Author: TwinkieChan

Yup. Went to the DMV last week….two weeks ago…? to renew my drivers license. I have been renewing by mail for years. This is the first time since I was 18 that I’ve had to go in and get a new photo. Funny! I had like 3 hrs of sleep the night before, and I can’t believe they didn’t ask me to take my glasses off? So weird. Anyway, thought you’d enjoy the two photos next to each other. The top photo is totally from 1994. I barely had email then. HAHAHAHAH. A/S/L?!??!?! 18/F/CA,

When we moved in, there was already a rock garden out on the patio, filled with moss and ferns. It was kinda nice, but, Hairy thinks that the flies hide in the ferns, and Bunny also likes to have secret mystery poos and pees in it. It has just become too dark and mysterious, and we decided to remove it and decorate the patio with more manageable planters instead. Also, technically, the rock garden was in violation of fire code, because it blocks our neighbors emergency egress (suckas!). We had no idea how the rock garden was constructed, what materials we would find, or what to expect…. It’s too bad I didn’t capture ALL the bugs we saw. It was truly disgusting. I can handle spiders….but I cannot handle juicy, wiggly, worms and larvae!!! EWWW!! Bunny continues to poo and pee on the remaining dirt pile, so it’s a good incentive to keep getting rid of this thing….

Some explanations: 1) Heaven in a Cardboard Boat: Manda had said this seconds earlier, and I found it so funny at the time (the sheer, honest, love for hot dogs), that I asked her to repeat herself on camera. It’s not quite the same as the original…. 2) Take the Picture!!! : We didn’t realize (again) that the camera was on video mode. I was trying to pose with the sweet gal who asked me to sign her Layer Cake Tissue Cozy. 3) Eat it!!!: Hairy procured a cupcake from the cupcake booth. The one he is eating is called the CRAP CAKE. 4) This Is Our World Coming into Fruition!!!: Manda, while bored, decided to pick up q crochet hook after a 20 year hiatus. I was impressed she could remember as much as she did! It started as sort of a flower, and then sort of exploded into an amoeba……I asked her to ponder its yonder. 5) Is it ALL video?: No explanation. 6) (spitting out your turkey sandwich): So this came from my phobia of eating at our booth. I don’t think anybody was actually paying attention to what I was doing, but I just felt like I was eating on stage or something, and I didn’t want to have to chat with someone with bread sticking to my teeth. One time I was taking a bite, and I accidentally made eye-contact with somebody walking by, and I wanted to immediately eject my sandwich. I told Manda I would demonstrate on video. VIOLA! HotDogs & CrapCakes,

Double Bday BBQ Montage! from Twinkie Chan on Vimeo. The Hamster Dance song came from when Manda and I were at Safeway shopping for a bday card from my bro-bro. Manda was obsessed with the cards that play songs when you open them. We saw one covered in hamsters and I started singing the Hamster Dance song in the grocery store. The End!

Longest, Boringest Update Ever. from Twinkie Chan on Vimeo. Sorry the video is so long. If you’ve ever been a victim of some of my emails, you know I have a bad habit of being longwinded!!! Here’s the hat I was talking about in color! I really wish I wore hats. It’d be easier for me to experiment with making them! I have a styrofoam head, but it’s not quite the same! With the return of my laptop, we also tried watching a movie instantly on Netflix while running a video cable from my laptop to our flatscreen. It worked really well!! We just need an audio cable, now….hahahh…. we were watching the tv but the sound was still coming out of the laptop. Janky!!! We watched Tokyo Zombie, an episode of the IT Crowd (A-Team references? Noice!), and Short Circuit. Then it was 6am and time to pack it in! Today I hope to get close to finishing my secret project. All I’m gonna say is: Rawr. “Life is not a malfunction!”

Hairy and I went to see this the other night at the Metreon after eating chili dogs. We were going to see Bruno, but Hairy seemed to insist that I thought I wanted to see 500 Days of Summer more (not necessarily true, but, whatever, I’d see either one.) I don’t think that Zoey Deschanel is a great actress at all, but she is my tv girlfriend, so I must see her movies. I was prepared to dislike Joseph Gordon-Levitt, but, as it turned out, he was not as annoying as I thought he would be. All in all, I enjoyed the movie and thought it was a nice quirky little flick about a relationship. It’s not super cheezy or sappy, so don’t go into it expecting such! I give it two thumbs up for wardrobe, both his and hers. Also, after the movie, I wanted to take a picture on the coin-op train. (It did not turn out being a great picture. I had no idea I was walking around with such flat hair.) Then the security guard yelled at us and said it was “closed.” If it were “closed,” you probably should’ve “closed” it off. I don’t know. That seems….logical?

