Author: TwinkieChan

Last weekend, Hairy and I drove down to L.A. to attend the opening night of the Sweet Streets group exhibition, co-curated by Spank! I am kind of going out of my mind trying to put together a fun Black Friday sale for y’all, plus I’m leaving for a 2-week vacay in less than a week! But I could not pass up a chance to shop at the Spank! x Chubby Bunny pop up shop, and make-a the gross face with Shrinkle. Some links to check out with more photos! LA Weekly Jessi Jae Joplin’s Buzznet blog Anz Falcon’s blog (There’s a photo of me in there where I think my expression exudes, “I ate too much mac n cheese and I need to go take my tights off.”) tadatime on Flickr Ok, now my photos! The cutest art ever by Bei Badgirl I dunno who the artist is, but I LOVE IT. Ok, someone emailed me and told the artist is Markiii! So, I didn’t really get photos of artz. But the sites I linked you to have lots! Checkout Shrinkle executing “pretty feet.” I tried to copy her later, but I don’t think I was doin’ it right. Ummm ok, so I have loved Spank! and have admired Tavuchi for years. I’m pumped to have met her and taken a picture with her! Me and Shannie, who was a model in the fashion show! I think I still never blogged much about my trips to Portland and Seattle last year for my book tour, but we hung out with Shannie in Portland and made donut love. Ok … I esplain. I wanted to take a photo with Steph/zilla308, and she was like, “Let’s take a photo in the photobooth,” and she was also like, “I wanna take prom photos!” But I don’t think we actually knew what that would entail. Also embarrassing is that the photobooth was in front of the line for the pop up shop, so everyone gets to watch you be stupid! Me: “Sorry my hands are sweaty.” I’m the sexiest prom date ever. Ok these photos are stolen from Miss Alphabet. Here’s me, her, and Maria from Locketship. (Remember, you can still buy the crochet painting I created for Locketship’s anniversary here in their shop!) Me and Mr. Locketship! Feels like a good photo for an outfit rundown: -Shirt: from Etsy -Skirt: from Material Girl! Yes, it’s a line for teenagers, and yes, I had to buy XL so my butt could fit in it! I need to take in the waist, tho! -Tights: Celeste Stein -Socks: Sock Dreams -Shoes: my trusty, everyday Demonia Sprites -Fannypack: Fancypack by CarrotCake! -Cookie pin: by me! -Heart necklace: Cicely Margo -Hair pieces: I took YumYums coin purses from Strapya World and glued hair clips onto them. This one lady was like, “Are those zippers in your hair clips?” and I was like, “Yeah, they are actually coin purses that I glued hair clips to,” and she was like, […]

    Some of you asked me to keep you posted on when my crochet painting for Locketship would be available for sale. That would be now! Go to Locketship’s website to check it out! I’m in L.A. right now, blogging in my hotel room with my PJ’s on. We went to Disneyland yesterday and to Sweet Streets II tonight. I have tons of pics and videos to show you guys when I get home!

Tonight after Hairy gets home from work, we are driving down to L.A. for the Sweet Streets Art Exhibition Co-curated by Spank! I have so much to do, PLUS, we are leaving for a 2 week vacation on Nov. 28, so the responsible part of my brain is telling me that going to L.A. this weekend is the dumbest idea ever, but I can’t pass up the opportunity to shop at the Spank! pop-up shop! Description ☆ Contact preview@wwagallery.com for artwork previews. WWA Gallery presents… SWEET STREETS: Art Exhibition Co-Curated by Spank! Exhibition runs: November 19 – December 23, 2011. … Opening party: November 19th, 7pm – 10pm. @ WWA Gallery 9517 Culver Blvd. Culver City, CA 90232 Online: http://bit.ly/ovg3C2 ☆ Opening Party: 8pm: Fashion show by Spank! and Chubby Bunny. 7pm – 10pm: Artists reception, free and open to the public. p.s. I kind of can’t believe I’ll be Disneyland tomorrow. YAY!

