Make It

New Favorite Blogs: Los Angeles Edition

What's in the water in L.A?

Lately, I've been really drawn to a handful of Los Angeles based blogs, which is weird, because I hate L.A. Okay, not hate, but I've spent enough time in Southern California, including five years in San Diego, to know that it's a cultural wasteland in the desert with brownouts, traffic jams, and earthquakes. But, these blogs are making me rethink some of my opinions.

First there was Jeana Sohn's blog, which features her boho-chic L.A. life full of good food and pets and great apartments and vintage clothes.

Then, OhJoy moved to San Diego and started posting on her food blog about amazing resto's in SoCal. Now she's moving to L.A. with surely more good eats and Los Angeles based design to follow.

Then, I saw 500 Days of Summer and loved their depiction of the city, which you don't even realize is L.A. until halfway through.

The nail in the L.A. haterade coffin was my discovery of style blogs MopTopMaven and His Hers. Lo of His Hers (pictured above) has totally got me wanting to wear bright red lipstick all the time.

So, color me impressed. I guess there's more to like about the City of Angels than Mexican restaurants and In-n-Out.

A few new links

Here are a few recent Internet finds that I had to share. You can call it a blog dump:

True Up, a blog about all things fabric. Not so much sewing, but fabric design, production and trends. This is one I will be checking out often.

Via True Up and Wee Wonderfuls I found out about a great new site, Spoonflower, which plans to offer on-demand digital textile printing for crafters in May 2008. Really excited about this one. Stay updated on their progress via the Spoonflower blog.

Also via True Up I found a link that  I can only describe as silkscreen porn: a look at the Marimekko screenprinting facilities.

Heart Handmade- This blogger finds the best Etsy goodies, then creates fun and colorful layouts. I like the Heart Lab feature which takes a behind the scenes look at the creation of an Etsy seller's products.

Blog Dump - 1/12/08

This isn't a proper blog dump, more like a roundup of links in general that have interested me lately.

A new favorite blog: http://moopshop.blogspot.com/
Check out all her gorgeous bags, lined up for a trip to the post office here.

I've never been able to figure out how to make diner-like hash browns at home- crispy on the outside, soft in the middle- but this recipe comes quite close, I made it this morning with "great success!"

I don't know if it's my age or a more exciting group of candidates but I've been obsessed with election coverage this year more than ever. Massachusetts has a primary coming up and the deadline to register is Wednesday. Register to vote!

If you haven't visited Pandora, you will love it. Enter the name of a favorite music artist and then sit back while the site plays a free playlist of songs from similar artists. I discovered my new favorite group KUDU, via my Ladytron playlist.

Just when we get a video tour of her studio space, Lotta is moving to bigger and better digs in Brooklyn. She mentions on her blog she may teach workshops there in the future!

Day 17

The day got off to an interesting start when I showed up this morning for a free workshop for entrepreneurs put on by the City. After much confusion at too early an hour of the day, I realized I was there on the wrong day! So it's up at the crack of dawn tomorrow to head back.

At least it forced me to get an early start, and I made good use of the rest of the day, going through what I had printed so far and separating what was useable as-is and what needed to be cut down or modified into more usable forms. Then I spent some time trimming the pieces that were suitable for gift wrap (with a T-square and xacto knife) down to 18 x 24 sheets.

One of my ideas for making use of the printed sheets that aren't quite perfect is to make handmade patterned envelopes. It took forever to come up with the right size template and once I did, I ended up gluing several of the envelopes shut! I've nearly got the hang of it now.

I was in a groove this morning cutting and stacking paper but after taking a midday break, I never recaptured my momentum. I'm finding out how and when I work best. I think I can't do a whole day of production tasks because I end up getting sloppy after a certain amount of time. When I find that happening, I should switch to another task so I don't end up ruining inventory.

More pics from the day at my Flickr account which you can see by clicking on the badge at left.
 

Blog Dump - 9/23/07

Lovely stacks of printed paper at the Moontree Letterpress blog and Heather Jeany's  flickr set.

A new tidy workspace at One Good Bumblebee.

I think the Live Trace feature of Illustrator CS2 is going to make turning drawings into digital vector images sooo much easier for me. Thanks very much to Lara for suggesting this in a previous comment. Tutorial to follow.

The beautiful home of Susan from Sulu Design.

This is my last full week at Mod Green Pod. As of next week I officially have one part-time job and one business-in-the-making.

Blog Dump: 9/16/07

A great video tutorial on how to make your own photo journal from the insanely talented Judy at Five and a Half.

Studio tour of Emma Rose Papery and stylish storage suggestions from SF Girl By Bay.

Apartment Therapy House Tour of Nicole from Pink Loves Brown watch the slideshow to see the pic of her home studio.

Quirky little things (mushrooms, tiny deer, fabric stumps) at the small stump blog.

Patricia of A Littlle Hut does amazing things with paper.

Blog Dump - 9/9/07

I love the silkscreened work at So-Sage (disovered via decor8). Too bad the posts are so infrequent, I could look at them all day.

Avie Designs Blog offers a behind-the-scenes glimpse at a small stationery company. It's a new must-read for me.

Same goes for the Linda and Harriett blog.

Lotta Jansdotter needs a part-time intern. Sounds like a great learning experience for the right candidate in NYC. By the way, the latest issue of Blueprint magazine has a (too small) spread on Lotta's home and studio!

