In the shop now!

Hello, I just realized I've been forgetting to tell you that I'm adding new notebooks to the shop this week! I've got a load of animal books just waiting patiently to be listed, so lookout for those in the days coming. Yay!

Ok, so already I am having quite a day. I am trying to decompress a bit by posting this before I get back to work. I went to goodwill the other day with the intent of buying clothes, which is something I haven't done in a while. For a long time goodwill has been for records and books pretty much exclusively, but I was pleasantly surprised by the shopping success I had, and I wanted to share my finds with you. First, shoes:

It was love at first sight for me with those sweet leather shoes in the top photo, but unfortunately they are not super great for walking in. I wore them to the gym, which is about 10 blocks from my house, and they really tore my poor little heels up. Maybe they'll stretch out? Does leather do that? I hope so because I think the shoes are so cute and they are like new. It would be such a shame if I couldn't wear them. The shoes in the second picture are super squishy soft comfy granny shoes that I think are rad but that Steve made a bad face about. He doesn't care for them. And then the Maui slides, which I just couldn't resist, they are too much fun.

Okay, now sweaters:

Sorry for the color in all these photos, they were all taken in the evening with all our energy saving lightbulbs on and I'm not sure how to make them look less yellow. Anyhow, this is made from a super scratchy wool and reminds me of a fisherman's sweater. It is in really nice shape except for one tiny hole, but I am actually a fan of a tiny hole or two.

I used to have quite a few cardigans similar to this one, in several different colors, but I eventually parted ways with them all, and now feel some regret about that. So I was glad to find this sweet white one, and was further glad because I have really been pining for a crew neck cardigan (all of the cardigans I currently own are v-necks.)

I'm really excited about this sweater. I know the picture is a little crazy, but it is the perfect shade of red for me. And...
Fancy, right? This sweater is in such great condition that I think it had probably never been worn. I'm thinking, based on the look of the label, that it is 70s or 80s vintage? But I really am no expert, I'd love to hear anybody else's opinion.

Ok, my last find is this blazer:

Which I am not positive about. The colors are not so electric as they appear in this photo, they are more pastel-ly and the jacket has a kind of 1910s Salad Days feel to it. But it is still pretty colorful and bold and I am not sure if I could pull it off. Also, I'm not sure what shirt I would wear under it. So, it is a little iffy. But I am pretty fond of it.

And that's it! Pretty successful for my first time goodwill shopping in a while, right?

I think I may have mentioned that I am all about podcasts now that I have an ipod touch. I was previously vehemently anti-podcast, because I had the clip on shuffle, which has no screen, so not so good for podcasts. But now I am totally in to them, and among my favorites are the podcasts from the folks at the website How Stuff Works. In fact I was listening to one this very morning (stuff your mom never told you), and they were talking about how a lack of sleep can make you (gasp!) fat! Oh hells no! I'd heard this before, but kind of put it in the old brain file and didn't think about it much. But on the podcast they mentioned using a sleep mask, and a little lightbulb came on. Maybe I should try this out. So I was browsing etsy and found the BibBon shop.

The shop is full of really sweet eye masks like this. The hard part is going to be deciding which one to get! I also came across the lovelyart shop which has great Breakfast at Tiffany's inspired sleep masks that are unfortunately just out of my price range.

Click on photos for links!

I really enjoy blogging, but I am often remiss in doing so because I like to include at least one photo with each post, preferably one of my own, and this causes trouble for me because I have been very bad lately about taking photos and even worse about uploading them to flickr. I just had a nice long weekend vacation in the LA and Orange County area and I took not one photo. But I really wanted to blog today, so I decided to scrounge up some interesting-ness from flickr that I haven't shared here before. I was tagged by the ever-lovely Erin to share 6 unimportant things that make me happy, so here goes:

1.

