Author: TwinkieChan

I’ve been working on two of these for a commission. While sewing in the ends (the part I hate most about crocheting, espesh cuz I’m really anal about it) I stabbed myself underneath my fingernail with a small tapestry needle. Hurty! I’ve also been working on the design still for the Yummy You site and online shop, as well as working on an update to the Etsy shop. The mitts I’m working on for that update are soooo super scrumptious! I am also suuuuuper behind on some gifties I wanted to crochet for friends. Sadly, the gifties always fall by the wayside. I gotta make some time for that! It’s been a bit hard planning my booth for Renegade. I kind of want to focus on fewer types of items, but with higher quantities of each. It’s tough to decide which items to make the most of! I think I will have a handful of scarf designs, coffee cup cozies, brooches, tissue box cozies, zipper danglies, embellished cardigans, one special tshirt design, and maybe mitts? When I had mitts and cute-tility packs at Renegade last year, they did not sell very well….so I dunno if I should bother to bring them this time! I have a supremely fun idea for tote bags sewn from scratch. I better get on designing and ordering the custom fabric for that! Eep!

Last year, Hairy’s bday present to me was a lollipop tattoo. I then asked my friend Marissa if she could draw a few pieces for me. I’ve always loved her pieces that look kinda shiny and delicious. But I knew it might be hard to translate into a tattoo-able sketch. It kinda took me a while to get my schedule together with my artist Holly’s schedule, but I finally went in this weekend to get my lolli on! I don’t think I originally intended for this to cover so much of my arm, but to get a really good twisty lolli, size helps! I was super swollen yesterday, but it is much better today. I can’t wait for it to heal up! I have to admit that I feel somewhat more balanced now since I had one inky arm and one totally blank arm! I also booked an appointment in June to finally get to finishing my sleeve. When I was sitting in the chair on Saturday, I was like, “Why am I doing this to myself? This HURTS!” I thought more and more about how the needle was digging into my skin, depositing foreign debris INSIDE MY BODY. It got really disturbed by it all. No, I don’t regret any of it. I love all my work. I know I will have them when I’m 90 years old (my favorite comment from people). I’m just saying I think it’s kinda weird, too. Then I think about all the traditional, tribal, warrior-type tattooing that has happened all over the world for centuries. “Therapeutic” tattoos on a 5,000 year old ice man. Ritualistic and spiritual tattoos from Egypt to Japan. Etc etc etc. I don’t know where I’m going with this. My cutesy-poo art makes my day a bit brighter. I think that’s a powerful thing.

Hairy and I went to NYC and then drove to Boston because United screwed up our flight to Hong Kong last year and gave us travel vouchers. We ate lotsa food, and visited some friends. Some photo highlights: Me and Kerin Rose of a-morir. I love watching her brand get huger and huger. It’s exciting! This was our first time meeting in person. She cracks me up; she is so full of energy! We ate at <a href=”http://www.angelicakitchen.com/”>Angelica Kitchen</a>, and it was the healthiest meal I ate on the whole trip! Aside from the pop rocks chocolate she bought us at the Israeli market. ADDICTIVE. Hairy conducting business at our hotel in an ocean of pink accoutrement. Eating a giant Portuguese donut in Cape Cod/Provincetown. Being a huge dork in the North End of Boston. NEED MORE FOOD. EAT YOUR FACE. Ok, now there are a TON of pics under the cut!!!!! I kind of gave on proper chronology…. at least I got the locations right! 😛 I will try to post the vacation video montage soon. It will include Hairy’s run-in with the law.

New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts. Still here in Boston. Having work withdrawals….!!! Need to start prep for RenegadeSF!

Last night, I went with Hairy to his shared studio for an art show opening. His buddy Andy as well as Tiffany had pieces up. We were all starving, and then Tiffany told me about American Cupcake on Union Street. You just have to check out the menu. It’s like a little girl’s dream come true. Hairy ordered the PB&J with sour cherry, I got the mac n cheese, and we shared a giant order of tater tots. He had a red velvet cuppy while we were there, and I (the pastry pig) took home a lemon cuppy, a chocolate cuppy, and a BUBBLEGUM CUPPY!! Here’s a short video so you can see THE RAINBOW LIGHTS!!! I need these in my next house!!! (I accidentally knocked some frosting off this one when opening the lid!) I wanna live at American Cupcake. I want to throw parties in there!!! Cotton candy, popcorn, RED VELVET BREAD PUDDING!! WHAT!!

