Cuppa Fog Blog

Those Who Can't DIY (Anything)

noreply@blogger.com (Chelc) — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 03:35:00 +0000

Yes, I'm back from the grave! Actually, things IRL have just been keeping me so exceptionally busy that I haven't had a chance to update here.

But now I'm back, and it's a gripe that's really gotten so under my skin I had to vent and see if I'm alone in this.

Img from Popular Mechanics, 1949

My husband is currently at a nearby co-worker's house being a wonderful, generous person and taking care of some handyman things around her house. Things like hanging a picture or two, hooking up her printer, and other assundry fix-it things that I wouldn't bat an eyelash at. Except she can't do these things. This is what floors me - it's not that she doesn't have time or is just not able. It's that her husband isn't around for a while, and apparently she never learned and has not intention of learning how to do these things. (For the record, she stated in her email that she didn't know how to do them - not that she was bad at them, which is a fair statement. I can at least give you credit for trying. Some people just aren't meant to play with tools.)

I don't know this co-worker very well, so I asked my husband how she didn't even know how to hang a picture, and his answer was that maybe her dad never taught her. Now I get that I grew up in a family of girls who were tomboys, with a father (and grandfather) who had a wood-working shop in the garage and gave us our own set of tools to go off to college with. So yeah, I realize that I was lucky in that, and that my interest in power tools may be higher than the average human. I am pretty proud that half the tools downstairs in our basement are ones I've purchased over the years and when I was living on my own.

But is this a gender-based issue? A woman who plays the helpless female card so men can do these things for her? She didn't have a dad around or who cared enough to teach her to fend for herself? Or is it just that she has no interest and always had someone around to do it for her?

I think what I just can't wrap my head around is that she never had need to hang a picture herself. Really? Is a hammer that difficult to use? You can't stop by Target and pick up a picture framing kit that has all the stuff in a little plastic box neatly organized into handy little compartments? And you can't go on the internet and check the bajillions of websites that tell you how to do stupid little things like choose what nail or hook to hang a picture with? Or look at the directions that came in your printer box that tell you how to hook it up? I just, I don't get it. I'm practically speechless with not getting it.

So - thoughts? Am I just being completely judgmental here and I'm more independent than most because I can use a hammer? I could use some perspective here.

(This is an awesome set of tips from Popular Mechanics, BTW - even if it's just to see images from their magazine that date back to the 1910s!)

2012 Free Custom Owl Calendar

noreply@blogger.com (Chelc) — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 01:43:00 +0000

Alisa Coburn

If you're like me, you're still getting things settled into the new year. That includes getting my new 2012 calendar all set up. And lucky for us, the wonderful people who brought us the free custom owl calendar from last year have a whole new set of gorgeous, fun owl art for this year. Nathan Jurevicius is back, with a piece involving an owl as well as a crow - oooh!

Pick which owl art you want for which month, click a button, and voila - you have your very own custom 2012 owl calendar to print out! As was true last year, there is no shortage of great pieces - so much so that I may have to make two calendars to enjoy.

Head over to My Owl Barn and have fun!

Artists I Love: Justin Hillgrove

noreply@blogger.com (Chelc) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 20:34:00 +0000

"Wild Ride" by Justin Hillgrove

When I first started attending WonderCon, it was for the nerd factor - animation, comic stuff, designer vinyl toys, seeing cosplayers in person. But what quickly became my favorite thing about the con is Artists Alley. This is where I always end up spending the majority of my carefully budgeted money, and I always wish I had more to spend - even if it's just to support these amazing artists.

"Bed Time Stories" by Justin Hillgrove

Last year I ran across a few artists I had never been exposed to, but fell in love with their work immediately. One of those people was Justin Hillgrove. He's based out of Washington, near Seattle, and specializes in monsters and robots. How could I resist that? I had a really hard time picking just one print, but ended up going home with a signed print of "You're the One": a tree monster cuddling a (Tim Burton-esque) toy duckie.

"Separation Anxiety" by Justin Hillgrove

I also got a chance to chat with him, and he was very humble and nice - especially accomodating since I took so long to decide on a print, and I'm sure he was thinking "just pick one already!". He even signed the print for me.

I love how detailed his work is, and how much emotion his pieces have. It may seem light-hearted, but you truly feel sad for the poor little reaper sitting on the gravestone, and your heart swells at the monster so attached to his toy. Each piece pulls you into a specific micro-world, as if you've popped your head through a window into another universe where monsters run freely through the woods with little creature friends gleefully clinging to their back for a joy-ride, or big tree monsters tell bedtime stories to the little ones all falling asleep in a pile. Almost unbearably sweet, and one of those prints you want to have on your wall so you can gaze at it (when you're supposed to be working) and imagine what life must be like in that wondrous world.

"You're the One" by Justin Hillgrove

Definitely check out his work. His prints are very affordable, and he even has iPhone cases and t-shirts. And if you're in the Seattle area, check out his show and festival listings to see his work in person.

Protect Our Internet - Education and a Well-Done Video!

noreply@blogger.com (Chelc) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 23:33:00 +0000

You may have seen this already (it's been all over Twitter, Google, Etsy, and many of the crafting and animation blogs I hit on a regular basis). But if you're not already aware of the dangers of Congress passing the Protect-IP and SOPA bills, please take a few minutes to watch this video and get educated. Many sites are in black-out today to raise awareness, and have links to government petitions - like the main page of Google today.

Plus, I really like the style of the animation - well-done and educational! What more could you ask for?

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

This is important stuff. If we're not even aware, how can we do anything about it?

Giving Thanks

noreply@blogger.com (Chelc) — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 21:34:00 +0000

I am a huge fan of the holidays. And by "holidays", I basically mean Thanksgiving and Christmas (New Year's you can keep - I'd rather have a 2nd Christmas). What's funny is that in my head I prefer Christmas - the big lead-up, the music, the tree, buying presents, and usually more time off to spend with family. But when I really think about it, Thanksgiving is a purer holiday, and one that seems to embody the ideals of Christmas more than the big day itself.

Christmas has become so commercial, it's ridiculous. Not to say that Thanksgiving doesn't have strong commercial ties (man they've pushed "Black Friday" up as early as possible!), but really the day is about gathering with loved ones around a full table of comfort food, and acknowledging the good things in our lives. I even feel like I'm more generous at Thanksgiving, out of a sincere desire to share good food and a happy family with others who may not have that opportunity. Christmas I feel so put-upon to be "generous" - "donate to me, give me money because it's Christmas and if you don't, you're a Scrooge!" The Christmas Spirit is supposed to be about sharing what you have, not about trying to get as much as possible.

So this Thanksgiving, I hope you're able to take a minute, shut off the Black Friday Sale commericals, and be grateful. If for nothing else, be grateful for the relative purity of the day. Me, I'll be grateful to be with family I love, food we've all made with love, and letting the things we do have overpower the things we don't. Happy Thanksgiving!

UPDATE: iTunes and PayPal Fiasco (Wherein the Little Guy Gets Completely Screwed)

noreply@blogger.com (Chelc) — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 21:07:00 +0000

See the first part of this story here

So remember when I said thank goodness PayPal didn't charge all the 17 wrongful iTunes transactions to my bank account and incur overdraft charges? Well guess what happened the next morning while I slept? Thank goodness my hubby was up super early and caught the ridiculousness before I could incur more than 4 overdraft charges. He put in a chunk of change to cover the PayPal transactions as well as the overdraft charges, but we shouldn't have had to do that. That's bill money, not cover PayPal and iTunes' stupid mistakes money. It's not like we've got extra sitting around the house. Not to mention that PayPal clearly states that if you don't have money in your bank account, they take it out of your backup credit card (which is required for your account).