This photo brings me unlimited joy. I love the zebra shirt on the girl in front, I love the huge smiles on my sisters' faces (in the second row) and I love that I look like a crazy creepy monk with a dashing mustache (in the third row). And, of course, I love Space Mountain. I think Space Mountain photos are probably the best of all the Disneyland ride photos.

2.

Oven fries. I've been thinking about them all day. I can't wait to go home and bake some up. Yum.

3.

Wild bunnies in Leisure World (where my grandmother lives in Orange County).

4.

Leisure World. It is pretty amazing. It almost makes me want to get old so I can live there. Only 30 more years!

5.

The day or two after I tidy up the house and maybe decorate a little, when the house looks almost normal and cute, before I trash it again.

6.

When I can access all the websites I want to on my computer at work. Today, no Jezebel, no McSweeney's, no PhotoshopDisasters, no Facebook.

So, I am tagging whoever reads this blog, which is ... I'm not sure who. But if you do, thanks!

Also, I really hope to have new notebooks in the shop very soon, I have a bunch made that are just sitting in a nice stack on my desk, waiting for conditions to be right for photography. It will happen someday, I just know it.

mel

Next weekend (the weekend of Friday the 13th!) Steve and I are going down to Southern California for a little vacation, and I have fixated on this idea of me walking around LA in a cute summer dress. I don't know how I got this stuck in my mind, sometimes these things just happen I guess. I've been browsing etsy's vintage clothing because the dress in my little daydream has a square-ish neck, like this dress from yosemite vintage:

I think this dress is totally adorable and almost perfect, but I am also one hundred percent sure that it would make Steve want to throw up. My daydream doesn't involve Steve looking at me with disappointment the way he has in the past when I wore, say, my indian necklace tshirt. I have to say though, I think secretly Steve wants me to dress in the manner that he professes to disapprove of; why else would he buy me Star Trek tshirts? Anyway, much as it pains me, I think the butterfly dress is off the table. I was thinking the red dress above, from my sweetie pie pie might be a reasonable compromise, but I'm realizing now I'm a little scared of buying a dress without trying it on. Do any readers have any experience with online clothes shopping or any advice for me?

mel

Steve and I hit up City Arts and Lectures again last night. This time we went to see Neko Case. She was great! The conversation started off a little slow; the woman who was interviewing her was a little...off. (She's also the Oscar winning screenwriter of Thelma and Louise and director of Mad Money, which is exciting because it means she's met Queen Latifah. Color me jealous!) But, in spite of it Neko told some really fascinating stories. She also performed about 5 songs, most from her upcoming album, Middle Cyclone. I was really excited that she does a version of one of my favorite Harry Nilsson songs, Don't Forget Me. Seeing her really made me want to see her live again, but it seems that the closest she'll come to me in the next year is Reno. With luck, she's still planning on adding more tour dates. I hope I'm able to go to one of her shows, her voice is absolutely amazing on her records, but it's mesmerizing to see that voice come out of an actual person...and she is totally winning and really funny. So, yes, it seems I'm smitten.

Also, I totally love that album cover; how rad is that?
Also, check out the cool tshirts at KMStitchery. I want Alice Paul, Victoria Woodhull and Charlotte Perkins Gilman. I just can't decide on which one I want most.

Whew! I've been hard at work today updating all the items in my shop, because I am having a clearance sale! Fully every item (except the president buttons) is on sale, with reductions from 10% to over 20% of the original price. Pretty exciting stuff! I am trying to make way for new books that will be popping up in the shop very soon. So! I hope you'll take a look, there are some really great deals!