Check out Shrinkle’s latest blog entry for more pics of my booth. She kept making me stand by the fridge and pose with it. She’s cruel. p.s. check out the lady behind us. Hahahhahah!

The most talented Chloe painted Bibi and it is so so so so cute!!!! I think she perfectly captured Bibi’s sweet face and all her lovable squishyness. You should check out more of her work because she paints all kinds of adorable things, like sweets and cupcakes! Big Paw Gifts Uh, sorry those are so huge….I ganked them and didn’t re-size them! AHHH!!!! I think we’re going to watch Bruno tonight. I’m off to go work on some cute-tility packs! xoxo,

Yesterday, I got an email to help a friend of a friend get an emergency birthday present to somebody, including gift wrap! I didn’t have much time, so I used what I had around the house: banana wrapping paper, handspun yarn, and pastry weepuls! Also, I wore my early bday presents from my bro and his lady. Super cool jelly bean earrings I once featured in my Round Up: by Roscata on Etsy Little vintage teal dress from Shrinkle‘s vintage finds. Raindrop bow leggings by Nicole Lindner on Etsy which I bought a little bit ago….with a matching dress. Wait’ll you see that! I know. The belt wasn’t really working. But I seem to not have a lot of belts in my closet. Sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose. It was a cheap belt that came with some other dress. It ended up popping open at the vet’s office while I was sitting on a bench, waiting for Bibi and Bunny to come out, so I decided I had to ditch it. Exploding out of your belt in public = not a fav. FYI, Bibi and Bunny both tested negative for heartworm, and also Bibi is now SIXTY FOUR POUNDS!! SHE IS HUUUUUUUGE!! We knew she was huge, but we didn’t have any idea she had gained over 10 lbs since January. Holy cripes. We already cut down her food, but now we need to more. If she is still huge, the vet will test her thyroid levels. In laptop news: it is back in the Apple hospital. Something about the logic board being messed up? I dunno. Whatevs. Just make it work!

I was going to make these for the Renegade Craft Fair for my table, but I totally ran out of time. Instead, I made them for the joint bday bbq my brother and I had at my folks’ house on Saturday. They look REALLY cute, but I would say that eating them was not the greatest. The ice cream cones end up kind of soggy/stale from being baked and having something liquidy in them! In other news, Manda got all her hair chopped off and then colored! She is lucky she has the natural wave/curl which makes her bob look so cute (it’s less curly in these pictures). I have to use a curling iron every morning! We also watched Hairy Potter on Friday night. I don’t read the books because it’s very difficult for me to suspend my disbelief while reading. Fantasy/sci-fi really doesn’t work for me in print. But I have seen all the movies. It just seems like pop cultural homework! Why is Draco aging so quickly!?!? We picked my laptop up from the Apple store on Sunday, and it worked again for like an hour, and then all of a sudden, it demanded to be restarted, and then wouldn’t start up again. BUMMER. So we are taking it back today. What a burn!!! No bbq video montage! Today I continue to pack orders and ship, but this week, my goal is to finish a very cool project for someone else’s book. Fun!

Thanks to everyone who bought something!! I think this is the most packages I’ve prepped in two days!! I still have to go buy boxes to package up the tissue box cozies. I am going to need to make a few trips in and out of the post office!!! I also have a LOT of international orders, which is always exciting. This could be the first time I’m shipping to Belgium? I can’t really remember. Anyway, thanks so much for your support. It really means a lot to me. I tried to take a pic of myself in front of the packages but I kinda failed…. In other news, Hairy and I went to Target the other night to buy toilet paper, and I came home with these: I have a really hard time taking pills. I’m also a tiny bit on the Vitamin B anemic side, and I do have a great B12 chewable supplement, but I’ve always been looking for a multivitamin. These don’t taste bad at all. You need to take one twice a day. It doesn’t have iron or calcium, but I take an extra calcium supplement anyway (dark chocolate Adora…it’s good!). It has decent B’s and D’s, so for now, this is my multivitamin of choice! Gummies…for adults! Here’s me failing to take a pic with Bunny: Aaaaand here’s me failing to take a pic with Bibi: Here’s some gingerbread cookie brooches I worked on tonight for the winner of my giveaway at LovelyLittleDeer’s blog (she has a new cute giveaway right now!). Friday is all about post office trips, Office Depot trips, and simultaneously tackling some outlining of my book, some really old special order commissions, and planning for new items in the shop! Also, my bestie is driving up and we’re all gonna go see Harry Potter! (oh my gosh, I just typed Hairy Potter….) xoxo

Hey gang, Finally, I got the craft-fair leftovers up on Etsy!! A lot of stuff has already sold even before I got the chance to announce it! I am continuing my lowered craft-fair prices for ONE WEEK only! That means, next Wednesday, all pricing will return to normal. Most of the crocheted items are up to 45% off. Tees are regular price because they are all new designs! Thanks for checking everything out!!!