Congrats to Lara at Kirinote who has been selling her fabric like hotcakes lately. She always has such great pics and tutorials on her blog, plus peeks at new pattern designs.

I'm Here/Blog Dump - 8//14/07

I have been a bad blogger lately (and a bad Etsy-er and a bad Flickr-er). Frankly all of my sites are in need of updating.  No excuses, just good ol' fashioned laziness. So what have I been up to?

- We had a rat in the architecture office where I work part time. A white rat. We'd come into the office and find random items chewed up or burrowed into, like houseplants or mouse pads (the irony!). Finally after nearly 3 weeks we caught the little pest. Lucky me, I was the one to find the dead carcass in the trap. Ew.

- I read two books that have got me thinking about food in a whole new way: Omnivore's Dilemma and Animal Vegetable Miracle. I recommend both, but found AVM to be a more enjoyable read. Basically, the way that our food system is set up is totally ridiculous. It's bad for the environment, bad for the animals and bad for our health. One of the books put it really well (I forget which one) when they talk about how we will do endless research before purchasing a new television or computer, but will simply go in the store and purchase foods with no idea about where it came from and how it got there. For the rest of the summer, my boyfriend and I are doing our part to not buy food that has a bar code on it. We're shopping at the farmers market 1-2x/week and we're making our own bread/tomato sauce/iced tea when we can. We spend alot more time thinking about and prepping food than we used to, but we enjoy cooking and we actually feel better and think our food is tasting better lately.

- I discovered this amazing site which has free episodes of nearly every tv show and have started watching Entourage, which I love (I don't have cable so I rely heavily on the kindness of the Internet).

- I bought alot of very large paper. How large? 25" x 38" Here's a visual:

I only have my puny 10 x 14 silkscreen at the moment but I'm thinking of getting a giant one made so that I can cover the entire paper in one pull. I'm thinking pattern, paper and printing in my near future. I have tons of drawings and doodles and I have a very specific idea of what I want to do. What I'm trying to do now is put the doodles on the computer, clean them up and make them into patterns I can turn into silk screens. I'm having issues with this part of things (I'm not totally sure how to use my new copy of Illustrator) but I'll keep you posted on my progress.

- My alma mater was named the Most Annoying Liberal Arts college by Gawker.com. Congrats?

Despite my laziness I managed to receive a Rockin' Girl Blogger award from Jesse. Thank you! So I thought I'd post some of my new favorite girl blogs plus a roundup of other links I've been hoarding.

Patapri- Maker of silkscreened tea towels. Love her blog and Etsy shop. She has a great eye for color and pattern.

Skinny LaMinx - Another silkscreener of teatowels and pillows with a cool illustration portfolio. Shop. Blog.

Jeana Sohn - She's an LA artist with an amazing vintage wardrobe, house and musician husband. I like living vicariously through her blog and Flickr.

Metremade - Two Australian designers with a new fabric line who post tons of original patterns on their blog. Why is all the cool small scale fabric design happening in Australia?

Fine Little Day blog - Swedes have great style. I love this wallpaper.

Camilla Engman has a sneaker.

Nancy of Mod Green Pod's house. New wallpaper in the MGP studio, I'm pulling double blogging duty, I wrote a couple of the posts including this one.

M'kay, I'm off to tinker with Illustrator once again. Hopefully in my next post, I can put up some of the designs I'm working with.

Blog Dump - 6/10/07

Now with pics!

Cool felt art on a new favorite blog: Wren Handmade

So you think you can design? Enter your original pattern design in the Naked and Angry design contest and let people vote on their faves. The winner gets their product turned into a Naked and Angry product (like wallpaper or silk ties) and $500. I love companies like this (and Threadless, owned by the same people) that let average people with great design sense and Photoshop see their work on a consumer product.

I love this inspiring list of Etsy sellers who have sold over 500 items. It's a long list, which means that a lot of people are doing very well on Etsy. Good news for anyone interested in selling on the site. Here are images from top sellers (L - R) Gudonya, The Black Apple, Daisycakes.

Wise words on pricing handmade work, from Diana Fayt, whose bowls appear below.

I recently made this Chicken Tikka Masala recipe after reading rave reviews about it on Rosy Little Things and it was amazing! Highly recommended for anyone who loves Indian food. Take the suggestions of the commentors and use less salt and jalepenos than the recipe requires. We're going to take it a step further and also try making samosas this week! [Below: Alicia's pic of the final product]

I l-o-v-e this behind the scenes video from Philadelphia textile studio Printfresh (via Seamsters).

Blog Dump - 5/12/07

Andrea at Fly is one of my favorite bloggers these days. Check out her amazing webisode with Rena Tom at Rare Device and then nominate yourself to be profiled on her site as a Fly Girl.

Fly is how I found out about the Smart Fitzjerrall blog, behind the scenes of a young fashion company.

How do you move a several hundred pound letterpress? Very carefully.

Additional pics of Stephanie Wenzel's home from Blueprint.

We get this magazine at work, I need to check it out so I can see up close the pics of the Urban Outfitters headquarters.

Diana Fayt always offers the best insights on supporting yourself as an artist. This week the discussion is about pricing and valuing your work.

My mom has been staying busy with art festivals in Birmingham. Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there!