The rest of the morning is spent on the phone with PayPal and my bank. PayPal still says that the refund will take 3-5 business days, and that they're only able to email me a letter saying that the charges were unauthorized. When I questioned them furiously about why the charges were taken out of my bank account instead of my credit card, they explained how their (ridiculous) system works. And this is really important to note, because they don't say any of this anywhere:

They send the request to the bank account for funds. If the bank says there are insufficient funds, PayPal waits three days and then sends the request to the bank again. At this point, if your bank is like mine, they want to cover their clients' ass, so they pay the money to the vendor and then charge me a huge overdraft fee - per transaction (four $35 overdraft charges are bad enough, but can you imagine what it would have been to have all 16 incur $35 overdraft fees? That would be $560 - and each for a $9.99 charge). It takes 3 times of asking the bank before charging the money to the credit card, and most banks won't let it get that far before giving in to the vendor and charging the overdraft fee.

Why doesn't this get said anywhere? I'm sure I'm not the only person who's had this issue, especially considering that PayPal has a specific department for handling overdraft charges. Now what is PayPal going to do about it? Not much, which comes as no surprise considering how "helpful" they've already been about the whole situation. They email me a letter saying that the charges were unauthorized and tell me to give it to my bank.

So now I call my bank, who were very nice. But they can't do anything until the refunds come through, and can only reverse the overdraft charges if the line-by-line charges match line-by-line refunds from PayPal. Now it's a waiting game over the weekend, and apparently Monday doesn't count as a business day for banks because they can't post deposits on Sunday night, so really it's waiting until Tuesday.

Which brings us to today. I check my bank account online expecting the refunds from PayPal, and nothing. WTH? I check my PayPal account. Get this. They've refunded the money into my PayPal balance. What?? So now I have to request the balance get transferred to my bank account from PayPal which takes another 3-4 business days, and also means that the bank won't see any actual refund amount from PayPal, let alone line-by-line matching transactions to the initial charges by which they would have been able to reverse the overdraft charges. This is infuriating.

Another call to PayPal and I'm in the same boat. "Sorry, that's how it works. We can't do anything. We can give you a letter for your bank." "Yeah, thanks for nothing, I already have that."

Another call to my bank, who again are very nice but have their hands tied. They can't reverse the charges over the phone because I can't email or fax anything to them (from the "outside"). So now I have to wait for the refund PayPal balance to be transferred to my bank account, the amount has to match exactly, and I have to go into my bank branch (who have screwed up in the past, pretty majorly), show them the letter from PayPal, and have them reverse the overdraft charges.

Seriously this whole thing is completely infuriating and out of control. It's almost as bad as when I had my identity stolen and a bunch of credit cards opened in my name. But at least that didn't affect my actual money, just credit. This, on the other hand, has completely affected my real bank account money. And if I didn't have a husband to put the cash in to cover the ridiculous charges, I would have been stuck with a negative bank balance and the $4 in my pocket at the time all of this happened, last Wednesday, until potentially this Friday or next Monday. I had no gas in my car, which means that I would have had to find a way to the bank or hoped the fumes in my car got me there, and God forbid any of my bills were due. And PayPal doesn't care one bit.

And the initiator of this entire fiasco, iTunes also doesn't seem to care. Apparently, the issue happened to a bunch of people, and all iTunes did was send out an email saying it had been corrected. And then the next day the customer service rep finally responded to my email with a standardized letter, in which it was clear she had not even read my initial problem.

I wish there was justice for this, but instead I just feel totally victimized. But please take heed of the logistics I've outlined here, so that you really know what you're dealing with in iTunes and PayPal. It just sucks that there's basically no other option for either of these companies (if you have any Apple product), and thus there is no competition to make them improve their customer service or their policies. I can only hope this makes other people aware.

iTunes and PayPal FAILs, aka The Little Guy Gets Screwed

noreply@blogger.com (Chelc) — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 20:39:00 +0000

Here comes another rant. But the information is pertinent to anyone who uses iTunes and/or PayPal, which these days is a large portion of the community.

Two days ago I decided that a friend needed an app that I use all the time on my iPhone. So I see that iTunes has this thing set up where you click a button and can gift that app. Lovely. Just what I need, since it should send her an email with a redemption code and she gets the app. Sounds perfect.

Step one fail: you can't pay for the gift out of the balance in your iTunes account. Um, what? How does that make any sense whatsoever? I had problems a few months back with someone hacking into my iTunes account, so I had disabled any connection between iTunes and any credit card or PayPal account, just in case. But now that's all they'll take for the gift - a credit card or PayPal account? Well that's incredibly ridiculous. Almost enough to make me forget the gift-giving and just give my friend the $10 and say "get this app". Except I don't trust her to take the money and buy the app herself. She's politely stubborn like that.

OK, I'll enable the PayPal account just for this and then disable it again. Fine.

Good, email sent from iTunes, should be fine.

Till I check my email the next day. No exaggeration, 17 emails from PayPal saying I've paid $9.99 to iTunes. Panic - has someone hacked my iTunes account again?? What's going on here? Maybe PayPal just sent out a bunch of emails for the one transaction. Check my PayPal - 17 individual payment transactions for $9.99, and they all have the same order number from iTunes. Something's wrong here. One more email from PayPal: "your account has been limited until further inspection." Fabulous.

Email iTunes customer service (since it's pretty much impossible to get them on the phone). "I'm not paying 17 times for one transaction!" Go through the steps with PayPal to get my account limits taken off (after I've made sure no one actually has hacked anything and after disconnecting it from iTunes). Go to the gym to work off the massive annoyance. And glory of glories, by the time I get back from the gym it's actually all been refunded in my PayPal . Hallelujah! Perhaps this will all work out after all.

Not so fast. I wake up this morning to emails from my bank account saying, your account balance is low. Um, I haven't spent anything, how could it be low? Check the bank account, and there are the transactions from PayPal taking out the seventeen $9.99 transactions (well, not all of them, since my balance wasn't high enough to cover them all, so the rest were charged to my credit card - at least PayPal didn't overdraft my account, which they have done twice before). But what's going on? They were refunded! Why are they still processing them out of my bank account? And now I have to be at an appointment in half an hour and I have no gas in my car and no money to get any! Let the cursing commence.

Get PayPal on the phone.
Me: "WTH is going on?"
PayPal: "Oh, well the refunds won't be processed for 3-5 business days."
Me: "What??? But they were refunded within the same day! Why are they even being processed as taking out the money to begin with?"
P: "Sorry, that's just how it works since it was an instant transfer. It'll be refunded within 3-5 business days. We can't expedite anything. Sorry." Circle after circle after circle. Getting nowhere. Hang up angrily.

So now my bank account is empty and I won't have any money refunded until possibly next Wednesday, and all you can say is sorry?? It's just such a colossal fail on so many levels that I don't even know who to complain to - except that I have complained to all the parties involved, and they don't care. "Gee, sorry that happened to you," seems to be the reigning response. iTunes: "Gee, sorry we charged you 16 extra times, but we fixed it on our end." PayPal: "Gee, sorry the money was refunded, but we still have to run through the process of taking the money out and waiting to put it back in."

