Category: Blog

I follow EatMeDo on Instagram and keep seeing all these adorable photos from her new “Tea Party” collection that are too cute not to share! Here are a few snaps I nabbed from her lookbook! If you want to see more, check out her website!

It’s the 15th of the month (okay, it’s technically the 16th now but I haven’t gone to bed yet!) which means my July blog sponsor giveaway is launching! Let’s check out the TEN cool prizes from my amazing sponsors that ONE LUCKY WINNER will receive! 1.  A Frida skull brooch from Jubly-Umph‘s new collection ‘Creepy Girl Gang’ which launched this week! 2. A set of 3 Flying Unicorn Necklaces from A Little Geeky! 3. A set of 3 fun greeting cards and a set of 6 Real Job magnets from Nellie Le! She is also giving my readers (you guys!) 20% off all orders with code: TCJULY20. 4. A gift card for any one free shirt or tank top from Pete Ellison’s shop, shipping included! Pete is an artist/designer/DJ creating a small line of screen printed Kawaii-Rave-Punk fashions out of his kitchen in Portland, OR. Made with healthy doses of love and enthusiasm, these threads are super cute, super bright, and super soft. He is currently taking pre-orders for two new tank tops! 5. An adorable dino cross stitch brooch from Glamasaurus! You guys also get 10% off your order on glamasaurus.etsy.com with the code TWINKIE. 6. A $15 gift certificate to shop at HappyKawaiiSupplies! 7. A Crazy Cat Lady patch from Miss Ella! 8. A $20 gift certificate to shop in Knit Kritters. Knit Kritters will be vending at Bronycon August 7-9 in Baltimore! 9. An adorable “See No Diet, Hear No Diet, Speak No Diet” Cupcake Apron from Stitchez A La Mode! 10. To celebrate her annual $10 off tutu sale, The Geek Garden is giving away one custom made Juicy cherry tutu skirt!  If you can’t wait to win one here, go to the shop until July 24th to grab a steal! (Cue ancient photos of moi!) Just use the Rafflecopter widget below for all of your chances to win! Giveaway is open worldwide, for ages 18 & over, and will run for a week until next Wednesdsay night, July 22nd, at midnight PDT. Winner will be chosen randomly via Rafflecopter/Random.org, and winner must reply to my email within 24 hours, or I will randomly choose a new winner. No purchase necessary. Good luck! P.S. Please make sure my email address can get through your spam filters! I will only be contacting winners via email. twinkie@twinkiechan.com P.P.S. NO giveaway accounts! Thank you! A giveaway account is a social media account that you use solely for giveaways. a Rafflecopter giveaway

A couple months ago, I felt super stoked about successfully going through the huge rigmarole of obtaining tickets to San Diego Comic Con. Manda and I decided to also go to Disneyland on the way down. I am still in the final throes of book-writing and really shouldn’t have gone anywhere except the yarn store, but….I could not say no to this trip!

Have you guys seen the video tutorial for making Legos out of Jello? My dad posted it on my Facebook page a little while ago and was like, “You should make this!” So I thought it would be a fun experiment and also a cool Father’s Day gift. The guy on YouTube cast his own Lego mold, and I wasn’t about to get that crazy, so I bought this mold and this mold from Amazon (affiliate links). I think you can use whatever ice cube tray or candy mold you want, as long as it’s silicone, so that the Jello pops right out. Also the King of Random video called for corn syrup, which I failed to get at the store, but he said it was to add smoothness, so I figured… if my Legos were a tiny bit less SMOOTH, life would still go on. I also looked at this tutorial for research. What seemed to be the Jello Lego ideal was to get your Legos super CLEAR and not cloudy, so I became a little obsessed with Jello clarity and was a bit hard on myself, so it’s good to have someone else in the kitchen to slap you in the face and tell you to get over yourself. I’d read that you’re supposed to overfill the molds a little bit due to shrinkage, but I didn’t experience that much shrinkage. Here’s what I put in the mold: I mixed 3 oz. of flavored Jello with 1/4 cold water. Then I slowly mixed in 1 packet of Knox gelatin. The gelatin tends to clump and stay clumpy even on the stove, so a slow mix seemed to be the ticket. Then I heated the mixture on the stove for a few minutes on low heat until everything looked dissolved (to be frank, everything already looked dissolved anyway, but I put it on the stove because it seemed like I was supposed to). Then I poured the mixture into a glass. You wait a few minutes so that all the foam and cloudy bits rise to the top and you can spoon it off like a pudding skin. This is all part of that Jello clarity thing, if Jello clarity is important to you. Then you can go ahead and pour it into the molds. I had squeezy bottles to get the Jello into the mold, but as it turned out, pouring it out of a cup worked perfectly fine.  Then you just let the molds set for 5-6 hours, on the counter, not even refrigerated or anything, while you eat Chinese delivery and watch the Bachelorette. As you can see, I don’t have the clearest Jello Legos, and some of my Lego nubs didn’t fill all the way. Also, my Legos didn’t actually stack, because you have to get a Lego base plate and spray it and slap it on the top of your mold while it sets, and my mold wasn’t even actually Legos anyway…they were bigger, maybe more like […]

