Holiday Greetings

So, I've posted a mini-version on Flickr, linked that photo on Facebook, attempted a comment on MySpace (but I don't think the picture is showing up...) and here I am putting the full size beauty on my blog. In short, I wanted to let everyone know I'm thinking of them and hope they have some happy holidays.

Blogging Machine - Etsy

I'm a blogging machine lately, and I plan to do more. Today I put together a new banner and avatar for my Etsy shop vegcraft.etsy.com, so please go see what it looks like on the site and let me know what you think. I've used a similar color palette as my blog, which you are now reading, and my homepage, which has past projects. I might change out the items in the banner later as I photograph more projects. Yes, I still don't have anything for sale in my shop, but they will come. I want it to look great first!

I'm also working on some Christmas gifts that I will make more of to sell on etsy, which I plan to take photographs of as I put them together to show the process. And I have ideas coming out of my ears of other items I will put in my shop. Right now I need to get back to finishing Christmas gifts and wrapping, eat something, and continue packing for my move. Unfortunately half the things I already had packed I pulled out for some craft time...

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Now playing: Björk - Who Is It (Carry My Joy On The Left, Carry My Pain On The Right)
via FoxyTunes

Latino Film Festival!

I was just Googling my name because I was looking for this random ancestry website that had listed ancestors going back to Norway - I wanted to enter it into a family tree I was throwing together for fun at MyHeritage.com - and I found articles about the Latino Film Festival with pictures of me! They're in Spanish, but still awesome. They both use the same image, of me with the actress Ximena Ayala and director Sebastian Silva, but go here and here.

I was waiting to get the high resolution pictures sent to me, but now I just had to post. I will add more details later, but for now there is one picture on the Festival's Flickr account, here, with the Prescriptives makeup artist and Gaby from Macy's after I had my makeup done at the after party at the W hotel. And above, a low-res image of myself and Diego Luna on the red carpet :)

Awesome!

I love my friends sooooo much. With all the things that have been going on in my life, they have been super awesome. I keep hearing from them that they're selfishly excited that I'm coming home and we can hang out, which makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, but also turns out to be the least selfish thing, because I need to hang out with them.

Edit! Menomena with Craig Thompson

menomena with craig thompson drawing live!
Originally uploaded by elchicodelaleche

I realized that legally I wasn't supposed to have an image of the Menomena/Craig Thompson e-card linked on my blog, because at least as far as I know it's a copyrighted image. So, I went to Flickr and searched for Creative Commons licensed images and found these great ones of the live shows they had in Europe with Thompson painting live at the back of the stage.

Also, you know what I dislike? When you learn about a band right after they've toured through your city. I find that happens all too often.

P.S. The text with info about the photographer isn't showing up for some reason... click on the top image to go to his Flickr account. He has a lot of great band photos.



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Now playing: Coheed & Cambria - The Hound (Of Blood And Rank)
via FoxyTunes

Travel

Art-Noveau - "La Vague" - Saintenoy
Originally uploaded by GeS

If I get a chance to travel any time soon, I think my first choice of places to go would be Brussels, Belgium. Number one, obviously, is for the architecture - especially the amazing art nouveau work. Most people my age have probably seen the movie Casper - I guess it came out when I was 12 - and my favorite part of that movie was always the house. That's even more based on Gaudi's work in Barcelona, so I guess I'll have to go there as well :)
I'm not really well versed in nouveau architecture - I know the names Horta and Saintenoy - so if I do get the chance to visit Brussels I'll make this my favorite new website.

There are also other things pulling me to Brussels - many museums, beer and french fries followed by chocolate, and the rather nerdy Brussels Comic Strips Center. We have a Cartoon Art Museum here in San Francisco that I've visited - they were having a large R. Crumb exhibit which was cool. So, now that I've officially applied for my US Passport (finally) I can start looking forward to this. Someday.

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Now playing: Lo Down - Mad Fright Night
via FoxyTunes

Life and Love and Why

I never planned on blogging on a regular basis, but it seems it's been a while since the last time I posted. Every once in a while I sit down and think I'll write something but I never know what to go with - there's just so much going on and I don't know what to say, or if I even want to say anything at all.
Life has been incredibly hard and confusing, and as my dad has said, 2007 just isn't our year. Our family has been ill, within a few months both an uncle and aunt have passed away, half our family is looking for work, and I'm not quite sure where I'm headed this next year.
Even though things are hard I have been so happy to spend the last two weeks with my family. SOOOOO happy. Just spending time with them is amazing. Camping for Thanksgiving (even though we got evacuated - we were camping in the hills in Malibu), playing Mille Bornes with my mom and sisters, messing around on the beach with my nephew, coming home to music blasting out of the house and my dad sitting there chilling with Phil Lesh or Aaron Neville or what have you. Even though we all came together for my aunt's memorial service, hanging out with all my aunts and uncles and cousins makes things so much better, too. They make me so happy, and I can't imagine where I would be without my family. And I don't want to.


Random note: I had temporarily titled this post "Life" and looking at it I remembered an old Switchfoot song - Life And Love And Why. I loved that CD when I was 14.