Would it have been better if I had used my credit card instead of PayPal? I'm not sure, because then I wouldn't have seen that iTunes had charged it 17 times until the statement came to me a month later, and I would have had to broach it with iTunes then. And they would have charged me interest on it all. But I would have had money in my bank account at least. It's really a toss-up.

Thank goodness my wonderful husband put some extra money in my account so that I could actually get gas and make it to my appointment today. But if I didn't have him, I would have been royally screwed over by both Apple/iTunes and PayPal. For absolutely nothing I did wrong. In fact, I was just trying to be a nice friend. Next time I'm just giving her the cash and taking my chances.

Is there a lesson here? Never use iTunes' app gift-giving process. Other than that? PayPal really needs to re-think their processing system, especially when the customer is the one getting screwed over. And someone over at Apple needs to get off the itchy trigger finger. Good lord people, 17 times? Really? But where are the repercussions to the people who messed up in the first place? There are none. And I can't cancel my iTunes unless I never want another app on my iPhone. And I love my iPhone too much to give it up, I admit it. And I can't cancel my PayPal unless I cancel my Etsy store. So they all win and I lose. Crap-tastic.

See update to this story here

Happy Fourth Everyone!

noreply@blogger.com (Chelc) — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 00:45:00 +0000

The Fourth of July has always held a special place in my heart, for a lot of reasons. Let's be honest and say that foremost among those reasons is that it's 3 days before my birthday. So growing up, we often celebrated my birthday on Independence Day. So all those fireworks got to be for me. And back when fireworks were legal all over the place, we'd do little fountains and sparklers and flowers in the front yard before the big she-bang. I even got sparklers on my cake instead of candles some years (tip: don't try blowing out sparklers; it doesn't work). And fireworks involve fire (it's right there in the name) and pretty colors and sparkles. Instant appeal. My nickname is pyrogrl for a reason!

Some years we'd be at a friend's beach house or Lake Tahoe, and nothing beats watching a fireworks show from right on the beach or on the water. Cozied up in sweats thrown over bathing suits, blanket thrown round your shoulders, feet dug down into the sand past the cold top layer and into that lovely still-warm-from-the-day middle layer. Smells of the sea air mixed with beach bonfires and char-grilled food tickling your nose. Huddled together with family and friends, although there's that sunkissed skin under all those layers that still holds some warmth from the day at the beach. Lying back on the sand and watching the fireworks blasting seemingly directly overhead. Hearing the oohs and aahs from the people around you. Ignoring that nagging tired feeling from a full day of sun and playing in the water. How can you keep from smiling at the joy of it all? And in the back of your head, quietly, "everybody's together and having fun for my birthday." Not chuffed at the feeling of it all being for you, but at the thought that you - being you - had something to do with your friends and family being able to experience this with you.

Over the years, my Fourths have been varied and generally more low-key. But I am always pleased when I can spend the day with the people I care about, and somewhere in the back of my head when all those beautiful fireworks are going off, I think that maybe I had a little something to do with bringing joy to others around me.

So yes, wonderful country of ours, I am pleased about our Independence Day. But it's not what I'm thinking about when all those fireworks are going off.

Ginkgo Leaves Monoprinting

noreply@blogger.com (Chelc) — Sat, 14 May 2011 03:04:00 +0000

I dropped by 3 Fish Studios today to pick up a print Eric had watercolored just for me. For as often as I've been there and how much I've admired their pieces, it seemed a little ridiculous that I didn't actually own one yet. Plus, it's always a pleasure to hang out with Eric (and of course Annie too, if she's in the studio), and I wanted to check out the new pieces they've been working on.

If you didn't see my post about my first experience with 3 Fish, check it out here. And then, people in the area, go and sign up for their linocut class, because it's completely awesome and certainly changed my art life! Even non-artist types can have a lot of fun and get some very cool prints out of it.

Eric's inspiring ginkgo print

Today when I arrived at the studio, another former student of Eric's linocut class was there, and we both were admiring his new series of ginkgo monoprints. We were so gung-ho, in fact, that he offered to take us through the process and let us pull some of our own - as soon as we picked some of our own neighborhood ginkgo leaves (don't worry, there were plenty on the trees!).

Eric has a great post about this process on his website. Check it out, since his step-by-step is much better than me trying to explain it without pictures. Then come back and you'll understand how I got my individual pulls.

Read more »

Free Fox Bookmarks

noreply@blogger.com (Chelc) — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 22:33:00 +0000

How adorable and sweet are these fox bookmarks? And they're free for anyone to print out and use - having real books just became even more satisfying. Because an electronic bookmark on an eReader just isn't the same.

*Note: I actually don't hate eReaders, in fact, buying a Kindle for my husband has saved us lots of bookshelf space. But I will always love the physical feel, smell, and weight of a real book!

HD TV Rant

noreply@blogger.com (Chelc) — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 07:57:00 +0000

OK, this has been on my mind for a while now, and I don't understand why I haven't heard other people complain about it too.

We've had an HD flat screen (16:9 ratio, as is the norm now) for a little while now, but only in the past few months got digital cable, and therefore the HD TV channels. Truth is, we watch more movies or streaming TV through Netflix (through the XBox), so our digital has always been what we expected - either fitting the 16:9 ratio screen (for widescreen format), or having the black bars on the left and right for 4:3 ratio, like most TV shows are/used to be.

So then, my big question is, why, HD channels, do you assume that me, the person who spent hours with my husband carefully scrutinizing each TV before we finally decided on the perfect one, the person who spent hard-earned dollar bills on this TV and scoped out the perfect location for it to sit in the room, why HD channels, oh why would you possibly think that I'd enjoy having the crap stretched out of my HD programs?!?!

And it's not stretched to the point where I can change my TV settings so that it's 4:3 and looks fine. Oh no, then it's too skinny. So you've decided that I want my programming in high definition warpedness. That I want all my favorite Bones characters to look like they've gained 30 pounds, and lovely Emily Deschanel's square jaw now looks rectangular. It's to the point that it gives me a headache. Almost instantly. I feel like I've put on someone's glasses when really I have near-perfect vision. I just can't do it, even though I've asked other people and they don't seem to care.

But I can't be the only one this bothers, can I? I mean, what's the point of high def if it's unwatchable? And then there's the issue that our HD channels are on eastern time, while our regular channels are on Pacific time, which actually increases the number of available programs, so I wouldn't be complaining about it...except that when I'm getting a headache from stretched-out, warped David Boreanaz and want to see him normally, I can't, because that show was on 3 hours ago. Brilliant.

So please, who's got an in with the HD channels so we can get this fixed? Because I don't care if my HD channels don't take up my whole screen. If they aren't in 16:9 ratio, don't stretch them!!! I swear, it's worse than Pan and Scan. In fact, I would prefer Pan and Scan. Just take a play out of the HD commercials handbook - put the bars on the left and right sides and have your channel logo emblazened across them. I don't care. Hell, that's a million times better than those stupid animated ads in the bottom of the screen that now take up half the screen. That's just fantastic on a movie with subtitles. Perfectly positioned to cover the whole thing. Fabulous.

But I digress. And this is why movies and streaming still rule over overpriced cable. Thoughts?

/End Rant/

Note: I just found this article, and seriously can't believe people *preferred*??? this stretching over black bars? Am I the only one who gets a headache from that warped mirror effect?

