miriam dema

busy, busy

2012-01-25T14:04:00.000-08:00

I've been kinda busy recently. Busy getting married that is!

We've been doing all sorts of traveling the last month or so leading up to our honeymoon the last few weeks. Which is why posting here has been a bit of the slow side. Expect to see a few posts soon about our wedding and honeymoon travels in Hawaii. Then some thinking and figuring out what I want to work on in 2012 for art projects. I've been busy just having fun and enjoying life but there's art to be made in the near future.

2012!

2012-01-06T11:36:00.001-08:00

I can barely believe it, it's 2012! Here some quick pics of our adventures recently, more wandering and more to come. The fella and I ushered in 2012 with good friends and lots of life and love, hope you did the same!

holiday season

2011-12-27T13:29:00.000-08:00

it's been a great holiday season so far! filled with making and giving and travel and seeing loved ones. here's some pics from our adventures about town. i love this time of year but this year it's especially filled with celebrations. i hope your having a great holiday season as well!

Love: picture post

2011-12-14T11:01:00.001-08:00

Some things that happened last week.

Finished a new belt with sterling buckle

On the roof of lacma west

Holiday hippos

Buying live crabs

Holiday decorations!

love: the holidays!

2011-12-07T12:23:00.000-08:00

if we've covered this topic before pardon me, but we're gonna talk about the holidays. specifically gift giving. at some point in my childhood my pops decided that gift giving was totally out of wack and not at all the way to celebrate the holidays. so we scaled way, way back to almost no gifts. we also tend to give each other things and buy what we want through out the year. the idea of waiting till a specific date seemed more about bragging about what you received and that prolly also rubbed him the wrong way.

it doesn't mean we don't buy stuff, heck the fella and i have a running chat with our ups guy he's here so often with all sorts fun gadgets. it just means we don't keep lists of people to buy for, go to the mall or buy random crap. i would like to encourage all of you to take part in this approach. it's awesome. when everyone else is chasing around going broke you get to sit back and think how awesome this not 'buying for buyings sake' is. also, hallelujah, no crap you don't know what to do with or ugly sweaters that have to be returned. it's like you get to check out of a whole portion of activity's.

if you really must give a gift i suggest you make something. all of the gifts i do happen to be giving this year are thing i'm making. i'm also participating in two handmade food swaps this holiday season so i've been washing up a storm of dishes in the kitchen. so far i've put together a beautiful batch of flavored salts, my trusty delicious tomato jam and a cranberry rye whiskey sauce that is so good i can hardly stand it. i find this wayyy more fun than trying to figure out what 'so and so' needs. jam, they need jam. it's that simple. jam is so multi-purpose i never realized till i started making it by the pot full.

jam making in progress. i have a huge low pot i can make double batches in, a great big pot for boiling the jars and two smaller pots for the lids in the back. yes, i have a 6 burner stove but you could do this on a smaller scale, i'm just a bit um...overenthusiastic.

oooh, pretty!

in case you think you can only have jam on toast let's cover a few more options.

yogurt: man, a tablespoon over non-fat greek yogurt is a great way to start the day. add some fresh fruit and you're good to go. i really can't imagine eating yogurt with flavor already in it at all anymore, homemade jam really hits it out of the ball park.

sandwiches: got some whole wheat bread, some ham and some mustard? add a smear of stone fruit jam to the sandwich for that feel good 'i coulda paid $10 for this sandwich but i made it at home' feeling.

salad dressings: making a salad- just mix a tb of jam with a tb of mustard, add a glug of vinegar, whisk in some olive oil, salt and pepper. you basically used jam instead of honey. you can get fancy here by pairing the jam with the vinegar for added flavor- say, rice wine vinegar with spicy prickly pear jelly. yeah that doesn't sound like it sucks at all. if you have trouble getting the jam to dissolve pop it into the microwave for a few seconds.

meats: making dinner but all you've got in the fridge is some boring looking chicken breasts? salt and pepper, 1 tb of jam mixed with bbq sauce or mustard, spread over the chicken for a glaze, it will get bubbly and crusty as the chicken roasts and be ever so yummy. add dried spices or additional chili to this one for added flavor.

tea: i read a thing just yesterday about using marmalade to make a hot beverage. a tb or so of marmalade in the bottom of a mug with hot water poured over it makes a sugary, citrus, yummy drink. this is totally on my mid afternoon treat list!

you can see how i cook here, sugar, acid, spice- i pretty much add that combination to most of what we eat in various combination's. the key is to have a light hand with the jam. i think of it like honey to keep my proportions right. go make some jam!

making: new print

2011-11-30T11:33:00.000-08:00

I've been puttering along recently on my mountain prints.

I wrapped up version two this past weekend and here are some pics to share with you. I'm really happy with the sky on this one. It reminds me of that going towards darkness time of the day where the sky above and behind you is dark but ahead and towards the setting sun it's glowing with a fade from blue to yellow white. The way the white ink tracked through the blue when I printed the sky hints at geometric cloud formations that sometimes appear above Los Angeles .

going: beach rides

2011-11-23T14:44:00.000-08:00

Monday afternoon my fella and I piled our bikes in the truck and took off for a bike ride. We drove and drove and drove and ended up at the beach! (i don't always ask where we're going, he knows good places to go :)

We unloaded our bikes just south of Long Beach in Sunset Beach and rode the beach trail from there down to Newport Beach and back again. It was a great ride! The trail is supe smooth and really wide, bonus as it was a Monday and there was hardly anyone out there. On the way back we stopped in Huntington Beach for a snack and a drink and rode the rest of the way back to the truck in the setting sun and a bit of darkness.

My fella had the afternoon off because he's working the night shift these days. And why is he working the night shift you might ask? He works at JPL and the Mars Science Labratory (MSL) launches this weekend so they are all working around the clock to get ready. Yep, my fella works at a place that sends stuff to Mars. It's only one of the things that makes him super awesome.

eating: jam

2011-11-15T10:53:00.000-08:00

we love jam. and jelly and preserves. i eat them on yogurt on toast and i often use it on meats for a glaze with a bit of sweetness. in the last year I've made all sorts of varieties. this last week i finally walked to the end of our yard and picked some prickly pears for jelly!

i have to say, i've kinda avoided this as i really hate stickers! but i read on the internets that you can burn the stickers off and that really helps things. it totally works, i got around 3 or 4 stickers in my hands the whole time i made the jelly. and one of them was on the pitcher of juice in the fridge a day after i picked them so you know those stickers are wily!

here i am burning the pears, cutting off the ends, slicing them in half and then peeling off the skins. i'm pretty lucky to have such a great out door kitchen area - this is the wood fire grill where we figure the fire will burn off any escaping stickers. you could just use a grate or something. i prolly wouldn't use my regular grill but i don't like stickers in my grilled chicken.

burnt skins!

and into the pan it all goes. i boiled it for ten minutes of so to loosen up all the pulp and then strained it in dish towels for a few hours. do you buy cheese cloth? i don't, i buy those 99cent dish cloths from ikea in bulk and toss 'em in the rag bin when they start to look gross.

the next day i had about 3 quarts of juice. i put about 9 cups in my great big jelly pan and let it oil for a few minutes to reduce just a titch, then i added 5 cups of sugar, i prolly could have gone a bit lower on the sugar but jelly has me adding more sugar as i hate when it doesn't set. to the juice/sugar combo i added about 2 cups of lemon juice and then i slowly started adding some really hot habanero hot sauce we had in the fridge. i wanted this to be spicy but not overwhelm the delicate prickly pear flavor. once i had it to the right flavor i added a bit more to compensate for the canning process, everything seems to get less spicy when it's done. then i added 6-7 tablespoons of the low sugar pectin i typically use until i got a nice thick set on my cold plate in the freezer.

as you can see when it comes to jam and jelly making i'm a bit more wing it than most people. i tend to trust my instincts and over do it to make sure everything turns out the way i want it. more sugar, more pectin. i kinda understand those people that want things to taste super natural and fresh but um...it's not. you've added sugar and cooked it. at least get a product your happy with that lasts. i ended up with 9 half pint jars. most recipes typically call for making much smaller batches than that, i get away with it by using that giant pan and my super hot range. your mileage may totally vary.

can't wait top pop one of these open and put some of the jelly on whole wheat bread with some almond butter!

making: finishing up some things

2011-11-07T10:01:00.000-08:00

i've been puttering away in the studio recently finishing up a few things. i made this great waist cincher belt to wear with dresses. i didn't dye the inside because i don't want the dye to come off on dresses. it looks really cute and it all came together pretty quick since i used a belt online for inspiration. i was able to pretty much get right down to doing the leather tooling and dye work. the longest part is sometimes figuring out the design. i think i'm gonna make a brown one of these as well but a different design.

and some new earrings, long loops of tarnished sterling.

and another belt i finished up a few weeks ago, a low hip bright red one. it looks cute with jeans and that belt buckle. i really like making belts, the hammering part is such fun. next up is gonna be one for my fella!

this weekend i also got in a bit of screen printing, some hanging out with friends and of course some general loafing about listening to one of the best thunder storms i've ever heard up here in the mountains.

going: pacific standard

2011-11-01T10:30:00.000-07:00

On Friday we went to our first show that happens to be part of the big ol' Pacific Standard Time shows here in Los Angeles this fall. Proof: The Rise of Printmaking in Southern California at the Norton Simon Museum. Here's the blurb from the site:

The first goal enumerated upon the founding of the Tamarind Lithography Workshop in Los Angeles in 1960 was to 'create a pool of master artisan-printers in the United States' in an effort to revive the method of fine art lithography. With those words, and the dedication to create a workshop that would educate printers, artists, curators, and collectors alike, Tamarind sparked a renaissance in the graphic arts—one that spread well beyond Los Angeles and the medium of lithography—establishing and legitimizing all methods of printmaking as viable and valuable forms of art making, even for the most avant-garde of post-war artists. Proof will explore the significance of printmaking and its new possibilities as first re-envisioned in post-war Southern California. Drawing on the extensive collection of the Norton Simon Museum with a few select loans, the exhibition will include works by the local founders of this movement such as John Altoon, Garo Antreasian, Sam Francis, Ed Moses, Ken Price, Ed Ruscha and June Wayne, as well as those who made their way to print specifically in Los Angeles, such as Joseph Albers, Bruce Conner, Lee Mullican, Louise Nevelson, Claes Oldenburg, and Robert Rauschenberg.

It was good, we got there early and signed up for a curator led tour of the exhibition by Leah Lehmbeck. She gave a nice historical over view of what was happening in printmaking in Los Angeles from the 1960's onwards.

Since I'm not a conventional print maker I found parts of the show to be less interesting than others. There were a lot of litho prints. Um...a lot, a lot. The show really wants to share what makes all of those litho prints different and unique and important but I gotta be honest and say they did kinda blur together for me. But that's because I'm not much for classical printmaking, I've just never been that drawn to it. I am however drawn to combined works, newer printmaking methods (like the screen printed works, obviously :) so the last room of the exhibit was the most interesting to me. I would prolly recommend that people go to the end to look at that room and then work backwards to see how much more classically print makers were thinking and the older methods they we're using.

Leah Lehmbeck also put together a interesting bubble chart explaining how the community of printmaking is intertwined in Los Angeles, it's in the very first area as you enter the exhibit so check that out for sure.

Funny thing, as we we're sitting in the last room taking in the work and chatting about it a woman in part of the tour came up to us and asked where she knew us from. Um, never sure quite how to handle that one, right? You know me, I don't know you....maybe you seem vaguely familiar but between everything the fella and I are involved in Los Angeles it could be almost anything. So we play the game

us: 'is it this' or 'that'?

her: 'No, not that. I don't know what that is. Nope, not that either'

So we smile polity and nod when she says' it must be something neither the fella or i have ever attended'

us: 'yep, that must be it.'

and then we went and had dinner at Cham and talked about how awesome Rauschenberg's combined screen print work is and how I just want to make the exact same thing only made now and in my language and just as interesting and powerful. Hey, I'll get there!

Go check out Proof.

weekends away

2011-10-21T12:56:00.000-07:00

This past weekend my fella and I popped out of town to the central california coast. We had a great time exploring around and checking things out.

One of the highlights was having oysters in Morro Bay. Recently Sunset Magazine did a profile on the Morro Bay Oyster Company and we were hoping to try some oysters grown locally. We tracked them down at Dockside down on the dock in Morro and they were delicious, I totally recommend checking it out if you're in the area.

getting better.

2011-10-13T10:15:00.000-07:00

Late last week my brain decided it was done with recovery chill time on the sofa and created a project for me to work on. I wasn't up for wielding the hammer on some leather belts and totally not up for screen printing yet but it decided we needed some new beaded necklaces.

So I dug out my miscellaneous beads and reject pile of jewelry to pull from and made a trip to the San Gabriel Bead Co. for the first time. As usual I kinda always want bead stores to have more natural stones, matte colors and things that are not iridescent shiny but after a few laps around the store I was able to zero in on some great choices to add to what I already had.

I spent about $30 and ended up with a great project to work on. I made 7 new beaded necklaces from a combination of the beads I had and those I purchased. I was going for a ethnic native american indian feel to everything. Cute things to wear with blue jeans or with a dress. these are really fun to wear two or three at a time for a layered effect. I'm kinda lazy when it comes to beaded projects because i never know how long i'll wear them so i tend to just tie the nylon strand off in a knot, loop back through the beads for another series of knots and call it a day, no clasps.

turquoise beads i've had forever with silver seeds beads on the left and red and brown beads on the right

more detail on the turquoise, glass loops on a brass chain with white beads, black and white beads with a hint of gold on the black beads

i've also had those square glass beads forever, i think i snagged them from my mom 20 years ago. with tube cut coral and shiny black they look new and old all at the same time.

so it's pretty awesome that my brain is slightly back in the game after a few weeks off, now if i can only make myself get to third quarter accounting. next week!

mountain landscape

2011-10-11T12:52:00.000-07:00

so for a while now i've been taking walks around my neighborhood. usually in the afternoons or early evening. one of the things i really notice is the light against the various layers of hillsides and mountains.

i also notice this light every time i drive from our mountain woods down the 210 freeway towards glendale and downtown los angeles. the way each hill is a different shade of blue, gray, brown or green depending on the time of day. the stuff in the air...the time of year.

it's mesmerizing really...how something can appear so near and far at the same time becuase it starts to look translucent. that something so solid as a mountain with texture, homes, trees...can be reduced to an opaque, frosty, milky color. so i've been thinking of that for a while and trying to figure out how i wanted to screen print it.

i decided i wanted to hand cut the film positives for this project so i woundn't be tempted to use photography as a filter. i couldn't see how i could capture the detail and smoothness of the edges and then translate that to a printed film positive for the printing. so i cut them out of solid paper. it was interesting to cut them and then go for a walk and see the details i was thinking about confirmed in my minds eye while looking at the mountains and hills.

when i printed the various layers i used a translucent ink that i gradually tinted darker as i printed to create a feeling of solidness and translucence at the same time. i want to make more of these with different mountain edges and using different colors. maybe some with a bright background color for a sunset and maybe that glow that happens right after the sun sets.

that's what i've been thinking about lately with regards to art. and slowly working on. now that the weather has turned less hot i may may more progress on this than through the summer.

also- when you screen print a really big area with ink the screen has the possibility to leave the paper at different speeds and in a suction sort of way....the further the screen is from the paper the less this happens but you have to push down more on the screen to get a full impression of the ink.

it's a fine balance to have, the areas where the screen pulled away from the paper as i printed created a slight wave pattern- normally loathed in screen printing in this case it alluded to the mountain roads, paths and fire trails that dot our landscapes here in los angeles. i really like this part. it reminds me of all of the roads in los angeles mountains that no longer go anywhere and have been abandoned. you can see this in the middle right to the print. just another example of why actual hand pulled prints can be more interesting and richer than something digitally printed or even printed on a press where everything looks exactly the same.

'mountain landscape', 20in by 20in, 5 layer screen print, 2011

details of the print

art in los angeles.

2011-10-06T12:40:00.000-07:00

This fall in Los Angeles there are a great series of art shows as part of the Pacific Standard Time shows.

Pacific Standard Time is an unprecedented collaboration of cultural institutions across Southern California coming together to celebrate the birth of the L.A. art scene. Beginning October 2011, over 60 cultural institutions will make their contributions to this region-wide initiative encompassing every major L.A. art movement from 1945 to 1980. Celebrate the era that continues to inspire the world.

Yesterday I came across their neat promo videos they have up on YouTube. Check out the first one sharing a bit about the shows and the second one of Anthony Kiedis and Ed Ruscha driving around Los Angeles talking about words.

artwalk!

2011-10-05T10:24:00.000-07:00

last friday night my fella helped me set up all my shenanigans for another artwalk at the brewery on saturday and sunday. i took this one quite easy what with my body still feeling the need for lots of rest and a lack of talking. but it went great despite my not feeling up to normal energetic self.

we had a great turn out, a lot of art went home with people and everyone was really nice when i explained why i sounded funny. here's a quick pic of my set up this go round. i do have a new print I've yet to blog about that i still need to take some good pictures of but I'll get to that soon!

makin' some booze!

