Call Me Amaesing

New Improved Blog Site!

2010-10-06T21:33:00.002-05:00

Hi everyone, I have a new blog site! I hope you enjoy!

You should be redirected in a few seconds.

Cookie Monster Cupcakes

2010-09-26T20:49:00.004-05:00

I found this cool recipe online on how to make Cookie Monster Cupcakes. Me and my brother decided to give it a shot.

All you need is a batch of cupcakes (chocolate preferred), mini Chips Ahoy cookies, frosting (powered sugar to stiffen if you get store bought frosting), piping bag, coupler, piping tip #233 (grass tip), and some food coloring.

Bake a batch of cupcakes according to the box. I suggest adding an additional tablespoon or so of batter to each tin to make the cupcake more rounded. I'd say about more than 3/4ths full. So when they come out they should have a dome on top. Not like these cupcakes. My brother made them.

When completely cooled, begin to frost each cupcake with a thin layer of frosting. This helps the blue "hair" of Cookie Monster stick better to the cake. Use a sharp knife to cut out a wedge of where the mouth would go, and be sure to eat all the scraps.

Then stick a Mini Chips Ahoy cookie in each of Cookie Monster's mouths. If you find any broken pieces, be sure to eat all the scraps.
nom nom nom..
Take the remaining can of frosting and use your blue icing color to mix in. Add about six tablespoons of powered sugar to thicken the frosting. Fill piping bag with coupler and tip #233, then add your blue frosting.

Begin frosting all around the cupcake with the grass tip, making sure he's covered thoroughly.

Cookie Monster sure is shaggy...

Note: I've also seen Cookie Monster cupcakes made with dyed sweet coconut shavings instead of frosting. Since I'm not a huge fan of coconut, I decided that frosting was the right way to go. Plus you get to lick all of the scraps..

Now he just needs some eyes.

Wilton white candy melts are perfect for eyes. Take each disk and use chocolate frosting for each pupil. Then place them on the cupcake, making sure that each eye is facing a different direction. it's weird to say but it's true. Cookie monster doesn't look right with sane eyes.

One down, many more to go...

All done!!!

Happy Baking!

Birthday Cake

2010-09-07T01:24:00.007-05:00

For my own 23rd birthday, I decided that it would be only best if I made my own cake. It was a good excuse to bake something that I haven't made before, and in this case, I've never made a two layer cake. Usually cake making comes in the form of cupcakes, or a cake made in a 9''x13'' pan with frosting on top. I decided to get away from this childish practice and make a two layer cake. This would involve baking in two round cake pans, leveling them with a serated knife, decide on what type of filling for the middle, and what type of frosting I woud make. With several hours to think about this, I settled on:

A 11'' funfetti round cake
cream cheese filling
vanilla buttercream frosting (from scratch)

Fast forward a few steps (I didn't take pictures of the baking process. But let me tell you, it was delightful. Just added some sour cream in the batter to heighten the moisture of the cake, and after cooling, I leveled both round cakes with a serated knife. Then I began making the frosting.

I had so many icing colors that I had purchased from the Wilton Tent Sale. I didn't know what color to choose. But after browsing the web and finding some inspiration, I settled on a teal icing color, which when mixed, turned more into a light blue. I love it.

Buttercream frosting, with a little more vanilla extract added. I love frosting. But whisking by hand really sucks. Let me tell you. It really sucks. I need a Kitchen Aid stand mixer. STAT.

Fast forward. This is my cake, with the cream cheese filling, and the beginning of the vanilla buttercream.
This is me trying to level the frosting with my 9'' spatula.

Viva baker's secret. It's not really a secret, but I think it should be sacred for bakers only as how to get cake icing this smooth. Literally almost flawless.

I had no more patience to try and get all the bubbles out, time to take out all my piping tips.

Ahhh Wilton 56 piece set in carrying case. (with 20+ more added to collection). Let's try the star tip.
Braided edge.
Let's do shells for the top border.
Don't touch... not done yet...

Ooooooh this is starting to look good. I love the color combination. Light teal with white.

Let's add some flowers. Fast forward a lot. My first time doing hydrangeas. Harder than I thought. I don't know how they make the rounded tips and perfect lengths for each level. But not bad for first time right? I didn't want to use another piping bag for green leaves so I just cut ziplock bag and it turned out just fine.
The almost finished product. I added some daises and other flowers, along with some green leaves. Just need to write my name and "Happy Birthday" and it will be done. Ignore the frosting dent on the top left of the cake - I had a piping bag-to-icing accident. There was skipped heartbeats and watery eyes. Not really - more like loud cuss words.
Fast forward: a rosebud vine. I've never done this before either! the best part is that you use the same piping tip (#104) that you use for full roses.
I think these are adorable.
I also like the colors I used for the flowers. I kept some flowers white to go with the borders of the cake, but I used a light pink from a pastel set from Wilton, and also the Leaf Green color, a MUST for cake/cupcake decorators.
hmmm.. what else can I do...

DROP STRING BORDERS! This was really fun doing. The only problem I had with drop string was that my consistency of my buttercream was too stiff, I should have thinned it out a little. But it wasn't bad at all.

Last but not least, "Happy Birthday Diana". It felt very weird writing this for myself. It's my birthday cake. I made my own birthday cake, and wrote happy birthday to myself. Weird? nahh.
The finished product.

Where did this cake end up? Good Question.

Placed in a cake carrying case.
8:00am: in the car
8:15am: On the train
8:50am: in the fridge at work
4:00pm: back on the train
4:30pm: on a table at the Palomar hotel
7:30pm: all around Jewel Osco in Chicago
8:40pm: in the fridge at Bucca de Peppo
9:00pm: dining table at Bucca de Peppo, accompanied by a plethora of candles
9:10pm: in the stomachs of my wonderful friends
10:00pm: leftovers back on a table at the Palomar hotel
11:00am: leftovers back on the train
12:00pm: leftovers back at kitchen table, where they first took shape in becoming a cake.

P.S. Sorry for the lack of updates. I still have so much to write about. But right now I'm in Maui on my birthday. Yes. Maui. It's actually 2am in Chicago right now, which makes it officially my birthday (only 9pm Maui time here) !Then when I get back home I will have much more to talk about. But until then,

Happy Baking!!

Sugar Cookie Pops

2010-08-15T21:01:00.009-05:00

Hi everyone! Sorry I've been lagging on my posts but there's been so much going on I can't wait to talk about it all!

But first off here is the main event of tonight: Sugar cookie pops!

I haven't made sugar cookies in such a long time, and with the time you have to make the dough, let it chill, bake, then prepare icing and then ice and wait for them to dry.. phew. I spread the process out in two days so I wouldn't be so overwhelmed. But nonetheless it was certainly fun. It was also my first time making Glacé Icing for decorating cookies - so please forgive me for all the icing run-offs and lack of professionalism. Only with time...

Let's start with all our materials. Measuring spoons and cups, lollipop sticks, eggs, rubber scraper, butter and cookie cutters. Not pictured: flour, baking powder, vanilla extract, sugar, wax paper, mixing bowls, and lots of paper towels. Also not pictured. Extra sticks of butter. And extra sugar. Sorry. It's all part of the ingredients list. I didn't make it up.

I decided last week that I was gonna make some cookie pops for my work. "Cookie pops", is a term for a cookie on a stick. (Cake pops = cake balls on a stick.. get it?) Wilton, the company that makes all things for bakery utensils (and gladly takes half my paycheck), manufactures these 6'' lollipop sticks. They also have 4'' lollipop sticks, and 12''... and cookie sticks, which is a different post in itself. Since our company, Launch, is based on a paper plane, I decided to make airplane cookies. And look what I had in my hobby chest: an airplane cookie cutter. I haven't really reached outside the realm of cupcakes recently, and my level of cookie cutter experience is limited to Christmas trees and failed gingerbread men, why not give this one a shot. This was going to be an interesting task. New cookies and new icing.

I'm not going to post pictures on the dough making process. Although it's not hard to make, let's just say there's a few ingredients, but a lot of it. And since I made two batches of sugar cookies, it was double the sugar, double the butter. Not that there's anything wrong with butter. I mean, Julia Child based her whole career off butter. So does Paula Dean... but hey, back to cookies. I had to separate the dough into four batches, and wrap them individually with wax paper.

Then they go into the fridge for at least a good hour to chill. Working with warm, soft dough is a big no-no with sugar cookies. And since they warm almost instantly the time they get out of the fridge, you must work fast when you roll them out to bake. I chilled my dough for a good two hours while I went to the store for corn syrup that I needed for the frosting. Actually it took me 2 minutes to buy corn syrup. The craft store was next door.... that's what took an hour and a half.