My Own Spin-Off

noreply@blogger.com (Chelc) — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 02:06:00 +0000

Lately I've had the baking and crafting urges going strong, and as much as there are times when I'd love to blog about them, I haven't felt like this blog is the place to do it. I started this focused more on school and computer animation and art - and maybe a rant or twelve. But for now it makes more sense to me to keep the two separate. And perhaps I can convince the hubby to post once or twice about his cooking experiments. At the very least I can post about them and not feel bad for talking about food all the time!

If you're interested, check it out at Dubious Domesticity.

Reclaiming My 365 Project

noreply@blogger.com (Chelc) — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 01:21:00 +0000

Last year, you may recall, I decided to jump on the bandwagon which was the 365 Project. And I kept up with my picture a day pretty well for the majority of the year. But when September hit and all the stuff with my sister's wedding, and then my mom passing away came with it, I just couldn't bring myself to finish out the year.

But when the first of the year came around and I saw Vivzan posting a fresh year on her Flickr, I decided I'd start the year fresh as well and start a new batch.

I realized that I really look forward to taking a picture for each day, although there are certainly days where it's hard to find something interesting or where I'm just not feeling creative. But that's when the camera on my iPhone comes in really handy. I have a 3GS, and while the 4 has an amazing camera, I've tried not to be too jealous and be grateful that the 3GS has a lot more features than the 3. It's been fun to figure out how to play with focus (translating into depth of field, which is sometimes hard to see what I've accomplished on the small screen of the phone).

I've gotten to really enjoy taking macros, although the 3GS is limited to a 4-inch range of focus (anything closer is always going to be out of focus). It can be frustrating having the white balance tied into the point of focus, but this is part of why photo apps can be your new best friend - or at least help on those not-so-creative days.

So here's my 2 cents on the apps I have (most of which I've had since last year's go-round with the 365). I prefer to not pay for my apps, but sometimes the small amount is really worth it.

On my phone now:
- Lo-Mob
PROS: my absolute go-to, and I usually have multiple treatments I like from this app. There are a lot of filter options, and you can fine-tune each part of them, plus resize and move the image around if it's being cropped. Also able to save in original file size.
CONS: a pay app, but lost cost and so worth it to me. It does run slow in terms of processing filters and saving, but again, the results are worth it.

- Instagram
PROS: this one's new to me, as in the last few months, and it has some nice treatments, is free, and has some good connections to the usual social networks so you can post to multiple places with one tap.
CONS: after using Lo-Mob, I'm spoiled by being able to fine-tune each aspect of the filter, so I get frustrated sometimes with the lack of options. But my main frustration is that I don't always want a square-cropped image, and there are no other options in this app. But if you don't want to pay for the app and want to dabble, this is a great place to start.

- PS (Photoshop) Express
PROS: has some great general photo editing tools, and even some built-in borders and filters. Put out by Adobe and it's free, so that makes you feel good.
CONS: definitely lacking in some of the basic features of PS, like adjusting brightness (one of my common problems with the white balance issues I mentioned earlier - plus the 3GS does horribly in low-light). It does have an Exposure adjustment, but sometimes that's just not what you want.

- Tilt Shift Generator
PROS: even though this was built to create tilt-shift photos, there are some great general photo filter sliders in this app. I like that you have sliders for Saturation, Brightness, and Contrast, and also that you can add a Vignette (also a slider) and have a slider for Blur, which you can pick to be either a circle or straight lines. You can also finger-adjust (dragging and expanding/shrinking) those lines or circle to pin-point the area you want to focus on. This is a great way to fudge that depth of field you might not have been able to get with the camera in the first place. This also saves in original-size resolution.
CONS: this is also a pay app, although again, the low cost was worth it for me. I do wish there was a way to see the whole photo without the sliders covering it, but if you go to Vignette or Color and hold your finger down, the slider goes away and you can see the bottom part that was covered before. Silly problem, though.

So enough talk. Wanna see some examples of what I'm talking about? I thought so.

Here's an iPhone pic I took the other day. I kinda love it, and love even more that sometimes those crazy quick ideas can make some of your favorite shots. This is untouched, and by itself it's pretty cool. But I wanted to see what might come out of my filter apps.

Here's what Instagram did to it on the Sutro filter:I love the texture it added, and that sepia tone and the vignette are great. But I do wish it hadn't cropped it down so much to fit the square format.

So I went into Lo-Mob and found a few things I liked. This is when it gets hard to pick which one to upload for the pic of the day. These are what I saved from Lo-Mob:

Funny, I said I didn't like the square format, and then three of the four I liked from Lo-Mob were just that. But they weren't as cropped down, which I liked better. I still love the texture from the Instagram version, I just wish the cropping were more like the Lo-Mob. And some of the color choices from Lo-Mob I love, and how it becomes more of a graphic shape or symbol. See what I mean? Lots of choices, and your favorite might change day-to-day, or be dependent on your mood at the time. That's the one I try to pick - whatever's best describing the mood of the day or when I took the picture.

Now, you're saying, what about TiltShiftGen and PS Express? Well, after getting such great results with the two apps above, I didn't see any need to adjust anything further. But let's take a photo I took last Tuesday.

Here's the original, untouched, taken on my iPhone:

It's a little dark, and there's not really any depth of field.

And here's what I did to it in TiltShiftGen:

I lightened up the image a bit, increased the saturation, and put a straight (line) blur on so that the background is more blurry and the flowers are more of the focus. Only having a line or circle to work with obviously are going to limit you in how realistic the depth of field will look, but in this case it does what I wanted it to.

For PS Express, I really only use it for basic editing purposes. But it's good to have on my phone in case I need to rotate a picture or increase the exposure, or desaturate it. You might enjoy the borders and effects they have, but I haven't found them to be better than Lo-Mob or Instagram.

Obviously there are a ton of other apps around that I haven't tried, but these have worked well for me. Well enough, in fact, that I haven't felt the need to look around for anything else. I just wish they were on my desktop and laptop computers sometimes! There are times when I'll take a picture I took with my real camera and put it onto my iPhone so that I can use an app on it, but that is usually too much of a pain! Which is also another reason why I end up with a lot of iPhone pics for my 365 Project.

As always, I'd love to hear what your opinions are. And if you're doing the 365 Project too, share your link! I love to see what other people are taking pictures of.

Free Custom Owl Calendar

noreply@blogger.com (Chelc) — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 04:44:00 +0000

Love owls or just great artists? In need of a cool print-your-own 2011 calendar? Sometimes the generosity of people on the web amazes me. Shivani at My Owl Barn has compiled an amazing collection of owl art directly from the artists, and specifically for this project. It's available to anyone to mix and match into their own calendar.

It's so easy, and there are 30 pieces of art to choose from. The hardest part is picking the 12 to make it into your final calendar. Just choose which piece goes with which month, and at the click of a button you've got it all compiled into a pdf you can download and print for your own 2011 calendar! How cool is that? You can even make more than one if you really can't choose just 12 pieces. Or print them out and give as a cool gift.

Some of the artists are already favorites of mine, like Nathan Jurevicius (whose blind boxed wind-up owls were one of my favorite toy releases). But a lot of the artists I didn't know before, and am definitely going to be looking into more. This is a great way to discover new favorites.
Head over and check it out for yourself. (Top image from Maggie Hurley)

Family Memories - Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Chelc) — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 00:57:00 +0000

I know I've basically fallen off the face of the earth, but I have good reason. For those of you who don't know, my mom passed away unexpectedly in September. I'm not ready to delve into talking about it much, but the extra hard part was that it was the weekend of my sister's wedding. In fact, she passed the morning of the wedding, and bravely my sister and her fiance went ahead with the wedding, as I'm sure my mom would have wanted. I've had lots of ups and downs and thoughts on the matter, but, like I said, I'm still not ready to share most of them yet.

