• artsy fartsy,  coffee!coffee!coffee!,  easy on the words,  mettaprints,  Shop Talk

    Cardboard Woodland Creatures, Guerilla Photo Shoots, Latte Art and Missing Bug…

    mettaprints-woodland-creatures2

    We made some woodland creatures this week. Aren’t they cute?  Bug had fun feeding her cardboard friends in a cardboard warehouse for a quick photo shoot. It was like she was in a cardboard wonderland which makes me wonder what we’ll make next. Cardboard forest? Wouldn’t that be cool for a music video or something?  I love working for MettaPrints.

    mettaprints-paper-dolls

    Speaking of MettaPrints, I’m working on some branding pieces.  Giant cardboard paper dolls!  Or maybe small paper dolls that we can mail to our customers. We haven’t ironed out the details yet.

    mettaprints-woodland-creatures

    Recently our cardboard deer and snowflakes went viral on Etsy so we’ve been making and shipping them like crazy. Then we got an order for some woodland creatures and we thought we had an order for a moose but it turned out to be a mouse.We made a moose anyway! Because we can.

    Then we had to take photos of our moose because he was so awesome.  We took him to The Camp and did an impromptu guerilla-style photo shoot there without asking permission first. It was thrilling and dangerous.  I was afraid we were going to get kicked out with our giant cardboard animals because they have signs up that say “no photography” which is really kind of silly I think since everybody and their uncle has an iphone and is taking photos of their food or themselves. But whatever. We broke the rules with abandon.

    guerilla-shoot1

    Funnily, nobody even seemed to notice us.  We fit right in. We may have found our target market.

    guerilla-shoot2
    Oh, don’t mind us while we hang out with our cardboard deer. Just another random Tuesday, nothing new to see here.

    guerilla-shoot3

    I love these smaller deer. They are much sturdier than the big deer and oh so cute! I love all things miniature. I want to make them even smaller. I told Teri I wanted to be promoted to VIP of the miniature department. She said that could be arranged.

    guerilla-shoot4

    Check it out! Our cardboard deer in the wild!  Pürre was our first local customer so we had to deliver them in person, naturally.

    latteart

    Then since we were at The Lab/The Camp I had to stop into the Gypsy Den for some latte art. Some people collect tiny lighthouses, some people collect miniature glass cats. I collect latte art (and also vintage bottle brush Christmas trees, make a note of it). The baristas always think I’m crazy when I order it but I secretly think they like showing off.  I was quite impressed with this latte art.

    missing-bug1

    And lastly Bug left me for a week.  She’ll be visiting her Dad’s side of the family for Thanksgiving and then staying up in Northern California for a few days.  Part of me is sad and misses her but the other part of me is really happy to have some quiet time to catch up on work. (I’m so behind!)  I’m also really excited for her to be with family. I know she’ll have a great time.

    You’ll notice Bug is glued to the ipad. It’s not what you think. (Though it usually is. So it’s not like I can take any credit here.) I recently discovered I can download books from our local library via OverDrive. It’s super cool. You just punch in your library card and you can download any book that they have on their digital shelf. Sometimes even my books are there! I was super happy to find some  chapter books that Bug likes to read. The best part is they magically disappear off my ipad when they are due back to the library. No more overdue book fines!

    Just thought I’d share. :)

     

  • Bug,  easy on the words,  out out out of the house!,  travel

    Bug and SAJ’s Holiday Adventure

    Hollywood!

    Over Christmas Vacation Bug and I had a few adventures. First we went to the annual bible conference we always go to with my family. It was really nice but not very photogenic so I have no photos to share. I take that back. I did take quite a few instagrams in the hotel:

    We love hotel beds!hotel still lifeantiquehotel coffee. powdered creamer. not so yummy but I do love lazy sunny mornings in hotels...

    We love hotels. Especially this one. The beds are always so nice and white and fluffy.

    Hollywood sign through branches

    After the conference we had some time before we had to be home so I looked up local points of interest on my handy dandy smart phone and saw that the Hollywood sign was only fifteen minutes away. I’ve always wanted to see it up close. Unfortunately, you can’t actually get very close but it was a fun adventure anyway.

    spikey

    It was a beautiful day. As my Aunt was telling me earlier, January is Southern California’s best kept secret. We always have the best weather in January.

    climbing around

    walking back down

    We had a nice walk around the lookout spot.

    view point

    The view was amazing outside of the hazy smog.

    After I was sure I had secured every possible touristy photo possible we headed home. But not without first stopping for lunch in Pasadena!

    I loved these napkin rings

    We ate at this really delicious French crepe place. It was pretty fancy and a bit out of our budget but sooo much better than fast food which was what we’d find along the rest of our route home. I love mother-daughter lunches.

    goof bomb

    No, I didn’t eat all that. I took half of it home and had it for breakfast the next day!

    little Paris

    Service was authentically slow so we had lots of time to goof around and take photos, which I actually enjoy a lot.

    pretty gelato

    choosing

    Then gelato for Bug for desert! It was so pretty in this gelato shop. The light was reflecting off the buildings across the street and flooding the store through their big windows.

    romantic couple

    This cute couple really caught my attention but I didn’t want to freak them out taking too many photos.

    lucky girl

    So I was sneaky about it!

    35er

    balloons

    Colorado Blvd.

    I could have stayed all day taking photos but because I had parked in a public parking lot and given the guard my keys, I was too nervous to leave my laptop in the car and therefore was stuck carrying it around with me. So that with my camera and my giant purse…it was a bit cumbersome. After a few blocks of me taking photos we headed back to the car and home.