LiPeony Shop

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Governor's Island Origami Fun!

Ah remember the little origami people I use to make? This Saturday I'll be at Governor's Island teaching people how to fold some cute origami sea creatures! Every weekend the New New Team get together and teach a certain craft. I haven't been to Governor's Island for a long time but I do remember it was a very calm and picturesque place and there's a free ferry that goes to the island from both Manhattan and Brooklyn side! DIRECTIONS . If you're ever need to go somewhere peaceful in hectic NYC then come on by... you'll walk away with new found origami skills and a funky card to boot.

I know I haven't updated in a LONG LONG time as mentioned by a friend and reader! I got it! I did get a new job that I'm very happy about so that's been eating most of my time. I'll be updating soon about my cosplay for Otakon, new stuff for my store and things around quirky little NYC.

Until next time... learn something new!

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Madison Square Garden Eats

Last Friday my awesome friend Jingo and I went to this little area of pop up restaurants and eateries called Madison Square Park Eats. This little event takes place for a whole month and unfortunately we were only able to make it for the last day. The experience made me wish I had known about this sooner!

What make this event so great is that many of these little pop up shops have their main restaurants in Brooklyn or the other boroughs of NYC. It's definitely made me more incline to travel to those places despite the usually unpredictable and horribly slow weekend mass transit complications (MTA is fixing various subway platforms and etc so check out the MTA site before you travel around by subway especially on the weekends).

The crowd was really bumping and mingling. The area is the rather tiny triangular piece of side walk next to the park and beloved home of Shake Shack (another favorite place... cheese fries are awesome!) They had several chairs and tables at the center and an atm machine to boot.
We also got there towards the early evening and I was able to snag the last cookie from Momofuku. Cornflakes and marshmallows? Yes I was a tad skeptical and the cookie looked a bit on the greasy side. But it was surprisingly delicious. The cornflakes added this crunch to the soft cookie and when you ripped the cookie apart you can see strands of marshmallows melted inside. I really wanted to try the other desserts there but alas it was completely sold out.

My friend and I basically ravaged the cookie because we were waiting for our orders from Calexico. My friend Jingo had showed me another food blog of last years and I got hooked onto the picture of the piping hot carne asada quesadilla with melty cheese and chunks of meat. The wait for it was about an hour but I don't blame them. There was a line for this place and those guys were working as hard as they can. There was also the usually order of one person ordering like 10 tacos. It was such a tease because the orders with our names hung on top so we could see how many orders were in front of ours.
The next thing that really intrigued me was from Roberta's Pizza. They brought their own pizza firing oven above. The pizzas were small and made and fired fresh. They smelled heavenly. They had this one I think that involved a touch of honey and that was very intriguing. Alas my heart was already set.
It may not look impressive from the picture but I assure you it is gooooooood. The outside was soft and slightly crisp. It was the meat and the cheese that really surprised me. The beef was actually infused with a lot of different herbs and spices. I normally don't eat spicy food I like the kick the meat had. Coupled with the gooey cheese it was heaven. That cost about 6 dollars and they don't go skimpy on the meat!
My friend got the pork burrito and she thought it was pretty good which meant it was awesome because she's such a picky eater hehe.

With the food, people and the beautiful setting sun on Madison Avenue it was definitely a great even to go to. Don't worry you may have missed this one but every week at the Brooklyn Flea and Hester Street Fair are some of the same food vendors along some new favorites.So definitely go out and try something new!

Until next time...
happy eating!

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Itty Bitty Cupcakes

Box of Cupcakes @ LiPeony

The school year is winding down and my sister came back from college. We spent the weekend roaming around the city until we got to this long line along Broadway in NYC. She insisted I had to try these super miniature cupcakes from Baked by Melissa. As small as my thumb they were adorable albeit a tad pricey but all 12 flavors we tried were delicious! My favorite hands down was the Cinnamon one and I am not a big fan of cinnamon so it was really that good. The other notable ones were Chocolate chip pancake, Tie Dye and Smores. I was a tad disappointed with the Mint Chocolate chip because my sister said the mint frosting reminded her of Colgate mint toothpaste... Don't worry if you're not in NYC they also deliver so that's a plus. WOn't they be awesome for baby shower???

Baked by Melissa
(They are literally about the size of a quarter-half dollar, adorable!)

