Bells In Spires

TUTORIAL: rosette valentines

2012-02-10T23:18:00.000-08:00

it's almost valentine's day, people. time to get after it if that's your thing.
i do not particularly enjoy valentine's day, because i feel like you should probably be nice to the person that's in your life more than one day a year. but that's just me.
perhaps i'm just being extremely high maintenance.

anyway.
let's make rosettes! YAY!

materials:

paper cut into a rectangle

two paper circles per rosette

opposable thumbs

glue

i got ambitious and thought i was going to make two rosettes for this tutorial.
turns out, i made one and went to bed instead.

1. you want to fold your rectangle into a zigzag fan thing. to minimize chances of screwing everything up, start by folding your rectangle in half.

2. open and fold into quarters.

3. open and fold your quarters in half. do this until you get your desired zigzaggy thing.

4. glue your zigzaggy thing into a continuous loop.

5. press your zigzaggy loop flat and glue on your circles, one in the front, and one in the back.

ta-da! done!
you can add embellishments to make them super cute!

ok, back to bed.

TUTORIAL: chalkboard paint glasses

2012-02-02T16:00:00.000-08:00

today's post is a long overdue tutorial. actually, it's kind of cheating to call it a tutorial. it's really just a series of pictures i took whilst painting on glass.
NONETHELESS. let's get to it.

what's that silver briefcase in the background, you say? that's a poker set.

it's not that i neglected to move it out of the picture. i placed it there as part of my artful staging process.

oh, and why is the coffeetable missing a corner? not because the beloved dog chewed it off.

it's all part of the aforementioned staging process.

it's art.

you wouldn't understand.

i was in the market for a classy gift a few months ago (you know, right before that insane holiday full of gift-giving and merriment) and came up with these. the glasses were for the BF's sister, who is a fourth grade teacher. she has phenomenal stories. anyway, since she's a guardian of america's youth, i thought the chalkboard motif was fairly appropriate.

these are pretty straightforward to make. here are the materials you'll need:

glasses

chalkboard paint

some sort of brush-like apparatus

contact paper

scissors

1. create a stencil with your contact paper by cutting out a fun shape from it.

2. stick your contact paper onto your glass. if you're smarter than me (odds are good here, folks. really really good.) then you will not use a rounded glass like i did. make sure there are no egregious bubbles or crazy creases that will conceal and harbor paint underneath the contact paper.

one of the many great things about my roommates: they double as hand models.

3. using your brush (or whatever you're choosing to use), paint on a layer of chalkboard paint. let that layer dry. then paint another layer. then let it dry again.
let it dry thoroughly and don't mess with it while it's doing its drying thing. because then you'll get finger smudges all in the paint-that's-still-wet-even-though-it-looks-dry and you'll have to start all over again.

trust me.

4. once everything is dry, carefully peel off the contact paper.

ta-da!

5. wrap up glasses, tie up a bundle of chalk and you're good to give. or keep.
you know, whatever.

and that's it!
hope everyone is doing something awesome this weekend.
i get to go to texas!

art shanties on medicine lake

2012-01-26T13:10:00.000-08:00

happy thursday people!

this past weekend, we set off on an icy adventure and visited the art shanties on medicine lake. it was like a circus + eskimo renaissance fair.

in other words: awesome.

there was an ice bike race

enthusiastically officiated by a furry green monster

an ice-top basketball court

hook shot suckaaaaas

homemade cardboard face-mounted reverse view cameras

the BF looking totally normal.
then again, there appears to be a dude holding a purse with legs in the background,
so maybe we just blended right in.

and crazy people dressed up like goats

oh wait, that's us.

naturally i was enamored with the letterpress shanty; the shanty run by the MCBA. it publishes a daily newspaper during weekends, using hand-set type and a hand-pulled press.

so cool!

we had a lot of fun, and the roommate even got some attitude from a peasant carrying a box of donuts. nothing tops the day off like a little bit of donut-induced attitude.

people in minneapolis: go! it's fun!

hong kong

2012-01-18T20:59:00.000-08:00

today is freezing.
that's all i have to say about that.
now onto what was promised.

HONG KONG
the BF and i were champion tourists in hong kong.

we went shopping at times square, caught a cab up to victoria's peak, watched the symphony of lights show from the harbor ferry, went street market shopping in mongkok and temple street, and i dragged him to HKUST, where i studied abroad like forty eight years ago.

there is a light show in the harbor every night at 8pm. we were en route across the harbor when the show started and it was amazing.

HKUST - the most amazing campus ever on earth in the history of the whole entire world

on our last day, we rode the ngong ping cable cars to see the ~~starbucks~~ giant outdoor seated buddha on lantau island.

i also made friends with a bull there.

and we saw a gangsta panda.

he's seen some real ish go down.

all in all, the trip was fantastic.
i want to go back immediately.

happy lunar new year people! it's on monday! get those red envelopes out!

taiwan

2012-01-17T21:53:00.000-08:00

oh hey.

here are the things that i have been up to lately:

1. working on my wisconsin accent

2. eating

3. cursing windchill: -25 predicted for tomorrow, peeps.

4. eating some more

5. and OH YEAH we went to taiwan and hong kong!

here are some pictures.

TAIWAN

this was the BF's first trip to taiwan, and he met the entire extended fam. he won my grandfather over with his superior chopstick skills and giant cheesehead offering. it was a cultural experience for everyone involved.

wisconsin and taiwan. together at least.

we went to taipei 101 to say hi to the damper babies

we walked along a road lined with booths exploding with cuteness

YAY!

and we also ate. so. much. food.

we went out for hot pot one night and my cousin was in charge of ordering for everyone.

she has a bit of a sadistic streak.

the BF: wait, what is this?

cousin: oh that? that's a fish head.

the BF: hm. i might pass on this.

cousin: but i ordered it just for you!

the BF: oh. um...thanks?

i was sad to leave taiwan, but it meant that we were headed to hong kong, which made things a little better. we had some extra time before our flight, so we explored the airport for a bit.

we found a wall covered in plants and the internet.

the best combo ever.

then we found the HELLO KITTY GATE.

this is serious, people.

there were hello kitty embroidered seats. EMBROIDERED.

hello kitty payphones

hello kitty signage

and hello kitty wall paintings

it was insanity. i couldn't get enough.

then we got to our gate, and guess what??

it was covered in amazing pastel cascades of PAPER FLOWERS!

they had been cut by local artists using taiwanese paper. evidently, taiwan is a global player in paper production. COULD THIS ISLAND GET ANY MORE AWESOME.

ok enough yammering for today.

stay tuned for tomorrow's hong kong update.

december

2011-12-25T00:54:00.000-08:00

hey!
remember that time i took the month off and forgot to tell you? that was fun, right?
wait what? you didn't like it? oh.

noted.

december has been crazy.
let's do a recap, shall we?

PARTYTIME: it's about that time of year.

the office holiday party
i was commissioned to make photo props for our office party, so i glued some paper together.

while i was on the paper prop on a stick making binge, i made a few of these as well:

perfect for creating awkward moments at your next office holiday party!
sadly, these were deemed inappropriate and left at home.
being mature is such a drag sometimes.

festivus
every year, the roommates and i throw a nondenominational party with subtle holiday undertones. it's a potluck feast. the roommate made his legendary roast turkey, and key players brought a ham and pork roast. i contributed jello shots. nearly 200 of them. because i am nothing but a classy broad.
if you are as freakishly obsessed with making jello shots as i am, you need to check out the amazing jelly shot test kitchen. it's based in minneapolis! i obviously will need to find these people and be friends with them.
the festivus jello shot menu included: cosmo, margarita, french lemonade, fuzzy navel, and santa's hat. there was also the bells in spires original sweet tea vodka lemon jello shot.
mine were nowhere near as beautiful as the JSTK's, as i maintained a strict no garnish rule.
my jello shots are purely functional.

ladies night ornament party
anytime you're feeling bored on a wednesday night, invite 24 girls over for an ornament exchange. make sure everyone is fairly competitive and add some wine. BAM. party time.
we spent several good hours fighting over the popular ornaments, which included a mini gnome, a pair of safari-couture cowboy boots, and a christmas platypus.
the roommates spent the evening huddled in the safety of their rooms. when the house cleared out, they deemed it safe enough to emerge and happily cleaned up the metric ton of leftover appetizers and desserts.

PROJECTS: let's DIY, you guys!

ornament painting
one night after work, a few of us got together to eat food, drink wine and paint ornaments. i started out really ambitious and then lost motivation halfway through my ornament. so now i have a half painted ornament.

meh.

vintage teacup candles

want to make your lunchtime awesome? go to an antique mall! then become mildly obsessed with vintage teacups and buy a bunch to take home and make into candles.

chalkboard cups

tutorial to come.

sewing class

a group of us signed up for a sewing class at the amazing crafty planet in northeast minneapolis, and it was ridiculously fun. at the end of several hours, countless broken threads and minor injuries, we ended up with several SUPER cute tote bags.

are we not legit or what??

i've also been etching glass for christmas presents and making custom journal orders. if i had remembered to take pictures, i bet that would make things much more interesting for you.

but i didn't. sooo...that sucks.

LIFE NEWS: big stuff going on.

the BF and i are going to taiwan and hong kong! i'm super pumped. i'm excited that the BF is going to meet the extended family. the BF is excited to see the taiwan that i gush so much about. my dad is excited to torture the BF with stinky tofu and sea cucumber. fun all around!

ok, but the really big life news: MY LITTLE BROTHER IS ENGAGED!! YAYYYYYYY!

i'm going to have a sister-in-law! i am beside myself. i'm so happy i can't even see straight.

ok, merry christmas!

goodnight!

packaging for ugly truffles

2011-12-01T21:16:00.000-08:00

hallo there!

i've been on an oreo truffle making spree. namely because i can't get them to look like everyone else's beautiful perfectly chocolate dipped truffles, and this makes me sad. mine are ugly and lumpy and monstrous. but i persist, and end up with obscene amounts of truffles stored in various tupperware containers, stuffed in various corners of the fridge.

then i force them on the roommates.
they don't seem to mind.

ugh. they are so ugly.

someone suggested that i drizzle white chocolate on them. that is really smart, i thought. so that's what i did.

and you know what?
they were still ugly.

and do you know why?
because i suck at drizzling chocolate.

