Month: December 2012

January: I felt really lucky to have my items available for sale at Kat Von D’s Wonderland Gallery. February: Celebrating Cuppy and Moofs wedding at Disneyland and finally meeting Lindsay! March: So honored to be part of Nara and Liz’s engagement, even if from a million miles away! April: Manda and I went to NYC to vend at the Bust Craftacular and had an amazingly fun trip that I still need to edit a video for!!! May: Wow, I only blogged 3 times during the month of May! But that was also the month that I redesigned this blog and website and said goodbye to the animated refrigerator! June: My eyeball exploded and I also wrote one of my my most commented-on blogs about the price of handmade, a “rant” as some might say. July: July was kinda busy! I tried to blog regularly about Craft Wars (and still need to recap a few more episodes….!), I watched the U.S. Olympic Gymnastic Trials in person, I crocheted some Pocky paintings for  one of the shows at Hairy’s art gallery, and I had my epic sleep dep battle to make a crazy booth display with Manda for Renegade Craft Fair. August: My toast scarf pattern was the cover story for Molly Makes magazine, I turned 36 and we had a cute picnic in the park. September: I made banana nut bread. October: I made pieces for Plush You and we went to Seattle for the show, but I have since failed to upload pics/video from that trip, my dad turned 60, I had fun times at the pumpkin patch with Manda and made a fun video, and I actually dressed up for Halloween. November: We launched the Yummy You! online store and were also featured on Fab.com! December: My free pattern for Gummy Bears was published on Lion Brand’s website, I had so much fun building a holiday booth with my mom for Renegade SF Holiday Market, and Hairy got me an ALF PHONE for Christmas!! Now I need to figure out a way to add a desk to my craft room so I can properly use and display said phone. I hope you guys have a fun and safe New Year! My resolution: self care. I worked a LOT in 2012. I will also work a lot in 2013, but I need to learn to make time for more sleep, proper eating, exercise, and personal projects. We’ll see how that goes…..!!! Thanks for following me on my crafty adventures. Your messages and support really mean a lot to me and keep my businesses going through all the frustrating times I want to call it quits and work at a bank. I love you!

I hope you all had a wonderful and yummy Christmas! As is tradition, I went out to dinner with my family on Christmas Eve, and then our family friends came over to my parents’ house on Christmas day for a big dinner and white elephant gift exchange. I crocheted a painting for my mom because she’d mentioned that she really liked them. One of her favorite sweets are madeleine cookies. I’ve tried to crochet madeleines in the past, but I kept frittering over the right color combo and stitch texture. I finally just decided to heck with it and committed to a project! You might recognize the doily and the cup from my Macaronimal paintings. They just seemed really fitting for cookies! I shot these with my iPhone in my car right before our Christmas day festivities. I didn’t have time to shoot them at my house, since I was furiously still putting the painting together before we left. I need to learn how to find a better balance between making my family presents and making your family presents :).  

Last night, we went to Tiffany and Daniel’s house for their holiday party and white elephant gift exchange. She made dericious cookies by crushing up Candy Cane Joe Joe’s…YUM! I wasn’t quite sure what to bring for the white elephant. I almost brought a jar of Baconaise, but Hairy made a face like it was the worst idea ever, so I made something instead: a crocheted octopus coffee cup cozy. I wanted to make something somewhat unisex, even though most of the stuff I design tends to be really girlie! So if you follow me on Twitter and wondered why I asked what color you think octopi are, now you know! I might post this as a free pattern later, but right now, I still have to crochet some Christmas presents!

