Author: TwinkieChan

Banana Split from Twinkie Chan on Vimeo. I got one of these when we went to Daiso this weekend, where most things are $1.50. I want to get one for everybody I know!! Although, both my BFF and my BF don’t really like bananas….so, they are not getting one. Hmph!

I’m trying to flesh out some ideas for re-designing TwinkieChan.com. Don’t get me wrong. I LOVE my website!!! I love all the little dancing foods!! But I feel like it’s a bit clunky, and I want to streamline and simplify a little bit somehow. Make room for links to Yummy You and my book(s), etc. I’m not sure if I’ll be successful or not. Maybe nothing will change at all. I will play with it a bit and see!!!! I just thought it would be funny to share this sketch with you guys, because my sketching is SO AWFUL!!! HAHA!!! I’m a girl of many talents…. In other weekend news (of which I have no pictures)….. we went to Elysse’s house for vegan Thanksgiving (YUMMIEST RAW “TACOS” EVER!!!!!!) on Saturday night, and then today we went to see the King Tut exhibit at the DeYoung. Hairy is cooking tortilla soup right now! I’m excited to eat refried beans. It’s the little things.

This weekend we got to hang out with Cuppy and Moofs visiting from Seattle! There’s me and Cuppy at Dolores Park. We did not actually hang out in the park, but just took a picture there to be like the cool kids. This was after we ate brunch at Bar Tartine where I had a savory bread pudding for the first time!!! What sold me on getting it is when Moofs said it would probably be like a giant cube of STUFFING. After brunch, we visited Tartine the bakery, 826 Valencia (the pirate store), and Paxton Gate. At Paxton Gate, we saw some pitcher plants, and I wondered if anybody had experience owning a pitcher plant? We have a very shady patio, and the flies/gnats REALLY LOVE it, so I was wondering it hanging a pitcher plant out there would help at all! Wishful thinking? Later that night, Hairy and went to the launch party/reading for my friend and former cor-worker Jandy Nelson’s new young adult novel, The Sky Is Everywhere. (click the pic to go to Amazon.com) After working with her as literary agents for 10 years, supporting the work of other writers, it’s so amazing to see her so successful with her own novel!! It has been getting great reviews, and I am SO pumped to read it! I stood in line to get my book signed like a fangirl. On Sunday, we met up with Cuppy and Moofs again and had tea and snackies at Secret Garden Tea House. I’ve never had high tea or afternoon tea before, and I loved being surrounded by old ladies and tiny foods!!! I had the coconut cream tea which smelled REALLY YUMMY and coconutty. I also made a quick lil video: Secret Garden with Cuppy, Moofs, and Hairy from Twinkie Chan on Vimeo. For some reason, I was super tired that day and ended up “napping” from like 9pm to 2am!! Then I felt super guilty and went straight to work on Yummy You business (coffee cup cozy samples!!! let me tell you , the hamburger coffee cup cozy is SO CUTE). I didn’t get to bed until after 6am and I was really nervous I was going to miss the go ahead for an 11am conference call. I kept waking up over and over, and as it turned out, I never got the heads-up for a  call, PLUS, I WOKE UP WHEN I WAS SUPPOSED TO BE MEETING CUPPY AND MOOFS IN JAPANTOWN!! AHHHHHHH. I felt SooooOOOOooo bad!!!! I was excited to have purikura fun!! Blehhhhhhh. So I had my 3:30pm conference call and then worka worka worka! Today I just threw on the shirt I made at Spreadshirt. It used to be my tagline on and old online profile, and someone on Twitter mentioned that she always thought of me and this quote. HAHAH. I had to make it a shirt! The best part of this photo is the look on Bibi’s face. Bibi does not approve of […]