UGH. see?? gross.

so, then i said to myself: self, what ALWAYS works to make something way cuter than it really is?
CUTE PACKAGING!

it's true. you could wrap a rabid whale and people would fight tooth and nail over it. stick that thing in a kraft box and ribbon it up. instant allure! packaging never fails.
so i set the ugly truffles in silver baking cups and put them into plastic cubes.
TA-DA!

look at these! that's party favor material!

right??

november yo

2011-11-26T10:26:00.000-08:00

happy belated thanksgiving, people!

hope everyone ate themselves into a food coma and then went shopping. because that's exactly what the pilgrims and indians did back in the day, so we obviously want to honor that.

so, last saturday was the MCBA book arts festival, which was a lot of fun. however, mother nature picked saturday to barf up a delightful wintry mix and cause over 400 car accidents in the twin cities area. only the hardcore made it out, so piles of thanks to all my beloved friends that came to visit! even the roommates stopped by and spent the afternoon hanging out, making mini books, plotting money making schemes, charming some middle aged women and fetching me food.

i had PRIME booth space — right next to the snack table and surrounded by awesome people. i spent most of the day yammering to some really fun kids and holding impromptu paper star workshops. so it was a win in my book.

a lo res iphone pic of my booth!

i had crane ornaments, mobiles, star rings, crane rings, cupcake picks, hair pins and glass pendants. lots and lots of cranes were for folded for this table.

i was sharing a table with a really fun girl who was selling journals with birds on the cover. a lady came over and was like oh, i'm scared of birds! and we were like, sorry lady. you definitely don't want to be anywhere near this table then.

anyway, the BF's family invited me over for thanksgiving, so i made pies. mini pies. three kinds, a dozen each.

perhaps a little overkill.

but look how cute they are!

since it's november, that also means it's MOVEMBER. for those of you who haven't heard of it, it is the male counterpoint to susan g. komen's going pink in october. it is a moustache growing event that raises funds and awareness for men's health. several of the guys in the office have been plotting their strategy very carefully. they have all been growing facefuls of hair since the beginning of the month for the grand finale next week, when they will all cut their beards down to just 'staches.

it's going to be terrifying.

since it is for a good cause, i wanted to help. as i am biologically unable to grow myself a creepy 'stache, i made moustaches on a stick to sell instead.

happy movember!

for those of you around minneapolis tomorrow, i'll be at the one stop holiday shop from 10am-2pm.

Center for Performing Arts

3754 Pleasant Ave S, Minneapolis 55409

stop by if you have time!

MCBA: Book Arts Festival

2011-11-18T08:43:00.000-08:00

hello!

ok - this is what i've been up to this week:

1. waking up to 16 degree weather. eep.

2. making paper crane + embroidery hoop mobiles

taking all this stuff and stringing it together...

to make these things!

3. making paper crane ornaments

4. making chiyogami pendants

5. making cards-in-a-box

ready and waiting to be stuffed into their clear cube homes, like in this post.

and also...
6. making the world's ugliest oreo truffles, ever.

i can hear you: oh alena, those aren't so bad.

yes they are. i even tried putting them in tiny little paper bonbon tutus to cutify them up. but then they just looked like mini monsters in ruffles.
fail.

just look at this one:

or this one:

but the roommates said they tasted ok, so whatever. beauty is only skin deep right? and if you're full of oreo truffle goodness, then you can be as ugly as you please.

anyway, i've been in a crafting frenzy this week because i'm participating in the 10th annual Book Arts Festival at the MCBA on saturday (tomorrow, kids!).

so if you're around minneapolis, come see me!

TUTORIAL: shoe rack

2011-11-10T22:34:00.000-08:00

howdyyyyyy

it's november now, so i've decided to list some things that i'm SUPER THANKFUL for.
1. i am SUPER THANKFUL that mother nature hasn't kicked minneapolis in the head yet, and we have had phenomenal fall weather here. the leaves turn amazing colors, ~~there are piles of geese pooping everywhere~~ and the air outside feels cool and clean. it also makes me so happy because:
2. i hate wearing pants. seriously.
so i'm super thankful that it's not suicide yet to wear a skirt to work. and also:
3. i can still wear open toe shoes. this is important because most of my shoes are fair weather shoes. i am from texas, and so are most of my shoes. and i love my shoes. so the longer i can wear them, the happier i am.

of course, now that i've said that, i'm sure the sky will now open up and barf frozen tundra everywhere for the next eight months starting right now.

ok but back to shoes.
i love shoes.
due to the ~~absurd~~ completely appropriate amount of shoes i own, i've always had to make my own shoe storage system. it has always consisted of a bamboo curtain tacked to the wall of my apartment.
see post here.

when i moved to minneapolis this summer, i moved into a room with no studs in the walls.

this was a problem.

stud-less walls are not prepared to have two dozen pairs of shoes tacked to them.

well, walls with studs are probably not prepared either, but they find a way to manage.

anyway, i had to start from scratch and develop another way to store my shoes.

and here's what i came up with:

ta-daaaaaaaaaaaaa!

to start, i went to home depot and became the proud new owner of two giant pieces of melamine. like a real moron, i didn't realize just how giant these two pieces were until i couldn't get them into my car. home depot then sent out a high school kid to assist me, and he proceeded to smash me in the face with the back seat of my car. so i had to drive home and borrow the roommate's much larger car. after precariously driving them home, they got unloaded onto the garage floor.

and then they got painted black.

then i ordered a bunch of cheapy towel racks off of amazon.

the plan was then to screw in the towels into the boards, but i lacked a drill. nor the strength to use a screwdriver to pierce melamine.

so, i went to town with a hammer. it took me like fifteen minutes per screw. it was like pounding nails into a cement block. it was horrible. i'm sure my neighbors wanted to kill me.

you are looking at two hours of whack-a-mole like action here.

when all the towel racks were all smashed in, i happily dragged to whole thing inside and discovered that it was too tall to fit in my room.

FAIL.

so then the racks sat on the garage floor for a month, mocking me. my shoes covered the floor of my room and i moped around, mourning my lack of basic intelligence and circular saws.

then i waited for the BF to come visit.

when he did visit, i immediately dragged him to the garage to show him my unfinished shoe racks. he was horrified at my caveman-esque workmanship.

the BF: wait, how did you screw these towel racks in?

me: with a hammer.

the BF: honey, there's this thing called a screwdriver—

me: i know. it didn't work. so i used a hammer.

the BF: wow.

me: i know. impressive, right?

the BF: uh...right.

he borrowed a circular saw from his parents and went to work.

the BF: do you have any work goggles?

me: are you serious? i'm the girl who uses a hammer to bash in screws. what about me makes you think i would own work goggles?

the BF (very patiently): well, how about a pair of clear-ish sunglasses?

me: no...wait. i totally have something that will work.

BAM.

reason #45242795 why motorcycle helmets are awesome. safety first, people.

once the BF lopped off a foot from each shoe rack, we were in business!

hooray!

ok fin!

does anyone else store their shoes this way?

my next mission is to find a storage method for my wedges...let me know if you have any ideas.

bye.

sauerkraut making

2011-11-02T18:26:00.000-07:00

oh heyyyyyyyyyyyy

so, i randomly took a vacation last week. the BF was in town, and we decided to take thursday off and drive to wisconsin to see his fam. and just as importantly, the dog.

roark says: OH HAYYY

when we got there, the family was making sauerkraut. i had no idea people actually made sauerkraut at home. i assumed that bratwurst somehow just generated its own delicious relish. apparently i was wrong.

shocking, i know.

it's a fairly impressive process. the BF's grandmother had an entire array of sauerkraut generating tools: a monster mandolin for slicing cabbage, several ceramic 10 gallon crocks made specifically for sauerkraut making, and a special sauerkraut tamper: basically a wooden pounder-thing used to squish the cabbage.

this was not amateur sauerkraut hour.

first you start with cabbage. lots and lots of cabbage. 150 pounds of cabbage.

...not really sure why there's a screwdriver involved, but there is.

and because we are good americans, all endeavors must include:

beer

and powertools.

because how else are you supposed to cut cabbage? duh.

first, you use the monster-sized mandolin to slice up the cabbage into uniform cabbage ribbons.

then you pile a layer of the cabbage confetti into a monster-sized ceramic crock, and sprinkle with salt. it's best to have a canine supervisor around. this one's name is cooper.

then the tamping begins. my instructions were: just beat the hell out of the cabbage. we'll tell you when to stop.

sweet.

once the crock is full of smashed cabbage and salt layers, they set a towel and a bag full of water on top, and then wrap up the whole thing with a garbage bag. then it sits there and ferments for 4-6 weeks and then you magically have sauerkraut! crazy, right?

man, those germans. so smart.

and that's it!

oh, what's that? you want to see more pictures of roark, the most awesome dog ever?

ok fine.

OMG CHECK ME OUT I'M ADORABLE.

but i am also very proper.

and then sometimes i like to pretend i'm melting into the floor.

i seriously love this dog.

ok bye.

TUTORIAL: how to win over your neighbors

2011-10-27T22:16:00.000-07:00

hello!
today i'm going to show you how to win over your neighbors.
it's been approximately a long time since i've moved into my place in minneapolis, so it's gotten to that awkward point where it's been too long to actually admit that i don't know my neighbors.
so this weekend i decided to fight awkward with more awkward and tromped on over to make some new friends.

in order to increase the charm factor, i made pumpkin pies.
but not just any pumpkin pies.
i made MINI PUMPKIN PIES!!!

first, bake pumpkin pies in muffin tins:

because why bake one pumpkin pie when you can bake a dozen??

place them in muffin liners and slip into plastic sleeves:

and then stack them in a kraft box. beribbon and tag them.

label that ish!

no one likes a kraft box of mystery from a stranger.

how NOT to win over your neighbors:

knock on their door, mini pumpkin pies in hand.

discover that they are not home.

go home and eat the pumpkin pies yourself.

THE END.

a book review: microcrafts

2011-10-21T00:41:00.000-07:00

oh heeyyy
fancy seeing you here!
no seriously, i'm impressed you're here. this place has been dead for weeks.
i've been traveling for work, you see. i have been at my house for about 5 hot seconds over the last six weeks, and i'm beginning to question why i pay rent. i have become really good at sleeping while sitting straight up, and sneaking toiletries through the security line. i have developed a dependency on ginger ale and mini pretzels. dinners have degenerated into frozen yogurt at airports and room service chicken fingers eaten in a hotel bed. at midnight.

not that i'm complaining. just saying.

i love chicken fingers.

anyway, once upon a time, i used to live in philly. it was glorious and full of frolicking and wonderment. during this time of frolicking and wonderment, i stumbled upon a local publishing company, Quirk Books. their tagline is: Quirk Books: Seekers of All Things Awesome.

uh, can we say phenomenal?
yes. we sure can.

anyway, they are responsible for all sorts of fantastical and ridiculous books, like the all time classic pride and prejudice and zombies, and the new crafting with cat hair.
the latter title made it into this week's people magazine.

i'm not kidding.

anyway! they were kind enough to send me a review copy of their newest crafting book: Microcrafts: Tiny Treasures to Make and Share!

when i first laid eyes on this book, my reaction was: SHUT UP THIS IS THE PERFECT INTERSECTION OF ALL THE THINGS I LOVE. mini things and crafts! so amazing! the only thing that would make it better would be if it made me dinner every night.

oh sorry, got lost in a daydream.
of chicken fingers.

let's get to reviewing, shall we??

this is the cover.

commence squealing with delight.

this is the intro page.

