Needle Felting Fun!

So I did a needle felting project finally! Lauren's needle felted bowls inspired me to use the felting supplies I had for a couple of years but never really touched till now!
But I made a pillow out of lambs wool blanket and loose wool fiber of various colors in which I used a felting needle to make the face....pretty simple process for the most part, just shape the wool and poke the needle through the surfaces up and down and the fibers weave in and out of the main piece. The challenging part was coming up with the face.As you can see up close the level of detail and craftsmanship that is required for something as complicated as the sleepy face is very difficult to achieve. It requires meticulous planning, advance color theory knowledge, multiple calculated measurements, and countless facial studies of people of every race. One may see this and think its a master piece and work of art....but I say...no, this is just something I do and have a passion for. But mostly it's because I "felt" like making it.......pause....silence.......waiting for laughter.....I FELT like it? get it? you know...since I needle "FELTed" it?
yeah...there's the laugh that I've been waiting for. Let's all LOL....in which under Dylan's definition=Laugh On Line....which I have to agree it makes sense.

Online window shopping

I picked out few dresses from Net-A-Porter, a fancy fashion site. I'm no expert on fashion by any means. Just simply know that I love these fancy dresses!

The hot pink dress by Alexander McQueen, is a great sophisticated modern sexy dress without being revealing in anyway. Katie Holms wore it well though...I have to admit...even though I don't really care for her nor Tom. But Suri is pretty cute I guess....for now.

I like both of these puffy silhouettes. Especially the giant bow on the white dress. It reminds me of the bows that I would tie...totally crooked. But they made it intentional. Smart. I love the playful elegance of it all though.

Look at THIS lovely paper dress! What a poetic piece. The texture, the ubiquitous brown paper material, the form, the way it's hung, everything about it is great and even the placement of the text and print.....PUR-CHASE!! ugh! I just totally ruined the moment and all the loveliness of this dress didn't I? How I loath the existence of Stacy London from "What not to wear"!! Why does she haunts us still!? WHY!?

Tulip Fest 2008

After 8 years of living in Washington, I FINALLY got to go to the tulip festival up in Skagit Valley about 60miles north of Seattle. I went with my family on a perfect day and it was breathtaking to see the huge field in rows of red, yellow, orange and many more. I felt like I was in the Netherlands again for a split second. Totally worth it! This plum colored tulip is called Queen of the Night. I Love the color and the silk-like petals. There were flowers left and right, and it was amazing being surrounded by so many flowers. I'm not a flower freak, but to see such vibrant colors in such quantity and density, I couldn't help but feel the desire to run through the fields with birds and butterflies flying around while I whistle and sing with everyone holding their hands and spinning around laughing carelessly....unfortunately there were people guarding and giant signs to prevent people like me from acting on such compulsive thoughts.
It's crazy what those flowers can do with your head!!

I Heart Everyone!

I received some great neat gifts from people for my birthday awhile ago and forgot to mention it. There's a previous post about other great gifts I've received as well. Sorry everyone! But just wanted to let y'all know that I really am thankful for all the great lovely gifts!! I LOVE THEM ALL! (^.^)

Here's where they live in my home, now....
My first Heath ceramic from Terri! I was totally psyched to get this as a gift, since I've always wanted something from Heath Ceramics. I especially love their series of bud vases, it's such a soft humble form that feels very warm and satisfying.
Quirky creature from Terri. I cracked up when I saw this funny thing! it's so cute! I don't know what's front or back...but that's what cute about it, it could go either way. the brown thing could be a nose or a tail!Tea towels from Chika. I was also super psyched about these since I've been eying on these forever! These are designed and made by Skinny La Minx , all the way from South Africa. The designs are charming and beautiful. Close up of the beautiful printed towels. 100% cotton and made in South Africa.
Needle felted bowls handmade by Lauren. Aren't they sweet? I didn't know you can needle felt things like that! I wanna have a felting party now! who's in!?
Also made by Lauren are these sweet fabric covered tacks. I love the colors and the patterns. Those will definitely be useful for my studio, can't wait to use them!

THANKS AGAIN EVERYONE!

Postage Stamps

I was browsing once again and found this Japanese site called, Turtle Rattel Factory, selling vintage postage stamps from Japan, Russia, Denmark, France, and few other European countries. They have a collection of all sorts of playful and colorful cute stamps! I love vintage stamp designs, and these ones just melts my heart looking at each one of them....sigh.

Polaroid love

Dylan recently found this classic Polaroid SX-70 camera at the thrift store, a super great find, since it's such a modern and sleek design for it's time.
This was the model that the Eames made a commercial for Polaroid. It's a great instructional film with indepth information about how it works and the wonder of Polaroid cameras. Also what's neat is that some of photos in the film are actually taken by Ray Eames.
We've all heard about how Polaroid is stopping the production of Polaroid film and switching to digital....which is seriously unfortunate considering it has created a huge culture in photography and art.

