Author: TwinkieChan

Oh yeah! I kept forgetting to tell you! When Hairy and I were down in L.A. to see the Pee Wee Herman show, we had a quick bite with Michelle and True Mee (of Bubblepunch), and they let us know that some of the items from the Hello Kitty Fashions are NOW available TO PURCHASE AT THE JAPAN LA WEBSITE! Go check everything out! Everything is one of a kind!!!! I have no idea where any of my items are…..but, there’s still lots of awesome stuff to look at! Go go! (Skirt made by Marissa is available for sale, but I’m posting this pic so you can see the whole outfit. I made the scarf, mitts, purse, and the giant brooch on the shirt which also has red sequins suspenders. I think Marissa and I had a “more is more” philosophy with this one!! We had never seen the whole outfit put together until the night of the fashion show!) Some other cool stuff available on the site:

I was looking on Etsy for a bracelet that was 100% conversation hearts (no beads, other weird charms or jewels) but I couldn’t find any, so I asked my talented friend Teiva from Faeriesmak if she could make me one so I could buy it off her! I love it! It’s perfect!!! I love even the tiny imperfections in the red letters and the realistic texture she got on the candies!!! LOVE IT!!! I promise to take better pics of it when I set up my lights. I have ONE extra and I can’t decide whether to sell it on Etsy or include it in a cute blog givewaway. What are your thoughts on Valentine’s Day? I have never been a big fan of it. I LOVE the AESTHETICS of it, but I don’t want to feel obligated to buy a ton of stuff for my S.O. or feel extra romantic or whatever just because it’s a certain day on the calendar and you are “supposed” to. Hairy and I end up getting each other rando presents throughout the year or going to the movies or dinner or fun road trips, so I always think Valentine’s Day is just a funny day to hit Red Lobster or something and people watch!! But then it’s so crowded everywhere that now I just don’t want to go anywhere on ANY holiday!!!! (insert story about St. Patty’s Day debacle.) Anyway, since I have been so super busy, I don’t know if I’ll have time to do a Valentine’s day update in my Etsy shop, but I’ll try. Every day, something new comes up that I need to complete, so it’s really hard to plan!!!! Cross your fingers!

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Photo on 2010-01-25 at 17.34, originally uploaded by TWiNKiE CHAN. I was looking on Etsy for a bracelet that was 100% conversation hearts (no beads, other weird charms or jewels) but I couldn’t find any, so I asked my talented friend Teiva from Faeriesmak if she could make me one so I could buy it off her! I love it! It’s perfect!!! I love even the tiny imperfections in the red letters and the realistic texture she got on the candies!!! LOVE IT!!! I promise to take better pics of it when I set up my lights. I have ONE extra and I can’t decide whether to sell it on Etsy or include it in a cute blog givewaway. What are your thoughts on Valentine’s Day? I have never been a big fan of it. I LOVE the AESTHETICS of it, but I don’t want to feel obligated to buy a ton of stuff for my S.O. or feel extra romantic or whatever just because it’s a certain day on the calendar. Hairy and I end up getting each other rando presents throughout the year, so I always think Valentine’s Day is a funny day to hit Red Lobster or something!! HAHA but then it’s so crowded everywhere that now I just don’t want to go anywhere on ANY holiday!!!! (insert story about St. Patty’s Day debacle.) Anyway, since I have been so super busy, I don’t know if I’ll have time to do a Valentine’s day update in my Etsy shop, but I’ll try. Every day, something new comes up that I need to complete, so it’s really hard to plan!!!! Cross your fingers!

