Michelle Alynn Clement - Scissor Quirk.

On My Plate.

Hey, guys! :)

I know I'm probably blogging tooo much, but i'm so psyched to have a moment again to share some of my recent creative jaunts (there's tons I've made in the last little bit, book-wise, that I still have to share - but here's a peek at what I'm working on right now):

I little Letterpress class project I'm working on (a set of really cute linocut/letterpress prints)

(I have to cut & print the linocut's in the blank sections, so she's about half done, here...) It's sooo much fun to be taking this class - I only have 2 (of 4) left to go, and hopefully all my ideas have time to be made! It's rad to spend all day sunday in a room full of vintage printing presses and type. (sigh).

And a little scrapbook page in-the-works - it's almost done, too. :)

And my desk always gets so dang messy while I'm working, but it's a nice, colorful, inspiring mess, I think. :)

Whew! Lots to do. Today I need to revise some animation, drink more coffee (hah!), draw the linocuts I need for Letterpress class this weekend & cut them out, tie up the loose ends of Las Vegas booking (we're out of here on Monday!!), and then we're heading out for some drinks @ this rad place called "The Greedy Pig" + out to see some metal/rock bands. Yay! Happy day! :)

Thankful...

...for having designed some Thanksgiving stamps for Purple Onion! :)

Here's my cuties (below Steph's lovely new noteblock stamps) - a cute hand drawn collection of pilgrim & indian bears, hanging corn, and a yummy Thanksgiving feast (or two). Yay!

Here's a little sketch I did while designing them, so you can see a little bit of my drawing process (though this was at the almost-done stage, it's still cool to see shading and pencil lines):

They coordinate really well with some elements from the last "Arctic Wonderland" set I designed last year - and there are some super-cute sentiment stamps that go with them really well! And check out the cute cards the Purple Onion DT has made with them! I love how they've colored the images in - it's always just so rad to see some drawings I made in action (I always have to pinch myself a little...lol):

These ones are lovely, by Jenn Biederman (but there's lots of other cool ones to check out over at Purple Onion!):

(I love how she made the acorn all sparkly!)

Michele @ Purple Onion is also having a sale on the whoooole set of em, if you're jonesing, now's the time! (details right here and on the stamp page). Look for a giveaway of these lil puppies once they arrive her in Canada, too! :)

Tune Tuesday - 1.

Oh yes, you read right. :)

There will be a new "Tunes Tuesday" feature right here, starting now.

Mainly cuz I have a new tune addiction every week, and often love to read into the lyrics I attach myself to upon first listen. And then I realize I should look into the artist a little more, too - but don't have the time. Or don't take the time. And I always love to be introduced to a new music, and I hope you guys do, too! So, here goes: my first "Tune Tuesday" goes tooo...

Amy Millan!

 

For those who haven't heard Amy Millan before - she's lovely. Her first solo album, "Honey from the Tombs" is great - one of my favorite songs being "Hard Hearted (Ode to Thoreau)". She just put out another album in September, called "Masters of the Burial" and it's a lot more chill - my first thought upon finishing my first listen of it was that it's not long enough....lol.

To my happy surprise, I found out she was Canadian - yay! She also used to be (I'm not sure if they're still together?) part of a band called "Broken Social Scene" (I'm not sure how familiar my American friends will be with them...) - which Feist was also a part of (cool, no?) and Emily Haines - who is another amazingly talented girl.

And then I learned, after listening, that lots of the songs on her newest album are re-records of other great songs, including Death Cab for Cutie's "I Will Follow You Into The Dark", and "Old Perfume" (I recognized DCFC's song, but didn't know the others were covers...). They blend so seamlessly into her songs, it's such a great listen from beginning to end.

She says of the album, "Together, my own songs and these covers create a bed where the lonely can rest for a little bit, where little hopes, little deaths, and big loves are flammable but fallow...This record is the dark of the night. It's the sound of someone climbing into bed. The soundtrack of the time in between when the candle burns out and your dreams begin. The time of night when all we have tried to bury comes back to us masked in midnight mind stories. Light the fire, pour up one more, draw the curtains and tuck in."

Love that. You must give "Buried Ghosts" (my new favorite) a listen if you're looking for something to calm your ears. Watch out, though - you might just fall in love with the whole album accidentally!

Til next time. :) Happy day!

The Latest.

Oh my word. This last week has been kind of nutty. Not that many of the weeks around here aren't, but it felt particularly crazy, work-til-3-am-every-night busy.

So what have I been up to? Here goes:

1. Hubby got his US Visa! :) Until a few weeks ago, he's been unable to travel into the US (because the US government is silly, it seems..) without this Visa because of his Bulgarian passport. After a few paperwork-gatherings & return trips to proooove that he was indeed tied to our lil home here in Canada - approved!

So we've excitedly booked our holiday trip to the East Coast to Philly to see Z's parents for Christmas, and we'll be going up to Washington DC to hang with his brother & then New York, cuz, well it's New York, and I've never been - there are many friends to visit out there! Sooo excited. Must see a ballet while we're there, too. Eeek!