The Life Aquatic is one of my favey fave movies. I wanted them to come out with a ton of Team Zissou memorabilia, but mostly all you could find was red hats!!! Anyway, I randomly searched Etsy for Zissou swag recently, and I bought a Team Zissou Ring!! Proud Junior Member!! Join the team at Steve Zissou’s Etsy shop hehehe. In other news, I haven’t done an outfit post in a while, so here is what I’m wearing today: Dress: Nicole Lindner. (vote for her for this Detroit Designers Contest!) Leggings: I’m You Present Necklace: Cicely Margo Shoes: Miz Mooz. I’m actually just trying to wear these as much as possible and break them in so that they don’t break my feets when I take them to the East Coast next week!

Ahoy! Sorry for the radio silence. I’m trying to cram in a buuuuuuuunch of Yummy You work before going on a trip next week!! EEEE!!! I have been wanting to start exercising for a little while. My doctor told me back in November that I should lose like 5-10 lbs, but I never did anything about it because I was so busy. I figure now that there’s no such thing as the “right time” for anything, and I’ll always be busy, so I put on my gym shorts and my knee socks and went to business. I’m wearing the shirt and pigtails I slept in, and I didn’t bother to do my hair or my face. Here’s clips of me getting my sweat on with Carmen Electra’s work out. I am waiting for my Turbo Jam to arrive in the mail! Oh also, it’s kinda funny that Bibi is wandering around behind me the whole time. She likes to be supportive. 😛 Untitled from Twinkie Chan on Vimeo. Recently I went cray cray at the ebay store Refuse to be Usual. Items ship from Taiwan so you pay through the nose for shipping, so someone tell me where else I can find a hamburglar hoodie with hand-shaped pockets and a hand-shaped hoodie!! I actually took this pic for gothcupcake’s etsy shop for her hair bows, so if you click on the image above, you can get a pink sparkly hair bow, too! Lastly but not leastly, Dommie asked me to participate in a little Q&A on her blog, so check it out and find out what my favorite smells is!

I feel like I keep wanting to apologize for not blogging about craft/crochet very much anymore. I’m guessing that might be how a lot of you started following this blog in the first place! Truthfully, I don’t get to crochet very much these days (altho I’m trying to update Etsy, I swear!). I am doing a LOT of drawing. I am not at ALL trained to do so, and I’m fighting with Adobe Illustrator and my tablet like every night! Hahha. And so much of what I am working on is kinda secret for now, so then days go by that I  have nothing fun to post. But I hope that will make Yummy You’s reveal that much more exciting! Have I mentioned on my blog yet that we plan to sell items straight off our website? YAY! Today I got two new tshirts from Delias. I will forever have mixed feelings about tshirts. I can’t stop buying them, but wearing them makes me feel like a lazy dresser, and just too casual all the time. But there are very few cute button up tees or darling blouses that I like and would actually wear on a daily basis. Then I revert back to the tshirt. I need a sponsor to wear a different tshirt every day for a year. Hang out in my polka dot fort! love bunnies What rhymes with “Bibi”? Bibis not Dweebies!! Bibis not HeebieJeebies!! pugsnotdrugs This photo is a lie. I actually hate Twittering on my phone cuz my fingers are too big for the stupid little keys, plus I don’t have fancy “apps.” <3<3<3 My bow is bigger than your bow. yes, it’s spendy, but these days I justify clothing purchases as “R&D”

I have to make a special vlog for something pertaining to Yummy You, and I wanted to draw a funny background to use in Photobooth. Unfortch, I can never seem to make this Photobooth effect look very good!! I’ve seen other people do it much better! How?! I wonder if they actually were sitting in front of a makeshift greenscreen……? I have a blue wall, but it’s kind of covered up in stuff right now. I think I need to ditch this idea!!

