Author: TwinkieChan

My new free pattern is up now at Michaels.com: Veggie Pen Cozies! You get the patterns for the asparagus, lettuce, and carrot! They work up super quick and are a fun stash-buster for all your veggie-colored yarns. We did some lettuce pens with green and purple that were really fun! Edit, June 4, 2014: Please find the pattern here on my blog. Michaels.com is currently re-vamping their pattern/project section, and the above Michaels.com link is disabled for now.      

I’ll need to sharpen my green thumb and get a whole new wardrobe, but I just wanted to let you guys know that we visited Hobbiton, and I’m moving in! After spending a few days in Auckland, living the city life, Hairy drove us down to visit Hobbiton and the LOTR/Hobbiton movie set, which is in the middle of a giant sheep farm filled with cute sheeps whose job it is to look adorable and munch on grass all day. I believe our tour guide said that there were like 4o hobbit holes on the premises, some big, some small, depending on whether they wanted to film a human or a hobbit next to it. There’s not really stuff inside of them. They are all mostly facades, and any shots from the inside of a hobbit hole were filmed in Wellington on a set. It was really super cute there, but what really struck me was the care and attention to all the gardening. There was a central vegetable garden with actual chard and squashes and herbs and all kinds of veggies and things. I live by the ocean where there is no sun, but I felt super inspired to grow food because it just looks adorable aside from being edible…! You also get to visit the Green Dragon for a free beer, cider, or ginger beer! (Oops, no photo of that yet…!)   I’m not even a really gigantic LOTR fan, but I thought that visiting this place was really fun. Time to redecorate my house!! I took more photos and TOOOOOONNNS of video, but we are off now to find dinner in Wellington!

Here’s a tiny snippet of what we did today: took a ferry from Auckland to Waikehe Island, went on a tiny hike….and then it started to rain! Classic me: I complain if I’m hot, I complain if it’s windy, and I complain if it rains!

I just finished giving myself my vacation mani! We are off to New Zealand and Australia for the next two weeks. I loaded up my Kindle with a kabillion books. I’ll try to blog a little here and there with photos. Have you guys ever been to either of those countries? Any favorite spots? See you soon!  

Recently on Tumblr, someone asked me about how to get their Etsy shop noticed, and I kinda get this question every now and again, so I thought I would write a blog post about how to start spreading the word about your shop/brand/business. I don’t know of any special magic, and my shop is certainly not the most popular or anywhere near there, but here are some initial ideas if you’re just starting out. I’ve never done anything super fancy, so all my advice is kinda basic, but it has worked for me so far! The first thing that comes to my mind is how we’d always get asked, “What’s the secret to making a bestseller?” when I worked in publishing. Well, if there were a secret, and if we (or anybody, even the publishers) knew that secret, then all the books would be bestsellers. Let’s face it. There are duds. You could be the dud. 1. Be a trend-setter not a trend-follower – I say this a lot in blog and magazine interviews, but I believe it super strongly. Be unique. Don’t just see something popular and think, “Hey, I can do that,” and just put MORE of the same thing into the universe. Add something new! Add something YOU! That’s how you will become memorable. Not everyone will love your work; some people will even hate it (years and years ago, someone in an online crochet group said my old-school rocket pop scarf was stupid and looked like a penis). But you will be memorable if you make the effort to be creative (who’s laughing now, penis-hater?!). If you are the only person making a certain thing at a certain time, people will HAVE to go to you for that special product. When I first started, I googled and searched all over eBay (Etsy wasn’t really a thing yet and totally not on my radar in 2005) to see if I could find anyone else who was making what I wanted to make. My mom was like, “Maybe you should focus more on colors that remind people of food, rather than actually crocheting scarves that look like food.” Moral: it’s ok to be weird. It’s probably good to be weird, even if everyone hates your peas-n-carrots scarf, and you never make one ever again in the history of ever. 2. Have a voice – Sometimes I’ll browse Etsy shops and feel like their products are all over the place. I’m not saying you have to pigeon hole yourself, but … I sort of am. In the early stages of your business, I think it’s important for people to be able to easily associate your brand with a particular style, philosophy, aesthetic, and/or product. “Crocheted, food-themed scarves” is pretty specific as a focus, but I think it really helped people to remember my work and who I was. When I worked in an office, I used to DIY random and weird gifts for my boss. She was always hounding me […]