In the meantime, though, my sisters and I have been sorting through my mom's things. Not an easy task when you realize that my mom was an only child of an only child, so she had a lot of history saved up - along with a lot of not-so-vital things, that of course we had to sort through.

Seeing all the old family paperwork and beginning to dig into the boxes upon boxes of memorabilia has been bittersweet. There were some albums we had gone through with my mom and gleaned some family stories, but there were people in some of them that she didn't recognize either. It inspired me to finally try to put together a family tree on ancestry.com. I resisted the free trial for a while, but then I figured I could find a fair amount in 14 days (the length of the freeness), and I have to say that there are some very cool records they give you access to. I even found a yearbook picture of my Grandma from her days at UC Berkeley.

I've also decided to try to scan as many photos as I can so that - especially with the old ones - we can enjoy them and make sure there's at least one other version that exists in the world. And if I can match them up with people in the family tree, then even better.
See, it's an odd thing not having an older generation of family anymore. And we're only talking on my side of the family, but it really hit me how young we've lost a lot of family. (And by "we" here, I'm referring to my sisters and I.) My mom's mother, grandmother, and step-father all passed away before or right around the time the oldest of us was born. And my mom's biological father she had a falling out with, and we only know him vaguely. My dad passed away in 2001, and his parents - whom we shared a lot of time with growing up - are gone as well.

The holidays are going to be tough this year. But it makes me all the more grateful for how close my sisters and I are, and also how all of our in-laws have a great sense of family as well, and how we've all been welcomed into their families as daughters-in-law.

But I've gotten completely off track. I really just wanted to share with you the most adorable letter I found in my mom's mother's baby book (where all these photos are from). Apparently my great-grandmother was fabulous at keeping scrapbooks (she got lots of practice in her numerous travels, including two cruises around the world). And she put into this baby book some photos, records of "firsts", and gifts, letters, cards, and telegrams she received upon the birth of her one and only daughter, Dorothy. And with that I leave you to the letter from one of my great-grandmother's close friends to an 8-mo-old Dorothy (my mom's mom).

Sept. 7, 1922,

Sweetest tiny girl: -

Seems to me you have discovered your Auntie Lyla's secret fondness for pretty "hankies" very, very early in your life. And I'm so glad! For the lovely one I found in Mother's package is one of the very prettiest. I have not use it yet. I'm saving it for some very state occasion. However when that occasion presents itself I'll just think every little minute or two, "Dorothy Jane's handkerchief."

You must thank your lovely Mother for buying it, and last for consenting to send it in with her gift. Also dear little woman child, thank her for the sweet card she made and wrote to carry your message.

I'm a very busy Auntie Lyla this morning so I mustn't write a big letter, but I will take time to tell you about my Genevive kitten. She is the roundest softest bit of grey fluff, and she is all curled up in my lap as I write this to you. I would love to see your big eyes sparkle, as I'm sure they would if you could but stick your tiny fingers in her fur.

Now I must thank you for your sweet remembrance of my birthday, and send such lots of love and kisses too.

Your loving
Auntie Lyla

Doesn't that just make you feel all happy and cozy inside? And now I can confirm that my family's love of kitties goes back generations!

All images are scanned in from the baby book, and the photos here are of my great-grandmother Hazel with baby Dorothy Jane, and Hazel's husband Roy. I love how he's casually got baby in one arm and a cigar in the other. They lived in Southern California near San Diego, so I'm assuming that's the area where these were taken. (And I have now confirmed that my sisters and I are 4th Generation Californians, 3 of those 4 generations from the Bay Area).

Cold-Brewed Iced Coffee

noreply@blogger.com (Chelc) — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 22:48:00 +0000

So everyone who knows me knows that I have my own little love affair with coffee. I blame it on a friend in college who introduced me to Gevalia, who sent me a free coffee maker (my first ever!), monthly coffee deliveries, and it was all downhill from there. Then a couple of years later I roomed with a friend who had an espresso machine and we held weekly espresso parties, and there was no turning back.

I've since moved on to greatly disliking flavored beans, but my love of espresso and strong coffee has only gotten stronger. But on hot days like this heat wave we're currently going through, hot coffee is just too much for me. I enjoy an iced latte, but sometimes I want a plain, strong, iced coffee.

Getting iced coffee from coffee shops has been hit or miss for me. Starbucks makes my stomach hurt, consistently, while Peet's is one of the best I've had, consistently. And my recent introduction to the Blue Bottle iced coffee was lovely, although I could have done without the cup of ice that got in the way of that tasty chilled goodness.

So when a friend sent me this link from the SF Chronicle, I decided it was definitely time to try some iced coffee at home. But following their lead, and making it cold-brewed instead of trying to hot brew the coffee and then chill it (which I've tried before and was horrible, no matter how good the beans were).

The recipe calls for one pound of coffee to 10 cups of water. Well that's all well and good, but I'm not planning on making that big of a batch when 1) I'm not sure how good it will turn out, and 2) we live in a very foggy beach town. This heat wave may last a week, it may be over tomorrow. I'm not sure how long I'll be wanting iced coffee. 3) The hubby hates coffee, so I'm the only one drinking this, and I can't imagine him being so happy over the entire fridge being taken over by iced coffee. So I needed to figure out a smaller batch recipe to make in my french press.

Problem being, we're converting weight to volume, which is tricky, and for the life of me I can't find my postal scale (yes, I'm that big of a nerd that I would have weighed it out). So I approximated volume to weight and decided I would try 3 cups of water to 9 tablespoons of coarse-ground coffee. I erred on the side of over-filling those tablespoons, since it's a whole lot easier to make it weaker than try to make it stronger! The article said that we're making a concentrate anyway, one that you'll want to add milk and/or water (and whatever sweetener) to.

The only bad news about cold-brewing iced coffee, and good reason to make large batches, is that it takes 12 hrs to brew, and lasts up to 2 weeks in the fridge. So if you're dying for something right now, make an iced latte or take that trip to the coffee shop. But start the iced coffee brewing at home first, so you'll have it for later!

Are you dying to hear how it tasted? Well, I have to say, I'm exceptionally happy with it. I'll have to figure out how much to weaken it, but to start with I did half milk and half water to approximately match the coffee concentrate amount. I will definitely be making some larger batches of this. I figure it's about a 3:1 ratio of tablespoons of coffee to cups of water. And these are real cups of water we're talking about, not the coffee cup (which is only 6oz instead of the normal 8oz, in case you didn't know. Pretty sure that's due to evaporation during the hot brewing process).

I'm going to keep playing with the recipe a bit, but I'm really happy with this one overall. I like the idea of having it as a concentrate that you add your own amount of water and/or milk to, so I have more control over the flavor. And I really love that the coffee flavor comes through without the bitter taste hot-brewing and then making cold gives you (which is also probably why the Starbucks version makes my stomach hurt - they hot brew the coffee double-strength and then refrigerate it. It's more acidic with this method).

