Improv Handbells

Have you ever been the person ringing the bell outside the supermarket?  If so, you'll know that the hours pass by VERY slowly.  Check out this amazing improv stunt.  It brought a tear to my eye!

holiday cards

This year I squeezed in time to make handmade holiday cards!  Watching a movie marathon with some friends, I came up with some of these using mostly magazine cutouts.  Enjoy!

Best Christmas Movie of All Time

Ever since I went to see this movie as a kid with my big sister, I have loved "The Muppet's Christmas Carol."  It's the perfect rendition of the classic tale!  Though I love little kermie as Tiny Tim and the grouchy dudes as Marley & Marley (woooaah!), my favorite characters in this film are the singing vegetable puppets!  Check out their brief cameo at second 45 of this clip.  Keep your eyes on the eggplant--he makes the best face!!

Baby, It's COLD!

Layer up; it's cold in the Bay Area this week!

Everyone likes to get mail

Tis the season...when I never feel like I have enough time to make all the homemade holiday gifts, cards, and cookies as I'd like to!  Last weekend was devoted to making holiday cards to send--a great idea is to use your holiday catalogs and December editions of your magazines to make pretty homemade cards that aren't to time or labor intensive!  I found Real Simple magazine super useful, because they have gorgeous images.  I also recommend Garnet Hill and J. Crew for christmasy clippings and great text that can layer over pretty pictures!  I made more collage-y cards as well, and will post those in a few days, but for now here are a few samples!

 

It's Time!

My housemates and I are getting a tree tonight, so I'm getting into the holiday mood!  Here's a fun Christmas ditty for your enjoyment.

Holiday Company Gifts

We had some pens made for my office one time, and now I get all kinds of catalogs and sample products from a company that will basically slap your logo onto anything!  Here are some of the strangest I've seen.  Can you imagine if your employer gave you this?!?

 

Now I seriously admit to loving Slankets.  But it really puts me over the edge imagining my company's logo embroidered on the remote control pocket!

Who doesn't need a lava lamp in their cubicle?

This is a flash drive, in the shape of  a little man.  Hm.

Jealousy/Inspiration

There is so much good, artistic graphic design out there!  I like to look around at what people are doing to get inspired, and a lot of the time I am just in awe of what folks can do.  Here's an amazing piece by Rob Toombs at Mississippi State University.  For more inspiration, check out this flickr album.

I Love Choir Music and I'm Not Ashamed of it!

Morten Lauridsen's "O Magnum Mysterium" may be the most calming piece of music I have ever heard.  Each time the holiday season comes around I remember how much I love it!  And yes, that does mean that I have busted out the seasonal tunes...I just couldn't help myself! Enjoy this version, performed by the Luther College's lovely Nordic Choir.  The swells in volume are so incredible.

I heart plants

Check out these lovely ideas for decorating with plants!

I am especially in love with succulents right now, since they are so prevalent in Northern California.  To this Iowa girl, they seem so exotic!

This is such a great idea!

I wanted to post a pic of the great plants on our porch (which we happily kept after they were abandoned by the previous renters), but didn't get home early enough last night to get a snapshot before it was dark.  Oh, winter. Maybe I'll get to that soon.

Wisdom from "The Glass Castle," by Jeannette Walls

Here is a snippet of dialogue between two people in this book, which I find a useful perspective on life!  Take it as you will...

Jeannie's mother:
"Things always work out in the end"

Jeannie:
"What if they don't?"

Jeannie's mother: 
"That just means you haven't come to the end yet"

Weekend!!

Here's what's in store for my weekend!  What are you going to do??

 

Haven't been to the first Friday Oakland Art Murmur in awhile; its time to go get some inspiration!

 

The Iowa girl in me just has to root for the Hawkeyes, who are undefeated so far!

Going Christmas shopping at this art fair.  Hopefully I'll be able to show off some of my finds next week!

New Designs

Here are some of my latest poster design projects.  Looking at them all together, I am seeing quite a few similarities in style.  Stay tuned--Next project I am breaking out from this look!

I hope your day is just...

Not Your Average Pancake

 

I made  these delicious little yummies with my family last Easter and forgot about them for awhile (got the recipe from the NY times).  I'm going to try them again soon, and hope you do too!

Tortillitas with Shrimp

1/2 cup chickpea flour
1/2 cup white flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/3 cup chopped onion or scallions
About 1/2 cup raw shrimp, chopped, or scallops or other shellfish or fish-- you can also leave the shrimp out, or try chicken! 

2 to 3 tablespoons chopped chives, parsley, thyme or cilantro
Olive oil.