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Now playing: The Clash - Death or Glory
via FoxyTunes

Music

I don't actively seek out new music, mostly because once I like something I have to have it all and am broke from buying CDs, but it's always great when I come across something that I enjoy. I recently was introduced to the music of Menomena through some sort of searching around the web looking at art and getting info from one music label and then finding another and getting their emails and so on and so forth. I just received an email with a link to this video of Menomena playing on the street in France and it is the best music video ever.

Please, please, go watch it.
The website is in French, but all you need to know is you will hear lovely melodies and see adorable children.

Also, their amazing e-card features the artwork of artist, cartoonist, graphic-novelist Craig Thompson alongside their music. It's all pretty neat and should be looked at by you.

Now I just need to go buy their CD.

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Now playing: Menomena - Wet And Rusting
via FoxyTunes

Stocked

I went to my favorite store in the world today. It was a day full of public transit and now I am tired, but I just had to give props to SCRAP. If you live in San Francisco and do anything artsy, are a teacher, whatever, you need to go there. Then, I went to my favorite ice cream shop in the world, Maggie Mudd, and they finally had my favorite ice cream flavor - MEXICAN CHOCOLATE! Vegan goodness on a sugar cone. Plus, to add to my nifty thrifty day, I had a card full of punches and I got it free.

I picked up so many great items at SCRAP for $10. I was going to bring home this fat folder of wallpaper samples but just carrying it around the store made me tired so I had to give it up. Of course, my favorite part of their warehouse is the "free" section at the front. And getting a taco and having vegan ice cream at Maggie Mudd afterwards was awesome.

I am totally stocked up for crafting and packaging things for my shop, vegcraft.etsy.com, and I am going to try and make a spreadsheet of all my supplies and ideas tonight so that everything gets used. Everyone on the Etsy forums were all about packaging and things in little plastic baggies and bows but I just couldn't see myself buying a stock of those items when I don't even know when or how quickly things will get bought. I can spare $10, though, and last night I went on USPS.com and ordered all the free priority shipping boxes I might need to get started.

I have been organizing my desk as well, getting things where I can use them - I'll post a picture when it's all set. Our back room is still a mess even though we moved in over six months ago. Being unemployed has given me some time to organize. I'm really trying to be prepared and stocked and set for a small craft business, and once I am I can sit down and get that store stocked with my amazing goods :)


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Now playing: The New Pornographers - Go Places
via FoxyTunes

I am VegCraft!

Everything I am doing is now under the name VegCraft, and while I look for a new job I am also focusing time on setting up shop at vegcraft.etsy.com.

I had a previous account there but I spent a ton of time searching through their forums and wikis and FAQs and decided that branding and consistency in my name was important. So everything I'm going to use to promote the shop will be VegCraft and people will be able to remember just one name. I still have old stuff - myspace and whatnot - where I'll put links to my new VegCraft spaces.

I actually did a search for VegCraft and there is very little around with that name so once I promote like crazy it should be pretty easy for people to find me with just searching the term "vegcraft".

I am very excited for all of this. Tonight I plan to make my banner, avatar, and collect the few items I have at home that are ready to sell. Then in the next few days I can get crafting, promote and see what happens.


Also, I am still trying to create comics but it is definitely on the back burner. I attempt to sit down every night and work on that 20 panel comic but crafts and my job search just creep into my mind. It would be fun to work on some comics, but the fact that I'm doing Etsy and crafts still makes me pretty happy.

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Now playing: Jamiroquai - Corner Of The Earth
via FoxyTunes

Busy

I haven't been able to complete any more comics yet, though I do have an idea for the 20 panel one. I haven't gotten past that one. I just need to sit down and take care of business, and not just comic business, but whenever I have free time I just want to lay down on the couch and be lazy. If I could focus on one thing at a time I could probably get stuff done, but my brain doesn't do that. It doesn't let me...

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Now playing: Cibo Matto - Le Pain Perdu
via FoxyTunes

A Challenge!

I have never written a comic. One time I tried to draw a "Super Nanny" but she was so ugly I quit after one try.

Recently I've been thinking of creating a comic about Wes and I titled "The Adventures of Circle Face and Triangle Head," which consists of two heads with arms that stick out of them, and they talk and go about their day and I'm sure they would be hilarious. We went to a restaurant where you can draw on the table and that was my most successful attempt, but it got taken away by the bus boy and was presumably thrown in the trash.

I love Young American Comics - I think I first came across them at Comic-Con 2006, but I can't be sure. I've been sporting their "Support Indie Comics, You Dope" button on my purse for quite a long time, more recently signed up for their emails, and maybe if I try hard over the next 52 or so weeks I'll someday be in one of their group project books.

I think that their idea for the 52 Comic Challenges is awesome and gives me a reason to create. I'll make something that will be vaguely in the comic format every week or so. I'm already behind because I completely forgot when it started and didn't check back until I got their next email, but they're so cool they don't care when I start!

I was hoping to make something a little more substantial, but I guess I'll start off easy and work my way into awesomeness.

Here it is (oh man, I'm scared):




*Check it out in full size for the bleary blue eyes.*

Spam

What a funny and somewhat appropriate title for a spam e-mail I got sent today:

"alleged pork chop"

I just thought it was great.

The message that followed went something like this:

xyoiashkfdla fkdamsdlhufioi tyytfxcosajl