One of the things I was busy doing last week was planning/decorating for my brother and SIL’s baby shower which was on Saturday at my mom’s house. Their favorite book is “Ender’s Game,” which they are naming their baby after, so I tried to incorporate the book into the baby shower theme without getting too weird about it (Manda wanted to make everything ALIENS!). Instead of going full Battle School, I went with stars and a couple images of Ender. As always, I started with a sketch to plan out the colors and items on the dessert table. I have never created one of these tables before, so I did lots of research on the internet first! The real thing had a few changes, but overall, I thought it was funny how the drawing translated to real life!

Okay, I know this is a little premature, but I have this paranoia that I won’t post the day of Easter, and then it’ll be too late! This picture was taken on Thursday evening.  I know. It’s a terrible Photoshop job on an already terrible phone-cam photo, but hey, you work with whatcha got! Manda called me and asked if I would help her maraud her preschool, and as it is a grand tradition, I said YES. We went to Diddams and Target and bought all sorts of fun, Easter-y doodads. We stuffed 120 plastic eggs full of candy, stickers, and novelty rings. We prepped a bunch of Easter-themed activities for little ones, like painting balloons, making baskets out of a paper bags and pipe cleaners, and accomplished other important stuff like ordering my favorite pizza (Pizz’a Chicago!) and eating Manda’s Rolos. I’m really hoping that she and I can take a nice photo with the Easter Bunny this year, but I dunno if she’ll have time. The last time we took an Easter Bunny photo, we did it on a whim, and we were wearing jackets and jeans. It was….. ugly. I told her next time, we needed to be in fancy dresses and look GOOD. SO MUCH PRESSURE!!! Anyway, inspired by my nail guru goddess Kelly-Anne, I painted a bunny on my nail. The other ones were supposed to be, like, Jelly Belly themed, but they just look like I had a seizure while attempting polka dots. Oh well. Live and learn! Do you guys celebrate Easter? My family doesn’t really do anything for Easter. My mom would leave out baskets when we were kids, but, obviously, that doesn’t occur anymore hehe. I’m going to brunch with Hairy and his parents, but that’s about it!  

Someone left a message on my blog recently that she hoped one day that Normalynn and I would collaborate. Well, today’s the day. Dreams *do* come true!!! 😛 I actually met Norma Lynn many years ago at Renegade Craft Fair here in San Francisco. She visited my booth and explained who she was, and I definitely already knew her work as well. She is really the sweetest person ever, and her website is filled with photos of delectable crocheted cake sachets and lots of free patterns. I approached her after receiving that message on my blog, and our collaborative crochet pattern is the Panorama Egg, just in time for Easter! photo by Norma Lynn of her candy eggs my eggs are noticeably more… gaudy!

