Thursday, December 31, 2009

Happy Holidays!

I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas/assorted holidays and have something fun planned for tonight! We will be having a few friends over for games, 'international' themed party foods, and perhaps a movie.

I actually caught a bad cold the day after Christmas & have been laying around the house the last few days like a slug. But it has just about cleared up now, and I'm ready to share a few things I made for Christmas gifts!

First, for my mother and her parents, I made 2 fabric baskets ~ the kind where you wrap fabric strips around a cord (cotton clothesline) and zig-zag stitch the whole thing together. I'd seen a few of these before and wanted to try one. They seem pretty simple, and I already have a ton of small fabric strips left over from my sewing days (when I was also trying to crochet with them). One day mom showed up with a book she had just bought on those exact baskets/bowls, and let me borrow it after seeing how interested I was.

Fabric Basket - Blue, Purple & Green

I was in such a hurry to get everything done before we headed out of town Christmas Eve Eve that I only had a chance to snap some quick pictures & hope for the best. I'll have to get some better photos of the smaller brown basket while I still have it this next week, and I'm sure the blue one will be dropping by again with mom during a future visit (the colors are so much prettier in person!). But for now ~

Fabric Baskets

The baskets really are simple to make, and you can find a good tutorial online here. Mom's book was useful for a few tips, but the majority of it was photos & diagrams for different variations, and I ended up liking my two baskets way better than any of the creations in there. Maybe I'm just biased.

I made the blue, purple & green basket large enough for mom to fill with yarn or fabric scraps; it's probably close to 1/2 yard wide. I wanted to make the brown basket even smaller, but to curve back in they have to be at least wide enough to fit over the top of your machine, and this one was snug. Later on I'd like to make another one for myself in red, orange, yellow & purple, but for now we need to re-coop from Christmas a bit!

One more gift to share, but that is for another post...

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Wrapping things up

Sometimes I feel like pretty wrapping...
Damask & Snowflakes

But sometimes nothing beats good ol' tacky Christmas cat paper....
Tacky Cat Wrapping

I am having so much fun with the word bubble gift tags I threw together!

Speaking of cute cats, we picked up these Hello Kitty walkie talkies for my nieces. I'm not usually a fan of super-girly-pink stuff, and have never been too interested in Sanrio, but I was tempted to keep these! I think the small size is what won me over.

Sanrio walkie talkies

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Ambigram Drop

"Simon" & "Jennifer" Ambigram

"Simon" & "Jennifer" Ambigram


"Hatred" & "Weight" Ambigram

"Hatred" & "Weight" Ambigram Sketch


"Birdie" Ambigram

"Birdie" Ambigram


"Robert Nowak" Ambigram

"Robert Nowak" Ambigram


"Gaudet" & "Overturf" Ambigram

"Gaudet" & "Overturf" Ambigram


"Gaudet" Ambigram

"Gaudet" Ambigram


"José" & "Nory" Ambigram

"José" & "Nory" Ambigram


"Alex Molly" & "Christian" Ambigram

"Alex Molly" & "Christian" Ambigram

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Bendzunas Glass

Last weekend we visited Justin's parents, who we hadn't had a chance to see for Thanksgiving and birthdays. On Sunday we all took a day trip to Athens, where the majority of his siblings live, to check out an open house and demonstration at Benzunas Glass. This was also a chance to meet the boyfriend of Justin's oldest sister, who works at the studio with his family.

As tired as we were from yet-another car ride, it was quite a treat to watch them shape a cup and a flowered paperweight. We picked out this abstract tree design for my mom (prettier in person) ~

Glass Paper Weight

And his sister surprised us with a set of beautiful oil lamps for our birthdays ~

Glass Oil Lamps

We also had a chance to visit two of the siblings' new dwellings before the long, long ride back home. Not a bad little trip!

Right now I am feeling pretty contented because we finally have the majority of our Christmas shopping done. Ahhhh... Two weeks ago that seemed like an insurmountable kind of goal, but I've had a whirlwind of orders coming in lately that took care of everything. Now there are just a few last-minute things to grab or make, and of course a ton of ambigrams to create, but I can't wait to be able to give everyone their gifts!