I rolled out one batch of dough at a time, leaving the rest to still chill in the fridge until I was ready for them. Roll the dough out till they're about 1/4'' thick, and use your cutter to punch out shapes. Lay them out on a cookie cutter and bake them at 350F for about 8-10 minutes until the edges of the cookies are a golden brown.

I realized that I didn't want to make all the cookies a "pop" so I left a majority of them as just a cookie. No stick. But they do look pretty neat on a baking sheet. Looks like a Boeing traffic jam.

I also found a flower-shaped cookie cutter and decided to also make some flower pops. Before putting them in the oven, insert the lollipop stick halfway into the cookie. They won't burn in the oven. I also was a little skeptical on how well this will hold upright so I took some extra dough and covered the top of the stick so they would stay secure after baking.

Fresh out of the oven.. Oh and that "extra dough" didn't flatten evenly as I wanted. No worries though, they will be covered up with icing.

Random note: Baking these cookies made the whole house smell like.. well.. sugar cookies. It was so overwhelming that I thought I was back at Magnolia Bakery. Not that it's a bad thing.. at at all. I like the smell of hard work mixed with warm baked buttery sugar goodness. It's just. I think I have 5 more cavities from just inhaling it. It was so hard not to eat them when they were cooling....

don't.. eat...not done yet..

Here are the airplane cookies. Right off the oven on my cooling rack. So warm...

Must resist..

Ok, well maybe I ate all the broken pieces.

Ok fine. Maybe I ate all the broken pieces AND purposely broke some pieces to eat.

But let the rest cool. I put these aside and let them cool in the kitchen for a full 12 hours while I dreamed of sugar plum fairies.

ICING SUGAR COOKIES

Now here comes the fun part. The next day you grab all your supplies for Glacé Icing.

Powered sugar, Wilton disposable bags, Food gel (I prefer the concentrated ones from Wilton), Light corn syrup, whole milk, a coupler, and a small piping tip. I used a #4 and #2.
Mix the ingredients according to the instructions. I tried to mix half of my icing to match the green that we have at work.

Fill the decorating bag with the piping tip and secure with the coupler. Then pour in the icing and twist bag to secure. Pipe outline on cookie, then fill in the cookie with icing. This is called "flooding", it prevents the icing to drip off the edges. Ignore image above. That was a failed attempt to properly hold piping bag in one hand and shoot a picture with the other. Use both hands! Stability is key.

Now look at this picture. It's better. Kinda..

I outlined all the cookies before I flooded them, to make sure the outlines had a little time to dry.

Flooded.

mmmmmmmmm..... cookie.

To flood, use squiggle icing in between the lines. No need to fill in all the negative space, if the consistency is right, they will flood in the space on its own. If not, then use the back of a spoon to help fill it in.

After all the green was put on, I had to let them dry for another few hours to make sure the icing was hard enough to pipe another color on top. A good tanning session and shopping trip definitely helped pass the time.

I made one more batch of icing, only this time I didn't color it and left it white. Also, I used a #2 piping tip instead of #4 for thinner lines. With the white, I put "windows" on one side of the plane and outlined each wing and tail.

Excuse my lack of line making skills. It wasn't helping that my coupler was malfunctioning and icing was coming from all sides of my bag. But not bad!

Oh - here's how the flower cookie pops turned out. I wasn't happy with the icing job, but after I outlined the petals with white I was a lot more content of how it looked.

But now I have to think about how I will carry them to work. And by "carry them" I mean eat them all. And by "to" I mean during.

Happy baking!

A Kitty named Kitty

2010-07-13T22:44:00.003-05:00

A few days ago my brother's friend found a stray cat living under his porch, along with a litter of kitties about 5 weeks old. We didn't want the babies to be feral and eventually get put down so we took the babies in. This is the kitty that we have in our house right now. I named her kitty.

She says hi.

Kitty?

You There?
Helllllllloooo?
hmmm...

Yup. This is basically all she does. Well, these are the only pictures that will come out - The times when she's sleeping and not jumping frantically, climbing furniture, chasing and pouncing on our feet, and meowing in the morning when I get up for work.

Until then, I'm gonna snuggle with this furball until my allergies kicks up.

1st Sox Game

2010-07-12T22:28:00.003-05:00

With the Sox ranked #1 now, and with me becoming more of a Sox fan everyday (sorry Cubbies), I felt that it would be appropriate that I post the pictures of my very first sox game that I went to a few weekends ago. My friend Kesha invited me to not only a free game, but a free game in the box suites!

Here's my view from my seat.

This is Kesha. My friend and co-RA of two years. She lived right above me as an RA on the second floor. I used her microwave too many times, and almost set the alarms off because I like my popcorn slightly burnt. Sorry Kesha. I also borrowed her Chocolat DVD and didn't return it until the school year ended. I also probably got her too drunk on many occasions. Why she invited me to this Sox game after all that I do not know. Probably because she felt bad for all the times she accidentally called me and I had to listen to the inside of her purse.

But hey, back to the game. This was my view. I must say, watching the innings pass with a silhouette of a pop can and a plate of food in front of me was kind of distracting. Maybe I should call and complain.

Brats, nachos, pecan caramel chocolate covered yummies, and pepsi to mix with my full bar.

This was spectacular! The clouds rolled in and sprinkled over Chicago a few times. We were well covered in our suite, but we watched all the people in the stands get up and walk to where they were under the overhang. Since it was a stop-and-go rain session, people got up to avoid the rain on several occasions. chuckle.

I believe that the Sox ended up winning this game as well, which makes victory sweet. So very, very sweet.

H2O Warehouse Sale

2010-07-12T20:37:00.005-05:00

About a month ago (I know, I'm late with writing my posts) H20+, a water-based, natural beauty product with ingredients derived from the sea, had its annual warehouse sale. Items were on sale from 50-80% off. Let's just say going to things like this sets (along with hobbies such as scrapbooking and baking) me back a few steps on trying to moving out.

Anyways, the sale went on from 7am-3pm. Luckily, I spotted this event around 1:00pm and made it in the building for about 45 minutes of shopping. Cardboard boxes with a string pulley replaced shopping carts. You'd not be surprised that my box was not dragging well due to how heavy it ended up being.

Even an hour before closing it was still pretty busy. There was a lady who had 4+ boxes that she was pulling around, just grabbing products in bulk and throwing them in. I wonder what her receipt looked like.
Well this is my purchase. Some of the stuff I've already started using (notice the half empty blue shower gel in the back left)
Loofas
Baskets
Hand and Nail Cream
Almond collection body balm
Spa collection shampoo and conditioners

Lip oasis gloss
Tanning lotion
Face scrubs
Naturalizing face gel
Gift bag of the Spa collection body wash and lotion
Here's my arrangement of body scrubs and gels. I love the natural spring scent, it smells wonderful! And face toner. And the H20 perfume is awesome too, I had to buy two of them because I loved them so much.

Somebody teach me how to spend wisely.

Just kidding. Don't.

Theses were cute spa/milk collection items in a handy gift box. $2.50 each, or was it $5.

Oh Well.

Oh you see that giant white gallon tub in the corner right? That's a gallon of body lotion. Yeah. I said it. It was crazy cheap and I had to buy it. Anyone need some I'll be happy to portion it off to friends, I'm sure I won't use it all by the time it expires.

Body mists, face sprays, the list goes on!

Don't you think I go a little overboard?

Ah whatever.

See you all at the next warehouse sale! be sure to clear out some trunkspace.

Staple City

2010-07-12T14:14:00.001-05:00

UK artist Peter Root's newest piece, titled "Ephemicropolis", is a city made of over 100,000 staples that were assembled over a time period of 40 hours.

The making of Ephemicropolis from Peter Root on Vimeo.

Rain That Wouldn't Go Away

2010-07-09T12:47:00.004-05:00

Two or so weeks ago, there was a very unhappy raincloud that decided to hover above Chicagoland and partner up with his Windy friend to see who could cause the most destruction. Here's some radar images to prove, if you are a weather nerd then you'd understand the dangers of phrases such as "bow echo", "shelf cloud", and very low pressure. Sorry, I had to utilize my knowledge of this easy elective class called "Severe and Hazardous Weather" I took two semesters ago.

As these pictures show, this is not something you'd want to call up your friends and head over to the large field to play soccer, let alone be driving in your car. Actually, it seemed that even being in a building is a bad idea - Two windows on the top floor of Willis Tower got blown out due to strong winds.

You see that yellow rectangle towards the bottom left of the colored radar? That, my friend, is a hook echo, the hallmark of tornado-producing super-cell thunderstorms. Scary stuff, and yes, I said tornado. But not just there- This storm planted several tornados across the radar, two of which just miles away from my house.