It’s 3:30 am and I am still working hard to update stuff to Etsy. It always takes me so long! How do people do it? I still have a bunch of stuff to post, but people are already starting to buy things, so I thought I’d give you the preliminary warning that stuff is going up. I will make another announcement when everything is up and ready!! Check out what is there right now!

I wish I had taken more video and more photos! Oh well! It was kind of a whirlwind weekend. The night before the fair, I was finishing up my t-shirts, heat-sealing the ends of ribbon over a cupcake candle, printing photos for my album, and Hairy and I even dragged out all the big pieces of booth furniture into the garage to figure out how to lay everything out! I think the booth turned out pretty well for not having been planned very well… 😛 There are things I would change and futz with. I would want to focus more on how the inside of the fridge was displayed and organized, but all in all, I think a lot of people were really delighted we even had a real fridge! I had a difficult time figuring out how to display the ice cream cone scarf in the freezer and still have it look cute. It’s a small, deep space, so it didn’t highlight that scarf very well :(. Also, I’m so sorry I wasn’t able to put my customer pics on the fridge. I discovered that the inside of the fridge door is not magnetic!!! I could have taped all the faux-laroids to the inside of the door which was visible, but I didn’t want to ruin the pics, either. I have to think about how to deal with that later! Here’s me and Nel/becausemaybe. I’d never met her in person before, but we are internetz buddies! There she is being goofy in her salad cowl/neckwarmer! Okay, that’s a terrible photo of me, but I had to get a picture of these guys. They are awesome! They are Jules’ god sons. We talked about finger-weaving, and the younger one is crocheting!!! I love that!!! They were really polite and nice. I loved them! Here’s me and the gal who wanted me to sign her layer cake tissue cozy. So sweet! She was very nice and patient as Manda tried to figure out the video/photo settings on my camera! I think this was the first time someone asked me to sign a crochet piece! It was kind of hard to write on crochet…I was so afraid I was just messing it all up and drawing an ink blob! When these guys approached the booth, I felt like I was going to get the smack down from the Color Mafia!!! How cool do they all look together with their candy rainbow hair!? I’m always delighted to see Marissa and Josh, and I was uber-delighted to finally meet Irene and also another Stephanie who also has a bf named Matt! My last photo is of Dorklandia’s ice cream cart!!! This was such a GENIUS idea!!! She made ice-cream plushies and kits for making the plushies, and she pushed this ice cream cart around and ringed her bell all over the fair. MY GOD!!! SO BRILLIANT!!!! I couldn’t stop going on about how I thought she was the smartest person at the fair! I […]

There should be some fun photos from Day 1 of Renegade. I also have some funny video clips, but I am too tired to pull anything off my camera. I basically got no sleep last night!! This is from Hairy’s iPhone: More later: me spitting out a turkey sandwich, Manda waxing philosophically about crochet, Amy Shrinkle and I jumping in the air looking classy. Stay tuned!

I so feel the exact opposite of this picture right now!!! Deep breath! Off to do a zillion things!!!!!! (Adorable strawberry playsuit by SewOeno. It’s completely awesome, but my thighs are still a little fat for it to be seen in public. Tight elastic = not cute. Is it bad to use clothing as inspiration for exercise….??)

Preview of the Twinkie ChanBurger tee! I have to wait to affix the lettuce bows, and I’m not quite sure yet how I want to attach them, be it sewn on permanently, or pinned with safety pins for removal. Sometimes when I have t-shirts with pins, I just don’t put the pins back on. But if people didn’t put the bows back on, their burger would be lettuce-less and naked!!!! If I sew them in, I think it will all lay more neatly, but then people would DEFINITELY have to handwash their tee, and people probably think that is a pain in the rear, although, I have bought t-shirts that said dry clean only! Some people on Twitter suggested snaps. I like that idea, but (a) I don’t really have time to sew on 40 snaps before Saturday, and (b) I’m afraid you’d be able to see the snap behind the bow. I’ll keep thinking on it and decide tomorrow! Here is a salad cowl I made for the fair. There is a light green one and a dark green one. Wish I had time to make more, but now I have to focus on booth design and promotional materials! I got my hair cut and colored today at Dekko and while Jules was twirling my hair and making it big, she said, “I’m making you look like a crazy cow! Don’t Twitter this!!” HAhaha! Okay, I HAD TO MENTION IT!!! Uh, this is what I look like now. Sometimes when you are busy, you just need to get all the hair out of your face and put on your pajama pants.