Monday, December 7, 2009

Ambigram Drop


"Darron" & "Matthew" Ambigram

"Darron" & "Matthew" Ambigram


"Tom Koukoulis" &
"α. κουκούλης" Ambigram

(his name in English and in Greek)

"Tom Koukoulis" & "α. κουκούλης" Ambigram


"The Past is Practice" Ambigram

"The Past is Practice" Ambigram


"Knight Network Security" Ambigram

"Knight Network Security" Ambigram


"Dawn" & "Brian" Ambigram

"Dawn" & "Brian" Ambigram


"Familia Ante Ceteros" Ambigram
("Family before all others". Not sure which language)

"Familia Ante Ceteros" Ambigram


"Family" & "Friends" Ambigram

"Family" & "Friends" Ambigram


"Forever" & "Always" Ambigram

"Forever" & "Always" Ambigram

Friday, December 4, 2009

Skeleton Key fabric doll

Look at this cute doll that Wendy Kay made with my Skeleton Key fabric!

Skeleton Key fabric doll

Skeleton Key fabric doll

I'm so excited, this is my first customer picture from the fabrics. Here's hoping there will be many more! Now I just need to get printing....

Monday, November 30, 2009

Holi-daze

Tree Ornament

Forgive me for pulling out a picture from last year, but I promise to snap some new shots soon.

I hope everyone enjoyed a lovely holiday week! We visited both sets of my grandparents and I think I've finally recovered from the birthday & Thanksgiving gorging (both of us had a birthday last week & got to pick a restaurant). This weekend Justin and I were clutching our bellies and crying for salad.

I am *so* ready for Christmas this year, and have already spent a week with Christmas movies. The (tiny) tree is up & decorated, and we are constantly having to keep guard with a water squirt bottle because Indy is obsessed with chewing on the fake tree's needles/leaves. We have this problem every year, but he get's over it after a week or so (or maybe he just learns to chew when we are sleeping?)

I think it has been two weeks since I've gotten any printing done. Partially because I ran out of fabric, and the busy holiday week didn't help, but today I was able to print off some more owls in red on white. I love that printing with the same colors means I don't have to re-photo & edit everything for the Etsy listing, but it does make me sad to not have any new pics to share on here. I do have some new color combos and some new crafts coming up soon though!

So much going on lately, I'm sure I've forgotten something!

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Ambigram Challenge

Ambigram magazine, where I was recently interviewed, started hosting an ambigram competition a couple of months ago. The "challenge" used to be hosted once a month by Nagfa, a husband & wife ambigram-blogging-team, but with a new baby it got to be too much for them to handle. You can now see them as one of the judges.

The challenge is usually open ended; like 'the holidays', or 'ressurection'; which does not really appeal to me. One word might just work better than another, you know? The last challenge was actually sponsored by a reader who wanted a design of his and his wife's name, and he was offering a prize of $100 for the winning entry (which he would choose). Prize money and two set names was enough to finally motivate me to enter.

My entry ~
"Sadiq" & "Shana" Ambigram
"Sadiq" & "Shana" Ambigram

And here are the results.

I did not end up winning, but made it into the top 5 (voted on by the normal judges), which was really my main goal. Of course, I don't mind money either! The judges mentioned picking a different entry as their #1, and one of them said "Tiffany, the judges scored this one higher than the sponsor, and your design was easily at the top of the competition." We could not decide if that meant that mine was their choice for #1, or if they just scored it higher than the sponsor did? I like to think it was the first option!

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

A visit from Indy

These first photos are from a few months ago, but I don't think I ever posted them. Now, I know that cat + sink is nothing new, but we have a tiny sink and a gigantic cat. Neither of us could figure out exactly how his girth fit in there.

Indy - sink

Indy - sink yawn

And here is one from a few days ago; peeking around the curtain at the birds. Such focus!

Indy - hunting

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Ambigram Tattoos

I haven't been getting a lot of ink pictures lately, but I finally saved up a few to post.

"Kelly" & "Kiefer", "Scott" & "Kiefer" Ambigram Tattoos
From this ambigram and this ambigram.
This set was created to match their last set, seen here.

"Kelly" & "Kiefer", "Scott" & "Kiefer" Ambigram Tattoos - 1

"Kelly" & "Kiefer", "Scott" & "Kiefer" Ambigram Tattoos - 1


"Respect" & "Loyalty" Ambigram Tattoo
From this ambigram.

"Respect" & "Loyalty" Ambigram Tattoo


"Joseph" & "Thomas" Ambigram Tattoo
From this ambigram.

