plopcorn for everyone!

hope y'all had an awesome thanksgiving! ours was cool, nice and chill and good times all around ending with a ton of tasty food and me conkin out on the couch by 8pm! it's because i'm an old fogey, you see.

so there were some amazing deals out there for black friday, so much so that josh and i actually got up at 430am on friday to go to target! we got there by about 545am, and the line was HUGE. and really, honestly, one of the biggest reasons we went (aside from sale cameras!) was this:



josh had seen this popcorn maker at target a few weeks ago and fell in love. he's been wantin an air popper for a while cuz he hearts popcorn like no ones business and who knows what's in the microwave stuff!



here he is waiting oh so patiently for his first batch of old-timey-popcorn-popper-air-popped popcorn...



here's a shot of the popcorn popper's hole... yuk yuk yuk...



and the moneyshot!!! this popcorn maker's awesome, it shoots the kernels out pretty violently, like they bounce outta the bowl onto the floor sometimes! but oh so delicious! (the popcorn from the bowl, not the stuff from the floor, you understand.)

best thing about air-popped popcorn? you can put all the unpopped kernels back into the air popper for round 2! hooray!!!

also awesome about this weekend, i've been workin on 4 new paintings for the january bird show at cactus gallery - stay tuned for pics! on that note i gotta jet, caddyshack just came on ye olde television and it's totally beckoning to me!!!

Multimedia message

I had no idea cranberry sauce was so easy to make!

Happy thanksgiving!

Its almost time for a pancake party!

notes from work - the thanksgiving edition!

ok so with tomorrow being thanksgiving, i have like a billion things on my to do list today - i thought i was being smart, and tried to get a bunch of it done before work. which left me running late to the office, as usual.


and of course, strangeness from the moment i get to my desk.


who the hell would leave a frozen turkey sitting on my laptop?!!?


i mean, there's all kinds of water, ice, condensation, things that are generally BAD FOR COMPUTERS!!! almost everyone here at hearts and laserbeams headquarters is pretty competent, so there's really only one person it could be--


and JUST as i was thinking that, guess who's boss comes breezing in.
"HI!!!" she says brightly... too brightly... i couldn't help thinking to myself what the eff is going on?!


i guess she could read that all over my face, cuz the next thing outta my boss's mouth was "what's your problem?" so i ask her what this thing is on my desk.


"mmmm, looks like a frozen turkey, genious," she says, "you oviously can't work like this why don't you go home early?"


"what are you talking about? i just got here," i tell her.


"whatever, happy thanksgiving, give me a hug and get out of here! but be here before 4am on friday, i'm going to kohls to buy gloves on sale and i want someone in the office just in case."

so... do i win because i got to go home early, or do i lose cuz i have to be here at 4am friday? i dunno... i'm just thankful my boss isn't a jerk ALL the time. have a great holiday folks!

jazz hands and the razzle zazzle!

it started innocently enough... this morning i thought i'd order some hearts and laserbeams logo stickers to include with my orders. you know, just a fun little packaging item. set up the file, ordered it on zazzle...

and before you know it i was finding all kinds of awesome things to make and it was 2 hours later! i love zazzle for being able to make things i can't, like printed skateboards and shoes - oh, the shoes. made 5 different pairs using the spoonflower repeats i created last week and they're adorable! these are my faves:



you should check out the rest of the stuff i made today, will be adding to it again soon!

custom fabric update!

ok i had gotten my first sample of spoonflower fabric a couple of weeks ago, and being a color/repeat person there was one little thing that stuck out and bugged me - couple that with spoonflower's changed the fabric they're printing on a little and pow i put in a reorder on that awesome heart plaid!

i also designed 3 other fabrics to coordinate with it so i can offer groupings of designs that complement each other well... when we're finally moved and i can unpack all my artsy supplies you'll be able to get these four designs as a set of coasters and other fun things, so cross your fingers that our place sells and we can make that happen!

