An Octopus of a tale!

Aites my old roomie has been wanting to try this little place up in St. Marks called Otafuku . It's this really tiny Japanese place that specializes in something called Takoyaki which is basically a piece of octopus nestled within a round dumpling of luscious dough that's fried brown on the outside. This little adorable place is so small you could plum well miss it! But it has two large waving flags and a small wooden bench outside perfect to sit three hungry young adults ( and their enormous shopping bags). Their menu is this simple blue sheet of paper and we ordered Combo D which is 6 pieces of Takoyaki and Edamame (steamed soybeans - very good! )

The Takoyaki comes out fresh hot and best when eaten after it cooled down a bit. The crispy outside holds the gooey dough so be ready to either pop one of these rather large bad boys in one shot or get a tissue! I've never tried them before but boy were they soooo good. The sauce was sweet and added flavor to the nice hot dough and surprise! inside the center was this big piece of chewy octopus. For six of these and a good cup of edamame for $6 it's practically a steal in NYC. They're a great snack and the neighborhood is also awesome to sit down at. So if you're ever in NYC I really recommend this place! aka my friend affectionately calls "hole in the wall" .

Until next time... HAPPY EATING!

A Geeky Custom Bookmark

I made the above custom bookmark and it turned out more then I can imagine! My first attempt was a disaster because I wrapped the paper around the cardboard but this time I opted to use a permanent adhesive and the results were so smooth that even I wanted one for myself. I'm a big biology science lover in general and the above were inspired by my classes in the Medical Lab field. I think anyone would love the quirky nerdiness of this bookmark. The whole process of making it took quite a bit as I was determined not to make another mistake!

Oh I took full advantage of the Tuesday Tweet Special from iprintfromhome.com . I've heard rave reviews about their prints and I've ordered 75!! 5"x5" prints of my art work. I really wanted 6" x 6" but with the 75% off any 75$ worth of square prints it's just too good to pass up! In all I paid $22 for 78 dollars worth of stuff. I've also deciding if the prints are very nice to just get my prints printed there instead of at home as I get so busy with school, work, internship etc. Have a look out for 5 x 5 prints of my favorite art in my store and pocket mirrors too!

Until next time... don't let the grey day take your energy away!

A New Piece of Art - O

That's my newest piece of art. I love chiyogami paper and well origami paper in general because they're so diverse and very pretty. I'm planning on buying the more intricate ones and making special edition origami dolls. Although the above art looks simple it took me upwards of 4 - 6 hours to make. I had the original design out in pencil where I cut it out on a transparent plastic. Slowly I cut the details with the X - ACTO knife and boy did that take so long and my fingers were hurting. I used white acrylic paint and painted it on and outlined it in black. I really like how it turned out... bright... colorful and a twist of the manga/anime style drawings I usually do. I'm planning on making a huge intricate one for an art auction in July but haven't gotten the huge piece of white paper I need.

Until next time... Chibi Girl says byebye!

Chibi Girl in 3D! Goodness

Ooookay... so I tried to make a little Chibi Girl plush doll and that's how she came out. Eep! It took me about 1.5 hours to make it as I sew the whole thing by hand. As you can see I definitely need some practice in that department. I think she turned out quite cute and well she reminds me a bit of myself. TeeHee... my family got a hoot out of it and thought it was the cutest thing in the world. I'm putting this little gal next to my desk! As for selling this in my shop.. I don't think any time soon as my sewing sills ain't so good and I get so tired of sewing all the little things... after sewing one arm I realized I have to sew 3 other more limbs. DoH!

Oh the other hand... today I got much done! I made new origami for my store Meekiyua. I'm starting a series dedicated to traditional wear of Asian culture. I really love the more elaborate clothes of those associated with weddings, special events, plays etc while also including a slice of information that makes it unique. I also made a new art work that would be placed on the extra chiyogami paper I have something like a shadow against patterns. I've already spent the better half of 4 hours cutting and painting.

Another note... my pocket mirrors arrived at my bf's house but don't have time to pick them up till this weekend! Arg!!! I'm going to put those in my shop next week. =D

Until next time... busy busy busy bees!

WoWzers: Featured!