Hairy said, “Hey, come over here and look at this,” and it turned out that Bibi had a piece of yarn sticking our of her nose. Occupational hazard: YARN GETS EVERYWHERE. Even in your dog’s nose. I wanted to see if I could capture the yarn blowing around with her breath, but I didn’t get any excellent footage with my phone cam!! Bibi vids of any sort are a must anyway: Also here is a shot of Bunny and Bibi, chillaxin in the kitchen: Now we are off to Tiffany and Daniel’s casa for movie night. I am going to eat all their Trader Joe’s snaxxx.

On Sunday, we went to Japantown during the Cherry Blossom Festival to support our friend Tiffany in the lolita contest, and we also had lunchies with Amy, Zambi, Liz, all of our menz, and two other girls as well! Big table!!! Afterward, everyone split up, and Hairy was a good enough sport to go to Pika Pika with me and take one round of photo booth pics! I’m pretty sure this is amazing: Here’s the rest: We are not pros at using the machine and are very bad at the decorating and drawing part….!!!

Don’t you love how I am the laziest outfit-blogger ever, and I don’t even bother to stand up or clear the background!? Hehehehe. I have been drooling over floral felt hair pieces by Giant Dwarf for quite some time, and I finally got me one! My purple dress is from Dirty Betty. I don’t normally gravitate toward purple or boho/hippie things, but a random bug bit me! I am seriously thinking about grabbing this star headband by Giant Dwarf as well. It’s what dreams are made of.

(File this blog entry under: TWINKIE CHAN HAS NO SHAME.) It’s no secret, I don’t sleep very much, or very well, or, at healthy hours. Especially since working on Yummy You, my sleep schedule has been wiggidyWACK, which means…..ZIT CITY!!!! I have been fighting re-occurring pimpledaddies on my forehead and between my eyes since, like, January. I’m not usually this zitty, and I need to correct my sleep schedule, but then a deadline creeps up and I’m up all night again. Anyway, Candace turned me on to the Zeno Hot Spot, which uses gentle heat to kill zit bacteria. She has the big one, and I ordered the little one, which I found out, is basically disposable after 80 zaps, so you might really think on it before purchasing! However, it is less expensive to get the little one if you are just curious and want to try it out. While I was waiting for mine to arrive, I noticed on TV that Whitney Port (of The Hills and The City fame) is currently the face of Zeno. This made me more confident in my purchase!! Heheheh. So, I tried it for the first time tonight and made a video for you guys. You have to leave it on your zit for 2.5 minutes (!!!) so I sped it up for your convenience. There is another brand of zit zapper out there with a much shorter usage time, but apparently it’s also A LOT HOTTER, so that sounds scary to me. I have patience. If you listen closely to the parts in my video with no music, you can hear the little beeps that the Zeno makes when you begin and when you end. I’m not sure if this whole Zeno thing works yet or not …. but it’s an interesting adventure. Also, I used this at 3 am, so please excuse the horrible lighting as well as my grossness. Notice from the 1st pic, I have 2 zits very close to each other. In all honesty, I already tried to squeeze The Big One while house-sitting for the past few days, so I only tried the Zeno on The Baby.

Soooooooo I kind of gave up on WIWT for a bit because the busier I get, the less I care about what I am wearing. If I can brush my teeth and get pants on at some point during the day, then I can pat myself on the back! Mostly I just get out of bed, run downstairs to my computer, and start working and answering emails. I get super focused and go into the Work Zone. For the most part, I am really a tshirt and jeans girl, and, I assume that nobody really cares to see that being blogged about. But for those of us who don’t want to wear gladiator sandals, high heels, vintage dresses, or highwaisted shorts every day, I am here for you. 😛 Tshirts and jeans can still look okay-cute, as long as your tshirt is okay-cute! Tshirt: So So Happy Hoodie: Loyal Army Bag: Harajuku Lovers Necklace: Applenoggin I’m not starting any trends or breaking any molds here, but I think that if what you wear makes you feel happy and colorful and… well…makes you feel like YOU, then that is a wardrobe win!