I have been sewing labels and writing out tags for HOURS!!!! And I still have a big ol’ box of stuff left to label and tag!! Holy Bejesus! I wish I were ok with just GLUING the labels on instead of sewing. That would save time, but would be super ghetto. I have a LOT of stuff for the fair, which is great! But there are still so many more things I want to add!! Ha! There’s probably no time, tho. Right now I”m focusing on labeling and tagging what I have, printing out photos, planning out the space, fixing up the fridge. I guess if I can finish all that by tomorrow, I can make more stuff on Thursday and Friday. Highly doubtful, tho! I’m also getting my hair cut and colored on Thursday. I can’t really crochet there. There’s a lot of sitting involved in the color process, but I’m too afraid of getting bleach or dye on anything. Maybes I’ll try anyway. It’s too bad I don’t have confidence in myself or Hairy to bleach my roots at home! I so cannot afford to cut and color my hair, AND go to the periodontist next week, but oh well! These are what I deem NECESSITIES OF LIFE!!! Oh man, I just remembered I have to buy flea/heartworm stuff or the dogs, too. I have spent A LOT of money on this fair already… but Hairy says that as far as advertising goes, it’s all worth it. I hope so! He has been working hard every night screen-printing shirts for me for the fair. I can’t wait to see how everything turns out! This is the first time in my life where the balance on my credit card is scaring me, and I’m like embarrassed about it. We also had to buy plane tix and book hotel rooms for my friend’s wedding in Houston. Oy! Hopefully doing a major clothing sale in the next few weeks will help a wee bit. I have a LOT of cute stuff that I just don’t wear or have the space for! I’m gonna try to go to sleep so that I don’t wake up too late tomorrow. Sorry for the weird rambling and financial freak out. It’s late/early, and I’ve had two cups of Vietnamese Insta coffee tonight!!!

So I managed to get all the pieces done!!! Now that I’ve done six, I totally want to make one with even more boxes…like a tiered wedding cake!!! Haha. But that would have to be for a time when I have a lot of spare hours on hand! The sprinkles are still loose and not glued on. I tried also using seed beads instead of pom poms, but somehow they ended up looking like dirty random sprinkles. For now, the pompoms are on top. They will probably stay there, but we’ll see. I’ve been decorating pear scarves today. Later, I need to sew labels on aaaaaall my items and start tallying stuff up and making lists!! If I finish all my labeling, tagging,making my lookbook, and printing my signs, I will try to make more cute-tility packs before the show. I hope I can. We’ll see… Oh wait, I also need to clean up the fridge and plan my booth organization. Doh.

‘Kay, this is really random, but on Saturday we ended up going to a shooting range with my dad, his friend, my bro, and his lady, and my bro’s friend. This is not really a normal activity for us. I went once, a couple years ago, and I did shoot a gun. I was really bad at hitting the target, so I kind of just gave up. This time, I crocheted the whole time and was afraid I was embarrassing everybody! I’m a pew-pew party-pooper! Hairy was a sport and shot all manner of guns even tho it seemed to kind of go against his political/personal thoughts on gun control. At any rate, I don’t mean to start up a big discussion about guns, etc. This is just what we happened to end up doing, and, in a weird way, the whole scene was funny to me because it was just such an odd picture, to see people I know with real weapons! Here’s a short video clip of Hairy and me walking down the hill toward the range. I didn’t take any video of anyone actually shooting. I was afraid the super loud noise would kill my camera’s mic or something…! Mando “let’s take a pic of ourselves” pic: Hairy and my Bro: Hairy with a scary gun: Hairy with a scarier gun: Hairy with ammo in his butt: That shot was especially gangsta. My sister in law. She’s also an attorney, so stay on her good side. I spent the rest of the weekend crocheting cake tissue boxes. THANK YOU SO MUCH for all your opinions and feedback on the sprinkles! I did not make an official tally for sprinkles vs sprinkles votes….but it really feels quite evenly split. I’ve been toying with a few alternative sprinkle methods, but I have not yet affixed any sprinkles….I am going to complete all the boxes, and then take a step back and re-assess! They are almost all done now, except for whipped cream and cherries, since I ran out of yarn and need to go to the store tomorrow. Tonight we also went to Loew’s to buy some plexiglass and get it cut, in order to create an extra shelf inside the vintage fridge for more display area. Also a tap light so it won’t be super dark in there!! Things are slowly shaping up. I can’t believe how much I let this fair take up my life! haha!! Afterward, I am going to be knee-deep in writing my pattern book, since it’s due in October! At least I think it is….I haven’t officially signed any contracts yet. We wrote some notes on the contract and I haven’t heard anything back yet. This is par for the course, tho. Contracts can take forever, and I’ve seen situations where people have delivered their manuscripts before even signing anything, and then they get their signing and delivery payment all at once! Monday will be all about finishing the tissue boxes, making more […]