So I spent the whole morning spring cleaning... my desk, school work (blech!) bringing out the summer clothes and putting away the winter. With my time being sucked away before I was neglecting my origami shop Meekiyua. I got a convo from an awesome buddy 5erg that my Rabbit and Carrot origami was featured in a Storque article "Your Shop 101: Hitting the Sweet Spot with Etsy's Most Relevant Search "! WoW! It's not front page but I'm extremely proud! It really shows that if you try and keep creating things that make you happy it'll just bring happy karma to ya. (Take that evil *bleeping* car guy)

Actually the article itself is very useful... it has tips on tags, materials, descriptions... basically telling you how to word things so that the search engine can pick it up. It also makes suggestions that would make it easier for people to find you items. I tell you when I go shop at etsy it is a bit of pulling my hair out since the words I use in search to me are obvious but yet don't hit up on a lot of the relevant items I am looking for.

Anyways until next time... create whatever makes YOU happy... =D

Args... son of a "bleep"

Before I get into the nitty gritty here's my newest print called Fluffy Critters Trio... sort of reminds me of my sister, my cousin and myself. When we were younger we all lived together and got along horribly. We punched, screamed... basically being very bad kids but now we're all get along very well. My sister got back from college and my cousin was driving her. Apparently when they got off the highway some *bleeping* dude just drove like a madman nearly crashing into them. My cousin swerved and lost control of the car but got a hold of it before they hit the guard rail. Unfortunately it broke the axle of the car and it had to be towed. Now my cousin is stuck with a $1400 bill while the *bleeping* son of a *bleep* who caused it gets away scott free. Makes me want to jump kick whoever the driver was. So irresponsible. Yeah that's Peter Griffin from Family Guy beating up a giant chicken... yeah that driver is a giant chicken... grrr...

Until next time... karma comes around dude...!

Pocket Mirrors Woot!

Ahh! I decided on making my five pieces of art above as pocket mirrors and I saw the photos of the finished products and I'm so so excited to get them! I want to keep one for myself and put the rest in my etsy shop but I have no clue which to pick. They're so darn cute! I want to keep all the stuff I make... darn... I'm hoping to have them up in my shop in the next two weeks. =D

I also sent a request for an artist alley table at Otakon and I really hope I get a table. If not I can still put my art in the art auction. But I really really hope to get my own table! It caters to my target audience of people who love kawaii items which I think my art is. I really really want that table darn! Wish me luck!

Lil Tweet here

Okay okay... I gave in! Gave in... to Tweeter! Sigh but I do like the simplicity of it and another way to procrastinate my time. You can follow me here at LiPeony. I've heard of it been a great promotion tool but it's far better as a "hey this is what I've been up to". On facebook I really liked the "what am I doing now?" snippet they have on top. I've been going though the mounds of etsy users that has a twitter I tend to not follow those that are 95% spamming about their items. I like hearing about everyday stuff... anything that just happens to go though one's mind in the hours between sleep.

Above is my newest little print. I want to put this on a pocket mirror. Actually... what do you guys think... of my images on the back of pocket mirrors? I already want to get one for myself of the single little fluff or my dandelion avatar.

Until next time... a little bird tweeted to me...

I love Fluff

I notice when I was working with photoshop and my printer I notice that my "fluffy" light backgrounds to my art tend to form this very unusual glow around them like ripples on a pond. I really liked how it looked. I started experimenting with how to produce varying degrees of "fluffiness" by playing with different size brushes and greys and whites. This little critter above was what developed. I loved how it turned out. It reminds me of like a fluffy snowball mouse. I love snow and I'm born in the year of the mouse. I also love the simple eyes and nose because I wanted it to really come out from the light fluffy body and background. I've been so busy with finals and projects that it boggles the mind.

A weird note that my coworkers who range from 20 - late thirties has never heard or seen of Micheal Jackson's Thriller song/video/dance. Which I find strange since it's pretty iconic and when times at the office are slow and it's just an air of "blah" sometimes I bust out doing the thriller dance between the desks. It always make people snicker. But hey sometimes we're too absorbed into doing something that I feel it's good to get up do something silly...

That reminds me of something from college. It was finals and my roommate called me.
Roomie: "I just failed my final"
Me: Oh... *awkward silence* well I have some good news.
Roomie: what?
Me: I saved a bunch of money by switching my car insurance to Geico.
Roomie: *silence* wtf. I'm going to kill you when I get back.
I thought it was funny as heck but it was the only thing that popped into my head. I swear I talk first and think later. Of course I apologized. This has caused a lot of laughter and confusion when I talk to people.

Until next time... Why so serious?

Tired Day

I had spent the whole weekend doing a group presentation. I slept at 2am and work up at 6:30 this morning to absolutely make sure the whole group had the final power point. We presented in class and boy was I so relieved once it was over. In my group two of the members were sick in the weekend and day of the presentation which was very bad luck and I ended up organizing and creating 85% of the power point. I really don't mind as it's understandable and sometimes I'm just too darn helpful that way.