the delighted squealing elevated pitch at this point because HOW CUTE ARE THESE MINI PLANTS? i have tried my hand at mini plants, and i have a terrible habit of smothering them with too much love and then they die.
i'm working on it.

the book is well laid out, and the tutorials are fairly easy to follow. most of the tutorials have helpful illustrations to help you throughout the creating process, but there are a few illustrations that are terrifying.

hey check it out! mini books!

but what the hell is going on in the diagram on the left??

the book is full of really cute ideas. it's a good introduction to a ton of crafting techniques: book making, sewing, macrame, paper folding, quilling and felting. while sometimes a bit vague on details, the book is a good taste of each of these processes. and if you need more direction, well. that's what the internet is for, kids!

mini owls!

and now for the disclaimer portion of today's show!
i didn't receive any compensation for my review (outside of my rad review copy of the book), and all opinion voiced are my own (as opposed to some crazy literary robot). if you would like to buy it, rest easy knowing that i don't get any secret commissions or fancy compensation. if you don't want to buy it, you can just come over and i'll read it to you and show you the pictures.

and that concludes my first book review.
good night!

learning how to wood burn

2011-09-08T21:39:00.000-07:00

howdy!
i spent this past weekend learning something new: wood burning!
a friend is getting married soon, so the BF's mom taught me how to wood burn a sign for their new household.

worst staging ever.

first, she helped me design and print out a stencil of the plaque. then she stenciled the lettering onto the wood. she also did all the measuring and centering.

ok, she basically did all the hard parts.

we used carbon paper and a pencil to stencil on the letters.

then i traced the pencil lines with a wood burning tool. which is essentially like a REALLY hot pencil. with a microphone handle. that you plug into an outlet.

see?? just like a giant microphone electric pencil thing.

this is me, studiously burning away.

burning and burning.

once that was done, it was sprayed with clear coat and left to dry. ta-da!

the process was shockingly theraputic. i'd never even seen a wood burning tool before, but now i have my own kit, thanks to the BF's mom!

who knows what i'll decided to brand next??
oh, the possibilities.

hope everyone's week was relaxing and flood-free (philly!) and wildfire free (texas!!).
kbye.

TRAVEL: iceland

2011-09-01T21:13:00.000-07:00

howdy! did you miss me??
i'm back! and no longer homeless nor galavanting around in iceland. i've moved into a sweet house, next to a lake, complete with a deck and creepy basement!
honestly, what more could a girl want?

my room is currently a cardboard box obstacle course, with clothes and shoes strewn about everywhere. my beloved BF spent a week of his vacation helping me to unpack so i could get things under control at work. i received periodic text scoldings throughout the day: HOW MANY JACKETS DOES ONE GIRL NEED?? and WHY DO YOU HAVE SO MUCH TUPPERWARE.
look, if i'm to keep warm and well fed, i need all of that.

anyway, i thought i'd post some iceland pictures. cool? cool.

for those of you lucky enough not to have to put up with us all the time, this is what we look like:

me, my panda hat, and the BF blocking the view to the most amazing waterfall ever: Gullfoss

right after we landed in iceland, we went straight to the blue lagoon, the legendary famous hot spring. it was phenomenal. like a giant natural hot tub! then we headed into reykjavik.

we rented a car and drove along the southern coast of the country, stopping whenever we wanted. it was incredible. iceland is a country of about 300,000 people and 3 HUMUNGUS glaciers. since the whole island hangs out on top of two tectonic plates, there are hot springs and volcanos all over the place. in the summer, the sun doesn't set until midnight. summers there hover between 40-50 degrees. fahrenheit! RIDICULOUS.

on our driving adventure, we saw stunning waterfalls

ok, and yes we planked. we had to! all the cool kids are doing it.

and lakes full of ice blue glaciers.

occasionally, we would drive past strangely structured piles of rocks, so we stopped to get a closer look.

confirmed. these are indeed piles of rocks.

but this was clearly not amateur rock piling hour here, folks. some of these piles had to be built by civil engineers. or elves.
with little elven cranes.

look at these things! they are masterpieces! googling revealed very little about the purpose/origin/background of these rock piles. apparently it's just something people do in iceland.
thanks, google.

ok, i love gift shops. most of them are tourist traps, full of kitschy, useless and tacky souvenirs. and i cannot get enough of them. we had to stop at every shop we saw.

i mean, where else can you find a goat with four horns coming out of its face?

OR....

A KNIT BEARD HAT COMPLETE WITH MUSTACHE???

answer: nowhere.

then back in reykjavik, we saw the famous church of hallgrimur:

and even found texas (4 you)!!

it was an amazing time. everyone should go!
ok, time to continue unpacking.
g'night.

TUTORIAL: suction cup crane ornament

2011-07-28T19:06:00.000-07:00

hiyas!

ok people. this is it. the last post i'll ever do as a resident of philadelphia.

minneapolis, get ready (again)!

i'm super depressed to be leaving, but at least i'll be going to a city with lots of friends and two awesome roommates ready and waiting to party rock it up. so, it could be worse. as a texas girl through and through, i had no idea how i'd like the east coast. but I LOVE IT. the people are super awesome. the driving is crazy, cities are fun and the food is amazing. also—all the states are so close together! very convenient. if i want to randomly hang out somewhere different, i can drive to like eight other states in a weekend.

alright, let's get down to this. as my parting philly post, i thought i'd slap together a haphazard tutorial, with crazy multi-sized font (seriously, WTF blogger), ugly pictures and questionable grammar. because i care.
ok no, it's actually because i need to pack three weeks of my life into a suitcase and prepare myself for a near month of travel and homelessness.
see what i go through for you guys?

you're welcome.

this is a project that can be done with very few materials, but because i like to make things complicated, i use as many tools as possible.

materials:

a paper crane (you can learn how to make one here)

a suction cup

2 pieces of wire (one about 7" long, one about 1/2" long)

some string (about 7 inches)

scissors

a needle

optional:

a mini wire plier set that your mom bought you

an awl (not to be confused with an owl—you definitely do not need one of those)

paper messages

tape

1. start by skewering your crane right through the middle, like so:

the blue and green cranes are very concerned.

very extremely concerned.

you can use either the needle or the awl for this.

2. tie your smaller wire piece to the end of your piece of string:

3. open up your crane. spread out its wings, inflate the torso, adjust the various appendages as necessary. then using the needle, thread your skewered crane onto the piece of string. the piece of wire tied to the end will stop the crane from sliding off the other side and escaping. that is the last thing you want.

4. next, attach your longer piece of wire to your suction cup. depending on your suction, you may be able to do this a number of ways. mine had a metal hook that i used to wrap the wire around.

5. make a eyelet at the other end of your wire. then, tie your crane-on-a-string to that eyelet, and then stick the whole thing to your bathroom mirror!

optional: you can personalize your cranes by taping tiny paper banners to the string.
then taking them into work and sticking them to your coworkers' desks.

that's it!
easy peasy.

so, also! as if moving and house hopping isn't enough, the BF and i are going to ICELAND! yes! the land of whales, crazy volcanoes with even crazier names, and the time-honored tradition of puffin hurling!
while researching the country, i've become increasingly obsessed with puffins, and the BF is starting to get concerned.
i want one. seriously.

i'd also take two. source

we leave in two weeks, and i am PUMPED. it's going to be amazing. if anyone has been, i'd love to hear about it. we'll be there for four days, and staying in reykjavik most of the time, with a roadtrip planned to vic.

so, in light of the fact that i'll be homeless/on the move for awhile, i probably won't be updating for a bit.
given the lack of regular updates lately, this is probably not shocking news.

ok i'm done yammering.
see you in minneapolis!

card in a box

2011-07-24T09:11:00.000-07:00

howdy!!
it's been crazy here. traveling and working and traveling for work have taken over my life.

but who wants to talk about that?
no one.

two weeks ago i was in houston for a family friend's wedding. it was phenomenal. my family took full advantage of the open bar, made friends with the photographer and generally had ourselves a grand old time.

at the reception, my brother and i were standing around, bickering over how many maraschino cherries we had in our respective drinks. my mother walks over and looks at us with a sigh.

mom: what on earth are you two drinking?

brother: that is unimportant. what are YOU drinking?

mom: white wine.

brother: right. and what's in your other hand?

mom: oh, this is scotch. neat.

brother and i: ...wait, what? are you serious?

mom (walking off): let me know when you guys are ready to get some real drinks.

there are very few feelings in the world comparable to being out-badassed by your own mother. however, since this is a regular occurrence, my brother and i have become accustomed to it. later that night, we dragged our parents from their table and two-stepped the hell out of the dance floor.
no one can ever say that the chiang family doesn't know how to party.

we ended the night with a conglomeration of beloved old friends, fun new friends and the most amazing korean tacos i've ever experienced.

this past weekend was spent in the glorious new york city. there was shopping, there was cuban food consumption, and there was going out until ungodly hours of the night. or morning, more accurately. there were philly friends, high school friends, college friends, and random creepsters. there was a bar in the women's bathroom. there was a 4:30am pizza pit stop. there was a post-pizza dance party in the hotel room — complete with strobe lights and high kicks.
all in all, a completely normal weekend out in nyc.

on the paper crafting front, i've been putzing around and found the perfect stash-busting project.
if your stash includes a bajillion mini glass vials.
how convenient!
because mine does.

paper scraps, stars, bits of wire and square plastic cubes

and of course, mini vials

wrapped up in paper

add hot glue

so, i included the paper lotus to lend some scale to this whole photoshoot.
but now i realize that i actually created a LURKSTER LOTUS.

then delicately shove the whole thing into a clear plastic cube.

ta-da! card in a box!

these things could be customized for anything! birthdays, baby showers, wedding/party favors, placecards, ransom notes, you name it. you could make the world's most elaborate business card in a cube. you could make dozens of mini dioramas! you could use pictures of your face and hand them out to your friends and family. the potential is endless here, people.
so go, let your mind frolick through the verdant meadows of possibility and go nuts. and then feel free come back here and leave a comment with what your brain brought back from possibility meadow.

if you want one of your own without a DIY adventure, you can now purchase these babies at SWAG, the cutest boutique in northern liberties, PA, folks. so be awesome and visit!

go! go now. SO CUTE!

alright, i'm done bossing you around.

BYE.

TUTORIAL: TP roll pillow boxes

2011-07-07T18:04:00.000-07:00

yay!! a project!!
i know. it's been awhile.

you can always tell how good your friends are by the types of activities you engage in. the two friends that flew in to visit this past weekend are awesome. we did all the usual touristy stuff, the walking around the city, the eating at fancy places and the strolling through boutiques. but we also sat around the apartment one night, drank scotch and made stuffed peppers.

you don't do that with just anyone, folks.

anyway, as you might expect, an apartment full of four girls generates a large amount of TP tubes. i think that's probably all the detail about that that we need to get into.
as i was dumping them into the recycle bin, i thought about how tragic it was to get rid of so many perfectly good cardboard tubes.
so then i saved them and made them into little pillow boxes instead.

materials:

toilet paper tubes (one per pillow box)

decorative paper

ribbon

gluestick

1. cut your paper to fit around a TP tube. then, using the gluestick, glue the paper around the tube.