We rarely trek down to San Jose, but this afternoon, we met up with Shrinkle, Kevin, and Tess to eat at BOILING CRAB. I love eating with my hands!!! First, let’s talk about this guy. He was standing outside the restaurant so I snuck a creepy photo of him through the window (and the fisherman netting that was decorating the window). Please note the Star Trek Shirt and the full-on side ponytail. Hairy said that anyone could wear that shirt, but this guy knew how to STYLE it. Shrinkle said that if I posted this pic, someone reading my blog would be all like, “UH THAT’S MY DAD!!!!” My thought is: what’s wrong with that? We are totally celebrating your dad!!!! Me and Hairy await the feast. Amy and Tess being gangsta. We ended up ordering 2 crabs, 3 lbs of crawfish, 3lbs of shrimp, corn, potatoes, fried catfish, fried calamari, and oysters! (Did I leave anything out!?) I leaned forward in that pic so Amy’s head wouldn’t seem like the biggest. This pic inspires me to go to Boiling Crab every Valentine’s day in a fancy dress. After parting ways, Hairy and I walked back to our car and saw this sign hanging in another restaurant!!! And then I went and got a frozen yogurt (original tart, strawberries, Cap’n Crunch, and granola). Yes, I’m a huge fattie and now I’m eating Moose Munch popcorn….

Bye, San Francisco!!!!!!! The first thing I did when I arrived at the Cypress, CA Courtyard Marriott was order room service. It was like the oiliest food I’d ever eaten. Way to make fish and veggies unhealthy, dudes!!!!!! I proceeded to work on some new mitts. I haven’t quite figured out this pair yet……. still futzing. Bacon and Egg mitt in progress: I didn’t want to take the toothpaste from home and leave Hairy stinky-mouthed, so I thought there would be some in the hotel room when I got there. WRONG!!!! I trudged downstairs to the front desk and scored all this bounty!!!! I went to bed around 3am, chatting and working on tshirt graphics, and then woke up at 7am to be picked up for my photoshoot. Sans makeup. I never leave the house without makeup. This was very humbling. Glasses didn’t really help. Fast forward, we drive to Huntington Beach for the studio shoot. I get my hairz and makeup did. This was the 2nd makeup look. I don’t usually do colored eyeshadow………. I feel kinda like an angry samurai. I took this pic after the shoot while working on stuff on my computer at the studio. I am hoping it reads more subtly in the photos!!!! I’m just not a huge makeup person, so it’s hard for me to tell if I look bad in it, or if I’m just not used to it. Fast forward to 16 hours after my makeup was applied and I’m finally back home and need to take a shower. I felt really scary wearing this look all day. After the shoot, we had lunch with the photog and his assistants, and then my manager/partner and I sat down at the studio with our laptops to pow wow about graphics for tees. We did this for lik3 3-4 hrs. Then he took me to LAX where I sat for 3 hours because my flight home was delayed. The lady sitting next to me in the airport was like, “You’re Harajuku!!!!!” Hide me!!!!!!!!!

Untitled from Twinkie Chan on Vimeo.

I’ve been writing a lot of copy for various things lately: boxes, tags, other neat surprises. While digging around my old files, I found this gem!!!! There actually is a Twinkie Chan-ifesto, but this isn’t it. Apparently I started to brainstorm about my manifesto by creating a long list of likes and dislikes. I think I got bored of this exercise and stopped typing out the dislikes :P. I didn’t even end up using very much of this list for the actual Chan-ifesto. It was still funny, though! To me, at least!

So Manda and Hairy have bdays one day apart. I sorta feel bad cuz I feel like their special days get melded together, but at least we all like each other’s presence, so it works out okay! For Manda’s Bday we went to our favorite, bro-y, Palo Alto spots: Miyake and Blue Chalk. Miyake is a sushi bar where the highlights are not the food, but the fog machine, disco lights, and drunk 20somethings standing on chairs while chanting about and downing SAKE BOMBS!  Let’s just say that this evening has led to MANY a good story. It is so incriminating, that all infos remain top secret. All I will write here as a placemarker for our memories is: A loooong time ago Manda once requested that I make her a scarf, so I finally made good on that request for her bday present: a rainbow cupcake scarf!! Some of the colors, like red and orange, look the same in this photo, but rest assured, there were 8 different colors of cupcakes in this thing! Manda has ALWAYS loved rainbows, for as far as I can remember. If I had online access to her giant photo collection from college, I would have showed you the rainbow painted on her face and her giant favorite blue plaid overalls! For Hairy’s bday, we had dinner at Farmer Brown whose tag line is “farm-fresh soul food.” You always win with beverages served in mason jars. I got an Arnold Palmer! Instead of bread, they serve you little jalapeno corn bread muffins. They were warm and yummy! Due to the dark lighting conditions, we didn’t really get any other pics except of this hot sauce: Manda and I got fried chicken with mac n cheese and southern greens, and Hairy got a pulled pork sandwich with housemade potato chips as well as two sides: brussel sprouts and cheezy grits! We also shared some sweet potato steak fries. Yum yum! Since we are giant pigs, we also got dessert: one red velvet cake and one meyer lemon cheesecake, and some french press coffee. Holy. Wow. To end this entry on a high note, my prezzie to Hairy was a 6 month-membership to the Cheese of the Month club. I used to ban cheese from my house because I love it so much and will eat it till I am a thousand pounds, so I have no excuse for the evil I have introduced into our household. I promise to blog about our monthly cheese delivery (3 kinds of cheese each month!!!!). I kinda want to put the happy cheese on a tshirt!

