaid.” EUREKA!!! Hence, the crocheted mermaid costume was born (after trying a few really bad pairs of green skinny jeans.) Here’s a really really REALLY poor quality phone-cam photo of me before leaving the house. My quick-n-dirty mermaid outfit came out pretty cute, so I thought I’d share the shell bikini pattern with you. I will warn you: it’s not great. I didn’t create the pattern with the intention of sharing it or selling it. I was really just trying to make myself a quick outfit. But maybe you guys will get a kick out of it, too, and use it as a foundation for a really awesome ensemble. Essentially, I just made two giant seashell “patches,” hot glued some see-through, bubble-like beads to the surface, and I tacked the shells down to an aqua blue dress with a few stitches here and there, so that I could cut the dress free afterwards. I also crocheted a starfish hair piece, hot glued gold beads to the top, and hot glued some small pearl strings to the back. I made the hair piece mere minutes before we had to leave, so I didn’t write a pattern for it. Plus, I can’t find  the pattern for an afghan that I used as a guide, so you may want to search for some other free star fish patterns out there, like this one. Now that I’ve made this sound like the worst free pattern ever …….. onto the free pattern! Remember, I made these for myself. They are BIG cuz it just ended up that way, so this probably wouldn’t fit children. You could use a lighter weight yarn than Red Heart Super Saver to get some smaller shells.

This was my most favorite part of my latest collab with Onch Movement. Giant crocheted pretzel pillows inspired by his signature pretzel necklaces! Here are the pillows as well as other BANG pop-up shop items at Royal/T, all for sale there until July 14! You can see in that center display box some cupcake hats, bacon wraps (new item based on Onch’s bacon necklace,) whipped cream mini-berets (also new and exclusive!), and a bunch of other sweet goodies! A word about the pretzels: I am SO happy and RELIEVED to be able to show you these pictures, because, for a couple days, these goodies were MISSING IN ACTION due to a postal snafu. We were beside ourselves. I was so bummed to not be able to show Onch all the goodies and a bit embarrassed that there would not be very much Twinkie stuff at the pop-up shop.  It seemed hopeless until this morning when apparently Onch’s neighbor said that HE had been delivered Onch’s boxes!!! So please go say hi to all the goodies. They have had a grand adventure and are happy to be home at Royal/T!

Doesn’t the 2nd fella from the right look a bit…menacing? Once upon a time, I sold “My Pet Marshmallows” on eBay. They have now come back in a super fun and delicious collaboration with Onch Movement for his BANG pop-up shop at Royal/T, open until July 14th! There is an EXTREMELY limited amount of these marshmallow necklaces, so if you are interested, you need to grab them quick! There are all-white sets and also pastel marshmallow sets! Check them out in this photo I stole from Onch’s Facebook album from the opening party! Also notice the pink chicken leg necklaces we made, based on the pink chicken wing and leg pieces that Onch makes. You might also want to know that this will be Royal/T’s last pop-up, FOREVS! GO NOW! Or you’ll REGRET IT!

So I’m trying something a little different for Anime Expo … my stuff will be there, but I won’t! The Brands Boutique asked if I’d like to participate in their Pop Up Shop for Anime Expo, and I figured I’d give it a try! It’s at the Los Angeles Convention Center from June 29- July 2. If you happen to go, please take pics and show me! I’d love to see how it all looks!  I sent a nice variety of items, even the new rocket pop brooches! I also printed out a new little table-top sign, so I hope everything turns out cute :).

Mark your calendars, L.A.! Onch is putting together Royal/T’s last pop-up shop, and June 14th is the launch party. He and I will have some suuuuuper duper cute and exclusive collab pieces along with other fun artists as well! I super hope I can make it to the launch party, but June 12-14 is also the big licensing show in Las Vegas, which I believe I need to be at for Yummy You! meetings, so fingers crossed that maybe I can somehow swing both. We’ll see! If I can’t go, you guys will have to take lots of photos and video for me!! (click to enlarge!)