So pretty much everyone has heard of this already, but I only just discovered it online recently: overnight oats. I’m addicted!!! You know I don’t like “cooking,” and when I do, it doesn’t usually turn out that well. I keep trying, though. And this recipe is more like mixing than cooking. Hey, I can mix! I followed the instructions from The Yummy Life. These are ingredients I have never before purchased in my life: real oats, chia seeds, and PB2. If you click on the Yummy Life link, you can read all about chia seeds and all the goodness inside of them. PB2 is apparently peanut butter with a good percentage of the fat squeezed out of it so it becomes a powder with lots of peanut butter flavor. Again, the link has 8 fun recipes for you, but the basics are you throw oats, nonfat greek yogurt, skim milk, chia seeds, honey (or whatever sweetener you like), and then other fruits and flavors like the PB2 or cocoa powder or vanilla extract, and real fruit pieces or coconut shreds, shake em up, and leave em in the fridge overnight. Done. I also like that you make this the night before so that the chia seeds and oats have time to soak, so if you are in a rush in the morning, you can just grab your jar and go. Some people on Instagram remarked that their oats turned out runny, but mine turned out pretty thick, almost too thick, maybe from the PB2. Hairy liked the consistency of his, though. I give this breakfast two thumbs up! Success! The only thing I would add, though, is that I would want bigger jars. 8oz jars are recommended, but this left very little room for my fruit. I don’t need more oatmeal, but I’d love to cram more fruits up in there!!! I’ll be looking for some 12 oz jars!    

Youz guys! I’m so excited that our new collaboration with Sanrio, “Hello Kitty by Twinkie Chan” is now available for purchase at Yummy You! Some of you may recognize these scarves from Sanrio’s 50th Anniversary art show. We have the same two styles available now. One has 5-characters on cupcakes, and the other has 14 different characters. I should take a photo of the 14-character one stretched out so you can see more of the characters. I kinda blanked on that one! Ever since I made the originals for the Sanrio party, people have been messaging me, asking me to make one for them, too, so I hope you guys are excited that we produced these via Yummy You! Do you have a favorite Sanrio character? Mine are Purin and Pandapple!  

I got some tiny nail polish brushes from Daiso a few months ago and never tried them out. I have finally concluded that my problem is not lack of tools, just lack of skill! I am terrible at nail art! I’m messy, sloppy, have no control over what I’m doing. It’s just not in my blood. It’s a good thing I never tried to be a surgeon. I may try acrylic paint instead of nail polish for my next nail doodles, but I dunno, I am not gonna assume that anything can save me! Also, I forgot that I shouldn’t paint my nails a light color right after getting my hair dyed. Now I have the dreaded PINK STAIN.  

Here is the outfit I (sorta) wore yesterday to shoot the jelly bean scarf. I ended up putting on black leggings and my trusty black cowboy boots because I forgot that I hadn’t shaved my legs and couldn’t leave the house in knee-highs! I also failed to notice that the little flappy thing on top of the bib of the overalls kept sticking out. I am proud to continue my tradition of worst outfit-blogger ever. I have been really obsessed with getting an overalls-skirt for a while now. I’ve been window shopping on Etsy, but I never find anything that I like that will fit my hips. I have a pair of stripey Osh Kosh overalls that I want to turn into a skirt, but, obviously, that project hasn’t happened yet. So when I saw these overalls on Urban Outfitters, I just kinda went for it. It’s a super easy DIY if you already have overalls, but sometimes I just gotta take it easy on myself with timesuck vs DIY and just buy the darn things. AND I LOVE THEM! Overalls: Urban Outfitters, Shirt: Forever 21, Socks: Sock Dreams, Shoes: bought them for Halloween on Amazon

  I added a ready-to-ship Jelly Bean Scarf to my Etsy shop! Remember also that the pattern is available for free at Michaels.com. There was a small booboo in the pattern at Michaels. Round 5 is as follows, with the correct change made in red font. Rnd 5: Ch 2 (counts as your 1st hdc) and hdc in same st. Work 9 hdc evenly across. [2 hdc in next st, 1 hdc in next 3 sts] 5 times. 2 hdc in next st, 1 hdc, 1 sc, 6 sl st, 1 sc each in next 3 sts, hdc, [2 hdc in next st, 1 hdc in next 3 sts] 2 times. 1 hdc in last st. (60) Break off leaving 18″ of yarn for sewing.

I  must admit: I kinda love these! They are removable and washable vegetable cozies for ball point pens!! They make the cutest desk display. Just fill up a small flower pot or a mason jar full of beans or pebbles and throw in some veggie pens! Now available in my Etsy shop!  

