I'm excited to announce that I'll be a vendor at Kawaiiland on July 25th in NYC!
The event will feature music, fashion, art & all kinds of vendors, sponsored by Pocky. It will also be hosted by my good friend Steven D'Onofrio! Words can't describe how exciting and nervous I am, as this will be my first event I will be selling at.

Check out the Kawaiiland website for more info about the event and all the vendors participating. I get my very own page too!

Tickets are only $15. If you're interested in coming to the event, buy tickets here!
If you're curious to learn more about the event, watch this video. It should say it all:

Earlier this month, I posted about the patterned fabric I designed and purchased from Spoonflower. I printed one yard each, basically as a sample to see how they'd come out. I obviously don't want them to sit around, and so therefore I tried to think of ways of utilizing them.

So when my coworker asked me to make him jerseys, he gave me a bag filled with fabric and tank tops & jerseys to imitate.
I've noticed my interest shifting towards more sportswear styled clothing causing me to make more sportsy clothes. Aside from working at a company that works with clients that design sportswear clothing, I've been pretty inspired by britpop lately (which explains my recent Damon Albarn obsession, yep!). 90s era was sporty, style-wise. At least British-wear seemed to be. It feels like everything around me lately has been pretty sporty. So I wanted to created something jersey-like.

I like the cut and style of this jersey. I decided on picking one of my fabrics and a solid color to mix it with. I've been all about aqua and red lately, so I went with that combination with one of my patterns.

I traced the larger section along with a tshirt that fits me well, but followed the basic shapes.

What I found most difficult was the collar. I didn't have a proper ribbed neckline, but I found the perfect ribbed red tshirt in which I used to make the collar.

Aside from the trouble maker collar, this shirt was actually pretty easy to construct after figuring how everything is cut and aligned.

I really like how this jersey came out. I have a lot more of this fabric so I figured this would be my sample. I don't know how this printed fabric washes, so I made this shirt for myself to figure out everything. If I feel it's a go, I may make more and add them to my Storenvy shop!
I feel so excited!

This week was a bit of a busy one outside of my home. All I really did was just work a lot and see friends. I'm not one to be out and about on a work night, but I made some exceptions. Needless to say, I was burnt out by the end of the week.

My arts and craft moments ended up happening more towards the weekend.
01. I'm continuing with this book idea - made another illustration and sent it to get printed. This relates to my Blue Velvet drawings if you've seen them in previous posts.
02. I took a trip to Joannes to buy some fabric for some tote bags I want to make.
03. I cleaned up some leather scraps and cut them out for this tote bag idea. Don't know how successful they'll be, but it never hurts to try it out and see.
04. I was asked to make another tank top by my coworker, so I started measuring and cutting. It is currently in the works.

This week I saw a lot of my friend Diana. The other night, we chilled at her house and watched Portlandia. I cuddled big time with her pitbull Jessie. She's precious.

My current band of the moment: Gorillaz. Shocker! Just all kinds of fantastic, I really can't stop listening to them. I've fallen deep for Damon.

Back in April, I posted about bottle top magnets that I made. I mentioned that my brother saves his beer tops and has a whole tin can filled with them? Well, he doesn't use them, and so he gave me permission to take as many as I'd like.
I worked on this idea for quite a while: I'm a big fan of Gwen Stefani and thought it'd be fun to make bottle tops with her and her hair phases.

I painted the backgrounds a nude color. How I decided on that color? I have no idea, I basically just winged it.
I just gathered a bunch of colors and painted the edges different colors. I decided on each set having six, so I painted six different colors.

I drew out six different of my favorite Gwen hair moments. I traced a few out and colored them with marker and colored pencils. I cut them out and glued them onto the bottle tops.

I sprayed my favorite clear glaze over all of them. When they dried I glued the magnets on and let them all dry real well.

I've made five sets of these magnets. I think think they're so fun.
I just posted them in my Storenvy shop. I hope they will be in demand because I would love to make more. I have so many more magnet ideas. I love reusing and recycling!

After putting this little collage together, I realized that I accidentally followed a color scheme with the turquoise and red. Hmm. Oops.

01. Gola Spearmint Messanger Bag - I've been wanting a Gola bag for a while, but they have so many color options. I came across this turquoise and red that really follows through with my blog colors. I think it's perfect.
02. Shrink! Shrank! Shrunk! - Not that I need to dive into more crafty methods as I do enough already, but I really want to play around with shrink plastic. It looks so fun! I need an intro book to help me with this though.
03. Casio Katja Necklace by Danadamki - Speaking of shrink plastic, Danadamki makes a lot of jewelry with shrink plastic and I love it all. Her little figures are adorable and hilarious.
04. The Art Of Daniel Clowes - I've been wanting this book ever since it came out. I love Daniel Clowes art. Ghost World has become one of my favorite graphic novels ever since I saw the movie.
05. Dinosaur Engraved Rolling Pin - I came across this shop on Etsy and I really want one of their rolling pins. This dinosaur one is great. Takes baking to a whole new level!

But seriously though, I've been all about everything turquoise and red lately.

This week went by real quick. Sorta got a little sick. I'm blaming it on the weather change. I took it easy this week working on crafty projects.