2. on one end of the TP tube, fold the top edge down into a curved crease. do the same to the bottom edge. repeat with the other end of the TP tube.

3. add more paper and tie with ribbon.

you can also go hippie style and keep the TP tubes au naturale, without the decorative paper. you hussy, you.

scandalous.

4. find something cool to put in them.

5. give away. or keep them on your coffee table. on a plate.
you know, whatever suits you.

who knew recycling could be so stylish? these things are better dressed than i am.

alright, off to do some work.
ciao, people.

philly adventures: terrain and longwood gardens

2011-07-05T10:36:00.000-07:00

hello!

so, we are winding down from a long weekend here due to july fourth. i am a big fan of holidays in general, but the fourth of july has slowly risen in my estimation as of late. it's a holiday that is legit enough to give you a day off from work, but there are no big obligations to fulfill, like thanksgiving or christmas. so if you want to spend the long weekend laying around the pool, or stuffing your face with food, or some combination of both, it is completely acceptable. and then, at the end of the day, there are fireworks!

what's not to love??

i had a couple friends in town this weekend, and we ran around exploring philly, eating and shopping as needed. my favorite thing we did was to go to terrain at styers and longwood gardens.

terrain is the "home and garden lifestyle" concept of anthropologie, another store so amazing that the roommate and i have to treat it like a museum to avoid bankruptcy. terrain is incredible, it was like stepping into a magical retail wonderland. i want to live there. they have an area where you can build your own terrarium! complete with shelves of beautiful glass jars, rows of adorable assorted mini plants, bowls of succulents and countless varieties of moss. there were perfect bags of smooth river stones, piles of air plants and sparkly cut glass water misters. it was overwhelming sensory overload. in the best way possible.

OMG. cue total system shutdown.

SO GLORIOUS.

then we continued the magical garden theme and went to longwood gardens, in kennett square, pennsylvania. we frolicked amongst hedges cut into ducks, ventured through gazebos, walked past pristine fountains and obsessed over orchids and water lilies.

i want my house to look like this.

and then i want my front yard to look like this.

the rest of the long weekend was spent snarfing food to the point of physical discomfort (repeatedly), watching fireworks, shopping and running amuck in the city.

hopefully you enjoyed the weekend, too!
if not, well.
you can try again this weekend.

philly driving 101

2011-06-21T19:50:00.000-07:00

hiyas!
i'd like to tell you about something that continues to amaze me in philadelphia: the driving.

when i first moved to philadelphia, i immediately noticed a change in the driving atmosphere here. i had just come from minneapolis, a city of the most passive, docile drivers in the history of the world. granted, this type of behavior is probably justified, because despite the fact that the city is coated in three feet of solid ice 9 months of the year, the highways are built like roller coasters — narrow and full of sharp curves and crazy angles. it is the most poorly disguised method of population control i've ever seen from a city. as a result, going 60 mph on the highway immediately pegs you as a maniac. i went a solid nine months there without hearing a single car horn.
then i moved to philly.
drivers are psychotically aggressive here. all traffic laws are seen as mild suggestions to be heeded when convenient, and blatantly disregarded when not. essentially, drivers here do whatever they want and curse anyone who stands in the way. good thing i'm a fast learner. within two weeks, i'd broken my car's horn from overuse. it's pretty fantastic, actually. very liberating.

another thing i noticed while driving around were the traffic signs. philadelphia has a lot of traffic signs posted around town, stating common driving rules. examples below:
"wait for green light"
"stop at red light"
"stay in your lane"

really, philly?
it didn't take me long to figure out that these signs weren't just friendly reminders to the area's driving populace. they were desperate pleas from the city, imploring people to quit driving like drunken blind yaks. fairly ineffective, as far as i've seen, but it's the thought that counts, right?

since i have an hour commute (one way!) everyday, i am able to witness all sorts of amazing driving demonstrations. last week, i glanced in my rearview mirror just in time to see a prius pass another car by swerving into a lane of oncoming traffic and blowing past a stop sign. then, while sitting at a stop light, the truck next me got impatient and casually ran the red light, turned into a one-way street going the wrong way, then avoided traffic by ambling onto the sidewalk. then he slowly drove out of sight, scattering pedestrians left and right.

good times.

this weekend was spent in toronto, visiting the BF, who is interning there for the summer. toronto is a seriously incredible city. it seems almost fake. the weather was amazing, the food was delicious, and they have a SHOE MUSEUM! we took in a toronto symphony performance, ate frozen yogurt three different times at three different places, hung out with some college friends and apparently just missed seeing justin bieber in downtown toronto on sunday.

rats.

alright, enough yammering from me. i hope everyone's week is going splendorifically.
peace out.

TUTORIAL: newsprint nails

2011-06-09T22:14:00.000-07:00

well hello stranger!

am i allowed to say that if i'm the one who went missing?

let's go with yes.

well, in my fervor to live it up during my last few months in philly, i neglected you. i'm very sorry. but philly is so fun! she has concerts, and festivals, and cool art, and so much food! tons of amazing food. but she's just a friend, i promise. you've always been my one and only love.

really! it's true.

so, what have i been up to?

i've been traveling for work, and subsequently getting stranded in various cities across the country. i'm just lucky like that.

i've gone to tons of concerts: from country concerts to chick band sets to vienna teng shows. two vienna teng shows, actually! score.

i've been literally eating my way through the city — not unlike godzilla. which is, of course, glorious.

i've also been working. and as a result, i've begun to develop remarkable methods of procrastination. and this week's project is a direct result of this situation. newsprint nails!

materials:

light colored nail polish

clear coat polish
alcohol (rubbing alcohol works, but vodka works better. trust me. incidentally, when is this statement ever not true?)
newspaper (mine was obtained for free ninety-free at the asian market. just one of the many great deals that can be found in chinatown.)

1. paint your nails the light color of your choice. i chose white, but my next experiment will involve pink. i'll keep you posted.
for kicks, throw another coat on there. we are trying to avoid doing actual work, aren't we? yes.
let dry.

2. paint a clear coat over the top of the polish. let dry.
while waiting for your nails to dry, debate the liklihood of a bird barging through your screen-less windows with your roommate. conclude that a trespassing squirrel would also be a less likely, but more hilarious, possibility.

3. pour yourself a small shot of alcohol.
now, like a real lush, i was loath to waste perfectly good vodka for a nail painting experiment, but it really does work better. but if, for some inconceivable reason, you don't happen to have a handle of vodka handy (which is just poor planning, honestly), rubbing alcohol will suffice.
dip your nail into the alcohol, making sure to get the whole nail wet. then press a piece of newspaper onto your wet nail.

4. press the newsprint evenly onto your nail, being careful not to scootch the paper around. after a few seconds, peel off the newspaper. ta-da! magic!

5. let your newsprint nails dry for a few hours. then apply another clear coat over them.
if you attempt to clear coat your inky nails too soon, the ink will smear, and then you will be sad.

alright, i'm out.

g'bye!

cinco de mayo

2011-05-05T20:41:00.000-07:00

HAPPY CINCO DE MAYO!

it's been awhile yeah?
sometimes life happens too fast, and then you start skimping on things like sleeping and brushing your hair and doing laundry and blogging.

i had a fantastic easter weekend hanging out in jersey with the BF and his family. he and his two brothers went to visit their aunt and uncle in tom's river, and i made the drive over to meet them up. it had been a busy week with not a lot of sleep, so i showed up looking fairly pale and slightly homeless. i'm sure his aunt and uncle were less than impressed with the disheveled asian girl that showed up at their doorstep that morning. after introductions were made, i presented them with a bouquet of easter lilies and then promptly fell asleep on their couch.
what can i say?
i'm a classy girl.

we dyed eggs, went on an egg hunt, watched basketball, walked along the infamous jersey shore and had heated debates about the insulating abilities of clouds. i met my first shiba inu. his name was zippy and he was like a real life pokemon. SO CUTE.

we also ate. and ate. and ate. one of the tenants of any great holiday, really.

our dyed eggs!

can you guess which one i dropped??

the past weekend was spent in rhode island with the BF, for harvard's annual newport ball. super fancy! i had my first lobster roll, learned to fear rhode island's tap water after finding a feather (a FEATHER! from a BIRD!!) in my water glass, and lost $5 (of the BF's money) learning to play liar's poker. we also walked along the atlantic ocean coast and gawked at the enormous mansions lining the water.
good weekend.

so, i didn't have a project for you, but it's my birthday, so i'm going to go play.
cool?
cool.

have a great week!

Roundup: Peeps!

2011-04-21T22:58:00.000-07:00

howdy!
so, since it's been mandated that i move away from philly, i have been absorbing as much of this city as i can in the time that i have left.
it's also easter weekend.

the intersection of these two things is what brings us the glorious topic of this week's post:
THE PEEPS ROUNDUP!

you may be saying to yourself: woman, what do unnaturally-colored, seizure-inducing, borderline edible marshmallow creatures have to do with philadelphia?
well, then i would tell you that peeps were in fact CREATED IN PENNSYLVANIA. bethlehem, pennsylvania, about an hour and a half away from philadelphia. TAKE THAT.

the company that makes peeps is called Just Born. they also make mike & ike and hot tamales. their motto is (wait for it...):

"a great candy isn't made...it's Just Born."

that is TERRIFYING.

also! it takes six minutes to make one peep.
six whole minutes?? how is that in any way reasonable? are these things hand painted??

anyway.
let's get to it!

1. a peeps wreath centerpiece topiary hybrid {totalclasscreative blog}

2. nothing says "sophisticated rustic" quite like a peeps and moss wreath. {the art of doing stuff}

3. show your loved ones that you really care...with a peeps bouquet. {flowerduet}

4. peeps in TUXEDOS! how freaking cute are these?? {blogs.babble}

5. peeps nametags! {the art of doing stuff}

6. this is the most epic peeps wreath/pinwheel thing i've ever seen. granted, i've only ever seen 2 other ones, but whatever. {martha stewart — oh martha. you are so wily in your crafting ways}

7. rainbow peeps cupcakes! {fancy flours}

8. peeps sushi: wow. just...wow. {holy kaw}

9. a peeps topiary - a freaking explosion of edible pastel {the hungry mouse}

ok, it's past my bedtime.
have a great easter, everyone!

swoon street art and dapper dog deliciousness

2011-04-15T19:21:00.000-07:00

yes.
i know.

i am a day late updating.
but i have a good excuse!

well.

it's not "good" as in "fun" or "happy" or "YAY" but more "good" as in "oh, that makes sense."
what an ambiguous word.

the roommate and i have been busy being up to mayhem and mischief, per usual. as a continuation of last week's post, we went on an adventure on saturday, to the temple university area in philly, in pursuit of the fabled street art of swoon. i wanted to see if her art was an urban legend, or if it did actually exist. and the roommate is always down for a good adventure, so off we went, camera, map coordinates and GPS in hand.
the area around temple university is not the best area of this city. and so of course we got lost.
but we saw lots of cool buildings and neighborhoods.

we saw building innards

and wall angels

and a forest of painted sticks!

after wandering around the area for awhile, we finally stumbled upon a small urban park, surrounded by stone walls and filled with mosaic sculptures.

upon walking through the park, what did we find??

ta-daaaaa!

sure, it's peeling off the wall and partially disintegrated, but STILL.
SUCCESS!

we also found a full intact piece outside of a cute little bookshop:

so exciting!
to celebrate, we went out that night and had ourselves a thoroughly responsible time. upon arriving home, we step out of the cab to yet another exciting discovery:

the elusive DAPPER DOG HOTDOG STAND!!

