the hearts and laserbeams blog!

we feel fine book winner...

2010-01-22T17:18:00.000-08:00

three cheers to the winner of our we feel fine book giveaway, mr. brian sikorski of wonderful time photography! it seems random.org wanted to see his flaming middle finger just as much as we did, and brian was nice enough to oblige with a photo!

still bummed you didn't win? it's ok, you can still order a copy!

free shipping shopping event this weekend!

2010-01-20T16:32:00.000-08:00

you know heart and laserbeams always ships for free - this weekend my unique women in business group is gettin' in on the free shipping action with our first etsy team event! we're super stoked about it and hope you are, too!

both etsy shops and independent businesses are having sales. qualifying items for each shop vary, so check out each individual shop for their promotion. (as always, all hearts and laserbeams items will be shipping for free.)

most of the etsy shops participating will have a shop announcement: Unique Women in Business Etsy Team will be having a FREE SHIPPING event starting Friday, January 22 thru Monday, January 25. Search on UWIBTEAMFS to find all shops/items participating.

Here is the thread for more info, and to see who is participating: http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=6395648

To immediately start searching, click here.

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indie businesses not on etsy that are participating include:

Glitzy Events - Use coupon code UWIBFREESHIP at check-out on our website

The Angel Company - Rita Wetzel, Independent Demonstrator - Send email to Rita at stamp2stamp2@yahoo.com with a list of item numbers, description, quantity. Rita will email you order total. Payment via PayPal or Credit Card.

Charms~N~Things - coupon code FSJAN2010

Painted Laydies Mineral Makeup - Everything ships free all the time. No code needed.

Naughty and Nice Lingerie - Shipping is always free within the US! Fast, free shipping, dollar rewards and free gifts with certain purchases! Check out my store for more details or email sales@naughtyandnicelingerie.com. Ask me how to get an additional 10% off your purchase!!

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Please help us spread the word by blogging, Facebooking, or tweeting about this event.

You can learn more about UWIB by checking out the yahoo group.

behind the artwork: the fruit and nuts series

2010-01-18T19:44:00.000-08:00

in light of our recent feature on regretsy, i'd love to share exactly where that strange little fruit and nuts series of paintings came from. step in the way back machine with us, back to 2004!

ah, 2004 - what a good year. i had been laid off from oshkosh bgosh, was homeless on my sister's couch in garden grove for a while, met the future husband... and started getting into art shows.

the very first art show i did was a group show at chango coffee house in echo park. it was a simple piece called "apple takes a stroll". a little 5" x 5" acrylic painting featuring a super happy apple with stick arms and legs walkin through a park.

after the show, my good friend angela bought the painting and made the comment "this is so cute - i really wanna see apple in a knife fight with robert downey, jr!" it was like a burst of comic genius that really got my wheels turning. coincidentally, that same week i had bought a trashy tabloid mag. i was flipping through it, and... well...

i didn't see any good pictures of robert downey, jr. but i DID see a great picture of will ferrell.

that just started an avalanche of wackiness. i flipped through a bunch of tabloid magazines, found some great celeb faces, and collaged them into twelve new paintings featuring that original Apple character along with his friends Orange, Peach, Grapes and more. They were quirky and fun, and within a year every one of the original paintings sold. The most exciting sale came at a Pasedena craft show, where the customer informed me that she worked with courtney cox-arquette on the show dirt, and the next week's filming was going to be directed by david arquette. so she bought the painting as a gift for them!

i ran into that same customer at another craft show a year later - she gave me a great update on my little painting, that the cox-arquette family loved the painting, and that their daughter coco smiled and laughed whenever she saw it. another satisfied customer!

etsy's shown some love for this series, too! they featured the martha piece in a storque post, and also commissioned me to create two new pieces in that stick figurey style to hang outside their conference room doors this past november.

and that's the story! they're a little strange, they're a little nutty, but they're a whole lot of fun and i love em - i hope you do too!

lyrics in review - "tik tok" by kesha

2010-01-07T16:23:00.000-08:00

ok look i've started listening to 97.1 on the way to work in the mornings (and again on the way home) because there's lots of happy dancey stuff playing that puts me in a good mood.

there's one song i've been hearing a lot of recently, and i gotta say there's lyrics in it that trouble me. and spell disaster for today's youth. i'm talking about "tik tok" by kesha. it strikes horror in my very soul.

this is the scariest part of the song:

"Ain’t got a care in world, but got plenty of beer
Ain’t got no money in my pocket, but I’m already here
Now, the dudes are lining up cause they hear we got swagger
But we kick ‘em to the curb unless they look like Mick Jagger"

ok what?!?! you don't want the boys unless they look like this?

(photo from the daily mail)

i mean, if you're into old crusty rockers that's totally fine, but wouldn't you rather keep them boys that look more like this?

(photo found on the jase knows music blog)

i guess bowie doesnt' really rhyme with swagger, so i'd like to humbly suggest changing the lyrics to:

"Now, the dudes are lining up cause they hear we got blowie
But we kick ‘em to the curb unless they look like Dave Bowie"

Game, set, match, WIN!

*****
click here to read the full song's lyrics.

hearts and laserbeams on tv! WHAT!!?!?!

2009-12-12T14:10:00.000-08:00

as you may or may not know, if you're ever in georgia you can pop into shopScad (in both savannah and atlanta!) and pick up hearts and laserbeams gifties in person.

amy from shopscad shared a video on facebook today of a news bit that was filmed in the atlanta shopscad, and i am alllll over it! how exciting! as you watch it, keep an eye out for our plate designs, glue gun tee, and in the background of one shot you can see our tiny magnet set tins!

click here to watch the video.

friday morning commute playlist...

2009-12-11T07:46:00.000-08:00

ok so admittedly the ipod brought up stinkers i passed over this morning on the way to work, but it DID come up with some really good stuff! if you haven't heard some of these songs you should download em stat!

"triple track" by dance hall crashers

"a kiss is not a contract" by flight of the conchords

"faithfully" by journey

"rang dang" by bloodhound gang

"opposites attract" by paula abdul (this is awesome, family guy completely altered this song for me. now when i sing along and get to the chorus instead of singing "cuz opposites attract" i sing "cuz i'm dressed like a cat".)

"gett off" by prince

"all my rowdy friends have settled down" by hank willams jr. (i started cracking up bad when this song came up directly after "gett off"... cuz that one's a song about one night stands and whatnot... and this one's about how none of the dude's friends go out and party anymore.)

"the new you" by the vandals

"coming clean" by green day (that dookie cd will always hold a special place in my heart... it marked me at 17 just starting to listen to kroq and more rock and punk and blah blah blah. i still love dookie. shut up.)

"uptown girl" by me first and the gimmie gimmies (ok check it out, billy joel came up earlier in the mix but i forwarded past it because it was too sleepy. then the me first and the gimmie gimmies comes on and i'm all YEAHHHHHH BILLY JOEL! KICKASS!!)

"waiting" by cake (cake is awesome awesome rainy day music. if it's pouring when i head home i'm just gonna set the ipod to shuffle through all my cake cds and it's gonna rock my socks off)

the end!

we feel fine book giveaway!

2009-12-09T17:35:00.001-08:00

ok real quick cuz i gots to go make dinner -

the folks at we feel fine were kind enough to bestow on me a second free copy of the "we feel fine: an almanac of human emotion" book so that i might do a giveaway for all the rest of y'alls - and giveaway time is here! my second copy came in the mail today. whut whut!!!

SO! here's the rules:

1) i got in the book after the folks at we feel fine found a lovely blog post i had written featuring my middle finger. so to enter the contest, leave a comment here telling us something middle-finger related. it could be about the time you accidentally flipped off your aunt mildred, it could be about the time you did it on purpose. but in celebration of my middle finger picture, your comment MUST share something about middle fingers! maybe you know of a cool piece of middle finger art on the internets? share it and automatically be entered to win!

2) comment as many times as you wish, but one entry per person will be counted.

3) contest closes at midnight on sunday, december 13, at which point i'll use the website random.org to pick the winner!

the winner gets a free hardbound copy of "we feel fine: an almanac of human emotion", and if you like i'll autograph my middle finger on page 82 for ya!

get commenting people, i can't wait to read your middle finger stories!

beware the white t-shirt ambush!!!

2009-11-18T18:06:00.000-08:00

so last week, josh got new white t-shirts. and he wasn't quite sure what to do with the old ones yet, like did he want to save em as rags or whatever, so he made a little pile of them on the bedroom floor.

they stayed there for a few days, and then i asked him about it - he mentioned "yeah, i'm not sure what i'm doing with that yet." and i can't tell you what the starting point was, but shortly thereafter we were in a huge snowball-fight style tshirt throwing frenzy! TSHIRTS EVERYWHERE!!!

since then, it's become a source of comedy and careful planning. on sunday, as i was leaving for patchwork at 7:45am and saying goodbye to josh, he snuggled down deeper under the covers and gloated a little about how nice and warm it was in bed.

and he got a faceful of shirts! he told me later "you know, i didn't do anything with those shirts when you left, they just stayed piled around my face cuz it made bed that much cozier."

curses, foiled again!

a favorite ambush is hiding around a corner with an armful of white tshirts, waiting for the other person to walk through the door - WHITE TSHIRTS!!!

last night, josh was getting his new work phone set up and i took his concentration as a golden opportunity for shenanigans:

this morning i woke up to being covered up, coroner style, in white tshirts.

i love my life.

we feel fine book update!

2009-11-11T16:52:00.000-08:00

OMG guys! so in case you didn't know, a photo i posted on this very blog is getting published in the upcoming book "we feel fine: an almanac of human emotion".

you can read the whole story about how this happened by clicking here!

and you can read the original blog post they found my photo in here.

you can check out the preview of the book by clicking here, and can preorder a copy here.

i'm just a chock full of superexcited links! hooray!!!

hot air balloons and rocks

2009-11-04T17:27:00.000-08:00

i've been thinkin a lot lately about hot air balloons and rocks, and how we all get to choose which one we are.

which one are you?

when bad stuff happens, do you deal with it, rise above it and move on, or sink into the depths and let it ruin everything from that point forward?

i try as much as i can to be a hot air balloon.

it's funny that i've been thinking about this a lot lately, and then on the drive in to work this morning i heard on npr that a movie's been made of push by sapphire. they named the movie precious, so be on the lookout.

i read push about 10 years ago, i'm not sure how i found it - i think it just looked like a badass book cover, which is how i tend to end up reading any of the books i don't previously know about. it's a semi-autobiographical story along the lines of i know why the caged bird sings - a story about an illiterate teen in new york from a seriously effed up family and all of the horrible aspects of her life. and how she eventually overcame it.

like a hot air balloon.

it is not the feel-good story of the year for sure, but it spoke volumes to me when i read it. i am really glad it got made into a movie, mostly because i'm not sure how many people know about the book and it's one of my favorite reads ever.

this was a bit of a serious post. tune in tomorrow, when we talk about the best way to sneak swear words into your graphic design projects!

hearts and laserbeams book report: confessions of a shopaholic

2009-10-15T11:00:00.000-07:00

ok i picked this book up at the las vegas airport on the way home from... vegas! shocking! gayle and i went out there last summer for a few days and had a blasty - when we were heading home there were big chunks of time on the horizon and i had left omnivore's dilemma in my suitcase instead of throwing it in my purse.

honestly i picked this one because i knew it'd be an easy read, something i could read for a few hours on the way home and then put on a shelf until i'd finished omnivore, the kind of book where you could pick right back up where you left off like a month or two later and not feel lost because everything about reading it is just so easy. plus, i hadn't seen the movie yet and i always dig reading the book before seeing the movie. and with that, i give you:

hearts and laserbeams book report: confessions of a shopaholic by sophie kinsella

ok I LOVED THIS BOOK. super fun read, super fast read, and before you know it you're done reading! the main character rebecca is just so flighty and lighthearted, just la la la la la shop shop shop hooray!

but the weirdest thing started happening as i was reading this - while i was having the time of my life reading about her shoppy adventures, as a chick who's pretty non-shoppy and has lots of living paycheck to paycheck experience, this shopaholic girl was seriously stressing me out!! i'd be reading about her going deeper and deeper into debt, and throwing away late notices and my inner old-lady monologue would scream things like, "YOU'RE RUINING YOUR CREDIT RATING!"

which is a completely uncharacteristically absurd thing for me to think while reading anything. but seriously, girl was freaking me out. other things my brain screamed while i was having a grand ol' time reading this book:

omg you did not just lie on your resume and say you're fluent in finnish!! they're gonna check that!

omg you're poor why are you buying coffee at a coffee house every day! make that shit at home!

omg you did not just do that on your date what is your major malfunction!

omg no you did not just blow off the meeting with the bank when you're gonna start sorting your shit out!

basically, i think part of the fun reading this book was how much it made my practical side sweat. i'll probably pick up another one in the series sometime soon when i need another fluffy feel-good read! (me thinks that may be the case after my next book report selection, the bell jar by sylvia plath. yup, i'm back on the high school reading list stuff!

ratings:
hearts: 4 hearts - really fantastically fun read, well written and funny!
farts: 1 fart for keeping my inner monologue yelling at me throughout the 350 pages.

***

so it's giveaway time! you want my copy of confessions of a shopaholic to check out for yourself? it's easy, just leave a comment here about anything at all before monday, october 19 at midnight and you'll automatically be entered to win! one entry per person, suckas!

new garden pics and uhhh... we got chickens!

2009-10-14T20:13:00.001-07:00

ok so some major updates in our backyard:

our carrots got harvested last weekend! they definitely could have stayed in the ground longer, but we figured they wouldn't get much longer since our planters are so shallow. so we'll save carrots for another time (or big deep pots next year!), but these little guys were totally tasty!

and our sugar snap peas have started kickin out some peas - they're so freaking good! it's kinda crazy how tall these plants have gotten. we're thinkin about planting some more so we can have peas to share with friends or freeze or something like that.

but the biggest news in our backyard last weekend was...

WE TOTALLY GOT CHICKENS!

the one on the left is martha stewart. an easter egger type chicken, she'll in theory lay eggs that are blue, green, pink or brown. it's a good thing. the one on the right is paula deen - they said she was a silkie but we're not so sure, we're thinking she may be a hybrid of some kind.

and yes. we named em that because they're the dirtiest birds around! if we'd gotten a third it woulda been named oprah.

they're old enough to be laying eggs, but nothing yet. we read they'll most likely start molting because of the new home and then start again when they're done molting, so we'll see what happens! they're super cute, we've let em run around the backyard and they are crazy wily when it comes to trying to get em back in the coop!

check out the full flickr set here, including pics of the sweet chicken coop josh's uncle donnie helped us build!

hearts and laserbeams book report: the omnivore's dilemma

2009-10-06T17:46:00.000-07:00

ok so you know how i go back and forth in my book reports - i'll do some books that are classic high school reading list pieces, some fun chick lit, some nonfiction brainy stuff...

after reading ya ya's in bloom, which i loved by the way, i really was needing something a little more thinky if ya know what i mean. i'd heard from a few peeps that omnivore's dilemma was good so i made that the next read on my list. (i think it's interesting to note that this book was such an intellectual read that i went right back to the other end of the spectrum afterwards and am now reading sophie kinsella's confessions of a shopaholic.)

hearts and laserbeams book report: the omnivore's dilemma: a natural history of four meals by michael pollan

so the omnivore's dilemma the title refers to, it basically is people have so many choices in food we don't know what the hell to eat anymore. food overload. i mean there's more to it than that, but that's the general idea.

if you're into food this book is for you. it basically follows four different food chains from start to finish, with finish always ending up as your mouth. he looks at corn, cows (both commercial and grain fed), and the hunting and gathering lifestyle. and this whole book pretty much makes you want to curl up on your couch and never buy anything from a grocery store ever again.

and it makes you start thinking about effed up the system is.

here's one of the big things i took away from this book, something that bugs the shit out of me:

farm subsidies are given to farmers because they can't sell enough crops to pay their bills. they can't sell enough crops because prices are too low. in an effort to make more money the only thing to do is grow more crops. which equals an even higher market surplus and even lower prices.

there's a huge corn surplus, and every day They (whoever they are) finds more ways to shove it down our throats. one way is to process it so it's kinda corn-flaky and feed it to cows. sounds like a great idea, corn fed cows are supposed to be real tasty. problem is it's a myth; cows aren't even supposed to eat corn and get sick from that diet. so farms have to drug up the cows with antibiotics to keep from getting sick.

another way the corn surplus is shoved down our throats is through value meals at fast food places. you don't need that much food. you don't need a 5 gallon paintbucket full of soda or a 12 pound hamburger. stop it.

basically i got really angry at these parts of the book, and then in the following chapters it talks about a farm that grows all kinds of crops and has all kinds of happy animals living on it in a perfect symbiotic system (thanks to the farmers help), and it made me want to run away to georgia and make all the food josh and i eat. those chapters made me so happy, i am not kidding you.

i loved the last section that was all about hunting and gathering, and i kinda wanna try catchin my own yeast to make bread with... i wonder what it would taste like?

and that's pretty much it - book about food and pretty non-biased but still very much an expose on the system. if you like brainy stuff, and long descriptions of different kinds of food totally turns you on then this book is for you the end!

ratings:
4 hearts: really good stuff to think about, and also it gave me some ideas josh and i can put into practice now
1 fart: it took me a really long time to read this - i'm a busy woman, dammit!

sorry i'm not giving away this copy, my buddy gayle already asked to read it when i was done - but stay tuned, i'll totally be doing a giveaway of my confessions of a shopaholic book.

we feel fine about getting published!!!