(amazing photo from right here.)

2. Planning our travels. I've, well..we've both been working from home for a while, and jobs are starting to turn up for the Spring, so we've been planning where else to getaway now while (we can) - lol. It's hard to vacation in the middle of a contract - doesn't go over well!

Anyhoo - we'll be jetting off to Vegas soon, here, for a few days. And then to Mexico or Cuba for hopefully 2 weeks in December, too. Dude. I'm psyched. I've been jonesing to travel since way back when and now we can!!

(photo source.)

I love these vintage Vegas postcards I found in my searches, too:

(photo source.)

We're travelling cuz we haven't had a honeymoon yet, for various reasons, and cuz we've only been around our little local islands for the last few years, vacation-wise. And we still don't have either booked - it's so us to not have things booked yet, and to try to mush it all in at once. Hah! As long as it looks somewhat like this (hah!), I'll be happy:

(photo source.)

I'm totally kidding. I'll be happy anywhere. I'm just sooo psyched to be travelling with hubby far away, finally! :) Yay!

3. Halloween! :) It was Halloween! We actually hadn't done Halloween together yet (weird, I know..), so we dressed up - I as a nerd and Z as a caveman, with our day-before, thrift-shop-found costumes, with a bag of necessary tootsie rolls, and headed out to The Orpheum (this gorgeous old theatre in town) to see a screening of "Nasferatu" - this cool silent vampire film. The Symphony Orchestra was playing the score - it was rad.

We joined the throngs of costume-wearers on Granville Street and grabbed a few drinks and had lotsa fun. :) And I'm totally wearing my costume's sweater vest again, I think it rocks.

 (We took lotsa blurry silly photos - there are more right here.)

4. Regina Spektor!!! Eeeek!! So, by some fluke, the day before Halloween - as I was searching for Nasferatu tickets - Ticketmaster pops up and there, at the top, is Regina Spektor. Playing the Orheum here in Vancouver in 3 days!! lol...You can bet I was buying those tickets in the blink of an eye - I suspect we got a few of the last ones, too, cuz we were in the nosebleeds at the very very back. But I'm so thankful we got them!!

(I totally didn't take any pictures, but it was as lovely as these pics I found via google search...)
So we went on (last) Monday night to her concert, and it was seriously the most amazing ever! She sounds gorgeous - even more gorgeous - live, and was playing piano and pounding chairs with drumsticks and there was even acapella singing, too. :) Be still my heart.

Annnnd...right after the concert I was up til 4 finishing my bookmaking homework. lol...I made a really fun illustrated book that I'm going to make one-offs of and get them up in the shop, I just need some time to put them together.

Since then, I've been learning how to blog-code, coding many a blog, taking on some freelance animation, getting back into the whole animation thing (I'm feeling mad rusty), trying to find software, thinking about Christmas shopping, enjoying Letterpress class, and wishing I had more time. lol...

The last week in a nutshell. After I get through my to-do-today list, I'm going to draw shop goodies. :) Yay! Thanks for the sweet words, guys!

I'm a Sassafras Lass!

Eeeek! Okay, so I have to say super-super thanks to everyone for the kind words I've already received (thanks soo much!) - I'm so happy and excited and over-the-moon to announce that I'm now part of the Sassafras Lass Design Team!

Not only do their DT girls seriously rock my socks (I'm crazy humbled to be welcomed into such company!!), but I've had a major scrap-crush on all things Sassafras for years and years now - their goodies are just always right up my alley & so amazingly rad!! :) Yay! Thanks so much Rebecca & the Sassafras team for having me!

On that note, I haven't scrapped in a bit, now, and I'm going into serious withdrawls. There are no scrap stores around me (or I'd have my hands full and busy...lol), so I've been dreaming about how cute and perfect and just-for-me their Monstrosity line seems, no? I'm such a monster freak. lol...

(All images from the Sassafras blog.)

Anyhoo - thanks for the sweet words, as always, my lovely blog readers. :)

The facelift is pretty much complete - what do you think of the new design? I've been learning to code stuff this week and have been having some fun with my very favorite colors. You know, the colors I use over and over again. Always. lol. What colors do you stick to? It's an interesting phenomenon - I can pick the exact shades by 'like' without referencing them. lol..

More soon. :)

Dude.

I'm still blog-prettying-up, here (I have this habit of not planning my design, and just winging it, which slows me down. lol). It's almost done, but the links in the middle bar are not, so they might be kinda funny tonight, as is the banner, still.

I've been bombarded with a slew of freelance work all at once - when it rains work, it pours, always. :) Busy, busy. So much to update!

In the meantime, check out this rad news!! Eeek!!! :)

More soon, very soon. Must sleep now.

Construction.

*edited* - Sorry, dudes. The lopsided banner and lack of complete facelift is crazy bugging me, but the blog'll be under construction til Wednesday or so. lol.

I have massive homework, halloween plans tonight, class all day tomorrow, more homework, a Regina Spektor concert (yay x a million!!!), class, then I'll finally be back. lol...thanks for hanging in there, and happy halloween! Tons of updates coming soon. :)

Hello, folks.

