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London is, well… quite lovely if you ask me. I love the culture, the accents, and the history of city. While studying there on a college summer trip, I had a project where I was assigned to design a mind map illustrating what I did over the weekend. It was a fun personal project that always brings back fond memories when I see it.
About a month ago I came across a website called They Draw and Travel filled with similar maps of other people’s favorite places. Anyone can submit a map and possibly win a cash prize or even get printed in a future book they hope to publish, compiled of all chosen maps. I knew I wanted to submit my map, but after looking back at it, I decided to overhaul the design a bit. Actually, I changed a lot of it. I think it turned out pretty good. It has the England vibe I was going for. Crossing my fingers.
I wasn’t sure what to post this morning and then I saw this Dachshund. What’s better than a cute dog picture to start your monday? I think nothing. More power to you Super Dog.
If you haven’t already noticed, I would much rather make things then buy them from a store. It’s fun, cheaper and it makes me feel accomplished. I’m definitely making these sometime. They would be a perfect present for kids, Hmmm, 3 nieces and 2 nephews, I think that’s a good excuse don’t you?
Jamie and I went shopping one Saturday morning not long ago and came across this wall. I had driven by on my way home from work the night before and the wall was completely bare. It amazes me how people can get away with such large graffiti without being noticed. This particular graffiti artist is called “Mr. Brainwash” (you can see his tag in the bottom right corner), who is the main character in Banksy’s documentary “Exit Through the Gift Shop”. It’s fun living in a place that you hear about all over the world and getting to experience things first hand.
Do you remember those 3D wooden animal puzzles? They were mostly dinosaurs, but I loved them. Well our new decor addition is a large deer head version just like those puzzles. I’ve seen these faux taxidermy deer heads a few places, but they are a little pricey. Instead I found a tutorial over at Chronicle Books that had a template. Theirs was smaller than we wanted so we enlarged it a little. Once we cut it out and put it all together, we hung it right above our tv. I can’t wait until Christmas. Then I can turn on the fireplace on our TV and hang our stockings next to it. It’s our little midwest tribute, modern style.
I got up a few hours ago and I still don’t feel like I’ve completely waken up. I hate not feeling rested when you wake up. I’ve developed a very low tolerance for being tired. In college I used to stay up until 2 or 3 in the morning every night, not anymore. I need my sleep. I wish I had one of my dad’s iced coffees to give me a little boost this morning.
Since I get to animate for a living every day, I don’t get as much time as I’d like to work on my own animation projects. But my company is having a viral video contest this year, and I finally came up with what I thought was a good idea last week. The way the contest works is anyone at my work can submit videos to the company’s youtube channel, and the video with the most views at the end of the year wins a trip for two to New York.
My idea (and strategy) was to spoof a different, wildly popular, video on youtube. The video was of an 8-bit cat with a pop-tart body flying through the air with a rainbow coming off the back of him set to a catchy song. It looped the same animation for three and a half minutes, and that’s all it was. In less than three months it generated over 23 million views. So my idea was to combine this extremely simple animation with another trending internet topic: Captain America. The movie comes out later this month, and hopefully turning him into an 8-bit flying cartoon and attaching the animation to the same song as the pop-tart cat, I could generate enough views to win this competition. Take a look at the final product:
After showing it to my coworkers at our weekly meeting, most people seemed to be laughing simply because of how bizzarre the animation is. It didn’t look like many people had faith in my strategy. However, I’m happy to say that within 24 hours it has generated nearly 2,000 views, thanks in part to being featured on a large trending topics website. The video in first place has over 16,000 views, so I have some catching up to do. But that video aslo has been online for three months, so I think I still stand a chance. Hopefully I can get it featured on a few more websites and blogs and then I think I’ll be golden.
This actually was a lot of fun to make. I had never made pixel art before, and I’m really happy with the way that it turned out. If you’d like to see the original video, click here.
I love birthdays. I love going to birthdays. I love planing birthdays. And yes of course I love my birthday. It’s such a special day when you get to celebrate one specific person. It’s their day.
Yesterday I looked at my phone’s calendar and realized that I have a friend who has a birthday almost every day in July, 4 of which are my mom, sister and two nieces. And on top of all that my birthday is one month from today. So needless to say I have birthday fever. I’ve been trying to come up with something to do for my birthday, when I came across this Birthday in a Box by You Are My Fave. Melanie from YAMF is an event planner and blog writer. Her blog is so fabulous. It’s one of my daily reads. Her party package is just so fun.
I want to bake my own cake this year. But not just the old boring sheet cake, a pretty cake. First I have to decide on a theme. My mom always planned wonderful party for us as a kid and they always had themes. Most of the time it was whatever we liked at the time. Yes, I admit I had a Barney themed party one year. For my parties, I would spend weeks planing what games we would play and sometimes even making up my own games. My mom’s parties are a lot to live up to.
What should I do this year? I’m at a loss. Ideas anyone?
It’s summer and there is no question that the best thing to cool off during a hot day is a big bowl of ice cream. However, after being married to Jake for a year now, I have leaned not to share a bowl with him. He eats his so fast that I can only get a good 3-4 bites in before the bowl is empty. I saw these spoons and they made me laugh, but they’re only half the solution. Now I just need yours and mine bowls.
I love Porcelain. It’s clean, simple, and chic. For wedding presents we got a lot of porcelain kitchen items: a butter dish, gravy boat, and my forever favorite elephant tea pot (from my sister). Last weekend we were shopping at Ross (which we do quite often since it is in walking distance from our apartment) and I came across a porcelain rhinoceros. It was love at first sight.
We named him Roger the Rino and he now lives on our coffee table. As I sat there admiring my new purchase I realized he looked kind of lonely. I needed more porcelain items. Instead of going out and hunting for more, I decided to make my own faux porcelain. I searched around the apartment for things that looked like they could use a little porcelain love. I ended up with three mismatched vases, a candle stick and an artificial pear.
Then we made a trip to the hardware store and picked up some white glossy spray paint. We set up shop outside and got right to work.
In between coats Jake and I played Ladder Ball to help pass the time. We are very happy with the way they turned out, plus it was a good way to spend a sunday afternoon.
If you want to make your own here is what you will need:
Items to spray paint: a vase, old toy, or anything you have laying around.
White glossy spray paint (we used Rust-Oleum painter’s choice 2x the cover)
Cardboard or an old sheet to spray on.
Once you are all set up, spray your items one at a time using light coats. If you spray too much the paint will drip and leave a run in your paint. Once the items are dry enough to touch (ours took about 20 minutes) flip the item over and spray the bottom. Let dry over night before setting on anything. And voilà, you now have a beautiful faux porcelain decorative piece. Take that Jonathan Adler.
