This week has been a flurry of top secret Yummy You! activity that I hope to be able reveal soon!

In more immediate news, I was really happy to contribute in some small way to the first ever Blogcademy in NYC hosted by Kat from RockNRollBride, Gala Darling, and Nubby Twiglet. It’s happening this weekend, and I totally wish I could be a fly on the wall! I really love how people can come together and make things happen. That’s kind of a lame way to put it, but the making of the things is kind of magical.

Each Blogcademy graduate gets a custom coffee cup cozy crocheted by yours truly included in a bag full of other goodies. At first, I thought I might make cupcake coffee cup cozies, but when Kat asked if I could use the Blogcademy colors, I decided to go a different way completely and create a crochet version of their branding. My work is not really known for being classy, clean, or modern, but I think I did okay and added a bit of cozy grandma-ness to the mix!

(Pic ganked from Blogcademy blog.) I drew most of my inspiration from their button design.

I picture many bloggers out and about in places with coffee/tea and wifi, so I figured a coffee cup cozy would be the most useful item I could provide. I’m excited to see how Blogcademy grows, and maybe one day they will be headed to a city near you!

(For anyone new to my blog, here’s my Q&A at Gala’s blog, and here’s my tutorial at Kat’s blog.)

Some of you may recall that I used to maintain my side blog I Eat Yucky Stuff. I was never able to keep it up very regularly, but I reeeally neglected it for a long time. It was funny to get rung up at Whole Foods and have the cashier person say, “Hey, don’t you write about eating yucky food?” I never thought I would get recognized for that first before crocheting cute accessories.

When I started the blog, I hosted it on Uber.com, which no longer exists. Uber was very nice and often highlighted my sillyness on the homepage.  I was bummed when they folded. Tumblr had just started existing, but I was kind of confounded by it and opted to start Yucky Stuff up on Blogspot. I never really spent the time importing all the old Uber entries, so I’m missing some old gems like that one time we…….. tried eating dog food to compare a high quality kibble to a low quality kibble when we first got Bibi….. we’re the best doggie parents ever! And yes, there was a gigantic flavor difference! Lame kibble tastes bland like crackers. Good kibble tastes REALLY REALLY BAD!!!!!

Anyway, my dad turned 60 this month, and he threw a big Chinese banquet to celebrate. He hinted big time that I should blog about it on Yucky Stuff. So I did.

This one is definitely NSFV: Not Safe For Vegans/Vegetarians. So don’t even think about it.

In other Yucky Stuff news, I was a guest on Hairy’s radio show on Breakthru Radio a little while back. Listen to it and find out which song I request! I haven’t listened to to the show yet because I’m afraid of what I ended up saying….Okay, I’m listening to a little bit right now.  Anyway, “DJ Hanabi” on Breakthru Radio is one name for two people, Hairy and his buddy. If it’s confusing, ask them!

Yucky Chan – out!

While designing Halloween-themed items, I sketched out a t-shirt with a plush heart and loopy crocheted “ribs” that would not necessarily be anatomically correct (at all!) but would still evoke both spookiness and cuteness! I wanted to borrow from today’s skeleton trend and make it a little more Twinkie Chan. What I really like about this project is that you can pick your favorite color t-shirt or tank top and wear it year-round. You can even make the heart a removable brooch and give it to somebody at any moment! (Oh hey, Valentine’s Day project!) You can also have lots of fun decorating and customizing your heart, giving it a face, arms, legs, heck, you could even sew clothes for it if you want!

The pattern is below! Please note, that I did this really quickly before leaving on a trip to Seattle to see the Plush You opening at Schmancy (today, Friday, 5pm – 9pm!).  I need to shoot better photos, and there are probably some weird mistakes in the pattern itself. Let me know if you attempt it! 🙂

Continue reading →

I uploaded some cute Halloween-themed cupcake hair clips to my Etsy shop  and put them in a “Halloween” section along with jackolantern slouchy hats, mitts, and hair clips.

I have one more Halloween-themed project I want to complete, but time is tickin’ away, and we’re also going to be out of town this weekend for Plush You in Seattle! It is going to be a free pattern/DIY project  to post here on the blog, so I hope I have time to squeak it in so you guys can make some for yourselves before Halloween! Or for you spookier individuals, it will be something you can wear all year round…!

I played with a new lens for my camera today. The light was bad since the sun was going down, but a lot of the product photos came out super crisp anyway. Interesting! I know absolutely nothing about photography and am thinking of taking an online class in November!

After shooting photos for the soon-to-be Yummy You online store, I wanted to jump in and take a photo with Vivs and Elysse. At first I thought I would also model some of the product, but the idea of trying to take a break from that for once was kind of appealing.  I got to hold a big panel of cardboard and strangle people with scarves instead!

We didn’t really have a big enough space for the backdrop indoors, so we went into the backyard. It had been a perfectly overcast day, but of course, as soon as everything was set up, the sun started coming out and burning everyone’s faces off!! Thus, my cardboard-holding duties to shield all from the sun.

We were kind of under a tight time-constraint for scheduling and wanted a more straightf0rward and streamlined look for the online store, but I hope to have more fun shoots later at fun locations!

Thanks to Oliver for being our trusty photog. I told him to jump in the photo, too, but he refused! What a diva.