I’m working on a kabillion things!! Slowly adding more things to the shop. Tomorrow some more cupcake hats are going up! I love sending cute things to cute people! 🙂

This Saturday night is Locketships’s 4 Year Anniversary & Galactic Glitter Launch Party! at Meltdown Comics in L.A. I unfortunately can’t be there, but my new crochet painting will be! Orbit the raccoon inside his rocketship is Locketship’s logo! So I crocheted him flying through a donut meteor shower for that Twinkie Chan touch! I used a bunch of different yarns, some buttons, and a bunch of pom poms. Go check it – and a ton of other fun stuff – out! It looks to be an action-packed night!

Pre-order your turkey hats and turkey tissue cozies now! The sooner your order, the sooner I crochet and ship! You have until Nov. 15 to guarantee Thanksgiving delivery in the U.S. 🙂

I played with a new business card design the other day, and the cards just came in this afternoon. I’m not crazy about them, since I think that both sides look like the back of a card. I don’t know. I can’t explain it. I think the “front” with the business name is too busy, plus the giant contact info is kinda weird. Taking the sprinkles out of the equation made the front look a lot cleaner, but I loves my sprinkles! I am planning to re-vamp the website/blog sooner rather than later, so I’ll have to change up the cards accordingly at that point anyway. It was at least fun to play with something different! When I first designed my business cards/logo, I of course really wanted to use PINK, but then for some reason, at that point, I felt like it would be too obvious for me to have a pink and girly logo, so that’s why I chose BLUE for my main background color. So it was fun to let out the pinks and cakes and strawberries and rainbows for a little bit! Now I’m going to be gearing up for Thanksgiving and the holidays. Turkey hats, turkey tissue cozies, and maybe turkey mittens coming soon! Anything else you’d like to see turkey-style? P.s. a couple people asked about my shoes in my last entry. Those are my everyday shoes. I just ordered 2 more pairs! They are by Demonia and they are called “SPRITE.” I buy them on Amazon! Just search on Amazon for “demonia sprite” and they should pop up :).

Tiffany and Daniel invited us to party that they and their friends were throwing on the S. S. Jeremiah O’Brien on Saturday night. We got there REALLY late, because Hairy had to work at the gallery, and Manda and I still had to put together some kind of costume to wear, sewing on buttons and cutting out collars at the last minute. Everything turned out fine, and we had so much fun trying to take a million pictures during the last hour of the party! Costumes: success! Except, for some reason, my nylons were REALLY SHINY. Here are my fav photos: Tiff made her own mermaid costume! I’m sad Hairy didn’t get the bottom of her costume with the mermaid tail! That’s us trying to mimic some mannequins at F21 we saw earlier that day! Outfits: (we tried to buy pieces that would be usable even after Halloween) $5 sailor hats from some shop online that we sewed golden bows and buttons to. Dresses: H&M, and we added gold buttons from JoAnn Fabrics Coats: Converse All Star from Target Collars: pieces of fabric cut out about 5 minutes before we left the house Here’s a video of us exploring the ship! And I’ll put the rest of the photos behind a cut!

  There’s me and TiffanyStar after escaping a corn maze. I think our photographic awkwardness rivals that of me and Shrinkle. Is it me? I will come AwkwardBomb YOUR photos!   Last weekend, a bunch of us ate mac n cheese at Homeroom and then caravanned to Pleasanton to go to Pirates of Emerson and check out some haunted houses. I think we managed to go through all 4 haunted houses, plus the “Mental Maze,” and also THE CORN MAZE! It was pretty much really dark over there, so I tried to get audio snippets of us stuck in the corn maze. I didn’t get video or pics in the haunted houses because I figured the ghouls and escaped prisoners wouldn’t appreciate it. I don’t normally do the haunted house thing, but it was good times, except for all the fog machine air making my nose feel stuffy!     More Halloween fun after the weekend! Don’t get too excited. I don’t really have time to put much thought into a fancy costume! oh p.s. one of my customers is eBaying her whipped cream scarf. Get it!