So the story goes: Around 3pm on Friday, work at the office has slowed to a trickle, while many of us wait to celebrate one of our co-worker's birthday and scarf on some delicious looking cupcakes, the sky is slowly churning and producing mucky colored clouds, winds blowing 70+ mph, which made the rain seem to pour sideways like if you tilted the Bellagio fountains 90 degrees and extended that across Chicagoland. By the time I head in the train to go home, the sky is filled with a color I've never seen before, so awkward I couldn't really recall it myself. Lighting flashed so bright that you didn't even want to look outside the train windows and the thunder was so loud you can almost claim to have said that an earthquake with a magnitude of 5.0 struck.

By the time I reached the station, CTA workers were warning us to stay inside due to tornado warnings in the area. Rain was blowing inside in all directions, and the wind was so strong that you didn't even want to poke your head outside the door, which even had a 7-foot canopy between the door and the street, because you'd end up with a face full of windy rain and a bad hair day. Since my mom picks me up from the station by the time I usually arrive, she called while on the train there that she was going to stay at work till the storm died down.

"Well that's gonna take forever"

And it did.

I waited nearly two hours before my mom came and got me, which still was raining pretty bad then. During that time, I watched the street in front of the station flood with 8 inches of rain, cars trying to ford the street to pick up their passenger and nearly kill their engine, umbrellas fly away, heard tornado alarms, and buses stop running (My train line eventually stopped running for several hours due to weather).

The ride home was pretty weird, downed trees everywhere, sad old, thick, branches laying parallel to the ground like the Jolly Green Giant went crazy stampeded through our neighborhood, power lines in the middle of the road, powerless street and traffic lights, and flooded streets everywhere.

I was almost certain that no one had power in our neighborhood.

But we were one of the only blocks that did.

Here's the driveway to our house. Clearly, the sewers weren't working. Every street basically looked the same, with a few inches more or less of water.

Here's my street.
Here's my street. My brother just purchased an inflatable kayak a few days before, and I was so tempted to go out and use this. But it was still lightning out so even standing in this water wasn't the safest idea.

These are my rain boots, which I discovered had holes in them. Right. After. I. Did. This.

That's the street running perpendicular to my house street, which sits a 70+ yr old church. The water engulfed all the way up to the sidewalk.

All my friend's in the area were out of power, and were still out of power for several days. The rest of the night was spent watching television on reports of power outages and storm damages.

Now, the streets are back to normal, power outages fixed, and winds calm. The only traces you can see from the storm are all the missing trees that went flat due to the wind.

Kitten, Ferrets and Paper Bag

2010-07-01T00:05:00.000-05:00

This is too cute, I had to share this:

Amy Atlas

2010-06-22T13:13:00.003-05:00

Having a little free time during the day allows me to start browsing some of my favorite websites, including Bakerella, PioneerWoman, BakeItPretty, and related subjects. Today I re-stumbled upon a really neat blog, SweetDesigns by Amy Atlas, and spent quite some time reading up on some inspiring designs and party themes.

Amy Atlas is a New York Party Planner, and she does it amazingly well. She even dropped her career plans for law practice to go back to her passion - baking and planning themed parties. Weird how I come across so many of these similar stories of people dropping a "steady" career to do what they love - and loving it. Maybe it's a calling.

Anywho, her blog is loaded with pictures of current and past projects that she has done, from a Pink Parisian themed party, to lime green margarita outdoor celebrations, and everything inbetween. She even has some stellar shots of cupcake recipes: my favorite of course. She even gets her party setups in spreads of famous magazines (very interesting to read!). So if you have time, browse her blog, and take a look in her website gallery.

Margarita Cupcakes: a double sin.

Check out these themed goody bags

photo credits: Amyatlas.com + Sweetdesigns

WTTW Telethon

2010-06-17T12:29:00.006-05:00

This is a late post (as all my posts are). About two weeks ago, the interns and some employees volunteered our time at the WTTW station, Chicagoland's local PBS television station. I'm a huge fan of PBS, grown up watching this station my whole life, and support the educational mission and their strive to make learning interesting.

As a kid, Saturday afternoons included recording cooking shows on VHS - such as Jacque Pepin on French cooking, Julia Child with her weekly guests on baking and pastries, Rick Bayless with his Mexican influenced dishes, and being awed by Jacque Torres' fascinating chocolate towers. PBS also inspired me artistically, with shows like Donna's Day, Beads Bobbles and Jewels, to even simple crafts that they had on Zoom. After I would record these shows, I'd spend the rest of the weekday watching them, over and over again.

So being able to visit the station, be a part of this telethon, and then receive tour of the building with Geoffrey Baer himself afterwards was awesome. We were told to be there at 6:15, but due to traffic we arrived around 6:30, but the program didn't start till about 8, we even had time to head downstairs to eat a free dinner in the cafeteria. About 7pm we walked to the room where the telethon was going to be filmed.

"Everyone find a seat and we'll wait for the other group of volunteers before we start the training session"

Here's me and Dana trying to look like pro-telemarketers. Each station had their own computer, keyboard, phone, and headset.

There's Geoffrey Baer setting up and getting ready to be broadcast live in-between sessions of playing "Chicago's Lakefront" - a WTTW series of Chicago history told in fascinating parts.

Working hard answering calls. Ok, I lied. This was taken during break while we had about 15 minutes in-between calling sessions.
Our group picture post-telethon

After the telethon ended - roughly 10pm- Geofrrey Baer gave us a tour of the station, showing us the recording room, different stages and sets, and even pulled out this heavy antique bicycle he's filming for the next recorded Chicago segment called "Biking the Boulevards". This was one of the last pit stops, the set where they flim "Chicago Tonight", a nightly news segment. What a great way to end up the night! Hope you call in and support your local PBS station!

The Wilton Tent Sale

2010-06-13T13:39:00.008-05:00

I finally uploaded my pics from the Wilton Tent Sale. Oh. My. God. My poor credit card (just wait for my blog about the H2O warehouse sale). We arrived at 7:15 when the doors close at 8:00, and I shopped so frantically that I even lapped the whole football-size sale tent twice to make sure I did not skip out on anything important that belonged in my cart.

Heading inside..
And take a deep breath.. The first thing my eyes took me to was what you see right here, boxes of cupcake stands, 3 tiers, 4 tiers, wired, plastic. Oh this is going to be painful. I'm sorry credit card. I really am. But you have to realize that a freshly decorated batch of cupcakes cannot sit in their cupcake tins for display. You need something like this. So people can see and inspect the goods, including the bottom half, and from all angles... you don't understand what I mean?
Credit Card: No, I don't know what you mean. You can buy this later, Diana. When you actually start to host parties and might need stuff like this.
Me: But you don't understand. All good bakers have this. (puts 3-tier easy assemble box in cart).. Should I maybe get another one?
Credit Card: sigh.. TWO cupcake displays? NO. no no. IF you do then I will un-authorize you.

Me: fine. Lets move along... what's this?... cupcake tins?
Credit Card: You already have cupcake tins. Lots.
Me: Yeah. I know, but look! insulated! Non-stick! Gasp* look here! Ones with plastic covers!
Credit Card: No, you don't nee-
Me: Oh hush, yes I do, you don't understand. Cupcakes can dry out if you let them sit out, and I don't have a good container to transport cupcakes without using shrink wrap and messing up my frosting. (puts cupcake tin in cart)

Where to next?.....
Cake tins! Look at these Spring Form heart-shaped ones, in all sizes. Do I need one?
Credit Card: .....
Me: Are you giving me the silent treatment?
Credit Card: .....
Me: finnnnnneeeee let's keep walking..

Oh look over here! Boxes of spatulas! Baby scrapers, mixing utensils.. cool!
Credit Card: .....no. stop. keep walking. Diana you already have a brand new 13'' flat spatula you've probably used twice.
Me: I know but with this (*holds up) 9'' angled spatula, I can easily round cupcake frosting and spread out cookie batter. (throws in cart) Oh cool! A silicone scraper! I'm sure I can use this for something. (throws in cart).
Credit Card: ... you're gonna owe me.
Me: I know, stop being so literal. You're no fun. Let's see what's down the next aisle.

cake stands, cake pillars, how about these?

Neato! Credit Card, look! An aisle dedicated to cake decorating, and this mini asile of piping tips. I don't have these: #81, a 3 pack of drop flower tips, #2 large star tip. Can I get them?
Credit Card: You DO have a #2 large star tip. Remember you bought them with me four months ago at Michael's?
Me: You have a crazy memory, get a new hobby (throws all them in basket)
Credit Card: If you're not going to listen to my advice, you will be helpless. Keep up the spending, my friend, and your mom will take me away from you sooner or later. I'm going to leave you here - we haven't even walked half the tent and look at all this stuff in your cart. I'm scared to see what the last half of the tent will be like. I'm signing out.
Me: yeah yeah, whatever. See you at checkout!