For example a new shop on etsy had troubles with their banner and the items were so cute I whipped up a very simple but nice one and sent it. Why did I? I have no idea... thought it would be helpful but yet it nagged at me that I'm doing something for free that someone makes a living off of. Weighs heavy sometimes.

Well on the other hand I got my second Hepatitis A shot and decided to get the HPV shot. For all you girls who haven't it's very important that you do. It protects against some very common forms of HPV that causes cervial cancer.

Until next time... take care of each other...

Law And Order Sighting!

Today started like any other day... I went to study with a lab partner for a few hours then lunch and I hit up some stores and shops with my friend after work around the lower west side of Manhattan. Which by the way is a great place with tons of sample sales where high end designers slash their prices and there's a great a many eager shoppers. I picked up some make up to play around with and the people who worked there was so nice. I'm a dunce when it comes to make up and fashion. If you do happen to come to NYC you can easily look up "sample sale + NYC" to get a list of these incredible sales. Little tip for the savvy shopper.

Well I'm walking my old roomie to the subway when I notice a huge crane that was never there before. I see it's to these huge lights beaming down a usually deserted street. Low and behold it was a film set! They were filming one of my favorite franchises Law and Order: Criminal Intent! I've seen film sets around NYC before but usually I miss it when they're actually filming. We were a bit far but I could see the main detectives Eames and Nichols peering over a dead body with a lot of crime scene investigators. It was very exciting! That really made my day!

The last time I saw them film Law and Order was a few years ago on the steps of one of the court houses in City Hall and I had passed by it because I was working in the hospital nearby that summer. That really shows that you never know what's there around the corner!

Until next time... go further then the paved road and never fear to steer from the straight path to follow your own...

Pain is Bad!

So I've been having this throbbing pain in both my wrists lately and it's probably from using the computer constantly and always writing notes. Both are very repetitive process and with the cold and wet weather it has just aggravated them worse. Even though when I tell people my joints hurt they look at me in disbelief because I look so young but I tell you they ache so much in cold and wet weather that it's sometimes unbearable. I had twisted my knee in high school so bad I couldn't walk for three days, I also tripped and slammed my knees so hard on the pavement that the wound went down to the muscle and I still have very large visible scars, as for my wrist it was twisted very badly in a car accident in college. It's a wonder I'm not moving around on strings like a puppet.

Though I really shouldn't complain as I've seen first hand that there are people much worse off. I can't really stop because finals are coming up and I have a large final lab report due. Well look at the glass half full... at least the rest of me is A - OK and I'm going to get a nifty wrist guard. WooT... now if only i can find it in xsmall ?_?

Getting Ready for Otakon!

So Otakon one of the biggest if not the biggest Japanese Animation Convention on the East Coast is two months away and I've been slowly making new anime inspired art such as the one above. Inspired by one of my favorite heart felt anime/manga Fruit Baskets. I watch quite a few but there are very few I love enough to draw as I like to draw my original characters. The ones I do draw tend to be either very simple like the one above or extremely complicated. I'm planning to only have 10% fan art and the rest is my original Chibi Girl. It's not anime/manga as more kawaii. I really do hope people would love my little Chibi Girl. I haven't decided on what size prints and how many of each. I might add in cards too and some of my little origami dolls for good measure. I'm not bringing to much as I also want to enjoy the shows, panels and host of wonderful things to do there. I'm very excited though! If you happen to be in Baltimore during Otakon drop by the Artist Alley. =D

Until next time... finals stink... =(

The Reader

So I spent the last 2.5 hours reading The Reader by Bernhard Schlink. I'm usually very hesitant on reading a book after it was made into a movie like The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button even though I love F. Scott Fitzgerald and The Great Gatsby is one of my favorite books. I simply could not put it down and it was a very engrossing book. I found it very honest and to me it really didn't try to do anything or really be anything then just the story of the main character and his life. The ups and downs and all those questions swirling inside one's mind. I really like it. If you ever have time I suggest you to read it. I don't want to give away anything because I think only the reader can decide what they think of it. I just think it was good.

Until next time... live as if you will die tomorrow and learn as if you will live forever...

Happy Bday Buddy!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JINGO!

Here's an awesome flaming monkey butt for you!

As celebration convo me with the secret phrase of the day "Happy Birthday" and get free shipping in my two shops Meekiyua and LiPeony only today May 1st! Convo me before you buy and I will make another listing or change the shipping. =D