diy: fabric flowers

sstttrreeettcchhhh

It's friday evening, and instead of being out and about, I decided to stay in to catch up on some sleep and because I'm realizing how little time I have until december. It's already november 1 in 23 hours, and I feel a bit behind on producing things for a holiday craft fair. sigh* But all is well and it's nice to have an excuse to sit in front of my computer with a movie (the last selection was the nightmare before christmas) and just sew, cut, glue, color, etc...

I wanted to start writing about crafting projects since I am such a big fan of d.i.y. and I have one to post about tonight... they're the fabric flowers i posted about in my last link, made from a fabric shoe bag that my roommate was about to throw out before he left for Japan two weeks ago. He's coming back tomorrow! yay!!) He was there to promote his t-shirt line and work on the new stuff that he will soon be releasing, first in Japan. It's great to be around someone so productive all the time.. My past roommate, artist Lan Tuazon, was also quite the productive little bee. Sure we spend most of our time in front of a computer when we're home, but it's just kind of nice to share the large studio space we have with each other... otherwise it feels really empty. Anyways, back to the project!

Here are the supplies I used to make a fabric flower: 

Materials

1. one pipe cleaner (for the center) Some flowers I also made with the edge stitching of the bag, (it looks like the inside stitching of your t-shirt), and also with some suede ribbon that I had stashed away. 

2. 22 ga. wire, cut double the length you want your stem. (the thicker, the more stable. You can use thinner if you'd like, but you might want to double up for stability. 

3. Fabric of your choice - I tried using both very thin fabric and some stiffer, like felt. they all come out a little different, but still very sweet. 

floral tape - from any craft/florist. (It's non toxic too, which is a plus for sugar-paste flowers on cakes)

scissors

Instructions

1. Cut petals for your flowers in a similar shape to the image shown. they don't have to be perfect, and in fact some inconsistency adds character to the flower. no petals are exactly the same in a real flower. I used about a dozen petals per flower. 

2. Cut Wire double the length that you would like the stem to be and fold it in half. If you think that it is not sturdy enough, just double, triple, etc... until the stem feels sturdy enough. Otherwise, your flower will droop.

3. Fold the pipe cleaner so it looks like an M and hook the folded center of the pipe cleaner with the folded end of the wire and twist a couple times so that it stays in place. 

You can use pretty much anything you would like for the stamen of the flower. I also made some using the edge stitching of the bag i originally cut up for the fabric, and also some suede ribbon/rope that I had lying around. alternatively you could bead very thin wire and fold it until you have the amount of stamen you like, or you can cut fabric in thin strips. You can also use as many pipe cleaners you'd like to make as many stamen you'd like. since the pipe cleaner is pretty thick, I liked the way it looked with just the two, but with the suede and bag edge, I made about 4 or 5. 

4. Wrap the floral tape tightly around the stamen, exposing about 1-1.5 inches. You want it to be about half an inch shorter than the petals that you'll wrap around it, and you want to wrap the tape all the way to the bottom of the stem. Otherwise your wires will be swinging all over the place. 

Some advice on Floral Tape: in order to get it to be "sticky" you need to stretch the tape before trying to stick to itself. 

5. Wrap a petal around the center, making sure that the tape comes in contact with itself to secure the petal and repeat with the next petal placed opposite the first petal. 

6. This is optional, but helps to add volume to the flowers. You could always just apply the flat petals to the flower and spread apart with your fingers at the end. But after I put my first two around the center, I folded the next 5 in thirds and wrapped them that way so that they looked more voluminous. 

(pink flower, with folded petals in the center)

(brown flower, without folded petals in the center)

7. With the final petals I just wrapped flat to hug the folded petals in so that the outside of the flower doesn't look like it it just went through a convertible ride. 

And voila! a vase of flowers. Have fun with the colors and textures. You can always make them super full,  super large, or super tiny. I hope you find someone special to give them to  : )

They won't die, but they are prone to dust. 

a very long week

holy shmongolian, I'm exhausted...