2009-10-01T16:38:00.000-07:00

a while back (a LONG while back!) i had gotten an email from the website www.wefeelfine.org. their website is all about exploring emotions on the internets, and they had decided to create a book.

and they had discovered this blog post on the livejournal version of my blog, and could they use my middle finger picture in their book?

what's that you say? make my middle finger famous? YES PLEASE!!!

months and months and months went by, enough that i totally forgot about their exciting email. then yesterday i got another one from them, saying "hey sorry it's been so long since you've heard from us, your section of the book got cut but we liked it so much we found a way to put it back in - so you'll be in it!"

and there you have it! my middle finger will be in the book we feel fine, in stores december 1. you should probably go get a pre-order copy from amazon!

this morning's commute playlist, or you should check out these hot traxxxx!

2009-09-29T17:24:00.000-07:00

lots of mornings on the way to work i'll hook up my ipod, pick a particular somethin' to listen to and that is it.

other mornings, i set the ipod to shuffle through my schizophrenic music library and pick some gems for me for the 40 mile drive - this morning's playlist was killer! your homework is to check out any of the songs you've never heard before:

1) "take me with u" by prince and the revolution
2) "happy rap" by junior senior
3) "talk dirty to me" by poison
4) "the other way of stopping" by the police
5) "rockabilly" by the mavericks
6) "like a virgin" by madonna
7) "interlude... the set up" by foxy brown
8) "fat bottomed girls" by queen
9) "she's automatic" by rancid
10) "won't get fooled again" by the who
11) "heaven must be missing an angel" by tavares
12) "only the lonely" by roy orbison
13) "dick lips" by blink 182

a quick thought for a monday evening...

2009-09-28T19:18:00.000-07:00

i have quite a lot of times in my life where i am excited and happy about things that are going on.

and i am really fortunate and grateful for how freaking awesome my life and the people involved in it are.

T to the G to the I to the F y'all!!!

2009-09-25T18:04:00.000-07:00

this weekend is gonna be jam-packed with awesomeness, here's what josh and i have on tap:

kickball championships on saturday - it's the last games of the season, and it's almost unnecessary to play the games because i know exactly how it's gonna turn out... there's 3 games being played. #1 top team will play the #4 bottom team, the #2 (us!) and the #3 team will play each other, and then the winners of those two games will play each other.

so basically, #1 team will win and we will win (cuz we've beat the #3 team twice before), then we'll play the #1 team and they will kill us because apparently they're amazing. but it'll be good times and there's gauranteed snacks!

after that josh gayle and i are gonna go to the sneak preview showing of whip it at the long beach towne center. i don't know if i've mentioned before... but i'm crazy about roller derby. if i'd discovered it like 10 years ago when i didn't have things like a sometimes-angry knee, and i had the money and time, i would so join a league! but alas, for all the reasons stated above, i must be content to sit and drink my beer from the sidelines.

SO EXCITED FOR THIS MOVIE! josh and i have been waiting for it to come out for months. and if you go to the sneak preview they're givin out free tshirts! they're showin it at more places than long beach town center, check out moviefone.com or fandango.com and you can find the theater near you!

also, sunday morning josh and i are starting a 4 week long sailing class - i don't know why this terrifies me... but i'm kinda freaked out by the idea of driving a boat. i'm pretty sure i know why, but it's a stupid reason so hopefully i'll be able to put that behind me and kick some watery ass!

and then mixed in there will be the usual weekend web design class homework and some writing for the next week's oc weekly blog posts. and painting a commission. aaaaaand what else. sleeping i hope! i definitely hope there'll be some sleeping in there.

like i said, this weekend's gonna be chock full of awesome! will hopefully get a post up this weekend with an update on our backyard garden - our plants have completely BLOWN UP!!!

fight for your right to carbs!

2009-09-22T21:57:00.001-07:00

josh decided the other day he was going to start making ribbons out of spaghetti noodles to sell on etsy - to raise carb awareness!

concert fun and internetty news!

2009-09-19T09:33:00.000-07:00

ok so last week josh and i went to see the killers play at the hollywood bowl, and it uberrocked!!!

i didn't realize until like a day before the show that the psychedelic furs were opening for them, and i was like uhhh that's cool. because it makes me wanna rummage through thrift store racks for pink things to shove in jenn's face while singing (badly) "PRETTYYYYY IN PIIIIIINNNNNNNK". i didn't realize at the time how amazing this one-two punch of musicness was gonna be!!

so we pretty much had the perfect concert experience - we drove up to hollywood early afternoon, got there before rush hour traffic had even begun. checked into the best western that's like 2 blocks from the bowl, and moseyed down to the hollywood/highland complex. it really kinda cracks me up how this place is billed as so hip and trendy and the oscars are held there, but really... it's just a fancy mall.

i'm not exaggerating. it's a mall. there's a hot topic. steps away from where they hold the oscar. it just cracks me up.

we were lucky! we were there the same day hot topic was having a q&a about that new jennifer's body movie, and i guess panic at the disco was gonna play. i didn't so much care about that, we were just there to gawk at celebs. so we hung out directly behind the sound booth, listening to them talk shit about everybody was awesome. and on the second level you could see celebs getting their pics snapped and doing interviews. saw adam brody from the oc, megan fox and diablo cody.

i don't know about you but i wanna party with diablo cody. she reminds me of my girl liz. i bet she rocks the karaoke stage!

anyhow, i found out after the fact that my old pal ed killmond from scad was there and thought he recognized me, and that is super awesome even though we didn't get a chance to say hi. hi, ed!

after we hung out there a bit, walked back to the hotel and packed up our snacks for the concert. i LOVE that you can bring your own snacks to the h-wood bowl. we brought enough for 20 people, but it was just me and josh... we may have overpacked. for certain shows you can't bring your own booze, and i declare shenanigans!

the show was AWESOME. every song psychedelic furs played i was all "i know this song! i know this song!" it was like sitting and listening to a john hughes movie soundtrack. and then they didn't play pretty in pink. and their set was over. and i was like "WHAT THE HELL!!!"

josh and i started figuring maybe they were one of those bands that was so sick of that song, maybe they refuse to play it these days. but then the killers started, and their sound is SO psychedelic furs, i started thinking. omg that's gonna be the encore. they're gonna do pretty in pink with the furs.

and they did.

and it was AMAZING.

seriously, the killers rock my socks off and almost every song has this nostalgic quality about it, every song is so awesome. i heart them hooray!

once the show was over, instead of having to deal with crappy parking lot traffic we just had a short 2 block walk to the hotel and that was it. bliss.

the hotel thing, it made all the difference. a while back i saw the police at dodger stadium with my sis danielle and some friends, and we were in the parking lot for like an hour and a half after the show.

so that's my recap - in other news, hearts and laserbeams was offline for a couple of days due to hacky shenanigans. it's back online and all fixed now, so thank goodness for that! i have to seriously thank raina from the queen's men for getting rid of all the hacker shenanigans, and bluehost for helping me get my hosting account unsuspended. y'all are the best!

he works hard for the money...

2009-09-15T18:14:00.000-07:00

here we see my fabulous huzzz hard at work in the hearts and laserbeams sweat shop! we're sending a box full of tees to shopScad today; if you're in the low country you besss get in that shop later this week and pick one up! shopscad features work by students, alumni and faculty of the savannah college of art and design, and is located at 340 bull street in historic downtown savannah.

not fortunate enough to live in the south? don't fret my pet, our tees are also available online!

i've had the time of my life...

2009-09-14T22:32:00.000-07:00

all right dude by now it's old news, but patrick swayze passed away today. i'm really sad about it - that guy made both the best and the worst movies ever and now you gotta sit there and listen to me talk about it!

number one, like most preteen girls in the 80s i LOVED the dirty dancing movie. had the soundtrack, had the second soundtrack, saw the movie about 8 billion times between the ages of 10 and 32. (lemme share with you that in the back of my head, i always thought it was kinda weird that johnny and baby hooked up because it was like the gabrielle carteris thing in 90210 - i could not get past the fact that swayze looked way older than the early 20s or so character he was playing)

yeah, i liked ghost all right when it came out. (SAM WHEAT!!!) but for me, it was all about coming out - one of my fave swayze movies ever was to wong foo, thanks for everything, julie newmar. PURE COMEDY GOLD.

no wait, what's better - patrick swayze as a drag queen or patrick swayze doing chippendales dancing with chris farley(r.i.p.) ?!? crap. this may take some thinking.

while i still haven't seen point break or roadhouse all the way through, i did get to see a chunk of roadhouse once a couple of years ago, and one of the best lines ever is "you're too stupid to have a good time". also, a couple of years ago the huzzz and his brother introduced me to the classic red dawn. that shit is intense and fully awesome so you should probably rent it. rumor has it they're working on a remake. rumor also has it they suck.

so back to swayze! true story, a couple of halloweens ago josh and i went out to south carolina to see our savannah friends for halloween, and when we got there our buddy trav had carefully placed a huge dirty dancing poster on our bed, complete with fake autograph from johnny castle himself saying "thanks for the great time at kellermans this year! i truly was the time of my life".

i think it was shortly after that, that josh and i found his older than dirt typewriter. we started writing random silly letters to the savannah kids. i don't know who got our patrick swayze letter, but it started as a fan letter to patrick swayze, and then slowly devolved into creepy fanness, and then joking anger that he may have pushed jerry orbach (r.i.p.) down the stairs. and i think it was the last line of the letter where we wrote "i hate you johnny castle".

which we later made into a shirt design that we sold via hearts and laserbeams for a long while.

also, one year for our anniversary i spent about 10 seconds photoshopping (badly) josh and i's faces onto the dirty dancing poster.

that's not all the reasons i love johnny castle, patrick swayze, vida boheme, the whole kit n kaboodle, but it's a lot of em. and that's all the reasons i'm wishin i had a watermelon to carry in mourning.

WOLVERRRRRIIIIIIINESSSSS!!!!!

all kinds of fun news!

2009-09-10T17:37:00.000-07:00

i am chock full of art news today!

yesterday i found out that my art school savannah college of art and design was looking for people that went there to contribute paintings for an upcoming project. so i email the gent, and send him to the paintings section of my etsy shop. he wrote back telling me that my flipping bird painting would be perfect and could i get it out to new york by next tuesday?

um, yes please thank you! even more so when i asked for more details about the project. apparently, scad's working on revamping studio 54 and will be styling a dressing room for an upcoming carrie fisher 1 woman show. and my painting will be in her dressing room.

my painting.

will be in her dressing room.

carrie fisher.

there's talk that hgtv will be covering this project and that us weekly, usa today and other press outlets have made inquiries, and that is awesome. but i'm completely bowled over by it being for CARRIE EFFING FISHER!!!

want a little piece of hearts and laserbeams history? prints of this painting are available!

in other exciting news, my candy corn party fabric design is part of this week's spoonflower halloween contest - i am currently getting my butt kicked by another cute design so please PLEASE consider a vote for hearts and laserbeams! if i win there'll be a great big sale to celebrate!

stop that car!

2009-09-06T18:24:00.000-07:00

i saw this car on the drive home last week; why is it that anytime i see amazing airbrushed artwork on the road there's no way i can get a decent picture?

this one was elvis - the other two airbrushed treasures i've seen were a scene of the last supper and a montage of pics of selena with her name in a fabulously scripty font!

gardening with the calverts: month 1

2009-08-25T22:30:00.000-07:00

ok so about a month ago, josh and i started a little veggie patch in our backyard using the book square foot gardening by mel bartholemew as a guide for our gardening shenanigans.

here's what it looked like when we first built the planter and got the dirt and seeds into it:

and here's what it looks like now:

(these are just the radishes - check out everything else by clickin' the pic!)

josh and i had a tiny balcony garden for like 2 years before this, and expanding the operation now that we have a little more space has been so fun! we're both pretty effing amazed at how crazy some of this stuff is growing; in theory soon we'll have watermelons, peas, pumpkins, corn, radishes, chives, tomatoes, carrots... i think it all kind of depends on the weather - we started all this pretty late in the summer but the growing season in california's longer, so who knows! (we got to eat a few spinach leaves the other night, so freakin delicious!)

we also started a compost bin in the backyard, which both of us are a little unsure of - mostly because neither one of us has done that before, so there's a whole lot of "uhhh are we doing this right?" goin' on... we put this little vinyl fence up for like 60 bucks to hide the composting experiment:

(if you click to see the larger version of this pic in flickr, and you look at the telephone wires, you can see some of the zillions of birds waiting for me to go inside so they can get back to the bird feeder...)

so we'll see how that goes! we added worms to the bin tonight... the gal that we bought em from basically made us smell worm poo, she says to prove that it smells like dirt, but i think it was so she could tell her friends later she got people to smell worm poo.

i feel like i need to get a better handle on timing out what we're planting... what are good fall/winter veggies? anyone got any hot tips for what to plant and when in southern california?

hearts and laserbeams book report: ya yas in bloom by rebecca wells

2009-08-20T19:45:00.000-07:00

ok it has been AGES. sorry about that folks. the only thing that's been constant lately is change, and lots of it - transitioning into having a full-time job again and still keep hearts and laserbeams alive has been a trick and a half but i'm workin it out and it's all startin to mesh, which is awesome.

plus i'm bloggin 3 times a week over at oc weekly now, did i tell you that? if ya click here, you can read all the gettin' made posts i've written thus far. and if you check out the one about twisted handmade and comment on it before midnight friday night you could win a set of courtney chesley's awesome telephone-wire bracelets!

so anyhow, i may have been missin from this blog but i haven't been neglecting my book reports, here's one i've been putting off for weeks! i've had my copy of ya-yas in bloom for a couple of years now and finally got a chance to read it!

hearts and laserbeams book report: ya yas in bloom by rebecca wells

ok did you read the divine secrets of the ya ya sisterhood? did you see the movie at least? both effing awesome.

ya yas in bloom was like those designer imposters at rite aid - did you like ya ya sisterhood? you'll love ya yas in bloom! the same, but a little cheaper.

like it was a fun girly summer read, and i LOVE the characters and getting to enjoy more of their adventures and shenanigans... but like most sequels, this one was a little weak.

ummmmm i was gonna write more but there's 2 problems.

number one, i finished reading this book like weeks ago and should've written about it when it was fresh in my mind.

number two, there wasn't a whole lot of substance or anything heavy to report. some crazy southern gals get together have lots of drinks and madcap mayhem results.

so uh, sorry this is so short but that's pretty much it... let's get to the ratings!

hearts: 3 hearts - these ya ya books are so much fun to read y'all; they make me wanna move to the south immediately!

farts: 2 farts - there was so little thinking going on while i read these that i kinda missed my dense high-school reading list books that usually have to come with a cliff notes for me to get through em.

as seen on oc weekly!

2009-07-08T21:30:00.001-07:00

ok i was doing really well on posting for a little bit and then i fell off the wagon... life has been crazy!

part of the excitement is i've become a brand new blog contributer for the oc weekly! so if you get frustrated with coming here and not seeing freshness to read, you should make sure to check out the gettin' made feature on oc weekly. there's a tag to click on, even, to make it super easy!

AND - if you check out the inaugural post soon you can enter to win a free hearts and laserbeams print! good luck folks!

OH DUDE! ALSO!
renegade craft fair is this weekend! you better get there and come visit us or else!

brand new paintings!

2009-06-30T18:41:00.000-07:00

today was such a fun day! i spent a bunch of time working on five new 3" x 3" paintings for the upcoming arthouse coop canvas project group show. the goal for the project was to create a sort of visual encyclopedia - each participating artist gets five random words to paint and that is that! here's the words i was assigned:

"carcinogen"
3" x 3" acrylic on canvas

"cotton"
3" x 3" acrylic on canvas

"equator"
3" x 3" acrylic on canvas

"larynx"
3" x 3" acrylic on canvas

"zebra"
3" x 3" acrylic on canvas

it was so nice out today i set up a folding table in the backyard and did my painting out there, and the group of three little birds that are always visiting our bird feeder kept me company all morning!

i also spent a ton of time yesterday and today working on new screenprinting screens, i'll share the finished products with ya soon! (wanna be the first kid on your block with a brand new hearts and laserbeams grocery tote? better get your ass to renegade craft fair on july 11 and 12!)

makin rosettes and say, what kind of tree is that?

2009-06-23T20:12:00.001-07:00

ok so today i was planning on making ice cream for the first time ever! got all my supplies together to make a delicious cherry garcia style ice cream, spent a good long while cutting and pitting cherries, cooked em up in the sugar water, went to read next steps and the instructions on the ice cream maker and whaaaaaaaaaaaaa?

you have to freeze part of if first?

denied!!!

so i decided to make rosettes with josh instead! if you click on the picture, you'll go to the entire photo set on flickr...

and if you click on the below picture you can watch a video of how the batter flowers once it hits the hot oil!

once the rosettes are done you just sprinkle em with a little powdered sugar and enjoy! they're an old-timey scandinavian dessert, a little funnelcakey, a little donutty, a lot deliciousy!

also, for you sleuths and plant experts out there - we have this tree in our backyard and have no idea what it is. any thoughts? it's got serrated leaves and a pit in the middle of the small fruit.

winner! pow!