Also, if you're interested, Peet's has their recipe on the page with their iced coffee press, which is tempting, but really only if I were wanting to save my french press for making hot coffee. And considering how easy it is, I don't think a special gadget is necessary. I think the biggest difference between the two recipes is that the Chronicle says to brew at room temperature and then refrigerate, while Peet's says to leave in the fridge to brew.

Make sure to check out the other recipes on the Chronicle's article page. They've got Blue Bottle's New Orleans style iced coffee (which adds chicory), Vietnamese iced coffee, and a coffee granita that I'm going to definitely have to try - looks amazing!

And let me know your results when you try it. Because really, it's too easy not to try. You just need a little time and planning. And you can bet I'll let you know how that granita goes!

Death to Perfectionism!

noreply@blogger.com (Chelc) — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 21:36:00 +0000

I'm a perfectionist. I admit it, as much as I hate to. It definitely makes creativity more difficult since I have a tendency to start something and then never finish it because it's not meeting my standards along the way. This goes for lots of things - school projects, crafts, sewing, organizing...most everything, really. But when I finally push myself to finish it, I find that I've learned a lot from the process. Sometimes it's that things that are the most frustrating and ugly in the middle of the process actually end up coming out looking pretty good. Or maybe it's that I need to do things differently next time, which is a valuable lesson itself - like that Thomas Edison quote about all his thousands of failures at making the lightbulb, to which he responded that he had actually succeeded thousands of times in figuring out all those ways not to make a lightbulb.

Computers don't help my perfectionism either. Ctrl+Z and delete seem great, but they can hold me back as well. When I was taking a class in Digital Illustration, my teacher would tell us over and over again not to let ourselves Ctrl+Z and just let the drawing evolve. Looking back, that was pretty sound advice.

I've realized that I need to allow myself to fail so that eventually I can succeed. I'm depriving myself of lessons and experiences that can only push me forward in the long run. I know this all sounds rather vague, but it feels vague to me too right now. But I'm putting it out there, in writing, that I'm going to make myself do the things I contemplate and talk myself out of. And if they fail, then move on or do it again or make it better.

...starting tomorrow.

Okay, okay. Starting...now!

Vacation Crafts

noreply@blogger.com (Chelc) — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 22:53:00 +0000

While my other Maine post marinates, it reminds me that I was feeling pretty crafty right before we left for vacation. It's a pretty common syndrome for me - "what? leaving on vacation? then I must make myself this...and one of these...and I couldn't possibly get on the plane without this...", all these things usually being either something inspired from a magazine or online somewheres. Or sometimes it's just been rolling around in my head for ages and chooses 12 hours before takeoff to desperately need to come to fruition.

Usually I run out of time and the projects don't get done, like last year before the family reunion where I literally was trying to stay up all night making a hawaiian shirt for my father-in-law after packing and taking care of my mom who was traveling with us and staying the night. Suffice it to say, the shirt was literally in pieces when we left the next morning, and it was several more months before he received it (I'm so horrible about that!). I had, however, succeeded in making 3 luggage tags in colors appropriate to each of us traveling. And of course Andrew's got lost somewhere in airport luggage land.

But those other two luggage tags held up well, and this year I just replaced the loose snap on one and we were good to go. They even both made it back home, amazingly. I also took the opportunity to finally make myself a travel roll for all the cords and plugs and stuff that end up getting completely lost and tangled in the suitcase or my carry-on, and half the time I have no idea which cord goes to which device anyway.

So I took an idea from a magazine and of course had to make some adjustments to fit my needs. But I ended up being quite pleased with it, and surprised at how handy it was throughout the trip. It's pretty simple in that it's two sides of pockets and has a long strap to tie around the outside to close, but that also helps keep it adjustable to the varying sizes of cords and my ginormous camera battery recharger. I also added vinyl windows so I could write down what the pocket of cords went to - phone, camera, car stuff, etc.

And that was awesome. No digging around trying to match up ends of cords to their gadgets, especially with the iPod blinking battery life and Andrew in need of tunes for driving. OK, it's more like my iPhone blinking 1% battery life because I've been using it for GPS and navigating while trying to play my games and find any semblance of a signal I can. But I digress. It's handy having things labeled and close at hand!

There are a few adjustments I'd make to the design (of course), but overall I liked it. I'm considering making a small line of these in small, medium, and large - 1, 2, and 3 pockets wide. So then you could either have one for everything, or a few for individual gadgets. What do you guys think?

I also finished a case for Andrew's Kindle, which I'd been working on for a while and got waylaid since I was working with faux leather for the first time, and found it quite frustrating without the right tools. I figured out some ways to make it work for me, but let's just say I won't be trying double bias binding with it anymore (and if you don't know what that means, just envision lots of cursing and starting over). I'm pretty happy with the result overall, but not sure yet if I want to add these to the Etsy inventory. Perhaps I need a test run without the faux leather. I do like the faux leather gussets around the two sides and bottom, but that's more for aesthetics.

The trip also afforded me an opportunity to use my cell phone cases - except this time I used one for my cell phone and one for my iPod. Which was my brilliant idea at about 2am before we were leaving at 7am and I couldn't figure out what to pack my iPod in, even though I've been marketing my cases on Etsy as also holding MP3 players. Obviously my brain had already gone to sleep. I have to say, though, I was quite pleased with how well it worked. I hooked the strap around the top of my backpack carry-on so it was easily accessible and didn't fall all the way to the bottom as they always do, especially in tight quarters where you can't go digging through your whole backpack stowed under the seat in front of you and your head is hitting the back of that seat and you just get more and more frustrated...None of that. Easy peasy. And I'm sure that made Andrew happy, since anything keeping me from being grumpy on the plane is to be lauded.

So all-in-all, vacation was a crafting success. It's nice when things you've been thinking about for a while actually come to fruition - and are cute to look at and actually helpful!

Renegade Craft Fair SF

noreply@blogger.com (Chelc) — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 23:00:00 +0000

I promised a post about Maine, and have been remiss in that, as well as anything recent. Every time I start a new post, though, it comes out boring and flat, so I've put them on the back burner. I guess it's rather reflective of how I've been feeling in general lately.

But there's nothing like a craft fair to spark that inspiration and creativity again. And lucky for me, the Renegade Craft Fair is coming to town this weekend! I had the pleasure of attending this for the first time last year, and it was a ton of fun. I controlled myself and only made a few key purchases, but it was tough. From looking at the list of vendors, I can tell there will be lots to oggle again this year.

So if you're available and in the Bay Area this weekend, I highly recommend stopping by. Admission is free and they generally have some fun free crafting areas set up as well. Check it out: Fort Mason, Sat. & Sun. July 31 & Aug. 1, 11a-7p

And if you're not in the area or able to make it, lots of the artist links go to their Etsy shops. I know, it's not the same as seeing and touching things in person, but it's better than nothin'!

A Quick Check-In!

noreply@blogger.com (Chelc) — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 00:21:00 +0000

Hello anyone who's still out there!

I'm so sorry for temporarily abandoning my happy little blog. Let's just say that the last 3 months have been extremely stressful and exhausting. Most of my time has been spent down at my mom's, helping her to find new housing, part-time nursing assistance, oh, and then downsizing her from a 2-bedroom to a studio apartment. Not to mention all the things that were left from previous moves in storage that we've slowly been making our way through. Not fun, although there have been a few cool things we've discovered!