YES.
the roommate and i are giddy with joy. we pile up to the window only to be told, sorry girls! we just ran out!

HEARTBREAK.

upon seeing our crestfallen faces, the guys (seth and harry, our new BFFs) quickly exclaim wait! we can probably make up something!

and this is the glorious something they made for us:

omg.

a ridiculously amazing conglomeration of hot dog, hoagie bun pieces, hash browns, pepperoni (we think?), green peppers, grilled onions, chili and who knows what else.
thinking about it now still makes me light headed. we were the two happiest girls in northern liberties that night, guaranteed.

all thanks to these guys!

source: citypaper

so anyway.
back to the reason for posting late. remember how i just moved to philly 3 months ago?
well, this week i got news that my job is actually being moved back to minneapolis.

yup.

so guess who is moving back to minneapolis?

yup.

as you can imagine, this has thrown quite a bit of chaos into my life, so things are about to get crazy. again.

it is going to be rough. i love this city a lot, i love my apartment, my neighborhood, i love my roommate and i love the fact that the BF is just a bus ride away.
also, the thought of moving all my stuff again makes me nauseous.
but, it could be worse.
so, my adventures in philly will have to end a little sooner than expected, but you know? things happen.

anyway, hope everyone had a less life-changing week than i did.
enjoy the weekend!

street art

2011-04-07T22:27:00.000-07:00

photo from the most adorable blog ever: color me katie

howdy.

what's new?
lately, i've become more and more infatuated with street art. i've always been really enchanted by the whole idea, despite the fact that it COULD be TECHNICALLY classified as vandalism.
but let's be real, people. would you look at that tree with eyeballs and call the police? no. you would be too busy taking pictures and texting all your friends about it. i'm sure tweeting would be involved as well. because it's a tree!
trees? birds?? tweeting?? get it? I'M HILARIOUS.
anyway.
i have come to the conclusion that you must also share my increasing obsession with street art. so i'm going to brainwash you with a list. with pictures! click through for picture sources.
ready?
ok. let's go.

yarn bombing: ishknits

wikipedia defines yarn bombing as:
"...a type of graffiti or street art that employs colorful displays of knitted or crocheted cloth rather than paint or chalk."
it goes on to attribute yarn bombing to...TEXAS! wahoo!
ishknits is a yarn bomber in philly who has gotten tons of press for her recent exploits — she tagged the city's subway cars and the venerable rocky statue outside the art museum.

SO COZY.

this makes me giggle.
{heeheehee}

paper graffiti: swoon

this past weekend, i went to see the BF in boston, and he took me to the institute of contemporary art out on the waterfront. it was gorgeous and fantastic, and i discovered and instantly fell in love with swoon, a paper artist (shocking) who wheat-pastes life size paper prints onto buildings. and you know what i found out? that she's done a ton of work in philly!

can you imagine walking around and randomly finding this somewhere?
SO COOL.

i love this so so much.

there will absolutely be an expedition arranged to hunt for these treasures sometime SOON.

hotdog clues: street dept

i love my neighborhood here. it's the model of gentrification gone right: full of cute boutiques, coffeeshops, and free parking. it's covered with urban graffiti and brick warehouses are juxtaposed against upscale niche restaurants. it's also hipster central, and is often overrun by boys in tight jeans. which, if that's your thing, come on over. they are everywhere!
anyway, the walls here are covered in color. it's like living in a giant cartoon. pretty much a dream come true for me. i found an awesome blog called street dept that actually documents street art and other awesomeness in philly, and our neighborhood is featured on the reg! and it was this blog that enlightened me to a local mystery that had gone down recently.
there used to be a hotdog vendor on our street that would appear strategically around bar close time during the weekend. then he suddenly disappeared one week. well, apparently his nocturnal hotdog vending was illegal! which is ridiculous. this man was obviously doing the world a huge favor by feeding the drunken masses. have you ever had to deal with a hungry drunk person? UNPLEASANT at best.
anyway, the point of all this is that the hotdog vendor left clues to his next planned location, pasted to the brick wall of his former street corner!

follow me! follow me to HOTDOGS!!

cutest street art ever: color me katie

this girl is my hero. she's a photographer/street artist, and has the HAPPIEST BLOG EVER. i love her.

{heeheehee}

if you don't love this, you have no soul.

what do you think? are you as OBSESSED as i am now?

becuase i want to quit my job and glue things to buildings forever.

WHO'S WITH ME??

one last thing: if you are into super cool stuff, (you're reading this, so obviously you are. obviously.) then you need to check out the FREAKING ADORABLE video my two newly engaged friends Sarang and Kat made for a contest:
table4weddings video contest

go and vote for them! they are awesome.

alright it's way past my bedtime.
kbye!

TUTORIAL: tissue paper cherry blossoms

2011-03-31T22:20:00.000-07:00

hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii there!

i went to washington DC this past weekend and saw me some cherry blossoms! it was the first weekend of the famed cherry blossom festival in DC, so i road-tripped over there and hung out with my cousin and some friends who flew in from texas. the BF also happened to be in DC at the same time, so it was a partypalooza all weekend!

how do flowers stay SO CLEAN?? they live outside!
perhaps they can teach the dog how to do this.

we went out for my friend's birthday dinner on saturday, and one of the other girls got her the most adorably wrapped present ever. seriously, check out this gift wrap:

aww it's a smiling strawberry!
look, a group of laughing clouds!
a pink bear with a bowl of noodles!
wait a second...what on earth is THAT??

no, but seriously. what IS that.

are those hotdogs? on pancakes? that looks like chocolate syrup...with sprinkles?

we were so distracted by it that the gift never even got opened.

i also found out that i'm horrifically allergic to MSG this week. i've always gotten mild headaches from super questionable restaurant chinese food, but i'd always assumed that was standard. you know, all part of the sketchy chinese restaurant experience. well, i made some minestrone soup on monday, and the recipe called for bouillon cubes. apparently the bouillon i used was MSG to the max, because i was completely out of commission after one bowl. it was as if every cell in my body had dehyrated and flipped inside out. i was so thirsty i couldn't see straight, and my head felt like it was trying to detach itself from my body. frankly, i wanted to die. i drank two brita pitchers of water and promptly passed out.

for 14 hours.

sooo that was fun.

in an attempt to remain reasonably healthy, the roommate and i tried to go sign up for a gym membership tonight. the gym's computer system crashed, so we weren't able to actually sign up.
you know what we're doing instead? eating nachos.

anyway.

in case you won't make it to DC before the cherry blossoms peace out, i made some paper ones for you. YAY!

materials:

scissors

white tissue paper

a square piece of yellow crepe paper

a large bead

green wire

floral tape

1. let's make the petals first!

cut your tissue paper into ~3 inch by ~2 inch squares. you'll need five pieces per blossom.

for illustration purposes, i made ninety billion tissue paper squares.

2. next, wrap your bead in a tissue paper shroud, and twist both ends closed tightly. remove the bead. repeat. aaand again. then three more times.

you should have five little bubble-looking tissue paper pieces now, with little antennea-looking twisty appendages on either end. trim off one of these appendages from each petal bubble.

3. stem time!

cut a length of green wire for your stem. the length is completely up to you. go crazy.

or not. you know, whatever.

take your square of yellow crepe paper and strategically bunch it up.

glue it to the end of your green wire. strategically.

4. now, use floral tape to attach the five white petals around the yellow center on your green stem. this step takes some wrangling, hence the lack of pictures of this step.

don't give up. you're almost done.

actually, once you finish that step, you are done!

YAY!

it's officially april 1 - my dad's birthday! happy birthday, baba!

oh, also! have you guys heard about gmail's newest development, gmail motion? check it out!

ok, bedtime.

and the winner is...

2011-03-24T21:33:00.000-07:00

howdy!

THANKS so much for hanging out with me and entering the star prize pack giveaway!

you guys are the BEST TIMES INFINITY. it's true! i know these things.

ok, so the way i picked the winner was this: each entry was assigned a number in the order received, and then i pulled a number out of the cutest panda crochet bowl ever. the roommate was witness to the entire process, which makes it all even more legit. unless you know her. then you know she is completely nefarious.

so the winner is...

#1! and #1 is alex! yayyy alex! i will be sending along your prize pack shortly.

hey that was fun, we should do that again sometime.

anyway, the roommate and i have been trying class up our apartment. we go to our friends' places, and we are envious. we covet their sophisticated furniture, their catalog-like styling and coordinated towels. then we come home to our crazy apartment full of randomness. we keep our bikes in the guest bathroom. there's a giant nylon leaf over the living room couch. sometimes we'll hang up a mosquito net inside because we feel like it.

i mean, we try. we bought a stylish bookshelf from ikea, the same one as one of our stylish friends. she uses it to display vases and stemware. we keep canned goods and chips in ours. (it's near the kitchen, it's only practical!)

we suspect that the problem is that we are obviously not classy girls, and we are both prone to acting on random impulse. we set out to run some errands on sunday and ended up getting distracted by a chinese buffet. we went to ikea tonight with a list of strictly practical necessities. we ended up at the ikea restaurant gobbling swedish meatballs and talking the server into giving us some free macaroni and cheese. then we ended up falling in love with a GIANT potted palm plant.

do we need a giant potted palm? no.

does it go with anything else in our apartment? no.

did we love it? yes.

is it now happily sitting in our apartment? yes.

at the end of the day, do we regret anything?

nope.

hopefully, you all had a regret-free week as well. this weekend i'm off to DC for some cherry blossom adventuring!
kbye.

GIVEAWAY: paper star prize pack

2011-03-17T20:31:00.000-07:00

well HELLO there.

i just got from my first trip to MICHIGAN. this trip included some flight delays, me running an impromptu 5k in the detriot airport (while in heels!), giving a few customer presentations back-to-back and subsequently losing my voice. hooray! i sound like a chain-smoking frog. i have been assured that this is sexy. i suspect i am being told lies.
oh well.

what's going on with you?

HEY I KNOW.
let's do a giveaway, shall we?
yes, let's.

i've got a bellsinspires star-mania prize pack to get rid of.
- 3 packages of star paper (to make your own pile of paper stars)
- 1 mini vial of paper stars
- 1 package of star picks

3 chances to win:

*follow*
become a follower of this blog by clicking "follow" on the ~~right~~ LEFT hand side, underneath the "followers" heading. then leave a comment saying you did so.
if you already follow/subscribe to this blog, leave a comment saying that you are way ahead on the curve of awesome.