Sprinkles or no sprinkles? See below!! Also please excuse extra weird video. I was blindly recording with the digi cam (I usually use Photobooth) so I had no idea if I was actually in the frame or not. Hahah! Cake Box from Twinkie Chan on Vimeo. This is a “sketch” I did in photoshop before I started work in order to figure out the colors. As you can see, I initially did put sprinkles on it, but I am sort of leaning toward no sprinkles now…. hmmm!!! Also here are some doggie vids from yesterday. Here is Bibi eating her foot and Bunny saying hi with her butt. Untitled from Twinkie Chan on Vimeo. And moments after, here is Bibi checking out what’s on TV. Untitled from Twinkie Chan on Vimeo.

I’ve been wanting to do another ice cream scarf for some time (I did one years ago), but just never got around to it. I wanted to refine the cone, and I wanted to make sure that my ice cream scarf didn’t look too much like my cupcake scarf!! Also a little birdie once wrote me a letter covered in cute little sketches of things. One sketch was of soft serve scarf. It looked like vanilla with rainbow sprinkles. I’d been thinking for a while about how to do it, and I finally settled on a plan. I got a great yarn from ImagiKnit. I believe the brand is Twinkle. It’s super duper chunky, fluffy, soft and luscious. It’s truly delicious! I bought it in chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla. This stuff is $20 a hank! I probably won’t keep using this yarn, but it was nice to work with on this initial scarf. The cone is good ol’ Vanna yarn. I like working with Vanna a lot, and there are a ton of colors (not great pink or yellow, tho!). I ran into the problem of the cone curling a bit. I seem to have this problem when I work in sc. I haven’t discovered or read about any ways of curing the curl, so I think for my next version, I will work in a wool for the cone so I can try to block it and stop the curling. As you can see, this scarf is HUGE!! It’s too big for my taste. Not only is it big, but it’s also rather dense, eventho the chunky yarn is worked in dc, so it’s super heavy, and when you wrap it around your neck, it feels like a neck brace!!! So next time: smaller pattern, looser work on the ice cream so it’s not so dense, and wool yarn for cone. I also want to do all vanilla ice cream, with rainbow colored party cones! I like how there is space across the top of the cone to stitch out words if I want, like people’s names! I really want to make another version right away, but I have other pressing craft-fair projects to complete!!

I went over to my parents’ yesterday to get help from my mom for this crafty project! Usually I go bug Manda about my sewing needs, but I feel like she has a lot of her own sewing projects on her plate now, so I hit up Mama Chan. She claims to not sew very well, espesh clothing, but she sure whips up a mean couch-cover from her own pattern! Here’s a peek of what we made. Next time I order my fabric from Spoonflower, I will make the images bigger. We felt that the pillows were a bit on the small side. At least I have my colors locked down now, so I can go crazy with my fabric orders!! Due to certain boo-boos on my part…there won’t be very many pillows at Renegade. There will be 4 kinds: tater tots, pickle jars, ketchup bottles, and hot dog packs. If people seem to like them, I will print out more varieties of foods. If they are a big flop, then I’ll just make a set for myself!!! 😛

Hey guys, I just sent out a mailing list message, but in case you are not on the mailing list, I am going to ask for your help here, too! I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to decorate my vintage fridge for the craft fair with magnets and pictures of other people wearing my goodies. I only have a small handful of customer pics, so if you could take a quick snap shot, or if you have some laying around, I would SO appreciate you emailing them to me (twinkiedink at gmail dot com) so your beautiful faces can be at my booth! I plan to print out the pics as little fake polaroids, so if you also want a little message or name or nickname or something written underneath the pic, just include that in your email as well. THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! I know it can be a big pain in the rear end to take pics and send, so if I happen to receive any new pics in my inbox, I super appreciate it!!!!! I also never mentioned here in my blog that I will have some marked down prices on the more expensive scarves, so it’s definitely a rare opportunity and you should definitely come and visit! Nothing will be over $100. Also I’ve been working on some cute new designs, and I will try to preview them here in the blog when I get a chance to take pics and post them!