1. Sometimes I feel like I have to sneak you guys a peek at what I’m working on for the book, because otherwise it seems like I’m not doing anything at all…! 😛 Apparently, I like to sneak in at least one felted/fulled crochet project in my books, and this time it’s gonna be a taco! I haven’t felted anything in a long time, because when I moved a few years ago, I got a front-loading washing machine, and I’d heard that those could be more difficult to felt things in (and doing it in the sink takes FOREVER and is ARDUOUS). Recently, I read this post on Knit Like a Pirate about felting IN THE DRYER. IN. THE. DRYER. I know to most people, this news is like HUNH?, but to me, this news is LIFE CHANGING. I will definitely start felting projects again!!!! It takes a bit longer (like over an hour in the dryer) than when I felted in my top-loader, but, it beats felting in the sink by a long shot. 2. I am actually NOT vending any longer at Renegade Craft Fair San Francisco in July. I received an email that the fair had a misunderstanding with the venue about how many vendors they could have, and I got the boot. I have a lot of mixed feelings about this (a little bit of WHAT?! and a little bit of stress-relief), but I am going to use the items I’d planned for Renegade to re-open my Etsy shop after I finish writing my book. PLUS, I get to go to the fair and relax and enjoy myself and take my time, so I definitely actually look forward to that, and I might still see you there! 3. I’m hosting a guest this weekend: the super cute and talented desert elf princess Iggy Starpup! I’m so excited!! I’m super exhausted but also excited!!! All I know so far is rice krispie treats, nachos, and photobooths. That’s all pretty awesome in and of itself. Have a great weekend!!!! Don’t forget to check out my current giveaway!  

Have you guys seen the video on Facebook in which someone is making pancakes out of eggs and bananas? I can’t seem to find the exact video via Google, but it was basically like, “Make pancakes out of two eggs and a banana. And some cinnamon. It totally tastes just like pancakes.” Here’s a link to a pretty thorough blog entry and recipe on Our Best Bites. Manda was out of town this weekend, and there was That One Browning Banana staring at me from the fruit basket. I have a higher tolerance for ripe bananas than Manda, but this banana was going South super fast. There is a point where I can’t even use That Kind of Banana for a smoothie because the smoothie will just taste too banana-y. ANYWAY. I decided I would be weird and try this 2-ingredient pancake thing. I took a nod from Our Best Bites and added baking powder, because I think that anything to make these fluffier is ideal. I made a 15-second video for Instagram. 15 seconds is hardly any time, so there is not much eating in the video…..   A video posted by Twinkie Chan (@twinkiechan) on Jun 13, 2015 at 7:18pm PDT It was definitely a fun experiment, but, I didn’t have time in the video to mention that you should do some deep breathing and prolonged visualization, imagining pancakes, and brain-washing yourself into thinking that you are about to eat real actual pancakes. Because it’s hard to un-think that you are eating eggs mixed with bananas, cuz that’s what it totally tastes like. My first two pancakes were REALLY WET (kinda like scrambled eggs are?), so I made the ones in the video a bit darker. They were still REALLY WET. On Instagram, I used the word JUICY, which is not really a word you associate with pancakes. Our Best Bites describes them like “the inside of french toast,” which I tried really hard to manifest, but, it’s not quite there for me. I could see how this could be a good replacement for low carb/gluten-free folk, and I am sure there are more things you could add to this that would make it taste less like a banana omelet, but I’m afraid this carb-lover is gonna have to stick with regular pancakes. Like, if you could leave your eyeballs on, but turn your mouth off, these would be perfect. If you have a really good food-imagination, these would be perfect. I would probably eat them again, but, I just didn’t want to lie to any of you pancake-purists. I know you’re out there.