Good thing, because the last half of the tent sale was all stuff regarding crafts and scrapbooks. Look at these awesome clear stamps!
Tons and tons of them! I picked out a few of them, hoping to re-start my card making habits. But.. that meant I needed new inkpads. Walk 50 more feet and you'll stumble across some awesome Martha Stewart inkpads for $4 a piece, I grabbed 4 various colors- most excited about the maroon one.
Stickers and embellishments? Look at all these! Even some from Jolee's Boutique, and some scrapbook pads and tags, in various sizes, colors, patterns, and textures. At this time it was 7:57pm, and workers in their Wilton polos were warning last-minute shoppers like me to start heading to the cashier line to pay for our stuff. I sadly pushed my heavy cart towards the checkout lines.

I took this picture because the two checkout ladies were really fun to talk to. We told them that we'd be using our Home Depot gift card to pay for this stuff, and it was buy-one-get-one free right? "Thank God you guys are at least funny- because we had a lot of customers today that were so high-strung. Everyone goes crazy at the tent sale." This made me scared to even imagine what older ladies, one which I hope I do not turn into, are like shopping at a warehouse sale with their favorite products on super discount against other ladies similar to them. I mean, there are people who FLY into Chicago to come to this sale, some coming from overseas. I see it as the equivalent of a female Black Friday at Best Buy at 5am - people running, trampling, fighting. I just laughed at the thought, I shouldn't be laughing. This is serious matter.

This is my collection spread out on my table (excluding the scrapbooking materials and a plastic mixing bowl). I forgot to insert my 2 foot long receipt in the picture. I'm so excited!

A heart-shaped silicone mini baking tray, two Martha Stewart reusable piping bags, 3-in-1 caddy that you can store cupcakes, cake, or mini cupcakes in, a 9-inch angled spatula, a plane, butterfly, flower shaped cookie cutter, lilac piping cups....
4-tier dessert tower that's easy to disassemble and compact for storage, a silicone spatula, piping tips (finally found my crescent one #81 so i can make mum flowers!), 50-12'' box of disposable piping bags,
... a 12'' rolling pin, 2 boxes of rolled fondant, 2 boxes of buttercream, 2 boxes of whipped icing
.. icing dyes in the shades of: Rose Petal, Violet, Teal, Delphinium Blue, Xmas Red, Rose Petal, Juniper Green, Leaf Green, and a 4 pack of pastel colors.
..cupcake liners, in both regular and mini, some with cupcake toppers too!
... and lollipop sticks! yay for cake pops!

Credit Card: (shakes head in disappointment)
Me: oh you'll never understand. Sorry for putting a dent in you.
Credit Card: that's what you always tell me.

phew I'm pooped. I hope to make some cupcakes tonight and bring them to work tomorrow. Happy baking!

Wilton Tent Sale

2010-06-05T21:05:00.006-05:00

Thank goodness I checked their website. I just realized that the Wilton Tent Sale started yesterday. What is the Wilton Tent Sale? (gasp). Well, if you don't know, it's basically when the Wilton Company, a leading company in bakeware and food decoration headquartered in Woodridge, sets up a massive tent in their parking lot and sells all their inventory at 50% discounts or more. I am lucky enough to live just about 20 minutes away from their headquarters, for someone as enthusiastic about baking and sweet creations, it would be shameful if I let this opportunity pass me by. And not only do they have baking and houseware products there, but also having Party and Food Crafting, as well as Paper and Scrapbooking brands such as EK success, Martha Stewart, Jolee's Boutiques, and others!! Can you just picture the ginormous smile that swept across my face?

I must go, at least, AT LEAST 3 times. They also have daily exhibits and presentations on how-to's such as buttercream, rolled fondant, and chocolate candy molding at 1pm. I hope to catch some demonstrations (boo work week) on the weekends.

I must now compile a list of stuff I want to buy there.

Here's some fun stats:

Fun stats:
• Hours to prepare the tent for opening day: 4,560
 • Size of tent: football field length (100 yards)
 • Number of customers: 2,000 per day, some traveling from as far away as South Africa and Ireland

Bye for now, hope to see you amongst the muffin tins and fondant cutters.

Bubble Magnets II

2010-05-30T15:11:00.010-05:00

If you knew anything about me, you'd know that once I start something, I complete go all-in and blow it kinda out of proportion. So I have invested too much money making more bubble magnets. The good thing is that at least I really enjoy doing it, especially on a hot sunny day when I decide that I should stop taking 3 hr tanning sessions outside.

While waiting for my sunburn to settle, I grab all my supplies. Oh. I should mention that the previous post regarding bubble magnets used a 1'' circle punch because the glass gems were smaller, and because all the stores around my house (all three: hobby lobby, Michaels, and Joann's) all sell the larger version of them, I had to purchase a 1 - 1/8'' circle punch online (and yes, the 1/8th DOES make a huge difference).

Patterned paper, circle punch, Mod Podge, brush, 3/4'' circle magnets [they come in packs of 50], glass gems, hot glue gun, ipod player, and a long afteroon.

All fired up and ready to roll

I couldn't find this specific circle punch ANYWHERE in the stores, so I had to purchase online.
Waiting 5 days for shipping was slowly eating me away.

But once it came in, I was ecstatic. Funny thing was that it shipped in a large cardboard box about 500x its size, which made me scared that I might have purchased something like a 1'1/8'' hole punch (which I don't think exists)

Anywho, find your favorite patterned paper with good designs and high contrast, and punch away. It's actually very fun, so see how many circles you can get from a 12'x12' piece of paper. I feel like a pro at this now.

Once you're done making lots of circles, grab a brush and a eensy tiny bit of mod podge and dab it on the front side of the circle, then place the glass gem over. Make sure to rub the bottom of the paper well to cover all the edges, this is important when drying.

Look at how fun!

Green and Pink

This pattern is one of my favorites. The design fits perfectly!

Light pink with subtle brown design!

Bold black and pink, a classic.

These are my 3/8'' circle magnets. All separated and ready for glue.

Flip the gem over to its back.

Small dollop of hot glue.

Then quickly add a magnet and press down for 10 seconds.

Then you're done!!
Now you are ready to hit the fridges, dry erase boards, metal frames, and your aunt's replaced hips (nevermind, I found out that hip replacements are made from titanium).

Look how nice these turned out. I think this pattern is my favorite.

Greens.

black and white

My second favorite.

3rd favorite.

May have gotten a little overboard...

But anywho, which pattern is YOUR favorite? I need some input so I know which kinds to make more of. Me and my brother are going to buy a space for our town's flea markets, where he will be selling his plants (horticulture major) and I will be selling various craft projects like these and possibly some cupcakes! It should be fun!

Photography

2010-05-21T11:52:00.003-05:00

With the help of my friends, I have found a new inspiring site showing awesome photography.
It's called StudioThisIs
They are based off of Valparasio, IN, but they do a lot of photoshoots in the Chicago area.
Once you enter the site, you'll get sucked into it all.

So beautiful.

Indian Advertisement

2010-05-18T17:00:00.002-05:00

It's pretty good

Bubble Magnets

2010-05-17T17:36:00.009-05:00

So if you read the post below, I've graduated and moved back home. I have one week before I start work, so I will take advantage of sleeping in, being a bum, wearing comfortable clothes, and catching up one some crafts that have been on my to-do list for quite some time. What's worse than packing up your college life in several boxes, suitcases, plastic storage bins, craft boxes, and garbage bags? unpacking them. So I don't think I will. Unpacking really sucks.

I woke up this morning and pulled out some crafts from one of my moving boxes. Inside was a bag of glass circles for flower vases, hot glue gun, some Mod Podge I purchased from the store, 3 packs of 8 circle magnets, some cupcake stickers and embellishments and some scrapbooking paper. I spent some time tracing circles and cutting them out (at one point I realized I had a circle cutter from Friskars but my circles were either too large or too small).

It happened

2010-05-17T16:54:00.005-05:00

View more graduation photos HERE

The Bread Company: Fondue

2010-05-13T11:34:00.005-05:00

Last week I went with Allen Hall's French Club to The Bread Company for their annual fondue meal, a large meal that's paid for by University Housing group budgets (which made me think I should have done something with my leftover budget for Arts and Crafts Club..) Every year the RA leads a group they want to start, or continue in the dorms, and we then request funding for it for the entire school year, mainly to help with programing costs (supplies, transportation if needed, etc). At the end of the year, we sometimes come across a large pool of money leftover, and what better to use it on than a meal (relevant, of course to the group). So..French Club goes and eats French food (even though I think fondue is Swiss... close enough).

Anyway, The Bread Company is located only a block away from the dorm, and serves delicious European inspired dishes, mosly Swiss and French. They also put out tables, chairs, and large umbrellas during nice weather for those who want to mingle outside for their meals. But since we're such a large group we decided to stay indoors for this.