2011-09-27T11:28:00.000-07:00

so, last wednesday i had my wisdom teeth out. it's been going ok except for some side effects i could have done without and my general annoyance at being house bound. instead of boring you with all that talk i'm gonna show you some pics from the sunday before last where my fella and i picked all of our grapes to make a batch of casa king wine! then we went over to a friends house to make home made bitters. it was a day of booze! of which upon reflection i should have had at least one decent drink that day as i'm on the antibiotics train for a bit now. but anyways....the wine has since been decanted into big glass jugs and the bitters lay in wait for a post antibiotic batch of Manhattans.

this weekend is artwalk at the brewery! if you'd like to come visit and see all the great art i'll be there! not sure just yet how much i'll be showing what with my general lack of feeling awesome right now but there's a whole four days between now and then for things to turn around.

love: hollywood bowl

2011-09-19T10:24:00.000-07:00

this past Saturday my fella took me for the first time to the Hollywood Bowl!

I'd never been before and it was great fun. I made us a yummers picnic and bundled it all into a great picnic basket my mum just gave me a few weeks ago. Home made sandwiches with basil, mozzarella, tomatoes and salami and home made potato salad and home made melon cucumber salad. We headed over to the bowl with plenty of time to stake out a perfect people watching picnic spot to enjoy our snacks and bottle of wine. The show was great and the fireworks and can can dancers from the Moulin Rouge were also fantastic. I totally enjoyed it and can't wait to pick out shows for next season.

oh, and on friday night my fella and i went out for a drive and a glass of wine. on the way back i spotted a chair by the road just down the street from our house. after a quick u-turn, mr.king left me sitting in the chair and drove home to get a bigger car to put it in. we loaded it up and brought it home! it's a 1960's vintage plycraft chair. super cool, there are some cracks in the seat cushion but I had a fuzzy thing from ikea that covers that just fine and makes it super cozy. free chair score!

love: visiting folks

2011-09-13T10:49:00.000-07:00

this past weekend i didn't get anything done!

but my folks we're visiting so we hung out, ate yummy food and wandered the city.

They came over for a splendid dinner on Thursday night with tons of homemade stuff. Friday we bummed around Pasadena shopped a bit and hung out in their awesome hotel pool. We went for an amazing dinner Friday night at Drago Centro in downtown. Love a classy downtown restaurant. Saturday I took them to the Farmer's market and we went to the Getty and Sunday an early morning trip for dim sum before they hit the road. Super fun!

My mom brought me these awesome taxideried ducklings that I can't wait to put in a little display!

Moon over Getty

quad cam dim sum breakfast

so this week it's back to making stuff, painting the house and doing stuff for next week i'm having all four wisdom teeth out. Eick! i've been researching soft food options and trying not to say the phrase 'dry socket' over and over in my head.

making: first hand made belt

2011-09-06T12:00:00.000-07:00

i finished my first belt last week and it turned out great! it was fun to work on a a little bit at a time. i have a few others in the works still, a red one i'll start next and some wider waist cincher styles i'm also planning.

this last few weeks has been full of house painting, making jelly and working on the yard. it's been too hot to even consider screen printing in my non air conditioned studio but that's ok, i'll get back to it when the weather cools off a bit. i think this week i'll also post some of my recent thrift finds as i picked up some great vintage cowboy boots and cutie clothes recently. we had a great labor day weekend without too much work (just kept painting the house) had friends over and even got to go to the beach for fun walks in the sand. hope your having a great end of the summer! here are some pics of the belt i made:

the design. traced and cut into the belt. it's based on a bracelet i've had for about 15 years. to cut the design you use this awesome little cutting knife i've never used before this. it sort of balances in your palm. my lines are a bit wonky but like anything you get better with time.

starting to carve out the design with hand tooling tools. oh the world of leather tooling, so awesome! you get to buy all these awesome stamping tools, they are only about $5 a piece so it's easy to pick out another $20 worth each time you go to tandy leather.

all carved, edges beveled and smoothed and ready to dye. this took quite a few evenings of sitting and hammering while listening to podcasts. it's a great type of project to work on for a bit after dinner, kinda like knitting but a bit more forceful

first color of dye- the black. i carefully painted in the black so as to not go over the edges.

and second color the brown added and then polished. holes and one of my favorite buckles added. so far i can wear it with blue jeans and tighter with dresses. i think i need to add another coat of the clear atom wax though because the color is coming off just a bit on the back onto my jeans. no biggie, just more to learn from!

love: makin' stuff

2011-08-24T15:46:00.000-07:00

busy over here! my newly acquired leather tooling hobby have taken over my brain but i refuse to allow it to consume my days. instead i allow it to be worked on a itty bit at a time after dinner. do you have any idea how hard it is for me to not finish something from start to finish in one fell swoop???

instead this last week i also: exposed some screens with new images to screen print, picked grapes to make grape jam and cooked and strained the grapes, painted three exterior walls of our house with my fella and started on a new wall, made a plan to refurb our second bathroom so it looks less crummy and made a knife roll for a friend. In between all of that i worked on my new belt that is totally awesome and i can't wait to wear it and how awesome is it that i can make belts now! BELTS!

so anyways, about that knife roll. a friend of ours is a professional chef and unfortunately her knife roll was stolen recently. with all of her knives in it! major sucky. fortunately she knows an awesome community of people who came together and helped her out. two people offered her knives and i offered to whip her up a knife roll to hold them.

i used our knives for fitting the pockets. this is mostly what she wanted it to fit, the spatula was a fill in for a veggie peeler.

and here's what it turned out to look like. i used two layers of canvas on the body of the roll and the flap and reclaimed leather from a vintage 70's jacket for the pockets and trim.

it has a simple tie that makes it easy to quickly wrap up at the end of the night and slip the whole thing into a larger bag or carry under your arm.

it turned out pretty well and will totally work for holding the knives a friend is going to give her. if i didn't have this awesome vintage Kershaw blade changing knife that my pops picked up for me i would prolly be making one of these for camping. but the knife i have works great for my camping needs or if i need to take a knife with me for cooking at a friends.

now, to make some more grape jelly!

love: leather! and some other happenings

2011-08-16T13:46:00.000-07:00

Whoa the last week got away from me, the fella and I have been prowling about town enjoying the summer and checking out some new places.

Last week we went to the Griffith Observatory for the first time and checked out a great new bar downtown called The Perch. Both places have spectacular views of Los Angeles. Perfect for warm summer nights.

That's my cocktail looking out on Pershing Square.

this past weekend i drove over to Tandy Leather in North Hollywood to spend all my pocket money on new tools and cow hides. Super exciting, I know I need another handicraft habit like I need a hole in my head but eh...whatev's...new projects! I asked a slew of questions of the nice folks there and got a bunch of supplies for stamping and finishing. Last night I cut two strips of leather of of the big piece I bought to make two belts. My plan is to learn on those before I work up to working on a larger wide belt I want to make.

I also bought a new power washer last week for cleaning my silk screens and spent some time making my screens extra super clean in preparation for some new prints. I have some ideas percolating around in my brain I hope to follow up on in between painting the house, making belts and enjoying the summer :)

making: madeleine mini bloomers

2011-08-04T13:09:00.000-07:00

or...the post where i show you my underpants!

this summer seems to be about working on cute fun projects that have been on my list forever. last year i saw the pattern for the Madeleine mini bloomers by Colette patterns everywhere on the internet. and like every like minded girl i squealed with cuteness- i wanted a pair! i printed out the pattern and um...promptly forgot about it. until last week!

not me :) - the picture of the bloomers in the original pattern, so cute!

so this past saturday after a quick supply run to joanns for elastic and ribbon i got to work cutting up some fabric i had cluttering up my fabric bin. i used a variety of fabrics that they did not recommend in their pattern but they all worked out great. Black cotton t shirt fabric from my friend Elaine forever ago, cotton polka dot fabric from a now too big skirt, white cotton heavy muslin like fabric, black and white striped cotton sear sucker like fabric and some super stretchy knit yellow white polka dot fabric. I made the first two pairs for sizing and then figured out that it's best to add an inch or two to the waisteline top- they are super cute and low cut but for me lounging around the house i wanted them to be a bit more coverage on the tush. each pair takes about 2 hours or less from start to finish. if you're like me and a bit lazy here are the other changes i made to the pattern.

1. added 1-2 inches to the top of the front and back pattern piece.
2. there really is a strange triangle piece on the pattern in the crotch area that one commenter mentioned in her comment on the pattern. i trimmed the pattern after the first pair i made.
3. i moved the ribbons to the side of the leg and i didn't make button holes. i just cut two tiny little slits in the ribbon casing and slid the ribbon through that. i don't have time to put button holes on underpants.
4. i also made the straight seams using my serger. this made it super fast but made them a wee bit bigger. good to keep in mid in you want them to be smaller.

tush- i love that word!

so anyways- here is me in my underpants! or mini madeleine bloomers to be more specific. these are great for wearing around the house with a tank on hot summer nights but i'm also looking forward to wearing them under skirts and they will be awesome for riding bikes in skirts! horray mini bloomers!

all of the pairs i made!

and a bad mirror pic of the white pair. any idea how hard it is to take a flattering picture of your bloomers..it's hard! but you should make a pair if you sew, it only takes one yard of fabric, some elastic and some ribbon. i love that they are poofy and fun. it makes me feel silly and cute to wear them around the house! much better than sweat pants or gym clothes or the dreaded leggings.

love: natures little gifts

2011-08-02T15:18:00.000-07:00

my house is located in a semi rural area of los angeles and the house itself back up to the thousands of acres that is the los angeles forest. occasionally i find awesome bits of nature here and there that make their way into my studio for inspiration.

this past weekend i was wandering the property watering plants and i came across a bird feather...and then another one and then i looked around and on the other side of the fence of the water tower next door was most of the feathers from a hawk. it's sad that the hawk prolly did not survive his run in with a coyote or fox but i was happy to pick up all the feathers from the ground.

while wandering the open side yard of the water tower i also came across this great owl pellet. i picked up all the little pieces into a jar for safe keeping.

i cleaned the feathers off and stripped off the lower fuzzy bits. now they are all ready to make into something...there's enough of them it might be fun to make a hat with just the hawk feathers on them for a retro headdress look.

making: new jewels

2011-07-29T14:23:00.000-07:00

I've spotted a few neat ideas recently for some great jewelry that I wanted to make up for myself. I love that so many people make and sell things on etsy but it's a bit interesting that I can find the very same supplies they use in the supplies section and make my own. It's copying for sure, but I have no intention to sell these so all's fair in love and supplies on etsy.

Mainly what's been capturing my eye has been arrows, angles, brass and woodsy, modern vintage feels.

I picked up this bracelet for $7ish minus the holes after seeing something very similar at Renegade. The cool thing was making it myself allowed me to pick the constellation I wanted to put on it. There is a lot of jewelry for sale right now with star maps drilled into them, mainly astrological constellations. I decided to go with something a bit more unusual Ursa Major. I drilled most of the holes in one size but went with a slightly larger bit for the stars that make up the Big Dipper within Ursa Major. I'm really happy with the way this turned out, it's one of my new favorite things to wear. I love how heavy and solid it feels. If I wear it with the stars resting inside of my arm it makes an impression of the constellation on my skin. Very, very cool.

next up some earrings-

I'm not entirely sold on how these turned out, the pair that inspired them had a found piece for the middle I didn't quite take the time to track down figuring I could wing it. I may still tinker with the proportion of these or design. But I really like the tiny triangles.

now these, these I love! They are so awesome. All I did was buy the arrow shapes and make ear wires for them and blacken them with liver of sulfur. I love the pointy shiny nature of them.

When I buy something from a random new to me store I also look at their other listings and that's how I ended up with these super great brass findings I used to make feather earrings. I used all found feathers. My fella is pretty tolerant that I'm always picking dead things up off the ground and putting them in my pockets.

Here I am wearing the brass pointy ones, love them!

love: listening to- Dan Auerbach and Lanie Lane

2011-07-27T14:07:00.000-07:00

so i'm something of a lazy music listener. I don't read reviews or follow along with whats new and cool and i don't really seem to listen to the same music as people around me. i tend to hear a song i like and then tumble down into the lazy itunes rabbit hole listening just long enough to spend my allowance. i tend to discover albums that have been out for a while by doing this and so it happened with Dan Auerbach's album Keep it Hid from 2009.

i love The Black Keys, who doesn't? (um, if you don't know The Black Keys go do that first, right now.) Keep It Hid is one half of The Black Key's solo album. I'm really partial to the song "Heartbroken, In Disrepair" and "I Want Some More" and "The Prowl"... oh heck the whole album is quite satisfying.

and my random googling and such resulted today in seeing this great retro inspired video by Lanie Lane from Australia. Just a little meat butchering while singing, of course.

love: Chime Jewelry

2011-07-25T12:52:00.000-07:00

week before last a friend and I popped down to Renegade Los Angeles for a quick bit of shopping. I decided not to apply to sell earlier this year for various reasons but this left me with the opportunity to hit up the show and shop a bit!

While there was a lot of really great stuff and some great ides for projects I worked on this past weekend (yep, i'm one of those crafters- 'hey, i can make that') I did buy some beautiful earrings from Chime Jewelry.

all of her work is made from recycled drum cymbals! I'm in love with the bronzy brassy color of the earrings and the little musical ting they make each time the drum cymbal pieces click together. I also love how cute these earrings look with a plain t and some blue jeans. It looks like her website is still in progress but go ahead and like her facebook page if you want to know when a store is up to buy your own pair!

home: summer vacation

2011-07-20T16:22:00.000-07:00

i fee like i've been on summer vacation the last few weeks! it's warm, the nights are late and the garden is...well, the garden is a bust people. yep, things did not go well once the squirrels discovered my happily growing plants. i tried random measures to scare them off which did nothing so now we are on to more extreme measures that shall only be spoke of in person.

in any case a few things are still growing which i keep reminding myself of:
lavender- grows well here. i'm prolly gonna put in a whole bunch of it where the green beans and herbs were slaughtered.
lemon grass- a planting a friend gave me seems to be perking up and sending off new leaves. yay!
the rosemary i planted a few winters ago has totally come into it's own and makes the out door kitchen area look like a shot out of sunset magazine. hooray!
the cape honey suckle at the bottom of the drive way has recovered from the weed killer our wonderful neighbors the city of los angeles sprayed all over their property in the spring. nice.
in the garden the squash, corn and potatoes we're moving along happily until obliterated so once we build the mother of all anti animal cages to grow plants in we'll plant more of those. until then, there is a reason farmers markets are so popular.
and finally the grapes seem to be less hazy and covered with mold this year so here's hoping spraying them down with neem oil made a difference and we can juice them all to be made into delicious things.

here are a few pics from my hike yesterday.

not kidding on this one, the trail changes every time i walk it.

crows in the hot summer air

Going: Devil's Post Pile

2011-07-13T13:54:00.000-07:00

Finally!!!! I finally got to see the awesomeness that is Devil's Post Pile!

I've had this on my list for quite some time. It's a bit complicated to go there though so the timing was never quite right. This past weekend on a camping trip we were finally close enough and with enough time to take the opportunity to go check it out.

For those of you wondering "Devils' Post what, what?" Devil's Post Pile is a rock formation located in a beautiful hidden valley that backs up to Mammoth Mountain. To go there you have to drive to Mammoth, park near the the slopes and take a $7 tram up and over down into the valley. Oh, and it's only open for like 4-5 monthes out of the year. The rest of the time it's covered in snow!

A group of 5 of us loaded up into the SUV for the hour drive from our campsite to Mammoth, we arrived mid afternoon to catch the tram up and over the pass. The ride is beautiful and breath taking! All of us were awestruck by the high mountains surrounding the valley floor. You could see the river winking in the distance as we descended into the valley. We unloaded at the Devil's Post Pile stop for a quick half mile hile to the monument. And wow! so cool! looking up at all those angled rocks towering above us was so great!

The way they have broken off over the years and crashed down to the valley kinda had me itching for a little quick earthquake. Just a little one, I swear!

After checking out the post pile we embarked on a hike to Rainbow Falls. Winding over hill and dale down into the valley through mountain forests and then through an area that burned 20 years ago provided for some beautiful scenery. Once we arrived at the falls the misty water gave us some excellent rainbows that totally had the falls live up to their name.

We all hiked back up the hill to catch the tram back out of the valley. All in all it was a pretty big hike for us and we ended in happy spirits! Somehow we managed to walk a lot further than expected without a decent supply of water or sunblock- silly rabbits. But thankfully we kept pace with each other and had a great time! Go check out Devil's Post Pile if your in the area, I hope to go back and camp in the valley floor at some point. The place had this sort of less discovered, less crowded version of Yosemite and I really liked that feeling.

love: holiday weekends

2011-07-06T15:34:00.000-07:00

Whoa, it's finally summer! It went from where the heck is it to full on summer in the blink of a Holiday 4th of July weekend. This past weekend my fella had a few days off so we puttered away on projects around the house and then wandered off to Santa Barbara for the night on Sunday, super fun!

Some things that got started or done.

Started and continued to work on a new head board project for our bedroom. The heard board is repainted, the fabric is reupholstered and now I'm just painting the legs and then to put it in the bedroom. I'll post about it with pics when it's done :)

Went over to a friends and picked Nectarines from their very full, very ripe Nectarine tree. I made a batch of Bourbon Vanilla Nectarine Jam and a batch of Nectarine Shrub for cocktails and seltzer.

Made my first batch of from scratch mustard! Apparently mustard is better if you let is chill out for a bit in the fridge so we'll see how that turns out.

Also, a little retail therapy shopping at thrift stores. Love a good thrift store! got some Lucky brand jeans, some awesome belts and a cute denim dress.