*yammer*
using twitter, tweet this giveaway and include @bellsinspires in your tweet.
then come back and leave a comment saying you did so.

don't have twitter?
post a link to this blog on your facebook.
then come back and leave a comment saying you did so.

don't have facebook?
honestly, what is wrong with you?
ok, do you have email? then email 3 friends about this giveaway.
i've included a choose-your-own-adventure/mad-libs style template to get you started.

hello (insert adjective) friends,
there's this (choose one: amazing, incredible, life-changing) blog that i read every week that is giving away free stuff right now. if you are (awesome, enjoy random yammerings, love freedom) and like paper crafting, then you should check it out.
you will not enjoy this blog if you (fear awesome, hate fun, can't read).
love,
(insert your name)

don't have email?
get out your feather quill and ink, and use a freaking homing pigeon.

*comment*
or, just leave me a comment to enter!

the winner will be chosen at random and announced NEXT WEEK.
ready set go!
good luck!

TUTORIAL: japanese paper doll toothpicks

2011-03-10T21:46:00.000-08:00

howdy people.

how has everyone's week been?

cool.

this past weekend was one of those weekends that makes bad days worth enduring. the BF was in town, we got philly cheese steaks, went to my thirteenth (and still amazing) vienna teng concert, and went to the philadelphia museum of art. so fun! i really do just LOVE this city.

there is one thing about my office that i am still getting used to: how healthy everyone is. as a girl from the wonderous state that is texas, i am used to my food being cooked one of two ways: barbequed, or fried. i'm also accustomed to eating absurd portions of said food. i take eating very seriously. the other day, i brought in some food for lunch, and as i pulled it out, i realized that i was entirely surrounded by salads.

coworker: oh wow. what are you eating?

me: oh um, i'm just having a little lunch...

coworker: no seriously, what is that thing?

me: uh...well, it's a chicken sandwich.

coworker: really?

me: ok, well it's a fried chicken sandwich. a fried chicken and waffle sandwich, actually.

coworker: ...are there vegetables on that?

me: does bacon count? and it's got a side of tator tots...potatoes are vegetables, right?

anyway, i'd like to move on to address a serious problem that plagues most modern households today. it's an issue that everyone deals with, but no one likes to talk about it. but solutions do not come from silence. we must confront this problem head on in order to find a remedy. yes. i'm talking about:

TOOTHPICK NUDITY.

*please forgive the terrible photo quality.
why no one has posted hi-res pictures of toothpicks in the public domain is beyond me.

honestly, it's embarrassing and frankly, offensive. to allow toothpicks to parade around stark naked is degrading to everyone involved, and i think it's high time we do something about it. i mean, are we not civilized? seriously.

the japanese obviously have it figured out. my mother brings home lots of paper treasures for me whenever she comes back from taiwan, and one year, she brought home these:

finally!

appropriately dressed toothpicks!

so let's get to it!

materials:

a naked toothpick

two different colored pieces of 2.5" square paper

half of a piece of 2.5" square paper (in a complimentary/clashing color. your choice.)

a small piece of crepe paper, about 1.5" x 1"

two lengths of string

1. lay your two papers layered on top of one another (mostly overlapping except at the bottom), and place your toothpick on top, like so:

secure the toothpick with a little smidgette of glue.

2. next, fold the left corner of your two sheets down, across the toothpick. wrap the right corner across the toothpick in a similar manner. now it looks like the toothpick is wearing a cape.

3. fold the bottom right corner of the cape across the toothpick, so that the bottom of the paper is flush. do the same with the other side.

5. now, take your half piece of paper, and fold it lengthwise once. wrap it around your toothpick and secure in the back with tape or glue. there. now your toothpick has a legit obi.

6. wrap a length of string around the obi and knot it in the front. it just makes it look better.

doesn't it?

7. time to make the 'hair': now, take your crepe paper and place it behind your toothpick. fold the short end over the top of your toothpick's head.

why purple hair, you ask?

because i couldn't find my black crepe paper, that's why.

8. fold down each corner to form a triangle. secure hair by tying with string, like a bandanna.
a tiny tiny bandana. trim ends of bandana string.

BAM. sophisticated, classy, clothed toothpicks!

i made notecards out of mine, but you can do whatever your heart desires.

may your house be forever rid of inappropriate toothpick behavior.

if you are interested in an actual japanese paper doll (ningyogami) tutorial, there's one posted a kimono reincarnate that is super adorable.

k good night.

air dry clay gift tags

2011-03-03T20:00:00.000-08:00

so, the first half of this week was rough. really rough. my brother must have sensed a disturbance in the force, because i randomly got a package from him in the mail this week. i tore open the box to reveal something that looked like a giant plush artery. or a body pillow for an elf. neither of which i remembered particularly needing. so i did what one always does when confronted with one of life's mysteries. i googled it. turns out, i'm the proud new owner of a WRAP A NAP. my brother declared it to be the next snuggie.

what is a wrap a nap, you ask? from the website:

"The Wrap-a-Nap is a long pillow that hugs your head with gentle pressure, giving you the sweet relief of complete darkness, muffled noise and 360 degrees of pillow protection."

still confused? here is a picture from the wrap a nap's website:

obviously, i will now be dominating the arena of public restroom napping.
side note: when/where would it ever be appropriate/necessary to wear flip flops and a tie?

the roommate had a friend from texas visiting this week, and we hit the town hard on saturday night. but before we went out, what did we do? arts and crafts time, duh. we found some air dry clay at a craft store downtown, and made gift tags!

materials: air dry clay, mini cookie cutters of the christmas and valentine variety, and a menacing five foot long cardboard tube for a rolling pin (not pictured, sadly).

we made a lot of tags. and some buttons.

once we cut out the tags, we smashed them with leaves and baby's breath.

then we got really crazy and embedded wire shapes into them.

while we were making our flat, rectangular tags, the roommate suddenly busted out a monkey with a coffee cup. it's so freaking cute.

what a show off.

once you have a pile of dried tags, you can just glue them to random things, like clothespins, or mini pin cushions made from tiny terra cotta pots. ta-daa!

this weekend will more than make up for recent crappiness. you know why?
because the BF will be in town again.
but also because...
i was lucky enough to get tickets to the SOLD OUT vienna teng concert in philly this saturday! I'M SO EXCITED. i actually have to stop typing now because i can't sit still just thinking about it.

kbye!

necklace holder roundup

2011-02-24T21:00:00.000-08:00

howdy friends!

i've been in philadelphia long enough at this point that i should have everything unpacked and settled. but of course, i don't. i think i can get away with the 'i just moved here' excuse for one more week, max. then i'll have to think of another story. let me know if you have a good one.

one of the things i've been trying to find is a necklace holder, and i've been seeing a few really cute options floating around. the next step is actually making one for myself.
baby steps.

you know i don't do well under pressure.

1. aunt peaches version of the necklace board — made from corrugated plastic signs! she's on a rampage against illegally placed political signs. free crafting material while cleaning up your neighborhood? bring it on.
2. i am obsessed with all things tree and tree-like. and so i love this tree necklace holder thing idea from martha stewart.
3. for me, for you created this piece using some wood she found while happily inebriated. jackpot.
4. my friend esther at whollykao made this necklace hanger to accomodate her longer necklaces (necklaces that she makes!).
5. martha strikes again. how cute is this shadowbox idea? answer: super cute.
6. design*sponge's shadowbox jewelry holder. so classy! i love it.

i hope everyone is having a great week. found out today that a good friend in new zealand survived the earthquake down there, but her house was completely destroyed. her husband and puppy also escaped unscathed. it was such a relief to hear from her.
it's times like this when getting my car towed doesn't seem so bad. =)

week 2: disasters part II

2011-02-20T19:44:00.000-08:00

ok. i'm not dead.
quite the opposite, actually. i have been continuing my streak of awful car issues and bringing terrible weather wherever i travel. so i've been extremely busy, you see.

i'm currently in minneapolis for work. the day i left philadelphia was very eventful. i walked out of my apartment that morning, ready for the day and even a few minutes earlier than usual. as i walked into my parking lot, i began to get confused.
i am currently driving a rental, a yukon. the biggest vehicle known to man. it takes me 20 minutes to park. and i have to use a ladder to disembark. i can see the thing for miles. but as i walked into my parking lot that morning, i did not see it. concern set in. then horrible realization. my car had been towed. from my own parking lot.

so awesome.

my lovely beautiful beloved roommate took me out to the tow lot to retrieve my stupid yukon. as i walk up to the bullet proof metal fortress guarding the lot, i see that they have posted a 'credit cards accepted here' sign.

me (relieved): omg you guys take credit card, that's amazing.
tow truck guy: naw, but the machine out there takes credit cards.
me (looking around): ...machine? what machine?
tow truck guy: the one right there, on your left.
me: sir, that's an ATM.
TTG: yeah, that thing takes credit cards. just stick your card in there.
me: dude. you're kidding, right? that is not how ATMs work. you know what, nevermind. just take my cash. i'm sure this is completely legit.

it turns out that my parking permit had somehow fallen off of my rearview mirror. and, like the fine upstanding law-abiding citizens that they are, the tow truck people pounced and dragged the yukon off into the night.

but it's ok, i tell myself. soon i'll be in minneapolis, and i'll get to see lots of friends and eat lots of food.

i get to the airport, and settle into my seat on the airplane. the weather in minneapolis looks fairly mild, and i am excited. we end up sitting on the runway for about 30 minutes, just hanging out. no problem. i'm staying positive. the women next to me start discussing child birth in incredible detail, but i stubbornly refuse to be bothered. then the guy sitting behind me opens a thing of hummus, and it manages to explode, arc over the seat, and rain down all over me. all over my white sweater. my white jacket. in my hair.

cool.

we arrive in minneapolis, and i am exhausted. i look like a homeless mess and smell like roasted garlic. but i get back to being excited. it's an incredible 40 degrees out, and i prance outside to the taxis. the weekend is amazing, and i see lots of friends and eat lots of food.

and now? it's blizzarding outside. nearly a foot of snow is predicted to fall over the course of the night. and the meetings that i flew in for are canceled.

i'm adding "harbinger of atmospheric catastrophe" to my list of super powers.

anyway.
i visited the BF in boston last weekend and he mentioned that he wanted to make some thank you cards. a few months ago he broke his hand pretty severly while playing football, and couple friends helped him get to the hospital. he had to get several pins in his hand, endure a cast and do some physical therapy, but he's back to fully functional now.
so, using only a ralph lauren polo magazine ad, a swiss army knife and a glue stick, we set out to create four thank you cards.

he's so sweet, right? but then he insisted on incorporating the pins that were taken out of his hand.

me: dude, that's gross.
BF: you mean awesome.
me: no, i mean gross.
BF: too bad. it's happening.

