i'm here!

it seems i've been neglecting my little blog here.

finals and then a quick trip to new york occupied much of my time. i am happy to say i had a fun time in new york, got to see a bit of brooklyn and even walked across the brooklyn bridge! (it's a different experience compared to walking to golden gate bridge over here in the bay area). AND i passed a pass/fail class, received one A- and two A's! yay! still waiting on one more class. hopefully an A too.

i started the first day of summer school yesterday and will be starting my internship in two weeks' time. so busy busy busy. however will i find the time to make things for my shop?

finals finals finals

need i say more?

two ten page papers due friday. it's almost midnight on wednesday. have not started much, if at all.

yikes!

what's my problem with school?

sometimes i wonder if i should have gone to an art school. but quite frankly, i wouldn't have known what to major in. fine art? graphic art? digital media? craft?

ugh.

luckily, i have my trip to nyc to look forward to. i just need to get these darn papers out of the way and hope that i get A's for all my classes (which i think may be achievable this semester... yay!).

i'll be back with more art. reading all these blogs, blog-surfing as i call it, has been such an inspiration. i can't take it all in at once. there is so much i want to do and try, but so little time. if only i could be paid to just make stuff all the time. for myself. for my own pleasure. man, that would be a fine day in the usa! :)

Presenting the lovely Lissie Doll and many cool pictures!

As promised, here is the onslaught of photographs of my latest projects from the past month.

But first, let me introduce my new Lissie doll! Isn't she just the sweetest? And her hair might become a trend I say. After all my final exams and papers and projects are completed and after I'm back from a weeklong trip to NYC (so, probably late late May-early June), I'll have a few of these dolls in my shop. (This image was taken at night so it does not do her justice. I'll take better pictures later.)

And this is Lissie's friend Olive, who will make an appearance in the shop too! A one-off though (because, don't tell her, but she was just a practice doll... shh! Olive will be jealous that Lissie is the one I want to replicate). :)

And now... lots and lots of pretty visuals!

I helped a housemate make this gnarly camera case for her friend Beth. It's a picture of her dressed as a man on one side. I will never ever attempt this again! haha.

And more stationery! I really love these colors and I love this simple floral design. They're sort of meant to be pussy willows. What'dya think? Should I attempt to make a few of these for the shop?

a lamp made of lotta jansdotter fabric. love the colors. and really needed to update my lamp from the cheapo mesh it came in.

look! i can do other things too! sorry about the horrible pictures. i can't decide if i want to keep this (when it's finished) or sell it.... hmm... the perennial problem of the artist and his/her artwork... to keep or to sell...

i tried my hand at making a shirt/vest with no patterns. i modeled it after another sleeveless shirt i had but found i needed to add some thick side panels because i grossly underestimated the differences between the stretchy material of the original and the non-stretchy-ness of this material. oops! but it looks nice on me and the darts are form fitting. :)

yee! look at the pleats!

i didn't make this but i had to share a great find. this is a barney's bag that only cost me $12 with some broken handles. i took it to a shoe repair shop and they fixed it right up for $18. not bad for a $400 type bag. :)

anyone who has lived with me for the past two years knows that i'm a bargain hunter and huge fan of designer clothes. and where i live we have this great store called jeremy's department store. it's kind of like a Ross Dress For Less or a Marshall's or a TJ Maxx for designer clothes. They're mainly store returns, things with holes or a missing piece or out of season overstock. I love being able to find things that once retailed for anywhere from $100-$700 but I only paid anywhere from $1 to $50. i generally avoid spending more than $50 for any item and wait for the price to be marked down. but it's tricky because it good be snatched up by someone else the next day. i once got a pair of Sonia Rykiel shoes for $11 when her shoes are $700 and upwards. they're the best shoes ever and all they were missing were some adornments on the toes. it left an icky leather patch of glue behind but i just took a pair of thread rippers (sorry, the correct term left my mind) and took the leather patch off and they're almost as great as new. i'll have pictures of said lovely shoes next week. i could start a separate blog with just the findings and results of my shopping sprees. i really ought to call them my 'spending sprees'. :) :) :)

and who knows? maybe i will start a blog just on my shopping adventures. like the aqua silk halter top by emilio pucci that i got for $1, or the silk blend brown tank top from barneys for the same price.