Last night Hairy and I went to see Youth in Revolt, the latest movie with Michael Cera. It’s based on a book by CD Payne that I’d started to read like 7 or 8 years ago but never finished. I remember thinking the voice was HYSTERICAL, but working in publishing means you never have time to read :). I passed it along to Hairy once I found out they were turning it into a movie, so at least one of us has read the whole thing! There are some funny one-liners in the movie. You should see it if you’re up for a movie with snappy dialogue, but no explosions or love ballads by Celine Dion. Hairy had asked me to hold his hot dog for a sec, and then I realized I was holding a hot dog and a popcorn and I felt like a big piggie, so of course, I demanded a photo! Then I gave Hairy his hot dog back and made him pose with his hot dog, Sweet Tarts, AND the chocolate bar he brought in! HAHA. I used to NEVER buy food at the movies, until I met Hairy. Now we’re just gross and disgusting. Also he turned 35 today. Hee hee heeeeee. I’ll show you what I got him and Manda for their bdays tomorrow!

Hooooo boy! Someone recently twittered, “What a difference a day makes.” So true so true! Ups. Downs. Coming back arounds. Life is a whirlwind! I’ve also been collaborating on new logos, new packaging, now I need to make new samples. Crazy crazy crazy. Last night I went out with some ladies. Most of our ladies had to wake up early to go to work so nobody wanted to go out. Michelle had to get up early, but she was still rarin’ to go. She said we were the dreamers of dreams. I said we were the silliers of silly. She said we are the go-ers of 84. We got a later start than we hoped since I’d been down on the peninsula with Manda, but we finally made it out. Didn’t go to bed until like 4am and then had to get up at 8:00am to greet the dude who came to fix our gas fireplace. Sweet!! Now it can be roasty toasty up in here!! I will be crocheting up a storm for the next 10 days. Time for lots of bandaids and under-eye bags. In the meantime, here’s a Fun Stuff Round Up. Click on the pics to go to the sites! xo I kinda really want this pink coat: I wanna rock this dress so hard! Of all the posses to be in, this ain’t a bad one: I know what you’re thinking. This is scary. SO SCARY IT’S AWESOME. There’s something about this nighty. I dunno!

When we went to William Sonoma to pick up Dutch Baby mix for my family’s white elephant gift exchange, Hairy also picked up a bag of this Dutch Country Soft Pretzel Mix. There’s also a gluten-free version. They were really PUFFY!!! And a little bit sweet, but very very tasty. Thumbs up, A+! In less edible news, I had to make some more pink pastry weepuls, so I decided to also finally try to put “sprinkles” on some sunglasses!! I’ve been wanting to do this for a long while but never got around to it. I have been bored of my regular glasses for a while, and thought I might experiment with beads. Since I have a little photoshoot coming up in L.A. next week, I decided to have a go at the glasses. I wish I could find beads that really actually super duper looked like sprinkles (more like opaque, rainbow bugle beads), but I haven’t had much luck yet! But I think that for the shoot, they will be ok, if we decide to use them! I’ve been thinking of some fun little things to try out for Valentine’s Day. I probably won’t have a big V-Day update on Etsy because I have so much side-stuff going on (like the sales people at my publisher ordered a lot of scarves!), but I hope to squeak out a heart or two! I have been feeling like a huge fatty lately and Hairy and I finally got around to going to the exercise room in our building the other night….and the treadmill is BROKEN!! IS IT A SIGN!!?!? No, probably not. It was just kinda funny. Funny in the “oh that really sucks!” way…. Anyhoozits, I am off to start a bacon and eggs scarf! xo,