Mark your calendars!! I’ll have a booth again at Renegade Craft Fair San Francisco, July 18-19, from 11am – 6pm, at Fort Mason Center Festival Pavilion! I’m still working on writing up my inventory list, so if you have any requests, let me know! I had this fun plan for a mini-collection of patterns to put in a tiny booklet…. but since my actual book writing is taking longer than expected, I don’t know that I’ll have time for that. We’ll see!!!!

Jubly-Umph is an Australian artist who paints pictures in watercolours and indian ink, creating characters with mysterious eyes and curious occupations. She is inspired by rockabilly and tattoos, coffee and books. Her art is available as prints and jewellery, handbags and home wares. Jubly-Umph put together a giveaway prize package just for you! It includes her Woolamina crochet girl necklace, sewing machine earrings, and a colouring book. Here are some photos of the giveaway items up close! Just follow the Rafflecopter widget below for all of your chances to win! (p.s If you are new to Rafflecopter and think it’s weird, I just ran into this hand dandy guide.) Giveaway is open worldwide, for ages 18 & over, and will run for a week until next Wednesday night, June 3rd, at midnight PST. Winner will be chosen randomly via Rafflecopter/Random.org, and winner must reply to my email within 24 hours, or I will randomly choose a new winner. No purchase necessary. Good luck! P.S. Please make sure my email address can get through your spam filters! I will only be contacting winners via email. twinkie@twinkiechan.com P.P.S. NO giveaway accounts! Thank you! A giveaway account is a social media account you use solely for giveaways.   a Rafflecopter giveaway

Hi, gang!!! Sorry the giveaway is a little late again!!! I’ve been running into random snags with my book-writing, so the book has taken over my life quite a bit! But I super duper appreciate you guys reading my blog, and I super duper appreciate my awesome blog sponsors, so let’s check some of their stuff out! ONE winner will receive:

I’m giving away 3 copies of the “Peanuts Crochet” kit (affiliate link) by my friend Kristen Rask that I contributed 4 patterns to, so that means 3 winners will each get one! You can see the samples I worked up for the patterns I wrote: Charlie Brown, Woodstock, Peppermint Patty, and Sally. They are pretty small dolls, about 5 inches (or under, for Woodstock). Here is a full of list characters that are included: Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus (and his blanket), Franklin, Lucy, Sally, Peppermint Patty, Pigpen, Flying Ace Snoopy, Schroeder (and his piano), Woodstock and Marcie. This kit is not really for super-beginners. You should probably be fairly comfortable already with working in the round, but you can also grab a kit and have it on-hand for whenever you are ready! Enter to win by using the Rafflecopter widget below and following the instructions. Simply leaving a blog comment will not count. You must go through the Rafflecopter widget, since I use the widget to select the winners randomly. Giveaway is open for U.S. residents ONLY (due to size of kit & my shipping costs), for ages 18 & over, and will run until Thursday night, May 14th, at midnight PST. Three winners will be chosen randomly via Rafflecopter/Random.org, and winners must reply to my email within 24 hours, or I will randomly choose a new winner. No purchase necessary. Good luck! P.S. Please make sure my email address can get through your spam filters! I will only be contacting winners via email. twinkie@twinkiechan.com P.P.S. NO giveaway accounts! Thank you! (Giveaway accounts are social media accounts which you clearly only use for posting about giveaways.) a Rafflecopter giveaway