2009-06-20T10:58:00.001-07:00

three cheers to julie, who won my copy of "into the wild"!

i'm really jazzed to go to our buddy melissa and her boy dan's wedding today; it should be a blasty!

and i have to share that josh and i saw year one last night and uh... it wasn't all that great... but it did remind me that i still haven't seen the wolverine movie and omg i need to get caught up!

still workin on gettin a few things under control here at the house, i think tomorrow's gonna be a lot of unpacking and organizing... maybe it'll be time to tackle the garage!

listen... i have to go. i have to sheepishly admit i'm all hopped up on coffee and i can't really hold down a coherent thought to write right now. BUZZZZZZZZZZ! i made the coffee quite a bit too strong this morning.

hearts and laserbeams book report: into the wild by jon krakauer

2009-06-16T07:13:00.000-07:00

ok so this last weekend josh, brittanie and i went to minnesota for my brother justin and his girl ashley's wedding - we get to the airport and talking to my sister brittanie, she had a sexy vampire book while i had nothin' to read at all and this aggression will not stand!

while josh usually sleeps through flights or listens to tunes and movies on his ipod, i like takin those big long chunks o time as an opportunity to do some reading, cuz honestly there's just not enough time for stuff like that. so off to the airport bookstore i go - and i saw into the wild on one of the tables. i always wanted to see the movie, but never quite got around to it. and i like readin' the books before i see the movie of the book, cuz i like seeing the contrast between what i play in my head while i'm reading and then what they actually do with the film when it's brought to life. so there you go! read on to the end (or just scroll down to the bottom of this post if you're in a hurry) and find out how to get your hands on my copy of into the wild, complete with a little note from me to you and a hearts and laserbeams doodle on the inside cover!

hearts and laserbeams book report: into the wild by jon krakauer

ok lemme share with you the premise of this true story is really super appealing to me.

if you didn't know and haven't seen the movie, this book is a journalist's telling of how a kid named chris mccandless graduated from college, then gave away all his money, packed up a few possessions, and ran off to see america for 2 years. his adventure culminated in one final big hurrah when he went to alaska for a few months to live completely off the land, and he died after like 112 days or something in the alaskan wilderness.

the part i love about this idea is just picking up and going. camping, livin' off the land, gettin the hell outta southern california and seeing real places that don't kinda kill my soul. i can't wait to move to georgia someday where we're in a more rural setting and have the option to grow most of our food and fish at our own place and just be left the hell alone.

that being said, i should wanna hang out with this chris mccandless dude. but i totally don't.

number one, he died over 10 years ago and i'm sure he's pretty smelly by now.

number b, with all due respect to all the cool things he did do and see over his 2plus years of adventuring across the u.s., he really comes across as a bit of an arrogant douchebag. just the way he changes his name to alexander supertramp, for example... love the name supertramp, but if you're actually a for reals hobo, and you give yourself the name supertramp, that pretty much means you're king of the tramps and you should probably be smarter than thinking you can just prance off into the alaskan wilderness with not enough gear and not enough experience to actually make that happen successfully.

there's lots of letters and excerpts from postcards chris wrote in this book, along with highlighted passages from books that he had with him when his body was found, and all of those just kind of add to the man this kid was kinda a jerk feeling i got while reading it. ok awesome you like reading old books about nature, but don't get all i'm better than you about it and don't demand that other people live your hobo life or else they're stupid. i'm a very live and let live type, and when people shove their own beliefs or way of life down my throat it's a huge turnoff.

the end of one letter to a friend of his was written juuuust before he went up to alaska. it ended with a sentence that was something to the effect of "i now walk into the wild". and at this point, i put down my book and told brittanie and josh that this dude annoys me just as much, if not more, than emo kids.

so yeah... i don't know if we would've been friends if we met.

but his personality aside, wow. WOW. who wouldn't want to just walk away from the 9 to 5 and just drive away, and hike everywhere and canoe at the beach and just live life every day without worrying about when the next rent payment's due? i kinda can't wait to rent the movie and see how this all plays out. did they use the actual bus that supertramp was found in? that would creep my shit out.

i was totally into how well this book was written - even though i wanted to punch the hobo in the face i was still totally riveted to the story and i honestly can't say that about many nonfiction books. total page-turner. until you get to the end. then you pretty much stop turning pages.

ratings

hearts: 4 hearts - really solid good book, would definitely recommend it to my friends even though i generally hate non-fiction.

farts: 1 fart - i really spent most of that book wanting to punch the kid in the face. and also, probably he should've taken something a little stronger than a .22 into the wild for the purposes of obtaining dinner.

so on to the giveaway! What would your hobo name be if you were to pull a chris mccandless and leave town to live a hobo life on the road exploring? mine would be The Venerable Hobo McTootPants.

leave a comment tellin me your chosen hobo name, and i'll pick a name at random from all entries received before midnight friday june 19th. the winner gets my copy of this book!

hearts and laserbeams book report: born standing up by steve martin

2009-06-12T22:35:00.000-07:00

i don't know if you know this, but there's a gem of a website out there called goldstar that sells discount tickets to all kinds of shows. you can sign up for their email newsletter and get periodic updates on what cheap tickets are available in your area, and it's awesome the stuff it has available sometimes!

their newsletter is how we came to see steve martin play the banjo.

apparently steve martin's been playing the banjo since he was like 17 - i saw a tiny clip on tv years ago of him pickin' and grinnin', and i have to tell you it was magic. so when i saw $15 tickets to see steve martin play the banjo i told josh immediately if i don't go to this show i will die.

so it turns out that this concert's a fundraiser for the los angeles public library - and i'll tell you what, there are some major differences when a concert is put on for the library. number one, before the show there's people reading. number two, the opening acts are folks in suits talking about the library.

the show itself was freaking amazing. the first chunk of it was dave barry interviewing steve martin about his banjo playing, and then the second part was steve martin playing a bunch of songs off his new cd called the crow. if you dig bluegrass music like i dig bluegrass music, even if you don't dig bluegrass music you should give it a listen cuz the shit is GOOD!! and since it was a benefit for the library when we picked up our tix at will call we were also given a free copy of his latest book, born standing up, which leads us to:

hearts and laserbeams book report: born standing up by steve martin

i have to tell you i've always been a huge steve martin fan. one of my fave movies as a kid was roxanne, the song "king tut" will stay with me forever, one of my fave books is pure drivel, and i can even forgive the movie where he's got a dozen kids or whatever it was. (cheaper by the dozen? that sounds about right.) is that gonna bias this book report?

probably.

i get really nostalgic when i see steve martin movies, like kinda fuzzy-hearted and if it's a really good one like my blue heaven or planes, trains and automobiles, i may even get a tiny bit weepy. i heart steve martin because he has always just felt really genuine and real to me, like he's not playing a bit. like if you met him in real life, he'd be exactly the way he is on stage, in movies, whatever. i am convinced if josh and i met steve martin in real life, not in any kind of fan/celebrity sort of way, we'd be friends.

this genuine realness totally comes through in born standing up. it's a memoir about steve martin's time doing standup comedy, from the time he was working at disneyland starting to figure out what he wanted to do with his life, through his development as a standup comedian, including lots of chunks about his family and how that helped shape his future.

while it exposes the painful parts of his past, it doesn't exploit it. he lays it out for you without throwing anyone under the bus and i really respect that. it's not a tell-all, it's a tell-some.

and the way steve martin writes is the way he talks. so as you're reading the book, it's not really like you're reading at all. it's like he's sitting right there in the lunchroom with you just chatting with you about his life and his comedy while you eat your stouffers macaroni and beef microwavey lunch goodness.

i remember i saw steve martin on the jon stewart show a while back, and he was asked at what point did he know he was big. he tells this story about how at one show, at the end of the show, he took the entire audience outside and there was an empty swimming pool there. so he told everyone to get in the pool. and then he swam over them, crowd surfing style, doing the crawl. and the excitement he gets on his face when he's telling this story - you can see it when you're reading about it in the book; you can totally tell this is one of his favorite memories.

the end of the book came full circle - it started with him giving some background on how his family started him down this road, and it closes with thoughts on making peace with his past. and it kinda made me tear up quite a lot, guys. good good stuff.

anyways, i can't give away my copy of this book because i loved it too much and i'll probably read it again soon, but stay tuned - i'll be doing a giveaway of another good book i read recently, into the wild, soon soon soon! in case you didn't guess, here's how born standing up rates:

ratings

hearts: 5 hearts - you're gonna be hard-pressed to get me to say anything bad about steve martin, sorry charlie! (except uh... please no more cheaper by the dozen sequels)

farts: 0 farts - yeah sorry see above... except for cheaper by the dozen you got nothin' on this guy the end!

my long beach tech support heroes...

2009-05-28T18:47:00.000-07:00

ok so about a week ago, mysteriousness was afoot on my laptop. i'm not sure what the eff happened with my norton antivirus, but all of a sudden it started freaking out and repeatedly asking me to activate my account (which i've had for at least 2 years). so i got online with norton tech support and through the wonders of remote desktop magic or voodoo or something they were able to uninstall and reinstall my copy of norton antivirus.

so it seemed like things were awesome. and then my laptop decided it wanted an immediate divorce from the internet. no trial separation, just straight get the fuck out my house. as someone who does quite a lot of freelancing over the internets, it was like putting me in stephen king's misery house and hobbling the shit outta my operation... the process became do work on my computer that has all my files, save the stuff to show the clients onto a usb flash drive, take that to the huzz's computer, email the files that way, and if a client sent something to me reverse the process.

basically i was about to jump outta the window. or worse have my wallet raped by the best buy geek squad.

so today i did some searching on craigslist trying to see if there was someone that looked reputable enough to trust the goods with. and while i did see a couple of ads that could possibly be legit people that don't wanna steal from me... i still couldn't get behind the idea of handing my laptop over to a stranger for at least a day, expecting to get it back with no hassles (if i could get it back at all!)

i decided that for once i should have some standards, look for ratings, reviews, whatever. and that is how i found quickfix. they were the only guys i saw on google maps that had 11 ratings that all seemed pretty positive, so i gave em a call. (while crossing my fingers and hoping for the best.)

and without bringing my computer in or charging me, they tried a bunch of things with me over the phone to try and get this thing to work. and when none of that did and we had thoroughly discussed how my computer got to the point, they said ok i think you're gonna need to bring it in.

and as i drove to 3397 east 19th street in signal hill, i racked my brain as to how long i could possibly work without my computer. and what dollar amount was i willing to spend to get this issue fixed?

turns out neither of those extremes happened. i walked in, they were super helpful, fixed it on the spot in the span of about 15 minutes, and charged me 25 bucks. TWENTYFIVE BUCKS. and they also threw in some pointers about things i could do to make my computer run a little better, AND installed avira virus protection freeware after making sure all the little nasty bits of norton antivirus that had kinda put me in this position were gone.

long story short, I HEART QUICKFIX. and i wholeheartedly recommend em, and if my computer effs up again that's where i'll go. the end!

hearts and laserbeams book report: the jungle by upton sinclair

2009-05-16T14:14:00.000-07:00

ok so i figured i'd do another high school reading list selection this time, and i went to the barnes and noble classics section at uh... my local barnes and noble to see if anything caught my eye and dragged me fifteen feet. ended up walkin out with the jungle - wasn't sure i'd wanna read it, cuz from what i knew about it, there's some pretty graphic nasty talk about how our meat used to be handled back in the day. but then i read how this book was a milestone in american history, and that because of this book the pure food and drug act was passed. so i thought i'd give it a go - make sure you read to the end to see how to get my copy of the jungle and the cliff notes for it for free so you can read it for yourself!

hearts and laserbeams book report: the jungle by upton sinclair

dude did you ever see the snl skits about debbie downer? like there's a big group of happy people hanging out and they're talking about cool stuff and then debbie downer pipes up with some shit like "I'll tell you what the Pilgrims did bring: smallpox."

seriously, that's what this whole book is. it's a big fat huge debbie downer. it pretty much made me wanna kill myself in a lot of parts. (not really. but it DID make me want to drink)

so basically the jungle is not all about the meatpacking industry - that's a tiny part of it that really only takes up a couple chapters of the 400 pages. the overall story is there's this poor lithuanian family who comes to america in the early 1900s to make a better life for themselves.

and they get crapped on over and over and over and over and over. by the end of the book, a couple of em are dead, one of em's run off and abandoned the family, the kids are all effed up, one of the family's a morphine-addicted ho, the list goes ON AND ON.

you just keep reading about how crappy everything is, how everything's a swindle, everyone's out to rip everyone else off, everything's a lie,and holy crap guys this book was super depressing. cuz we are jerks!!!

and then i got to the last few chapters of the book and had lots and lots and lots of problems finishing the book because it was all politics. you know how i am about politics - SNORE!!! i honestly couldn't really tell you much about it except for the fact that the main dude jurgis finds out about socialism and it solves all his problems the end!

say it with me now - WHAAAAAAAAAAAA???

so as i'm reading the cliff notes on this thing, it turns out the jungle is only partly about the meat-packing district and all the bad tuberculosis infested meat being churned out back in the day. the entire book is about how capitalism stinks, and how it fucks up everyone that isn't top dog and how it's all corrupt, and how awesome socialism is.

and upton sinclair was a socialist! and he ran for governor in california as a socialist a couple of times!

WHAT THE EFF!!! how come i never heard about this part of the book? (if i'd have known it was all about politics i would've just rolled over and taken a nap instead) apparently when the book came out mr sinclair the social socialist was pretty upset because the whole socialist slant of the book was lost in the OMG WHAT THE EFF ARE THEY DOING OVER THERE IN THE MEATPACKING PLANTS!!!

so basically, here's the book in one sentence: the jungle isn't so much about bad meat as it is about bad politics. it's pretty riveting though, and until i got to the last 3 chapters that were all about socialism it was pretty much a page turner!

ratings:

hearts: 3 hearts - this wasn't my favorite book to read, it was pretty depressing and the last 3 chapters could be lovingly called "boring as all hell"

farts: 2 farts - it was actually pretty good, didn't so much like reading about diseased meat and REALLY didn't like reading about politics.

and there you have it! wanna check out the jungle for yourself? i'm givin away my copy along with the cliff notes to the first person to comment about this blog post! be quick, though - i post my blog on 5 different sites so the first one from any of them wins!

winner winner chicken dinner!

2009-05-16T09:36:00.000-07:00

thanks to the awesomeness of random.org, the winners for the screenprinted tee and greeting card giveaway have been picked!

congrats to kb of kokoleo for winning an awesome tee, and to dao for winning a greeting card!

there's gonna be lots more giveaways in the coming weeks so stay tuned! (i may have a quickie one coming up later today even for you book lovers out there!)

the voodoo that yudu so well - part 2: all the screens that're fit to print! AND A GIVEAWAY!