I found some of these Polaroid photos by Jen. They remind me of Ray's photos. I really like these playful and coloful arrangement of everyday objects and collections. Click on photos to link to her flikr site. She has quite a collection of Polaroid photos, all are which beautiful and well framed. They feel so calm and peaceful...
This particular series of photos is from a photographer, Mark-Steffen Gowecke, who started a project called, Polapola Project taking Polaroid photos with the previously taken photo, and with another one, and another one and it goes on....really neat!

There's tons of great Polaroid blogs with people sharing the same passion for this classic product. Check out few of these: everyday Polaroid, My Polaroid Blog, and Save the Polaroid.
I really hope that Polaroid can have a success story like the Japanese Gocco Printer!! Let's save Polaroid!!

Uh-mazing Cuban poster designs

I was just browsing around on the internet and somehow found this Ebay store, called Home of the Cuban Posters, with tons of beautiful and striking Cuban movie poster designs for sale. I'm in love with all the bright bold colors and playful abstract interpretations of the movies. They're reproductions, but nonetheless they would still look amazing framed hanging around the house. Truly inspiring to see all together.

Green check list

Saw this on the style-files blog. Presented by Wire & Twine in an easy, simple to read format. It was fun to read and checked off the things from the lis. It mentioned buying second-hand stuff! which I feel good about it since I'm buying and selling second hand stuff! (I'm currently patting my own back right now...good Jean...good)

I'm gonna try to do all 50 things on the list!!

There are few things that werent' on the list, which I thought is also important. Such as:

*Bring your own containers to reasturants for take out food. (find containers that would fit the dishes you want, they're usually pretty cool about it)

*Put filled bottles in toilet tank to use less water. (It fills up space which uses less water)

*Recycle batteries and ink catridges.

*Have a picnic with NON-DISPOSABLE dishes! (versus picnic with a marker that's in the list. It feels more special with a cute picnic basket, your own dishes, cups, and cutlery that doesn't break in half when you try to cut stuff with it.)

*Reuse shoe boxes or tin containers (cover shoe boxes or tin containers in nice looking paper or fabric and you got yourselves some awesome looking boxes that you can display AND good for organization!)

*Get things repaired versus throwing them away. (It just takes a little time to find a place that'll repair your shoes, furniture, camera....etc. If it cost too much to repair, sell it! you'd be surprised how many people buys as-is stuff on ebay for parts!)

that's all I've got for now. If anyone has any other good tips feel free to share it!

Book sculptures by Nicholas Jones

Saw this on The Design Files blog interviewing Nicholas Jones, a book artist who creates sculptural forms simply from....well, books.
Recently I've been obsessed with book/paper artist such as Su Blackwell who made an amazing animation out of paper. It's neat how a medium so simple that's used in our daily can transform into something visually striking and interesting in so many levels.
Nicholas' approach is fairly simple, but I enjoy his playfulness with colors, texture and various silhouettes.
Jean

More yummy stuff

My parents is here visiting Seattle for the past couple of weeks, and so what do you do when parents are here? EAT! as if I don't do that enough...but nonetheless, it's an activity that everyone can enjoy. :)
I took my parents to Bottega Italiana, on First Ave between Pine st and Union st, a great Italian Gelato cafe right next to the Pike Place Market downtown. Their handmade getlati with fresh fruit taste absolutely amazing. Using the finest fresh ingredients, they don't use any additional colors, flavors, or preservatives in their products, which is great!
It's even better than some of the ones I had in Italy! (I was there for couple of months and I practically ate gelato almost everyday...and there were definitely some not-so-good gelati, believe it or not!)
You must be aware of the suspiciously bright and colorful gelati....I know, they look pretty and tempting, but it's just filled with food coloring and artificial flavors. eck!
You can usually tell when you see good gelato, the color isn't too bright and it should look silky and creamy versus the more icy sorbet look. Like the pineapple gelato in the center, it's just a soft creamy yellow tint to it, not a bright neon yellow that blinds your eyes!
My favorite flavors this time was the melon and mango gelato, it was the perfect combination of sweet and sour flavor together making it so refreshing and light. They change their flavors around occasionally, and few months ago I had their fig and pistachio flavored gelato, which was absolutely delicious, too!
Mi amore gelati!
Jean

Homemade Mochi, only 5 Minutes!

I stopped by Uwajimaya the other day and had to get some ingredients to make some Mochi with Kinako powder (soy bean powder...taste like light peanut powder). I've never made it from scratch before. For some reason I had it in my head that it's difficult to make, since I've always believed that Japanese treats is an art form itself, which it is....But I found that just making mochi is actually really simple! So simple that I made a bunch in only 5 minutes! I'm not kidding!
I found this mochi recipe where you just mix 1 part water, 1 part rice flour (Mochiko), and 1/4 cup sugar. Mix it up and heat it up in the microwave for 4 minutes. I don't usually cook things in the microwave, but this turned out great! After heating it, let the mochi cool to the point where you can handle it, then roll it up and cover it in some kinako powder. Then I drizzled the top with a some sweetened soy paste (sugar + soy paste) and TA-DA! DONE!
It's also easy to change the flavor by adding some seaweed powder, or maccha powder into the mix if you like them.
Next time I'm going to challenge myself to wrap some red bean paste in the mochi and even possibly some cute mochi rabbits, too!
Jean