oh.. if only i were slightly rich....

meet my bunny; winners; MY SHOP's OPENING

I've finally got my act together and opened my new shop at etsy! Please do hop on over and check it out. And, please, by all means purchase up the lovely note cards if you are so inclined. :D Please leave feedback! :) I am so excited and happy to have finally opened shop.

- - - - -

i forgot what name i gave this bunny... so for now, it's just bunny. :)

i don't like bunny's long arms... it's almost freakish. but whatev... it's my creation, so therefore i must love it unconditionally...

and for the drawing... since there were only four comments, it wasn't too difficult to draw two names. haha. using a random number generator, dre and tania are the winners. i'll get your cards out to you soon (and soon can mean this week or next week or even later... haha).

dre, email me your address so i can get that to you soon.

card-testing + giveaway

Boy, do I love packaging things up nicely! If my job were to design packaging materials and to put together packages done up nicely, I'd be a happy gal. I sometimes find more fun in wrapping presents and putting together little packages than making the things themselves. Are there folks out there who share the same sentiments?

Cutting to the chase, I just printed out a test batch of my lantern cards with my trusty old hp inkjet printer - sorry, no fancy schmancy digital art printer. Below are some photographs featuring the stylish 'do of my test batch cards. Tell me whatcha think cuz your opinions (at least on this matter) do matter!


And, of course, with every test batch there are some kinks and some wonks and some funky stuff going on. In other words, not all the cards were printed out perfectly. Darn printer for wasting good paper and ink! Hmmph! But you, my dears, get to benefit from the icky printing problems. I am giving away two sets of my test batch cards - one of each color with matching envelopes (the matching is up to you). The only major glitch in the cards is the blurry printing on one of the lamps on the papaya colored card.


Cards are printed using Paper Source cardstock, in chartreuse and papaya, with matching envelopes of the same source, in pool and strawberry. How you mix and match is up to you! I'm no dictator here.

The giveaway will be open through until the end of this week (meaning Sunday, 11:59pm Pacific Western Time, cuz I'm on the west coast of the americas). (I needa go buy some stamps... sheesh.) Please leave a comment on this post only. Two names will be drawn in whatever method I choose. May be random, may be not. And please, comment! It's free stuff! :) (Friends and relatives are allowed to participate too. The more the merrier!)

Psst... I finally took some photos of my latest projects. Will upload that later this week. Yay for visuals!

need to look for my photos?

i've now created the label "my craft and art" or something like that for any post created that includes at least one photo of something i've made or done. this way, if you are curious about what i've made recently or what i've made in the past, you dont have to search through the archives. just click on this label and it'll take you to all the posts that actually contain photos of my work. (unfortunately, the ramblings contained within those posts are still there.. so you'll have to sift through that - i'm not gonna make it that easy for you...) :D

now i'm off to do "homework"

a note to safety, friendship, and update

firstly, a note to safety. last night at midnight, a random (perhaps not random, but i'm just going to assume is random) man called me on my mobile phone, pretending to be someone i knew. his first words were: guess who i am? throughout the conversation he spoke with a whisper (i still don't know why he had to whisper - i guess to mask his voice). and the "conversation" (if you can call it that) could be categorized as lewd and lascivious. those are big words to basically say, a perverted sex-starved jerk-oid. after some time i decided that it could not be anyone i knew and hung up. you might ask: why didn't i hang up earlier? but to be honest, being in a college campus, it's not unusual for stupid, lame, sometimes drunk guys to make the same types of calls. so... i spent the best part of the first few minutes trying to figure out in my head if this was someone i knew playing a lame joke. however, after hunging up the phone, the man proceeded to call me several more times non-stop. as it was late and the folks next door could be woken up, i put my phone on silent. i think, in the time of an hour or so, 30 calls were made by a withheld number. i still do not know who this person is, but let me tell you that this stalkerish type of call, whether intended to be a joke or not, is very frightening. and it is absolutely unnecessary for people to behave in such a way. there really ought to be laws so that such behavior is punishable by a hefty fine, community service, AND jail time. i'm sorry, i seriously thought my safety was threatened and compromised.