2009-05-10T22:18:00.000-07:00

now that we've covered how to burn screens with the yudu, i'm gonna share my experiences today in printing a big ol pile of shirts for an order i'm putting together for shopscad in savannah, georgia! there's a lot of info to cover, but if you can hold on til the end i'll tell ya about a fun giveaway we're gonna do!

first up you start with a big ol pile of shirts and a few fabulously burned screens!

you'll wanna iron your shirts before printing on em so there's no weird wrinkles in the design, fyi be advised!

first of you'll need to prepare the screen by taping off all the areas you don't want ink to get through. i use ordinary 3m blue painters tape for masking off stuff because it's not super sticky and comes off really clean when you need to take the tape off. also, notice that i burn more than one image onto a screen - thisll save you a ton of money in the long run - figure a yudu screen is 25 bucks - if you put 4 designs onto 2 screens you've effectively saved yourself 50 bucks! such a smart shopper! you can use vellum, plastic, acetate, or heavy paper to block off designs you don't want to be part of your current printing. i use vellum. so if you wanna be awesome... uh... use vellum?

i would also totally recommend springing for yudu's better squeegee. it just feels better with printing. i'm willing to bet if you already do screenprinting you've got a squeegee you like and i'll be honest with you that shit will work. it won't make the yudu blowup! so relax!

money saving tip: i think the yudu means well with their platens you can buy a bunch of and adhesive sheets, but for my one-color printing uses i find it kind of unnecessary. i left the protective sheet on top of the platen's adhesive and i don't put the platen inside the tee when i print. rather, i put a piece of cardboard inside the tee and set it on the platen and print away. here's some info on lining up your images:

see that dark shape behind the "i pushed" text? i put a piece of tape on the platen to mark where the top of the artwork is.

then i jot down on the tape the measurement info on what points i want the tee to line up to to have proper placement. if you're only doing one color stuff, the registration isn't super important at all - if you're planning on doing more than one color, definitely look into the yudu's registration sheets and whatnot...

get your bead of ink across the top of the design and get to printin!

it's a good idea to test print a couple of times on paper beforehand to make sure everything's gonna go to plan...

money saving tip: you'll need to put ink at the top of the design again with almost every pulling of the print - if you look at your squeegee you've probably got a lot of excess on there that you can scrape off with a popsicle stick and put across the top of the design instead of using another bead of ink from the bottle!

and POW! before you know it, you're done printing your first tee!

and POW POW!!! before you know it, you're done printing a whole mess of tees! one of the things i love about the yudu is it really really helps me production-time-wise. printing tons of shirts used to take forever, but i did 60 tees in 6 hours today! that includes printing, stamping a logo inside at the neck and heat setting each tee individually. you really can't beat that!

i ran into a tiny problem with another screen of mine - the transparency was too high up on the emulsion when i exposed the screen, and part of the apostrophe got cut off!

no worries though, i busted out a tiny paintbrush and the yudu's screen blocking stuff and fixed it right up! i will tell you i think i may try speedball brand's screenblocking fluid in the future, because the yudu's seemed to wash out when i cleaned the screen later...

if you have a larger tee design, it may be good to put a bead of ink across the top of the art, and then another bead of ink across the middle just in case!

potential problem alert! ok i did find one thing with the yudu that was giving me some issues this morning. it seems like some screens don't wanna stay on their pegs and they shift slightly. you don't believe me? here's proof!

it's really not a huge deal for me because i do all one-color desigsn for now. BUT - i kept getting subtle double fingers from my neil diamond screen! maybe it's too close to the edge of the emulsion? i dunno!

printing these neil diamond tees i can now tell you the 2oz bottle you receive with your yudu machine will be enough for about 16 large graphics. if you're using it for tiny graphics you'll get more for the money...

but what would be even better for the money is using a different brand of screenprinting inks... i kept reading everywhere that you are really only supposed to use yudu brand inks with this system. but they're so flipping expensive! i started thinking about how i've always used speedball fabric screenprinting inks, and how they're water soluabe just like the yudu inks... and then this happened:

and i felt like i should probably give it a try and report back!

and survey says DING DING DING! the tees i did with speedball ink turned out just as good AND rinsed out of the screen just fine at the end! hooray!

ok so if you're using more than one design on a screen, how do you line up the bottom image when you wanna print it?

i do the same thing as with the top graphic - i put a piece of tape to mark the top of the artwork -

and then i measure out where i want the shirt to line up in comparison with that top of the artwork. make sure this piece of tape is long enough so you can se it on the side of your tee when you're placing it on top of the platen!

here's my classic steph's screenprinting pose! if you press your left arm down on the end of the screen and really lean into your print as you're pulling the squeegee across you'll get a nice amount of pressure and a crisp clear print. i like to pull my squeegee across twice so it's nice and dark!

check it out! i effing love this glue gun design and i've been wanting to burn a screen of this for ages - if you like it make sure you read to the end of this novel-length post for info on an awesome giveaway!

once i did one of those glue gun tees, i wanted to print that graphic on EVERYTHING! i'm not one for texty tees so i put tape over the words on the back of the screen and slapped that design on one of my sweatshirts!

and then i went for the yoga mat!

but due to the texture of the mat and the thin quality of the speedball ink i used, the design came out really smudged on the yoga mat. i recommend on highly textured non-clothes stuff it may be better to use the yudu inks cuz they're a lot thicker.

and all that smudging went up on the back of the screen, too - something i didn't think about until i tried screenprinting a pillowcase with the glue gun design...

(i still kinda like it though!)

and THEN i put it on a tee using the yudu gold metallic ink! i don't know if speedball has a shiny gold and silver fabric ink but if they don't the yudu brand is totally worth it!

and THEN i made some of these notecards! i think they'd be fun invitations if you're planning a crafty party night a your house - or if you're in a craft mafia chapter (like me!) and you're inviting new members to join they'd also be super cute!

and THEN i screenprinted my dog! i think it turned out pretty good, check it out:

and that about does it for my adventures with the yudu today! it's time to talk CONTEST! first place gets the kelly green "get made" tshirt pictured in this blog post - i only have one available right now in an american apparel unisex size small, so if you don't wear that size and you win you can maybe give it to a friend or bake it into a pie! second place gets a turquoise "get made" greeting card!

here's how it works - this'll be a random drawing, and there's a few different ways to get chances to win, and you can participate in more than one of these to get extra chances:

1) comment about this blog post!

2) twitter a link to this blog post and send me the link as proof

3) post a link to this entry on your blog and send me a link as proof

4) write a haiku about screenprinting in the comments of this post

5) share a link to this blog post on facebook or myspace and send me a link as proof

you've got until friday may 15th at midnight so get cracking and have fun! winner will be chosen from random drawing and will be notified via email! GOOD LUCK!

that voodoo that yudu so well - part 1, how i learned to stop worrying and love the yudu

2009-05-09T17:44:00.000-07:00

ok i'm really bummed that i JUST found my camera that's been missing for a week or more - i wanted to photodocument getting to know my yudu better! it was gonna be perfect... photos of us taking long walks on the beach, romantic candlelit dinners, canoodling at the movies - but instead you get just boring old stupid words!

except sometimes my words have been known to be at least a little entertaining.

but still. the plans i had for the pictures.

ugh. i'm buildig a bridge and getting over it!

so as i mentioned before, my superawesome amazing faboo rad honkytonk husband josh surprised me (us, we're sharing it, i keep forgetting that!) with one of those spanky new fancy yudu machines a couple of weeks ago! and i was so busy getting ready for Unique LA and workin on freelance projects on top of freelance projects that i juuuuuust got to crack that baby open last night!

i have to tell you that i've done the regular way of screenprinting before, and i was a tiny bit skeptical the first time i saw a yudu. it's by the same people that brought you the cricut, which is great for scrapbookers but not so much for people that wanna make their own die cut designs... i don't wanna be rude but my first impression was i kinda thought that it would be a very lowest common denominator type thing that would make low quality stuff for folks who just don't wanna be bothered with learning how to really screenprint. then i saw the yudu display at michaels, and started reading labels and kinda learning more about it, and had to tell josh very sheepishly "uh hey i know when you mentioned it i said it was dumb, but, uh, i kind of really super want a yudu. like really bad. so uh... sorry, and my birthday's coming up in july hint hint"...

and he ended up buying it early thank god! so far i am a total screenprinting convert and i'll tell you why:

1) shit on the yudu is all the same steps as traditional screenprinting but easier (once you get the hang of it). there's still emulsion and darkroom scenarios, but it's less time consuming!

2)if you mess up on burning a screen, it doesn't take a crapload of work and scrubbing to reclaim your screen - it takes like a minute. in your kitchen sink. while you hum to yourself. i have old-school wood frame screenprinting screens that haven't turned out right (from like YEARS ago) that i still haven't reclaimed because it's a huge pain in the ass!

3) as far as i can tell so far, the quality of the actual screens and supplies isn't inferior to old-school screenprinting. they say don't use any other inks but yudu inks, but i did find a website that tested using riso inks (like for the gocco) on the yudu screens and it worked fine. and they're cheaper. i'll be testing using the speedball fabric screenprinting ink i normally use in the future, will letcha know how that goes!

if you've never seen a yudu before totally check out the demo from handmade detroit, it's a good one!

so here's how burning the screens for the first time worked out for me: i burned some screens after watching the demo video and following yudu's specific directions and none of those screens turned out right. i reclaimed the same screen like 3 or 4 times. and then i got tired. later i came back to it, tried a few different things, and EVERY screen came out effing perfect.

so without further ado, here's my tutorial tips on how to prepare the perfect yudu screenprinting screen for exposing!

1) mood lighting: keep your lights dim the entire time so you don't forget what you're doing and ruin your emulsion sheet! i wrecked one by going into the kitchen to get something and flipping on a light - FAIL!

2)wet it and forget it: forget about the "dont get the screen too wet" part of yudu's instructions. i ran my screen under the kitchen faucet from the front and reverse side. then i wipe off the extra drippy water from the metal screen edges.

3) lay it on me sistahpants! so now (IN YOUR DIMLY LIT ROOM!!! NO DIRECT LIGHTING!) take your emulsion sheet and peel the plastic sheet off the side that comes off easy - then put it sticky side down on the back of your screen (the flat side), being careful to center it as you lay it down. (can't tell which is the sticky side? lick your finger and touch a corner, you'll figure it out real quick!) run your squeegee down it lengthwise, and then widthwise making sure to press out all the air bubbles.

then comes my special trick to make sure it's wet enough - holding it in your hand, look at the screen from the opposite side. lightly lightly spray that other side a couple of times with a water bottle, and run your squeegee once lengthwise along the screen. (from that side you just sprayed).

at this point, the green emulsion should look really even on both sides. if you've got any areas that look splotchy (they call it spiderwebby) you're not going to have a good end result. it should look really good and clean and even after doing my special trick. if not, try misting it again from that reverse side.

note: if your emulsion looks effed up before you dry it and expose it, you will end up with a bad screen. best to try again with a fresh sheet instead of going through the whole process to find out later it didn't turn out how you wanted it.

also note: drying time for my techniques is significantly longer than following yudu's instructions to the letter, but the results have been great every time.

also also note: your mom called and told me you're out of the family. sorry!

so the rest of it is business as usual following yudu's instructons:

4)dry that shit! after your emulsion looks lovely, put that screen in the drying rack and run the fan on it! using my method with more wetness involved, i think i averaged three to four 20-minute dry cycles before the screen was dry enough for exposing. you'll know when it's dry enough when it looks really even (and not wet at all) on both sides. test it by picking the plastic backing off the emulsion in a corner and peeling a tiny bit of it off. if it comes off really easy you're done! if it doesn't DON'T FORCE IT! put that thing back in the dryer and let it dry!

5) picture perfect pictures! ok one thing i tried from my old-school screenprinting techniques is i ran outta yudu transparencies, so i used vellum instead to print my image on. and i don't know if it was because that was a screen i did at like 2am and i think i messed up a bunch of things or what, but the vellum did NOT work at all. so don't do it! i do really like the yudu brand transparencies - they have a little bit of a tooth to em, so the images don't get all smeary when they come outta my inkjet printer.

from that point on i did pretty much everything to yudu's specifications - exposed the image for 9 minutes instead of 8 cuz i like to go the extra mile just to be sure, rinsed out the screen with cold water, and every one i've done since i started following these techniques has come out AWESOME.

oh wait one more thing. when you're done burning your screen and you've rinsed the unexposed green gunk out, i don't think it's necessary to use the yudu's fan for drying it. if you've got the time just blot off the excess water and set it up against a wall for a bit to dry. if you don't got the time hairdryer that shit!

another exciting thing i wanna share about the yudu is that i have a graphic i designed like 4 years ago that i've tried burning to screens the old fashioned way like 4 or 5 times with zero success because the line work was a little fine and frankly i'm not the best screen-burner in town. but following the above techniques i was FINALLLY able to get a clean burn of that image onto the screen and i am really effing excited about that! because it's pure comedy and it makes me chuckle!

so anyways, that's it for tonight - i'll be testing out the printing tomorrow, and like i said i found my camera so expect to see pics of the screens i burned and the printing process! pow!

I'M BLOGGING!!! omg lol wtf!!!

2009-04-17T19:24:00.000-07:00

ok i have been all but m.i.a. on the internets for like 3 weeks, popping in long enough to check emails and take care of a couple of worky things here and there, and of course to play my turns on facebook scrabble and twitter like a mofo.

(in keeping with that mofo comment, tonight i went to the twittergrader website where they gave me a 99.3% (which i believe is a solid A, and means i get to stay up late tonight AND have ice cream for dinner!). and if you scroll down there's what they call a "tweet cloud" which is just made up of the words you twitter the most or most recently or something. i was laughing my ass off because number one it is very apparent that i'm a bit of a swearer and also a TON of my twitters are directed at jenn aka @swirlogirl.

oh shit i had a open parenthesis there. better close it.

)

there. i feel better.

ok so here's all kinds of updates on what i've been up to! number one, i started a temporary freelance gig onsite for 3 months down in mission viejo. this means wearing pants to work is actually a requirement for now, until this summer when i'm work from homegirl again. it's been good! i've been getting really solid in my indesign skillzzzz and that's been nice. the people are cool and the drive isn't as bad as i thought it'd be, and i feel fortunate that this particular gig came along because freelancing has been terrible slow lately.

so there's that - i also recently discovered the massive importance of having more than one method of backing up your work on the computer. especially if everything you do is on the computer. a couple of weeks ago, i was working late on some tee designs, and my dog comes walking up only wanting to say hi... but in the process he got tangled up in the power cords for my laptop and external hard drive and pretty much threw my external hd on the ground. rendering it useless. josh took the hard drive in to work so some of the computery guys there could try and recover all my files - they're trying a few more things before we have to send it to an actual data recovery place that's gonna cost buku bucks to get my stuff off of the drive... this is basically all my artwork that i've done over the past year and a half or so. and loads of photos. and hi-res scans of paintings that i've since sold.

basically everything i've ever done. i'm still kind of freaking out about it, but i've had the past two weeks to calm the eff down so i'll just share that if all the art is gone i'll start fresh and make more art, and that you could learn from my mistake and back things up 2 or 3 times. going forward i'll be saving everything to dvds and uploading to an online backup service. this will never happen to me again - i hope it never happens to you, either!

there has been good news - number one, i got featured on a blog! you can check it out here, she asked me a bunch of questions all interview style!

also, our dog has lost weight! it was only 3 or 4 pounds, but when the dog weighs 47 and drops to 43 that's losing almost 10% of his weight! i won't say he was tubby, but boy was getting tubby. jimmy's been discovering the joys of full-speed sprints chasing birds at huntington beach dog beach, and it's really been helping. i've been trying to help him drop the extra weight for MONTHS and nothing's worked!

what else, what else... if you're not doing anything tomorrow hearts and laserbeams will be at the de portola boutique in mission viejo! mention you heard about it on my blog when you visit my table and get $5 off your $25 dollar purchase!

i'm working my way through the jungle by upton sinclair for an upcoming hearts and laserbeams book report and that shit is DEPRESSING. are there any highschool reading list books from back in the day that aren't about people getting screwed over or dying? honestly, i wanna know if there's such a thing as an american classic novel that falls in the humor genre. and shakespeare doesn't count because even his comedies are tragedies. THE END!!!

ps if you can think of a funny high school reading book i will send you a free bookmark! first responder only, cuz listen up i don't have a ton of stamps!

I WON THE LOTTERY!

2009-04-01T19:52:00.001-07:00

aahahhahahahahahahah just kidding. april fools if you will.

but man, i wish!

happy april everyone!

hearts and laserbeams book report: derby girl

2009-03-29T11:46:00.001-07:00

i got this book for valentines day from the huzzzzz - what can i say the boy knows me!

for those of you that don't know, josh and i manned a hearts and laserbeams booth in the vendor area of a couple of l.a. derby dolls matches last year. then we went with some friends to see a multi-game roller derby extravaganza put on by the oc rollergirls last march, and when we actully saw a match we were hooked. hooked may not be the word. but full-on obessessed may be a little strong... anyways, moral of the story is we had to stop getting booths at the derby dolls games because all we want to do is watch. and drink beer. roller derby is the fucking bomb!

derby girl is a novel written by shauna cross, who used to skate for the l.a. derby dolls under the name maggie mayhem. according to the inside cover of this book, she "is obsessed with flea markets, the art of the perfect cd mix (even though cds are so over), and pretending she still lives in her hometown of austin texas."

i would also like to add to this that she likes long romantic walks on the beach and candlelit dinners from mcdonalds but i don't actually know her so i'm not for reals adding that at all.

according to my extensive research (i.e. josh mentioned he thought this might be the case and then i double checked imdb which never lies), this book is where the story for the upcoming roller derby movie whip it came from, with the screenplay also written by shauna cross!

hearts and laserbeams book report: derby girl by shauna cross

ok i got through this book in one day because i couldn't stop reading it - which is a stark contrast to the ambrose bierce travesty (check out yesterday's book report)! if you're looking for a superfun read this is it - it's kinda a bit like reading a teen girl's diary, and no chapter is longer than like 3 or 4 pages.

love love LOVE the cover. i know that's got zero pull in the merits of reading a book, but dammit i'm an artist so that shit matters. the cover's got a cool pulp art kind of feel and i totally dig it.

don't read this book trying to learn the rules of roller derby cuz it's not that kind of book. i can't quite put my finger on what it reminds me of - maybe juno a tiny bit but not really... ghost worldy maybe! just very much a book about a misfit teen who's rebelling against a mom who's trying to make her a beauty pagaent winner and all the madcap mayhem that results.

i can't wait for the movie of this book to come out dammit!

and no i'm not giving away this book cuz number one it's about roller derby and number two it was a gift from the huzzz! but the next book i will, i swear! i think i'm gonna start passing on the books i report on so someone else can have a read...

ratings

hearts: 4 hearts - i totally had a blast reading this book! it's really fun to do more lighthearted books in between the high school reading list type stuff i've been getting into lately, and this was a much-needed break! i will probably read this again sometime!

farts: 1 fart - as a roller derby fan it was kinda confusing to see l.a. teams and players referenced in this book set in texas mixed in with other teams from other places and it kinda left me scratching my head at times. but really, that's the only complaint! pow!

super fun, super fluffy, no cliff notes needed, read 40 pages of it in the morning and came back to finish the job later that day!

hearts and laserbeams book report: the complete short stories of ambrose bierce

2009-03-28T22:46:00.000-07:00

ok so my little brother brandon is the reason i picked up this book - he totally digs this guy, especially the story "an occurrence at owl creek bridge". and since my bro has good taste, i figured i'd give this author a shot.

so i went through the titles they had at barnes and noble, and i figured go big or go home, i'd get his complete works! i don't think there's an author out there i've read all of outside of jim davis' garfield books so it'd be kinda cool to say i'd read every single short story this dude has written!

and with that i give you my book report!

hearts and laserbeams book report: the complete short stories of ambrose bierce by ambrose bierce

SNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i could end my book report right there, but that may not be quite informative enough... so here we go -

this guy is cool, i will give him that - check out this pic:

image from http://bierce.thefreelibrary.com/

dig that 'stache!! no wonder my brother likes this dude - he's got kinda a mark twainy feel about him. (another favorite author of el brando)

ok so on to the actual book - this book is split into 3 parts: part 1, bierce's horror stories. part 2, his war stories. part 3, his tall tales.

the best thing about old-timey horror stories is that they're nothing like today's scary shit! can't handle the hostels, the saw 1-2-3-4-however many of em there ares, the snakes on a planes? make way for the horror stylings of ambrose bierce, where every story reads like this!