In Santa Barbara we took our bikes and rode to downtown from our hotel and had a tasty dinner at The Hungry Cat. It was super tasty and their drinks are quite delish. If you're in the area, totally recommended. Love riding bikes to dinner, one of the best thing about having a bike is going for a ride around with my fella!

oh here I am just off my bike, still out of breath and looking a little bit silly.

and to end a nice little 4th of July weekend on Monday night we went and watched a fireworks show from our local Ralph's parking lot with a ton of other folks doing the same thing. Oh sure, we all could have paid $5 to see the fireworks from the viewing spot but then we wouldn't have the suburban thrill of watching them from our SUV front seat. Totally awesome!

Hope you had a great 4th as well!

making: pasadena food swap

2011-06-29T15:00:00.000-07:00

So I make a lot of stuff and other people make a lot of stuff and this past sunday I went with one of my girlfriends to swap some of our stuff for their stuff at The Pasadena Food Swap. Located in a pleasant park in South Pasadena, it was super fun to attend and I swapped some of my goodies for some amazing things.

I'm not sure how other swaps are organized but it was a bit complicated to swap with 20 something other people. It was organized in a way I found a bit off putting but others really loved the way it was organized so different strokes for different folks I suppose. There were pieces of paper in sort of a bid system at the beginning of the trade to mark your product on in exchange for their product- this only works if what you have is something they want or if what you pick of what you have is what they want. In the end I was happiest just to offer what I had face to face and if someone wanted it to then trade it for something they had brought.

After those that were a bit more into the organized aspect traded, the rest of us traded a bit more free form style. Pretty much everything at the swap rocked. I was surprised at the amount of baked goods ie- cookies and brownies over preserved foods but I think those things are a bit more approachable for novice homesteaders/makers. If you're going to be a part of a food swap I really suggest you bring something savory or preserved as those things we're in much higher demand than cookies. Although I ended up with some spectacular cookies! (hello, cowgirl cookie of yummyness!) Also, everything was packaged up super cute! Lots of ribbon and cute labels, it was nice people went to the extra effort to make things look pretty.

So, what to do with all those baked good and sweet treats- well, I loaded mine into Tupperware and I am storing them in the freezer so I don't eat them all this week. The jams I put in storage with my other jams to try over the next year. And to the lady that traded my pickled beets for caramels I'm totally taking a bunch of those on a camping trip to share with friends!

Here's the details-


I Took:
4 jars orange syrup (1/2 pint size on all)
4 jars apricot chipotle
4 jars spiced apricot
4 jars orange marm
6 containers olives ( 3 oz each)
5 containers pickled beets (8oz each)
8 containers with 3 peppermint patties in each

I Exchanged for:
1 loaf of walnut bread- super yum bread! love it toasted with my strawberry jam
6 cowgirl cookies- also yum!
2 gluten free fudge brownies
1 spice rub
4 salted caramel chocolate cookies
4 containers of salted caramels (each with around 8)
3 Madeline cookies
4 bar brownies with nuts 
1 tub quinoa salad- this went right away as dinner that night! and it was super good!
1 bag vanilla caramels 
6 ginger cookies- had one of these yesterday, nicely spicy!
1 bag chocolate covered orange peel
1 box chocolate almonds
Small jar blueberry jam
Small jar kumquat vanilla jam
Strawberry balsamic black pepper jam
Mango chutney 
Cherry jam 
Kumquat marmalade
Mango lime jam 

Brought home: 
3 containers of the patties
6 assorted jars of jam

Whew, that's a lot of swapping!

Pics of everything below once I got it home.

If you have a change to go to a local food swap and you've got good stuff to swap I totally recommend it!

going: downtown los angeles

2011-06-27T12:54:00.000-07:00

Before I get to all the amazing goodies I swapped yesterday at the food swap a few minutes on downtown Los Angeles. Friday afternoon I rode my bike to Pasadena to meet up with my guy after work. After a few stops at some of my favorite places in Pasadena, ie Gold Bug and Jones Coffee we headed downtown to have dinner at the Starry Kitchen. I had a blackboard coupon just itching to be used and man did we use the heck out of it.

fried chicken wings and a pork sammy in the background

friend donut holes with pandan

lemongrass chicken, basil fried rice and fried balls!

While we were looking for the Starry Kitchen we noticed that there was a huge sound system set up for some sort of evening program of music or some such. Fully expecting it to be something I wouldn't be into so much imagine my awesome surprise when the entertainment on that nights bill was a slide show by Charles Phoenix! Yay! His funny, kitschy, entertaining viewpoint of Los Angeles is one of the best things around town. Watching the slide show with the lights of Los Angeles twinkling in the background and sitting just above Angels Flight was totally great.

I highly recommend the Starry Kitchen- everything was super delish and wandering around downtown on a Friday night was a fun change of pace. Oh and as we were driving home we crested the hill towards the freeway to see fireworks going off above Dodger Stadium! hey Los Angeles, you are a swell lady, thanks!

making: new projects

2011-06-24T12:59:00.000-07:00

i'm gonna go and cram in a few different projects to share with you today. perhaps these each deserve their own entry but alas i am lazy and the sun is shining and my bicycle is calling.

Jam! I've made 6 varieties of jam this season so far. I know! That's a lot of jam! Fortunately I'm taking some of it to a food swap this sunday and a few of the batches were tiny and I'm not sharing those. Wait, did I say food swap? Yep, a home made food swap in Pasadena this Sunday I signed up for a while back. I'll keep you posted on the loot I bring home, it sounds super exciting so far! Everyone has been posting on the facebook page what they will be bringing and it all sounds great.

I finally plowed my way through the apricot harvest from last week. I dried a bunch of them in the oven- I think I need to get a dehydrator to do that more properly. I made two kinds of jam- Apricot Spiced with cloves, cardamon and vanilla and a batch of Apricot Chipotle that is wonderfully spicy. I still had at least 4 pounds left when I came across a blog post for something called a 'shrub'. A mix of fruit, sugar and vinegar that you make into a syrup and can use with sparkling water or in a cocktail. I cut up the rest of them yesterday and they are stewing in the fridge as the first step of making a shrub. Kinda interesting and we'll see how it turns out!

Last weekend I bought the above hat and took it all apart, slowly taking the straw braid apart so I had yards and yards of loose straw braid all ready to sew into something new. Then I sat down and taught myself how to sew straw braid. It was really tricky but I finished up the second hat pictured with a combination of machine and hand sewing. I like the tiny nature of it, it perches on my head in a really sweet way.

and some screen printing. I'll be honest, I just haven't been the mood to screen print. I have a large print on my mind that I want to work up but nothing really grand. I have a few old images still on screens I wanted to see how they printed so that's what this record image is about. I dug out some black paper from the back of the paper rack and made 6 of these simple white records on black paper. It will fit perfectly in an album frame and the record is to scale. I also at the same time printed the same image on some old sheet music. Not quite sure what to do with these right now since they are two sheets of loose paper. I may cut them down to 12.5 and sew the edge to make for one complete print but I like the contrast of the record on the sheet music.

So that's what I've been up to, a little bit of cooking, hat making and art making. Pretty normal around these parts. whew, now thats out of the way I can go for a bike ride ;)

going: new bakery in town!

2011-06-21T16:59:00.000-07:00

I live on a rock. Yep, a big rock of a mountain that backs up to the Los Angeles forest. It can be a little rural where we live so all I'm saying is when I want a good croissant or a loaf of bread that doesn't come from a local panderia I gotta drive waaaay down into town. Well, no more my friends for Silverlake has come to the mountain!

Some of you long time locals will recall the Back Door Bakery in Silverlake near the reservoir, I used to go there to get yummy scones and english muffins. They closed a few years ago much to the disappointment of the carb loving community.

But over the last few month's the bakery has slowly been building out a space just down the street from me in Sunland and on Friday they had their grand opening. Of course the fella and I headed there on Saturday afternoon to check things out and buy some yummy pastries. Man, am I a sucker for a good pastry. The kind I grew up on in the bay area, all flaky and yummers. We got a cherry bun thing, it had a great yeast bread flavor and a chocolate croissant that had delicious chocolate inside of it. We also picked up a few of their great English Muffins that I had toasted the next morning with some of my strawberry vanilla jam, so good!

I can't wait to go here when we've got guests in from out of town or in the mood for a little treat. If you're in the area I highly recommend checking them out. If you have a few more minutes to kill after you've picked up some yummy baked goods head across the street and down a bit. Around the back of Ralph's is a great thrift store I've picked up some awesome stuff from.

Back Door Bakery
8658 Foothill Blvd
Sunland, CA 91040

home: a few projects

2011-06-17T12:08:00.000-07:00

here's two pics of a few projects that have been finished up at the house recently. the side shed attached to our garage got painted bright white and everything that belongs in there loaded back into it. the tools are all organized and our bikes have a nice home. this slightly empty area is where i can put a wash out booth for screen printing at some point. there is power and water in the side shed so now it's just a matter of deciding if i want to buy something that already exists or make something up. i'm leaning towards spending the money on a pre-built unit just to be done, there's something nice about just being done with a project verses making it yourself.

i reupholstered a foot stool in our living room a few weeks ago. i must have been in a confused mood when i did it the first time a few years ago because almost right away i didn't like it. but a few months ago i picked up a much better choice in fabric and some additional foam. now it's way cuter and matches our living room a bit better. i made the leather piping that goes along the edge as well! Now it's like a big modern geometric poof in our living room, love it!

that's it for now, i'm gonna go stare at all the apricots i picked yesterday and maybe do some screen printing this weekend!

home: garden update

2011-06-16T15:15:00.000-07:00

woo, i figure it's time for a garden update over here. things are growing, albeit a bit slowly. it's been kinda chilly with only a few days of real warmth here and there. so here's where we are at:

potatoes! growing really well, i keep piling straw around them to encourage them to grow taller. eventually i'll use up my whole bail of straw and have to get another one i think. i'm really not looking forward to digging into the straw to retrieve the potatoes, i think there are gonna be spiders in there. maybe i can get the boy to do it.

squash, doing well so far. each little plant has at least 4-6 leaves and a few have more. they have plenty of room to spread out so that's good. i have no idea which ones have grown and which ones have not so that should be fun to see what comes up.

lettuces/spinach/beets. waaay better now that they all have cages around them. the squirrels or rabbits were getting to them. something i've learned so far, i don't like home grown arugula. it's just a bit too bitter for my tastes. it came in the mixed seed container and i pick it with the other lettuces. when you get a bite of it, its like whooooa- bitter! the red and bright green lettuces on the other hand, super yum. i'm not sure it's gonna stay cool for much longer or i would plant some more. i'm looking forward to replanting the whole area with spinach for the colder seasons.

green beans- all coming along. growing slowly but they each have little baby green beans on them. here's hoping nothing else eats them before i do.

carrots/ leeks/shallots- all in the same area, all growing. i planted a few rounds of these to see if i could thicken up the crop but right now i only have a few of each.

tomatoes- a few little tomatoes on each plant. it's been cold so we'll see how well that goes. in the bigger picture i may build a special tomato cage somewhere on the property next year that has a lot more sun.

corn- about 6-8 inches tall. also now in cages as it was getting eaten as well.

artichoke- growing...i may pick up another one. the one i planted is happy and takes up a nice dead end corner of the garden.

Brussel sprouts- in cages...growing slowly. we'll see.

i think that's it for the newly planted stuff.

the apricots are going to get picked later today. i think the plum is out for the year- the snow we had earlier this year froze the blooms so maybe we'll get more next year. i'll prolly hit up the garden store this weekend to see if there is anything else i can plant to fill in a few empty areas.

here's a salad i made for lunch yesterday: homegrown lettuce, nectarine from the super king, cured meat from The Fatted Calf in San Francisco, a little bit of cheese from a farmers market we went to this weekend in SF all lightly dressed in fig balsamic and olive oil from a local supplier near my parents place.

yay garden!

going: road trip!

2011-06-15T10:48:00.000-07:00

Man, you know I love a good road trip, even when it's to a place I've been before I alsways seem to find new things to see. This past weekend my fella had a gig at The Independent with his band The Mutaytor so we piled a bunch of stuff and some people in the car and took off friday night. We arrived late friday night in just enough time to snag a bedroom with a bed at the great old mansion on Alamo Square we we're staying at and to go for a walk about town to get some drinks at Nopa. Always a great place and even better at midnight when things are a bit calmer but still quite busy.

Saturday morning bright and early my fella and I wandered out for some coffee, breakfast nearby and then a big walk across town to check out the Musee Mechanic. I'd never been and it was great! Best thing about being a grown up, getting $20 worth of quarters and putting them in every machine that caught our fancy! We only spent about $8 but it was super fun to spend them like candy. We got our fortunes read by an automatic typewriter, had our picture taken in the photo booth and squished some pennies. All in all a super awesome time. After a quick cab ride back to the house we headed over to The Independent to load everything in and get ready for the show. The band stayed for sound check and I wandered off to get ready, chill out, make some drinks and then some snacks at Nopalito nearby. Great snacks at Nopalito btw, the fella joined me and ordered his own ceveche after tasting mine. The show that night was super great, the audience was packed and everyone had a great time!

Sunday morning we walked to Haight street to visit a friends remodeled store, checked out the street festival happening that day and wander around a bit. I scored a great leather jacket at the Goodwill for $16! We headed over to Oakland to have a late lunch with my parents and then back to SF to pick up our peoples and hit the road back to Los Angeles. We had a great time and saw a ton of friends and family. Another action packed weekend in SF, one of these days I swear I'm gonna go out of town and do nothing but lounge around all weekend, I swear :)

eating: jam!

2011-06-08T12:14:00.000-07:00

I've been making jam! I haven't made jam in many, many years and certainly not at this house. I've been thinking about it a while, it just took being in the right mood to pick up some jars and a few missing tools last week. That and a huge bag of oranges I picked up at a friends house from their very productive orange trees.

processing the jars

Awesome thing, Ball sells a little kit with a wide mouth funnel, jar tongs and magnet for the lids. It's nice that everything comes in one little box. I decided to go with one size for my jars so I can pack them all back in the boxes and store them in a cool dark place. I picked the 8 oz jelly size and they are about $10 for a box at my local albertson's. That's also pretty great, I can buy them at my local big market- no special trip to the hardware store. Just milk, eggs, and some more jars for canning.

orange rind

So far I've made a small batch of pickled strawberry jam that was delicious on a cake I made for a dinner party, a small batch of vanilla jam that taste like magic elixir, a larger batch of vanilla orange marmalade that set up really thick and amazing and another batch of orange jelly that hasn't quite set up yet and may be a bit too sweet.

So yeah. There's jam up in here :)

vanilla specs! in strawberry jam

Thankfully I've signed up for a food swap in a few weeks so I can swap out some of my jams for other peoples jams. We have grape vines, an apricot tree and a plum tree on the property I'm hoping this year will all be prime candidates for jam making supplies. I figured starting a bit before that is all ripe would be a good idea to work out any kinks in the process. Case in point, I think I need another pot. Something in the wide open but not huge stock pot range that I can heat the jelly/jam goo in. The pots that work well for this are also the same pots that I used to heat the jars and can the jars so I suppose I'll have to keep my eye out for yet another pot to fit into our tiny kitchen.

Making: LAPS Members Exhibition

2011-06-03T11:47:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is the opening for a show I have a piece in! The LAPS Members Exhibition at the City of Brea Art Gallery. I'll be there for a bit at the opening checking out all of the other great work. It's a show of print makers in the Los Angeles Printmaking Society of which I am a member.

The 2011 LAPS Membership Exhibition at the City of Brea Art Gallery June 4th-July 15th
Reception June 4th, 7 to 9 PM

Most of you that know me know I'm that into gallery shows these days. I think they cost a lot of money to apply to, be a part of and put on. I'd rather just sell my work directly to you guys and thankfully I've been pretty lucky to do quite a lot of that.

But it's fun every now and then to see your work up on clean white walls with an assortment of other great work. I'm looking forward to see the other work that was juried into the show. If you're in the area feel free to check it out. And if you're a print maker in the Los Angeles area check out the LAPS, they are a great organization I'm happy to be a member of.

going: holiday weekends

2011-06-02T13:02:00.000-07:00

this past weekend was a holiday weekend and we even took monday off from work! In between working on and finishing a house project (more on that later) we took a bike ride over Hanson Dam and around the park. It's a pretty short ride but it's nice to be up on top of the dam. Here's a pic of the cool building with the old sign that says Hanson Dam.

Before we rode around the park we stopped in for lunch at a golf course. I know, a golf course! But we were coming back from the giant hardware store and needed some snacks. I'd heard they do a good lunch at the Agave Bar and Grill at the Angeles National Golf in Sunland Tujunga and sure enough it was quite tasty. The fella had fish and chips while I had a really good salad. They have a full bar there, I can totally see chilling out with some drinks on the sweet outdoor patio. You can look at the mountains, watch birds and see people do slightly silly things with their golf clubs. Sometimes you just want to sit outside but not on the street and this place perfectly fits the bill.

Here's a pic.

While I don't feel so great about all of those miles and miles of watered grass the view looking out towards the mountains was quite striking.

eating: tasty risotto!

2011-05-31T12:59:00.000-07:00

sunday evening while my guy finished up a house project he was working on all day i made him a tasty dinner. Using a Sunset magazine recipe as inspiration I modified it for our use and it turned out really good.

one of the things that drives me crazy is recipes that require the use of only a portion of the whole package that the grocery store sells (oh, if only buttermilk came in the same size as small containers of whipping cream!) this recipe started out like that - it called for 1/2 cup of ricotta. 1/2 a cup wherein the rest of the container will languish in my fridge until it molds or i'll have to figure out more things to do with ricotta. i know, ricotta is pretty universal but that doesn't stop me from being annoyed by this sort of thing. so that began the swapping things out and we landed at the following recipe where we used dry vermouth instead of 1/2 cup of white wine (sigh- we only really drink red around here so vermouth is a pretty standard substitute 'round these parts) I also lowered the amount of rice by a cup to feed just us but kept the same portion of veggies and omitted any additional butter and lowered the cheese amounts. um, so yeah, i really changed it.