I’ll be the first to admit: I stress-shop. It’s not good. I shouldn’t do it. I don’t need it. But I do it anyway. When I feel like I need to confess my sins, I try doing Fun Stuff Round Ups instead, so I can share the things I’ve been looking at but will not buy. Let’s proceed! How About No tote bag from Valfre Eyeroll necklace from Nikki Lipstick Shrimp Cocktail Vest from Luxury Jones – It’s from Back to the Future IV: Water World. Canned Pineapple pin from heartbeatsclub Cute things from Modcloth!! Purse, Dress, Tea Towel. Fun socks from Lazy Oaf! Small Stacking Mood Ring by proteales – I have a random want for a mood ring atm, and I have this one in my Etsy favorites, but have yet to pull the trigger. I splurged on some cute dresses recently… I’ll show you in the next few days! I had one of those “I thought I ordered yellow, but this is pink” moments, but, hey, pink, I don’t hate pink!  

So this is what the driveway looked like yesterday. Manda moved all her stuff in on Saturday, and most of it was in the garage, then she emptied out the garage to re-organize all the stuff, and so that we could also sort through stuff in my storage-area/crawlspace. Luckily, we shoved everything back into the garage before dark! The house is still exploding a bit, but Manda already cooked a first dinner, and we already had our first dinner guest, so all is moving forward and dandy! I posted a lil video to YouTube over the weekend to show you guys my craft-room process and to blab about some other stuff.  

I’m a bit predictable. If I’m entertaining out-of-town visitors, I always want to take them to PikaPika in Japantown for some purikura or Japanese photobooth fun. It’s always really stressful because time goes very quickly in the photobooth, and sometimes the pics turn out well, and sometimes they don’t, and you just sorta go with it cuz it costs $10 bucks. A few weeks ago, my friend Candace from SuperGoodClothing spent a week-long layover with me. We ate tons of snacks, cooked junk food (I need to edit video for IEatYuckyStuff!) and went to J-town 3 days in a row. Why? The first day, we got there too late, and after shopping at Daiso, we didn’t have enough time for PikaPika. On Day 2, we got there only to find out that it was closed for a special event. We did visit Mitsu Tea House, the new bubble tea place, which also serves shave ice/”snows” which I don’t usually get. But Candace got a strawberry shortcake one that has actual cake in it, and I approve! Day 3 was the magic day for us to let loose our creative and artistic spirits, as evidenced above. Candace is the only person I know with an effed-up sleep schedule like me, hence, #lackofsleeppals as well as brain damage references. We need help. We’re working on it.

My craft room is moving! Manda is moving in with me next weekend, so this past weekend, she and my mom helped me to start moving the craft room from my 2nd bedroom into the DINING ROOM. My dining table is now in the corner of my living room, and at first I thought it was really weird, but it’s kind of cute and I’m starting to like it. I am going to lose  a closet and one of my work tables in this process, but I think it is always nice to have an opportunity to take stock of what you have and what you need and really pare it down if possible. We already took some big trips to Goodwill, and I already sold a lot of yarn online. In the interest of time (since I’m still on tight deadline for my book, too), I started to Goodwill a lot of usable craft supplies instead of posting it online for sale, because photographing, shipping and packing everything also takes up quite a bit of my time, which I don’t have a lot of right now! I’ve been taking some (shoddy) video for YouTube of the moving process. I would have loved to have done a  time lapse, but since other people have been involved, I didn’t really want to futz with cameras or computers. I kinda just wanted to get it done while I had the help! My goal is to have everything out of the old craft room and into the new craft room by FRIDAY, since Manda’s stuff will be coming in on Saturday. Wish us luck! And new adventures! We actually lived together for a few years about a decade ago. We are trying to make goals for eating better, cooking more, and exercising together more often. But first: the move! More photos and videos on that very soon!