"Joseph" & "Thomas" Ambigram Tattoo


"As You Wish" Ambigram Tattoo

"As You Wish" Ambigram Tattoo

Whoops! Looks like I haven't posted the ambigram for this one yet ~
"As You Wish" Ambigram Tattoo

"As You Wish" Ambigram

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Ambigram Drop


"Mikayla" & "Asher" Ambigram

"Mikayla" & "Asher" Ambigram


"Hasan & Nouf" Ambigram

"Hasan & Nouf" Ambigram


"Hold Fast" Ambigram

"Hold Fast" Ambigram


"Zoe" Ambigram

"Zoe" Ambigram


"Andrew" & "William" Ambigram

"Andrew" & "William" Ambigram


"Friends" & "Family" Ambigram

"Friends" & "Family" Ambigram


"Jaime" & "Justin" Ambigram

"Jaime" & "Justin" Ambigram


"Karen" & "Kevin" Ambigram

"Karen" & "Kevin" Ambigram

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Licorice Owls

I've done a bit of printing with the black ink recently, which I am dubbing "licorice". I'm trying to go with a food theme for all of the color names, which sound so nice when they are put together (like "dark chocolate" on "biscotti"). I've been pretty successful at naming them, though I wasn't able to come up with anything for the turquoise ink and dyed-gray fabric I used before.

Owl Parliament in licorice black - close

I worked with some gray fabric for this last batch, but this time I decided to call it "smoke". Licorice & smoke sounds pretty nice, but now I'm wondering how that will sound with some of the future food names. Cherry & smoke? Chocolate & smoke? Perhaps I should have stuck with "slate gray"....

Owl Parliament in licorice & smoke - close

Owl Parliament in licorice black - folds

Owl Parliament in licorice & smoke - folds

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Box from J-box

This is the kind of package I like to see!

Package from J-box

I was already placing an order with J-box.com, so I figured I might as well throw in a few bags of chips & such! Chips are one of my favorite foods, but I get so tired of all the same-ol' flavors. Why do they never come out with new ones? I am seriously tempted to move to Japan for the chips and ramen shops alone. (Of course, there are many other reasons)

I quickly snapped these shots when I opened the box, so forgive the quality. I was eager to rip open a few of those packages! First we have some labels you might recognize...

Japanese Doritos & Cheetos

Most of the text you see on the Doritos bag is spelling out the words in katakana, the alphabet they use for foreign words. At the top you see ドリトス - "Doritosu" (the "u"s can be dropped) and テリヤキ 味 - "Teriyaki" and the kanji for "flavor". (If things are looking weird, you might not have Asian text capability on your computer)

On the Cheetos bag we have チェスター チーター の チートス ミックス - "Chesuta- Chi-ta- の Chi-tosu Mikkusu", or "Chester Cheetah's Cheetos Mix". At the bottom is ワイルド ペッパー ベーコン 味 - "Wailudo Peppa- Be-kon 味" - Wild Pepper Bacon flavor.

But not all of the labels are katakana versions of English...

Garlic chips and Beef Bento Chips

The first bag reads にんにく, "Garlic" in hiragana (the main alphabet), and マニア - "Mania", which I assume you can figure out on your own! Mmmmm.... Garlic Mania!

Then the second bag reads 牛肉 - Beef, どまん中 - right in the center, 味 - flavor. コーンスナック - "Ko-n Sunakku" - Corn Snack. This one was labeled online as "Beef Bento Box" flavor, and bento (弁当) is mentioned in the line underneath the cows. These are also the only chips I've eaten so far, and man.... they were so good!

Rose Kit Kats & Squid rings

Kit Kats - チョコ & ローズ - "Choko & Ro-zu", chocolate & rose flavored (using an abbreviation of チョコレート - "chokore-to", for chocolate) There are soooo many flavors of Kit Kats in Japan.

And we have いかめし - Squid flavored (corn rings).

Grape mochi

Now this stack of purple candies are Grape Mochi (a chewy marshmallow-like snack made with sticky rice), and are the real reason I made the order in the first place. These, the Kit Kats above, and a bag of candies I bought earlier from the Asian market, will be my stocking stuffers this year (to give to Justin's family). I don't think anyone reads the blog, so I should be safe to post these. If not, oh well! The candies feel very hard inside the packaging, unlike the soft mochi I'm used to, but I'll have to wait with everyone else to sample them. See the little toothpick inside?

Egg molds, Hi Chew, & Furikake

I also grabbed some egg molds (star & heart shaped), Cotton Candy flavored Hi Chew (ハイチュウ - like a chewier Starburst), and some furikake in assorted flavors (seasoning to sprinkle on rice). I think the egg molds were the thing labeled as "toy" on the front of the package. I think kids would disagree, but I'm fine with it!

Feel free to let me know if you enjoy seeing these Japanese products as much as I do, or if you could do without. I realize I'm a bit obsessed and am not a good judge of how interesting they are! (, I apologize! I know you probably get your fill of this stuff already) ;)