Lately, I’ve been finding it hard to blog, because, I can’t blog about the stuff I’m making/designing yet, but then I spend nearly 24/7 working, so I don’t have much left to say :P. We recently went to dinner at Salt House for my sister in law Jaci’s bday. She has been talking about wanting an “apple jacket”, “wrapple,” or apple cozy to protect her apples in transit to work. I remembered this at the very last minute and didn’t have time to order a complete apple jacket, so instead, I downloaded a pattern from pukashell on Etsy and made my own. The pattern produced the larger green cozy, and then I modified it to create the smaller red one to fit the tiny organic Pink Ladies I got at Whole Foods! I also made her an owl coffee cup cozy since owls are Jaci’s jam. Speaking of coffee cup cozies, I do believe all my cozies at Red Velvet sold out in like 2 hours. Thanks so much, guys! I super appreciate it!!!! I do plan to sell coffee cup cozies in my Etsy shop when I get a breather!!! In other news, I just snapped some new photos for ShanaLogic. I thought this one was funny. Pumped for cupcakes! You can get your own cupcake dress right here! Aaaaand while I was taking this photo, I asked Hairy if I looked like a bird: Don’t worry. I didn’t send Shana that one…. HAHHA. Also, usually while I snap photos, Bibi likes to be all up in my business. She kept bringing over toys to play fetch with her….. her bouncy ball, her stinky rope, AND her tuggy/ball rope. She is a cutie. When she sits down, her belly hits the floor. You gotta love her. I want to do a line of shirts with her image with positive sayings like, “My wrinkles are rad” or “My bell-bell is bad ass” or something. I dunno. It’s a work in progress! “My farts are the bomb.”

Dudes, hurry over to RedVelvetArt.com and pick up a coffee cup cozy before they are all gone! Gogogo!!!

When I was little, I used to sleep on my Auntie Nita’s cat, Nel. Somewhere along the way, I became terribly allergic to cats!!! Also, now I’m always afraid they will scratch me! Cat owners seem to to often have little scratches all over their hands, and I am not a fan!  I am definitely a dog person fo’ life. They are higher maintenance, but I know where there claws are at… Anyway, today, I am wearing my new kitty necklace from I’m Your Present. My Auntie Vivi in Hong Kong has like 8 cats, and that is where I fell in love with FLAT FACED KITTIES!! I have begged Manda to get one, but she things they are ug. Sad. I <3 the flat face. But if I lived with a cat, both Hairy and I would die of facial snot explosions. (2nd one is Kelly’s photo) Also, here is a page from my notebook from when I was trying to figure out how I would decorate the robot coffee cup cozie! I have to do a TON of drawing this weekend for lots of secret stuff!! (Okay, upon further thought, I feel the need to point out that I don’t trust all dogs. That’s just silly. There are evil/mis-treated ones as well, and they can totally effing maul you. Espesh the off-leash pitbull who was roaming an Oakland neighborhood street and kept barking and pacing along the sidewalk we were walking on. That was scary. I’m just saying, my pets are dogs. That’s all! I know there are nice cats, too. Okay, bye.)

Check out Elsie’s blog entry over at A Beautiful Mess/ I just sent her a little box of coffee cup sleeve/cozies (also good for tea, hot chocolate, and hot apple cider on the go!) for the RVA spring update. I love Elsie and the Red Velvet girls and am so excited to have a few of my things in her store!!! It was also so much fun to let myself make non-food themed items!! (But, still for food/beverage-related usage. Hahaha!)

Okay, first of all, I drew on my eyebrows for the first time in a long time! My forehead needs to breathe. I have to air out my zit (sorry that’s gross… but it’s real.) That’s just a warning for my video below! HAHAH. Can’t photoshop the zits out of my videos…. Anyhoo, I’ve been sewing on a lot of buttons for my current project, and I thought I’d share my little discovery about how to pry buttons of the paper backing. This is probably not new news, but it took me a long time to realize it on my own! So I thought I’d share, just in case!! Crafty Tip! from Twinkie Chan on Vimeo.

Bibi has been finding all sort of old toys in random crannies of the house. Today she found an old tennis ball next to one of Hairy’s pairs of shoes and demanded I play fetch with her while I was trying to print out receipts for accounting!! I cannot deny her. Flickr, you so funny. Nice preview of my buttcrack.

Triple Axel. Triple Lutz. Triple Loop. In the spirit of Olympic ice skating, or, not… I threw on, THE TRIPLE WING. The other eye got all effed up, tho. I suppose it is the equivalent of eating it on the ice. There’s always the next Olympics, Russia 2014.