Sometimes blogging can feel overwhelming, so I take a break from it, and then feel guilty about it for some reason! AH! Anyway, I have finished shipping out all your Halloween goodies, and soon, we will be on to Thanksgiving….and Christmas! Wheee!!! In the meantime, I am working on a new crochet painting for Locketship‘s anniversary party, art show, and launch party for their new collection Galactic Glitter. The theme is SPACE! Here is a sneak animated gif of what I’m crocheting up! I wish the real thing could also wiggle and blink, but….yarn can only do so much!   p.s. you can still buy MUMMY MITTS which I discounted, and peeps in the continental U.S. can still get them by Halloween, but probably only if you order today and tomorrow :).

I added a few pairs of Mummy Fingerless Mitts to my Etsy shop. Last year I wrote a tutorial for these mitts for Elsie’s blog. This year, you can purchase your own! Grab ’em quick, cuz there aren’t that many! Don’t forget, you have until Sunday, Oct 16, to pre-order an I Scream Ghost T-Shirt, and to also pre-order a Jack O Lantern Slouchy Hat, Jack O Lantern fingerless mitts, and Jack O Lantern hair clip .

I have been sporting what my friend Kera calls “crack ho nails” for a long time. It’s when you never remove your old polish and you’re left with ugly, unkempt chips of faded color. Some of my fingers were worn clean off! Earlier today I told myself I would set aside some ME TIME to re-do my nails. Since I work with my hands, I rarely feel like taking a moment to take care of my nails, so this was a very nice little treat to myself! I was inspired by TinyTangerine’s Floral Nail Tutorial for the roses. The only tools I used were the nail polish brush and some tooth picks…so…my roses went a little wonky. We’ll call it Impressionist art! I used a Starbuck’s coffee cup lid as a paint palette. The disco ball glitter is my new OPI Rainbow Connection polish from the Muppets collection. It’s AMAZING. I put it all over my toes and I feel like I walked through stars. It was getting kind of clumpy on the brush while I was putting all 3 coats on, and someone on Instagram mentioned that I probably shouldn’t have been sitting in front of a space heater blowing hot air all over it…! The pink glitter is OPI I Pink I Love You that I ordered online from the UK, because I Pink I Love You in the U.S. is an entirely different color! The mint green is MAC Mischievous Mint, and I used a combo of drug store polishes for the floral nails. For the first time, I tried using Seche Vite top coat. I’ve heard that it helps semi-wet polish dry up super quickly! IT DOES! It also makes all your polish super shiny!! I have also read that if you apply it too thick, that it will shrink and peel your nail polish off. I am not very good at painting my nails, so I won’t be surprised if this happens…but so far, I really love it as a drying agent!

Worked on a custom cupcake coffee cup cozy and also a wholesale order of cozies for ShanaLogic.com. I also made this random little video of the custom cozy! I’ll be working on getting more cupcake hats into the shop, since a bunch of you msgd me and were sad they had sold out already! Don’t forget, you have until Sunday, Oct 16, to pre-order an I Scream Ghost T-Shirt, and to also pre-order a Jack O Lantern Slouchy Hat, Jack O Lantern fingerless mitts, and Jack O Lantern hair clip . I’ll be adding another fun Halloween-themed item in the next few days ;).