Awesome bling from etsy seller metalicious
Steve's sister got engaged last weekend! We are so happy for her and can't wait for the big day!
Friday's surprise turned out to be tickets to a live taping of The Sound of Young America, my current favoritest podcast. If you are into pop culture type stuff and like podcasts I recommend subscribing, the host, Jesse Thorn, gives a really interesting interview. The show was put on as part of SF Sketchfest and was at Cobb's Comedy Club, which was kind of exciting because I've never been there before and it was nicer than I expected. The show was 75% awesome and 25% meh...Sean Cullen did a standup bit and he was pretty funny and the second interview was with Tom Ammiano, which was awesome. He was really hilarious and endearing. But the first interview was Jello Biafra and he was really really tiresome. I don't know, he was like someone's dad telling boring stories. But yes, overall it was a really fun experience. And after the show we walked right by Todd Barry, which was pretty exciting. Todd Barry is the Supermarket manager in The Wrestler and the guy who does "The Doggy Bounce" on the first season finale of Flight of the Conchords, and if that doesn't mean anything to you, you are really missing out.

I am in love with these sterling silver dinosaur charms from I Like You As A Friend. I always get excited over dinosaurs, and these have emeralds in them! Ooh la la!

Amy Sedaris last night was a lot of fun. She is charming and funny and really lovely. If you ever have a chance to see her live I would definitely recommend taking advantage of that opportunity.

It's raining for real today. Yesterday it ended up just being drizzly in the morning then dry for the rest of the day. But now I think it's the real thing. Well, I guess it's good for farmers, right? I certainly would not begrudge them a little precipitation.

Steve is taking me to some surprise outing tonight. I really have no idea what it is, so I will have to report details to you tomorrow. It's really hard for him, trying to keep the secret. He's bad at keeping secrets like this. He always wants to give me birthday and christmas presents early. Anyway, I'm very excited, but I'm also hoping that whatever it is it's in a place that doesn't require a lot of walking to get to. Because, you know, the rain.

It's raining today. We've had about two weeks of this crazy summer weather, then suddenly, boom, rain. Weird. But at least I have an excuse now to wear a coat again.
I'm seeing Amy Sedaris tonight! How thrilling is that? I'm so excited, she's really great. We're seeing her at City Arts and Lectures, which is a year round series of programs that are usually somebody in conversation with somebody else. We were supposed to see Amy's program last year, but I ended up having class, so that makes this even sweeter.
Oscar nominations came out this morning. For the most part they are super weak. I'm really over this Slumdog Millionaire business. Really, I was over it about 30 minutes after I watched it. But I'm way way over it now. But whatever. I still need to see Benjamin Button and maybe Revolutionary Road. I don't think I can see The Reader, it looks like the most ridiculous thing ever. And Doubt looks super boring. So, yeah, should be an exciting Oscars. I am interested to see what kind of host Hugh Jackman will make.
mel

Post-Hiatus

The LIFE photo archive on google images rules.
Sorry about the unannounced hiatus. I was burned out after my design class last semester, which ended up being pretty much horrible. But I got an A! Now things are feeling more normal every day and I hope to be getting back into the groove of things soon.
I took Steve to a fancy dinner at Fish and Farm last night. It was way tasty and very nice and plenty fancy for us. All of the food we had was good, but the best thing was the french fries. Oh man, they were so delish. I would love to go there again and sit in the bar and drink their fun cocktails and eat scrumptious fries with curry aioli to dip them in. So, Bay Area-ans, I would suggest Fish and Farm for a mid price romantic dinner (they have dim lighting and candles on the table, that equals romantic, right?).
mel

This is sick

But I love it. de'cat'pitated mouse head cat toy by spellwell

mel

Waiting

It is so so quiet today and I am just waiting for the weekend to start. I'm freezing! It seems like at work I am always either too hot or too cold. Right now it could have something to do with the icy cold water I'm drinking. But isn't it so refreshing to drink cool water after your morning coffee? I think so.

Last weekend the lovely and amazing Erin and I journeyed by bus to SCRAP. I am pretty sure it was the first time I took the bus out there; it was quite an adventure. We braved a walk in frigid winds in exchange for perhaps 15 minutes inside the SCRAP warehouse, and, for me, it was worth it. I came away with a great armful of matboard, which I promptly cut into notebook size pieces as soon as I was in the warm confines of my apartment. Those pieces are still sitting on the coffee table, but soon they will be covered with woodland creatures. I turned in my last project for my design class yesterday and I am looking forward to lots of making in the break. I had a bit of practice with my gocco in the last few months, so I am hoping something will come of that. I also recently purchased Lena Corwin's Printing by Hand, and want to put that to good use as well. I would love to do screenprinting, but I'm also itching to try my hand at linoprinting again.

