i am so making this!

same flowers as mommy's mother's day shirt! and retailing for $148 at jcrew!

We have become not a melting pot but a beautiful mosaic. Different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams.

i was supposed to be named after jimmy carter, the author of the above quote. but, seeing that i turned out a girl, my parents scrambled to name me. then, my brother was named jimmy, or "chi-ming" as he is called in cantonese.

dad, my partner-in-crafts, keeps quite the clutter of products on the bathroom sink counter at home, and thus, whenever he comes to visit, the lack of counter space in the bathrooms drives him nuts. doesn't stop him from visiting though! instead, he built over-the-toilet shelves for both the master bathroom and the guest bathroom.

andrew and i were then put in charge of decorating them. so we started off painting them white. however, they still looked rather stark. since the shower curtain in the guest bathroom featured light blue, brown, and tan and i had noticed that the dollar store sold light blue, tan, and white sea glass, we decided to mosaic the shelves! only one major problema: mosaic-ing with sea glass requires an appreciation for random chaos and i prefer things to be symmetrical (just more mathematical that way). so andrew was in charge of design.and put into its rightful place the master bathroom has light blue tiles and white walls, with shiny silver picture frames and a mirrored medicine cabinet. thus, we decided to mosaic that bathroom shelf in an art deco-ish manner with small mirrors and glass marbles. i took charge of laying out the pattern on this shelf, since it was very orderly and required precision. dad had added a small slot on this shelf for andrew's bathroom reading pleasure. heheyes, that is andrew in the corner petting bunkins' head with the bottom of his foot. poor bunny! installed in the bathroom! isn't it a beauty? today's episode of "dr bunkins' apothecary" was brought to you by the word mosaic.

¡arriba ceviche!

i belong to a football club. fc ceviche. while we don't always win, we always have more fun than our opponents (except last weekend when brawls almost erupted). my friend jeremy and his wife amy, both of whom are crucial members of the team, just had a wee baby marcus. since we take our football very seriously (we sport those pink jerseys proudly!) and recruit at a very young age, it seemed very appropriate, even necessary, that baby marcus be added to the roster. and to make it on the roster, he needed a jersey. one pink jersey coming right up!

since even the size small jerseys are too big for me, i felt no guilt in dismantling the beloved camiseta. shrinking each edge by 1.5 inches (somehow 1.5 inches seemed oddly precise to satisfy my mathematical tastes), i then resewed each piece back together the same way in order to preserve the logos and the general look. ignore the blue stain on the left sleeve. i spilled too much detergent on it after the only time i ever wore it (when it was adult sized of course) and thus stained the sleeve! at least marcus will now know that it's clean. the jersey on the right is andrew's adult medium one. so obviously the wee small one for wee marcus is on the left. ¡bienvenido al equipo, marcus! raw fish!

baking a poisonous plant

did you guys know that the leaves of rhubarb are poisonous? eeek! having never tasted this potentially poisonous plant, i decided it was a perfect opportunity to bake said poisonous plant into a pie! i mean, why not? it'd be quite the adventure.

so, with my trusty "joy of cooking" book, i set off to convert poison into deliciousness, while andrew documented the progress (he does the cooking in the house, while i do the baking). of course i make the dough from scratch! it's the best part! the white spots are little bits of butter. mmmm butter... poking holes so that the poison seeps out while baking... (jk, it's so the pie doesn't explode) wonder why we have no picture of the completed pie fresh out of the oven? because the person in charge of documenting decided to dig in instead of document. wrong d, buddy! oh, and might i note that this was a strawberry rhubarb pie. 2/5 strawberry, 3/5 poison

i totally had the right idea!

spiegel is selling a rosette dress that looks very similar to the mother's day shirt for 159 bones!
http://www.spiegel.com/shop/product_single.aspx?style_id=35730188&index=54&gp_coll_id=5001&gp_cat_id=5002&nav_cat_id=12991&category_id=12993

happy mother's day!

of all the people to whom i have given my crafts, mother is the most proud of my handiwork. she is frequently the guinea pig for my newest ideas. for this year's mother's day gift, i tested out a flower collar idea that i found on my most favorite crafting blog of all time (http://katiedid.squarespace.com/katie-did-journal/2009/5/1/tutorial-flower-collar.html) on a plain navy long-sleeve shirt and here are the results!
and 'round back:
close up:i love you mommy!

ribbons!

ribbons as bows are pretty lame. actually very lame. they're too girly and those that know me know that i hate hate hate girly things. so, i prefer to exploit the satiny look of ribbons for decoration. such as to line the edges of curtain ties from ikea!
or to decorate pillow cases that i designed and made from satiny green cloth:

when in doubt...

take me to a bead store. in feb of this year, andrew and i took a day trip up to balto to visit goosey, my crafting partner in crime (she is one of the most talented artists i know). the museums were all closed and it was cold as hell. so where did we end up? why, beadazzled of course! mmm, shiny...
we also visited a library of johns hopkins which had a display on bookbinding (no, i don't mean footbinding, bookbinding!). the doors to the building were massive and even had engraved hinges! hmmm, these would look great in the apt...

florentia's christmas gift of 2004

during my first year as a wee teacher, i cross-stitched this for florentia for christmas. 2 cheetahs (she likes cats) and the chinese characters say "mom and pumpkin" (what florentia calls samatra). i signed the corner in chinese.

make it happen

many folks have told me that i should document my projects for posterity, so here's my best attempt at that. dr. bunkins has asked that his projects (aka damage) also be documented, so here's my best attempt at that as well.