This weekend, my family went to Luce for dinner to celebrate my mom’s bday. The restaurant just got its first Michelin Star. It was pretty num num, and all the plates were really pretty! Since I’d just gotten back from Vegas, my mom told me not to sweat her bday prezzie just yet, but I wanted to sweat it anyway!!! I thought it would be yummy for Hairy to whip up a lobster bisque! We went to Ranch 99 before meeting everyone for dinner to procure our lobster. But apparently my mom also had a birthday request: zipper danglies! She wanted cherries, lemons, and grapes. I said, “That’s a LOT of purse danglies!!!” and she said, “Yeah, that’s what makes it HIP!!” I’m still working on the grapes, and then these guys will get felted. And I will be soon sending a re-fill to ShanaLogic.com. And I have to finish up my taxes. And I’m also working on a fun 5-part project to be revealed in about 2 weeks….here’s a sneak!

Pool Tradeshow in Vegas, Feb 2010 from Twinkie Chan on Vimeo. The tradeshow was a very interesting adventure. We got a great response to all the goodies. Just like at a craft fair, it’s a little nerve-wracking to be there and to feel like you and your work are being judged, but everyone was really delighted by what they saw, and that makes me happy. The booth was really cute, we had our own security guards to guard our booth at night, and the company I partnered up with hooked our booth up with breakfast and lunch every day, delivered right to Yummy You. It was pretty sweet!! I’m mentally preparing for what I am going to have to do next! Our team managed to put this all together from nothing, basically in 6 weeks. It was kind of amazing. Of course there is always room for improvement on things here and there, so the next one can only get better! I like the idea of having 6 months to prep :). Hairy asked if I saw any famous people. Well, not really. I saw Masuimi Max, and Miss Nevada, and Simone Legno was our booth neighbor, but aside from that, I didn’t have a lot of opportunity to walk the main Magic floor where there might be “celebs.” My crochet elf Rita came to hang out at the booth and walk around and she saw Jeffree Star, but yeah, about 99% of the population would probably have no idea who any of those people are. I did not see Puff Daddy or anything…. On Tuesday night, we had din dins with Scott and Lauren from Badge Bomb. They are like the nicest people you will ever meet, and they are from the Bay Area! And FYI, if you want to buy individual Yummy You buttons, you can get them directly from the site. On Wednesday night, Rita picked me up from the show, and we went to eat with her sister Kat, my other crochet elf, at a sushi buffet! I never see them since they live in Vegas, so it was soooo nice to hang out with them for a bit, eventhough I was completely brain dead! I have no idea how people can work the show all day, and then party in Vegas all night. I wish I could!!! I just wanted to fall down dead ever night afterward! And I basically did. I wish I had better pictures of everything, but I wasn’t sure if we wanted to release any of the new stuff to the public yet until it all hits the stores. Some of my fav online stores will carry it, too, but I’ll keep that a secret as well for now. But I’m so happy to finally have my product in places that I love and have shopped at, too! You’ll seee!! 😉

I’m about to post my Etsy listing for V-day! In the past, I posted the listings, and then announced them here and on my mailing list, but by the time I posted all the announcements, a few things would have been sold already!! So I’m trying to give you guys a bit of a heads-up first! I know it’s almost 4 a.m. on the West Coast… so kinda weird timing… sorry about that! Regardless, my items will be more of a celebration of candy and hearts year-round, rather than targeted for V-Day delivery. I just can’t guarantee you’ll get your items before V-Day anymore. I tried my best!!! I will upgrade all domestic orders to Priority, but again, no promises, sorry :(. I’ve just been back to back with deadlines for Yummy You and for my book, but I still wanted to squeeze in something cute on Etsy! Click on the banner to shop in a few minutes!! Not all items are represented in this collage! I have a total of 5 pairs of mitts for sale, but only one bracelet, one scarf, and one pin :(. I will try to make more puffy pins cuz I think they are fun, but that won’t be for a little bit! I also re-listed some candy-cane heart necklaces! Lastly, Hipster Puppies. The descriptions are hilarious…. I want to submit a pic of Bibi in my new glasses frames.

Seal your envelope with a crochet heart!! Sorry it’s the worst pic ever. I’m a girl on the move. Hopefully an actual Etsy update within the next 12 hours 😛 It will be small….but heart-tastic!