I made myself my first stocking last year. I stayed up all night on Christmas Eve to make it. I actually wanted to make two, but I ran out of time, and I never ended up making that second one. A few weeks ago, Tess‘ bf Nathanael asked if I might help handmake Tess her very first Xmas stocking, now that they are settled in Brooklyn. He told me that he has had the same personalized stocking since he was a kid, and he wanted Tess to have the same, since I guess her family never really went all-out for the holiday. He wrote, “I’m excited to show her the joys of Christmas. ” So cute! How could I say no? He requested that it be pink and that it have some things on it that Tess likes, like stars and bows. Also that the lettering should say “TE$$.” My personal aesthetic leans toward the overly sweet and cute.  And I tend to go overboard with a “more is more” philosophy. Tess is really styley and has an edgier aesthetic than I do, so I made an attempt to get her sense of “cool” in there, even if it ended up toward the slightly humorous with my fake pyramid studs. Personally, I love pink and gold together. It rides that perfect line between tacky and cute. At first I really wasn’t sure about the studs, but I emailed some pics to Nathanael, and he also thought they were funny and that Tess would get a kick out of them. Instead of putting a bunch of smaller bows all over the stocking, I decided to go with one statement bow right on top. This was the first time I crocheted a stocking with someone’s specific personality in mind. It was really super fun! It was not exactly traditional, but, I guess you don’t come to me for traditional! 😛 The stocking crocheted up pretty quickly, and the longest part was really figuring out the sizing of the lettering and making sure it all fit. I kind of made a million S’s because I knew that was the most difficult to alter, and then I just made sure the T and the E matched in size. I based my stocking off of this pattern from Red Heart, and I based my lettering off this webpage for crocheting the letters of the alphabet. There aren’t any photos working on the alphabet page, but…. you know what the letter A looks like, so I think you can take it from there! I still have some things for my family that I need to crochet, and I also still need to wrap all my presents!!! It’s been a really busy holiday season for me. Just a heads-up: I’ll be closing my Etsy shop  for a couple weeks really soon. I have a TON of Yummy You deadlines coming up, and I felt SO overwhelmed for the past month or so. I knew something had to give, […]

Thank you so much to everybody who came to visit my booth at Renegade Craft Fair! I super appreciate all the support, and it was the first time in a long time that I actually sold out of certain items. Woo hoo! Here are some photos and one (crappy, as usual!) video, so you guys can check it out. I had a lot of fun building a gingerbread house-themed booth with my mom. I designed and built the PVC structure, my mom sewed the felt covers, she and I both painted and glittered the styrofoam candies, and Hairy drilled holes into the tables to mount my canopies, and he also wrapped the PVC in candy cane ribbon. You can click on most of the photos to see them bigger if you like!

Don’t forget to come visit me at Renegade San Francisco next weekend, December 15-16, from 11am-6pm at the Concourse Exhibition Center! I am working hard to bring you another fun booth set-up, so it will be another miracle if it actually gets finished! 😛 I’ll have popcorn garlands, peppermint ornaments, double-swirled cupcake hats, holiday cupcake hair clips, and a few other surprises, like a sweet new button set and holiday greeting cards! Come say hi!

Thanks AmandaJeannn for Tweeting this snap from your current issue of Nylon! I need to pick up a copy for posterity! Don’t forget, that if you live in NYC, you can check out Yummy You! in person at Nylon’s holiday pop-up shop. And also, my giveaway is running until Sunday night!

I’m excited that Yummy You! is part of Nylon‘s very first holiday pop-up shop! I wanted to go to the kick-off party tonight, but I couldn’t quite make my travel plans work out in time, so now all you guys in NYC (I’m looking at you, Nicole) have to check out the pop-up and let me know what it’s like! Mondays-Saturdays, 12-7pm, Sundays 12-5pm, December 7th – 18th, at 72 Gansevoort Street.

Yay! It’s the moment you’ve been waiting for: Lion Brand has posted my free pattern for Glitter Gummy Bears, just in time for your holiday crafting! One pack of Lion Brand Bonbons can make up to 8 gummy bears in a variety of colors. There’s a bit of sewing involved with the different little pieces, but if you are familiar with making simple amigurumi, this pattern will be a snap! I tried to keep it the pattern as simple as possible so that more people would be able to have some gummy bear fun! If you make a gummy bear and enjoy the pattern, please do leave positive feedback at the Lion Brand site on my pattern page. If you guys like the pattern, maybe more things will be in store in the future…! (This photo will be available soon as a greeting card in my Etsy shop!)

Happy Monday! Let’s do a Yummy You! giveaway! Since we had a cupcake-themed giveaway on Audrey’s blog, I figured we would do a bacon-and-egg-themed one here! We’ll send a bacon and egg scarf, bacon and egg toe socks, egg flower hard case wallet, and fried egg pin to one lucky winner! Contest is open worldwide. Simply follow the Rafflecopter widget to enter! The contest will close next Monday, Dec. 10 at the stroke of midnight PST. Good luck! a Rafflecopter giveaway p.s. Are there any other bloggers here who use Rafflecopter? Are we now forced to purchase a premium account in order to display a photo of our prizes within the widget, rather than using html?