felt club recap and the golden robot awards!

it's been a crazy week, work-wise, folks. so much so that i missed california's great shakeout - rest assured the next one will be properly photodocumented at the hearts and laserbeams headquarters, as we have some of the best earthquake drills around!

felt club was this last weekend, and if you've never been to this show you. have. got. to. go! if you love etsy and all things funky and handmade you'll be in heaven!

one of my absolute favorite things about an event like this, aside from seeing crafty friends and checking out amazing arts and crafts, is the business cards. ohhhhhh, the business cards!

the great thing about business cards for artsy craftsy design types is that it's so far removed from the bland, plain, stark business cards you remember from american psycho. for these types of businesses, the more eye-catching, the more fabulously designed, the more memorable, the better! and with that, i invite you to:

the hearts and laserbeams golden robot awards for excellence in business card design 2008!

i've poked through all of the bajillions of business cards i saw this weekend at felt club, and these were my faves in the following categories - enjoy, and congrats to the winners!


most unique shape!


figs and ginger and v is for violet tied for this one, both completely stood out from the pack with their unusual shapes! figs and ginger's round card is wider than a standard business card, so when you stack em all up it sticks out on the side, making it impossible to get lost in the crowd. v is for violet is in the same vein as those new tiny moo business cards, but feels a tad cooler because it's slightly bigger. there's also an awesome pattern of scissors printed in a clear varnish on top of the overall design that's totally eyecatching when you hold it in your hand!


funniest business card!


ok my imaginary boyfriend wins a golden robot for making me laugh my ass off with her card - when i picked it up from her table, i didn't think much of it because i was looking at the backside, with her business name and info in this cute handwritten text. and into my bag it went! then, as i was sifting through all my faboo business cards lookin for the standouts, i came to this one and it was face up this time, and this is hands down funniest business card ever!! hooray!!!


best save in the face of business card adversity!


ok i love this handout by the folks at copacetique - super cute, to the point about being outta business cards, but refuses to miss an opportunity to get the word out there and have someone check out their website. kudos!


favorite eyecatching elements!


miss natalie gets a golden robot because this is one of the happiest stripes ever - it reminds me of one of my favorite sweaters, and it was enough to get me to stop and take a second look! still life mercantile's card is really well designed as well, love the bird motif that flows on both sides of the card - that kind of retro feel character totally caught my eye and dragged it fifteen feet!


best use of a collage on a business card!


ok seriously both the paper princess and oh hello friend have some of the prettiest business cards i've ever seen - their montages of images make me wanna find tiny frames just for their business cards! so cute and nostalgic! the paper princess also has a great pearlized finish on their cards that gives it a bit of awesome sheen. note i said awesome sheen, not charlie sheen...


sweetest letterpressed business cards!


i heart letterpress stuff so much it makes my socks dirty - what i loved most about these business cards by krank press and joie studio is that they're letterpress people that have letterpressed their cards, too. both of these cards have that same awesome heavy paper and embossed texture that so clearly calls out what it is they do.


cutest critters on a card!


cartoon characters get em every time, folks, and these are no exception! not only did sheriff peanut's booth have totally adorable stuff, but their peanut mascot is the bomb! the cats on jake & micah's card and the octopus on the back of nifnaks' card were adorable, too, enough to make someone wanna adopt 20 kittens and take em on a field trip to the aquarium!


best use of product recognition!


i have to tell you these were some of my favorites soley because it's BAM right in your hand what it is they do, and the design is way cute to boot! what's great about this type of business card design is that the second i pulled these cards from tsai-fi, berkley illustration, art school dropout and rock scissor paper out of my tote bag i remembered everything they had at their booths and how much i wanted all their stuff. i think that makes these really strong promo pieces, because it's so easy to see what they have to offer.

and that's my favorite business cards from felt club, hope you liked em! were there others i missed that you particularly liked? you should comment about it! also, i think the golden robot awards will be poppin up every now and then from now on so stay tuned you may win one next for that absolutely gripping phone call you made to your boss about being *cough* *cough* sick last week!