Here are some of my favorite little cupcake places:

Little Red Hens (so so so moist! The chocolate one was not so overpowering)
Crumbs (it's okay but the variety is awesome)

Other notable places in NYC are:
Nine Cakes
Sprinkles (They have multiple locations around the nation)
Sugar Sweet Sunshine Bakery (with a name like this it has to be good!)
Baked
ButterLane
Amy's Bread (They also have tons of other baked goods)
Silk Cakes (Okay cheated here as you have to preorder cupcakes but my friend got her wedding cake here and we tried cupcakes samples and they were divine. Judy (nicest person in the world) has all these very unique Asian inspired flavors like Thai Ice tea, Green Tea, Black Sesame to name a few)

Cupcake stops for people with special diet (Many of the cupcake shops above may have a vegan versions)
Tu-Lu's Gluten Free Bakery
LuLu Cake Boutique (I put them here because they actually have Kosher based Bakery based in Brooklyn with a store in Manhattan)
BabyCakes (Vegan - I think my friend brought cupcakes from here I'm not sure but vegan cupcakes taste pretty good)

Though I have barely scratched the surface... I'll be updating this list as Spring and Summer would be great time to sample cupcakes as I walk around the city. If you can recommend a place feel free to drop a comment.

Until next time... stay sweet!


Friday, May 6, 2011

Spring Cavalcade!

I'll be helping out but not vending at this awesome craft fair! Stop by if you're in the neighborhood!

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Bedtime Stories

A Monster Bedtime Story @ LiPeony

I remember as a kid I had a huge book of tiny bedtime stories one for every night of the year. It got passed down to my brother who pours over it. I'm a big fan of books like these because there's just so many stories inside one collection and it was conveniently all in one book with a picture for each. I created the above picture because of this penchant for late night reading and imaginative friends and adventures.

On another note another one of my favorite kid's reading material is the monthly magazine called Cricket. It's a magazine for ages 9- 14 filled with poems, stories from books, recipes, tutorials, comic strips from around the world and spans all different time eras. There are also lots of creative writing and art contests that they publish. I have years of these subscriptions on my bookshelf that my brother and sister poured though. For his birthday this year I'm buying him a year's subscription. I think that's more worth it then buying him more toys but of course he just really wants another computer game.

What's your child's or childhood's bedtime routine?

Until next time... keep on reading and exploring!

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Boy Prints Ahoy!

Dinosaur and Chibi Boy @ LiPeony

The weather has been awfully nice lately and its definitely a pleasant change then those cold spells and blizzards this winter was filled with. Unfortunately with this sudden change of weather I always have Spring fever/cold . Anyways I hope everyone else is doing great! I had many people tell me I should make more boy oriented art and inspired by my 10 year old brother I did! The one above is the first one... I loved dinosaurs as a kid and had so many picture books of dinosaurs and at one point wanted to be a paleontologist. Now my brother has those books and he loves looking at all the different dinosaurs. I do have some others to be done so look forward to some more Chibi Boy adventures!

After a lot of procrastination I decided to make a Facebook fanpage HERE. If you want to please "like" it.For some reason it was extremely frustrating for me to set up until finally I realized I had to do everything as admin account not as my fanpage account. Weird. I'm still not sure what to do with it... what's your fanpage and what do you do with it?

Until next time... enjoy the super awesome weather!

Monday, April 11, 2011

Cherry Blossom Trip

Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington DC was awesome though me and the bf got there during the tail end of the festival. Though unfortunately there was this big rain storm on Friday that seem to have swept a good amount of the blossoms away. We did take some pictures of the remaining blossoms like above. The biggest highlight for me was the Sakura Matsuri which was this giant street fair filled to the brim with shops that highlighted Japanese culture and food. There were three different concert like areas that had different performances. Even though the sky was overcast everyone seemed to have a great time. I did try the grilled squid which was yummy and some kitsune udon. There were people in both cosplays and traditional kimonos.
The rest of the city was blooming in beautiful colors and these are some of the pictures. The above believe is the Smithsonian Visitor Center but I'm not sure. We happened on this large tulip field in the shape of a number one. We walked all over the city and even around the Tidal Basin. By the end of the trip our legs were aching but its the best way to enjoy the sites.

Until next time... get those walking shoes on and stop to smell the roses...