Stuff you have to buy or have:

6 slices of bacon
1 lb asparagus, bottom ends cut or snapped off
1 box (32oz i think ) really good 0fat chicken broth- Kitchen Basics is the standard brand i buy, it makes everything taste really good.
1 large yellow onion, coarsely chopped
1 cup Arborio or Carnaroli rice
1/2 cup vermouth
1/4 cup finely chopped fresh mint and basil
1 4oz package soft goat cheese
1 cup frozen peas
1 cup frozen fava beans
salt and pepper
juice of 2 lemons
olive oil
2 oz finely shredded dry cheese such as Parmesan

Preparation:

1. Preheat oven to 400°.
Arrange asparagus in a single layer on baking sheet. Drizzle with 1 tsp. oil.
Sprinkle with salt and pepper; toss to coat.
Bake until tender when pricked with a knife- about 12-15 min
Cut into 2 inch pieces when cool.

2. Chop bacon into 1 inch pieces
Cook bacon in a pan and drain onto paper towels

3. Pour broth into a medium saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium heat.

4. Heat remaining 1 tsp oil in a large pot over medium-high heat.
Add onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until limp but not brown, about 5 minutes.

5. Add rice and cook, stirring constantly, until edges turn bright white, 5 minutes.
Add wine; bring to a boil and cook until almost evaporated, about 2 minutes.

6. Add one ladleful, about 1/2 cup, of broth to rice and cook, stirring, until almost completely absorbed by rice. Continue adding broth 1/2 cup at a time, stirring until each addition is absorbed before adding the next, until rice is just tender to the bite.

7. Stir in mint, basil, goat cheese, and lemon juice and stir until most of lemon juice is absorbed.
Stir in peas and favas, asparagus, and pepper to taste.

8. Divide risotto among bowls or plates. Put bacon on top and 1 oz of shredded cheese.
It makes 2 huge super work all day dinner size portions, 3 reasonable portions or 4 portions you would prolly want to add a salad to.

So there you have it, really yummy Risotto without added butter, only a small amount of olive oil and you could totally leave out the bacon if you wanted. It was really freckin' good. You should go make it for dinner this week :)

Going: maker faire day two

2011-05-26T13:42:00.000-07:00

a whole second day? well, sort of and not really. at the end of the first day we could have rushed to see the last bits we didn't see and not gone back for a second day but because we already had weekend passes we decided to make the most of it and leave when we were tired and go back for more when refreshed!
Sunday morning after some breakfast and parking again at whole foods we headed in for day two. it turned out to be a great way to do things as in addition to the awesome friends i saw on Saturday I got to visit with people that came only on Sunday. Maker Faire- your local social scene for the DIY set.

The talks on Sunday the we listened to were also pretty great. The two that stood out for me were:

The Engineering Behind the 10,000 Year Clock Alexander Rose
Alexander Rose will discuss the design challenges while building a monument scale 10,000 Year all mechanical Clock. The reasoning behind the project will be covered as well as details of engineering and construction. The presentation will include new images and video of Clock construction underway in the high desert.

Wow! This project is amazing. The images of the parts, the giant saw they created to cut the staircase into the mountain...the research that goes into choosing a space for something that has to last that long. Alexander Rose also showed images of some other sites that involve long term storage and the problems associated with it. Not to mention the sheer scale of cost for the project. Very interesting and impressive.

The second talk that was memorable was:

The Making of Modernist Cuisine Maxime Bilet , Ryan Matthew Smith
Maxime Bilet, chef and Ryan Matthew Smith, photographer take you inside the making of their 2,438 page, 6-volume book project, Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking, Bilet and Smith will share details on how they took unconventional approach to both food and photography with the goal of helping the reader to experience food in a way they never have before. By literally cutting food, equipment and tools in half to get the prefect shot to using equipment and testing new recipes with tools and ingredients seldom used outside the laboratory, they will set out to educate readers - and themselves - about the science of food.

I have to be honest here and say...the talk itself wasn't that great. But I'd never heard of this book project and it was interesting to see how the photographs were put together and a little bit behind the scenes. If you're at all interested in Modernist Cuisine I recommend you read this article in the New Yorker by John Lanchester, it was a bit more informative about a really interesting project.

We did see a few other talks on Sunday, the fella saw one on Arduino Robotics with Chris Anderson that he really liked and we tried to see a talk on mushroom growing that didn't want to happen.

Over all I really enjoyed the various talks and demo's we heard and saw at Maker Faire. It really enriched my experience past just wandering around. Before we went a few people seemed a bit perplexed as to why we would go to Maker Faire as they had been and liked it but didn't really see why they would go again. Aside from wandering around, you really, really should take the time to listen to what people are saying about the projects they are working on. Maker Faire has made this fairly easy by scheduling talks all day at at least 4-5 stages and every stage we went to was standing room only for every single talk. I have to say, if Maker Faire is going to allow itself to get bigger it's going to need a site that will allow for even more of this. Both days the Faire was slammed packed with people and every talk was busy. Getting through the crowds was near impossible on Sunday mid day, I wonder if they will move to a bigger site and what it would be? It looks like the San Mateo fairgrounds is replacing the race track with additional more useful grounds- perhaps this will allow for more staging areas.

Beyond the talks and wandering around, there was shopping! Man, was there shopping. Here's what I picked up in the Bizarre Bizarre areas and in the main Expo Hall.

At the Bizarre Bizarre area-

Bird Mafia: i picked up a sweet silkscreen print of a rabbit hopping through the grass and 3 of her nice little button badges. Bird Mafia designs are based on paper cuts which translates really nicely to the screen printed images.

Tiny Sparks Design: I got a small screen print from this vendor of a log! yep, a log. it looks great with the bunny print from Bird Mafia.

I can't wait to shift out some of my own work on our walls for these sweet screen prints.

Sunday at the last minute while waiting for a mushroom talk to start that never happened I wandered back into Bizarre and picked out a simple wishbone necklace by Sora Designs. I'm not usually partial to the assembled jewelry but there was something nice and simple about the base metal wishbone on a boxy chain. It will look cute with a string of chunky pearls I um... borrowed from my mum a while back.

Over in the Expo Hall -

Effies Heart: whoa, where to even begin. how about the fact that she had one super cute knit dress left in my size that was on sale and i wore it later that night and felt like a million bucks! i'm pretty positive knowing now about how awesome this dress made me feel that i completely would have paid full price- having it on sale was just an extra special bonus. I can't wait to buy more. i have my eye on a pair of bicycle capris that are the cats meow! A quick google on her site even revealed that 2 local store to me have her clothes!

anatomology: because i'm me and i'm something of a maker and i'm a wee bit thrifty i was excited to buy a $9 key chain from this vendor in the shape of a heart. back at home I took off the key chain part and threaded it onto some braided cord for a really classy, simple heart necklace. i was trying to convince a friend to buy two of the spine key chains and make them into a beautiful pair of earrings!

also in the Home grown Village at Maker Faire I picked up a yummy tube of mint lip balm from the bee booth. it's perfect for right next to my desk.

So, like I mentioned lot's of stuff to buy. All of it really great and almost all hand made. Maker Faire also has a huge area filled with books and projects you can buy. I'm a bit perplexed by this though as all the books are full price. I like supporting a cause as much at the next girl but when you can stand there and amazon google the title and find a $45 book for $12 cheaper on Amazon it's kinda hard to buy it for more. But maybe that's just me.

All in all, Maker Faire was awesome! and our quick trip north was loads of fun! We saw lots of awesome friends working on their projects and met lot's of new folks hard at work on exciting things. After deciding we were done around 5ish we walked back to the car by way of a sushi picnic for the ride home from whole foods and made our way back to Southern California. Thanks Maker Faire for showing us such a good time!

going: maker faire day one

2011-05-24T14:19:00.000-07:00

Saturday morning after a good sleep in our swanky business hotel we made our way over to Maker Faire. The fella heard that we could park nearby for free and in effort to find morning coffee we ended up stashing the Beetle in the Whole Foods parking lot. This proved to be a great jumping off point. We got some breakfast at whole foods, coffee at peets and walked over.

After some general milling about we aimed for one of the stages and one of many great talks we heard this past weekend. The talks seemed to be the key to getting all that you could out of Maker Faire, it seems pretty easy to just wander around aimlessly all day and there is plenty to see that way...but hearing what people had to say about their projects was really awesome.

first up a great talk about Google's Self Driving Cars Sebastian Thrun

Imagine if your car could drive itself. Get in, push a button, and everything else is done by your car. This presentation will introduce you to the fascinating world of self-driving cars. Google has developed a fleet of modified Priuses that can drive themselves on public roads in California. In the past months, Google's cars have driven over 150,000 miles, in places like downtown San Francisco, LA, and near Lake Tahoe. The Google self-driving cars blend into traffic just like human-driven cars. While this technology is still in the research stage, it may one day transform society, leading to better and safer modes of transportation.

Awesome! seeing the little car makes it's way in the video around town was so amazing. He showed what the car sees and how it processes the information. The graphic images of what it sees were simply beautiful. Sebastian Thrun was so enthusiastic and excited about his project, it really came through in what he had to share.

We wandered around for a bit, listened to a few talks that weren't so awesome (hey, you win some you loose some) and headed over to a Pig Butchery Demo with Tia Harrison. Maker Faire, totally not just for science geeks.

"Butcher's Guild Charter Member Chris Arentz of Avedano's Market in San Francisco will demonstrate butchery technique with half a hog. The Butcher's Guild will discuss their mission, while Chris helps us learn to identify cuts and tips for shopping with your local butcher. Butchers are the link between ranches and eaters, between life and afterlife, between livestock and dinner. MEAT THE BUTCHER'S GUILD, LOVE YOUR LOCAL BUTCHER"

So this was great because we were able to see the specific different knives he used and how he took the pig apart. Very cool! Also narrating the demo was Marissa Guggiana who wrote a book called Primal Cuts that I totally want to get a copy of.

We wandered around a bunch more, lingered for a long time watching people attempt the Whiskey Drome, a big curved ramp that flexed and moved when people rode on it.

WhiskeyDrome - The cycling madmen of Whiskeydrunk Cycles are setting up their WhiskeyDrome at Maker Faire. Bicycle daredevils will be on hand doing death-defying tricks.

also really great was the PAS Chris McMullen, Steve Withycomb. I neglected to take any pictures of this project but it was huge and really interestingly built. In a sea of things made from recycled trash and wires running every which way this project was huge, clean and really tight in construction.

PAS (Potentially Annoying Sound) is a large kinetic sound sculpture that is people-powered. Viewers are invited to turn a large wheel that ultimately sends air to a bank of horns from a 1930s pipe organ, producing a large cacophony of sound.

By this time we were a bit wiped out but one last talk about one last project. Ken Murphy's time lapse of the sky. He had this on display in the same big dark room as the tesla coils. It was a really quiet subtle piece in the corner of some other huge loud things but it really held it's own.

DIY Time-Lapse, A Smart, Cheap Setup for Shooting Long-Duration Time-Lapse video Ken Murphy

The rig I used to create A History of the Sky, a large, synchronized visualization of the sky for an entire year, which reveals cyclical patterns of weather and light.

We walked back to our car at Whole Foods and drove home to our hotel. A quick change of clothes and we jetted up to SF for a yummy, very romantic dinner at Bar Tartine. Here we are goofing around and getting ready. Tomorrow, some awesome stuff I bought (including that super cute dress I'm wearing in that pic), the rest of the talks we went to and a bit of a wrap up.

going: road trip!

2011-05-23T12:29:00.000-07:00

This past weekend my guy and I hit the road for a super quick trip up north. our goal: Maker Faire! As well as to visit with friends, see some museums and eat some tasty food. All in a good weekend of fun!

First things first, we picked up our adorable red Bug they we were going to drive in. Because the fella drives a giant suv and I drive an older Falcon- renting seemed like a good choice. It went almost the whole way there on one tank of gas! It was super fun to be in, when we dropped it off this morning I kinda wanted to keep it.

Getting into the bay area we decided to stop at a hamburger joint we used to go to when I lived in the area as a kid. Val's Burgers in Hayward right off the 580. While the decor was the same and it still had the same vibe I gotta say...it didn't rock my world. It was a totally decent hambuger and milkshake but I felt myself wishing it had a bit more flavor...a bit more something, something. I dunno, I'm glad we went, it was great to share it with my guy (who thought it was tasty) but now that I've been again as an adult, I'm good.

After checking into our hotel we headed up to San Francisco to cruise over to the DeYoung Museum to go to the Balenciaga fashion exhibit. It was great! Seeing the clothes with their crisp lines, solid colors and ruffles upon ruffles was fantastic. If you're in the area, it's a really great show to go see. The show itself had very low light levels and they didn't want you to take pics but I snapped this sly shot of a beautiful ruffle on the bottom of a dress.

At the end of the exhibit was a display of videos showing the dresses being worn by models during the original fashion shows . I really recommend checking out the video before you start looking at the clothes, it gave a better idea of how they come apart into dress/ cape or dress/ jacket...and seeing the movement of the shapes made a difference for understanding why his clothes were so different from other things being made during the same time period.

The museum was quite crowded so we hot footed it out of there over to drinks and snacks with friends at Alembic Bar on Haight. I really wanted to like this place. The food was really tasty but in the end it was wayyyy tooo loud and the drinks all tasted the same...and heres the thing....I know some people like when things get creative and interesting but heres the description from one of the drinks we ordered:

hey, it gets hot in here, real hot, like, new orleans hot. accordingly, we have a great reverence for the contributions of the crescent city to cocktail culture. this bracing 1938 nod to the french quarter
combines rye whiskey, cognac, sweet vermouth, angostura and peychaud bitters, served up and ice cold. just be careful when leaving the bar as the fog has a way of reminding you where you really are, which may not be such a bad thing after all.

I'm reading, I'm trying to figure out what in the drinks, I'm ....snooooooze, bored by too many words. I don't care about all that. I want a drink, I want it to be stiff and I want it to be well made. I don't need a fricken poem. Here's another one just so you know I'm not over exagerating:

gie him strong drink until he wink, that's sinking in despair; an' liquor guid to fire his bluid, that's prest wi' grief and care; there let him bouse, an' deep carouse, wi' bumpers flowing o'er, till he forgets his loves or debts, an' minds his griefs no more. scotch whisky, sweet vermouth, benedictine, bitters

um, yeah. anyway. the food was tasty for what it's worth. and i read elsewhere that they make a great mint julip. if you do go ('cause you're stuck on haight street for some various reason and don't want to walk down to Magnolia) be sure to sit at the bar, don't look at the stupid cocktail menu and go by yourself do you don't have to yell over the loud music. and order the duck hearts.

we left Alembic and weren't quite ready to head home so we headed over to Alamo Square to see about some desert. Nopa was slammed so we headed around the corner to Candy Bar. I kinda felt like I was at a karaoke dessert bar that had games instead of music but I couldn't argue that our desserts were totally great! We shared a peanut butter thing and a panna cotta that was one of the best I've had. They asked if they could move us to accommodate a larger group and sent us home with a bonus dessert we shared the next night in our hotel room. Bonus dessert!

So first day with museum, snacks and good friends. Shooting around town in a tiny red car. Totally fun! Next up, Maker Faire- great talks on interesting things and a lot of awesome stuff to see!

making: the rest of the new hats.

2011-05-18T10:37:00.000-07:00

here's the rest of the new batch of hats i finished off this week and posted to etsy. this batch was really fun to make as it involved a new hat shape - the tiny garrison hat and a lot of ribbon folding on the other hats. that's it for a bit- as soon as it's not rainy i hope to work on a few lingering prints.

eating: peppermint patties!

2011-05-17T12:50:00.000-07:00

Today a little break to talk about a treat I made a week or so ago. Homemade peppermint patties! Inspired by a friend who made them I googled and came across this recipe from the blog Savory Sweet Life. They are ridiculously easy to make and the pay off is huge! I duly collected the powdered sugar, sweetened condensed milk and shortening from my local albertsons. I picked up the peppermint extract from Whole Foods where they had a peppermint oil extract and the chocolate chips from Trader Joes since they sell my 'go to' chocolate chips.

Making the filling the only thing I changed was to double the peppermint extract. This was a really good idea to keep that nice biting chilly peppermint flavor in contrast with all that sugar. After forming the patties, we stuck them in the freezer. The recipe and others like it go on about not leaving the patties in the freezer for too long. I'm not sure why and the colder they got the easier they were to dip and it didn't seem to make a difference to store them in the freezer after they were coated. So the lesson here, make sure those patties are really chilled before you dunk them in the chocolate. It's a lot easier the colder they are.

Make sure your chocolate is really melty, the warmer but not hot it is the quicker they can go into the chocolate and back out leaving a smooth shell. I melted my chocolate in a 2 cup pyrex pitcher in the microwave and then used a fork to quickly dunk each one, swirl it around to get it good and covered and then shake it off and back on the chilled silpat cookie sheet. Next time I will put them back in the freezer and then dunk them again for an extra thick coating of chocolate. And maybe use a darker chocolate. But really you could follow the recipe word for word and still end up with a amazing little treat that is almost just like a store bought peppermint pattie but home made and way tastier!

making: new hats!