felt club tomorrow, so exciting!

tomorrow josh, gayle and i are makin' way for los angeles to check out felt club, and you should too!



i'm a little bummed i couldn't apply for shows this holiday season, because felt club is a blast to sell at. it's always fun to go as a holiday shopper, though, to pick up fun handmade things for friends and actually have a second to stop and say hey to all the great vendors!

if you go be sure to stop by the long beach craft mafia table, they'll have goodies for the first 25 shoppers at their table and 1" buttons galore by me, hooray!

Multimedia message

Take 2 does this pic show?

One down, one to go!

Check it out, just finished a new sock! Its that leaves pattern from fall's issue of knitty!
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

coding frustrations number 842

ok so in my quest to get my work out there in front of more eyes, i'm trying to get website bookmarking going on my site.

addthis looks fabulous because it pretty much covers all possible bookmarking sites, but the blogger code they give only works if you're using layouts.

i was all set to switch over to the layouts, but blogger said no, no no because my blog isn't hosted on their webspace.

so i've got a support message in with addthis hopin they'll help me figure out what code i can use.

in the meantime i wanna know why web fixes are never ever cut and dried and easy for me!?!?

and also, last but not least, tomorrow is josh and i's second anniversary, and that is superrad!

Multimedia message

Its science fact that glasses make everyone look smarter!

The boy in striped pajamas

Ok I have to share with you that every time I see a commercial for the movie the boy in striped pajamas, I think about how much it looks like a fake preview that makes fun of pretentious indie films, like you might see this fake preview in the jiminy glick movie or something like that as the next superdeep masterpiece by the guy who brought you the English patient. Make sure you watch for the falling rose petals! The end!
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

hearts and laserbeams book report: stuff white people like

ok so while we were in portland, we paid a visit to powell's books, which is a completely MASSIVE bookstore in the downtown area. it takes up a full city block, is 3 or 4 stories tall, and is ALL bookstore.

how do you pick something out with that many choices? you do the steph calvert method, and choose a book by it's cover:



how could this book be bad? it's got a funny title and a thumbs up on the cover! you can't go wrong! i've read this guy's blog a few times before, and it was really really funny, so i picked it up and there you go!

hearts and laserbeams book report: stuff white people like: the definitive guide to the unique taste of millions by christian lander

ok this by far is the most fun book i've read in ages. i was jazzed to see how many things it listed and flipped to the back first thing, and found to my delight there was a quiz to see how white you are. i scored 69% for liking such things as dogs, kitchen gadgets, and dive bars!

i love how this book is written to feel like a field guide, like if you weren't a white person and you were to encounter one in your everyday travels, how you should proceed so you can become friends with them.

and the funny thing is, it's all effing true. and now i find myself in situations like last night - i was at stitch n bitch, hanging out working on this sock, and just kinda listening to the conversations going on around me and laughing in my head because omg WE ARE ALL SOOOOOOO WHITE.

spot on, dude, spot on. i can't say enough good shit about this book. drop dead funny, and number 8 i think had me cracking up so loud other people at the airport were staring. the end!!!

i could tell you more about it but i think i'd end up giving a lot away...

ratings
4 hearts: because we are all so white it's sad
1 fart: the only thing wrong with this book is that it was only 200 pages. this will not stand!!!

portland weekend recap!

ok so as you know we went to portland last weekend! we were visiting our buddies rachael and justin (of the ruckus fame, it was halloween, justin is currently in an agatha christie play, so it was a busy few days chock full of fun!

we flew on jet blue, and normally telling you about our vacation wouldn't include saying what airline we used because it usually leaves us super-surly. but omg jet blue is the bomb. you know those commercials where the music is superhappy and feelgood and it just makes you all bubbly inside watching it? it's all true! friendly employees! free snacks! leg room for days! tv at every chair so i didn't have to miss the halloween episode of the office! it was fabulous!