If you are near Amesbury, MA, you should check out Egg Drop-Palooza on March 30th at Amesbury sports park! They are going to drop 30,000 Easter eggs filled with goodies, and there are pony rides, helicopter rides, face painting, egg dye-ing, a bunny hop, etc etc. This event is organized by Lucy’s Love Bus,  a non-profit “delivering comfort to children with cancer” through integrative therapies. “Lucy’s Love Bus is named after Lucy Grogan, who was diagnosed with a rare form of Leukemia. Lucy herself benefited from integrative therapies, but was upset that many of her friends couldn’t. Though Lucy passed away, her mother Beecher Grogan founded Lucy’s Love Bus in 2006. Since 2006, we’ve helped 101 children in 14 states. “A program started initially to help heal Lucy’s friends, Lucy’s Teen Leaders is a group of young philanthropists who host fundraisers to help fund Lucy’s Mission. I am honored to be part of this group, especially at the age of 13. Lucy’s Teen Leader program has given me life long skills, such as creating an annual appeal and hosting events. This has also become part of our mission, teaching leadership to others. Lucy’s Teen Leader group has spread within Massachusetts.” Maggie from Lucy’s Love Bus contacted us at Yummy You! to see if we might donate  to their prize packs, and of course we said yes! Tickets to this event are only $5. I hope some of you are able to check it out!

So, this happened. Friends or enemies? Who’s to say?

While my parents are on vacay, Manda and I were assigned the duty of house and dog-sitting. Manda took the first shift, and I took the second, and we overlapped with a slumber party night, but everything went down hill when Manda locked herself out of her bedroom. She had googled all kinds of ways to pick a lock with no success. Then we asked my brother to come over and help, because this used to be his old bedroom, and we figured he might know something we didn’t. An hour or two later, all we had was a chewed-up expired AAA card, a chewed-up copy card, 3 bent kitchen knives, and the scent of WD-40 in the air. The night had turned into an EVENT. I said that we should create an actual event on Facebook really quick. “Twinkie Chan was at THE LOCK OUT.” Manda was like, “Amanda hosted THE LOCK OUT.” I like to think that we can do anything when we put our minds to it, but breaking-and-entering just aren’t going to be strong points on our resumes. We considered different ways to bust through the door like they do in the movies, but all I could imagine was my brother with a broken shoulder or his foot stuck through the door with splintered wood sticking out everywhere. We called a locksmith. He opened the door in 2 minutes. The entire time, I was dreaming about the mac n cheese that Manda had cooked. So with the whole door debacle, Manda didn’t have much time to pack her stuff up, so she ended up spending the next night, and the next night, and the next night. A key factor in dog-sitting is that my parents’s dog Domino starts howling and barking on the porch around 6:30am or 7:00am when he wants his breakfast. If you know me at all, you know that I’m generally not a morning person … ! On Friday morning, I woke up with Manda to feed the dogs. I think I had like 2 hours sleep. We were kinda just sitting around in the kitchen, because I didn’t feel like falling asleep just yet, and Manda joked that we should be naughty and get drive-thru breakfast. Another key-factor about me is that I NEVER LEAVE THE HOUSE WITHOUT EYELINER. This simply just does not happen. It only takes me 5 minutes to put on my face, so it’s not like a big ordeal, but, I need my face did to enter the real world. But at 7 in the morning, I did not want to wash my face, brush my teeth, or put on real pants. Manda and I put on crazy sunglasses and just hopped in the car. This may sound very normal, but for me, this was absolutely insanity. We weren’t even wearing bras. I mean, that’s just criminal. We commemorated the day with dignified outfit photos in the cool morning mist. I couldn’t stop laughing when I took Manda’s […]

Hi Hi! I finally got around to listing the Push Pop Pets in my shop. Check em out! Strawberry Short Pup already found a home!