When these bags were in stores, I was in debt. I saw an adorable display in Macy’s of Harajuku Lovers bags in different sizes in this super candy pink print, but I knew I should not splurge at that moment eventhough I was dying to have one. I really don’t NEED more purses. Fast forward to now, and this bag is no longer in stores that I can see. I was telling Manda about my dream bag, and she said to look for it on eBay. DUH! I don’t know why I didn’t think of that! So now this cutie is mine! It’s a bit big, but for an everyday bag, I’d rather go too big than too small, so I can shove a cardi or some crocheting in there! I love exterior pockets for my cellphone, and this bag does not have one, so I think I will make myself a tooth-shaped zipper pouch to hang on the outside of the bag. Here’s a video of Bibi from today. I don’t sit in the sun much. It’s kinda nice! (p.s. this is not where I live! Sorry if I mumbled while saying that I am currently house-sitting! We do not have a giant yard nor a pool at our home!) <

Let me tell you about the Easter Mauraders. Easter is my bestie Manda’s favorite holiday. One year, I visited her for Easter while she was in college in San Diego. On that Saturday, her big brother drove us to Mexico to eat some awesome food. Manda and I sat in the back seat of his convertible and got our hairz whipped into a frenzy. That night, Manda REALLY wanted to dye eggs, so at around midnight, we ran to the store and bought eggs and dye and all manner of candy and decorations. We spent hours making all this Easter business, and we had nothing really to do with all of it. We decided to Easter-bomb her big brother’s house. We packed up the car, and drove over to his place. His neighborhood was REALLY QUIET. We wanted to surprise him and his family by decorating his back and front yard with Easter madness. It was like 4 o clock in the morning, and we couldn’t stop laughing. Our shoes crunching on the gravel made us laugh. Tiptoeing on the lawn made us laugh. And as we laughed, Manda farted. We were the WORST marauders EVER!!!! Do NOT hire us for your top secret missions!! We had also blown up balloons and decorated them to look like Easter eggs and we set them afloat in his pool. We went all out. We covered his bushes in streamers.  I was afraid the whole time he would hear weird noises outside and come after us with a shot gun or a baseball bat. None of that happened tho. It was actually really funny, and he didn’t get mad at us for ruining his yards. HAHAH. Anyway, we had such a fun time of this, that we wanted to Easter Maraud someone every year. One year, when we were living together and I carried her spare car key, I marauded the inside of her car. But of course, when you commit yourself to such an annual task, you are probably bound to not live up to it at some point. I feel like this year, we were both really busy. I didn’t even buy one single thing for Easter. Look at my photo above from today. It looks like I was dressed for the wrong holiday! AHAHAH. I ended up having coffee with my friend Margaret who was visiting from Houston, and this was her only full day in town. They just had to put her dog down like a week ago, and it made me want to run home and snuzzle Bibi. Afterwards, I hung out with Manda and she lavished me with about 20 pounds of Easter chocolates!!!!!! She so crazy. Earlier in the day, she had an Easter get-together with her BF and some of his friends. One of them, from Ireland, made this interesting dessert: It’s chocolate chip cookies, soaked in sherry, covered in homemade whipped cream and fresh strawberries. I asked Manda what shape the cake was in […]

Someone asked me on Formspring what I thought of the Fancypack available on Etsy. I’d bought one a long while ago, but frankly, the belt did not fit me properly, and I never wore it out, and I was too lazy to find a new belt for the pack and figure out how to get it on the new belt, Etc etc blah blah blah. Anyway, I am in love with the concept, so I recently bought a new Fancypack: GOLD!!!!!! Carla has changed the way she does the belts, and now they are on rings and adjustable! I decided to take it today on a dog walk. When you are wearing a dress and have no pockets, you don’t want to have to drag out a purse to carry your keys and poo bags and stuff on the dog walk, so what better chance to test drive my new accessory! I’ve a feeling these were intended for going out with your girlfriends and having the funtimes, but let me tell you, they work like a charm for taking your dogs for a poo as well (which I do WAY more than going out and having the funtimes).

I’m trying to eat more fruit, so I got some strawberries at Ranch 99 and started eating a few this afternoon. Since we don’t feed the dogs from the table, and not much human food at all (only raw or unseasoned sometimes-treats like rice or bananas or eggs), they are generally not overly interested in my snacks. But Bibi was SUPER interested in my strawberries, which was really weird! I looked online for a bit to see if strawberries were doggie-safe, and it looked like YES. Just not too much since it is acidic and can upset their tummies. Anyway, Bibi eating weird stuff is always funny to me. And yes, I DO spend too much time finding songs for my little videos!!! But I think this is Bibi’s new theme song.