ok so our first day there, rachael and justin took josh, gayle and i to a little breakfast joint in downtown milwaukie (where they live). after breakfast we walked around town a little bit, and near the library there were a bunch of ducks engaging in duck butt showing activities:



we also saw possibly the coolest logo ever:



later in the day, justin went to play rehearsal and rachael was cool enough to take us WAY out of the way to the pumpkin patch. this was seriously the high point of our weekend cuz all josh and i wanna do is run away and start a farm. we went through a corn maze, where josh adopted a lonely ear of ground corn and ate almost all the kernels off of it through the course of the rest of the weekend:



after the maze we all hiked out to their pumpkin patch and picked out some faboo pumpkins - my camera's battery died while we were out there so i didn't get to document what our jack-o-lanterns ended up looking like, but rest assured they were awesome!

went home to don halloween costumes to wear to the opening night of justin's play - i had a pocket full of clear plastic rhinestones with me, and every stranger i talked to that night i gave them a handful of "diamonds" and told them very seriously, "these have always brought me luck". and NO ONE knew who i was, which made it that much more awesomely hilarious. the halloween party following the play was also a hoot, lots of good costumes all around! this worked out well, because when josh and i were tasked with coming up with what the no costume penalty would be, the best we could come up with is "you must drink a cup of pee and get raped."




the next day, justin had his play all day and gayle, josh, rachael and i met some of rach's friends for a tour of the shanghai tunnels underneath portland... can't post any pics of that because they watch that stuff like a hawk, but it was kind of sort of more than a little anticlimactic and i don't know if i'd recommend it to a friend... basically you don't see tunnels you see one place's basement and hear a LOT of references to tv shows that talk about tunnels, and way way way way too many little stories that don't necessarily need to be part of a tour. it was fun hanging out with everyone so i wouldn't say it was a total goose egg, but i don't think i would need to go back to that...

sunday started out as a bummer of a day - somewhere in the course of saturday night burroughs the cat got out of the apartment, and it sucked. totally sucked. burroughs is an awesome cat. so we all spent most of the day working on getting him back. he came home that night though, which is completely awesome. (i was way more excited about the cat coming home than i was that i just saw a basement in downtown portland, by the way...) he came home while a bunch of us had gone out to hang out with josh's buddy jerry that he's known since childhood and his wife also named rachel. this is what rachel looks like holding a camoflauged beer:



that night was pretty sweet, we went to a bar called dots in portland and hands down any place that has velvet paintings on the wall = best places on earth! after that we paid a visit to powells books and had our minds blown by the sheer size of it, and finished the night off with a trip to ground kontrol, this bar with a crapload of video games. got to play the elvira and addams family pinball machines, which are my favorite ones ever, so i count that as a win!

came home on monday afternoon, taking the train to the airport was super easy and highly recommended! the flight home was on-time and just as rad as the flight out, so lemme just say again jet blue rools!

that's my story and i'm sticking to it, there's a buttload more pics of this adventure at my flickr page so enjoy!

bits and pieces from home!

hey folks! i'm home after a whirlwind halloween in portland - josh, gayle and i flew up to visit with our buddies rachael and justin, and there'll be pics galore soon!

in the meantime here's some fun facts for you:

1) my hot dog print made it onto an etsy treasury today, go check it out!

2) i'm not sure you heard, but it's election day. so you should probably do something about that.

3) and by do something about that, i of course mean you should make me some chocolate chip cookies.

4) i'm getting braces sometime in the next few weeks, let's welcome back my highschool face by pointing and laughing!

5) this would've been followed by a truly horrendously awesomely bad pic of me from highschool with braces and uglee glasses, but my photo albums are all packed up... someday when they're not and i have the actual braces on the teeth i'll post up pics of old braces and new braces and we'll all have fun comparing and contrasting!

6) you should probably get going on those cookies, because i'd really like to have some soon.