PRE-ORDERING IS CLOSED NOW! Thank you all who ordered a shirt 🙂 xoxoxoxoxox ************************* Hey gang, I wasn’t sure how many I Scream Ghost tshirts to print or in what sizes, so I thought I’d try opening up a pre-order for them for a week, from today (Sunday) until next Sunday, October 17. Then I’d need another week to print the shirts and ship them out, but I’ll send them Priority within the U.S. so you should definitely get them before Halloween, but I plan to wear mine beyond Halloween, too! They are $20 each, $5 shipping worldwide. I know it’s last minute, so if there is no interest, I am totally cool with that. I just thought I’d try it out! I prefer the 50/50 cotton-poly blend shirts, available to you in Black, Br0wn, Heathered Black (like a dark, heathered gray), and Orchid (medium lavender). In sizes Small, Medium, Large, and X-Large. There is a a slight scoop in the neck, and the fabric is super stretchy and soft. I wear a size Medium in it. But I also love the colors of the regular fine jersey cotton shirt. Available to you are Fucshia, Mint, Sunshine, and Aqua. In sizes Small, Medium, Large, X-Large, and 2XL. The fit is smaller, so I wear a size Large in it.    

  I just updated the shop with some Halloween goodies! I’m doing pre-orders (sorry it’s kinda late in the game!) so the earlier you order, the sooner you’ll get your items! Remember to give me some time to make them, but I promise to ship everything by Oct. 21. There are also some other new items in there, including cupcake slouchy hats and cupcake iphone/gadget cozies. Check em all out!

  My aunt was in town for a few weeks, and we all went to eat fancy foods at Gary Danko. I wanted to get a few quick outfit snaps, but I also didn’t want us to run too late, since we were also going to visit Chrissa at her launch party/press conference for her new gig as a VJ for MNET. We were only able to say hi super quick before heading off to dinner, but it was at least nice to say hi to her and Tess and Amy for 2 minutes! Chrissa was too busy being an event hostess to be in this photo :P. The dress I’m wearing is part of Elsie’s collection for Red Velvet. She asked Twitter to help her name the dress, and she went with my suggestion: The First Date!! Then I felt like an idiot, because she had already named another dress in the collection the Library Date dress, but she said, “It’s ok. I really like dates!” She’s the cutest. The tights are from Celeste Stein. The variety of prints for tights is amazing!! But I think the fit of the tights is a little less amazing….. they get super saggy and loose super quickly. Necklace: Cicely Margo. Bunny purse: Rakuten.

  Manda and I had a lot of fun on Saturday, vending at the Noriega Street Block Party. I rarely do craft events, but now that I have enlisted a bit more crochet help, I hope to do more. I was not really prepared for vending outdoors, since I am used to large indoor venues for Renegade or Bazaar Bizarre, so having a tent/canopy never even occurred to me! At first I was afraid it was going to rain, and then for the rest of the day, it was super sunny! My shoulders got burnt a little, but luckily, my table neighbor (and the woman who invited me to participate in the event) Jenny of SF Knitting Supply happened to be selling skincare products and let us sample her SPF lotion!   Since I haven’t really made an event video lately, I decided it was my mission to capture the day on video, so I didn’t really take many photos, except for the one above with my buddy Logan! We met and chatted with lots of interesting people, and we also delighted many CHILDRENS! I love that children gravitate toward my goodies, but my big hope is to capture this kind of child-like glee inside grownups, too!   Hope you enjoy the video! I will be posting leftovers on Etsy in the next few days :). I sold out of jack-o-lantern mitts, but I think we’ll have a few more to post up, too. I am thinking if the jack-o-lantern items are popular, I’ll do some pre-orders to ship by Oct 20. We’ll see how it goes!  

I made a zillion crocheted ice-cream hair clips last night, woke up and ate a breakfast sandwich, was about to put on my makeup, and promptly fell asleep against the couch like this. I spared you all of the gross, squishy, alien-face Hairy captured in this photo.

This Saturday, from 12pm-5pm, I will be selling goodies in my neighborhood at a local block party. I have no idea what it will be like or what other vendors will be there, but I do know there will be a jumpy castle! 😉 I will be bringing a few never-seen-before items, so you should come check them out and be the first to grab them! Use secret password “I SCREAM!” to get 10% off your purchase at the event! See you there!