… cuz I’ll spend more money than usual!!! Hairy and I had a morning/afternoon in the East Bay today. We don’t venture across the bridge very much, but we had a couple of new places to visit. First, we were super late to have breakfast with Elysse in Berkeley at Herbivore. She was very gracious about it and was studying her book on parasites. I had a super yummy tofu scramble and felt like I was pregnant with a food-baby the whole day. Then we went with her to visit Emily of BirdMafia who was vending at a little craft event at Knit One One, and I did end up buying something from Emily for my sister in law! Then we headed over to Oakland where I wanted to check out Phoenix Optical. I’d heard about it after reading a blog entry of Star’s. Her new vintage specs looked awesome so I wanted to check this place out!! I have a really wide face with a strange shape, and apparently most eyeglasses look really bad on me and are too small and make me look like a granny with a pie-face. Cat-eyes glasses? Not on this pumpkin head. So I thought it could be a fun opportunity to check out some eyewear that you don’t see at, like, LensCrafters. This place was a lot of fun. I didn’t intend to buy anything. I’ll blame Hairy. He is a shopping-pusher! I didn’t have my glasses Rx, cuz the last time I got my eyes checked was in Hong Kong…so I just bought the frames, and they don’t have lenses in them yet. I’m still trying to get used to whether or not I’d be brave enough to rock these everyday: Hmmm, ehh? They are pretty weird. They are just kind of thicker than I am used to. I kind of always wanted weird glasses, but I don’t know if I have the cajones to really commit. I will run around the house with them for a bit and see what happens! They were actually vintage sunglasses, and I asked them to punch out the lenses so I could see what they were like. There was a cute white-framed pair that I wanted to try on, too, but apparently when whey tried to get the lenses out…WITH A HAMMER….the frames broke. That was sad. I felt really bad! But Hairy said if someone else wanted to buy them anyway and get the lenses punched out, they would have broken at that point, too. Then Hairy wanted to check out Bake Sale Betty. Apparently they have a legendary fried chicken sandwich. There was a line out the door. We got in that line. And got the sandwich. And Hairy said it was really effin good. I was still full from breakfy, so I got a piece of pumpkin pie to go. In fun and unexpected news, Bake Sale Betty is also next to a yarn store, so I picked up some Cascade 220 […]

Sooooo I have been alluding to a big announcement for a little while, and I wanted to wait for some of the paperwork to clear up before mentioning anything. Then, I lagged on saying anything because I got mired in the stress of it all, and then it didn’t seem like such exciting news anymore…. and then it was like… what is the statute of limitations on hinting at something exciting….being able to announce it…and then failing to mention it anymore and let it fade and pretend like you never mentioned it in the first place? Hehehe, Ok maybe I over-think! Anyhoodles….!!! My news is this: YummyYou! by Twinkie Chan There’s not really anything up there yet, just a placeholder, but everything has been happening at lightning speed and this is all I got right now! 😛 (btw….does the pic have a blue-ish hue to you? Let me know how it appears on your monitors!!! I am still having weird color issues I think!) So yes, I partnered with a company to help me mass-produce (but still hand-make) my scarves and stuff and bring it to a bigger level. It’s what I’ve wanted for a long time, and I’m excited and scared that it is starting to happen. I could have tried to go bigger on my own, but I really didn’t want to end up spending all my time managing more helpers, dealing with quality control, handling fulfillment on a larger scale, etc. In fact, perhaps un-like many crafters, I never really dreamed of running my own business. I don’t have the entrepreneurial blood. I have the creative blood! Some people have both. I kinda don’t :P. I want to have lots of time to design new things…and considering how long it takes me to design/make ONE scarf … I need all the time I can get! We went into super warp-drive, because the company was excited, and we were excited that they were excited, and we are prepping for a booth at the Pool Tradeshow (or the Magic Tradeshow) in Vegas on February 16-18. We kind of attempted to create something out of nothing in just TWO MONTHS. Sourcing the crochet goods. Making/designing new and exciting samples you’ve never seen before. Designing tees and hoodies. Packaging. Everything. It’s been crazy. Plus I’ve been working on my book! So this is why my Etsy shop has been like a ghost town! The cool thing is that you will soon be able to get all your favorite Twinkie Chan goodies at a more affordable price, and there will definitely be more than, like, two cupcake scarves available at one time :). I will still be here as Twinkie Chan, with my Etsy shop, designing new stuffs and handmaking old-favorites. Yummy You! will be the icing on the proverbial cake :). So I can’t wait to share more about all of this as it happens! It’s really weird and bizarre and I have no idea how it will all pan out. […]

You guys. I am so pumped to post this!! My friend and crochet-helper Marissa has FIIIIIINNNNAAALLLLLY put up her new Etsy shop!!!!!!! You’ll be sad if you don’t check it out. When I vended at the New People/Bazaar Bizarre event, I displayed some of her items on my table, and I ended up buying a pin :). I have one that looks kinda like this one: but they are all one of a kind, so no two alike!