Please 'scuse the mess you might see over here for today (and maybe tomorrow) - doing a little updating to the look of the place right now. :) Done soon!

(photo source.)

Winter Ensembled.

(I don't think 'ensembled' is actually a word, but it seems to work here for title purposes. lol...)

Anyhoo - I forgot to update about the skinny jean search, here - thanks for your suggestions both here and on twitter/e-mail/facebook! :) I did manage to find some lovely ones and I love em so much I've been wearing em all week...lol. I got some black ones from American Eagle (totally surprised me, but they rock!! I never buy pants there...) The shopping was done last week, and this week I've been having fun combinging the new fall/winter stuff with the old closet stand-bys.

I'm currently obsessed with navy tights and my new biker boots, and I collect coats (ha ha..) - this particular one has been in my closet for years, I have a habit of buying them on sale on boxing day (a classy coat lasts forever, no?)
 


Anyhoo - my website is *still* not up and hosted and online. lol...my plan was to finish Sunday, and then I got finished Monday only to find out that uploading it online was not so easy the way I'd planned it, and it took a day and a half of troubleshooting to get her goin. I'm finalizing and checking everything today.

Also, today...cleaning, organizing, fixing my desk up so my place + brain are workable. I plan on working on some shop/for-fun stuff for the next week or so to give myself a post-website-building break. And I need to sew and cut some paper for my sanity.

I'm quite liking these overcast fall days we're having because I can leave the biiig windows in the apartment open and enjoy the light without boiling to death in the sun...lol. Lovely!

More very soon. :)

Wild Thing, I Think I Love You...

Omg. We went out on a little much-needed Sunday date-night after working all weekend long to see "Where the Wild Things Are" - it was hard enough for me to wait a week to see it..lol - and, anyhoo - it was lovely! Definitely not what I expected, I thought it would more - uh - uplifting? then it was. It was kind of a downer, but really leaves a lot of what you get out of it up to you, and was totally heart-wrenching.

Not to mention it was gorgeous. :) The animator/compositor in me usually picks apart movies (it just happens when you know how they're made, you can't help it! lol...), but the whole time I was just trying to figure out what was what because it was just so seamless...they integrate 3D animation and good ol Jim Henson Shop costumes/puppets (which I love love love & are fantastically mind-bogglingly cool, and am so happy they did instead of doing it all 3D!! Nothing beats the real thing!) soooo well. :)

On that note, I'll stop dorking out about animation. But you must see it. :)

 

 

(kw is my favorite, by far...)

Speaking of dorking out, we're trying to figure out where to go/what to be for Halloween, and I totally wanna hit up a thrift store and be a dork for the night. Literally, a dork. I'm craving big-rimmed glasses and high plaid pants. Hopefully thrift store shopping will happen soon so we can put together our costumes. :) Yay!

I'll have stuff to share soon - I just almost-aced a bookkeeping test tonight, have to finish drawing a lil design project, and the portfolio website is done with the exception of loading it up onto the web (yay!), so this week I get to make shop stuff and draw and scrapbook a little, too. Dude.

Seen any other good movies lately? Do share!!

Whew!

Hello, hello!

Well, where did the time go since I last blogged?? Dude. It flies by waaaay too fast. There is just too much cool just-for-fun creative stuff on my list-to-do-while-off-work and none of it seems to have gotten done so far! Agh! I mean, I've been working on stuff...maybe there's just too much. lol..

Anyhoo, I spent a morning or two shopping for fall clothes this week - I totally spoiled myself, which is part of the reason why I shop like, twice a year. lol...I like lump sums. :) Anyhoo - I'm furthermore banned from shopping cuz I now have enough plaid and tights to last a while. I also had class for the last three nights - small business, bookmaking, and then more small business.

I'm actually feeling crazy inspired from the small business classes, too - I just get in the room, and, even though our teacher is an accountant and usually talking about not-creative things, I can't help but come out of there with a million new ideas. :) Same with bookmaking!! I'm looking up suppliers and such to start making journals to sell in Bubbly Shnooks!! Eeek!

I haven't had a moment to make anything lately (well, apart from the website I'm working on, but it's not fun to show peeks of that....), except for the homework/projects I've been making in my Bookmaking class. Here's a little look at a simple Stab-Stitch book I made last week during the course:

 

 

 

The cover is made from a heavy creamy-yellow posterboard, and the pages are a lovely textured Canson paper alternated with a 'fancy paper' (it was hard to narrow it down to just once specialty paper, and we were only supposed to put two pages of it in...but I loved my skeletal system paper find so much I made it every other page!). :)

Anyhoo, the next few day To-Do's:

- Finish my Animation Portfolio Website

- Revamp the Blog (it needs a facelift, I think!!)

- Draw holiday goodies for Bubbly Shnooks

- See 'Where the Wild Things Are'

- Research schools (I really want to go back next fall...!!)

Otay - coffee pot, here I come! What's on your to-do list? Does it ever feel like it gets done??