With that being said, I'm technically not in French Club, I don't even speak French, other than the Bonjour! Au Revoir! and Nutella. I've learned Spanish in school for about 7 years, and have little to show with my fleeting memory skills. But I have gone to this fondue event last year, and only seemed relevant that I show up again. With a 3 dollar deposit to cover gratuity, the smell of infused hot oil, cheeses I can't pronunce, and melted chocolate seemed right that I were to "chaperone" this event again.

Here's the lucky group of 15 that came to this event. All waiting patiently as our food is arranged. All with our little pokey sticks (not sure on the correct term for it) on hand.

The first dishes that come out are plates of raw beef chunks, seasoned with rosemary and various spices. In the middle is a smaller pot of roasted potatoes, seasoned in olive oil. Plates of raw veggies also come with, along with bowls of Swiss bread pieces for dipping.

A pot of hot, infused oil is brought out, that's where you dip your meat in. And then another pot of melted cheese is placed. right. in. front. of. me. and that's where you immerse your bread chunks, veggies, and potato wedges. Needless to say, our end of the table ran out of cheese relatively fast, and had to steal some from the other pots. hehe.

After all the meats, breads, and veggies were eaten and there was nothing left to scrape from the pots, we were excited to know that we still had a round of desserts next. Pots of high quality melted dark chocolate came out, and then came the plates.

Oh man. the plates of pears, strawberries, coffee cake, and apple wedges were even drizzled with chocolate before we even had to dip them in more chocolate. Who could resist taking a piece to eat before we all started poking eveything and headed straight towards bubbling chocolate?

" yummm" Was all I could hear across the long table.

Chocolate pots empty, and heating elements blown out, all of us were sad to wobble our way back to the dorms. What a great way to end the French Club, with full stomachs and a new phrase.

"Je suis heureuse" (I am happy)

Clydesdale Farm pt II

2010-05-13T10:38:00.005-05:00

A few weekends ago I went to another Clydesdale farm in Wisconsin. This one was the biggest farm with horses on it that I've ever seen. Along with that there was a chicken coop, peacocks, a deaf dalmatian, and lots of land.

In case you didn't know, Clydesdales are HUGE horses, the ones you see in the Budweiser commercials pulling the giant sleigh. An average Clydesdale is about 6.5 feet, maybe taller, and can weigh up to a ton.

This baby was born a few weeks ago, and is very special. His name is Apollo. If you look closely on his butt, he has a white heart. Budweiser would eat that up, only if he had four black knees.

He looks like a little punk, but was the only one that ate the carrots that we bought.

Canon Commercial

2010-05-12T13:07:00.001-05:00

CANON Commercial - Freeze Tag from Saman Keshavarz on Vimeo.

Cupcake Sets

2010-05-06T20:05:00.003-05:00

OMG BUY THIS FOR ME.

DIY Project

2010-05-06T14:14:00.005-05:00

This bright mobile project is perfect for a daytime wedding reception or shower (expert advice)
This bright and modern mobile project is perfect for a daytime wedding reception or shower and can be done in any color scheme. It will transform the room and make a big impact!

I found this cool post while browsing on Project Wedding. The only thing I'd change about this project is so make the weight heavier on the bottom of each mobile, probably using a heavier charm. And I prefer the idea of monochromatic. Too many colors just make too much impact.

Step one. Cut the sheets of vellum into one inch strips. You can do this with an exacto knife or have it cut all at one time with a stack cutter. (If you decide to go the stack color route organizing the paper in the order you want it to hang in will save you some time.)

Step two. Measure the height of the space where the mobiles will hang to figure out how long you want them. Keep in mind you'll want to keep the eyesight of the guests clear of any obstruction.

Step three. Once you know the length of the mobiles, layout the different colors in the order you want. Repeat until it is close to the length of mobile you want. Then put it into a stack and it is ready to sew.

Step four. Leave a 12" tail of thread at the beginning and start to sew down the middle of the first strip. (I found it is easiest to put a piece of tape on the sewing machine at the end of the strip as a guide to mark where the vellum should be sewn.) Continue feeding each addition strip into the sewing machine. At the end leave another long tail of string. As you are sewing try to be consistent on the amount of space between each strip but if its not perfect its ok, this design is very forgiving. Our mobiles were about four feet and the actual sewing took about 10 minutes for each mobile.

Step five. If left by itself, the bottom paper will curl up, add a simple fishing weight at the bottom to prevent this from happening and to add a nice polish to the project.

Step six. Hang the mobiles at varying heights over the center of the table with artist tape.

Here's one that Martha Stewart did with other pieces of paper. I figured you can punch holes with a 1.75'' EK circle punch.

Bakerella

2010-05-06T12:47:00.005-05:00

I've been food blog browsing again. A tad upset that I have not talked about one of my favorite websites Bakerella.

This person is the most in-depth cookie/cupcake/cake pops/etc blogger I have ever encountered, and her pictures are purely stunning. Enter her website and be warned, you may not come out for another few hours.

ABOUT:

Welcome to Bakerella.com. I started this website to help keep track of my baking and decorating attempts. I got the bug after taking an introductory cake decorating class and just haven’t stopped. The site focuses on fun and easy baking. It’s a place to explore recipes, desserts, decorating and even photography with a few giveaways sprinkled in along the way. You’ll find ideas for cupcake pops (a Bakerella creation), cakes, pies, cupcakes, cookies, brownies and more. You may even find yourself smiling from all the sweetness.

Making My Mark

2010-05-05T12:12:00.002-05:00

Murphy's Pub.

Shark!

2010-05-05T00:15:00.002-05:00

This definitely made me laugh.

Don't Judge Ads by its Cover

2010-05-02T14:27:00.004-05:00

new orleans craigslist
my coke for your pot
Date 2007-09-23, 10:59AM CDT

I have two-12 pack cases of Coca-Cola professionally chilled to 38 degrees F in a white Kenmore 25.1 cu. ft. side-by-side refrigerador/freezer with push button filter.

Looking to trade for your pot. A Kitchen Essentials ProSeries Nonstick 6-qt stock pot with cover would be ideal.

Candy

2010-04-28T16:13:00.004-05:00

Ever wondered by Sour Patch Kids are in the form of kids? I never really understood it.

Even Swedish Fish.

At least this makes sense.

Anthony Bourdain

2010-03-31T13:25:00.000-05:00

Two of my favorite things in 90 seconds

Road Trip: A week in review

2010-03-28T22:27:00.005-05:00

Well folks, I'm back and alive. Surprisingly, I never got carsick.

You can see all of my week's adventures in picture form with the click of this button

CLICK CLIKY

While that may not be enough incentive, here's some B&Ws taken from my buddy Sean who brough with him his 35mm camera. (wait. there's such thing as FILM cameras? Who would have known)

A few things I've learned on this trip:

1. Unless you have family, there's no point in visiting Nebraska

2. Oklahoma has the cheapest ciggs out of all the states we passed. $3.25 for a pack of Marlboro.

3. "Dressing up" to go to bars in Texas means: Best button down you have, best Levis jeans you own, clean cowboy boots, and your best Stetson hat. Boy did we fuck that up.

4. Colorado can out-snow any other state. We got 7 inches in 1 hour.

5. Non-traction boots are a no-go for mountain trekking.

6. I'm still allergic to cats.

7. Ci Ci's pizza is the most economical and tasty college road trip meal. Promotion for their 25th anniversary: $3.99 all you can eat!

8. Don't forget to check- double check- triple check that you packed everything before you leave the hotel. I have to invest in a new phone charger.

9. Texas wants you to know when you're in Texas.

10. Old Chicago is everywhere in the U.S. And has a great deal on beer Tuesdays! (110 varieties of beer!)

Photoshop cookies

2010-03-17T17:42:00.000-05:00

Adobe Photoshop Cook from Lait Noir on Vimeo.

Do not Trust Profile Pictures!

2010-03-16T01:56:00.001-05:00

Ad for SamsungDCC model. Human truth

Spring Break 2010

2010-03-16T00:28:00.004-05:00

This spring break involves many a miles: A roadtrip with 3 friends, 7 destinations, and a whole lot of stories.

TRIP DETAILS: Clicky Click

A map of our soon-to-be adventures around the U.S.

I'm sure I will be uploading lots of pictures and talking about weird side adventures. Keep posted in a few weeks to hear about my trip!

I love road trips!

Westwood Lodge

2010-03-15T17:37:00.007-05:00

One more rant about Springfield. Apart from the city of Lincoln, they're also known for their horseshoes. What's a horseshoe you ask?!

Quote from Wiki:
The horseshoe sandwich originated in Springfield, Illinois. This open-faced sandwich begins with thick-sliced toasted bread, and most often hamburger patties or ham. Other meats used commonly are deep fried pork tenderloin, grilled or fried chicken breast, and fried fish filets. There is also a "breakfast" horseshoe that uses eggs and hash browns. The meat is topped with french fries and smothered with a "secret" cheese sauce. With its many variations, it is a local favorite not often found outside Central Illinois.

