So I used to work in publishing. When you work in publishing, the joke is that you never actually read real books because you are so busy reading manuscripts.

When I left publishing, I thought a new world of reading would open up to me, and I could fall in love with books again.

WRONG!

Working for yourself means you might have ZERO free time. (I know, I know, “make time!” but what I’m saying is, I don’t.) So the only time I really read books is when I’m getting my hair bleached and colored, but even then, if I have a pressing work deadline, I’m the nerd sitting under the hair-heater with a yarn bag, crocheting away.

One of the things my brother wanted last year for Christmas was the Kindle Fire. I was a bit inspired by this request and also decided I wanted a Kindle (albeit Fire-less). So then he gave me an Amazon gift certificate to cover part of a Kindle. Truth be told, I kind of kept forgetting to order my Kindle…..UNTIL NOW. SIX MONTHS LATER. But don’t worry. It’s ordered now. It’s done. I’m getting it. July 10!

And now comes the even MORE fun part! Shopping for a Kindle cover! On Etsy, of course.

There are cool ones made out of real books, like this:

Ooooh, The Giving Tree! Yes please!

Are you guys really reading a lot of werewolf smut?

My Neighbor Totoro in vinyl:

Oh my. “Cute Hamster” indeed!

Okay, this embroidered Kindle cover is nothing short of AMAZING. The whole shop is amazing.

This Chewbacca one makes me giggle.

Ok, I’ve skimmed through about 70 pages of Etsy listings and am a little burnt out! I might end up making my own, but due to having LOTS of projects already, I may still keep hunting around!

Did you guys catch Craft Wars on TLC last week? Since tonight is the 2nd episode, I thought I would show you what the first one was about in case you missed it. In a nutshell: it’s not bad, but it’s not great. The show tries really hard to squeeze drama out of something that is not that dramatic. I am interested in what the crafters end up making, but the editing of the show seems weird to me, like a lot of things that people say sound canned and rehearsed and pre-written, and sometimes too catch-phrase-y and pun-y. I think if you watched the show on mute, you would still enjoy it.

The show is hosted by Tori Spelling, who is apparently a long time crafter with her own craft line. I never watched Tori & Dean, so all I know of her is DONNA MARTIN GRADUATES!

Truth be told, I don’t keep up with the who’s who of the crafting world and haven’t heard of the judges or their companies (aside from Michaels, obvs), but then again, judges on a lot of cooking shows are not household names to me either, so I don’t hold that against these guys.

There are three contestants, and the show is divided into two parts: the Pop Craft challenge, which is like the Quickfire Challenge on Top Chef, and then the Master Craft Challenge. In last week’s episode, the pop craft challenge was making a duffel/sports bag out of sports equipment in one hour.

They also have access to a bunch of craft supplies sponsored by Michaels, as well as a construction zone with wood and stuff outside.

The Michaels wall had shelves that went way up high to the ceiling, and people had to climb on ladders to reach the stuff they wanted. This seemed very scary and dangerous to me!!!

The crafters got to bring a helper, who ended up being all men, two husbands and one dad.

A huge point of dramadramz seemed to be HOT GLUE. One lady was making a gym bag with a tennis racket on the bottom for ventilation, and she was hot gluing the racket to her bag, to which Tori seemed extremely concerned, as the judges DO NOT LIKE GLUE STRINGS!!! NO THEY DO NOT.

To which the crafter replied:

I thought E6000 was the duct tape of the crafting world?

Ok, here are the bags.

This first one was very colorful and full of balls, plastic toy balls accenting the shoulder strap, and pom pom trim also accenting the shoulder strap. One of the judges commented on this, and I can’t remember exactly what she said, but it was like, “I just don’t want all these BALLS FLYING IN MY FACE!” The big no-no on on her bag seemed to be that she used ballet shoes as pockets (those yellow things on the sides of the bag), and that they were NOT practical because stuff would just fall out of them. You might think that it’s weird to consider ballet slippers as pockets, but the Tennis Racket Lady ALSO used ballet slippers as pockets!! However, she turned them the other way for PRACTICAL STORAGE.

Most of Tennis Racket Lady’s bag was made out of cheerleader outfits, to which one of the judges said:

The third lady actually made a bag that looked pretty good to me.

Classic, right?

But the back was a hot mess cuz she ran out of time.

Actually the boy judge praised her for installing a zipper in her bag because that can be difficult. I quickly read a conversation on someone’s Facebook page about how EASY it is to install a zipper, thus making this show SO LAMEZ. I am not a seamstress, so installing a zipper DOES SEEM HARD TO ME! I could never survive on this show, since there was a LOT of sewing going on, and I have barely touched a sewing machine because I am afraid it will eat my fingers and leave me with carny hands.