2011-05-16T14:08:00.000-07:00

here are some pics of the new hat's i've posted to etsy this weekend!

this batch has quite a few that involve ribbon folding. and a new style that is a garrison type military hat.

check out my etsy store for full listings of each hat. i'll be adding 7 more later today.

Making: hat supplies at the sport chalet

2011-05-13T09:35:00.001-07:00

The other day I went to our local sporting goods store, The Sport Chalet. I was picking up some new free hand weights but I happened upon their fishing section for hat supplies! So many awesome bits of feather and animal pieces. Here are a few pics below of some of the bits I picked out.

Polka dot feathers

Fluffy white feathers already on a hat

Brightly died pink and red deer belly fur! This stuff is amazing, can't wait to figure out how to use it.

Rabbit...um, head. Yeah, so that ones a bit creepy and a wee bit stinky but with some airing out and reshaping it will look awesome on a top hat!

In other hat news I finished a new batch of hats including some of the felt military ones, I'm going to take pics today of the new batch to past to etsy. Can't wait to share those with you!

going: los angeles

2011-05-11T11:23:00.000-07:00

i came across this video last week and wanted to share it with you. i'm a sucker for these kind of flash backs. i pause and replay it looking at all the cars, the signs, what's still there and what's not. enjoy!

eating: or rather drinking

2011-05-10T10:29:00.000-07:00

it's another cocktail post! man, you'd think we are lushes up in here....nah, this girl just likes a tasty drink. this last week i came across this great post about Kumquat Margarita's. Normally, I don't have a bowl of Kumquats staring at me from this dining room table but this week was a little different. A friend has a Kumquat tree and gave me a whole bag of them. I wasn't sure what I was gonna do with them short of walking by them, shoving one into my mouth every few days and making "the face"!
Kumquat Margarita's to the rescue on Friday night. I put my fella on the task while I made us dinner and he made some great cocktails! Basically you cut them in half and throw them in the blender with a bit of water, after straining out the seeds you have a glorious bright orange paste that is tart and sweet at the same time. Mixed with a bit of triple sec and tequila and man, is that a tasty drink!

This weekend I also made a batch of fresh mint juleps at a dinner party that turned out delish and I found another use for the Bacon Bourbon my mom made up for us. This bourbon is quite strong so mixing it in the usual way that bourbon gets used at our place (aka- Manhattan's) wasn't working out so well. But while at the Stark Bar at Lacma a few months ago we had what they called a "Smokey and the Bandit". Using the smokey bacon bourbon which happens to be way more smokey than bacony was great. Smokey bourbon, honey, orange and lemon peel slices made for a great drink. Bottoms up!

Going: Prince at The Forum!

2011-05-07T08:52:00.001-07:00

Thursday night my fella took me to see Prince at The Forum, it was most awesome! If you live near LA, you should really go! Tickets are as low as $25 and totally decent for that price.

You could go extra special and get VIP tickets and maybe be down in the extra special section with Whitney Houston, because that would also be pretty great. The giant screens (that do not photograph well) show you pretty much everything happening on stage though so the cheap seats are totally awesome!

It was a kick to go to The Forum, Not growing up in LA I'd never been. I think it holds the same nostalgia as the Cow Palace or The Coliseum for nor-cal, although the History of bands playing at The Forum might be a bit more illustrious. I liked that they had a catering rig set up selling big plates of fried chicken, greens and cornbread!

Even if you're not a huge Prince fan, it's really a great show for the price. Not to mention the fashion you get to see in the audience. really, Just Go!

Eating: grilled cheese

2011-05-05T09:07:00.001-07:00

Mmm, grilled cheese sammy's! Is there anything better? As some of you know, grilled cheese is kind of a thing with my friends. Me, I'm on a bit of a grilled cheese hiatus but when I was invited to grill some sammy's for friends I did what any grilled cheese enthusiast would do and went straight for the dessert sandwiches. I figured the savory section of things was good and covered, a melty sweet sandwich is always needed to round out a meal of grilled cheese.

I made one the other night to share with all of you so you could be inspired
to make your own sweet grilled cheese sandwich. This is a pretty simple version- I picked up some cinnamon bread, St.Andre cheese and raspberry jam from Trader Joes, I already had Nutella and butter at home.

The bread from TJ's is kinda thick, this is something you should consider when you start a grilled cheese sandwich with an unusual bread selection, if the bread is too thick the cheese kinda sweats a bit against the bread and makes it sort of like the very inside of a cinnamon roll. Not so good, so I slice the bread thinner.

I smeared the jam on one piece and the Nutella on the other, smooshed about an ounce of the cheese on one side, put the bread slices together and was ready for the pan. Low and slow, keep an eye on it and when the cheese is melty you're ready to pull it from the pan.
It helps with the especially gooey sandwiches to hold off on slicing so the cheese firms up just a bit. Some people would dust it with powdered sugar but I think that kinda hides the beauty of the sammy, just eat it!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
So, yes...this is my first post using the goofy iPad and pics from the iPad camera. Hopefully when I go look at it on my desktop it doesn't look bad.
miriam dema

Making: better pics of Art

2011-05-03T11:24:00.000-07:00

ah, that's better!
here are some better pics of the new work from a few weeks ago. i was sick when i finished the work and didn't take the time to take proper photographs. also, the bears! right before artwalk i finally finished the funny little bear drawings that i've had puttering around the studio for a while.


Wear?

8 Bear Drawings

Power Lines

CMYK Vinyl

eating: the tasting kitchen

2011-04-27T14:51:00.000-07:00

Like I mentioned on monday after our bike ride around santa monica and venice on Sunday my fella and I had a lovely easter dinner at The Tasting Kitchen in Venice. We didn't mean for it to be "easter dinner" but it was a nice surprise to be out having dinner and celebrating life with each other.

I've been wanting to eat at The Tasting Kitchen for quite a bit of time. It's location has been the primary deterrent, we're just not on that side of town for dinner time much so I was pretty excited when this worked out. Honestly it was between The Tasting Kitchen or Waterloo&City- another random place on that side of town I've been meaning to go to. I'm so glad we went to The Tasting Kitchen though, saving Waterloo and their yummy sounding meat plates for another time.

Although we made a reservation while sitting at The Brig down the street we opted out of a table and headed straight for the bar when we arrived shortly after they opened at 6. I love to sit at the bar! We were warmly greeted by our bartender Devon Espinosa, I came across the great video youtube link of him talking about drinks which gives you an idea of how friendly he is and what a great start we were off to.

We started with cocktails, of course we did!
The fella had the Barrel Aged Negroni, oh wow! I've been wanting to try barrel aged cocktails for a bit and it really was amazing. Aging in a barrel brought out new flavors and created a smooth and mellow depth to this drink. I had the Dukes of Hazzard as it had things i'd never seen in a cocktail- dates and all spice! It was like a grown up boozy version of a date drink with just a hint of spice. Seriously yummy.

For food we started with the crostone- a slice of toast topped with house made chicken liver spread, a poached egg, frisse lettuces and some house cured bacon pieces. Delish!

A second round of cocktails with our second courses were the Braveheart for me and the King of the Dudes for the fella. Both were seller, another win for the barrel aged and the fresh ginger in my cocktail was sharp and spicy. We shared the clams, chorizo, roasted tomatoes at the same time as a salad- the escarole, prosciutto,anchovy. The richness of the clam dish was like every clam bake on the ocean you want to go to, a delight after spending the day riding along the coast off handily wondering why none of the beach side huts sell any seafood...The seafood pared well with the slightly bitter edge of the escarole salad and little bits of house cured prosciutto..yum!

Our cocktails held us through our pasta dishes, the Gigli- small curved edge pasta, brocolini-baby brocoli and luciana-a sort of fennel pork sausage and the Bigoli- an open tubed pasta, tesa-sort of a pancetta, nameko-tiny mushroom. To be fair we each ate off both plates. They make all of the pastas in-house along with more house made meats. Both dishes had a pool of butter in the bottom of each dish that I had to restrain myself from just tilting the whole thing into my mouth. So good.

At some point we also tasted the house made mamajuana a Puerto Rican specialty they mix into the King of the Dudes. So sweet and interestingly medicinal. I need to look into this more.

We shared the Bouchon and some gelato for dessert. It was a warm chocolate cakey thing. Mmm, chocolate!

This may be one of the best meals I've had in Los Angeles in a long while. Since we know I'm partial to Animal and The Lazy Ox this is a high compliment. There were surprises and a great depth of flavor to many of the things we ate and drank.

If you're in venice and looking for some seriously delicious food or a destination dinner check this place out! We tumbled out of The Tasting Kitchen to track down our bikes and ride back to where we stashed the car. After loading up the bikes and getting in the car for the drive home I noticed it was close to 9pm. We had had an amazing looong, delightful meal of about 2.5 hours at The Tasting Kitchen. Thanks guys for letting us take up precious bar space and making sure we had such a delightful time and delicious food!

Going: bike rides!

2011-04-25T18:04:00.001-07:00

Yesterday my fella and I played 'lazy sunday' and headed out to the beach for some bike riding. We rode all over Venice and then hit the beach trail all the way to the end above Santa Monica and then back down to south Venice.

It was a beautiful day to be on bikes! We thought it might be super crowded but Easter Sunday was nicely chill at the beach. A great part of riding along the beach on Easter Sunday was seeing all the random Easter egg hunts happening, I think we saw about six of them.

Here we are taking a break and looking a bit goofy, as usual :)

We also walked along abottkinney for a bit and had a great dinner at The Tasting Kitchen, more on that later!

going: walking to the woods

2011-04-21T09:59:00.000-07:00

usually a few times a week i take a few minutes to go for a walk in my neighborhood. i'm particularly partial to walking straight up our street into the los angeles forest.

this time when i walked up to the resavoir above our hose i walked over to the waters edge and followed the stream up as far as i could. it wasn't very far but it does stop at a beautiful waterfall. this whole area has been a bit abused the last few years as they restructure the resavoir after the the fires so i havn't walked in this direction. i usually keep walking into the mountains. here is a video from the waterfall and a few other pics from around our house.

waterfall

wild morning glory's

wild flowers

baby grapes

making: artwalk recap

2011-04-19T13:24:00.000-07:00

this past weekend at artwalk was great! thanks to everyone that came out and saw all the new work.
the weather was beautiful and people seemed to really enjoy wandering the brewery.

i don't have any immidiate plans for any other summer shows so if you missed it or think you want something you didn't get head over to my etsy shop or email me at miriamdema at gmail dot com

thanks again!

making: new prints

2011-04-14T10:25:00.000-07:00

two more prints for artwalk this weekend and a slew of brand new mini prints!
i'm really sorry about the crappy pics, i've had a wicked head cold all week and it's all i can do to take a few quick snaps with my iphone. suffice to say the color and clarity is much better on these in person.

9 mini prints, each 5"x7". mini prints are what happens when 1-2 prints from each edition are not quite up to being numbered into the edition. i used to keep them around for some reason but i found it quite depressing when i would come across a whole drawer of them .now i cut them up into 5"x7" for a new take, each image gets cropped in unexpected ways. it's super fun to put a few next to each other for a interesting combination.

here's a whole stack of them! there are around 100 new ones to choose from various editions.

16"x20" "power lines-12/24/10" edition of 12, 2011
a new print from a photograph i took late last year on my birthday.

16"x20", "Wear?" edition of 15, 2011
a double layer print of interesting popular mechanics advertisements. it's pretty great the way it sort of bounces your eye around in person, there is even a little bit of silver foil peeking in on the background gray layer.

Come visit at ArtWalk at The Brewery this Saturday to check out the new work and see all the other great artists!

going: ciclavia

2011-04-12T13:07:00.000-07:00

This past Sunday we bike rode through downtown without any cars on what turned out to be a beautiful day! Thank you Ciclavia for making it possible.
The 6 of us met up at a nearby warehouse as some of us come from a far bit away from downtown, we left around 10:30 and rode the route till about 3:30-4pm. All in all, about 18 miles. We stopped at parks, food trucks, even the new Angel City Brewery. We rode across the LA river into East Los Angeles and then back across the LA River. It was a great day on bikes with some great friends. I have to say riding with that many bikes can be a bit nerve wracking, it's hilarious the jocky'ing and wobbling that happens from the bike geeks to the inexperienced riders. But seeing the road completely full of bikes was an awesome sight!

making: new prints

2011-04-12T11:19:00.000-07:00

I'm knee deep in some new prints this week. Or perhaps I should say cold deep as I'm attempting to finish off some editions with a head cold. Makes for some interesting screen printing! Spring Artwalk at The Brewery is this weekend and I'll be showing in my usual space, Theory Labs. Come on down to see the new prints I'll posting this week and some old favorites.

The above print is 20" by 20" and an edition of 8. It's a vinyl record image screen printed in yellow, magenta and cyan to create a color wheel. I wish the orange overlap of the red and yellow came through a bit more but it still looks kinda great. I used an actual clear record with some chips and scratches for a more aged effect. I'll also be screen printing on-site at Artwalk another image of a vinyl record on old sheet music. That should look great as well!

home: garden update

2011-04-07T11:43:00.000-07:00

little seedlings. so far in our garden we have little lettuce seedlings coming up! very exciting to watch them poke their little green tips out of the earth. the only other green thing in the garden is the tomatoes which i'm pretty sure aren't getting enough sun....maybe i'll move them lower in the garden.

this week i also started a bunch of seeds indoors in tiny pots and seed soil on our kitchen table. here's the list of things that went into the pots. should be interesting to see what comes up!

love: flea markets

2011-04-05T10:29:00.000-07:00

mmm, old stuff....awesome! this past sunday i hit up the pasadena flea market with some friends to check out the old stuff. as usual i'm on the prowl for a few specific things. travel hat boxes, belts, bakelite, fiesta...some of those are harder to find than others. i managed to pick up 3 great vintage belts and a few other little things. a glass rolling pin that is missing it's cap for a buck. i dunno, i'm not sure what to do with it shot of finding a lid for it but i liked the shape and hey, a dollar! i may just balance it on the mantle for a while.
i also picked up two great hat pins with these cool metal do-hickys on the ends and a neat insect pin. the hat pins were a dollar each (cork included!) and the pin was $2. nice little scores.

the belts are great as well, i've been sort of hoping belts would show up in my general thrift store shopping but they just haven't. sometimes it's time to go straight to the source and get exactly what you want. you may pay a little bit more -i paid $9 a piece for those belts. but they are in great condition, my size and i like the texture and patterns on them. white, brown and black. now if only those awesome buckles i won on ebay would show up....

eating: olive oil gelato

2011-04-04T17:51:00.000-07:00

if mario batali tells you how to do something you should prolly listen. and mario batali told me not to cook the eggs. let me explain, we happened to have a lovely unopened bottle of italian olive oil in our kitchen, as we currently have four other kinds of olive oil in our house i feel like i've got olive oil to burn or rather use. enter olive oil gelato, a delicious sounding treat i've had here and there but never made myself. a quick google turned up this lovely recipe from mr.batali that does not require you to cook the eggs into a custard. just into the mix they go, chill down in the fridge and then into the ice cream maker for yummy, fresh, nutty, buttery, oily tasting gelato from heaven. it didn't hurt that i used fresh, fresh eggs from my mom's chickens!

the recipe doesn't mention serving with a drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkle of quality sea salt...but that's obvious, right?

Olive Oil Gelato
from the Babbo Cookbook
Yields 2 pints
6 egg yolks
1 cup sugar
¾ cup extra virgin olive oil
3 cups milk
1 cup heavy cream
Combine the egg yolks and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer. Use the whip attachment to beat them for 5 min on medium speed, or until the mixture is thick and very pale and forms a ribbon when the whip is lifted. Continue beating and drizzle in the olive oil; beat for 2 more minutes.
Add the milk and cream and continue to beat until all ingredients are combined.
Freeze in ice cream maker according to manufacturer’s instructions.

here is the olive oil i used; it even came from mozza to go, couresty of my fella's brother and wife.
thanks john and karen!

going: all around town

2011-03-31T10:47:00.000-07:00

L.A. is vast...and full of so many great things to see. Every time people come to visit I feel like we barely tap into all of it just a teeny tiny bit to share with them all of the greatness here. This past weekend my mom and my friend Holly came to visit to see a few museum shows and buy supplies for projects and things they each make.

Friday night a bunch of us went to dinner at Animal to celebrate my fella's birthday, 6 of us made for a great selection of things to try. Saturday all afternoon to the fabric district to buy trims, fabrics and hat supplies. After doing that we headed over to LACMA for lunch at the new bar outside and to check out the last few days of the Fashioning Fashion Show. Stopping for some treats on the way home from Mozza to Go we made it home to chill out and watch some giant TV. Sunday over to Pasadena to show them the Hat show at the Pasadena Museum of History, some shopping around South Pas, snacks at Intelligentsia and then a late dinner of soup dumplings in Arcadia followed by some even later drinks at The Rancho. Monday a huge hike in the hills with Holly, then late lunch of Cuban in the valley and some thrift store shopping followed by a trip downtown to the Redwood Bar for a show.
Hmm and I feel like there was so much more we could have shared! We didn't even get over to the far west side or eat from any food trucks or go to the eagle rock brewery....or go thrift store shopping in Ventura. Time flies when your trying to pack in so much to a short amount of time. Here are some random pics from this weekend, I didn't take my camera all weekend just shot a few iphone pics here and there.