 I've been at the restaurant almost everyday this past week, testing, tasting, testing, tasting, testing, tasting. It's been fun, but exhausting. What was exciting though was that on Friday, we started serving a few of the desserts I've been working on: cinnamon churro thumbs with a side of raspberry coulis and chocolate ganache; gougeres (cheese puffs with bacon and gruyere); and toasted banana bread with chocolate peanut butter spread. Please stop by and say hello.. later this week we'll be adding more sweet treats, like cookies! (chocolate chip, peanut butter, white chocolate chip-macadamia-cranberry... all your favorites!) Jo's 264 Elizabeth, just south of Houston St. The space is cozy and rustic, and the food is rich and delicious. Maybe I'll be there and I can come up and say hello : ).

On top of all the restaurant work this past week, my cousin, Michael Joo, had his opening at the Anton Kern Gallery in Chelsea on Thursday night. (click on the image to the right to get Gallery information) I met up with my special friend Don and we hopped on the bus to get to the gallery for the opening show, then to the opening dinner at Malatesa Trattoria in the West Village and Bongo West for the After party. It was a long night, a lot of mingling, eating and wine consuming, but it was all very lovely. The most interesting thing happened too... During dinner, I was seated next to one of the owners of La Esquina, my absolute FAVORITE taco place in the city, who also happened to be good friends with the owners of Jo's, the restaurant I'm working at. What a small world...

This weekend though, I got to take a break from the restaurant... but not the kind of break where you get to lay in bed with a book or movie while it's pouring outside... I was actually outside, getting soaked while roaming the streets. Went to a premier of an independent movie, In Search of Sound, profiling different musicians mostly of the electronic genre. I then had to show Don all my favorite shops in my old neighborhood on Avenue A... Exit 9, the Giant Robot Store, Alphabet.... And I made some of the best purchases I've made all year.....

This book is absolutely AMAZING. It's very informative and it has the best illustrations! I highly recommend it! $6, Exit 9 on Avenue A

I love candy... and the little pacman ghost candy tin had the best surprise inside...

the candies were actually shaped like the outside tin!!!

They're just a thousand times more fun to eat when they look like that.

The rest of saturday was very wet... got to my friend's birthday dinner at Grape and Grain sopping wet, but with the food, company, and wine, I didn't mind so much.

I've also been trying to slowly work on some new craft projects for my etsy store and to hopefully sell at a holiday craft fair... I'm looking into "Gifted" which is hosted by the Brooklyn Flea people, and this year they're teaming up with Lucky magazine and hosting the fair in the city! More information on that to come... but here's what I've been working on today...

some fabric flowers... The fabric is a shopping bag that I cut up and my roommate was going to throw away.

a tooth (nursery rhyme themed fleece) with pocket....

for the toothfairy

fleece eggs!

I love eggs. Maybe these will be keychains...

and this carrot print is from Lena Corwin's screen printing class from a couple weeks ago. I posted about it here. Maybe I will make a small tote bag with this Linen..... I'm still brainstorming my options, but I also love just having it hung up on my wall to look at....

I am so pooped beyond belief. It's a bit past 2 am, and I have an early start at the restaurant tomorrow.

Time to crawl into bed and read my new poop book until I fall asleep...

Goodnight world : )

Hump Day

It's Wednesday! finally the middle of the week, and I'm enjoying a nice warm breakfast since my apartment insists on being the same temperature as it is outside or colder.. French press and steamy corn soup in a mug : )

(available colors of global goodness bags, click on image to purchase)

Yesterday was a busy day for me.. woke up early, caught up on some work and emails, went into the restaurant for some more recipe testing, had a chat about getting in a new freezer and gelato from .... il laboratorio! (delicious!!), did some serious mailing of craft goods and bags bags bags for global goodness and finally got to watch Where the Wild Things Are!