Evil or Awesome.

I found a place called Westwood Lodge that sells horseshoes, but they call it "snowshoes". This place is not for vegetarians, you can tell from the decor.

lots of dead things..

My snowshow menu. You can even buy the patty as buffalo or elk rather than a regular hamburger.

They were having some Irish celebration for St. Pattys the moment we arrived there. Lots of men with bagpipes, kilts, and drums. Certainly great entertainment with my awesome food.

Horses and Holistic Healing

2010-03-15T13:17:00.004-05:00

On Saturday I took a trip down to Springfield to go visit a friend's Clydesdale barn. It was pouring outside so you couldn't really take the horses out for a walk or anything. Plus I don't think I would ride them since I've only ridden quarter horses and Clydesdales are HUGE.

View from Tracy and Mike's barn.

A mare with its young. The baby's coat is so incredibly soft.

Here's an Arab horse. He was my favorite.

Me and my friend took a trip to Meijer beforehand to purchase a bag of apples and carrots to feed the horses. I've learned that when feeding, you must lay your hand flat with the food on top or you might loose your fingers (small chance but hey, better to be safe). Some of these Clydesdales would rather you cut the apples in half first, and some would just take bites of the apple so you'd be literally holding the apple while the horse was picking at it. Cuteee.

Here's a horse that dropped my apple. The picture was taken right when it fell.

This particular horse had some knee problems, so when we were there, a "holistic healer" was there, and we were helping to keep this Clydes steady while she did some cool "touch points" and muscle inspection. In addition, she used scented oils and other various tools for this horse to heal properly. In my book, it seems pretty crazy but apparently there's a lot of people out there who live by this horse culture. She also had this lead ball on a chain (which i first thought was a pendant necklace) that she used over specific horse points. Depending on how this ball spins, it could apparently tell what is wrong with the horse. I found out this trick is used a lot to tell if a mare is pregnant and to tell the gender of the baby. I guess there's a lot of iron in the horse's body that collects in the horses' kidneys and using this technique is apparently pretty accurate. I'll try to do some more research with this later.

Post-Its: no longer a reminder tool

2010-03-14T20:29:00.001-05:00

Bounty Can Drop Some Balls

2010-03-12T23:30:00.002-06:00

No Words

Cupcake Delivery - 3.99 shipping

2010-03-03T23:26:00.008-06:00

So I splurged on myself and purchased both Magnolia's Complete Cookbook and Martha Stewarts Cupcake book. I really need to find that kitchen-aid mixer my mom has in the basement somewhere stashed. These books arrived last week and every single recipe looks amazing (amaesing?). I now have magnolia's buttercream recipe and I can't wait to try it out, although it's not terribly different than the usual buttercream frosting.

My friend Kyle came to visit me and we ended up at Hobby Lobby (one of my most beloved places). I spent a good 45 minutes at the baking section explaining what everything on the shelf was/function. Then I picked up Wilton's cake decorating book and was sucked into all the visuals and demonstrations. Long story short, I had recieved a package this week and one of the things in it was.. the book! I was so pumped.

The basket weave. Yes. It looks challenging, but really isn't.

I also spent two weekends ago at Hobby Lobby (surprise) buying useless crap for my unhealthy obsessions. All the valentine's stuff was already heavily discounted, so Janie and I bought lots of stuff that day. Mine included this large heart box that I think I will either use for storing cupcakes or use as another crafty/embellishing/ribbon box.

(the Fun Dip wasn't from Hobby Lobby, but fit in the V-day category)

These glittery hearts are not edible, but can be used to top cakes with! Probably one made from fondant.
Still waiting to explore the fondant world.

Cupcake Toppers! Aren't they cute!

Want to learn how to pipe cupcakes and cakes without buying books? There's lots of videos online (Youtube) that you can search. That's where I started off.. here's just a couple..

PinkCakeBox (check out their website too)
Xanthe Milton (British)
WILTON (subscribe to their videos)
Learn Cake Decorating

.. there's so many videos, you just have to search around!

Vintage - potentially dangerous inspiration

2010-03-03T20:48:00.004-06:00

So flickring images of cupcakes led me to someone's link...

Such Pretty Things

Which has an amazing showcase of crafts - specifically vintage inspired. Lots of lace, ruffles, pastels, flowers, and neat stores that I want to eventually want to visit. Here's some snippets from her blog.

Which led me to another link on her blog...

Natasha Burns

Natasha is another crafty person.. vintage inspired here's images

Reading these are going to take up a good half my week. Starting 3 hours ago.

Parisian Love- Parody

2010-03-01T20:11:00.000-06:00

Would this still be your favorite ad if played on the superbowl?

10 Minute Bakesale

2010-02-22T21:25:00.003-06:00

Friday night turned out quite inspirational. I ran around all day doing errands with a friend and went shopping at Hobby Lobby for supplies to make another "kraft box". At the end of the night, all I wanted to do was bake cupcakes. This time was Banana cake with Vanilla frosting.

There is a secret that I learned on how to keep cupcakes moist- substitute water for whole milk, and then add about 1/2 cup of sour cream and mix with batter. It really does work.

I didn't have the ingredients (or patience) to make my own buttercream frosting, so I just used a can of Pillsbury vanilla frosting and added confectioners sugar for consistency when piping.
Then I separated the frosting into sections and colored them, put them into piping bags.

Green leaf tip, and #104 rose tip.. half the bag filled with purple frosting, other half I left white, so when you piped it correctly it would be bi-colored. Pretty neat.

Was happy with the rose, not so much with the leaves. I was experimenting with making ruffles, and then layering them. Didn't work so much.

With all these cupcakes made, I decided to sell them. I marketed them- 2 for $1- and they went pretty fast. Didn't really go for a profit, but I just wanted to make up for supply costs. Went pretty well! Now to use that for laundry....

Clorox: Trusted to Keep Your Mistress Around

2010-02-17T16:32:00.005-06:00

Last month I had decided to purchase the second season of MadMen to keep in my collection. (Season 3 doesn't come out till March). Upon opening the DVD set, I found a neat product placement for Clorox Bleach- an insert ad when you unfold the CD elements.

Yes, I purchased from Amazon. You can't beat $2.99 shipping.

GASP. It's almost the sensation of finding a prize in Cracker Jacks. Only not.

For me, I believed that this was a new take on their position. Think about all the Clorox ads that you've seen in the past- mix with water and throw in plastic baby toys, rinse, so your family can be safe from dangerous bacteria/ keeps your whites white/ etc. Obviously Clorox targets the women in the household, but seeing this ad makes me think twice bout their position. Should wives be proud to see this when they stumble upon it? Here's a TV spot I found...

I then decided to do some research on this and here's some quotes through some blogs I found:

A Fish Named Freddy: The video clip was sponsored by Clorox. I would take a guess and venture to say that Clorox has traditionally advertised to women, who make up a large majority of their target audience. Nothing sexist about it, just saying that traditionally, women have done the laundry. The ad, posted below, made me question, are companies using Web advertising differently than they do TV or print?

After watching the ad, my first reaction was that it's catchy but my second reaction was to think that it's a bit risky. First, as a member of Mad Men's target audience (not Clorox's) I identified with the ad, mostly because it mimics the morals of the show. Second, I wondered why a traditionally family-focused brand (Clorox) would want to associate itself with successfully assisting men in committing adultery, even if it's all in fun.

BrandChannel.com: But according to a mystifying Clorox ad that seems to pop up every time I watch Mad Men, while mom's doing the laundry, her husband is off smooching his secretary. The Clorox ad features a man’s white, lipstick-stained dress shirt, and reads: “Clorox. Getting ad guys out of hot water for generations.” How are stay-at-home moms – the apparent target of all Clorox's other branding efforts – supposed to respond to this? “I’ll go get my husband some Clorox to help him cover up his numerous affairs”?

Follow Madmen.com post about commercial

It's like the Red Carpet

2010-02-12T19:11:00.004-06:00

I can't stop thinking about cupcakes. So after I cleaned my room and washed my dishes I took my supplies and went to the kitchenette. In honor of Valentine's Day I decided to make a batch of red velvet cupcakes. However, red velvet cupcakes usually pair with a cream cheese frosting. And since I didn't feel like going out in the cold and spending money for frosting supplies, I decided to use my Wilton Chocolate Buttercream Ready-to-Pipe frosting that I had on hand.

I was happy to find these cupcake liners (again from Wilton). Makes my cupcakes fit the theme. I think they were leftover from my cupcake decorating program that I hosted for Food of Love a month ago.