So it ended up being the Tennis Racket Lady who got the boot in the Pop Craft challenge.

When you get kicked off of Craft Wars, Tori tells you, “Pack up your glue gun. You’re done in this craft war.”

…

Given their propensity for witty or pun-filled one-liners, I feel like the writers could have tried a little harder with the good-bye tagline. I mean, the show is supposed to be showcasing creativity! What about,

“Pack up your glue gun. Your work here just didn’t STICK.”

“Pack up your glue gun. We’re pulling the plug on you.”

“Drop your glue gun. You’ve lost this craft war.”  (guns….war….see?)

“Pack up your glue gun. Your project lacked integrity due to your reliance on aforementioned and sub-par glue gun.”

Okay, I’m not gonna sit here and think that hard about it, but you see what I’m getting at!

Next up was the Master Craft Challenge. The remaining two contestants had to build a play house out of school supplies. They had 5 hours and a bunch of assistants to do so.

The Lots of Balls Bag lady wanted to build a playhouse that looked like a yellow school bus, and she went cray cray with the Mod Podge. The Football Accents lady wanted to build one that looked like a little red school house, and her hubby was very concerned about it being structurally sound, and it had this crazy framework like a real house. They ran into a slight problemo with the pieces not fitting, but he was on it.

As always, there is a race to the finish. The yellow school bus house had lots of neat stuff to play with inside, but the little red school house was way cuter and polished in my opinion!

Check out the giant No.2 pencil columns! These were apparently a big point of drama for the judges. One judge was all, “I love the pencils, but ACTUALLY putting ‘No.2’ on them just made the whole thing TOO KITSCHY. It’s just going TOO FAR!” (I’m paraphrasing. I watched this a week ago and can’t really remember.) And then the other judge interrupted her and was like, “EEENH! WRONG!! THE DETAIL IS AWESOME!”

And then two seconds later, Tori says that they have a unanimous decision. But they were just totally fighting and disagreeing!

Anyway, the No.2 pencils won the day, and the Football Bag/Little Red School House lady was victorious.

Overall, I just wish the stuff that everyone said seemed more like real talk and less scripted. I know that scenes often take several takes, and the stuff people say starts getting more and more fake, but, I figure there has to be a tiny solution since I don’t usually feel overwhelmed by this when watching stuff like Top Chef or Project Runway.

Anyway, I will probably keep tuning in. I wanna see if someone ever falls off the craft wall ladder.

 

 

A couple months ago, my brother asked if I’d be interested in seeing part of the U.S. Olympic Gymnastic Trials in San Jose.  I said sure! As it turned out,  I went with my mom, Manda, my sister in law, and her mom, so it was a ladies gymnastics weekend.

I am one of those people who love to watch gymnastics in the summer and figure skating in the winter, so it was really neat to be there, watching it all happen!

My mom is super funny and will point out which boy gymnasts she thinks are cute or handsome. Unfortunately, none of her cute or handsome favorites made the team!

I didn’t really take many photos or videos, as I’m sure you can find that online or on TV.

I haven’t been keeping up with gymnastics at all, so this was a great way to get acquainted with the names and the faces and make watching the Olympics more fun!

At one point, while we were waiting for them figure out who was going to be on the ladies gymnastics team, the crowd started doing the wave.

When you were younger, did you ever dream of being in the Olympics? If so, in what sport? There was a moment in time that I wanted to be on the equestrian team, since I used to ride horses up until I went to college. So that’s definitely one of the reasons why I’m glad that NBC is livestreaming all the events. The equestrian events don’t often get a lot of coverage on regular TV. Longtime blog readers (LJ!) will recall that I was lucky enough for my Taiwanese friend to hook me up with tickets for the 2008 equestrian events in Hong Kong!

I was about to wind some Malabrigo up into a ball, when I noticed all the green stuff in my craft room right now. Just thought I’d share!

 

1. Malabrigo in Sapphire Green 2. Vintage apple green cardi 3. Jar of Plush Pickles bought from  Schmancy (sorry I forgot the designer’s name and the plush are not branded!) and a peek of my plush terrarium made by My Paper Crane 4. 70s inspired floral purse I started making for myself a few months ago using this pattern 5. Lucky charms

Hey guys! Don’t forget that Anime Expo is this weekend at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Info here.

I will have a bunch of goodies for sale there with the Brands Boutique pop-up shop along with a bunch of other cute L.A. designers/artists/crafters.

This is the first time I’ve tried shipping items in a box and having someone else set up my stuff, so if you are able to go and happen to pass by booths 339 and 341, please snap some pics! I printed a new sign for it!