Here is a video clip of Bibi and I playing tuggy the other day. She especially likes to invite you to play tuggy when you are your most busy. Also, while I was working tonight, Love and Other Disasters came on the tube, and I saw My Dream Jacket!!!!! Does anybody know anything about this coat??!??!

Doing some taxes today (yeah I waited till the last minute…) so here’s some fun stuff I rounded up!!! (p.s. I broke down and started a Formspring page thingie for people to ask me questions, anonymously if desired! Click on the images to go to their pages!

This weekend my big project has been to do all my California sales tax stuffs and also take photos for the book, so I took about ten bazillion (okay, more like 800) the past two nights and have been editing them as I go. My goals for 2010 were to get better at knitting and to learn how to sew on a sewing machine. But I need to make my two other goals: actually learn about photography and my camera, and actually learn how to photoshop properly!!! I basically just wing everything and make it up as I go, but I’m starting to get really sensitive about how shoddy my work is, so I need to work on those skills when I have more time! For now, since a lot of you probably don’t follow me on Twitter or see my TwitPics, I’ll dump some Photobooth pics on you. Every now and again while I’m working, I’ll take a random snap or two on the webcam! Please note, these are all usually taken well past 4am, 5am, or even 6am! Yes, Bibi does help with work by simply oozing cuteness and wrinkles. And she does have a tiny booboo on her forehead. When I take her to my parents’ house to run around in the yard, she likes to dart in and out of the bushes and doesn’t care if it rips up her head!! We joke about needing to get her a special outdoor helmet…. Okay, this is when I was showing Candace my teeth because she didn’t think they were crooked. The she said this look was bad-ass cuz it looked like the Avatar angry face. AHAAHHHAHHA. Okay, my goal for the book photos was to wear a different outfit for every item I had to shoot, and have that outfit actually coordinate or look okay with that item. It was kinda hard, and I just ended up snapping photos of several items with each outfit. I thought a long time about what to shoot my Bomb Pop scarf in….and ultimately I decided to try to evoke summertime and popsicles by wearing a bathing suit. I NEVER WEAR A BATHING SUIT. I don’t like the sun and I don’t intend to hang out in it. Plus I have become really big-thighed and I am embarrassed to show anything above my shins in public. Sooo, I also put on shorts. Bathing suit with cut-out sides + shorts = MUFFIN TOP CITY!!!!! I swear, the actual photos don’t look this scary, but I was really scared of my own self at the time. This was probably at like 5:30 in the morning after having already shoot a couple hundred other photos. Ummm ok, Hairy took this next one with his phone. I LOVE this dress, and it looks totally fine when it’s on me, but I can’t for the life of me get it off myself. It’s like it suctions on like a second skin or something. I ran upstairs […]

So, I’ve been shooting photos for my book of crochet patterns. They are due on Monday! There are clothes and scarves and accesories all over the place right now!!!! I’m still not sure which pictures I’ll use, but I thought I would share just one, mostly because of the clothes. Scarf: me Dress: Dainty June Headband: Num Num Kawaii Posting this photo has brought up a problem again I’ve had for a long time. Ever since I got my MacBook Pro, my photos always look less vibrant when I email them to other people or post them to Flickr. I never had this problem before when I edited photos on PCs. I have brought this problem up before, but there haven’t been any real solutions yet. It kind of bums me out, because I edit my photos nice and vibrant on my computer, only to have them muted when I send them out or post them, which makes me pretty sure that they would be muted then in my book! Booo!!!! I’ve futzed with the color profiles before, but it doesn’t really seem to help. If anybody has any new thoughts on this mater, I’m all ears! OK, just kidding. Lady GoodForYou let me know that Firefox is known for muting your photo colors, so when I opened up my Flickr page in Safari, it looked fine!! Derrr!!!!!!!