here's what we ended up with:

what do you think?

i don't know if you guys knew this, but in addition to being a full time business school student, my BF also moonlights as a ralph lauren polo model, and spends his time lounging around horse races, hanging out with disembodied hands on his shoulder and using striped belts as slings. no big deal.

alright, enough yammering. i hope everyone has a great week!

the week of car disasters

2011-02-10T21:30:00.000-08:00

howdyyyyyyyyyyy
it's been an eventful week. i'm exhausted.

saturday:
my roomate moved in and the BF came to visit! it was like a double whammy of happiness!
we ate and explored and had ourselves a grand old time.

sunday:
the BF leaves to go back to boston. lame. two hours after we drop him off at the bus stop, the roommate realizes that she is missing her camera. we retrace our journey across the city and MIRACULOUSLY find her camera sitting in a puddle, next to the bus stop, unscathed and secure in its case. much rejoicing was done.
when we return home, she attempts to move her car to a better parking spot on the street. her car won't start. no problem! i declare. we are capable, independent women. we will jump start her car using my car! it's a brilliant plan!
her battery is so far gone that the jump start doesn't work.
and then my car dies.
so we do the only reasonable thing to do on sunday.
we abandon both cars on the side of the road to go watch the packers win the superbowl.

monday:
my car is towed to a dealership...in new jersey. eh?
i am riding in the tow truck with my car strapped to the back, and slowly realizing that we are crossing state lines. i ask the driver: are you sure this is right? he replies, yes, this is the closest dealership to your house. oh, and by the way, he continues, i'm going to need $12 for tolls. in cash.
yes. of course you will.
my car is dropped off at the dealership, the tow truck driver drives off $12 richer than before, and i go to wait for my rental car. turns out that they don't have my reservation on file. i protest. they apologize and give me the pimpest, most enormous jeep grand cherokee i've ever laid eyes on. i stop protesting. i finally get into work at like 2pm, and then spend 15 minutes trying to park the massive rental.

tuesday:
i retrieve my car, and we are reunited!

wednesday:
discover that my car won't go over 45 mph without trying to stall out.
it takes an hour and a half to putt back home from work.

thursday:
find another dealership (this time in the same state) and drop off my car again. the only rental available? a yukon.
if this trend continues, the next time my car dies, my rental will be an 18-wheeler. i'll be able to haul freight and smuggle entire countries around town, no big deal.

since it's been so crazy, i've been coming home and mindlessly making things. our living room is covered in tiny paper objects, and none of them go together.

a crazy assortment of paper flowers, stars, quilled hearts, paper fortune cookies, pinwheels, etc.

i'm fairly certain that this is what the inside of my head looks like.

a hot mess.

chiyogami covered clothespins

not really sure what destiny awaits these guys.

good thing i made 11 of them.

i hope everyone else's week is a little less crazy. shout out to arkansas, who got slammed with over 2 feet of snow yesterday. wowza.

goodnight!

valentine's day roundup

2011-02-03T22:01:00.000-08:00

hello friends!

evidently i am the asian girl version of el nino, because lately, everywhere i go gets pounded by bizarre weather. first it was philly and thundersnow, and this week it was dallas and the icepocalypse. i was in dallas for work, and got stranded (like thousands of other people) because of snow. snow in TEXAS. i felt so betrayed. last week it was 70 degrees in dallas, and the day i left it was 19 outside. really, texas? thanks a lot. jerks.

to be fair, apparently 29 states were completely owned by this latest snowstorm. INSANITY.

so, while i am not the biggest fan of valentine's day (it's all just a big trick!), there are so many CUTE things out there for the "holiday" that i had to share.

1. hilarious bitter sweet cookies by not so humble

2. valentine lightbulb on design*sponge

3. an AWESOME valentine's day fort by justina at compai creative

no but seriously, how cool would it be to surprise someone with one of these??

actually, forget that, i'm building myself one.

4. pretty paper fortune cookies by design. wash. rinse. repeat.

5. lavendar heart satchets on craftstylish

6. strawberry heart shortcakes by omnomicon

7. heart pom poms on weddingbee

alright kbye.

TUTORIAL: how to make a lunar new year's paper lantern ball thing

2011-01-27T21:52:00.000-08:00

well HELLO there!

so, if you've seen the news recently, you might have heard that the northeast united states had what they called THUNDERSNOW storms last night. essentially, philadelphia was graced with a huge blizzard that dropped over 8 inches of snow on us...PLUS THUNDER AND LIGHTNING.

yes. apparently it is possible. i was certain the world was ending. it was terrifying. i've honestly never witnessed anything so absurdly incompatible. except for maybe the seagulls that frolick in the snowbanks at work.

bizarre creatures.

anyway.

we are coming up on one of the best holidays ever! LUNAR NEW YEAR!

this year it falls on february 3rd, and it is the year of the rabbit. so heads up, rabbits. this is your year. get after it.

as for the rest of us, there's nothing stopping us from getting after it, too. so i thought i'd start by sharing a new year red envelope paper lantern buckyball looking thing tutorial.

traditionally, during the lunar new year, you hang out with your family, eat lots of amazing food and relatives will give out red envelopes filled with money to all the kids. this is why it is INCREDIBLY beneficial — fiscally responsible, even — to make it home for the new year. however, i will not make it back to texas this time, and my new year will consist of a phone call home to my mother. she will then tell me, in great detail, all of the lovely things she is cooking, how delicious it all will be, and how sad i must be that i will be missing everything. it's really too bad, she'll say. i'm making all of your favorites. i guess your brother will just have to take all the wonderful left over food. too bad for you.

she is, like most chinese mothers, full of kindness and compassion.

since i was small, i've been really fascinated by the red envelopes that people gave out. some of them are amazingly gorgeous, with textured red paper and gold embossing. i loved them all, and hoarded them like the crazy child that i was.

it wasn't until a few years ago that i finally found something to do with them.

make a giant ball out of them!

duh. sometimes, the answer is so obvious.

materials:

36 lunar new year red envelopes

(if you don't have these, file cards work just as well. or really, any uniform rectangular papers)

a stapler

lots of staples

to create the ball, all you'll be doing is stapling the corners of each envelope together.

the thing to keep in mind: the short edges of each envelope will be stapled together in groups of five. the long edges will be stapled together in groups of three.

ok. let's begin.

1. staple together two envelopes to each other, face out.

2. now staple three more envelopes to your first pair, matching up the corners:

see how five short edges are all hanging out together?

3. now you'll staple an envelope perpendicular to the current ones, matching up the long edges:

see how three long edges are all hanging out together?

4. then repeat on all sides.

notice that short sides hang out in fives...

and long sides hang out in threes.

5. then just staple away, matching up five short sides and three long sides together.

as you staple, your ball will slowly find some structure.

once you get past the halfway point of adding envelopes, you'll start to staple existing envelopes together, to close up the ball.

see? the bottom two envelopes have met and now need to be stapled together once and for all.

then you're finished!

now:

string some thread through the top

balance a barstool on your piano bench

scale makeshift tower to hang the ball from your living room window

receive word that two of your beloved friends are FINALLY ENGAGED

lose balance, throw paper ball across apartment

jump around while texting congratulatory gibberish to couple

regain composure

finish hanging paper ball

take picture

done.

kbye.

i love shoes.

2011-01-21T12:42:00.000-08:00

hello friends!

i'm sorry i'm late.
i do not yet have internet at my apartment, and my computer and my camera are currently in an epic fight, hence the delayed posting.

but guess what! this blog is nearly ONE YEAR OLD. so get excited; big things will be happening around here.
i'm not entirely sure what, but big things. trust me.
when have i ever let you down?
...aside from not posting when i promised?

let's stop all this silly bickering over small details.

anyway, onward. to the post!

i love shoes. it can probably be classified as a borderline obsession at this point. it is a problem that is entirely inherited, and therefore I had no control over it. you do not fight against genetic imperatives.
so while i do have an absurd amount of shoes, my mother easily beats me ten times over. and she is wholly unapologetic. she knows what she loves.

me: ma, you have eighteen pairs of green shoes within my range of vision right now. isn't that a little bit overkill?
mom: well, you're in the green shoe section of this closet. what do you expect?
me: i bet you don't even know how many pairs you have.
mom: so?
me: ...
good point.
carry on then.

when my brother and i moved out, my parents, in a decision that punched logic right in the face, bought and moved into a bigger house.
because when your family decreases by half, you'll obviously need twice the space.

"it's for when you visit," my mom said. "that way you'll have a place to sleep."
but what she really meant was, i'm using your existance as an excuse to con your dad into getting more closet space.

so while other parents may go through a whole "empty nest" period, and mope around the house missing their kids, my mother shoved my brother and i out the door and promptly replaced us with shoes.
because who needs kids when you have shoes?

now, while my mother lives in a house with eleventy billion closets, i generally do not have that luxury. so i had to come up with an efficient way to store my beloved shoes. since i am currently unpacking, i thought this would be a good time to share.
so come along, and let's go on a shoe unpacking journey.

look, i don't have a problem. i can quit anytime i want to.

oh, in an effort to explain my crazy pictures, i'd like you to note the following:

- my apartment currently looks like a banana republic barfed up a thrift store that overdosed on cardboard. hopefully this will change soon-ish. but i make no guarantees.

- i discovered that my apartment has no overhead lights two night ago. this discovery led to me purchasing a $7 lamp at walmart and assembling it in the dark last night.

i've been unplugging that lamp and carrying it with me from room to room.

first you'll need a bamboo window shade, and some twine or string.

take some twine and tie some loops onto your bamboo shade, like so:

hang up your bamboo shade.

then just hook the heel of each shoe into a loop. you'll need one loop per shoe.

see? a shoe storage/wall hanging thing.

that's it! no seriously, that's it.

i know. it's a terrible tutorial with bad lightining and even worse instructions. but to give you an idea of what i'm working with, please see below.

my "studio"

my $7 lamp. and my cardboard box + kitchen stool tripod

alright, kbye.

philadelphia, i think we're going to be great friends.