This weekend, some family came to town to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the passing of someone very important to all of us. My family and Manda’s family are very close. All the connections get really convoluted and are not relevant, but Manda and I have been friends almost all of our lives, and the woman who raised her was my mother’s best friend. She was an artist and a teacher and the strong-willed lynch pin that brought so many people together. She and my mom were always telling us to “go home and make it” when we saw something at a store that we wanted. When I went to stay with her as a young kiddo, we would oil pint, and sculpt, and make things out of wood. We’d hike, and camp, and skip rocks on the creek near her house. We’d eat sandwiches on a mountain and lick the dirt of off our fingers. She had a magic red blanket at her house that was magic because if you slept under it, you would never have bad dreams. I’d use her cat, Nel, as a pillow. She let me paint my fingernails, which was kind of forbidden at my house, and I fell asleep with the tv on. She used to give me a bath in the kitchen sink because I complained that the shower spray blinded and suffocated me. She made you drink fresh juice from her juicer in the morning. It was her mother who taught me to crochet. There is so much to say. I realized, at our gathering on Saturday night, that my memory of her is from my childhood, and I don’t think I had as close a relationship with her as an adult, mainly, I think, because I transferred some of that energy to my relationship with Manda. I may not have had that opportunity to glean adult wisdom from her, but I think she and that wisdom live on in Manda and the rest of the family as well. On Saturday night, some of us gathered around a fire pit to say a few words, and to burn some letters and things. We believe that you can send things to the spiritual world, or what have you, by burning them. I wrote a letter, the contents of which will only be known to me and her and the fire, and I also sent her photos of two things: the one meal I can remember cooking with her probably around age 5, and the plant we chose together that I still have and is still alive in my kitchen. She liked it because she said it looked like an ant eater. They are very silly and crappy photo collages, but I think she would appreciate the humor!     Auntie Nita, I love you. That’s it. That’s all. And that’s everything.

Okay, so I’m still crocheting samples for new Yummy You product, and I had this pink oval that didn’t turn out to be the shape I wanted it to be. Sometimes it’s hard to remember how Point A gets to Point B, but let’s just say, I happened upon a genius new crafty/cosmetics fad! Just kidding. I thought it was hilarious and disturbing.

On Saturday, we met up in the Mission to surprise TiffanyStar for her bday! We had some delicious foods but couldn’t stay long because my intern/Manda was in town, and we had a ton of work to do for Yummy You. I wish I could show you sneaks of the cute stuff we worked on, but I don’t want to spoil any surprises, plus it’s all just teaser material for deals that don’t even exist yet, so I don’t want to jinx it! I thought I would take a few snaps of the gift I wrapped for Tiff. I am really bad at tying ribbons into bows, but I still like to decorate gift packages, so I decided to hot glue some colorful pom poms all over the wrapped box. It’s really simple and fast, but is kind of cute and different!

Holy Flashback! Yes, when Manda and I were little, we went to SPACE CAMP together!!! I have a lot of funny memories from this trip, but I don’t want to bore everyone with details and no pictures, like, why we didn’t shower for a week, and the first time Manda curled her bangs by herself, how we got in trouble on the airplane, how our parents told us we had to stick together for safety, even in public bathrooms, in the same stall, EVEN IF IT WAS NUMBER TWO. So what I did instead was dissect the video that Space Camp sent to our parents. It’s chopped up a bit to make it short and edit out the other kids, but I think you get a good idea of what we did and what Manda and I were like back then!

Hi guys! I added some more ice cream scoop hair clips to THE SHOP! I also recently got my awesome new DINO SHIRT from my buddy Chubby Bunny, and now you can get yours TOO! Go to her website!! It also comes in purple :). While I am not in the habit of wearing crop tops and belly-baring attire (middle-aged no-exercise snack-eating belly), this shirt was too cute to pass up and inspired a totally 80s side pony!