We ate dinner at Dessert Republic and then discovered it was 11:30pm. We had no plan. I think me and Manda were ok with going home, but Hairy was hell-bent on at least finding a dive bar in which to ring in the new year. As is tradition when the three of us are together on NYE, Manda, Hairy, and I ended being not inside any venue when the clock struck midnight. We were still walking the streets after parking the car. Oh well! Then we went into Butter for an after NYE drink. I didn’t even get the right drink. We watched a lot of hizzos dance on the bar top in very short skirts. On the way out, we hit up Crepes A Go Go. While waiting in line, this random girl walked up to us, said hello, and said, “My friend is not an asshole.” What? She proceeded to explain that she overheard Manda and I calling her man-friend an asshole because he stepped in front of us in line. In reality, Manda and I had no idea about her man-friend, and were talking about something completely different, and I don’t even remember saying the word asshole. She CONTINUED TO INSIST that we called her friend an asshole, and that he wasn’t. It was SO BIZARRE. I was so confused and incredulous. I kept trying to explain that we had no clue about her whatever her friend was doing. Finally she smiled and said, “It doesn’t matter. Happy new year,” in a super passive-aggressive and bitchy way, and then Manda told her her eyeshadow was pretty. And then we spent the next half hour trying to think of what would have been a better reaction. I suggested barfing on her. Or suddenly speaking in broken English. Or calling her an asshole. I asked Hairy what George Constanza’s well-thought-out come-back was from Seinfeld. Apparently it was something like, “Th Jerk-store called and they want YOU back!” Anyway, dirty ho’s and people-who-butt-into-your-conversation-to-start-random-crap are a nice way to start the year! 😛

Hairy’s mom got me a ball-winder for Xmas, which is really cool! I tried it out tonight for the first time with some Cascade 220 at 4 in the morning and made you a little short video. You’ll notice that in the beginning, the ball-winder’s clamp falls off. Oops!!! I don’t have a swift (yet!) so I still have the yarn wrapped around my knees, which can lead to some snagging still. But anyway, I imagine if you have kids, this would be a fun activity for them. It’s pretty cool! 1st time using a ball winder! from Twinkie Chan on Vimeo.

Seriously. I should stock up on like 10 boxes of these. I am thinking about it. I have been waiting for them all year! Hairy got a Trader Joe’s gift card and we went to town! So much joy. It’s the little things. Candy Cane Joe-Joe’s!!!! In other news, I kept forgetting to tell you guys that I wrote a little article for the first issue of the new Cupcake Magazine. It’s very sweet and pretty, and I hope I didn’t throw a wrench into it by being goofy. I just wanted to do something different than a regular Q&A!

I have not really been crocheting the past few days. I have been drawing and drawing and drawing for my big project. As you may already know, I am not good at drawing, especially on the computer! I have a very limited knowledge of Photoshop, and pretty much NO knowledge of Illustrator. I do not fancy myself a graphic artist by an means, so having to come up with a bunch of visuals is really weird for me, and I have little confidence in it. However, I do want my “stink,” so to speak, all over this project, so I am going to do my best to make it as Twinkie Chan-riffic as possible! Sorry this is all so vague. I can’t really reveal anything yet…! So, instead, I will share some things I have bookmarked lately!! You can click on the images to go to their respective pages! What is everyone doing for NYE? Usually we do nothing. Last year we went to Tahoe, which was kinda weird, but at least fun to play in the snow! I’m curious especially about what people in SF/Bay Area are up to!