The good news is that the hubs and I are headed to Maine in two days. I am so looking forward to a week of relaxation, lobster, popovers, and hopefully very few black flies! All insects seem to love me, so I have a feeling I'll be rocking the eau-de-bugspray all week long. But I can deal with that, and I think the hubby can too if it keeps me bug-bite free. It should be fun to celebrate the Fourth up there, and my birthday is a few days later. Here's hoping next year is less stressful and full of progress.

If you're wondering about my 365 Project, it's actually one of the few things I've kept up on over on my Flickr account. So even if I haven't put them up here, you can check them out there. Maybe I'll do a favorites from the last 3 months post when I get back from vacation. And maybe a makeover for my site while I'm at it.

Speaking of, you may have noticed a new addition to my right-hand column: my Etsy shop! Remember that tattoo iPhone case I made and posted about a while back? Well I've been revising the design, and finally am happy enough to put some up for sale. I'll be putting up a variety of colors, fabrics, and a few different styles, but I'm also happy to do custom orders if you have something specific in mind.

I've also been using fabrics from this great organization called FabMo. They collect fabric samples of varying sizes from designers around the area that are discontinued and headed for the landfill. And once a month they let people come down and peruse the stacks and take what they like in exchange for a donation. I'm happy to support their efforts, and of course always excited to see what treasures they have! Plus, the fabrics are just about the perfect size for my cell phone purses.

As always, I am happy to hear comments, critique, and ideas - on my bags, my pictures, my shop setup, whatever. Feedback is good!

I hope you all are enjoying the summer and having as lovely weather as we've been having here lately. And I don't know if they have fireworks where we'll be in Maine, so enjoy some of those on the Fourth for me! I'll leave you with an image I took on a recent nature walk by our beach. Did I mention that the weather's been lovely lately?

Paint Chip Animated Commerical

noreply@blogger.com (Chelc) — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 23:39:00 +0000

I don't know if my sister's interior design influence, or just my love of paint colors and hardware stores in general, but I've been a little obsessed with paint chips lately. So when I saw this commercial from Sherwin-Williams on TV the other day, I was astonished and grinning from ear to ear. I could describe it to you, but it's better if you just watch:

Isn't it just lovely? Such a great use of the paint chips and color schemes, but also I love the simplified character models that look like they could have been folded together out of those paint chips. It makes me want to go try and make some myself!

Thank you to the one person who put this up on YouTube. I would love to know who animated this, but there doesn't seem to be much information out there on it. In the meantime, watch, enjoy, and be inspired!

Bi-Weekly 365 Round-Up #18

noreply@blogger.com (Chelc) — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 07:37:00 +0000

Last week to get caught up on the pics. Hooray! You can tell from last week that I wasn't doing a lot with creativity, Lo-Mob, etc., but I'm happy I was able to put something up just the same. It's like looking at your handwriting in your journal - even without reading the pages, you can tell how you were feeling just from the handwriting style. Now that's something just can't replicate (unless you start picking fonts, and that's a whole different can of worms).

#99: Snail Journey
Saw this little guy while I was weeding. Normally I'd worry about the snails and slugs eating my veggies and flowers, but since I hadn't planted most of those yet, this little snail looked pretty cute wandering up the side of the house. Where he was headed I have no idea, but I like the composition on this - accidental composition actually, since the sun was so bright I could barely see the screen on the phone. I added a little Lo-Mobbing to lighten the pic.

#100: And More Rain...
Well, so much for planting my veggies. After spending the day picking them out, I got home and of course the rain hit. And then it didn't stop for a few more days. Guess my veggies are going to have to wait. Very excited in hoping I can actually get my garden to work this year, though.

#101: Wally Paw
Now that I've started this class, I have to work at my desktop (normally I'm at my laptop on the couch, which I don't recommend for ergonomics at all - it's a bad habit). Wally loves that now he can crawl in my lap and snuggle, but he forgets that he can't stretch out like he could on the couch or the bed. He always loves to push against me with his paws, and no matter how much room, he'll find a way. Taken with the iPhone for ease of use.

#102: Apartment Hunting
Taking Mom around to find assisted living apartments that she's happy is not a fun job. But it is a little more entertaining when the 3-year-old niece comes along for the ride! Lo-Mobbed out to make a little more interesting, and played with blur a bit with TiltShift Generator app.

#103: SFSU Architecture
I had the pleasure of a last-minute invite to a lecture at San Francisco State University by my former animation teacher. It was only about 100 people listening to Jonas Rivera speak informally and answer questions about his history at Pixar, as well as his ups and downs in producing "Up". It was a fantastic talk, but ended pretty late and night and I had a bit of a walk home. The campus is pretty dark, but luckily pretty safe, and I had fun snapping (quick) pics of the interesting architecture.
Pic: only added some blur with TiltShift Generator - not bad saturation for low-lighting with the iPhone.

#104: Sunny Bay Bridge
Yes, it's yet another picture of the Bay Bridge. My sis went on vacation for the week and needed a little kitty check-in, so I took advantage of the sunshine and my sunroof and enjoyed the view. Well, really I just held my iPhone up and hit the button when I thought it would be a good time, and prayed that I aimed somewhere close to where I wanted to be. I was so happy with how this pic turned out, I couldn't believe it. No editing whatsoever on this one. And yes, I do love the Bay Bridge! It's so overshadowed by the Golden Gate. But that's okay - fewer tourists to deal with!

#105: Bracket Spray Painting
Finally getting the brackets for my shelves painted from the plain silver metal to a basic white. And of course the minute I get those babies sprayed, the wind picks up and the sun goes away. Weather, why do you hate me so much?!
Pic: Lo-Mobbed to vignette and saturate.

I can't believe I'm finally caught up! Definitely some of these pics were better than others, but I'm glad I take them even if I know they're not going to be my best work. I'd rather have something and keep going to the next day, than not have anything to show for it. Hope the rest of you doing the project are keeping up and still having fun!

Bi-Weekly 365 Round-Up #17

noreply@blogger.com (Chelc) — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 07:03:00 +0000

Are you guys in picture overload yet? Two more weeks to go for catch-up. And as always, since I'm obviously not consistent on these posts, you can visit my Flickr account for updates as they happen.

#92: WonderCon Spoils
Day 1 of WonderCon and I picked up a few goodies. There are a few things to go back for, but I'm being good and only picking what I really like/can't get elsewhere, as well as supporting artists I like that don't get a lot of exposure.

#93: Japantown Peace Pagoda
Another long day at WonderCon ends in Japantown for some toy industry parties/openings. I love Japantown, and had a lot of fun at the WonderCon panels, as well as meeting more of the artists and toy vendors. But man, I was worn out!

#94: Rainy Easter Bay Bridge
Easter brought a rainy, icky day where I was feeling the same as the weather. I think something nasty was going around WonderCon. Nevertheless, we headed over to the East Bay for Easter with the family at my sister's. I don't remember much of it now, and spent the evening bundled in blankets, but the nieces cuddled with me anyway! I distracted myself on the long drive by taking pictures. I love the Bay Bridge in general, and especially liked this part where it curves (eastbound is underneath, westbound is on top of this double-decker bridge).
Pic: little bit of Lo-mobbing to enhance the desaturation and blur.