I added several drops of red food coloring to the already red velvet batter to make the cake a more intense red.

Here are the cupcakes right out of the oven.

The frosting out of the container tends to be pretty stiff, so i had to work it with a wooden spoon and add a little milk to thin it out. I think if I had an electric mixer it would help so much, and would make piping a lot easier. Here's a swirl I made on a few of them with a #195 tip.

I didn't want to refill the bag after I ran out of frosting so I just decided to use my 11' flat spatula and frost the rest. Here's a few more. I think I came out with a total of 21 cupcakes, and since I had no one specific to give these to, Kesha gave me the idea to leave them at the front desk of my dorm with a note from "your 1South RA".. so that's exactly what I did.

Arranged on a platter

Here's a really crappy picture of the view from the lobby. We had just gotten back from dinner and there were some cupcakes already eaten! Mission accomplished.

Magnolia Bakery

2010-02-11T12:25:00.007-06:00

While in NYC, a few friends and I decided to stay an extra day longer so we can explore the city (thus the "In the Heights" purchase). My one goal that week was to visit the original Magnolia Bakery on Bleeker St, right by the West Village, which was a 30 minute trek through Greenwich Village from Soho, where we did some shopping for boots (that's another story).

Such a cute little store on the corner.

I really wanted to see how the workers made the signature "Magnolia Swirl" with their buttercream frosting. [demonstration]. Upon entering, you're encapsulated with this sweet aroma of baked goods integrated with sugary mixtures from the all the various frostings that they make.

Whatever cupcake that you want to purchase is to the left hand side. On a counter by front window there are about six trays of different cupcakes: chocolate, vanilla, red velvet**, etc. You grab a box and parchment paper, and snatch whatever cupcake you feel like, which for some is the one you see with the most frosting. I do highly suggest you do rationalize your decisions because you could be standing in front of all these trays for what seems to be minutes before you pick up the two you want. And then notice all the annoyed customers standing in line behind you. And these cupcakes don't come cheap. Mine were $3.00 each, but well worth it.

Vanilla cupcake with Chocolate Buttercream

Here's my Magnolia box. I kept it so I can take dimensions so I can make my own boxes if I get bored one weekend.

I heard so many good things about their red velvet cupcakes that I had to try one for myself. (picture on the right). The one on the left is a regular chocolate cupcake, which Amanda purchased. I had bought a red velvet and a "hummingbird cupcake"- which consists of crushed bananas, pineapple, coconut, and pecans, covered with a sugar cream cheese frosting. Personally, I was disappointing with the hummingbird, mostly because the frosting was too heavy.

BUT.. I had never tasted a red velvet cupcake so delicious in my life. The batter is heavily tinted red, thus turning these sweet mini treats into a royal delight. And what I love most about this cupcake is the lightness of the frosting, as much frosting they use on their cupcakes (they like to call it a "dollop"), this particular frosting is whipped to perfection, not dominating, but instead compliments, cake portion.

Best cupcake ever.

REEDDD velvet cupcake. They mean business.

In conclusion, Magnolia Bakery has increased my passion to utilize my oven more. I am now on a quest to purchase their cookbook (in which the cashier told me has their buttercream recipe inside!!), as well as buy myself an electric mixer since I blew out my last one mixing cookie dough..

Even greater news: Wilton's headquarters in Woodridge has their annual Tent Sale going on in June.
"The Wilton Tent Sale, which is held in Woodridge, Illinois, is a popular event for cake decorators and crafters. This year’s Wilton Tent Sale will offer amazing deals on a wide selection of Wilton cake decorating and baking supplies as well as kitchen and paper craft products from Copco, EK Success Brands and K & Company. In addition, demonstrations of Wilton products and crafting techniques will be offered throughout the sale."

Kcaps and I already have made plans to attend this awesome event. Anyone that wants to join in on this adventure let me know!

seemed like the right time to insert this picture...

New York

2010-02-11T11:56:00.004-06:00

It's been a while since I haven't been blogging, and I feel like I have so much to catch everyone up on.

First off... I had spent last week in NYC as one of the Most Promising Minority Students through AAF. I can't put into words how amazing this experience was, being able to meet with advertising industry professionals, staying at a great location just blocks from Times Square, seeing a Broadway show, watching Katie Couric doing the CBS Evening News from the control room, and making some great friends from this program. It was definitely something that I am very honored to have been a participant in, as well as a great "foot in the door" for my career.

Here's us chilling with Katie Couric at CBS

In addition to seeing Memphis on Broadway, another colleague and I took advantage of TKTS and got tickets to In the Heights. In return, I am again morphing into a musical fanatic. I-tunes playlists for musical soundtracks are beginning to pile up.

no me digas

Me after the show

New Website!

2010-01-23T03:12:00.003-06:00

First ever personal website. I hope it's gonna be worth the money I paid for a domain and hosting.

www.dianamaes.com

Olympus Pen

2010-01-20T11:53:00.001-06:00

Cool stuff by Olympus

The Ad Mad! - Creative Advertising, Art and Design blog - Part 2

2010-01-20T11:43:00.000-06:00

The Ad Mad! - Creative Advertising, Art and Design blog - Part 2

Second Try with Buttercream

2010-01-19T00:14:00.004-06:00

Got really bored tonight, the night before classes start. Me and a staff member decided to use the kitchenette downstairs to make food. So I HAD all the ingredients to make cupcakes and frosting..

First Attempt at Buttercream Frosting

2010-01-17T17:24:00.005-06:00

So while my awesome vacation in Hawaii, I decided to bring some piping tips, coupler, and flower nail and make some cupcakes for my friends....

Ingredients to make buttercream frosting was easier than I thought..

My first attempt at buttercream roses...

guess who now has a stash of cupcake mix and frosting ingredients in her dorm closet...
.. and guess what program I'm going to host next in the building... :)

Save your Scraps!

2010-01-17T17:17:00.004-06:00

I used my leftover black patterned paper to make holiday/Xmas/greeting cards...

Krafy Box

2010-01-17T16:54:00.007-06:00

So I can finally reveal my creations for Christmas presents! I made a lamp out of "Krafy Box".. a glass block that I purchased at Hobby Lobby..

String of 20 mini lights

Black patterned paper

Colored vellum paper

I attached the vellum to the outside of the glass via Spray Adhesive and Glue Dots

How the lights look from inside

Spray Mounted the black paper on top of the vellum

Had to widen the cap hole to squeeze the bulbs through so the plug sticks out

Mosaic Tiles

added to the top of the cap [matched the color of the lamp]

A teal one and a rose red one that I made for my friends

Merry Christmas!

Baking Sense

2010-01-01T23:37:00.009-06:00

So while I'm on a blogging streak, I mindas well share some of my cookie creations made over the past few months..

Chocolate cookies w/ caramel center topped with a roasted pecan

The ones below were shot from my phone so that's why the picture quality was kinda crappy.

Peanut butter cookies with Hershey's center

Gingerbread cookies..[the recipe was kinda shitty so we brought them to our cousins for Christmas and all the little kids had a good time decorating them when we were waiting for dinner]

Chocolate cookies with white chocolate chips and walnuts

This gingerbread [graham craker] house was made during our "Allen Hall-iday" events in the dorms one weekend. Nothing better than using University money for mindless entertainment]

I think I found my future

2010-01-01T22:41:00.008-06:00

This winter break has been going pretty sweet. Aside from waking up past noon on several occasions, watching the entire season 1 of MadMen, binge drinking, visiting the city, learning how to use Adobe Flash, building a personal website, most importantly- I have been using my stove to its maximum, pumping out a variety of cookies, brownies, and cakes [thanks to my $6 purchase of BHG's special edition of "Best 100 cookies" magazine]. I've also been on youtube watching videos on how to pipe buttercream/royal frosting on cupcakes and cookies. Right now, I probably know more about Magnolia bakery and how they make their perfect swirl with buttercream frosting like no other. When I go to NYC in a month for AAF's Most Promising visiting Magnolia is definitely part of my to-do list.

Magnolia's famous swirl -- all in the clean 11' flat spatula, tilted angle, and quick wrist movement

Now I am officially obsessed with cupcake decorating, which closely bleeded into my cake decorating obsession. So obsessed that I went to the store and bought 3 piping tips, flower nail, coupler, and an 8-inch piping bag. One day later, I decided to buy a 56-piece master piping set that also includes 2 flower nails, and 2 couplers. Impulse purchases are so awesome.

comes in a easy storing case!

So in addition to this new obsession, I am a follower to several blogs/websites/youtube channels who make cakes and cupcakes for a living, and even looked into taking cake decorating classes at my local Michael's/Joann Fabrics store. One of my favorite websites below:

www.pinkcakebox.com

Something interesting about the founder of PinkCakeBox: Anne "Khoobiar" Heap was a Boston College graduate-- Major in ADVERTISING. She left her profession to do what she loved the most- baking. She then went to France and went to the Pastry Arts Institute and now has a very successful career in her deepest passion. Many bakers and cake decorators get their inspiration from her designs, and she's featured in many different magazines and websites. Maybe she's trying to get through to me.. hmm. Follow the same road? We'll see I guess.