I hope my friday flies by fast, and yours too! And here's to a wonderful weekend.

mel

New For the Holidays

I had a lovely time at Apple Hill this weekend; as you can see I had my photo taken on a tractor! Does it get any better? What's perhaps even more exciting, is that Sunday I was finally able to take photos of the books I made last Monday, which means 1) I can share the photos with you and 2) I was able to list the books in my etsy shop! Yes, it is thrilling I know. Just in time for your last minute gift giving needs. Tomorrow I hope to have a little gift guide up here for even more assistance. Now, I will leave you with new photos.

mel

ps - click on the photos to go to the listing!

Apple Hill

I was just sitting at my desk, munching on a delicious apple and thinking, mmm, this apple is perfect. My mind wandered from thought to thought as it tends to do, meandering from crisp apple to lovely fall weather to the impending Thanksgiving holiday and finally stopping with, Hello! It is time to go to Apple Hill! And that is the most wonderful thought of all.

Do you know what is at Apple Hill? That's right, a whole lot of apples. But! Also! There are apple donuts and apple wine and apple butter and apple cider(cold and hot) and apple streusel and apple buns and apple tart and apple chips and fudge and honey and salt water taffy and tchotkes and a fishing pond and about a million different kinds of apple pie. A million I tell you! And, if it isn't raining, there may be a whole pig roasting on a spit.
Apple Hill is, of course, a horrible and tacky tourist trap, but it is also completely amazing and in some of the most beautiful country in the world, the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas. More to the point, it is in Camino, CA, which is about an hour north of Sacramento on Highway 50. And actually, it is quite easy to avoid the more touristy parts, if that's what you're after. Apple Hill is an association of 56 farms, and they are all more or less located on a loop (Apple Hill Scenic Drive) and there are many of those that are just orchards where you can fill a box with apples you pick yourself and stroll around and enjoy the quiet. As much as I love that, I do really love the touristy spots as well. This year, my two wishes for my Apple Hill trip are 1. It doesn't rain, and 2. I get to try apple pie with cheddar cheese. I can't wait!

mel

if you'd like to visit Apple Hill yourself, you can get directions and read more about the farms here: Apple Hill Growers Association.

Tinkering

I'm thinking about changing the look of this blog. I like the gray, but I'm not sure about the other colors. And I'd really like a more lovely header up there for the title. What I have now is so blah and kind of low budge, right? So, I'll be adding that to my long long list of things to do. Yay! Actually, I did get a good piece of work done last night, I cut a whole slew of covers and now they are just waiting to be made into notebooks. My hopeful schedule for completion is construction Saturday night, then photo taking on Sunday, provided it doesn't rain. I've been thinking for a while that I would love to try taking some product pictures outdoors, so I'll try to work that in too. Chances are there will be lots of new notebooks popping up in the shop next week! Fancy that, it's been a long time since there was any fresh blood in there.

Well, scratch that, I believe it was just last week that I listed my latest drawing, Nesting. It's been seen here before; I've had it kicking around for quite some time, but for some reason only just got the impetus to list it. So, it's for sale now over at Etsy. I like it a lot, I hope you will too.