Hope everyone had a great Xmas! Hairy and I started off with brunch with his parents, and then we went to my parents’ house for dinner and our annual White Elephant gift exchange. Bibi brings Xmas cheer. It took a few years of convincing my mother this was a good idea, and that we were growing up and didn’t need to be exchanging a kabillion presents every Xmas. She was very unfamiliar with the idea and was skeptical and confused, but now it’s like the greatest fun ever! Yay! I think that one of the strategies for a good white elephant is to bring something you yourself would want. This was Hairy’s strategy. Dutch baby pancake mix from William Sonoma. I had initially also followed this strategy by purchasing something at Renegade which I think I will not reveal just yet and use in a future giveaway package. Anyway, my new strategy was to bring something I knew that someone else would want for sure and in particular. My target was my sister in law. She likes Starbucks. She likes owls. I did the math. He is rendered a bit less practical with his wings and tail sticking out. If I ever make another one, I will leave out the wings and tail (or at least sew down the wings) but definitely keep his cute dangly legs! I love how he turned out, and I really want to make some time to create more in foodie-themes. Animals are really easy to make cute in coffee-sleeve/cozy form, so I have to think hard about this foodie thing! Anyway, my Aunt Mary ended up taking the owl home. Now she wants a different one for every day of the week! In some more Xmas spirit, I received this really touching msg on Etsy from a commission I completed on Wednesday and sent via Express mail. Sorry about the link, but the pic is kinda too wide to post in my blog. Jeanne asked me to create this fairly involved piece for her daughter, and I was a bit intimidated by the project at first, but I think it turned out super cute, and I was definitely inspired to make new projects from things I learned while making this. Since every “swatch” on the scarf is a different design, I created a short and crappy video to show you guys instead of posting 17 different pictures. Anyway, my Etsy shop is looking pretty barren right now, but I’m not sure how much time I’ll have to devote to it while I work on my big deadlines coming up. Don’t want to spoil what it is yet until I sign ink to paper, but it’s huge. Real huge. Exciting, Stressful. Amazing. Strange. Everything life should be! Balls to the wall, 2010! xoxo p.s. you know you are getting old when you are excited to use the new STEAM CLEANING machine you got for xmas to clean everything from the upholstery to the toilets!

This is the only handmade item I managed to squeak out for the holidays this year! Sad! I just didn’t haven enough time to make stuff for everyone, but at least my mom got a cozy! Lemon-flavored desserts are one of her faves! For Hairy’s mom, I was going to try making cheese straws. I had them for the first time in South Carolina many years ago. Hairy always says his mom is big into crackers, and for some reason, homemade cheese straws as a gift came to mind. I looked through a bunch of different recipes and settled on this one by Ina Garten. I figured if she thought it was delicious, it would surely be a winner. And while they ARE delicious, they aren’t really what I think cheese straws are, which actually have cheddar cheese in the dough, and end up more like a really long and giant Cheez-It. Hairy then took over the kitchen to bake some ginger loaves. Whenever Hairy cooks, Bibi likes to wedge herself between his legs. She picks the most inconvenient spot ever to chillax. This happens all the time and is so funny to me. Even when she was a teeny tiny puppy, she liked to watch Hairy cook, and it really had nothing to do with waiting to be fed or finding crumbs. I think she just likes to be where everyone else is. Here’s a quick pic I took of a cup. I want to do a whole scarf full of different cups and mugs filled with tea or coffee or hot cocoa! On Christmas day, Hairy and I will eat brunch with his parents, and then we will have dinner at my folks’ house. Oh crap. I forgot to wrap our presents for the White Elephant gift exchange! Best do it now before I forget! I hope everyone has a relaxing and delicious holiday!!! xoxo

Thanks so much for entering my first blog giveaway!!! It was nice to hear all your memories and favorite treats! I also loved hearing from folks who read my blog but don’t often comment, so thanks again for saying hello! Sorry I couldn’t reply to everyone!!! And the winner is ….. Congrats, Jade!!!!! I will be emailing you shortly!! I hope everyone has a a happy holiday season!