"ok there was guy, see? and he was travelling through the woods one night - and he meets this mysterious stranger, and they start talking and it's just kinda strange! and then after they part ways and he gets where he's going, he later finds out HE WAS TALKING TO A GHOST!!!! WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!"
(that's my scary ghost noise)

i gave this book a shot, i really did, but MAN this book could not hold my interest! and so, after my valientest of efforts, i gave in an gave up on this book about 119 pages into it. (it's 496 pages long).

so uh... i guess i don't really have anything else to say about it! lemme know if you wanna give ol' biercey a try and i'll send you my copy, maybe you'll fare better with it! first come first served! (remember i post my blog on a bunch of different sites, so be quick if ya want this book!)

ratings:
hearts: 2 heart - i am pretty sure this guy had a formula and it seemed to work for him cuz he wrote a ton of short stories!
farts: 3 farts - but MAN i could just not get into it!

hearts and laserbeams how to: repeat yourself, repeat yourself part 4!

2009-03-28T19:38:00.000-07:00

part 4: check yourself before you wreck yourself!

ok so you've got your repeat pattern finished in either illustrator or photoshop - the most important thing comes next, making sure your repeat works! spoonflower's a little spendy, so it would suck if you spent the money to get your fabric printed up and then got it in the mail all honked up with little chunks missing! in this last and final installment we'll go over how to check your repeat and make sure it works and get that shit ordered!

(ps sorry for the delay in writing this part folks! i have a new on-site freelance gig going on right now so i need to rework how my blogging goes so i can keep you elbow deep in fresh posts!)

so let's get to it!

photoshop instructions:

1) open the photoshop file we've been working with! first off we're going to group your repeat's layers together to make em easier to work with in checking your work.
in your layers window, click on the create new group button:

name this group "red polka dot". click on your top (a polka dot) layer, hold down shift and click on your red background layer. you should see all of your repeat layers selected now - drag them into that group folder.

2) now we'll make your canvas size a lot bigger so we can repeat this group and check to see if all the edges match up! using the menus up top, choose image > canvas size. enter 16 inches for both the x and y values, and then on the grid of squares click on the top left. click on ok.

3) next make a copy of your polka dot group! right-click on your group, and choose duplicate group. do this 2 more times, so you have a total of four groups - your original, and 3 copies.

4) select one of those groups, and from the top menus choose edit > free transform. just like before, make sure the little triangle in the options bar up top is dark (click to make it dark if it isn't), and then set the x value to 8 in and the y value to 0 in, then hit enter. one of your groups should have moved over!

5) select another one of the groups, choose edit > free transform, set the x value to 0 in and the y value to 8 in, hit enter. another one moved!

6) select another one of the groups, choose edit > free transform, set the x value to 8 in and the y value to 8 in, hit enter. you should now have a block full of dots!

7) at this point you should check to make sure all your edges of your repeat matches up where everything hits everything else - if you're doing a tossed pattern this is also a great time to check and make sure there's no weird holes in your design! if there's a problem you gotta go back and figure out what went wrong, but if everything looks good you're golden and ready to set up your file to order!

8) we're gonna go back to your file before you made all those copies with the magic of the history window! using the menus up top, select windows > history. what you'll see there is all the stuff you've done to this file for the last 10-15 steps! click on the item right before "canvas size". (grouping is nice, so no need to undo that!)

it should look like you're back to where you started!

9) save that shit!

10) now we'll save the file you'll upload to spoonflower. from the top menues, select file > save as. set your format to tiff, and UNCHECK the box that says layers. (layers will make your file HUGE!!!) and click save! then click ok! then you're almost done!

11) go to the folder where you saved your file and double check that it's less than 25 megabytes - if it's bigger than 25 megs and you've started with a file that's in lab color and 300dpi, don't fret! spoonflower's printers print at 150dpi. if you're having this problem, you can open your tiff file and go to image > image size. you can change the resolution to lower and lower increments to see how much smaller you can make the file, but DON'T GO BELOW 150 DPI!!!

AND THAT IS IT!! you've made a repeat in photoshop, saved the tiff and are ready to order from spoonflower! but what if you've created your file in illustrator?

illustrator instructions
(guess what, it takes a lot less work to check your file in illustrator!)

1) open the illustrator file you're working with. with the dark arrow at the top of the tools window selected, click on the red background. using the menus up top, choose edit > copy and then edit > paste in back. WITHOUT DESELECTING THIS SQUARE, change the fill and stroke to have no color. you shouldn't see any change on the screen because this square's behind everything else on the page AND it's color is essentially set to invisible!

2) making sure your dark arrow at the top of the tools window is selected, drag a box around your entire repeat. using the menus up top, choose windows > swatches. drag your repeat into this window.

3) you should now see a tiny swatch of your repeat in this window! hooray! in the tools window, select the rectangle tool. make sure your repeat swatch is selected in the swatches window - off to the side of your file, click on the screen. you should get a dialog box asking for dimensions. set both the x and y values to 16 inches.

4) voila! you should see a big ol chunk of your repeat! make sure all your elements are intact and there's no little chunks missing anywhere!

5) if it all looks good go ahead and delete that huge swatch so all you have left is your original repeat. looking at the menus up top, choose file > export. set where you'd like to save it and choose .tif for the file format, and hit ok. set the color to cmyk and the resolution to 300 dpi, make sure the box for anti-alias is checked and hit okay.

6) you're not quite done yet! now you're take this tiff and put it in the correct color format for spoonflower! it's no worries, super easy peasy - go into photoshop, open the tiff you just saved from illustrator. using the up top menus, choose image > mode > lab color.

7) save it! done! finito! go to the folder where you saved your file and double check that it's less than 25 megabytes - if it's bigger than 25 megs and your tiff is in lab color and 300dpi, don't fret! spoonflower's printers print at 150dpi. if you're having this problem, you can open your tiff file and go to image > image size. you can change the resolution to lower and lower increments to see how much smaller you can make the file, but DON'T GO BELOW 150 DPI!!!

AND THAT IS IT!! if you follow the four parts of this tutorial step by step you will be makin repeats like a madman in no time - hope they were super helpful to you; the next hearts and laserbeams how-to will be about creating animated gifs, wokka wokka doo doo yeah!

hearts and laserbeams how to: repeat yourself, repeat yourself part 3!

2009-03-23T19:02:00.001-07:00

part 3: making a simple repeat pattern!

ok breaktime's over folks let's get back into it! today we're gonna talk about how to make a simple polka dot repeat in both photoshop and illustrator. you can apply this exact same technique to pretty much anything you want to repeat!

THE most important thing to remember when you're building your repeat is anything that cuts off on one side of your repeat's box MUST finish on the other side of your box.

let's take a look at that simple heart repeat from part 1:

note how the top heart ends right along the top left corner. now look to the right of that repeat box - the next heart starts exactly on the other side of the right edge. the lower heart inside the repeat box, see how it falls under that red box line just a little bit? take a look at the left side of the box - that heart also falls under that repeat's border, with that same little tiny slice of heart! make sense? no? (if not let me know and i'll explain again; not sure if that came across right.)

so any element that ends on the left side of the repeat box MUST finish on the right side of the repeat box. same thing for any element that ends at the top of the repeat box - it MUST finish at the bottom of the repeat box. take a look again at the multicolored hearts from part 1, it'll be a little clearer:

ok so we've got that part, right? and you've got your file set up - let's make a simple polka dot!

creating a polka dot in photoshop
1) open your file that you created in part 2 of this tutorial!

2) make a new layer called "polka dot 1". (see part 2 of this tutorial for how to make a new layer) make sure this layer is highlighted in the layers window so it's the layer you're putting this first dot on.

3) set your chosen foreground color to black - see where you set the color to red in part 2 for how to change it.

4) select the ellipticle marquee tool in your tools window (remember you can click on any of these images to see em bigger!):

5) now you'll make a dot on your page! holding down the shift key, left-click and drag a circle on your document. holding down the shift key locks the proportions into a perfect circle - you don't have to hold it down, but you most likely will get an oval and not a circle if you don't... you'll now see a blinking circle.

don't stress out over where to make your circle, these directions will work no matter where you put your circle. don't stress about how big to make it either, that's all up to you!

6) select your paintbucket (see part 2 for how to do this)

7) fill your blinking circle with black!

8) using the menus at the top of your screen, click select > deselect

9) ok now we'll make an exact copy of that dot in that exact spot on another layer! making sure you select your dot layer, click and drag it to the new layer icon at the bottom of the layers window.

you should now see a layer appear that is the same as the layer you copied - it'll have the word copy at the end of that layer's name:

10) make sure your newly-copied layer is highlighted in the layers window, and that the black arrow is selected from the top of the tools menu. you'll be moving the dot to a new position! from the menus at the top of the screen, pick edit > free transform. now look at the options bar at the top of your screen, and click the little triangle so that it's a dark grey color.

11) set the x value to 4 in and the y value to 4 in - you'll most likely have to put the "in" for inches after your numbers! watch your dot move; so magical!

now check out the above picture - our second dot is cut off! if this repeat was sent to spoonflower as is, you'd get your fabric back with one good dot and one dot that's missing a chunk. so! do this:

12) make a copy of that copy layer by clicking and dragging it to the new layer icon in the layers window. on the top layers menu, choose edit > free transform. making sure that triangle icon is dark grey, set your x value to -8 in and your y value to 0. you should now see a tiny chunk of circle on the other side of your 8" x 8" repeat!

and that's it! you've just made a repeat! let's check out how it's done in illustrator:

creating a polka dot in illustrator
1) open the illustrator file we created in part 2.

2) select the ellipse tool from the tools window.

3) set the foreground color to black (see part 2 for how to do this)

4) with the ellipse tool selected, click somewhere inside your red square - set the x and y values to 2" (or however big you want your dots to be).

hit ok, and you'll see a dot on your square!

now we're gonna make another one of those dots right on top of that one (just like copying that layer in the photoshop instructions). make sure the dot you made is still selected, and from the menus at the top of the screen choose edit > copy. then choose edit > paste in front.

you should not see anything change here, because the dot is right in front of the first one you made. it should still be selected! from the menus up top choose edit > transform > move. you'll get a popup box, and you should set the x value to 4 in and the y value to -4 in. if you click on the preview box, you'll see where it's going to move to! hit ok and it's moved!

in this example the dots are both contained inside the square. if your second dot is cut off on the side of the box though, its an easy fix! select that second dot, copy and paste it in front,and then move it, setting the x value to -8 in and the y value to 0. donezo!

if you want to move your dots so they're contained in the box, you can do that to - using the black arrow you'll just select dot 1, hold down shift and select dot 2 (shift lets you select multiple objects), and then move them to their new position! you just want to make sure your dots stay the same distance from each other or else your repeat won't be a standard polka dot (which may be what you're going for! in that case do whatever suits you!)

and that's it for now! we've created a repeat in photoshop and a repeat in illustrator - next i'll show you how to test them to see if they'll work as a repeat!

do you have any questions on this part of the tutorial? ask away, ill help ya out!

pics of dao's art show!

2009-03-21T15:37:00.000-07:00

last night gayle and i drove down to laguna beach (which thanks to roller derby i cannot say without pronouncing it laguna beeyatch in my brain) to see our friend dao's pieces in an art show!

her pieces were really cool - kinetic art and more modern stuff generally doesn't hold my attention long but this stuff was neat because it actually had story and a point behind it, rather than "hey i was fuckin around with some stuff and made this thing waddaya think?"

this one was really great - she strung together TONS of led lights and programmed them to re-create a photo of her father. when the lights in the room were out it looked like this, and when the lights in the room came back on the leds changed so that he was still recognizeable.

it's weird how my own art is just meant to be fun and fucking around and not too deep, but i want stories and pertinance in kinetic art... need to just let go and enjoy it i guess!

anyways, moral of the story is i really liked dao's stuff, and if you have a chance you should check it out while it's there:

skin deep
dao nguyen and richard hutter
march 17 - april 25
235 forest ave
laguna beach, ca 92651
(949) 497-1880

la zoo pics!

2009-03-21T11:06:00.000-07:00

ok i feel like i have about 20 billion things i'm working on simultaneously today, but i wanted to share some pics with you! josh and i went to the l.a. zoo last tuesday, and it turns out that when it's like 70 degrees and a weekday that's the best time for the zoo! it's not busy and all of the animals are out and it's totally sweet! click on the giraffe and take a look at all our rad pics - more blogging later today on a really cool art show gayle and i went to last night!

hearts and laserbeams how to: repeat yourself, repeat yourself part 2

2009-03-19T09:37:00.001-07:00

part 2: setting up your file

but steeeeeeeeeph, when are we gonna make repeats!!! i wanna make repeats!!!

patience, grassplopper - the most important thing about getting ANYTHING printed, whether it's paper or fabric or your mother's face, the most important thing is setting your file up correctly from the start so you don't run into problems you have to fix later! this is important stuff! (if you wanna skip ahead though, don't read today. come back tomorrow when we start building repeats! and when you run into color problems later, don't come crying to me! :)

ok so let's get down to it - on my end i'm running photoshop cs3 and illustrator cs3 on my laptop pc. (don't tell any of my arty type friends... i dig how macs look but will always love pcs more) so i'll be writing these tutorials based on that. if you're not a graphics person and are not using these programs, i'm sure the info in these how-tos will still be useful, but you'll need to poke around your particular program a bit to do what i'm talking about. if you're looking at doing prints on fabrics a lot, i'd definitely recommend at the very least getting photoshop. there's a cheaper version called photoshop elements; while it doesn't have all the bells and whistles of a full version it does have all the basic stuff you'd need to do what i'm doing. so check that out! (also, incidentally, if you decide to get photoshop and illustrator and want to learn how to use em i totally recommend the classroom in a book series, it rocks!)

so should you create your repeat in illustrator or photoshop? that depends completely on the type of graphic you're creating. are you creating a repeat that's got very clean graphic lines, like a stripe, plaid, dot or cartoony type character? you'll wanna use illustrator to start with (but you'll switch to photoshop at the end when you're preparing the file to send). are you creating a repeat that's more arty, like something that looks handdrawn or painty, or even using a photo? you'll wanna use photoshop from the start.

keep in mind when you're making something for yourself, there's no right and wrong, it's all based on the following line of questioning: do you like it? yes? great you're on the right track. no? ok tweak it until you like it and there you go! that being said, for spoonflower you can make your repeat pretty much ANY size you want. 1" wide by 8" high, 3" wide by 1" high, the sky's the limit!

for the sake of explaining, i'm gonna say we're making a repeat that's 8" x 8". so do it! click on any of these screenshots for a bigger view!

photoshop file setup:
1) select file>new
2) you'll get a popup box. make sure you enter the info as follows (if you're making a repeat that's a different size you'll put in your own dimensions)

3) you'll have a file that looks like that checkerboard box:

4)let's say you're making a repeat with a red background. something that you need to keep in mind when you're creating your photoshop files is that layers are your friends - they'll keep everything separated so if you need to move something around it's quick and painless and fabulous! we'll make a new layer that's a red background, and you can change that color to whatever you want if you decide to make it something else later without causing yourself any grief!

so first make sure you can see your layers window. do this by going to the menu at the top of the screen, and go to windows > layers.

in your layers window, click on that little arrow pointing down with 3 horizontal lines next to it on the top left and choose "new layer".

give the layer a name that makes it easy to see what's on that layer and hit enter.

now we'll make that layer your red background! check out the tools window of photoshop - if it's not already open, you can get there from that top row of options and click window > tools. at the very bottom of the tools window you'll see two colored boxes. click on the top left one

you'll get a color picker window that'll pop up! you can play around with this as much as you want to get your particular shade, enter cmyk rgb or hex numbers, or you can click on the color libraries and pick a specific pantone color if you'd like! (click on the color libraries button to see all those options, and click on color picker to get back to the color wheel!)

so pick your color, hit "ok", and that little box of color in the tools window is now whatever color you picked!

this next part is easy, we're just gonna fill that background layer with your red and it's good to go! in photoshop cs3 the paintbucket is a tad hidden - click and hold on this gradient button, and the paintbucket will appear. then choose the paintbucket!

have your paintbucket selected? just click it on the background color layer and pow! file's ready for making a repeat!