earlier this afternoon, when i relayed this experience to a couple of people who lived in the same house i'm living in, they did not seem as concerned. again, in all likelihood it was just a prank call, BUT - where's the decency? where's the friendliness? where's the hugs and the i'm sorry this happened and hope it won't happen again? where's the comfort for the poor girl who had to endure 30 calls from some unknown man who may know where this poor girl lives? one "friend" even postulated that most likely my number was obtained by a company who sold my information (that really ought to be illegal by the way and punishable to the extreme by the law - not that our goverment is worth a rat's ass). as if this assumption calmed my nerves. if a company sold my phone number they could have easily sold my address as well! sheesh. yes, thank you very much for that guess. it really helped me feel safer.

all this to say, when someone feels their safety is threatened, especially in a situation where law enforcement or the letter of the law will not be helpful (or indeed useful), it will help to be nice and sensitive and gentle to the person who had to experience such a horrific night. (but of course, the lovely folks on this blogland would not need such a reminder about friendliness).

now... to update on crafting, sorry, still no pictures of my latest projects, of which there are many... but... i visited the local paper source and bought some pretty cardstock and envelopes. i'm going to turn the lantern image below (and a new image now in progress) into notecards! since i don't have the finances for a fancy schmancy digital arts type printer or the finances to have things professionally printed (in bulk though and i don't plan on printing in huge volumes), i'll have to settle for the local copier. it's certainly a lot better than my inkjet printer. and we all know that the ink on inkjets are not waterproof. at least the ink at the copier's is. haha. but i promise you i'll make them look nice.

with that said, i hope i get less busy with school soon so i can open my shop!

take care and be safe. (i apologize for the contents and language of today's post. it was a most upsetting day).

let's all be brilliant and bright!

one paper done, two more to go and don't forget the quiz!


i just finished a quick-ish sketch of some beautiful old-timey ethnic-like lamps. will definitely have to look into doing something with the image. it's just oh so scrumptious. (the lamps are based off some images from the anthropologie catalog for this spring).

i've also made a few new things (new to me anyway) and i think it's fab-o-luss!

don't mean to be a tease, but will share those photos soon. perhaps next week? (when my last paper, for now, is completed and turned in). i promise. i swear. i mean it. :)

ta ta ladies (and gents)!

blogger is being dumb so no photos after all.... maybe later i can upload it when blogger decides to cooperate.

the big 2-1

i seem to have neglected my blog. many apologies.

today is the big 2-1 but celebrations will have to wait as i have three papers and one quiz for this week. and spring break was too short.

i've been crafting still and will show pictures soon.

so how is your week going?

in the sketchbook...

vintage flowers by shirley lei (C) 2008

not long ago i purchased a discounted hardcover moleskine accordion page sketchbook of sorts. from half price books (my fave local used and discounted bookseller).

it was the best investment i could ever make with my $1.95 (i'm still aghast that i managed to get a hold of it and that no one else had purchased it as it is easily $10+ in retailers.) but hey, no complaints here.

so here i share with you a few of the sketches that adorn this wonderful little keepsake.


by shirley lei (c) 2008

by shirley lei (c) 2008

by shirley lei (c) 2008

wouldn't some of these images make nice stationery designs? i am obsessed with stationery! :D

tell me how your day went. i'd love to hear. and i'd love to meet new people.