EDIT!!!!!! THIS CONTEST IS CLOSED!!!!!!!! I WILL NO LONGER APPROVE COMMENTS FOR THIS ENTRY. THANK YOU FOR PARTICIPATING! 🙂 🙂 Hey folks, I’ve always wanted to do a giveaway, but I’ve been so crazy busy that I never have anything left to giveaway! I took the opportunity after BazaarBizarre to put together a lil sumthinsumthin for all of you who have supported me and read my blog! This giveaway package includes red and white striped peppermint wristwarmers/fingerless gloves, a red and white striped peppermint candy-heart necklace, and a red and wdhite swirled lollipop brooch. TO ENTER: Just leave a comment on my blog, telling me what your most favorite holiday treat is! (and make sure to enter your email address in the email address field so I know how to contact you!) DEADLINE: This is super quick! I will choose a winner with a random-number-generator on Monday, December 21st, at noon, PST. This way, I can hopefully have time to contact the winner, and have the winner send me his/her mailing address, and get the package out before the post office closes on the same day. For people in the U.S., the package should arrive before Xmas (according to the USPS….). Sorry to my international readers! I just didn’t get my act together in time! I will obviously still send the package to an international winner, but the package will probably definitely not arrive in time for Xmas. Okay, this is my first giveaway at my own blog, so if I left anything out or messed something up…please let me know! 😛 xoxo

People have already begun to make purchases! Go go go!! Click on the image to go to my shop!

Wow, what a weekend! We basically had to build up stock for BazBiz in 2-3 weeks and I was stressing out about not having enough to actually put on display! It turned out ok though. I think people were delighted and there was a lot of giggling in my vicinity. I always like to make people giggle. Here’s a quick video montage. I never take enough video or photos at these things! Bazaar Bizarre San Francisco 09 from Twinkie Chan on Vimeo. I only got 1 hr of “sleep” on Friday night, and then took 3 hr nap when we got home. Since I was running out of brooches, I decided to make more and then I didn’t go to sleep until 7am again! Oops! So I’m sorry if I sounded completely idiotic to anyone who visited. I was probably running on 4% brain capacity at that point. I would’ve been falling asleep at my booth had it not been COMPLETELY FREEZING!!! AHHH! My fingernails were turning purple! Hairy put an ad on Craigslist last week for me because we wanted an oven-ish display unit to go with my fridge-ish display unit. At first I was afraid that the unit was going to be way too huge and look weird next to my fridge, but after all the was painted and done, IT LOOKED AWESOME!!! We picked up the oven in Petaluma in the rain on Friday night, and it was totally worth it. I am hoping to store it up in the bedroom and use the shelves for tshirts and the “stove top” for other stuff, too. It’s perfectly awesome. She even put hooks on it, so that’s what the zipper clutches are hanging from. Zambi came for visits!!!! And she brought me the cutest little necklace and phone dangly of a cartoon-me wearing a pizza scarf. She is so talented. I heart her! Also I met her mom who was super duper supremely nice! During the craft fair, I made this peppermint candy scarf: I put it up around 3pm on Sunday and it’s still for sale. It will be part of my big leftovers-Etsy-update which I am trying to have up tomorrow, but I have to shoot pics of everything! From my experience this weekend, I have two new rules for being an awesome visitor at a craft fair. 1) Do not roll your eyes at price tags, or ask sellers how much something is and then say “WOW” out loud and put the item back (especially when there was also a SIGN that said how much the thing was!). It’s really rude and disrespectful. I respect that you might not like my stuff or might not have the money to buy it, and I don’t take that personally. But you need to respect the time and love that artists put into their items. I am not a sweatshop worker. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but it’s plain un-classy to insult someone to their face! […]

Cat from Cut Out + Keep asked if I would do a little interview and pattern for the holiday mini version of their online magazine, Snippets, so I said sure!! This is the first pattern I’ve ever posted anywhere, and it’s FREE!! I tried to keep it simple and sweet for the holidays. I hope it’s easy to understand! I haven’t really had a chance to check out Cut Out + Keep yet, but there are like 30,000 members, and I just got an account. I know you might be thinking, “Oh no, not another online community!” But I think they did such a great job with my Snippets stuff, that I’m curious to find out more about the rest of the site!