If you celebrate Easter, I hope you had a great Easter weekend! I went to an Easter egg hunt at my brother and sister-in-law’s house, as well as a friend’s bday bbq, and also a fun family dinner in the city! For the Easter egg hunt, I volunteered to make muffins and also deviled eggs (not pictured). Why would I ever volunteer to bake muffins when anyone who reads this blog regularly knows that I am …. not reliable in the kitchen!? Even if I try to GAF? As I have mentioned before, I am terrible but hopeful! First up was Joy the Baker’s recipe for Maple Syrup Pancake Muffins. This looked like a fun challenge to me for reasons twofold: 1) BROWN BUTTER. I have never browned butter before. I should have googled it before attempting it. 2) Maple lemon glaze. Making a glaze sounds extra fancy, and you know how fancy I am… So about that brown butter…. This was my first attempt. Let’s remember that I DO NOT KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT COOKING/BAKING, and I didn’t know if, like, ALL the butter would turn brown or what! Cuz that’s what it sounds like to me! I was like, “Manda! Does this look like brown butter!? Is this brown butter!?” And she acted completely disgusted and said, “I would NEVER brown butter!” As it turns out, small bits will start turning brown, and that’s what is supposed to happen and that’s when you pull it off the heat. It should look like nutty brown bits suspended in butter. The whole thing will not turn brown. JUST THE BITS. If you let it go too long, you get the above burned up debacle, which will henceforth be known as the buttery char of Satan. So, I started again, AFTER googling brown butter, and all was well. For the moment. I forgot to grab a lemon at the store for the maple glaze, so I ran outside with a flashlight and grabbed a Meyer lemon off my tree. As much as I suck in the kitchen, I probably suck MORE in the garden, and my lemon tree is more like a luxury spider condo filled with horrible disgusting THICK spider webs but also some lovely fruits. I plucked the least gnarly lemon off the tree and ran back inside screaming and flapping my arms all over myself. Manda was like IS THERE A SPIDER ON YOU WHAT IS GOING ON!?!?? But it was just that yucky feeling of having walked through ten million spider webs Indiana-Jones style. The lemon turned out to be super juicy and delightful, so at least the spider dance was worth it. Here’s me dipping my muffins in some bad ass glaze. So here’s something else I have to keep telling myself while baking: TRUST THE TOOTHPICK. Sometimes I’ll stick a toothpick in my baked goods before pulling them out of the oven, and the toothpick comes out clean, but I feel like the baked good is still mushy […]

A few months ago, Jumana Barbarea, a fashion designer in Saudi Arabia, contacted me on Etsy about incorporating some of my crochet items into her photoshoot for her children’s clothing line. She just sent me some photos, and look how much fun they are! I hope you guys have a great weekend!!!! So far this month has been a major test in working crazy hard and making time to see friends and be a human and not just a work-machine. I’m not sure I can keep up, but I’ll certainly try. I have a lot of fun news/projects coming up, so stay tuned!

Mel Stringer is a super amazing artist, and I kind of just want to BE every girl that she draws. She kindly sent me a pair of her Pinky Sulky Star Gazer earrings! I for serious have not worn earrings in 8 million years, and I was like, “MelMel, I don’t even know if I have ear holes anymore!!!” BUT I DO. Mel also has a zine called Girl Glue in which she gathers inspiration and art from girl artists around the world. Girl Glue 2 is out now and available in her shop, and yours truly is in there, too! The gorgeous cover art is by Wishcandy, and here is a list of all the artists inside:  (from A-Z) Amanda Whitelaw, Cat Rabbit, Chelsey Barnes, Danielle Thompson, Elena Peralimonera, Gemma Correll, Glucose Girl, Hannakin, Heidi Kenney, Hellen Jo, Kirbee Lawler, Lilly Piri, Mab Graves, Maddy Young, Manjit Thapp, Marmushka, Mel Stringer, Natali Koromoto Martinez, Natalie Perkins, Ouvra, Rebecca Marian Irene, Rudy Fig, Sarah “Catface” MG, Team Kitten, Twinkie Chan, Valerie Brown, Wishcandy. Hope you guys have a great weekend! I’m going to a Galentine’s Day party at Elysse‘s house, and then I’m powering through more work on my second crochet book, which I’ll blog about soon :). (If you guys have any fun suggestions for something vegan I can bake or cook and the turn into a heart shape, let me know!)  