1. In a bowl, combine flours and baking powder with salt and pepper. Add a little more than a cup of water and stir to combine; consistency should resemble pancake batter (if batter is too thick, add more water, a little at a time). Stir in the onions, chopped seafood and herbs.
2. Put a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat and film its bottom generously with olive oil. When oil is hot, pour in half the batter until it fills center of pan; spread gently with a spoon to form a large pancake.
3. Cook about 3 minutes, or until pancake is set around edges; flip pancake and continue cooking for another 3 minutes, then flip it again and cook for another 30 seconds or so, until it is crisp on outside but still moist inside. Remove from pan and serve immediately, while remaining batter cooks.
Yield: 4 or more servings.

And Her Tent Was as Big As the Trees

Here's a little collage card I made for my brother.  I was dreaming of camping as I made it...

Looking Close

I took a walk today.  Here are some of the things I found!

Let the Wild Rumpus Begin!

Did anyone catch Where the Wild Things Are in theaters this weekend?  I've talked to people who thought it was less-then-amazing, but I loved it and here are a few reasons why:

• I loved that this movie deals with real emotions kids and adults have, and that it didn't just offer a perfect happy solution to anything. 
• I reread the book, which is very short and simple.  I am impressed with the way fewer than 50 words was expanded into an hour and a half!
  
• Tony Soprano is the voice of Carol, one of the monsters!
• The puppets and animation were incredible. 
• The music.
  
• I am now into howling.
  

Next on the list is Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs! I used to LOVE this book...maybe it's because I love food so much...

Words Act Two: Thank you Merriam

Merriam Webster has a handy page with its new words; here are a few added in 2009, apparently.

• haram  (was this really not in there before??)
• memory foam
• sock puppet (Do not be fooled: While this word surely existed in MW's files before (" a hand puppet made with a sock") it is not also noted as "a false online identity used for deceptive purposes."  Good to know...
• Mouse Potato

 My favorite part is how they categorize these new words in lists.  For instance, the two newest entries under
The Human Condition were, drumroll please...............

drama queen

unibrow

I thought the categorization seemed strange at first, but I suppose these are, in fact, human conditions.  And where else are they supposed to fit??

Words Act one: Funny Vocab

Sometime awhile back when I was studying for the GRE, I signed up to get the Word of the Day email.  I must admit, these messages most often get to the trash bin without ever being opened...but I've come across some new words at work that got me back into vocabulary enhancing mode.  These are my two favorites, with my own definitions and commentary. :)

wysiwyg

This is the neat-o thing that appears when you are trying to edit web pages and stuff (looks kinda like the toolbar on Word); it helps you make things look pretty (bold, in color, italicized, centered) or add pictures without knowing code.  (Too bad I can't get my blog wysiwyg to center my photos!).  I just realized: this is an acronym: What You See Is What You Get.  No wonder the spelling is so weird!  This is also kind of a fund case of alliteration, because these things make me feel like a web page editing WHIZ!

dongle

This is the a piece of hardware, which you use to connect your laptop to other things.  Like when you want to hook up your pretty new mac laptop to the projector to show home movies you took on your camera to your friends!  We had a crisis at work the other day where someone renting our room for a conference didn't have one of these; my colleague kept saying "Sir, you need to get the correct dongle," and he kept saying "But can't you just make this work?" This kind of made me giggly!

More posts on words to appear soon...

Random Posters

I was cruising around Google Images today looking for some inspiration for a design project, and I found these fun posters!

Who would think to make this?!?

 I love the image, though not sure about all the fonts...I guess that's the message!  This would be good for a typography lesson.

This is so random and fabulous.

Listening

I'm trying to distract myself from the fact that Ingrid Michaelson is playing tonight at the Great American Music Hall, but I waited to late to get myself a ticket.  So, I'm listening to other tunes and planning other concerts instead!  Regina Spektor is on October 30th at the Fox Theater, and if I'm up for two concerts in a row, I might hit the Bimbos 365 Club for the Dodos on the 29th! 

Today I've been listening to St. Vincent, but unfortunately no shows are planned in this area anytime soon!  So, this will have to do...

Free College

Doing some research for a project I'm doing at work, which involves recurring themes in courses at UC Berkeley, I found out about MIT OpenCourseWare.  Its a website with free MIT course materials from almost all the undergraduate and graduate subjects taught at MIT.  You can see syllabi, readings, lectures, and other cool stuff from tons of courses at MIT!  Now, you can't get a degree this way, but you can learn about some pretty nifty stuff from some pretty rad scholars, without paying a dime.  

If only there were more hours in a day...then I'd be "enrolled" in Documenting Culture and Documentary Photography and Photo Journalism: Still Images of A World In Motion,, to name a few...

Oh, Metaphors

My graphic design teacher was showing us some photographs she had taken downtown, and one of them involved art and poems made by students from a local elementary school. I loved this poem and had to share.

LOVE

Is a chair

No one sits on

Because it is a throne of carefulness

-A metaphor poem by Tamia Proctor

Celebrations

Well, I didn’t quite meet my goal of writing a second post within a week of the first…but I have a good excuse!  My best friend got married!

Fixing the bride's lash...oh the stress!

What a view!  I felt like I was in a national park.

The bridesmaids, before and after the ceremony!