I can’t recall where this all started, but Hairy set up a date for us to eat curry in Los Altos with my bro and his lady at this curry place called Muracci’s. They just opened a new location on the Peninsula, but they are only open until 6pm! So Hairy and I raced down to Los Altos on Saturday afternoon to eat this stuff. There is a Muracci’s by his work, and he wanted us all to give it a try. I am not a big curry aficionado because it’s usually too SPICY for me, and I am a spice-weenie. But at Muracci’s you can adjust the level of your spice. The mild is a teeeny bit spicy, but nothing catastrophic leading to me crying, gagging, or spitting my food out. Here’s me in front of the sign. Apparently, the cartoon is of the son of Muracci. Or, somebody’s son… We started off with a pickle assortment, or what Hairy tells me white people often call a “relish tray.” Okay, this is the epic HAMBURGER PATTY curry that my brother ordered… WITH CHEESE. This is like 10 heart attacks on one plate. Here is Hairy’s plate, fried pork katsu curry with extra spinach. Extra spicy. I think he was pretty pumped about it. I actually cropped myself out of that picture because I didn’t know I was going to be in it, and it was like the most unflattering “I’m eating stuff and nobody can see me” shot ever. Here is what Jaci ordered, chicken curry with extra spinach. I think I will order this next time, because I ordered the FRIED chicken katsu curry. I was afraid the regular chicken would be dry, but look at that tasty, moist chicken!!! So if you ever down in Los Altos before 6pm, go visit Muracci’s! It’s pretty yum yum!! Plus, if you are a yarn-y peep, it’s right across the street from Uncommon Threads, which was sadly closed by the time we got there, but all the ladies who work there are super nice!

One of the things we did this weekend was cross the Golden Gate Bridge and take the dogs on a walk in Marin at Fort Baker/Rodeo Beach. It was a rare opportunity for the pups to be on their extendo leashes. I’m usually not a fan of walking them with extender leashes at home because there are so many cars and buses. Also we can’t take them off-leash because they are (un-trained) hunting dogs and will go running for the hills to be verminators! Anyway, they enjoyed their walkie very much. Bibi was pooped pretty soon, so we took it easy on our first day on the trail! At first, I relished the opportunity for Bibi to go sniffing in bushes and smelling stuff and walking on natural turf, but then I got really scared that we were surrounded by poison oak. Luckily, nobody got any poison oak, but, Dear Internet: is this poison oak!?!?! By the ocean!?! Here’s me on a bridge. We also think this is the troll bridge that Bunny would live under and then scare children. Also well-noted is my bow-legged self! Pre-historic asparagus: Next entry: CURRY DATE!

I have this project in mind using a vintage suitcase, so I went on Etsy last night and searched “vintage suitcase” just to see what was out there. I bumped into some really cool stuff!! This chair and table set is a dream!! WANT!!! I may have posted these amazing cat bed suitcases before, but I think they merit another mention! This artist has a lot of amazing prints: Cute hot air balloon! Simple train case: This round case looks in great condition! Tempting!

Here are some foodie coffee cup sleeve/cozies I whipped up! Not all will be winners … but, come on, the hamburger. That’s a home run! 😉 I have so much fun designing and making these. They are like my little art projects! I’ve got a ton more ideas for these, but I am focusing on the next Etsy update if possible! Which cozy is your fave?

Soooo, this week I received first pass pages for my book! It’s the first time I’ve seen all of it all designed up and laid out and everything. It’s pretty cool! I’m also starting to conceive of some promo stuff for the book, and I wasn’t really sure what the pub date was…so I decided to see if it was on Amazon.com yet….and it is! You can click on the image to go to the Amazon page! So yeah, November 2. That seems like a loooooong time from now! People have been really nice and saying they will pre-order it now, but….remember it IS 7 months away! When I went to my friend Jandy’s reading/book launch, I wondered if I should have one. I feel like if I had one, nobody would come, and it would be really embarrassing! Plus, I don’t think I would be reading patterns out loud in front of everybody! Has anyone attended a craft-book launch party before?