I've been dying to see this movie since spring and it was so wonderful and magical. I wish I had my own real pile to sleep in every night, especially since it's been so cold and the temperature inside my apartment is the same as that outside. I wish i could curl up and stay at home all morning, but I am rushing through this post so that I can go to the UPS store for more shipping and head to the restaurant. What restaurant am I talking about? Jo's at 264 Elizabeth, just south of Houston. I just got signed on to be their pastry girl and I've been working on adding more pastry items to expand their dessert menu. It's been a productive and tedious couple of weeks, full of baking, tweaking, baking again and Eating. Hopefully things will be up on the menu by the end of this weekend, and I'll keep you all posted. The food is delicious, and hopefully the desserts will be enjoyed just as much! 

Enjoy the rest of your day and I hope you get a chance to stop by the restaurant soon : )

xo

babo lizard + afternoon tea

good afternoon!

it's tres cold in brooklyn, especially in my studio where there is absolutely no insulation and a terribly strong draft coming in from all sides of the air conditioner that's over 200 pounds and too heavy for me to take out myself (the sheets, fabric, and jacket we've taped around do help  a little, but not quite enough...) sigh...

but here I sit with a hot cup of barley tea my winter coat on a scarf around my neck and a story to tell...


I realized the other day that I never wrote about what "babo lizard" means and what inspired the name. In Korean, "babo" translates to "stupid" and lizard is well... a lizard. When I very young I remember how a lizard had startled me while I was in the backyard and the rest of my family was in the kitchen. It was a peaceful and sunny afternoon, and I was so scared and startled by the rustling of the lizard and the way that it looked (I don't think I had ever seen a lizard before then) that I yelled "Babo!" at it. My parents then came running out, fearful that someone was in the backyard, and I had a 'talk' with them about how I shouldn't use that word, etc..... For whatever reason, I have always remembered that incident very vividly and it has been replayed in my mind especially since my mother passed away a bit over a year ago, perhaps it's because I remember exactly the reaction of my parents at the time of the incident and the vulnerability that I felt, that it's been so present in my mind.


Anyways, fast forward to a couple months ago, when we had to complete one of the biggest projects of the our Pastry Education at the French Culinary Institute, the Menu Project, where we each had to create a restaurant concept, design a menu, produce selected items from our menu and present it to the instructors. I chose to do a korean and western fusion dessert restaurant where each item was based on the desserts that I loved eating as a child. Hence, the physical menu has a storybook-like quality to it and is hand assembled and hand illustrated. It think my favorite part about this project was illustrating it and seeing it come together. The image in the front is a self portrait of myself in a lizard costume. I'd love to do another project like this and get paid for it (living in new york ain't cheap). does anyone have any suggestions on how one would go about doing that?

cover, hand illustrated on tracing paper, colored with color pencils from muji. the red floral frame around the illustration is just a sheet of origami paper I had. and the silver paper thats covering the menu i purchased a couple years ago from from dickblick

inside menu

drawn on tracing paper, colored with muji color pencils

strawberry shortcake was (and still is!) my absolute favorite dessert.

even now, I eat this every year for my birthday, ordering a whole cake and devouring it with my close friends, without cutting the cake. It's just us, forks, and the cake.

I love the flavor of chestnuts....

to be honest, i'd rather just eat plain roasted chestnuts than a fancy mont blanc,

but this seemed more appropriate for a restaurant

coffee... mmmmmm....

ice cream. no matter how warm or cold it is outside.

i always crave it.

The phrase "babo lizard" reminds me of my childhood and a very specific moment in my childhood, where I felt so many different emotions at once: frustration at the lizard, fear, comfort from my parents and a complete security. I often wish that I could go back to a moment such as the "babo lizard" moment when the complexities we experience as adults don't exist. I mean come on, my biggest worry at the time was seeing a lizard and I was so easily comforted by the presence of my parents. As we get older, we become such complicated people and our relationships with those around us reflect that. And I myself went thru a complicated phase with my mom (it's called being a teenager), but I have always been very close to her and especially after traveling across the country to attend NYU, we became much closer and patient with each other until her passing 4 years later.

So go on, tell your parents you love them today and everyday.

fin.

wedding bells

 

Good morning

I started the day off right with some hash browns from trader joe's and french press. These hash browns are so delicious, and they taste just like the ones served at McDonald's breakfast (I know, gross, but I love them) ... but they're better and wider and probably much healthier : ). I started sending my boyfriend off with these in the morning when he left for work, and I would wrap them in a parchment sleeve with a handwritten "M" on them (for Mcdonald's), but I think it's more fun to put an "A" for Anne. 