*****

but steeeeeeeeeph, i'm gonna use illustrator! what do i do!

man you best calm down i'm getting to that!

illustrator file setup:

1) from that top menu, click file > new

2) give it a snazzy filename and hit ok! for this project, the page size doesn't matter. we're only using illustrator to create the file and will be exporting it as a tiff later. so don't change anything there!

3) layers aren't aaaaaaaaas important on the illustrator file because these are much simpler pieces to work with for the most part! so let's make your background square!

if your tools window in illustrator isn't open, click windows > tools.

you'll be clicking on this rectangle tool. if it doesn't show up but another shape is showing up in that spot, click and hold on that other shape and you'll see a box appear with more shapes to choose from - click on that rectangle or else!

4) click once in the middle of your page and you'll get this popup:

set the measurements to 8 inches by 8 inches and hit ok, and you'll see a box appear on your screen!

it almost never shows up exactly where you want it to - if that's the case (like pictured) you can choose that black arrow on the top of the tools window and move it wherever you'd like!

5) now we'll set the color - using that black arrow, click on the square you just created. if you don't already see a window called "color" on your screen, go to the windows menu at the top of the screen and choose color.

with that square you created selected, look at the color window - there's 2 colors to adjust. the outline color, and the fill color. set the outline color to none.

then click on the fill color and set it to whatever color you'd like, in this case we're usin a red. there's color sliders that you can play with in illustrator - if you'd like to use a particular pantone, you can go to windows > swatch libraries > color books and then pick whichever color standard you'd like!

and that's it! if you have any questions absolutely ask away! and stay tuned, next time we'll get into creating a simple repeat!

hearts and laserbeams how to: repeat yourself repeat yourself!

2009-03-18T11:08:00.000-07:00

part 1: what the hell is a repeat!?!

ok it's been a LONNNNNNNG time since i've done a how to, and this one's a doozy! have you heard of spoonflower? it's this awesome website that lets you print your own fabric! only problem is, not everyone knows how to make a repeat pattern - hearts and laserbeams to the rescue! i'm working on a series of blog entries that'll have you ordering your own fabric in no time!

keep in mind - repeats aren't just for fabric! these same techniques can be used for creating website backgrounds and other stuff, too, so read on!

let's start at the beginning. before you start designing repeats, you gotta understand how to recognize them in their natural habitat! start looking at anything you've got that has some kind of art all over it - pillows, shirts, sheets, shower curtains, potholders - they're all common things to find em on! take a look:

clockwise from top left: plaid shorts from delias, vintage floral print dress from forever 21, floral pillow from target, paisley quilt and block leaf curtain from urban outfitters, wild side room set from delias, thai silk pillow from target, floral swing skirt from forever 21.

when you're in a store or even your own home, start paying attention to the patterns and figuring out where their borders are - once you start doing this you'll begin to get all kinds of ideas on how to create your own repeats!

so let's get started on a fairly easy repeat - check this out:

this repeat's made up of rows of hearts - here's where the edges of the repeat are:

so if you made a blue box with just two grey hearts in those positions, when you repeat it over and over you'd get tons of rows of hearts!

let's take a look at another one:

this one's almost the same, but it's got different colored hearts! what's a girl to do, can you spot where the box should be?

the repeat is a little bigger, because you've got hearts in different colors. but still pretty easy to pick out! what you're looking for in recognizing repeats is basically that - where can you draw a box (rectangular or square, doesn't matter) where the elements repeat equally over the surface of the fabric?

ready for a tricky one?

on something that looks more complicated, look for a large main element and then look for where that shows up again. i guaruntee if you do that you'll be able to pick it out. here's where the repeat box is!

once you start doing this more and more, you'll really start getting a better understanding of how repeats work and it'll make it so much easier for you to make your own! that's it for now, any questions? leave a comment!

stay tuned, cuz tomorrow we'll start talking about how to build repeat patterns!

coming soon! crafty hearts and laserbeams workshops!

2009-03-16T13:42:00.000-07:00

i worked like gangbusters last week to get together some proposals for craft classes i'd love to teach - it was really fun to have a few days where i did nothing but paint, sew, glitter and glue!

the great news is after meeting with the kids are alright here in long beach, i've got 3 workshops lined up for the upcoming months! better pics will be coming in the near future, but let me share these dates so you can mark your calendar!

on wednesday, april 22 (that's earth day!) from 5-9pm i'll be leading a painted flowerpots workshop and having a trunk show of my newest fun paper goods and housewares! so come paint some flowerpots (they make great mothers day presents!) with us and bring the kids - this project's great for all ages! it'll be $12 per painted pot to participate, which includes all needed materials and a packet of seeds for planting!

on thursday, may 28 from 6-9pm i'll be leading a painted wine glasses workshop, complete with boozey goodness for participants! this workshop will be $30 per person, which includes all materials needed to paint two wine glasses, wine for drinking, and guarunteed good times! (21 and over for this event please!)

on sunday, june 14 from 2-5pm i'll be leading a handcarved stamp workshop! learn how to make your own stamps with a woodcut flair and make some notecards with your creations! this project would be perfect for making a special father's day card and with supervision can be a great project for kids! (adult supervision required since sharp cutting tools will be used.) this workshop will be $30 per person, which includes all materials needed to carve some rad stamps! (cutting tools can be purchased at end of class for an additional $10)

that's it for now - interested in having a crafty class as part of your upcoming birthday party or event? i've got a whole slew of other classes available, shoot me an email at heartsandlaserbeams@gmail.com and we'll make it happen!

omg i'm slacking again!

2009-03-15T11:34:00.000-07:00

but not really slacking, i assure you! this has been a really busy chunk of days, filled with:

- helping my friend shannon move to colorado

- getting a proposal together for craft workshops i'd like to teach at various places

- workin my hearts and laserbeams booth at the handmade district show

and today is resting!!! will be back with a new blog post tomorrow i swear, in the meantime why don't you go outside? it's beautiful out there!

who wants to see something new!!!

2009-03-11T20:11:00.000-07:00

this here is a photo of the huzzz josh cutting open one of those heineken minikegs with his dremel tool. lookit those sparks fly! there was a rattley noise coming from inside the empty keg so he wanted to see what was inside - i predicted an even smaller keg of beer! unfortunately getting inside this thing is hard work and we don't have access to a chain saw so the project was abandoned.

and that's not the only show and tell i've got for today!

check out our dog jimmy the greek on a brand new coaster set! 50% of the price of these coaster sets will benefit the humane society, cuz we're huge fans of helpin out the homeless animals!

there's all kinds of new stuff in the shop today, including mousepads, coaster sets, stationery and personalized easter plates!

order your easter plates soon soon soon, cuz it takes a little time to get em made up - unfortunately there's not quite time to get them if you're international, but U.S. orders can be placed until march 22 with guarunteed easter delivery!

coming soon to a website near you!

2009-03-10T13:58:00.000-07:00

i can't wait to show you all the crap i've got up my sleeves! all kinds of new stuff will be on the site in the next day or two, so don't forget to check back!

(if you do forget don't worry, i'm sure i'll remind you TONS!!)

this totally counts as a post!

2009-03-09T21:32:00.000-07:00

sorry i don't have a faboo picture to share today, i've been super busy!

i worked on a freelance project this morning, and then a bunch of new things for the shop tonight - i hope to get everything photo'd and listed tomorrow! it's really exciting all the stuff i have planned for this line of fun designy things, i just hope it all works out!

i'm finishin off my night with watching some dancing with the stars. i can't help it i get sucked in every season - who's your favorite to win? i know steve-o's probably gonna get shitcanned in the first few weeks, but i'd love to see him take the championship and go on to star in save the last dance 3: revenge of julia stiles' ghost!

disneyland fun times!

2009-03-08T19:05:00.001-07:00

two days in a row, we're back on blogging track!

friday i got to go to disneyland with my sister michelle and her kids for a few hours, it was so much fun! it wasn't too busy, we were only there a few hours, it was all in all pretty sweet!

we ran around on tom sawyer's island for a while, took jacob on star tours for the first time ever, and got to see my other sister danielle hard at work! make sure you take a look at the pics i took and keep an eye out for her - she's got a big red nose and carries an axe!

then that night i spent a bunch of time working on top secret projects! i hope to be able to share soon, it's gonna be a ton of fun for everyone! pow!

karaoke party pics!

2009-03-07T11:46:00.000-08:00

aw nuts, it's been a couple of days since my last post! i'm trying to get back into the swing of writing every day like i used to; sometimes things are so busy it slips my mind!

like these past couple of days - wednesday night was my buddy shannon and i's last chance to karaoke together before her move next week to denver, colorado! we went to clancy's in long beach and it. was. awesome!

i'm getting ready for an open house right now because we're trying to sell our condo, otherwise i'd give you the full and complete rundown of the night's activities - instead i'll just tell you that you should click here to see the pics we took!

by the way, if you or someone you know is looking for a condo in downtown long beach definitely check out www.1919beverlyway103.com and also please buy it! i'll love you forever!

easy peasy nice and cheesy!

2009-03-04T17:40:00.000-08:00

last night josh and i busted out our new fondue pot for some cheese-dipping delicousness!

we used this recipe!

and then, because i'm in the process of coming down with a nasty cold, i was alseep on the couch by 7pm. at around 9pm i woke up and realized i should just give up and go to bed. so i said good night to josh, grabbed my phone, and as i was plugging it in i was like OMG i got a text from my brother brandon!

this is news because el brando is an old school sort who is not too fond of things like the internets and texting. it's part of what makes him awesome. he's like the dude from big lebowski, but more sean penn looking.

so i read his text and it says, and i quote:
"best buy is giving away $250.00 gift cards to the first two-thousand callers due to some "lawsuit" i just got one; i was #381. 1-800-429-5683"

and i was like hot damn i will put off going to sicksleep for five minutes and get us some best buy goodness! i try calling the number, and it's busy.

i try calling again, and it's busy.

again.

busy.

again.

busy.

finally, i think on the 11th try i got through! SUCCESS!!! i hear some fun music and then a voice welcomes me to THE BIG GAY CHATLINE!!!

I GOT SERVED!!!!

i called brandon immediately after this and we shared a hearty chuckle and then i went to bed!

the end!!!

also, just a heads up i just got signed up as a contributer on the found handmade blog! make sure you check it out periodically throughout the day, there's a bunch of us folks that'll be sharing amazing links to handmade goodies on the internets for your shopping enjoyment!

what does it mean?!?!?

2009-03-02T09:12:00.001-08:00

ok i very recently saw a dude who had a large circular/ovally tattoo on the back of his upper arm (can't remember if it was left or right arm). let's start a new feature on the hearts and laserbeams blog, where we the experts deduce what the hell that tattoo means!

1) he's a huge fan of oprah, and more specifically the oprah book club, so much so that he felt the need to commemorate his newfound love of literature. i'm guessing his favorite read was Black and Blue by Anna Quindlen, cuz lord knows i wanted to beat him up!

2) he could also be a current or past fan of using his vaccuum cleaner to give himself fake hickeys.

3) it's a zero, standing for how many other people should get this same tattoo. or standing for how many compliments he has gotten on this tattoo. or standing for how many minutes he spent deciding on whether a circle tatto was a good idea.

4) maybe he likes cheerios? or spaghetti-os?

zing!

it's almost spring, get outta the house!

2009-03-01T18:15:00.000-08:00

i woke up this morning to the realization that it's already march.

what the eff?!? where did january and february go!!!

it was beautiful outside today, and for lunch josh and i ventured to second street in long beach to take in our fave artichoke pizza at olives!

and as we stood at the counter, taking in all the delicious-looking edibles, we saw the strangest looking thing.

what the hell is prosciutto di parma???

according to wikipedia and italianmade.com, it's basically a superspecial type of ham that's all imported and sliced superthin and crap. i'm not a superfoody but i will tell you i was pretty surprised to hear it was just ham. like i thought there was cheese around it. is that white stuff fat then?

so after lunch, i took our dog jimmy on a walk so he could enjoy the beautiful day, too - glad i was able to snap a pic of this "soon" sign! i don't know why people put huge signs in random places, but i love it. what does it mean? is this vacant lot gonna turn into something soon? is the end of the world coming soon? is Soon running for mayor? the world may never know!

so off we went on our walk, and lemme tell you this dog was superjazzed about it...

so jazzed he pooped almost immediately!!! uh i have to tell you the only reason i took this pic was to give josh a good laugh - we're always pointing out pooping dogs at the dog beach and talking about doing a coffee table photography book featuring just that, called that dog's pooping...

the funny thing is i saw our realtor drive by really shortly after that, and i kinda think he may have seen me take this pic and i kinda think he may think i'm sick now...

jimmy's favorite walk ever is when we take him on this long 3.5 mile circle around downtown long beach, with a major stretch of it on the beach path along ocean blvd.

it really is one of those things that just makes him super smiley!

it was just a really fun outsidey kind of day!

and now i'm windin down with a couple of wine coolers and some sunday night tv - i aint gonna lie to you when i say i wish L word would hurry up and kill off jenny schecter already!

recap from the arthouse coop sketchbook opening!

2009-02-28T09:52:00.000-08:00

dude, last night my sister michelle came over to hang out and after we ordered delicious chinese food from mr. chens, we remembered the opening reception for the sketchbook project show with art house coop was going on in atlanta!

and that they were webcasting it!

AND we are both in it!

so the first step was to get onto facebook and twitter to adjust our statuses to alert the masses that we were attending the opening via the webcast!

step 2 was to be told repeatedly by the art house website that they could only let 50 people into the webcast area at a time! being patient stinks!

so to pass the time we ate delicious chinese food! orange chicken, wantons and steamed rice, and don't skimp on the woodchuck!

we finally got into the chatroom with 40 minutes left in the reception! woo!!!

i'm leanin in for a closer look, and we're plottin all the hobo jokes that we will later tell the group in the chatroom!

beer and the internets is a winning combination, by the way!

we finished off the night with fortune cookies... and let's just say michelle's may not have really fit her persona...

all in all we had a really fun night! after the art house show closed, we spent time on youtube watching world war 2 era disney cartoons and the redubbed gi joes including my all time fave, and oh dude i finally saw dr. horrible! you must watch it! i will always and forever be hopelessly in love with neil patrick harris, the end.

and also tonight is roller derby night and i'm super jazzed! but i'll say exactly what i said last game, i wish mila minute or laura palm-her were skating, but i'm sure it's gonna be a kickass game!

pow!!!

best. job. ever.

2009-02-27T15:59:00.000-08:00

the winner of "best job ever" has got to be my sister danielle, who is currently interning on the kevin and bean morning show here in l.a.

if you need proof, click here for the link, click on "kevin and bean" on the left sidebar and watch the kevin and bean tv video called "beermug eats prison cheetos". my sister danielle, rockin' a green shirt and short hair, shows up on the left side of the screen a few times as she follows the djs directions on how to make a prison recipe for cheetos.

lemme say it again.

best. job. ever.

argyle for everyone!

2009-02-27T12:17:00.000-08:00

so last spring i had started this dog sweater, and for whatever reason about 20 minutes away from finishing it i put it in the closet and forgot about it for almost a year!!! wtf! busted it out again this week at stitch n bitch and i totally finished that shit! i think it turned out pretty awesome and jimmy doesn't totally hate wearing it. (he know he gets all kinds of special attention from other people when he wears clothes so he's pretty tolerant)

if you didn't know, jimmy the greek has a celebrity page on facebook and you definitely should become a fan - write a note to him on the wall, he ALWAYS answers his fan mail!

also, have you heard about the sketchbook project? it's a great show being put on by the art house cooperative, and the travellin show starts today! artists from all over (including me and my sister!) all drew in a CRAPLOAD of sketchbooks and mailed em in. these fine folks are takin the show on the road and will be exhibiting the sketchbooks at nine different places - if you're east coast you may be able to see em in person! check out the show dates here!

AND if you're not east coast, you can see a live broadcast of the first show tonight! i believe it takes place from 7-10pm eastern time, so look sharp!

night off for good behavior!

2009-02-26T17:00:00.000-08:00

i was gonna blog tonight but then josh was all "hey you wanna go get snacks and beers with me?"

and that my friends, takes precedence tonight hooray!

i will tell you though, that i've started work on more pieces for the underwater critters line, and there'll be some great paper products like sticky notes and bookmarks and cards soon!

have a good one, be back with a real post tomorrow!

let's get buck wild up in this piece!