01. I've been working on this shirt in which I used my printed fabric. I wanted to make this a test shirt to see how the fabric washes and I figured before creating future clothing with printed fabric, I want to see how it works out.
02. At work the other day, my coworker brought in a baby kitten to give to my other coworker. She was precious and I couldn't stop petting her. About her claws though, oh boy were they sharp and painful.
03. After finishing up this shirt I plan on playing around with a few magnet designs. I'm working on a Gwen Stefani one which I'm excited about.
04. I've taken a little wristband making break, but there are a few ideas I have that I plan on creating in between breaks.
I really tend to overdo it with projects on top of projects, don't I. Hmmm.

Aside from the constant Blur listenings, this Radiohead has been making it's way into my playlist every so often. It's currently my favorite Radiohead song.

Went on another mini spending spree within the past two weeks. I've come to the conclusion that I am pretty materialistic and I am not ashamed of it. You hear it first!

So yes, I've been obsessing over everything Damon Albarn recently. I bought his solo album on vinyl. It's amazing; if you haven't heard it yet I recommend you do.
Aside from that, I've taken on a project in which I ordered the first batch through Vistaprint. This illustrated Blue Velvet batch of postcards was a test and I'm very happy with how they came out. I'm excited to get the ball rolling on this project!

I once again ordered more perfume from Smell Bent. I couldn't get enough. I love love love the Chile Vanilli scent.

Damon is precious.

As I mentioned in the previous post, this project was a two parter.
We basically had to assign a project to ourselves and find a working illustrator to be our 'mentor' through the semester. I knew what I wanted to do, but I admit I may have changed the project, or maybe more like narrowed it down to a specific idea. I had some disagreements with my mentor. I saw it as an issue of 'originality'. Now let me say I do believe there is some originality left out there, but I think most of what everyone does is influenced by other people. It's hard to be original. As much as I would like to think of my work as original, I like basing my work on pop culture references. I'm not trying to be original. I like referencing things I know and love as my expression of what I like; basically paying homages to things that make up what I like.

That being said, the three patterns I made were based on songs I like. After interning at a screenprinting shop, I've been all about making images intended for apparel. I created this graphic that was inspired/based on Rock Lobster by the B-52s. I've been about nautical/deep sea divers for a while, so I of course carried it through to this project.

My mentor didn't really seem to like the direction I was going in with this project and believed in taking another route where I didn't use another piece of work as a reference. We lost touch, so I went ahead with the project. This kind of art and reference is my thing, and as much as I wanted to do something more abstract, I had more fun doing it this way instead.

I created a shirt out of scrap fabric I had, and got it printed at my internship.

My professor and my friends loved it (I printed this image onto shirts for a couple of friends, they loved it so much). So as much as originality would be fun to try and work towards, I didn't want to go in that direction and found this to be successful. And it's more me anyway.

I'm pretty sure I posted this video once before, but I'm going to do it again anyway. Here's the B-52s.

I've been all about patterns last semester. Taking that wallpaper pattern class really changed things for me. I'm still getting the hang of making patterns, but I've been all about mixing illustration and pattern making.
I've spoken about a Mentor class we had to take. Well, the class spanned two semesters, but with different professors and different mentors. The first class was really successful communicating with my mentor. Second time around, not so much. We barely kept in touch and sort of disagreed on some bits of my project, which I'll talk about in my next post. This project sort of separated into two parts for me.

Anyway, I went on with my own thing. I think it's pretty noticeable that I'm influenced by pop culture and a lot of my art shows it. I continued with that for this project. I wanted to make patterns based on songs relating to nautical sort of things which would be intended for apparel use.

The first two images are based on one of my favorite bands, The Raveonettes. The song is Black Satin. I created my image and found a t-shirt template to see what the repeat would look like.

When I sketched out my idea, I drew it in line. I played around a lot in Illustrator and got a lot of textures but wanted to try out a more simple line work too. I ended up liking both so I included them both in my final project.

This pattern was based on The Waves by Tamaryn. Repeated, I liked how it came out like a strange checkerboard pattern.

I was interested in getting them printed onto fabric. A friend told me about the greatness that is Spoonflower. After researching, I went ahead and ordered all three. They came out really cool and I'm currently experimenting with ways of cutting and sewing them into cool shirts and whatnot. Spoonflower is a site I will definitely be ordering more from in the future.

So here's that Raveonettes song I love so much.

Happy June!
I've officially completed my first week as a full time worker. Unfortunately I'll be balancing two jobs making me a seven-day worker. ~It's a hard knock life~

01. Working seven days a week won't stop me from being productive and doing what I like to do in my spare time. I've been working on this idea sewing yellow bits into the sleeves of blue shirts. It's this homage I've been working on that I'll be sharing in a future post!
02. For the same project, I created a pattern-y image that I plan on printing onto those shirts. I'm making a bigger embroidery hoop screen to screen print.
03. Aside from that project, I've been working on creating a bunch of illustrations for this other project. I showed a little sneak peak in the last SS post with my Blue Velvet image. They're connected; this is a continuation.
04. In between projects I've been working on for myself, I've been balancing sewing jobs for work. I had to turn two jerseys into crop tops. I've been on a roll with them sewing jobs.

The past two weeks I've been on a crazy Damon Albarn kick. Here's Blur song that I've been listening to non-stop.