#95: Bay Bridge Return
Well, Monday proved to have whatever I caught at WonderCon, really hitting me. So I pulled up this pic I took on the way home Sunday night. Yes, the Bay Bridge again, and yes, blurry. But I liked the Lo-Mob black and white treatment, as well as tidbits of the city in the background. All that blurriness was pretty much how I was feeling anyway. The migraine I had all day Monday kept me from wanting to open my eyes, let alone look at a screen.
#96: Kitty Company
There's not much better than having warm, cozy, happy sleeping companions when you're feeling crappy. I love when their eyes smoosh up so much, and you just know they're happy.

#97: Slurpee Weather!
Whether it be the rest I got or the sunshine finally coming out after some windy, rainy days, I was finally starting to feel better! So much better, in fact, that I felt I deserved a Slurpee treat. And I went for the new Jarritos Mandarin mixed with the Kratos (from God of War III) Blackberry Lime and a little classic cherry thrown in for good measure. It's a Slurpee - you have to mix flavors!

#98: Yay. Taxes.
Blech. Tax time again. For the past 5+ years I've done taxes for my mom, and did my own since college (until recently when our first year of joint/married taxes did me in). Mom's taxes have gotten a lot easier, especially with how organized she is, but it's still a lot of work to go through and keep her from stressing out. When dealing with money (specifically a lack thereof), it's hard not to stress out.
Pic: I liked how I got the reflection of the lovely sunny day outside, while I was stuck inside doing icky money stuff.

Hey kids, see that? One more week down. One to go for being caught up. Hooray! With all that's been going on, it's a miracle I can remember all this stuff. Going to be fun to look back on my whole year when all this is over. The 365 Project is great for chronicling my days, I really must say.

Bi-Weekly 365 Round-Up #16

noreply@blogger.com (Chelc) — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 04:58:00 +0000

OK, let's get this next week going...

#85: Plushie Cranston Show-Down
Sakiwaki from I Heart Cool Stuff asked me a few months back if I could help her with an idea she had for a present for Lou Pimentel and his baby on-the-way. I already loved Lou's Cranston Fellows Jr. figure, so of course I was thrilled to make a plushie version of that for her. I enjoyed making them so much that I ended up making four instead of just the one. It was too fun playing with fabrics and prints! You can read Saki's story about it on I Heart Cool Stuff. Pics of the two Lou got (the non-prints) are on my Flickr.

#86: Redbud Tree
I am really happy with this picture, partly because I snapped it pretty quickly, and partly because I love the colors and depth of field. It was a last-minute trip to Napa and Sonoma counties looking for wedding sites with my sis. All-in-all a long day, but nice to spend time with my sis.

#87: Wally in Ranunculus Land
I usually don't keep flowering plants in the house for fear of the cats eating them, but I saw these ranunculus in the garden section and loved their flowers so I decided to pick one up. The cats are very sniffy and curious around them, but no munching, thank goodness. Pic lo-mobbed for added contrast.

#88: Fresh Sourdough Bread
I am a huge sucker for fresh bread, especially sourdough - the sourer the better! So when my sis and I stopped in a bakery in St. Helena on the trip on Sunday, I had to pick up some extra sour fresh-baked sourdough along with our afternoon iced coffee and cookies! You can't tell me that doesn't look amazing, and the smell and flavor to go along with it were just as fantastic. I really must learn how to make a good sourdough.
Pic: no editing on this one, and pretty nice macro focus for the iPhone, I thought.

#89: Crafty Lightswitch Cover
I've been wanting to change out the kiddie butterfly lightswitch cover that's been in the house from the previous owners, but never had a chance to go out and get a fresh plain one. Then I saw a tutorial online for covering one in fabric or paper, and of course had to try it for myself! This fabric will match the chair I've been working on recovering (got a little side-tracked on that one. Oops!). Pic lo-mobbed for vignette and making a little more interesting.

#90: Environment Modeling
I haven't taken any classes this semester since technically I'm graduated, but I had signed up for this half-semester class back in December since it's always good to learn more. I found out that they changed the teacher to a former classmate and friend of mine, so I wasn't sure how much I'd learn in the class, but it's been good to get me back into Maya and having a deadline for homework and classes again. And my classmate really is a master of modeling environments in Maya for video games, so he's great to teach this class. Our first assignment was to model a warehouse, which we're then going to lay out UVs for and texture. I designed this off of a real-life warehouse updated into housing (with a few architectural changes I threw in).

#91: Pampero Venezuelan Rum
Andrew's always been a fan of rum (especially the rum and Coke), and introduced me to this lovely Venezuelan rum. It comes in a fancy leather pouch that I feel like I need to find something to do with when the rum's gone. But if you're into dark spiced rum, try this out. Oh so tasty!
Pic lo-mobbed for vignetting and saturation.

Alright, two weeks down, two to go! It's kind-of fun going back through what I did for the last month.

Bi-Weekly 365 Round-Up #15

noreply@blogger.com (Chelc) — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 02:52:00 +0000

Oh goodness, however did life get so crazy that I haven't updated this blog in ages?! Perhaps it all started with that twisted ankle I ended on last time. The point is that it was and is crazy, but I've actually been enjoying some of my 365 pictures lately, so I'm going to put the last few weeks of round-ups up. I thought about picking favorites, but I actually like the idea of looking back week by week, even though there are some not-so-favorite pictures in there. So here goes.

#78: Circus Birthday Party Invite
My sister loves all things related to the circus, and has apparently passed this gene along to her youngest. So for my niece Meghan's 3rd birthday, it was circus-themed. And my sister went to a lot of trouble to make this card. Isn't it adorable? And you all thought I was crafty!

#79: Clothespin Acrobat
Again with the craftiness, my sis had craft activities for the birthday party. However, the other activities (like an obstacle course, face painting, and just playtime in general) went over so well that the kids never got to this fun one - making acrobats out of wooden clothespins, decorating them, and evening out their weight with pennies so that they could sit balanced on fishing line and slide up and down. I helped her make one with a skirt and parasol (a.k.a. drink umbrella). So cute!! (This pic lo-mobbed for extra drama.)

#80: Pear Blossoms
It's funny to look back at this now that spring is in full swing, but when I took this pic, things were just starting to come out. We're lucky enough to have three pear trees in our backyard (all different types, but I don't really know what they are). I love how the blossoms look, and Lo-Mob added that saturation and vignetting to give it that extra oompf.

#81: Bulletin Board
This is my wine cork bulletin board, which I added fabric to around the sides of the canvas to look more finished and happy. I also took two different sizes of bulldog clips I got from the wonderful Japanese dollar (and a half) store and glued flat pins to the back. This way I can clip things up that I don't necessarily want pin holes through. Plus I just love the look of bulldog clips!
#82: VIP Special Screening
I love Twitter, especially when it gets me free special VIP tickets to a screening of How to Train Your Dragon three days before it's released! Thanks again, Animation Mentor! I absolutely loved this movie - I'd venture to say it's the best animated film Dreamworks has ever put out, and amongst my top animated films ever. Plus it's the first time I've seen 3D work well and actually complement the film instead of distracting me from it. If you haven't seen it yet, go!

#83: Plushie Door Blocker
I made one of these for my sister for Christmas. She lives in Tahoe and had specifically asked for a draft door blocker for those chilly nights. Well, it had been chilly here too lately, so I decided we should have our very own - but hers is tiger-striped, so we get the leopard print. He kinda still needs a head, though.

#84: Easter Hyacinth
My sis gave my mom this hyacinth for spring/early Easter. It was so pretty with the blue/purple against the cute basket and smelled amazing, but unfortunately it didn't last very long. At least it cheered up her room for a little while.