mel

Living In Real (Slow) Time

I am the worst business woman in the world, I reckon. There are about a million things that I would really really love to get done to promote myself for The Holiday Season. But I haven't done any of them. I'm hoping that now that I'm pretty much over my sickness I'll be getting back in the swing of things, but I think it might already be too late, at least too late to do every single little thing. (I find this to always be the case with the holidays, I have a list a mile long of Awesome Things to Do that I don't get too because the season goes by sooooo fast. Well, this year I'm going ice skating!) One thing I did manage to do is be included in the current paper n stitch exhibition. It's so exciting that I'm included in this collection of amazing shops because paper n stitch is one of my favorite favorite blogs in the whole world and Brittni, paper n stitch purveyor, is a super sweet gal with impeccable taste. Unfortunately, the site is down right now, but as soon as it's back up I'll be posting links to point you over to my shop as well as some of my peers'.
mel

Update - Here's that link for y'all! paper n stitch and a link to my little shop here. yay! mr

A Whirlwind of Emotion

Kir Royal, originally uploaded by savor_soaps.

The title pretty much says it all. That's kind of how it's been since my last post. I was elated then sad then sick sick sick. I'm finally starting to get better, yay! Just in time for the weekend! I'm going to make sure I won't (ahem) overindulge again this weekend and weaken my immune system making me susceptible to stupid germs. And I don't want to talk about this too much, mostly because it makes me a little teary, but guys, I am really really sad about the passage of prop 8. There are rallies all over the country tomorrow to speak out against it, and I'm hoping that there can be some increased positive awareness of the cause so that the next time around, we can switch up the 52 to 48 ratio.

One thing that did make me very happy this week was the arrival of a package from savor. I've thought about writing a blog post on savor for a long time, but for some reason am only getting around to it now. So if you're just now learning about this amazing shop, I'm sorry for procrastinating because I know you will want to snap up everything in stock. Savor is Lisa Salamida, and she makes the most amazing soaps known to man. Seriously. They are so delicious smelling and looking. In fact, Steve once almost ate one of her soaps because he thought it was a cookie, but he stopped himself (good thinking Steve). When I received my package this week the delicious fragrance of creme brulee wafting out of the cardboard was making me salivate. I was burying my nose in the packing peanuts! Yes, embarrassing but true.

I was wary to shop Savor at first, partly because her product photos are so gorgeous, I was worried I would be let down. Well, I had no reason to worry, everything is as good as it looks. If you want a mega pick me up for your morning shower, head to savor. I can recommend from experience Kir Royal (pictured above), tropical style Hawaiian black sea salt, sex appeal and creme brulee sugar scrub. I was trying to decide what my next savor purchase would be, I had it narrowed down to a choice between raspberry walnut creme fraiche and caramel apple creme fraiche, but when I was checking out the savor shop before writing this post, I had a total impulse moment and snatched up a pound of soap bits. I love these kinds of variety packs, miscast or weird colored pieces of soap, ends or messups. So, the creme fraiches will have to wait. At least, for as long as I can, which probably won't be that long.

mel

why I will not be signing up for google ads.

It's something I've considered in the past, but today was the clincher for me. Why? Today several of my favorite blogs featured Yes on Prop 8 ads in their sidebars. (like this one) No thanks google.
PS - If you don't know about Prop 8, you can read up here

Mas y mas cerca

I am listening to Jonathan Richman's self titled album. I haven't listened to it in quite some time. I am one of those people who have very specific associations between music and moments in time. This album always reminds me of being on the bus listening to the CD right after I bought it at Amoeba, heading towards Steve's house.
The notebook above was made using a copy of Billy Joel's Glass Houses. It reminds me of New Year's Eve, 2004.
I don't have any very good memories of Halloweens. Halloween has been either boring or kind of a sad day for me over the last 6 or so years. And, to be totally honest, I find Halloween a little scary since I moved to San Francisco; there are just soooo many people out and about. So usually I like to fortress myself in my house. This year I am fortressing myself at Sarah and Bryan's house. And I am making these pumpkin chocolate chip cookies from Bakerella...yum, I can't wait. The frosting is a maybe, I'll have to determine how ambitious I feel this evening. I'm considering getting a pumpkin to carve....we'll see. Perhaps there will be some sort of Halloween themed cocktails...
I hope you all have a great Halloween!
mel