So you may remember me always blogging about how I need to organize my craft room. When I have crochet deadline after crochet deadline, picking up my mess always takes a back seat! And I still do need to finish my 2012 bookkeeping (which I’m doing now!), but I REALLY had to set aside time to deal with my craft room because I was asked to be video-interviewed in there yesterday! (I’m not sure yet if I’m supposed to keep the interview a surprise…) If you “like” my Facebook page, you would already have seen little snippets of me picking up the place, but I was also taking video from time to time, and I sped it up, so you can sort of see what took place within the span of 4 minutes (but it was in reality like 2 days). My craft space has been featured in various blogs, and I always just shoved piles of yarn in my bedroom to take photos and then put it all back. What really intimidated me was doing it RIGHT. I wanted to separate out the yarn to giveaway or sell (happening after aforementioned bookkeeping!), and approach everything in an organized fashion. So everything is sorted through now, but it’s also living in bags and boxes in Hairy’s man cave…. and it’s A LOT. So here’s the video. Enjoy!

Soooooo, I am really really late to the game, but I just started playing DrawSomething. When it was popular, I refused to play it, because it seemed time-consuming and like I might get addicted to it. I’m not big on video games or apps or stuff like that, because I think people end up with their eyeballs constantly glued to their phones or computers or whatever. But for reasons I won’t discuss yet (or ever… we’ll see what happens!), I started playing a few weeks ago for research. I was immediately frustrated because I have terrible finger-control, and I couldn’t let go how of HOW AWFUL my drawings were! But then Manda agreed to play around on it with me, and it became fun. It’s actually a nice way to relax my brain for like 3 minutes and then go back to my business. When I was in college, I kept a sketch journal. I always made myself sketch something for only 5 minutes, once a day. 5 minutes, only. But every day. I preferred to use pencil and crayon (sounds classy, right?). I’m so not an artist, but at that point, I really liked making myself use my brain differently for a little bit. I’ll scan some images from the journal when I remember to! I have forgotten to save some of my most excellent DrawSomething work (sarcasm!), but here is a small sample of what I happened to catch.   This random person I play with, “Julia S.,” is actually pretty good. I messaged her once and was like, “Your finger control is amazing. Do you use a stylus?” and she responded, “Nope, just my finger!” And then we never messaged again, and just kept playing. I feel creepy now.

Okay, there’s a lot going on right now, but, sometimes you need to relieve your stress by creating a horrible animation loop of you and Manda, in your mom’s Lexus SUV, wearing her fancy coats, and getting KFC and cheezballs. I know you are like, “What. The. Eff.” It’s kind of an inside joke. Now you’re in the inside!

In anticipation of St. Patty’s Day, I put a few marshmallow charm headbands in the shop! Grab ’em quick! There aren’t very many! 🙂 Sorry again that things have been quiet around here. I haven’t quite found my groove yet after getting sick last week, and I have two gigantic deadlines this week. One is top secret, and the other is PREPPING MY TAXES. YUCK! I also need to make my house look less hurricane-disaster-y. I’m getting video-interviewed here on Sunday for something fun, and my craft room is still bursting at the seams. I’ll letcha know more about that video soon! It’s pretty cool!

  Yep, now you can make your own ice cream scoop hair clips. Available as a PDF for purchase on Etsy!

Surprise! My Michaels.com March pattern is up a little early! A super colorful Jelly Bean Scarf! Edit, June 4, 2014: Please find the pattern here on my blog. Michaels.com is currently re-vamping their pattern/project section, and the above Michaels.com link is disabled for now. This month’s theme is Easter! As you’ll see from the project description, I was rolling some ideas around in my head, but I also asked my Twitter followers what they would like to see. Someone suggested a project involving jelly beans, and I really loved it! Once you get the pattern down, this project works up super quickly, and it’s fun to play with different color combos! I have some colors already picked out for more jelly bean scarves. I was hoping to finish them so I could post more pictures along with this pattern, but I didn’t want to make you guys wait!