2011-01-13T20:26:00.000-08:00

hello from philly!!

my life is currently a crazy mess. i am officially in philadelphia, and i'm crashing with a fantastic friend, who puts up with me taking over her living room. she's the best. seriously. she also has a puppy named scrappy, who also tolerates me hanging out on his couch, which i feel is very generous of him.
but i'm officially not homeless starting this weekend, which is super exciting!

my first week's recap in bullet points:

start work on monday. my computer crashes shortly thereafter. (but good news...they were able to recover everything!)
i get lost driving back from work and end up in the sketchiest part of town on accident. (but good news! now i know where the sketchy part is!)
a freak snowstorm on wednesday closes the office for half a day. jackpot.

i have a lot to learn about philadelphia. it is a weird and glorious place.

i looked outside the office during lunchtime one day and saw seagulls. yes, actual seagulls. frolicking in the snow banks. i thought i might have had a stroke.
the drivers here are insane. evidently, stop signs and even red lights are optional in this city. who knew?
the food here is AMAZING. just like everyone said! i'm so excited!

and now to leave you with some gems of the internet i'm currently obsessed with:

i love this blog. love love love
as soon as i get settled, i want to make some of these!
and these!

i can't wait to get all of my things, move into my apartment, unpack my life and explore this city. it's just one big giant adventure waiting to happen!

taiwan part II

2011-01-06T09:48:00.000-08:00

this will be my last blog post from minneapolis...isn't that crazy? ok maybe it's just crazy for me.

anyway, my brain is still fuzzy from taiwan. not speaking english for a week will really mess you up. don't be impressed — it's not like i spoke chinese all week, please. i did a lot of nodding and smiling. oh, and eating. i did a lot of eating.

i've been back for two days and i already miss taiwan. my grandfather has a housekeeper that is amazing. her name is i-ma, she's indonesian, and she does everything. she cooks, buys the groceries, cleans, does laundry and keeps my grandfather in line. all at the same time. but even more incredible is her ability to eat spicy food. she can eat an inhuman level of spicy-ness. the family reveres her for this skill; this is why i-ma doesn't ever gets cold, they say. this is why i-ma doesn't fear the heat. this is why i-ma never gets sick! she's fantastic.

anyway, i have four cousins that live in taiwan, and they are all hilarious. one night at dinner, we fell to discussing the pigeon infestation outside my grandfather's apartment.

mom: the pigeons are awful. they sit on the windowsill and spend all night chatting to one another. i can barely sleep!
cousin #3: we should install a hose outside the window, so that when pigeons land on the window, they get sprayed with water.
cousin #1: uh, i think those are called "bird baths."
cousin #3: no, the water pressure would be really high!
cousin #4: high enough to kill them?
cousin #2: then you just have piles of soggy dead pigeons on your windowsill. that sounds even worse.
cousin #3: no, the water would spray the pigeons off of the window.
cousin #4: so you'd have soggy dead pigeons in the courtyard? i don't know if people would like that.
cousin #1: yeah seriously. what if you got hit with one? that would ruin your day.
mom: the neighbors across the way hung up sparkly CDs to try to scare them away.
cousin #1: did it work?
mom: well, i saw the pigeons playing with them yesterday.
cousin #1: so...no.
uncle: i know! we'll sprinkle some of i-ma's hot chili peppers on the windowsill!
cousin #2: oh good, then we'll have pigeons that never get cold.
cousin #1: or are afraid of the heat.
cousin #4: and they'll never get sick!
cousin #3: don't birds actually like hot peppers?
cousin #4: well, either way, you'd be creating an elite breed of super pigeons.
uncle: ok, fine. let's just capture two of them and string them up as examples.
cousin #2: don't you think the other pigeons would come for revenge?
cousin #1: yeah, they'd probably lay siege to the apartment.

three ph.Ds and two CFOs in the family, and we never did solve the pigeon problem.

while we were in taiwan, one of my cousins had her engagement party. as tradition dictates, it was a 10 course banquet. as tradition also dictates, halfway through the meal, the groom's family very quietly just ups and leaves. evidently, the reasoning behind it is that the bride's family provides the engagement banquet, and so the groom's family does not want to over-tax her family's resources. and so they leave halfway through the meal. the secret signal is the fish course; once the fish hits the table, the groom's family is done. luckily for the groom's family, the fish was the ninth course this time. my mother saw this and turned to my oldest cousin and his wife.

mom: what! your fish course was the third course! we barely even got to eat the appetizers!
cousin #1: dude, i got married like four years ago! how do you even remember that?
mom: because i was HUNGRY!

it's times like this that i know i was not adopted.

anyway, my cousin looked beautiful. but my favorite part of her outfit? her shoes!

i do love shoes.

and the best part were the favors. everyone got a beautifully wrapped bag of taiwanese rice. so practical! and so pretty!

alright, time to go pack and try to get my life in order. to make things even crazier, the BF is currently in africa, working on an economic revitalization project in rwanda. you know what's even less cool than long distance? international long distance! but now i can say with confidence that someone in africa reads this blog.

yay!
okbye.

hi from taiwan

2010-12-29T07:05:00.000-08:00

hah! i bet you thought that since i'm in taiwan, i wasn't going to post! well, joke's on you! take that!
to be fair, this post is going to suck, but at least i'll make it short. you're welcome.
my mother and i are staying with my grandfather, who is 98 years old and is still active and capable. most of the time. other times, he is a maniac. the other day, he complained that it was too cold in the apartment, and turned up the heat. then we realized that he had opened all the windows in the place. when we asked him why he opened the windows, he just cackled and shuffled off.
i love taiwan. love love love it. when i visit, i try to accomplish only two things: to eat as much as possible, and to purchase ridiculous amounts of absurd crap to take home. where else can you find kitchen sponges shaped like smiling raindrops? or scarves shaped like bears? or fish dumplings shaped like...ACTUAL FISH?? and pandas, and rabbits...and SPONGE BOB??

so awesome. and delicious.

my shopping here is done mainly from street vendors, which means haggling. you quickly become accustomed to lowballing everything on sight. maybe too accustomed.

me: how much is this shirt?
vendor: 100 taiwan dollars.
me: that is RIDICULOUS. i cannot believe you are charging so much, how can you sleep at night?? i am completely outraged and am taking my business elsewhere!

then i walk off and realize that i've insulted a stranger's integrity for three dollars.

well, i hope everyone had a fantastic christmas. happy new year!

5 lessons and marshmallows

2010-12-22T16:05:00.000-08:00

howdy there.
this week, i'd like to share with you 5 things that i've learned since moving to minneapolis. these lessons took me a long time to learn, so i thought i'd save you some time and pass them on. you're welcome.

1. fresh snow makes an ABSOLUTELY ATROCIOUS noise when you drive over it.
last year, when i'd first moved here, the inevitable first snowstorm hit. luckily, i'd heeded all sources of advice, and had an action plan in place for leaving work. my car had remote-start, so i was able to start the car from the office window. then i took 37 minutes to put on 11 layers of insulated clothing, changed out of my high heels and pulled on my not-kidding-around-this-is-for-serious snow boots. i strutted out of the office feeling extremely proud of myself. so what if i looked like a walking burrito wrapped in a sleeping bag? i was impervious to the falling death they call snow, and my car was warmed up and ready by the time i waddled out to it and flopped in. i wallowed around in my victory for a second, then started to drive across the parking lot. as soon as my car began to move, i heard an awful groaning noise, not unlike the noise a dying rhino caught in the glove box would make. i panicked instantly. i called a friend.

me: dude.
friend: what happened. are you in a ditch somewhere?
me: i think there's something broken with my car. it's making a noise that is not natural in any way.
friend: oh yeah. (laughing) that always happens when you drive over freshly fallen snow. totally normal.
me: uh...you and i obviously have COMPLETELY DIFFERENT ideas of what the word "normal" means.

2. you may lose the trunk option on your car for weeks at a time.*
one thing i learned the hard way: don't keep your ice scraper in the trunk of the car. do you know why? because a rogue sleet + snowstorm value combo will come and puke up a delightful "wintry mix" on your car one night and encase it in an invincible shell of thick evil ice. your doors have handles that you can use to wrestle your car open again, but your trunk will be sealed shut until may.

*sidenote: i will give you this, minnesota. car icing does happen occasionally in other states, too. for example, last year, a freak ice storm ripped through the southeast united states, coating arkansas in several inches of ice. the bf and his roommate (now my current roommate) eagerly attacked my car to de-ice it, and a mere six minutes later, my car had been completely emancipated from its ice cocoon. the fact that they also shattered my windshield in the process is another story.

3. you will not "get used to it."
this also relates to the statement: "after awhile, it doesn't matter how cold it gets. it all just feels the same anyway."
erroneous. erroneous on both counts. my body is continuously finding new and innovative ways to communicate just how cold it is. as the temperatures drop, the signs become more dramatic. at 0 degrees, my face falls off. at -10 degrees, every single cell in my body screams bloody murder when i step outside. by the time it gets to -30 degrees out, all of my internal organs threaten ritual suicide unless i get back inside RIGHT THIS SECOND.

4. snow brings out the crazy driver in a lot of people.
to be fair, snow and ice add a fun twist to what would normally be boring, monotonous driving. but i feel like some people take it to the next level. a few days ago, a guy driving a minivan cut me off while turning left from the right turn lane. then, after he made it through the intersection, he proceeded to throw it in reverse and drive back into the cross street. i guess he was pissed he missed me the first time. maybe it's just me, but that seemed overly aggressive.
also, my drive home this week took me 2 hours. it normally takes me 20 minutes. i hit a top speed of 7 mph, and was faint with hunger by the time i barged through my front door. as i hurtled down the road, i passed seven cars mired in the ditch...one of which was a snowplow.

5. electronics have feelings.
once, i left my phone in the car while i was at work. at the time, it was -4 outside. during lunch, i went out to retrieve it, and it wouldn't talk to me for six hours. it was pissed.
i've also been cautioned to let my computer warm up before i turn it on when i bring it in from outside. why? i ask. what happens?
i dunno, is the answer. i think it explodes.

so yes, snow makes noises similar to a mortally wounded irate african creature. yes, snow is always trying to kill me. but i have come to realize that what everyone says is actually true. minneapolis after a snowfall is really beautiful. jaw-droppingly, breath-takingly gorgeous. in fact, if snowfall was a girl, she would never need any money, or arms. everyone she met would buy her anything she needed, and boys would open every door she encountered. after a snowfall, the pavement is covered in layers of glitter dust, and cars sit lined up on the side of the street like rows of freshly frosted petit fours. (the fact that they are trapped there and have been abandoned by their owners is irrelevant to this point.) every sharp edge in the world is wrapped up in puffy white sparkles. The snowfall has a way of muting most sounds while amplifying others, and it feels like even time places its feet carefully in the ice.

when i first moved here, i had no idea what i was doing. i thought zippers on jackets were purely decorative. being in temperatures colder than 50 degrees sent my body into total system shutdown. the thought of driving on anything other than flat, dry pavement was completely and utterly terrifying. but since i've lived here, i've discovered the wonders of snowveralls, and these things called "mittens." now, when i careen across 4 lane intersections because i have no traction, i careen with confidence. i've learned how to strategically blow through stop signs, instead of screeching blindly past them. i have become slightly more capable because i've lived here, and that makes me happy.

this weekend a friend and i found these ENORMOUS marshmallows that i'd been hearing about. we had long suspected that they were mere urban legends, but we found them!

they are like four times the size of regular large mashmallows!

see?? aren't they awesome??

so then we decided to try to make fun shapes out of them using mini cookie cutters. we coated the cookie cutters with powdered sugar and then smashed them into the marshmallows.

it didn't work out quite as well as we imagined in our heads, but kind of:

ta-daa!

alright, i'm spending a few days in wisconsin with the bf and the puppy, and then i'm off to taiwan! YAY!

merry christmas, everyone!