2009-02-25T16:09:00.000-08:00

ok here's a cycle that happens constantly in my life:

i'll pass a store that looks awesome like five million times thinking i should go in, and never get around to it. then the store closes. then i get sad for never having gone in.

i cannot begin to tell you how many awesome places i've missed in long beach because of it - that totally sweet antique place that was a block away from the 4th street ralphs that always had one of those 60s egg-shaped chairs out front? never went in. that cool retro-antiquey-kitschy shop in a house (i think it was called blast from the past?) on the corner of 4th and redondo? never went in.

so guess what, it was all set to happen again, but this time the cycle's been broken!!! another place that i have eyeballed litterally a billion times while driving by it on long beach boulevard (it's just south of where the 405 crosses long beach blvd) is closing, but this time we've stopped to check it out!

it's the buck wild dollar store!!! it's literally THE BEST DOLLAR STORE NAME OF ALL TIME!

and if you didn't see the sign on the street, looking at this parking sign it looks like you might be at a strip joint!

josh recreates a classic photo i took of my bff jenn at walmart years ago - you can see the original here!

the sad thing about this dollar store adventure is that they're closing. but the good thing is that meant everything in the store was 50% off!!! and while it's totally typical dollar store fare, there is some good shit! all kinds of fun kids crafty and school supplies, and just lots of little odds and ends.

but lookit all the stuff we scored for 18 bucks!!!

i highly recommend if you live in the area getting your ass there asap! they're located at 3090 long beach blvd, long beach ca 90807. tell em large marge sent ya!

hearts and laserbeams book report: sew darn cute

2009-02-24T10:07:00.000-08:00

ok i have to tell you i'm a total fan of jenny ryan. number one, she's the brains and brawn behind felt club. number two, she's super duper nice. these are two huge things in my book, so you better believe that when i found out she wrote a sewing book i preordered that shit post haste!

and look how cute the cover is!

hearts and laserbeams book report: sew darn cute by jenny ryan

ok i aint gonna lie to you, this book is chock full of super cute fun projects; all of which would be great gifts for friends or family and cover a multitude of occasions! housewarming? check out the embellished kitchen towels or recycled coasters! baby shower? check out the spumoni quilt and squarebears!

these patterns aren't written to be followed strictly as is and i love that - there's pattern pieces to be sure, but there's plenty of encouragement to branch out and make your own remixes. everything's written in a very welcoming friendly style, like you're sittin and chattin with jenny ryan over a cup of coffee. if you're familiar in your sewing skin, you can skip the intro pages and get right to the nitty gritty but if you're a beginner there are LOTS of awesome helpful sewing tips to get you started!

i decided that since this isn't really a reading type book, more of a how-to book, i'd do one of the how-tos as part of my book report - i chose the reversible headband, mostly because i didn't feel like searching through my oodles of supplies to find the interfacing or stuffing that's needed for a bunch of the other projects!

i decided on this totally sweet multicolored bird fabric i got at michael levine months ago, and a clean off-white fabric for the reverse side.

i also decided my dog jimmy the greek should join me in my crafting endeavors!

got all my pieces cut out, and did some sketches on cute embellishment ideas!

started stitchin some outlines of stars onto the birds side while watching the bachelor (my secret guilty tv pleasure!) check it out, someday i'll teach you how to airbrush a supremely shiny forehead in a photo... you totally can't even tell i had one!

check out my flying fingers of fury!!

i ended up with a bunch of stitchy stars on the birds side, and some fun felt flower appliques on the reverse side! i had so much fun just messin around the other day i just kept adding more and more little tiny stars and french knots to this thing and i love how it looks! i'm a big fan of retro-y stardust effects!

sewing the pieces all together! lookit my face, this takes serious concentration!

and voila! the finished product! i love how it turned out, but if i could do it over i would've taken a liiiiitle more time attaching the ties to the main piece... they didn't quite match up just right... but on the upside the way i normally wear headbands that part'll be hidden by my hair.

modellin one side,

and the other!

basically this book is just as awesome as its author, and you should get your copy immediately!

ratings
5 hearts: love love love all of the projects and the book design! jenny gets extra points for calling me "shitlips" in her autograph to me from the book signing the other night, too. FTW!!!

0 farts: nuff said!

revenge of the reinbeer!!!

2009-02-23T14:56:00.000-08:00

ok check it out, for xmas this last year, our buddy gayle gave josh and i a couple of these awesome reinbeer!

and for whatever reason, the beer in our house is always slow to go. i don't know if it's because it's on the bottom shelf of our fridge and it just kinda weirdly gets forgotton? so anyways, here we are at the end of february and those little guys STILL hadn't been drunk! something i'm not proud of!

on saturday night i was hanging out with gayle and her buddy wes, and we were at the pike and having beers, and she ordered something deliciously hoppy and i got my wussy ladylike wyder pear cider, and she point blank asks me "have you drank those reinbeer yet?"

and in my head i was like OH SHIT. and in my mouth i was like "uh yeah! totally!" cuz i didn't wanna be rude and say no i always forget there's beer in my fridge because the rum is right at eye level!

i'll tell you what i TOTALLY got called on it!! the next thng out of her mouth was "cuz the last time i came over (which was recently) they were still in your fridge!"

and i had to fess up. and i had to dedicate a post to gayle, the reinbeers and her delicious HOPS HOPS HOPS!

and i also had to prove that one of them is now gone!

also fun for today, i got featured on found handmade! check out the link and let em know what you think!

imagonna stitch the shit outta it!

2009-02-22T18:26:00.001-08:00

today was all kinds of fun! drove up to handmade galleries in sherman oaks cuz the crafty chica has written a new book and she was havin a book signing slash crafty demo, and it was just really cool getting to sit with some of my fave crafty peeps chattin and sewing and laughing and we just had a blasty!

this was my first time meeting the crafty chica (aka kathy cano-murillo), and she was just SUPER nice! her demo was puffy appliques, where you cut a picture from one piece of fabric and applique it to a contrasty piece of fabric - stitch around the edge, add some polyfill inside, and pow! adorableness!

i wish i had thought to get my camera out and snap some pics of the cool stuff people were doing; i was just so into doin my little embroidery thing i lost track of the photodocumenting! it's always kinda fun to just go with the flow without having any sort of plan - i sat there for 3 hours just adding more and more to my piece and here's how it turned out:

and i also picked up a copy of her new book AND 2 little bottles of glitter because i heart glitter like no ones business!

and also, jenny ryan of felt club fame had a book signing on friday at reform school which i also went to and it was ALSO faboo! stay tuned, in the future i'm gonna do a book report on her book, too!

book reports for everyone!

and now i'm kickin back and watchin the oscars!

guess what i like pancakes!

2009-02-21T11:11:00.001-08:00

ok, just in case you haven't heard...

i'm obsessed with nannerpuss.

have you seen nannerpuss? he was the star of a dennys superbowl ad, and he is AWESOME. you can see for yourself if you click on this link. you'll recognize him on the page as the yellow octopus-like chap sitting jauntily atop a pile of delicious pancakes! deeeeeelicious i tell you!

my favorite part of the commercial, is if you watch real close he actually rips one of his eyes off half-way through. THAT is how committed he is to selling you hot tasty dennys breakfasts!

anyhow, i am cleaning up for an open house this morning, sat down for what was supposed to be five minutes to answer a couple of emails, and ended up making this:

the question for you the public: what do you think of nannerpuss and wouldn't you like to see more of him? comments please!

TOTALLY AWESOME UPDATE!! oh and also you know i'm totally entering my pic in this contest!

guess who's wickedly chic!

2009-02-13T08:40:00.000-08:00

i was ceremoniously dubbed wickedly chic's "reader of the week" this week, and to celebrate i will now eat a hamburger covered in chocolate!

oh i'm sorry that's wickedly gross, not chic.

uh... this is awkward.... lookit the pic they used, i love it! it's from josh and i's honeymoon at the fanciest wendys ever in st thomas.

(that totally makes it sound like we honeymooned at wendys, and maybe we did. we just really heart frostys, don't judge us!)

my finished poster entry...

2009-02-10T08:16:00.001-08:00

just uploaded my entry in the flight of the conchords poster design contest; cross your fingers for me! there's some really great designs on the site!

whoop whoop! shop news!!

2009-02-09T19:49:00.000-08:00

hey folks, two things that you simply must know!

1) if you're cosidering placing an order for that special someone for valentine's day, you besssst get crackin! it's comin up on saturday, don't you know, and you need to order by tuesday night to make sure your goodies get there in time! don't forget to let me know if you'd like a special gift message enclosed!

all orders placed before tuesday night will ship us postal service priority mail wednesday morning and that should be enough time to get anywhere in the continental u.s. of a by saturday!

2) this one's a biggie! from now on hearts and laserbeams will ship your order worldwide for FREE!!! wowee wow wow!!

3) my sister danielle told me today she got the dream internship she was tryin for, with the kevin and bean morning show on kroq - you should tune in on tuesdays and thursdays starting next week cuz you might get to hear her from time to time! and she's awesome! congrats danielle!

4) i almost never stop at 2 things when i have 2 things to tell people, the end!

5) odd numbers always make for stronger layouts so let's end on five. i'm working on a poster design for the flight of the conchords poster contest - will be sleepin on it tonight and revisiting tomorrow, and if i still heart it i'll share it with you!

this weekend in long beach!

2009-02-05T11:29:00.000-08:00

whew!!

ok this was the busiest work week i've had in a lonnnnnng while, but all work is done, files are turned in, and invoice sent so hooray for a few hours of breaktime! and by breaktime, i mean i'll be bustin out some tasty 1" buttons to hand out at some upcoming shopping events that you should check out if you have the time!

tonight!
6-9pm - sip and shop

a bunch of cool stores at redondo and broadway in long beach will be having special little things going on for you to check out - here's who's participating!

BABCOCK AND COOKE - Gifts & cards for that special person
DDR PROJECTS - Give the gift of Art
SASHA'S-LIVING WITH STYLE - Gifts for the Home & Gifts for Her
SOMATIC - Piercing, Jewelry & Beauty
SPA SIDNEY - Everyone loves to be pampered
SHORE BOOKS - Time to read a new book
THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT - "Make & Take" Cute Feather Accessories with Jewelry Designer Wendi Grant
THE OUTFIT - Mini Beauty Bar with Christy Funk from Belly Sprout

make extra sure to pay a visit to ddr projects (they just opened up next to the kids are alright at 3403 East Broadway), where the long beach craft mafia will be showin all kinds of great arts and crafts! and free craft mafia 1" buttons while they last! pow!

aaaaaand this sunday i'll be sharing a booth with my sister michelle of mickmunk13 at the rose bowl flea market! make sure you come to the arts and crafts section to see all of our rad valentines for your valentine! (or for you, we're not here to judge!)

rose bowl flea market
9am - 3pm
1001 rose bowl drive
pasadena, ca 91103

hope to see you there!

pow!!!

please vote hearts and laserbeams! pretty please??

2009-01-26T11:37:00.000-08:00

hey there folks!

have you heard of spoonflower? it's a great new website that lets you design and print your own fabric!

every week they have a fabric design contest, and my hearty plaid pictured above is in the running this week! the winner's fabric is available through spoonflower's etsy site for a week after voting closes - buying this design directly from them means you'd be able to get this fabric $4 cheaper than when ordering through my own site!

so please - take a visit to their polls and show some steph calvert of hearts and laserbeams love; if i win there'll be a big fatty sale to celebrate! i think it's possibly a vote once per day kind of situation - if you'd be so kind as to vote as much as you can that would be superrad!

thanks so much for the support, have a great week!
steph

25 things you absolutely have to know about me or else you may die...

2009-01-25T15:48:00.000-08:00

ok so i've been tagged to do this a bunch of times on facebook and am juuuuuust now getting to it! let's all meet your friendly neighborhood steph!

1) i just had a cup of coffee, that is pretty important. it was delicious and i want another one. it had some of that flavored creamer in it, i believe it was "spiced vanilla rum" by international delights. and i agree, that shit was a delight!

2) i've always been a very casual swearer, i have no idea why. like this has been going on since grade school.

3) i was gonna put this first but coffee and swearing is more important - i started going blind in my left eye back in 2000, and finished going more blind by about 2002. it started with central serous retinopathy that happened twice in different parts of my left eye, and then all kinds of other wacky shit that snowballed from the scar tissue from the laser treatments. it was a really scary time in my life because they weren't really sure what the eff was going on with some of it, and i was tested for all kinds of things from syphillis to brain tumors. the start of it was unclear but most likely stress-related, and the end of it was a pretty large blind spot in my left eye. i still have peripheral vision in that eye so wearing an eye patch is unfortunately not an option because i can still sort of see outta that eye, which leads me to:

4) i heart pirates and eye patches!

5) i also LOVE trashy tv, some favorites include: bold and the beautiful, americas next top hobag, wifeswap, boston public, 90210, the bachelor, clean house, uhhhhh whut else did i forget OH YES also real housewives of atlanta is freaking awesome.

6) i should've met my huzzzz josh like years before i actually did, because he'd been friends with my sis michelle for ages beforehand!

7) i've had braces for almost 2 weeks!

8) i've been self employed for aaaaallllmost a year and it's the best and i am so grateful for it. commuting and corporate environments are not necessarily the best fits for me

9) i met my bestest buddy jenn when i moved to wisconsin to work at oshkosh bgosh, and once we got in trouble for work for being too loud and jovial about having gone to work dressed as pirates. (see number 4)

10) my favoritest movies ever include the life aquatic and zoolander. and i saw pulp fiction 6 times in the theater when it came out. i also hated no country for old men.

11) i learned to knit in the winter 2003 because i was bored as hell in wisconsin, but have continued with it and love it! i've picked up a little crocheting here and there but knitting is definitely my yarny weapon of choice

12) when i was like 3 or 4 i danced with my dance class in a HORRENDOUS ruffley pink costume at dodger staduim during the 7th inning stretch. if my photo albums weren't packed up in storage i would totally show you that crap!

13) i miss savannah georgia like crazy and cannot wait to move back there someday soon.

14) i can't handle eating kraft macaroni and cheese without having apple sauce on the same plate - it just seems sick and wrong.

15) i like to shoot a lot!!! i'd never been around guns and stuff before meeting my rad husband josh, and have picked up a lot since we got together, and totally like shooting! everybody freeze!!!

16) i have an idea for a book that's been rolling around in my head for years and i think it could be really cool but i have yet to write it or even start it. i just know that someone like cameron diaz would be perfect for the lead should they ever take my unwritten book and make it into a movie.

17) i almost joined the oc rollergirls about a year ago, but the distance to practice coupled with the money involved made it not really an option for me... i am still entertaining thoughts of skating as scary poppins, because the savannah roller derby team practices about 15 minutes from where we'll live and is only $25 a month as opposed to the $65 the oc league charges.

scary poppins totally isn't my first choice in names; i really want helen killer but there's already someone skating under that name and there can be only one. it's like highlander with shorter skirts and more asskicking.

18) i went through a phase in high school where i was REALLY into the band queen. to the point where i think at last count i had like 13 cds of theirs...

19) i heart karaoke like no ones business, because i am a huge fan of making an ass of myself in public.

20) i buzzed my head twice in college - twice because i didn't learn the first time around. as a girl, when you buzz your head it looks awesome at first, but then because all of your hair is the exact same length as it grows in it's very puffball and stupid looking!

21) don hertzfeldt is my animation hero. except for his newer experimental stuff... i remember watching "the meaning of life" and going uh... what happened to this dude?

22) 2 of the worst jobs i've ever had: working at mr. wok at the oglethorpe mall handing out samples and scoopin chinese food (and cleaning their bathrooms which perpetually had pee EVERYWHERE), and cleaning houses. cleaning houses SUCKS.

23) i caused a ruckus in 8th grade when my class went to the white house - i had one of those combs that looked like a switchblade in my purse and when it went through the xray scanner, security went apeshit and searched the next bag that came out of the scanner and found nothing. because they weren't looking in my bag. aka i got to keep my comb. aka AWESOME.

24) an email i wrote got read live on good day wisconsin once - i wrote in to pete petoniak's weather whys feature saying "please explain the phenonemon of raining men and predict when it will happen again". and they did a whole feature on it about how it rained frogs somewhere once and how presumably that means it could quite possibly rain men someday. and they played the it's raining men song a lot, and had an awesome animation of raining frogs and i have that shit on vhs in storage and i wish i could put it on youtube for you. PURE COMEDY GOLD!

25) i stole a fire hydrant once and it sat in my living room for about a year before my friend brian gruhn helped me lug it outta there because all the plans i had for making it into a table or a lamp or something never happened.

sharing the robotty love!

2009-01-21T10:00:00.000-08:00

just wanted to give a shoutout to april at creativeapples.etsy.com, she gave hearts and laserbeams a totally great review on her blog today! click here to see what she had to say!

three cheers to creativeapples, thanks so much! a free set of robot buttons is on it's way to you for your support!

i did not throw up!!!

2009-01-20T16:48:00.000-08:00

that is one of the awesomest things about whale watching yesterday with josh and his friends - I DID NOT THROW UP!!

the last time i went whale watching, i think i was in 8th grade, and no lie i spent 87.5% of the trip back then hurlin in the bathroom. this time josh and i were totally prepared and took the max dose of dramamine an hour before activity, and no chunks! gods be praised!

it was a really fun trip followed by margaritas galore - we didn't actually see any whales, but we DID see a buttload of different kinds of dolphins and it was totally effing sweet. we were standing right along the railing at the front right corner of the boat, so these dolphins that were swimming with the boat were literally RIGHT below us. totally sweet.

click on the dolphins to see all the cool pics i got of em!

love is in the air!

2009-01-18T14:15:00.000-08:00

i had so much fun working on valentines for fred flare's snail mail event i kept going and made some new designs for your v-day enjoyment! thanks for looking!

rock the vote, don't rock the vote baby, rock the vote don't tip the vote over!

2009-01-16T10:20:00.000-08:00

dear dudes and dudettes,

i implore you to please pay a visit to http://misshb.org/vote_2009.html and vote for our friend emily z for miss huntington beach; she'll get a rad scholarship for college that would be super appreciated by her and her family!

sincerely,

steph

ps did you vote yet?

brace yourselves...

