Drawing

I used to draw semi-constantly.  I always had several projects on the go, and even finished drawings with some frequency.  When I went into engineering, I stopped drawing.  I didn't mean to, but sometime last year I realised that I hadn't drawn anything at all in over a year.  Over the past several months, I have slowly started drawing again.

First, I started going to life drawing classes, then doodling in a sketchbook.  I listed a few of my newer sketches as cards in the Menace Creations shop, but the originals stayed safely bound in my sketchbook:

 I'm proud to say that today I listed my first full-sized original drawing on Menace Creations - an 11" x 14"  pen and ink dragonfly.

One thing I've noticed, and which I commented on in my interview on the TESTy blog, is that my drawings have gotten a lot looser.  I'm not sure if it's the engineering influence, or just me getting older and more mature (haha, right) but I'm getting a lot better at capturing the essentials of a drawing without overworking all of the details.  I think it gives my drawings more life, although perhaps I am just being overly optimistic.

I've even been keeping a semi-regular sketchbook.  I'm still nowhere near as prolific as Misha, but I have a few sketchbooks gradually getting filled up with rough, unfinished sketches.  I was never able to sketch in the past.  Very exciting stuff.

Hey look, I got featured on the Toronto Etsy Street Team Blog !

I was interviewed by Toronto Etsy knitter Pusha, and the lovely little elves at the TESTy blog made it into a great feature with LOTS OF PICTURES.

See the whole post here

Ramen Noodles

I'm eating a package of delicious, greasy salty spicy flavour Nong-shim ramyun with corn and fried egg.

Haven't had ramen since last year in Brazil, which nearly turned me off ramen forever.  They make cheese flavoured ramen and ketchup flavoured ramen.  Both are just as gross as they sound, but I have this bad habit of seeing strange, gross looking things at the grocery store and restaurants and buying them because they look gross.  Surprisingly frequently, they end up being delicious, but just as frequently, they end up being just as gross or grosser than they look.  I should have figured that cheap brazilian ketchup-flavoured ramen would taste like instant noodles with salty fake ketchup powder on it.

Anyway, I'd forgotten how delicious these little MSG-bombs could be.

I love you, Mommy and Daddy

My parents are determined to be proud of me, no matter what.  When I scribbled little smudges as a toddler, they were proud of the stories I invented to explain them.  When I started a "greeting card company" called Monkey Business out of my top desk drawer at age 6, they were proud of how clever my logo was.  When I won an honourable mention at a Korean speach competition (purely on the basis of being the only non-Korean participant) when I was 11, they were over the moon.  I got a special dinner when I didn't come in last at one of my swim meet events in high school.  Last year, when I was chosen for an internship at the Brazilian Green Building Council, they were ever so proud and barely even mentioned the fact that the internship paid less than my rent cost.  Every one of my achievements, large or small, was celebrated, proudly shared with all of their friends and polite acquaintances.  All of this is normal for loving parents.

But my parents are extra-determined to be proud of me, no matter what.  This year, my achievements have included dropping out of a civil engineering program, with just over a semester left before getting my degree,  leeching off them and my boyfriend for all my expenses (thanks for paying for my dentists appointment, btw),  quitting my job to work on mom's electoral campaign (a source of great pride :P) and then proceeding to try, with limited success, to sell necklaces and cards on the internet while unemployed for the next month.

So what have my parents found to be proud of?  Well, last week my mom told me she and dad had been discussing how impressed they were with my item descriptions  on my aforementioned unsuccessful craft shop, Menace Creations.

I love you, mommy and daddy, for being so supportive even when my achievements are far from stellar, and for encouraging me to be my best at everything.

Jordan's haircut

Jordan got a haircut.  Actually, we both got haircuts, but nobody is terribly surprised when I buzz my head anymore, so we didn't take pictures when I got my haircut a few days ago.

Goofybutt before:

 

Goofybutt after:

Isn't my wife pretty?

Seriously, hipster girls pay a lot of money for the haircut I gave Jordan with a pair of poorly controlled kitchen scissors.  Hell, I think *I* paid for a haircut like this one once.

Oh, and I'm totally kidding about that being the after.  Jordan would murderate me if I cut off his ponytail and then left him looking like a blonde Katie Holmes with shoulders.  

Here's the real after:

 Yes, we do match.  A lot.  In our defense, the grey tshirts and matching pajama pants were intentional just for the picture.  That time.

 

Baby Shower: Nailed it

A baby shower guest demonstrates the appropriate way to hold babies

Some of you may know I recently opened an online craft shop, Menace Creations, and have been using up a lot of my copious spare time crafting things to sell.  However, for the past week I've been busily crafting for an entirely different reason - Brendan and Hope's baby shower.

That's right, my two crazy friends are currently working on a proto-human, and I'm going to be the favourite auntie.  I have decided this, in spite of Brendan's two sisters, who I might have to beat up for the title (sorry, Dana and Jenna).  So for the past week, I've been working on putting together a baby basket worthy of the best baby ever with the coolest favourite auntie ever.  It was my first baby shower and I went way overboard.

I made freezer paper stenciled nerdy baby tshirts and AC/DC pants:

Jordan contributed a tshirt printed with "Hello, World".  Also missing from this picture is the "Level 1 Human"  tshirt.

 

 

 

 

I bought toddler-sized LARP gear:

Ceci n'est pas un toddler

I put together a complete baby bath kit to encourage baby to love the water (bath caddy, rubber ducky, shampoo and body wash, washcloths, loofah, hooded towel and faucet cover).  I gave baby a copy of "The Grey Lady and the Strawberry Snatcher" (also known as the BEST BOOK OF ALL TIME). 

And then I spent several hours sewing, stuffing and embroidering a plushie for baby:

Monster <3s baby

 I am pleased to say that even if baby doesn't love my monster, the rest of the party did:

Mommy holding baby's monster

Auntie Jenna holding baby's monster

Daddy's Snugli appropriately says "Handmade" on the front

 

 

Monster loves being played with

This might be my favourite picture - daddy trying to feel baby kick

Sleepy time