I totes forgot to show you guys the sleeping masks I made for my mom’s birthday! Strawberry cake and a hot dog! These are just inspiration photos for you guys, and I don’t really plan to write out the patterns for them. Don’t forget, though, that the basic sleeping mask pattern and how-to video are right here! Oh yeah, here’s a picture from my Instagram when I announced that I had achieved WeinerVision.

When my friend Onch told me he was sending me a surprise package… I had no idea it would contain PANDAS!!! OMG PANNNNNDASSS!!!! These little guys are so cute! You can get them in a bunch of 3 like mine or in a bunch of 5! See more at Onch’s website!

My amazing and cute friends Cat & Tom from the popular craft site Cut Out + Keep have just published their first book! It’s called Cut Out + Keep: Around the USA in 50 Craft Projects, and it follows them on their actual road trip around the U.S. with a craft project or recipe inspired by the history and culture of each state! And yes, I did get the honor of hanging out with them while they cruised through California! It is out now in the UK, and will be out here in the U.S. on March 17! I just pre-ordered my copy! (The snaps below are from Amazon…!) One of the things I’ve always loved about Cut Out + Keep (besides how nice Cat & Tom are!) is that the projects always feel very accessible, encompassing a huge range of crafts — from sewing to knitting to crocheting to jewelry-making to cooking to hair dye-ing to pretty much anything under the DIY umbrella — and also fun ideas that all crafters of all skill-levels can handle. Just for kicks, here are some old photos of me, Cat, and Tom from 2011 in London when they visited my book signing/crochet party!

It’s the 15th of the month, so it’s time to launch a new blog sponsor giveaway! Thanks so much to my generous sponsors for offering us these wonderful goodies!  ONE lucky winner will receive:

Let’s squeeze out one more heart-shaped pattern before Valentine’s Day! I got a couple requests for a Ricardio the Heart Guy from Adventure time. I had to look him up, and he looks like this: Kinda freaky, right?! Anyway, I figured this was also a good opportunity to make heart-shaped throw pillows, and then you can put a Ricardio face on it, or a happy/cute face, or make a set of conversation hearts with your own messages. Lots of opportunities here!! I will put arms and legs on mine, but you can leave out the limbs. The world is yours! There are a few ways to create a throw-pillow-type project. You can either work in the round, or you can crochet two flat pieces and sew them together. We are going to work this one in the round, kinda like a jumbo version of my heart lollipop necklace. I normally like to use single crochet for items that are stuffed, but I wanted to bang this out really quick, so I used double crochet! Let’s go crazy!!! (p.s. I’m sorry that the photos here are just screen grabs of the YouTube video….. I changed the way I decided to work the pattern, and all the photos I took were no longer valid. I will work up another pillow this weekend and shoot proper progress photos!)

I totally forgot to blog these nail photos from a week or two ago! I bought a set of nail stickers from Pygmy Hippo Shoppe a few months ago, and finally tried them out! (Sorry, it looks like these are no longer available… but there are still tons of cute things in the store!) The set came with a bunch of things like these pretzels, kitties, and french fries, but also pizzas, pugs, and some other things I can’t remember because the sheet is in another room right now! This is the 2nd set of nail stickers I’ve tried, and they are thinner and lay much flatter against my nail. Some other stickers are thicker and end up leaving a ridge around the image, even with a good coat of Seche Vite on top. So while thinner stickers are a bit trickier to place on the nail correctly… they definitely have a better finish!

I gotta show you guys this baby sloth pen cozy I made for my buddy Elysse! I just gave it to her today, so now you can see it, too! I used a pet slicker brush to get him nice and fuzzy. At first I thought his head turned out too small, but in photos, he’s still pretty cute! I was going to give you guys a tutorial for a heart-shaped pillow before Valentine’s Day, but would you rather have a baby sloth first? I think he would make a good VDay present, too 😛