I really enjoyed the long weekend... I got a lot of work done and even attended a small wedding at Norwood in the city. It was so beautiful and charming, and nice to see some faces I hadn't seen in a while : ). The Bride, Joanna, wore a beautiful green vintage dress that she found at a Paris Flea Market... It even had a small weight in the back of it to make sure that the back was kept open. Here are some pictures of the bride, groom and friends : ) I wore an originally blue silk dress that I bought from Anthropologie 2 years ago, and which also had a large coffee stain in it that the dry cleaners couldn't take out... so I crossed my fingers and dyed it black two days before at home and it came out beautiful! (6th picture) Not a rich black, but more like a very dark navy. I'm super happy with the results, and I think I'm going to start dying more fabrics because it's so easy and I like the anticipation of wondering what it's going to look like when it dries. It was all wrinkled too from wringing it out and then hanging it to dry, but the tight wrinkles just made it look beautiful and textured so I didn't steam it before wearing it.

Coffee is ready! I'm going to have a productive day today, since I need to drop by the restaurant I've been working with at 2, so I'd like to get some brainstorming and sketching for Holiday craft projects done so I can sell them this late fall and winter. I realized that I never wrote about what "babo lizard" means, so I'll put a post up about that, and the project that inspired it sometime this week. My goal is to also start posting some craft projects+instructions up too...

 

I heart my bialetti.

p.s. These items just sold out (heart with mustache note and elephant plush) at  Renegade Handmade, a consignment store I sell at in Chicago, but they're available at my etsy site. 

happy tuesday  : )

busy bee

buzz buzz!

It's been a busy week, but fulfilling too. It was cousin Niki's birthday brunch on Sunday, eating the most delicious Bagels, cream cheeses, tomatoes and lox from Russ and Daughers, and then CAKE! Here is a picture of the cake.. it's their family: My cousin Mike, his wife Niki and the two cutest boys in the world. Jackson helped me decorate the cake by writing "happy birthday" on it, and it came out beautifully.

ready for the car ride....

decorate + candles

on a very important phone call.... with me

maxwell + helmet + cake!

jackson + helmet + cake!

After cake.. the NY Book Fair! It was fun and it was such a beautiful day! I delivered pumpkin cupcakes to Lena as planned, checked out some books and artwork, watched some bands play, and sat out on the front steps of PS 1 in the beautiful sun. Click Here for Lena's blog post about the fair. Here are pictures of relaxing and being silly. The furry art piece in the front made me feel like a monster from "where the wild things are." How appropriate since the movie is coming out next Friday!!! I am SO excited!

nice ceiling!

whoops! caught in the act...

there are monsters inside!

Yesterday I went into a restaurant and did a little tasting menu for the owners; a possible job opportunity still in the works, so I'll post all about it until things have been finalized... I don't want to jinx anything! But it was definitely exhausting.. and fun at the same time! As soon as I crawled into bed I fell into a deep sleep and woke up feeling refreshed for about 10 minutes and then desperately needed some coffee.

I also got a lot of cleaning done earlier, and looked at some cookbooks for some recipe ideas... the research will continue throughout the night and probably all day tomorrow....

Earlier this evening though, I did get to go to a really fun Screen Printing Class taught by Lena Corwin, textile designer, illustrator, and book author. I've taught myself all about block printing just by reading her book "Printing By Hand" and that's how I learned how to make stamps for stationary and bags found in my shop on etsy. Here are some pictures from today's class! The "carrot" print is mine, and the other two were done by my lovely classmates. It was low key and fun and it's always nice to meet new and creative people. sorry the pictures are not that great, but I was taking them from my phone.... I'll have better pictures up next time. We left our prints at the studio to dry, but I was itching to take mine home!

prints...

it's been a long week and it's not quite over yet,  but I'm rolling into bed now so I can have a productive day tomorrow.

thanks for tuning in!