This weekend I've gotta get back to work as it's two weekends till Artwalk weekend at The Brewery and I've some new prints to finish off!

eating: ginger cookies

2011-03-25T12:41:00.000-07:00

it's been raining here on and off all week and my guy was been working the freaky night shift making productivity a bit on the low side. i'm not a big fan of screen printing when it's super wet out as the paper changes sizes as you go so instead i did a bit more in the yard on wednesday and made cookies last night. here are some pictures of the lower portion of our yard...property...driveway...that area the driveway goes through that we don't really use. i think the neighboring city land way over sprayed weed killer a few months ago and a few of my plants have been suffering for it. i chopped the cape honeysuckle shrubs way back and fed them so hopefully they will come back all bushy and happy.

new leaves on the olive tree

cape honeysuckle sticks


new rock border to the cape honeysuckle shrubs

ginger spiced cookies


see the candied ginger and salt flakes, yum!

and some cookies! i wanted to make a low calorie-ish cookie that was packed with flavor. when i typically approach any low fat or low calorie recipe i tend to up the flavor to it by at least double... it helps make up for the lack of butter and stuff. the spices on the original recipe were at least half the amount i used and fewer of them...and there was no vanilla...lame! i also had all this on hand, feel free to make adjustments to what you have on hand.

Ingredients
1 cup all-purpose flour + 1/8 cup to add into sticky dough
1 tb + 1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp quality ground cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp dried orange granules
1/8 tsp sea salt
Maldon flaky sea salt for dusting tops- if you don't have flaky salt add 1/4 total tsp salt to the dough
1/4 tsp ground allspice
1/4 cup chopped toasted oatmeal

1/2 cup sugar minus 3 tb - save 3 tb for dusting
3 tb brown sugar
4 Tbsp unsalted butter, room temperature
1 large Eggs
2 Tbsp dark honey or Molassas - i used Avacado honey
1 tsp vanilla

3 tb sugar for dusting
1 tsp cinnamon for dusting
tiny 1/4 inch piece of candied ginger in each cookie

Instructions
Preheat the oven to 350°F.
In a medium bowl whisk the flour, ginger, cinnamon, baking soda, salt, and allspice, oatmeal.
Cream the white sugar, brown sugar, butter.
Mix in the egg, vanilla and honey/molasses, continuing to beat until combined.

Mix in the dry ingredients.
Add a tablespoonof flour to dough if it is gooey until it is scoopable- i ended up using an additional 1/8 of a cup of flour until the dough wouldn't crazy stick to my fingers.
Make tablesoon size balls and roll in sugar mixture.
Put cookies on lined baking sheet and smoosh flat to about 1/3 inch thick.
Put a piece of candied ginger on each cookies and a tiny pinch of flaky seat salt.
Bake 10–12 minutes and cool.
Store in a sealed container if you want them slightly soft or open container if you want them crispy.

That's it for now, the cookies turned out super yummy. I'm off to a super fun weekend, it's my fella's birthday and family is coming to visit. Have fun!

Home: paying it into the dirt

2011-03-22T10:55:00.000-07:00

this week has all been about getting dirty! in the yard that is. putting in a garden at our house has been something i've been interested in doing for a while now. i would get frustrated though when the wild animals would eat everything or other projects seemed a bit more important or it got hot before i could get to it.
this year i got to it!

it's early enough in the year that i was able to pound all the new additional poles into the ground, put up netting and dig all the dirt. it's been beautiful weather for it, in between warm and cold with some days raining to slow the project down just a bit but not too much. i'm really lucky that someone at some point put in this cool amphitheater like/ terraces along one of our hills. i really hope things grow well here as it's close to the house, near water and i was able to put in fencing. and if i ever want it to get bigger i can put in raised beds in the lower flat area. or chickens!!! if we get chickens that would prolly be where they would go.

after adding a bunch of new soil to perk op the old soil i've planted so far: Bush beans, scarlet runner beans, tomatoes, chives, dill, 3 kinds of beets, 3 kinds of lettuce, shallots, leeks and carrots. and that only took up the top three layers so far. i still have a bunch of room to put in warmer weather crops.
You can see from the panorama pic the funny awesome terraces that came with the house. there are cinder block stairs on each side so it's sort of easy to get in and around the area. the office library is that building to the right with that fence that i think we're gonna lower a bit.

and after a chilly day working in the garden before things have started to grow the best remedy is some delicious snacks from Golden Deli. Hot soup and tasty shrimp rolls. Yum!

making: new hat

2011-03-17T19:40:00.000-07:00

this week i drafted a patten for a cutie new hat!
it's a tiny version of a Garrison Military hat or flight hat.

in getting it to look like this i made three different versions of the pattern and three different versions in felt. each time tweaking it a little bit at a time to get it to be the right proportion and size. i'm pretty happy with it so far! i attached it to a head band so it stays put on my head and wore it around today! i'll prolly make up a few others and post them in my shop, i'm curious to see what it looks like in other fabrics!

going: fashioning fashion at lacma

2011-03-15T13:01:00.000-07:00

Let's see...you have 12 days left to go see the Fashioning Fashion show up at LACMA.

Yeah, yeah, I totally suck for only telling you about it until now. I only found about it a week or so, somehow it slipped right on under the radar for the last few months. And quite frankly..it really is great. Really, really great!

Go see it in the remaining 12 days if you can at all. It showcases a collection of clothing they only recently acquired from 2 private collections in Europe. I hope LACMA will continue to show the rest of the collection- apparently it's quite a bit larger than what they currently have on display and that's saying a lot. Here are a few pics I took of my favorite things at the show. It was rather busy when we went (on a Saturday afternoon!) so a lot of picture taking was a bit annoying. Fortunately they have a great book with all of the clothing now on its way to me via Amazon.

love: old stuff

2011-03-11T14:42:00.000-08:00

Hi, my name is miriam and I love old stuff. Wait, have we met??? Of course you know I like old stuff!
Fortunately I have excuses to obtain and possess old stuff in quantities that a sane person would normally talk themselves out of. Specifically ribbon, feathers, bits of frippery and old books, magazines, old photographs. I can use the notions to make hats and the old books to screen print images from. See how that works out!

This week I've been gifted with two incredible stashes of old stuff. I wanted to share them with you and say thanks to the awesome peeps that were thinking of me! Last weekend at a dinner party a friend mentioned a box of Popular Mechanics he had in his garage. He really likes them and would take them out to look at now and again but he figured I could get a lot more use of them. Boy, can I! I haven't had any old Popular Mechanics in my stash for a while, I used to have a small stack that I gave away to another friend in Oakland 'cause he really liked looking at them. These are chock full of great illustrations just waiting to be scanned into photoshop. Thanks Bambi, I can't wait to prowl through them looking for images to screen print!

The box full of magazines

two covers- such great colors!

inside


1.400 lbs of cotton

Last week in Oakland was the annual White Elephant Sale. My parents attended and bought lots of cool stuff but my mom also bought and sent me an amazing box of great things to use in making more hats! It was such fun to see all the great things she picked out. I already know my mom has great taste but it's cool to see her buy things that fit my taste and what she knows I like to use in the hats.

a pile of misc ribbon- silk, velvet, wide grosgrain, heavy embroidered

silk lining fabrics and a really nice piece of navy silk

random dots of fabric. of course i can see these sewn all over a tiny hat!

pile of gorgeous feathers!


super wide silk ribbons! can't wait to fold some of these into cockades!

Thanks for thinking of me mom and sending this great stuff my way. I love the White Elephant Sale but I love even more having my mom as a personal shopper when I can't make it to the sale.

This weekend I'm going to check out the Fashioning Fashion show at LACMA with a few friends. I can't wait to see the clothing details and those great wigs I've heard so much about.

Have a great weekend!

making: film positives

2011-03-09T10:27:00.000-08:00

new prints in the works! it's finally getting warm enough here that i don't grab a blanket and snuggle down onto the couch at the thought of spending time in the screen printing studio. Last weekend I cleaned all of my screens of old images with the power washer. This week I'm printing all my film positives for new prints- I'm thinking by the weekend I'll have them on screens.

Vinyl records, cmyk, power lines, half tones, hearts, battery cables, floating figures, whites suns....all thoughts going into some of the new prints.

Yesterday while printing my halftone film positives on our laser printer and coming to the realization that I needed a new laser cartridge (hello $100!) I propped some of the film positives on one of my monitors over some pictures on flickr on a whim. Half Tone Self Portraits...I've often wanted to print some of my photographs and screen print over them, this just makes me want to do it even more. I might look back into some of those on-line sources for printing photographs. I've always liked the over pixel, highly saturated results you can get with printing a digital image in a quick and dirty way. Also, no calibrating a printer at home...man, I hate doing that.

One more thing: my fellas band The Mutaytor is playing a show at the EchoPlex tomorrow night! They are playing with March 4th, another great band from Portland. It looks to be a great show, totally looking forward to it. You should go if you can! :)
Mutaytor will also be releasing their new album recorded at the famous Westerfield house in San Francisco. Check it out, Here's the link to the album! --> Nimbit

eating: cookie update

2011-03-07T15:24:00.000-08:00

So, in the interest of research more cookies were baked and consumed this weekend.
This time we put peanut butter cups inside the cookies. All agreed, totally delicious as well! The peanut butter cup did spread out and become a thin peanut butter layer inside the cookie. While not as visually stunning as the Oreo, still quite tasty! My guy and I are feuding over the last few of them I stashed in the freezer while I try not to inhale them all in one sitting ;)

The thing that is so interesting about this cookie is how tall and cakey it is. It's all butter (no shortening) and doesn't go into the fridge for chilling. Normally I would expect a cookie of this sort to spread out and become thin and crispy. Nope, not this cookie. tall, thick...almost chewy inside. At some point I'll have to make a batch without anything inside but with a nice sprinkle of Maldon Salt on top.

And for the record, the best chocolate chips for the money are the semi-sweet chips from trader joes. Just sayin'.

making: more hats!

2011-03-04T12:10:00.000-08:00

Earlier this week i uploaded pics of the two new hats I finished recently!

Modern Cockade Ribbon Hat $50

♥ Black Velvet Hat with a hand made bright turquoise ribbon cockade and five glittering diamond beads. Three vintage black feathers add the finishing touch.
♥ Hand made molded buckram hat form reinforced with steel wire rim. Made by miriam dema using traditional millinery techniques involving steam and wooden hat blocks.
♥ --Bright turquoise ribbon hand folded into a ribbon cockade using traditional technique.
--5 diamond shaped glittering black and silver beads.
--3 Black vintage feathers.
--Black Velvet on the base of the hat.
--Hand lined with black and white polka dot fabric.
♥ Held on with a black metal headband, the headband can be moved to position the hat to your preference.
♥ This hat is one of a kind. It is handmade with hand sewing attaching all of the details. Everything else is machine or hand sewn.
♥ Measures 4" wide and about 1" tall.

Woodland Mushroom Hat $50

♥ Gray Velvet Hat with a tiny woodland scene complete with tiny mushroom, rhinestones boulders and glittering stones.
♥ Hand made molded buckram hat form reinforced with steel wire rim. Made by miriam dema using traditional millinery techniques involving steam and wooden hat blocks.
♥ --Tiny red and brown mushrooms with silver and red glass glitter on the underside.
--Real dried bright green moss.
--Rhinestones and glittering beads make for rocky details.
--Soft Gray Velvet on the base of the hat.
--Hand lined with gray and black plaid flannel.
♥ Held on with a black metal headband, the headband can be moved to position the hat to your preference.
♥ This hat is one of a kind. It is handmade with hand sewing attaching all of the details. Everything else is machine or hand sewn.
♥ Measures 4" wide and about 2" tall

I'm so in love with the woodland one I made one for myself, so if you see me around town I'll be wearing that or my copy of the fawn hat. As usual they are both up for sale on etsy along with the others.

Have a great weekend!

eating: cookies inside cookies

2011-03-02T21:34:00.000-08:00

So let me get this out of the way first off. We try to eat pretty healthy around these parts. Whole grains, lots of fruits and veggies, don't eat out too much...but when you see this blog post by picky palate you just kinda know what you're gonna be up to the following weekend.
You're gonna make some chocolate chip cookies and shove some Oreo's inside them. That's what you're gonna do...er I mean we did this past Sunday.
And if your me, you'll prolly take pictures the whole time. Except for pictures of people inhaling them, that I managed to forget to take. Trust me though, they went over pretty well. General consensus was this is the perfect cookie to stuff with other tasty things. The dough is thick and holds it's height. All signs point to a new batch of these with peanut butter cups inside. Peanut Butter Cup Chocolate Chip Cookies. Let's just think about that for a few minutes, shall we?

get you're ingredients list nice and dirty like i do.

make the dough

open the Oreo's and marvel at the perfect uniformity and stiffness of the filling.

take an Oreo and put a ball of dough above the cookie and below. now gently smoosh the dough down and around until it covers all the edges of the cookie. bonus points if you don't break the cookie.

um, this is when i got a bit concerned. those are some mammoth balls of dough!

never fear, carry forth and bake the cookies. bake them longer than the recipe says to. i went until the dough was slightly brown all the way around. there's nothing grosser than raw dough and baked oreo...

if your like me you had to cut one open right away. it looked like that. and it was pretty tasty!

i cut them all in half so as not to throw my friends into a diabetic coma. i'm a swell girl like that.

home: snow in tujunga!

2011-03-01T13:19:00.000-08:00

So after being out all Saturday morning and afternoon the fella and I came home to a distinct chill in the air. The news was telling us some thing might be up or rather down but I have to say neither of us thought we'd get quite the results we did. Around 4pm or so it started in with some light hail...and then it turned into light fluffy flakes that covered the ground and cars with a solid coating of white. SNOW! in Tujunga!
We played outside like goofy kids taking pictures of it until we got super chilled. After retreating inside it continued to come down for a good hour or two. We went out to run some errands later that night and it snowed all the way down to Foothill Blvd. All of the cars had a light dusting and the ground was slushy. Such a trip!

It lasted most of the next day but was gone by the next evening. It was quite glorious! Here are some pictures!

going: The Belasco and Bottega Louie

2011-02-28T15:03:00.000-08:00

This past Saturday morning my fella and I motored downtown to tour the highly restored and renovated Belasco Theater. Located directly next to The Mayan and built a year prior it was such a treat to see all of the work and money they have put into this place!

In 2009 I got a sneak peek of the efforts going into the restoration of The Belasco when we got to pop in and look around during a tour of The Mayan sponsored by the LAHTF. Seeing how everything has turned out was simply amazing. So much hard work to keep things looking period and so many efforts went into bringing the entire location into the current times. LED lighting from floor to ceiling, newly re-done ball room on the 3rd floor and the addition of a wine bar and 2 restaurants! Oh, and the 3-D projectors they are going to be using on the ceiling to do 3-D mapped projection work. I simply can not wait to go to a show here- to hear the new sound system, to see the projections on the ceiling, and enjoy a cocktail at one of the many swanky bars.

Here are some more pictures I took followed by some pics of our lunch at Bottega Louie, yum! Bottega Louie- you still make precious desserts, tasty pizza's and a great drink!

lunch pics:

stay tuned this week for more! it snowed at our house, i made some crazy snacks and hopefully some pics of two new hats!

Making: 2010 in review

2011-02-25T12:35:00.000-08:00

It's that time of year again, time for website updates and year in reviews!

Every year around this time I sit down and take stock of the work I made in the previous year. I take a look at what worked, what didn't work so much and what I'd like to post on my website. While I didn't make as many prints last year I did spend the first half of the year making those awesome concrete stuffed animals and the rest of the year making some great new prints as well as experiments and learning (half tone dots, i'm lookin' at you!).

Here's a screen shot of the new page with images of the work from 2010:

Here's the link to my site if you would like to check out all those tiny thumbnails on the new page to see what's behind them:

http://www.miriamdema.com/index.html

Have a great weekend everyone! It looks like it's going to rain everywhere and maybe SNOW at our place this weekend. No outside chores in the rain so tomorrow we're off to go check out the newly restored Belasco Theater in downtown Los Angeles, very exciting!

Eating: Cocktails and Fancy Ice Cubes

2011-02-23T13:24:00.000-08:00

We like cocktails around these parts.
We like going out for fancy cocktails at places like 1886 and Elements Kitchen
and we also like making fancy cocktails at home.

Fancy vs. non fancy cocktail...Hmm, well it's not that we're using especially fancy booze or a huge bar selection. We tend to buy a few consistent things and use them to make variations on drinks we like. Well, that and the ice cubes. I'm partial to those jumbo ice cubes that keep your drink cold longer and look nifty floating in a glass.

A drink from last week that made me feel rather fancy at home was especially due to the crafting of a friend of ours. For the holidays she made a batch of Falernum and shared it with a few of us lucky ducks. It's primarily used in the making of tiki inspired drinks. Once you have a taste of it in your cocktail it's kinda like a Manhattan without the bitters. It just makes a cocktail taste better and have more dimension.

We've been using it a rum based drink with a little bit of adaptaion as the citrus changes but the general idea is:

5 jigs dark rum
5 jigs citrus juice- a combination of blood oranges, oranges, limes.
1 jig raw simple syrup/agave syrup or 1 tbish bar sugar if that's all you have.
1/2 jig Cointreau
1 full dropper Dr. Monetta's Falernum.
stir over ice and decant to rocks glasses filled with ice.
makes 2 healthy sized drinks
(see how i referred to them as healthy- that's the fresh citrus, it keeps the scurvy at bay)

to make this even prettier you could mix everything but the rum together, pour over ice and float the rum on top. and as you can see from the dirty grater in one picture we've added a dash of grated ginger for extra spice. super yum!