2009-01-13T12:53:00.000-08:00

really the best way to show you these pics is to give you the conversation i was having with jenn as i shared em with her:

dehdohdee2: BRAAAAAAACEFAAAAAAACE1

pantone220: YESSSSSSSSSSS
pantone220: LETS SEEEE

dehdohdee2: thats what all the nurses chanted at me as i left the dentist
dehdohdee2: and then they threw things at me

pantone220: HAHAHAHAH

dehdohdee2: containers of wax and toothbrushes

pantone220: good good they got my message

dehdohdee2: HAHAHAHAHAHAH
dehdohdee2: ok i'm gettin the pics off my camera give me a couple of minutes

pantone220: yeah!

dehdohdee2: here's what's awesome about braces
dehdohdee2: i'm trying like hell to stop biting my nails and it's damn near impossible with em on

pantone220: more imporatantly what CANT you eat now

dehdohdee2: and they give you tons of NO SODA propaganda so that'll help
dehdohdee2: no sticky stuff like taffy and shit like that
dehdohdee2: no beef jerky is the killer

pantone220: bahahahah

dehdohdee2: cuz i dont eat it much
dehdohdee2: but i heart it so

pantone220: im sending you a ten foot tall taffy basket

dehdohdee2: HAHAHAHAHHAHAH i'm sending you to hell!!!

pantone220: hahahahah!

dehdohdee2: ok so here we go

pantone220: OMG

dehdohdee2: the nurse who was setting me up

pantone220: yea

dehdohdee2: when she got all the contraptions in my mouth that hold it open so they can do their dirty business,
dehdohdee2: she's all aw it's too bad you don't have someone here to take pics!

pantone220: hahahaha

dehdohdee2: and so i gestured that i had a camera and she took a pic for me

pantone220: yeah!

dehdohdee2: HAHAHHAHHAHHAHA

pantone220: HAHAHAHA OMG
pantone220: LMAOOOOOOOO

dehdohdee2: and then an hour and a half later i finished gettin my grill on

pantone220: HAHAHAH OMG

dehdohdee2: it totally feels like a grill too
dehdohdee2: i'm so hip hop

pantone220: so weird!

dehdohdee2: HAHAHAHHAHAHA

pantone220: HHAHAHA

dehdohdee2: it's like alien torture devices

pantone220: omg i cant believe it
pantone220: awesome
pantone220: you are goign to be americas next top hobag in no time

dehdohdee2: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAH sweet!!!

hearts and laserbeams book report: skinny bitch

2009-01-11T08:30:00.000-08:00

when we got to the airport on the way home from our savannah trip this new years, i realized that i had zero reading material for the 6+ hours of travel ahead of us. i ducked into the airport book shop to see what they had in store for me, and came out with skinny bitch.

i am a new year's statistic; before picking up this book i'd planned to make this the year i actually start taking better care of myself with workin out and eating better and not drinking soda anymore, etc etc etc. couple that with the fact that it was slim pickin's at this partcular airport bookstore and that this book was the only one that looked like it would be remotely interesting to me, and there you go.

and without further ado...

hearts and laserbeams book report: skinny bitch by rory freedman and kim barnouin

this book, i have to admit, started out strong. it's billed as a no-nonsense approach to getting healthier and eating better and blah blah blah, and the first few chapters really do deliver some good information on reasons you should and shouldn't eat certain things. thanks to the first few chapters i will probably stop drinking soda alltogether.

as you get further into skinny bitch, it turns into full-on vegan propoganda, featuring all the reasons we were never meant to eat meat, a chapter on slaughterhouses, how you're a fuckin stupid a-hole if you ever eat this stuff...

and it just snowballs from there. once it starts on the VEGAN OR DIE message it does not fucking shut up, just keeps going on and on about all the conspiracies surrounding the fda and how the completely animal-products free lifestyle is the only way to be unless you wanna be a murderer, you dont want that do you?

here's some of the problems i have with the book - number one, the entire thing is written to make you feel completely shitty about yourself and it WORKS. for about 4 days after reading it i really actually felt like an a-hole every time i ate something this book said was terrible. number 2, there are messages in the book that are flawed - they basically believe that there are only two kinds of eaters out there as far as animals are concernec, meat or veggie eaters - and that since we have flat teeth and no claws we are not supposed to be eating meat and we're fucking with nature every time we do. BUT; why do we have incisors and such in the front of our mouths - y'all are forgetting about omnivores, and that doesn't fit into the meat is murder message so i understand why ya left it out. they make it sound like if you don't buy your fruits and veggies organic-style you are fucked because it's gonna kill you.

AND their main way of helping you to become a vegan is to gross yourself out every time you eat something, like thing of all the shitty ingredients the thing contains, think of something that will make you vomit, and then don't eat that thing. that is an AWFUL way to eat.

basically the book sucked ass and i would not recommend it to anyone. it is the only book i've ever read in my 31 years that ended up in the trash:

also, one of the things josh and i talked about after i read this was that you gotta keep in mind that it was written by a former model and a former model agent - models aren't supposed to eat anything at all, so it's basically a how-to guide for someone who only wants to eat the bare minimum to survive and not actually ever really enjoy food. eff that shit.

so i will not be following much, if any, of what this book suggests. i will from now on only buy cage-free eggs and milk that says it's got no horomones in it, and eat more fruit and veggies. but i will also continue enjoying cheese and ice cream and coffee and salmon and hamburgers and steak and french fries and non-organic veggies and fruits because dammit who can afford to buy EVERYTHING organic??! not in this economy thank you very much! i am much happier enjoying my food than worrying about every single solitary thing i eat and giving up shit i love.

and that's that. we at hearts and laserbeams do not recommend or endorse this book and if you read it please promise us to have a big ol ice cream sundae afterwards!

ratings
1 hearts: it did make me eat more fruits and veggies i aint gonna lie to you

4 farts: if i start to tell you all the things i hated about this book i will get all pissed off again so just don't read it.

new sponsorship!

2009-01-09T09:16:00.000-08:00

check out our new sponsor!

(site not actually sponsored by calvin klein, but i think you already knew that!)

hearts and laserbeams book report: i know why the caged bird sings

2009-01-08T12:54:00.000-08:00

i don't know if i've told you before; i heart maya angelou a ton. i'm not sure exactly what it is about her, but number one i could listen to her talk all day, and number two i wish she was my grandma.

she was the keynote speaker at scad the year before i graduated, and because my buddy trav was a year ahead i was there to hear her talk in person and i would be lying if i told you i was not all choked up and kind of crying like an ass a little by the time she was done.

on a sidenote, the next year when i graduated our speaker was nora ephron. i was kinda really peeved about that at the time, because how do you go from someone as freaking AMAZING as maya angelou one year, to the writer of you've got mail the next? but looking at that imdb page i'm being a little harsh... she also wrote my blue heaven and that movie is effing amazing so all is forgiven. also, i got to shake hands with bernie casey at my graduation and that may be the most badass thing ever in the world. he's best known for being the leader of the black fraternity the nerds join in revenge of the nerds, and he is a total badass.

but i digress! without further ado, the latest hearts and laserbeams book report!

hearts and laserbeams book report: i know why the caged bird sings by maya angelou

i can sum up this book about maya angelou's life from childhood through about age 18 in one sentence: girl has seen some shit.

if i liked her before, i love her now. three reasons: anyone who opens a book about their life by telling about how they almost peed in church, anyone who lived in a junkyard for a month, anyone who taught themselves to drive stick shift the very first time they've ever driven so they can get their drunk parent back from mexico to california because the parent is passed out drunk in the back seat - anyone who has shit like this to talk about is all right by me.

as i was reading this one, josh would periodically ask me "do you know why the caged bird sings yet!??" and i'd be all no she didn't say! i don't know if there's a sequel or something where they disclose this shit for real, but at no point in this book did she actually say "hey that caged bird sings because _____ fill in the blank. what a ripoff!!! it was one of those titles that is supposed to make you think!

my best explanation of it is the caged bird sings because that's all it has - birds weren't meant to be cooped up, and if they didn't sing their lives would be completely drab and pointless. all of the shit this woman's been through and the crappy situations she was stuck in, if she didn't dream of someday having a better life and work towards that end then hope would die and what the hell would be the point.

honestly this may be one of the best books i've ever read - it reminded me in a way of push by sapphire, which i also loved. but what's so significant to me here is that you can go through the completely crappy things maya angelou's been through, and still turn out to be someone like maya angelou. and that right there should be hope for anyone in those situations as long as they're willing to work to rise above it.

ratings
5 hearts: this book was totally freaking amazing and if you've never read it you totally effing should, the end!
0 farts: if i said anything bad about maya angelou i fear i may be struck by lightning, sorry folks.

this may have been a deeper book report than you're used to, but this book was effing awesome. stay tuned, cuz tomorrow i'll review a book i read that i flat-out hated and that one'll be much more full of swears and crap!

also, if you've never been to the bolsa chica wetlands before, you totally should go! i went with my sis and her kids this morning and it was rad - you can see pics here!

happy new years!!!

2009-01-07T17:57:00.000-08:00

omg i am awful, it's already a week into the new year, i've been home from vacation for like 3.5 days now, and i STILL have not updated anything on the blog!!

i'll keep it short and sweet, but the holidays were a blasty! was bequeathed with a spanky new buttonmaker that will greatly expand the amount of stuff i can make for your artsy fartsy enjoyment, keep an eye out for all kinds of new designs soon!

a big ol group of us went to savannah to stay at the farm for a week and it was amazing. lots of good times all around - if ya wanna take a gander at our shenanigans, go here! if ya wanna see what celeb paid a visit to the ol' farmstead, go here! if ya wanna see actual for real pics of our farm, go here! enjoy!

i did a crazy amount of reading on the trip out and back, so in the next couple of days i'll have new book reports for you!

pow!!! it's great to be back!

Travellin cups ho!!!

2008-12-31T15:36:00.000-08:00

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2008-12-25T19:56:00.000-08:00

Photographic proof that our dog isn't a jerk to ALL guests...

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2008-12-25T07:29:00.000-08:00

Just got done putting jimmys face on the corner of a blanket for an xmas present for his buddy at the old folks home

my thoughts on toasted everything bagels with extra butter...

2008-12-18T11:15:00.000-08:00

i was talking with jenn this morning about bagels and how much i heart them, and she told me there used to be a bagel place on broughton street in savannah that she'd go to with fanny all the time. and that it closed down, and there's a jewelry store there now. i was wondering... if you tied the above note to a brick and threw it through their window in the middle of the night would they maybe start offering toasted bagels along with their baguette diamonds?

The downfall of the human race

2008-12-17T18:39:00.000-08:00

Dude drawing the stuff yourself is all of the fun in this game, two thumbs down!

SPACE CATS!!!

2008-12-17T16:51:00.000-08:00

ok so last night gayle and i went and checked out cats at the orange county performing arts center! it was super awesome and we had a blasty gettin all dressed up and acting like classy ladies! (notice i said acting. jury's still out on whether or not i'm actually for realz classy.)

one of the coolest things about it was that i've had this "highlights from cats" cd for years and years, but i've never actually seen the musical or really knew anything about what it was about.

so i knew most of the songs by heart, but since i'd never actually seen it, there were surprises! some good, like the fact that the rum tum tugger is a total manslut cat, which was really funny. the one bad surprise is when that theater cat is singing about being a theater cat and then all of a sudden decides to perform one of his plays... and it's weird, and you can't understand anything he's talking about, and it kinda goes on too long... there's cool siamese cats prancin around but i really coulda done without that part...

it totally cracked me up that grisella the old raggedy tore up from the floor up cat keeps coming back to sing basically different versions of the same song - i kept picturing in my head that she was popping her head back onstage going "uh, hey guys, i'm super old, can i get reborn please? lookit how crappy my fur looks!" and it's like JEEZ give it a rest old duteronomy's tryin to decide stop pressuring him!!

aaaaaand what else. ok 2 awesome things - i recently bought this shirt from delias:

and am now obsessed with space cats. and at the end of cats, when old duteronomy gets tired of listening to grisella bitch and moan about being old and picks her, and they're on the platform floating up so he can send her to the heavyside lair to be reborn, and there's flashing lights and crap everywhere and it was all i could do to not yell out SPACE CATS!!! in the theater!!! and then of course i had a massive giggle fit, only stopped by the fist i shoved into my mouth.

the other supremely awesome thing about last night's show was they were having some technical difficulties with the wireless microphones, equalling a bit of buzzy feedback here and there. not an excessive amount, not enough or constant enough to really be an issue, but at the end of the musical, there's this huge group number where all the cats are singing, and there's a big ol' BZZZZZZZZZZT!!! that happens mid song that just sounds like a humongous fart. it was quite possibly the best thing ever.

which i guess answers the question about whether or not i'm a classy broad...

jingle bellzzz, batman smellzzzz

2008-12-14T19:05:00.001-08:00

ok tonight josh, his bro chris and i went caroling with a group of folks from our building at the old folks homes one street over. i think the last time i went caroling was about 20 years ago back in grade school, and what's awesome is i'm a full grown adult and i STILL want to sing all the alternate jackassy lyrics to these songs!!! and i started really really wanting to make up alternate lyrics to santa claus is coming to town, because really how stalker is it to watch someone when they're sleeping, watch em when they're awake, watch em when they're taking a dump so make it a good one for goodness sake!

for the most part we were all good. but i could NOT resist, and the few times we sang silent night i did the obnoxious little kid thing where at the high notes (sleep in heavenly peaceeeeeeee) i went as high as i could, but i kept it kinda quiet so it wasn't too overpowering...

there was one kinda scary guy at the first old folks home that yelled at us a lot and seemed to single josh out almost making us think he wanted to fight, and then as we were leaving the room he got in his face and asked for a polaroid camera - maybe he was the long lost best friend of savannah's polaroid dude? i dunno!

after caroling was the afterparty at one of our neighbor's, and it was fun! we actually met and hung out with more neighbors! it was totally fun! i learned all their names! will i remember where they live and what their names are tomorrow? probably not, but stay tuned!

also, just fyi be advised, there's only a couple of days left to save 20% with free shipping at www.heartsandlaserbeams.com by using coupon code SPIKEDNOG08! offer good through 12/15!

Woof!

2008-12-11T10:27:00.000-08:00

I'm painting dogs today!

hearts and laserbeams holiday sale happy fun time!

2008-12-10T13:26:00.000-08:00

whoop whoop whoop it's sale time, let's celebrate with coupon code SPIKEDNOG08 ! it's no mistake that our 20% off sale ends december 15, that's when all holiday orders need to be placed to ensure delivery by christmas!

happy shoppin! don't forget to check out the four new prints and lots of restocked plate designs!

why i heart the wii

2008-12-07T09:25:00.000-08:00

ok if you have your wii hooked up to wireless internet it is awesome; they have a channel where you can download miis that other people have made. and all your miis, they show up in the various games in the wii fit, and just now i watched josh catching hula hoops thrown by hitler. and just now, he went on a "long distance run" and was waving to michael jackson as he ran through the park.

we've also downloaded chuck norris, britney spears from when she went crazy and shaved her head, and zoidberg from futurama.

and that's enough to keep me working out, the end! i give me and josh the golden robot award for being awesome!!!

hearts and laserbeams fabric is here!

2008-12-05T19:16:00.000-08:00

so exciting, so exciting! i can't wait make all kinds of new fabrics! and then make stuff with that fabric! and then poop my pants!

Tweet tweet!

2008-12-04T21:34:00.000-08:00

Bird 2 is done!

Caw caw!

2008-12-04T19:35:00.000-08:00

Check it out, one of the birds is done!

Psssst! Over here!

2008-12-04T14:40:00.000-08:00

Its a sneak preview of the paintings I'm working on today!

Awwww

2008-12-04T14:08:00.000-08:00

The first scuff on a new pair of chucks is always a little sad

heads up, long beach dog owners!

2008-12-04T11:42:00.000-08:00

i feel like such a numbskull! josh and i are super on top of all things jimmy - we never miss getting him his shots, we always get him the special shampoo for his supersensitive skin, we make sure he's well-taken care of when we're outta town...

how did we forget to get him a dog license!?!

we planned to do it right when we brought jimmy home a few years ago, and for whatever reason that is the one thing that completely slipped our minds!

was reminded this morning on my way into rite aid, when i saw the cover of the long beach press telegram. according to the headline, the city of long beach is cracking down on unlicensed dogs, and have started going door to door to check up on people!

jimmy's license application is all printed out and on its way down to the mailbox, you should get your license app in too! you can find out all the info you need at the long beach animal care services website!

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2008-12-03T18:24:00.000-08:00

Omg I wanna do something like this with that Scad key I stole years ago!

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2008-12-03T18:22:00.000-08:00

I'm gettin all my friends presents from the sword store this year, fyi!

today's the last day of the 20% off sale!

2008-12-01T08:26:00.000-08:00

happy cyber monday, folks! a/s/l? lol!

it's my duty to remind you today is the last day of the 20% off sale at www.heartsandlaserbeams.com! just use coupon code turkey08 at checkout and we'll do the rest - and don't forget, free shipping on all orders through december 31!

thanks for lookin!

plopcorn for everyone!

2008-11-29T19:55:00.000-08:00

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!!!