If you like making fancy cocktails at home I highly suggest prowling the Internets for a Falernum recipe, I know I'm going to have to when our batch runs out.

Going: Pasadena Museum of History

2011-02-22T15:35:00.000-08:00

This past Saturday I ventured out into the impending rain storm with a friend to check out a new show at The Pasadena Museum of History entirely about hats!
titled "Mad about Hats" the show features quite a few hats from the museums over 500 vintage and antique hats. Here's the little blurb from the website:

Through the ages, men, women, and children have adorned their heads for a variety of reasons. At times, hats were purely utilitarian providing protection from the elements. Over the years, hats evolved beyond their functional purpose to become an essential accessory that indicated the wearer’s economic standing, social status, or fashion savvy.

The popularity, size, and shape of hats has changed measurably over time. In past decades, a respectable lady or gentleman would not have ventured outdoors without one. The design of women’s hats has been influenced by hairstyles, haute couture, new materials, even the popular use of the parasol. The impact of men’s hat designs – such as the top hat and the fedora – has also been remarkable.

The exhibition Mad for Hats! explores women’s hats as social and fashion phenomena. More than 100 hats and related photographs, selected from the Museum’s collections, showcase the various materials, styles, and shapes of ladies hats from the 1860s to 1960s.

-a detail of ribbon folding i particularly liked.-

-a pill box hat with an elaborate ribbon holding it to the head.-

-reverse feather detail.-

We really enjoyed the show, it was quite a few hats to take in. I took my time taking in all of the little details of construction...I do wish a few of the hats had been shown in cases that allowed one to walk around them but I also understand space was a bit limited. They also had an entire room devoted to an Ostrich Feather farm that used to be in South Pasadena and it was interesting to see all of the old advertising.

If you're in the area and you love hats go check this show out. It will be up until June 12 2011

The Pasadena Museum of History gift shop also has a great selection of books about the local area so make sure you leave enough time to check those out as well.

home: bobcats!

2011-02-21T14:34:00.000-08:00

Taking a mini vacation day today but I wanted to share this great pic of a bobcat walking the wall behind our house from last week.

I've seen bobcats off and on around the property but I've never seen one walking the wall like a tight rope. That wall is about as thick as a brick or cinder block and about 20-30 feet from the ground. Glad I was able to zoom in with my phone to share it with you!

Love: Estate Sales

2011-02-18T12:18:00.000-08:00

Oh man, do i love a good estate sale! But being the busy bee that I am I don't have time to trek all over town going to fifty crappy sales looking for a sale filled with old stuff and decent prices. So I rely upon mailing lists of estate sales. estatesales.net is one of my favorites.

Each week they send out a email list of sales happening in your area with general mileage of how far the sale is from your zip code- often there is a description of the sale or photos of the items for sale. Because I'm not re-selling I tend to go late in the day on Fridays after the big crowds but before the Saturday shoppers. I like not being there when it's super crowded!

Last week I popped into one in Glendale not far from my house around 1pm and picked up these two really great vintage quilts for $18. I love that they are just a wee bit ratty so I don't have to be extra careful with them, I can take them to a yard chair or in the car for long trips.

I also picked up this great vintage jar to store tea in for a dollar. I love this style of jar, the seal is gone but it still looks really great on the counter filled with tea bags!

Making: Sock Garters

2011-02-16T13:57:00.000-08:00

Looking for a stylish way to hold up your socks? Well, I have just the thing for you. New hand made by me, Sock Garters in a variety of colors! I love these so much I wanted to make them for you as well. I've been talking about them for weeks now and here they are for sale in my etsy store. They are super comfortable to wear and totally stay put. They fit a wide range of calf sizes from thinner to those of us with a bit more padding ;)

red garters with heart clips

Here's the general info on them:

♥ Elastic Garters with chrome buckle and chrome dot clips.
To hold socks, gloves and shirts cuffs in place!

♥ You can wear these multiple ways!
-With the buckle on the outside holding up the sock.
-Flip the clip under to hide and wear with taller socks.
-Loosen them out and wear them up higher on the thigh.
-Shorten them and wear them on your arms to hold up gloves.
-Wear higher on the arm clipped to a up rolled shirt cuff.

♥ Sewn by miriam dema - made in Los Angeles,Ca.

♥ Each Garter can be adjusted from 10 inches long at the shortest to 16 inches at the longest.
The elastic is one inch wide and stretchy.

They are all for sale on my Etsy shop at $25.00 a pair plus shipping or local delivery free

link to etsy store --> miriam dema shop

black sock garters

black and white striped garters

gray and stripped garters

a pic of the garter on my calf holding up a sock!

Home: Spoon Butter

2011-02-15T14:16:00.000-08:00

I recently came across a great post about something I never knew was missing from my life- Spoon Butter! Thanks to a post on Food in Jars I am now informed and my spoons are better for it.
Spoon Butter is a combination of Beeswax and Mineral Oil you melt together and then rub into all of your wooden bowls, cutting boards and spoons. If you're like me and you use the same wooden spoons and cutting boards on a regular basis then giving them a wee bit of love and care every now and then is a good idea.

First up I made the butter. You going to need a mason jar, a pan of water to melt the wax/oils and some clean cloths.

In a mason jar put 1/8 lb chopped up natural Beeswax. Chopping it up helps it melt faster. Place the jar in a pan of water and hold it there as the water heats up and melts the wax. Don't walk away. Um, like I did...the jar has to be stabilized or it falls over. After the wax is mostly melted add in the Mineral Oil, use a wooden spoon to mix it all up and bring it back to a clear melted stage. That's it! Take the jar out of the water and let it come back to room temp. As it does it will become opaque in color, that's when it's cool enough to use.

While I waited for the Spoon Butter to cool I gently sanded off any of the singed edges from my more used spoons. Yep, I leave spoons in a hot pan...anyways...

Once the butter is cool using your hands rub a small amount on all the wooded surfaces. I happened to have a pile of cutting boards, spoons, mugs, bowls, knife blocks and some antlers (what, I figured it couldn't hurt the antlers) . Any left on your hands just rub in. It feels great and smells delightful. Let everything sit overnight and with a clean cloth rub away the excess the next day.

Now my spoons are happy and my kitchen smells nice!

Going: cocktails and thrift stores

2011-02-14T13:14:00.000-08:00

Friday night my guy and I went to check out a newish bar in pasadena we've been meaning to go to. Hidden in the side of The Raymond Restuarant is the 1886. The have a wonderful selection of cocktails and a great out door patio. Any bar that has Luxardo cherries behind the bar is ok with me! Everything was great- we sampled 4 different drinks- they all had bright flavors and are made from scratch with fresh ingredients.

I can't wait to go back here- Saturday night around ten thirty it was pretty mellow but it's prolly a bit busy earlier in the evening. We happened to arrive after the kitchen was closed but they offered us a nice snack of a dinner roll and yummy butter. Trust me- this was a delicious roll and butter.

Saturday was a busy day down in Orange County- First up a meeting with the printmaking organization LAPS I'm a member of at the Irvine Arts Center. After catching up on what the group is up to we toured the new printmaking studio there. Very exciting for them, if you live in the Irvine area and have an interest in printmaking go check it out. The girls that run it were super nice and it's a great addition to that community.

After that I prowled the area going to a few thrift stores. Suprisingly quite a few bookmarks for thrift stores had accumulated in my yelp for the Anaheim and Fullerton area. I went to 5 or so and picked up a few things. Some clothes and a weird plastic log toy from the 90's. Almost all of them were having 50% off sales. Pretty awesome!

After that I popped into a fantastic store called Gilding the Lily in downtown Fullerton. What a find! She has a great selection of ribbons, flowers and feathers. Mostly vintage but a few newer things all with a beautiful romantic vintage flair. She also carries a wonderful selection of glass glitter for sale by the scoop. I blissed out while I was in the shop and totally forgot to take any pictures so here is one from the shops blog of the ribbon area.

Having lived in Southern California for about 4.5 years I completely miss my old haunts from up north- Tail of the Yak, Britex, Laci's, Bell'occhio, and many, many others...it's so nice to find some of that here where it's a bit easier to get to.

and here's a picture of mulch! I spread it all out into the yard area between our hot tub house and office library. This area used to be uneven packed dirt. Now it looks so much softer and woodsy. Very exciting. I still have a huge pile of it left to continue to spread around into all of our planters and such and the area beyond the hot tub. We have a lot of ground erosion here due to being on a hill and some over zealous leaf blowing landscapers. - hopefully this will help fill a lot of that in and have the trees and plants happier. My guy bought me a wheel barrow for valentine's so now I can move it all over with a bit more ease. He's swell like that :)

Still up this week: Spoon Butter, Estate Sales and Sock Garters!

projects and progress.

2011-02-09T14:47:00.000-08:00

Working on all sorts of things this last week.After I finished up the first batch of hats (go check that out will, ya' if you haven't :) I picked up a few supplies for some personal projects.

First off some beads! My fella drove me over to Pasadena to Farrin O'Connor on Saturday to pick out some beads for a few pairs of new earrings. I've had it in my brain for a pair of hoops with faceted beads strung onto the hoops. I also picked up some great mirror ball like beads that also got made into a pair of earrings. Both were totally easy to make but that has a lot to do with having everything all set up and ready to be used.

For the hoops pair I cut a length of 18 gauge wire and curved it into a hoop until I liked the size, a few quick bends of the wire and stringing some beads and I was set. I didn't even bother making them extra hard as who knows how long I'll be enamored with them.
The second pair involved a bit more but not much. 16 gauge wire I heated the tip until a large bead of silver formed and strung that through the bead and attached it to a pair of ear hooks I made a bit ago.
I also took some pictures of a pair I made back in December. I can't remember if I mentioned these then. They are a 16 gauge length of wire bent and curved with a little bit of flattening to make a wishbone inspired pair of earrings.
The rest of my weekend I worked on sock garters, some house projects and more hand sewing! I'm done with a batch of the totally awesome Sock Garters so as soon as I take some pics and post them to Etsy you'll know. Super excited about that.

I put in a whole new batch of pavers in our yard going from the kitchen to the garage and another batch going towards the cars. Eventually I'll finish that up by meeting it over to the section near the garage but for now I've got mulch on the brain.
Yep, Mulch. In a haze of home ownership and house improvement I had a giant truckload of mulch delivered to our yard. Now I just need to spread it all out. Joy!

In between all that I hit some parties, visited with friends, wore hats, took homemade marshmallow with me everywhere to share (thanks mom) . Hm, and we went to Good Girl Dinette in Highland Park for the first time- super yum if you live in the area.

Sunday at a super bowl party I taught myself how to make these great ribbon details. Soon enough they will be on hat! When you push in the middle and sew it to something they have even more definition.

one more thing. I bought this amazing lip balm from Amazon last week. The awesome things about it are; it smells like chocolate and it's a super huge inch across tube. oh and my lips are soft as soft can be. Google Sweetsation into Amazon to track it down. It was about $15 with shipping and totally worth it.

The Rest

2011-02-04T11:28:00.001-08:00

For those of you following along at home, here are the rest of the hats I've completed.
They are now all posted to etsy for sale!
Don't forget to ask me for that coupon code - and free delivery to local LA. It's easier to bring the hat to you than pack it all up and possibly have it wrecked in shopping.

Have a great weekend! I'll be puttering around town wearing my own hat with the tiny deer on it :)

Hat!

2011-02-02T11:19:00.001-08:00

Hats for sale! As some of you may have noticed from my flickr and etsy I have started posting my hats for sale! This past weekend I took pictures of all of the finished ones so you could see all the angles and even the inside linings. After some editing I posted the first six for sale on Monday night.

This is pretty big news over here. For a long time I've only made accessories for myself and close friends. I didn't want to distract myself from making art....but there you go, sometimes a girl's allowed to change her mind. I'll be adding the remaining batch towards the end of the week and then I'll add a few here and there as I make them. I'll also be adding some of those sock garters I made a few month's ago.

So about these hats, these hats are super, super easy to wear. Many of you have seen me go all day with one of them plonked on my head. The little fascinator ones have a black metal headband sewn through the lining. This keeps the hat on your head all day- no elastic that pinches, pins to adjust...nada! it just stays on. The other style the pill box does use bobby pins but these hats are so light weight and airy they also just stay put. I've worn a lot of hats in my day and a lot of hats that don't stay put where you put them or can only be worn on the back of the head. These can be worn tilted low in the front or wherever you want them, it's super cute!

I think I've been pretty careful to give all of the info for each hat in the description for sale but if you have any questions or are curious about something let me know. These hats are all hand made by me using a little bit of the sewing machine but a whole lot of hand sewing.

And here's some really big news. I created a friends and family discount for the hats! The discount is a generous 20% off the purchase price of the hat!!! There are two ways to see the code for the discount- I'm going to post it on facebook so people who are already friends and fam will have easy access to it. If we arn't friends on facebook shoot me an email- remind me how we know each other and I'll send the code along along. (miriamdema at gmail dot com)

This discount really is for friends, family and people who have purchased my work before. You guys have been so supportive in so many ways and I want to say thanks! The discount is only good on the hats, if you purchase other things it will apply to the whole purchase but I'll send you along a revised total. (do me a favor and just buy the hat by itself ;) The shipping on the hats is a bit tricky as they are different shapes and sizes. If the cost is way under my estimate I'll make a correction.

And now without further chatter here is one pic of the first 6 finished hats. Click on the link to see more pics of each one, the product description and the cost.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/miriamdema?section_id=7772695

http://www.flickr.com/photos/miriamdema/sets/72157625826490045/

More soon!

lables

2011-01-27T12:33:00.000-08:00

for clothes and hats. and other fabric projects.

for quite a while i've wanted small labels to put on my hand made projects. since i'm making hats to sell i figured i'd really better get on that and make some. there are quite a few ways to do this, this just happens to be the way i choose to do it with what i have available.

i looked around at places to buy the labels pre-made and it was either very expensive, or the turn around wasn't in my schedule or it looked kinda hokey. so i choose to screen print my own labels.

supplies:

re-positionable spray adhesive
ribbon in the weight and width you want
paper
ink and screen printing supplies
photoshop
at joann's i picked up the spray adhesive. you want the kind that says it's re-positional on it. i also picked out a few yards of black and white polyester satin ribbon in 5/8th inch thick.

back at the studio in photoshop land i created a template at 8x10 300 dpi and starting from the top at one inch i marked down 5/8 and then on each inch. all the way to the bottom of the page. then i filled in the areas with a layer in light gray so i would have something to line the ribbon up. i marked out how large i wanted the font to be and created a whole layer of my name in the spaces that were not filled in gray.
then i printed a bunch of copies on paper with the gray (let's call those the ribbon sheets) and one copy on transparency with the gray layer turned off so it only printed the text for my film positive.

in the silk screen studio i exposed my screen with my film positive.
while that dried i sprayed down very lightly each ribbon sheet with the spray adhesive. then i carefully lined up the ribbon in the non gray area. you want to hold the ribbons in lace while you print on them but be able to peel them off the paper when your done, so go light with the glue.
i put my screen into clamps and put a sheet of lightly sprayed card board under it- this will hold the ribbon layer to the cardboard instead of it sticking to the back of your screen- 'cause it has glue on the front. i taped the film positive to the cardboard and carefully matched up the screen, the ribbon sheet and the film positive sheet up. then i marked where each ribbon sheet will go when i slid it into print.
i printed all ofthem in red to keep it easy.
after they were dried i lightly ironed them to set the ink.
i cut the ribbon down and then i very, very lightly slipped each edge of the ribbon into an open flam to melt a teeny, tiny bit of the edge. this keeps the ribbon from unraveling and gives you a little bit of an edge to sew the ribbon to something.
that's it. i made about 60 ribbon labels this go round. i may make more next time but this should keep me for a bit. if you have any questions let me know!

Catalina Island

2011-01-26T09:05:00.000-08:00

A beautiful place. That sums up Catalina Island pretty well. This past weekend was the 5th anniversary of meeting that awesome guy of mine and we boated off to Catalina Island to celebrate.

Five years ago this time of year we met up north at a friends birthday celebration and hit it off. We kept hanging out, I moved down south, I moved into his house, he gave me an art studio, we started working together and look here we are now. Super fun!

We got up super early Sunday morning to catch the early boat out of Long Beach at 8:30am. After a quick boat trip across the channel we arrived to the cutest little town southern California has to offer, Avalon. First thing first we rented bicycles and headed over to check into our hotel The Snug Inn early. They let us keep our bags there and we biked all over the island- well, we biked all over the mostly flat and low hilly areas. First up was the Wrigley Memorial on the hill. A great view looking out across the channel back towards Long Beach.
We popped into the Avalon Grille for a yummy lunch, wandered around some more and then rode over to The Casino for an afternoon tour. After getting our bikes checked back in we headed to the hotel to actully check in and lounge about in room for a while. Hey, if your paying good money for a cute B&B the least one can do is hang around in it and enjoy all the awesomeness.

That night things were pretty chill around town as it was a sunday night in the off season but I loved the quiet. It reminded me of being in Italy a few years ago. the only people around are the people that live there and they are pretty friendly 'cause it's a bit more mellow. We had some wine at a wine bar and then dinner at The Lobster. A rather divey old school Catalina place with excellent food.
Late the next morning after breakfast in the room we wandered around some more and then rented a golf cart to drive up and down all the steeper hills. It was great to do that on Monday as we seemed to be one of the only peeps on the Island driving around. I imagine during the summer it's slammed with golf carts all over the place. We turned in our golf cart and did some shopping around town and had some lunch before catching the boat back across the channel.
It was a super fun time and a super way to spend out 5th anniversary together. Next up this week I've got a great tutorial on how to make your own lables for garments and sewing projects. I wanted some for my hats that are coming along nicely so I figured I'd share with you how I made them.

making stuff and plumbing!

2011-01-20T14:40:00.000-08:00

plumbing. so, that's a crowd pleaser of a topic i know.
but it's what's happening over these parts. this last week we've been having trenches dug in our yard to replace pipes, have the septic inspected and pumped and having water installed to a kitchen island in our yard. yep, we have outdoor and indoor plumbing! so exciting. yes, home ownership is geeky.
ooh, the inside of a septic system. with a pipe that should not be there and should not be leaking water. all fixed now per the digging.

see, digging.

in between all of that i've been sewing up a storm. making a small line of hand made hats like i mentioned. here's a quick sneak peek of some fabric and photos in process.

fabrics to make hats from:i'm really excited that i've been making hats from reclaimed garments from the thrift store. this has a few advantages.

first- unique choices from all of time and all of the fabric at the thrift store. no buyer picking out fabric for me based on trends from two years ago. it's up to me to choose the right tone and look of the fabrics i want.

second- re-use, we like that.

third- no endless choices downtown and having to buy a whole yard. i did go to buy some fur this morning and of course i had to get a whole yard- which is like twenty hats and i almost got sidetracked with this interesting spangle/sequined fabric at $15 a yard. it was great but totally not what i need to make right this second...maybe next week...

fourth- at the thrift store i buy the shirt, make what i can and once it's gone. it's gone. i like that. no going back for more, wishing you had bought more yardage. it's gone and that's the end.

fifth- leather. you can't beat prices for leather at thrift stores. fabric stores treat leather like it's frickin' gold. it's crazy expensive. i can buy a leather skirt at a thrift store for $5-$10 and take it apart. a great deal.
case in point. a size 5x red leather jacket i took apart. you read that right. 5X! it was huge, and made of this great bright red leather. for $25 i could never get that much leather downtown.

here's a sneak peek of a cute brown velvet hat. with a raffia ribbon and a hand made feather button on the side. i'm going to offer it for $20 in my store. a great price, i think. buckram hat forms. all pressed into shapes, trimmed and wired. this is what's inside my tiny party hats like the one below, another sneak peek. not done yet but a bright red velvet tiny hat with a black leather flower .last weekend my guy and i also organized a group dinner at a Vietnamese place we went to a few weeks ago. 13 of us drove down to garden grove and had a blast.

and Monday we had a holiday so after some chores we headed off to Vasquez rocks to climb all over the rocks and then we ended up at The Rock Inn for some beers and dinner in Lake Hughes.

this weekend i'm hoping to finish up the first batch of hats and take some pictures to post. wish me luck on finishing, it's also our 5 year anniversary so that might be a bit distracting.

supplies

2011-01-12T09:58:00.001-08:00

just gathering supplies this week.

this past weekend i skeedaddled down to the garment district to pick up some elastics, feathers, fabrics and other bits of frippery.

nope, none of this has anything to do with screen printing. i'm quite excited that after many years of making small bits of awesome for myself to wear i'm going to make a few of the very same things for you guys to purchase. some of my more dear friends will attest i have always resisted this, primarily that if i have time to 'craft' i have time to make some art.

however, right now...i'm cold. it's cold out. and that means i have no desire to screen print. it's true...i'm a seasonal screen printer...and i kinda like it that way. the late winter / early spring is usually when i work on something else- last year it was the awesome concrete animals.

this year it's going to be making some hats, some sock garters, some other bits awesomeness and loading it all into my etsy store to see if you guys actually want to buy it. i'm going to focus on the things that have made me super awesome happy recently, for example a few super wearable hats that go with jeans or a fancy dress.

i feel that the time is right, i have a pretty high level of skill happening with the hats and other bits right now. i'd be proud for you ladies to wear them and enjoy them. i've been making tiny hats for over a year now for myself so i've worked out some of the kinks in them and i'm really excited to share them with other people to wear.

so that's about it, i'll be updating my website with last years print work and adding more info on the new things. i'll keep you posted and as it gets a wee bit warmer i'm sure i'll get back to screen printing...well, and i have to screen print some awesome labels for the insides of my hats!

other stuff happening:

-i finally picked up this amazing panorama of Mars3D from the frame guy. it's 11inches by 5 feet long. it looks fantastic. i could sit for hours in front of it with the 3D glasses on staring at Mars.

-we now have a 'frame guy'! it's a great shop in chinatown my friend art turned me onto. if you need a lead lemmie know. totally awesome prices and great work!

-still walking after work and before studio time around 3 days a week, the other two days i go to the gym. i feel great for it so there you go. i love when people join me so if you want to walk up a pretty steep hill lemmie know ;)

-my guy and i went out for some fancy cocktails and snacks last weekend at Elements in Pasadena. if you haven't been and you like the fancy cocktail it's a pretty great place. they know what to make and they make it right. everything we've had there has been yummy. not cheap, buy yummy. and now i have to buy a bottle of cynar per a cocktail we had there, sort of a modified manhattan. yum!

new years

2011-01-05T11:30:00.000-08:00

sooo you all already know i have a pretty awesome life, right?

i know it, i try to remember it on a regular basis and not get spoiled by the fun times i have and the awesome people i know. this new years holiday was exactly that type of time. the kind that makes you feel incredibly spoiled and drunk on fun with all of the awesomeness happening and the amazing people wandering through.

let's get started, you can live vicariously through me. or you can just come hang out, that works as well :)

wednesday of last week my guy and i loaded an unbelievable amount of stuff into the car and hit the road! coats, bedding, costumes, food for a week, more costumes, hats, fancy outfits, special gifts, and a full bar that would give most cocktail establishments a run for their money.

that sounds awesome right? well, imagine if you're doing that and more than 100 other awesome people from all over the country that you think are the bee's knee's are doing the very same thing at the very same time! and you're all going to the same place! i know, i know...you're thinking, i could go to burning man too... ha, this is just like all of the awesome parts of burning man with only the awesome people, real camp fires and no dust! i think i just swooned a little bit.

for the fifth year a bunch of awesome people i know rented out a camp ground with cabins and a lodge in Cambria on the coast. it's a beautiful site. Every morning walking to get coffee through the woods looking out at the great big ocean behind the lodge and watching the deer and birds flit about makes a girl have the best new years end and beginning you could ask for.

We arrive a few days before new years eve and usually stay for a few days after new years. Four nights in all this time. Before my guy and i could roll into camp ocean pines though he had a gig down in Solana Beach on Wednesday. We cruised down south stopping off at Brodard in Garden Grove for some yummy Vietnamese food.
We got into Encinitas mid afternoon to check into a swell beachy motel and wander around shopping. We both bought hats at some point that afternoon as well as some truely fantastic rain boots i picked up at a re-sale store for $12. It's such fun to be on vacation!
After checking in at the Belly Up where my guy worked on load in and sound check I got in a little bit more shoppy shop and then wandered around looking for a place to get a nosh. I ended up at a 'grown up' restuarant called Blanca. If you're in the area I highly reccomend it. I was able to chillax at the bar for a few hours eating beets with fancy melty cheese, a gnocci dish with kabocha squash and wood ear mushroom and topped with a fried melty quail egg. That combined with great fresh made cocktails and an olive oil cake we shared for desert made it fantastic grown up stop while waiting for the gig to start. We walked back to The Belly Up where they had a fantastic set- one of the best shows I've seen The Mutaytor play in a bit. The sound was great and the audience loved the funky sound they have.
Thursday morning we made a quick stop for coffee and then hit the road to drive all the way north to Cambria. It was a long drive! But we got there, just in time to unload all our stuff and change clothes to go on a night tour of Hearst Castle! with 40 other peeps we know, it was so much fun- we took up most of the bus up the hill and almost all of us were in fancy dress costumes. I wore a great fringy dress I bought a few weeks ago and my guy wore a zoot suit. Gosh, the castle is so interesting at night. I think we surprised the guides by all being dressed up, it was chilly but it made it totally worth while.
Back at the lodge we ate some of the many, many things being prepared in the kitchen and I got started on a lemon cake for breakfast the next day. The best part of camping with our friends is a never ending buffet of amazing things that they all make. After a late, late night around the camp fire it was sleepy town for this kitten.

Breakfast the next day of lemon cake to share and then out into the world to go to the great farmers market in Cambria, visit the Elphant Seals and go to the non- elephant seal beach. I'm so glad we puttered through all of our field trips that day because the following day it rained! All day. So it was lodge hanging out, making cookies and a great big batch of spaghetti to share. A late night dance party with some awesome ladies made a rain day stuck inside not too bad. Sunday mornig bright and early we all got up (ok, around 9 or 10 ) to load all our stuff and drive all off to our corners of the world again. I miss everyone already!
jim and I stopped on the way home to have lunch with his dad and visited the town of Avila Beach. Also a super cute beach town with beachy motels. The rain picked up just as we hit the road but we made it home- all nine hats, still too much booze, and some bacon that never got cooked. Thanks to my awesome friends that make new years one of the best times a year!

end of 2010!

2010-12-28T11:56:00.000-08:00

here they are, the last and final prints from 2010!
these are the prints i wanted to print at Renegade LA but it was just too blasted hot and then it's been raining the last few weeks making printing tricky as everything take longer to dry.

man, too hot or too dry- screen ink is fussy isn't it?

but done! yay!

the first one is a great half tone heart layer in beige with a bright red overlay and the second in blue with green overlay. i numbered these together into one edition -there are 12 of each. 11 x 14 on the size.

"Don't Hold Back"
2010

11 x 14
edition of 14
2 layer screen print

"Don't Hold Back"
2010

11 x 14
edition of 14
2 layer screen print

the second is a 16x20 print with multiple layers. i really like the way this turned out. i love the hands sprinkling flavor on the tongue while the rabbit lady looks on. and the way the great pink tongue licks down to the roof of the small building.

"Bitter"
2010
16 x 20
edition of 10
6 layer print on paper

i also printed this one on a few sheets of aluminum and a few sheets of brass. the metal prints look great! there is something about the way it looks with the ink. these are cool as they can be propped up and don't really need a frame.

all right kids. that's about it for 2010! i'm off the grid for a few days for fun and shenanigans with friends and then it's on to 2011 right around the corner!

so fast!

2010-12-27T11:06:00.000-08:00

man, that was quick!
birthdays and holiday's all jammed in together and then it's gone so fast.
we had a great weekend here- on friday we celebrated my birthday with breakfast cupcakes and then a great walk up the Arroyo behind JPL. It's such a great walk- the river was crazy full of run off from the storms. Then we went for dinner at Animal - still one of my favorite restaurants in town.

Here's some pics

and here we are goofing' around on x-mas day.

Yesterday I finished the printing on two different prints. I'm hoping to cut them down and sign them today to share with you all before the the end of 2010!

christmas week!

2010-12-20T13:33:00.000-08:00

it's christmas week! and also my birthday this friday!
very exciting, we have plans to go out for some yummy drinks and tasty snacks!

A few weeks ago my work was featured in a wonderful blog post all about faux bois!
Check it out at http://projectnursery.com/2010/12/fake-can-be-fun/
thanks project nursery for including my log screen print with so many other fantastic pieces.

At Renegade LA I managed to get out of my booth for a few quick shopping trips. I bought two early birthday presents for myself. The first being some beautiful earrings from Feisty Elle

so pretty and totally my style.

and I also picked out a wonderful pouch i plan to use for pencils from Appetite. She has lots of beautiful screen printed things so check out her store.

this past weekend I worked mostly in the studio on some screen prints but also on some sewing projects. Here's a sneak peek of a screen print i'm working on printed on metal.
it's still got two more layers to go but so far i totally love it. i love printing on metal. the way the inks sit on the surface with the metal shining out from behind is totally great. i worked on some other prints as well, more on those when they are done. screen printing when it's raining is a bit tricky as everything takes twice as long (if not longer) to dry.

so in between being in the print studio i was popping into the sewing studio to work on some projects. i finally put together a pair of sock garters using the bits i've been gathering. i think they are fantastic! i can't wait to make more and i think i'm going to sell them. so stay tuned for news of a tiny etsy store that will sell these and also my little hats as well. you guys have been asking to buy some of the things i wear when you see them and now there will be a place!

here's the ruffle pants i also put together this past weekend. man, they are super cozy because the ruffles are 100% poly. and so light and fluffy!
and because you know i love my tasty snacks a bunch of us all went to a place in Arcadia on Saturday night called Chang's Garden. We had loads of yummy stuff, if you're in the area check it out! and by a bunch of us there were nine of us, i love it when we get the giant lazy susan table!
one last bit of snacky news. i bought a great mortar&pestle (also and early birthday gift ;) that i used for the first time this past weekend by grinding up some long pepper. ooh, it smelled great! if you can pick some up at a spice store it makes a great addition to mostly anything. we had it sprinkled over some pan fried egg plant.

400 posts!

2010-12-14T14:41:00.001-08:00

wooowheeee! this is my 400th post to my sweet little blog, how awesome!

thanks to everyone that came out to Renegade LA this past weekend. It's always fun to see old friends and new faces. it was a super fun weekend, although a bit on the warm side. my plan to screen print on site was thwarted by record heat but everyone still really enjoyed seeing the screens, ink and squeegee's to see how it all comes together to make a hand made print.

You guys totally dug the 2011 calendar and I'm almost sold out. If you still want one, email me at miriamdema at gmail or go to my store to order a print- while supplies last the calendar comes free in every package.

some other stuff:

---the prints i was going to print on-site i'll get to work on this weekend as it's supposed to rain and be cool enough to print. looking forward to it! one of the editions has a few prints on metal and i'm really excited to share those with you.

---if you haven't been to the eagle rock brewery i can only say you are missing out. it's quite awesome. the folks that run it are super nice and their beer is super delish. after the first day of Renegade my fella and i ended up there for a beer that turned into 3 hours of hanging out at the bar having awesome conversations with interesting people. oh, and that shrimp toasty from the food truck doing duty that night made things even better.

---books. i love art books. i've been wrapping my fingers around awesome art books that come along with museum trips and art galleries since i was a kid. this week i swapped a bunch of stuff around our house and moved some of my favorites into the book shelf in our hallway. since i seem to know most of you (yeah, let's not kid ourselves- only enough people read this blog that i've prolly met each and every one of you and some of you are good friends) so anyways, next time you're in our hallway check out some of our awesome books. or put on a record, those are now conveniently all placed next to the record player. movin' stuff around is awesome.

---in between movin' stuff around and printing i'm still getting in a walk or trip to the gym mostly every week day. that feels pretty awesome to have up ended my bad summer habits on their head and keep making good decisions. (helps with those trips to eagle rock brewery ;)

---sewing, i hope to get some of that in this weekend. new ruffle fabric and some supplies i picked up for sock garters a few weeks ago have been waiting patiently until i have a bit more free time.

that's it for now and thanks again for making Renegade LA a great show!

Renegade Los Angeles

2010-12-07T12:51:00.000-08:00

You guys! someone asked me last night if Renegade is free?

and i realized I hadn't told you that. It's FREE! to get in that is and free to park!

wooohweeeee!

it seems simple but i think it sucks to charge people to go to a sale where they are also going to spend money. one of the reasons i like doing the Renegade shows is because they are free!

here's some more info:

Saturday and Sunday 11th and 12th 10am-5pm
Los Angeles State Historic Park - aka the cornfield
free to park, free to get in.
you can't beat that!

i'll be there screen printing and selling my stuff along with tons of other awesome vendors!
buy handmade for the holidays!!!

and here's our Christmas tree to get you in the mood. she's so purty!

Renegade Los Angeles - Next weekend!

2010-12-03T09:55:00.000-08:00

holiday shopping!

ok, so here's the thing. i don't really love holiday shopping, in general i prefer to buy and make awesome stuff for my friends and loved ones through out the year. (right now this second, i'm totally obsessed with making sock garters!)

but if you want to celebrate the holidays with gift giving than i highly recommend you come check out Renegade Craft Fair in Los Angeles this next weekend. Not this weekend as in tomorrow but next weekend the 11th/12th. I'm giving you advance notice :)

it's gonna be chock full of independent designers and artists. lot's of great hand made quality gifts to buy for your peeps and for yourself. and of course i'll be there selling my prints and that 2011 calendar i recently shared with you.

also, i think i'm going to screen print on site this year. it's always a bit tricky to do but everyone really enjoys seeing the process. i worked out an awesome new print last night that i'm totally stoked about (even my fella though it was cool in the photoshop) and i think you guys will really dig.

So save the date and come shop your hearts out!

this weekend i'm doing some last minute stuff for the show.
putting everything together for that print.

hopefully get over to IMS for some metal for another project.

buy a tree!!!! weeeee, a live one! totally excited about that.
put up lights and holiday decorations.

maybe, just maybe if i have a few free minutes shoot downtown to take a look at some supplies for sock garters. i bought a fancy pair a few months ago where miss holly b. (my most awesome friend) works at Dark Garden in San Francisco and although I love them I also want some less fancy versions with different elastic. so, i'm gonna make them and hopefully make some for friends if they turn out right.

is this where some of you are wondering what the heck is a sock garter? it's an elastic band that holds up your socks :) with hardware and a cute leather bit holding the clip. yeah, i know...totally fussy but also totally awesome. my socks never fall down any more and they look super cute on the calves above knee high socks and cowboy boots.

it's like a garter belt for every day. and everyone thinks a garter belt with thigh stockings is sexy so sock garters- check 'em out!