...... off the topic of baking now..

I've been doing lots of other crafts right now, which includes a lot of paper crafting, canvas buying [canvas buying is key word, not 'painting' just yet], and hot glue gunning. I'll show you what I've been creating in the next blog, after my friends open their Christmas presents (tomorrow)... then I can share my gift to the rest of my readers.. :)

New Year Resolutions:

- don't be so bitter about past events - leads to a less stressful life
- make CRCE part of a daily routine
- become more viral- which means I should probably start blogging more again

BOOK: CREATIVITY

2009-11-15T21:26:00.005-06:00

It's been a while since I have made any posts to this blog. It will slowly but surely come back!

I've been trying to be more well-rounded with what's going on in the advertising world, especially in the creative field. So, I have decided to spend at least a few hours a day per week in the basement of the Communications library, looking through old One Shows and Lurzers. Last week, I found this book on the shelf, and it blew me away.

CREATIVITY 37

As I opened it, it was filled with so much inspiration, wonder, curiosity, and excitement. I literally spent 2 hours in awe with each page I flipped.

So tonight, to keep my excitement level up, I purchased this book online, ALONG WITH Creativity 38. A $60 purchase well spent.

sleep well my friends. Sleep well.

Art and Copy

2009-08-20T10:28:00.003-05:00

So I decided this morning that I was going to catch up on my advertising skills and look up things at the One Show website, but after one minute of searching, I came across this site, a MOVIE dedicated to the advertising industry and strategic thinking. It's called "Art and Copy" and will be shown at the music box theatre this coming fall!!!

Excerpt from site:

ART & COPY is a powerful new film about advertising and inspiration. Directed by Doug Pray (SURFWISE, SCRATCH, HYPE!), it reveals the work and wisdom of some of the most influential advertising creatives of our time — people who’ve profoundly impacted our culture, yet are virtually unknown outside their industry. Exploding forth from advertising’s “creative revolution” of the 1960s, these artists and writers all brought a surprisingly rebellious spirit to their work in a business more often associated with mediocrity or manipulation.

http://www.musicboxtheatre.com/features/art-copy/

Showtimes from August 21

Friday, August 21: 5:45pm · 7:45pm · 9:45pm ·
Saturday, August 22: 1:50pm · 3:45pm · 5:45pm · 7:45pm · 9:45pm ·
Sunday, August 23: 1:50pm · 3:45pm · 5:45pm · 7:45pm · 9:45pm ·
Monday, August 24: 5:45pm · 7:45pm · 9:45pm ·
Tuesday, August 25: 5:45pm · 7:45pm · 9:45pm ·
Wednesday, August 26: 5:45pm · 7:45pm · 9:45pm ·
Thursday, August 27: 5:45pm · 7:45pm · 9:45pm ·

anyone wanna go?

It's Time to Refresh

2009-08-09T22:06:00.004-05:00

Hey folks. It's Diana here.

I figured since this summer's over and I need to get back on my feet about getting on top of things, I'm going to get cracking with things that I need to get done. This is just one of the few things that I have to do. I'm surprised that I haven't done much blogging this summer since I didn't really work that much, and I had a LOT of free time.
... But that time was spent basking in the sun, downing beer, and hanging out in front of the welcoming television that I do not acquire at school.

But now I'm back in my dorm room getting ready for a new school year, a new set of classes, and a lot of exciting and fun things to look forward to. (However, NOT excited about being in 95 degree weather with no AC).

I have a lot of things to write about that I don't have time for right now.. but here's a brainstorm.

- transit advertising in Chicago
- dorm decorating
- summer photoshop/illustrator tutorials
- Internship advertisements
- tea
- beta
- paintings

.. more to come. stay posted

Guerrilla Marketing

2009-06-11T22:38:00.006-05:00

Brilliant. Easy. Effective.

Summer List pt. 1

2009-05-18T00:05:00.005-05:00

This summer is going to rock it.

I'm canceling my marketing interview for Tuesday.
I'm planning on booking a trip to Austria and backpacking Europe with three of my closest friends.
I'm going to take an online course to learn how to make a website!

- buy domain name. get cousin to host for me :) Design. design. design

I'm going to sign up for an online TEFL course to get my certificate, then job hunt after my senior year.

which leads to.. I might end up teaching an ESL class over the summer!

I'm going to register to take classes (in photoshop, illustrator, and Java). AND if the classes fall through, I have the full Creative Suite tutorials from Lynda, which I will watch, practice, practice, practice, till I'm a pro. This will totally give me an upper hand when ADV 452 comes around. Which, by the way.. imsopumpedfor.
Creating Summer Calendar soon!
Madison Street
Michael comes back from Phili. Watch out.
Gay Pride Parade
Bon Fires
Hanging out with people who matter
Warren Dunes
Tanning
Hitting the Bike Trails
Grant Park Film Festival
OH MY GOD. CHICAGO.
Sox Games
Real Pho
Real Chinese Food
El Milagro Tortillas
A piano! (out of tune, but I'll deal)
Making springrolls.greenonionpancakes.congee
I'm learning how to make pad thai and pad see ewe
Driving and yelling and people
Lake Street and Khyber Pass
Museums, the zoo, Art Institute
Dillo Day
A real sewing machine
I can't even explain

Lite. Add Friends. Enjoy

Starbucks: Don't Be Seduced by Lower Prices

2009-04-30T18:55:00.002-05:00

Oh dear.

"The high-end coffee retailer is breaking a series of long form, full-page newspaper ads Sunday, designed to tell the brand's "story" while warning consumers about the dangers of trading down. It's all part of its effort to combat consumer perception about its prices and separate itself from McDonald's expected mass-market assault for its McCafe launch." - AdAge

My Mosaic

2009-04-28T23:50:00.004-05:00

How It Works:
A. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search: (http://www.flickr.com/).
B. Using ONLY the first page, pick an image.
C. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into Mosaic Maker: (http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/mosaic.php).
D. Change rows to 3 and columns to 3.

The Questions:
1. What is your first name? Diana
2. What is your favorite food? Spring Rolls
3. What is your favorite color? Mustard Yellow
4. Favorite drink? Long Island
5. Dream vacation? Dehli, India
6. Favorite hobby? Scrapbooking
7. What you want to be when you grow up? Art Director for Ad Agency
8. What do you love most in life? Moments of Inspiration
9. One word to describe you? Whoa

Easter Calling

2009-04-21T00:08:00.003-05:00

Every year, I make it a tradition to make Spring eggs for my staff and fill it with YUMMY CHOCOLATE. It's a long two-day endeavor filled with hot glue gun burns and tangled ribbon.

But here are the end results:

Billboard

2009-04-21T00:05:00.004-05:00

Assignment 8: Outdoor
(aka: Billboard)

Make a billboard for a travel destination. Everyone did something out of the country. "Experience this, or take the challenge, or sight see" that.

I went with Brookfield Zoo. My trusty loyal buddy who've I've known for such a long time.

Strategy?: connect mothers and their family to the zoo, and remind them of the fun facts that they learn at the park as an engaging and learning experience.

Duchamp Grice

2009-04-14T15:52:00.007-05:00

So me and my friends grew up together taking four years of visual arts in highschool. Since our art teacher was new when we were freshman, we all bonded very very very well.

Our art teacher, we called him Grice (or G-ride).

We painted murals for the Veterans Hospital
We painted snow plow murals, and also skipped school to attend the snow plow contest (which we are not allowed to talk about)
We did backdrops for the school TV studio.
We made art CDs and brought them to class, which Grice would often tell us to skip to the next song due to profanity.
We had Junk Yard Wars
We took a trip to NIU to take a life drawing class (which we had a 9-month old pregnant woman as our model)
We had pumpkin painting contests
We learned how to use Photoshop!
We tasted the famous Grice guacamole.
We made April Fools faculty photos and put them on display in the front of the school, which turned into a big commotion.

The best day was our highschool graduation. As our present, we were all invited to the wedding ceremony of him and his fiance, Anna. Of course, then, we had to make him gifts! What better things than to make homemade presents! So we made him coasters for his house from moasic pieces, and presented it along with a homemade card and a gift certificate.

Cheers to Grice.

Of course, we had to semi-raid the wedding reception and take lots of pictures with the photographer. hahaa

"Kick It Up A Notch"

2009-04-11T13:31:00.005-05:00

OK. That title was not really something I came up with. I just used it because half of my class used it as their tagline for our Lab Assignment, which was to use the Heinz KICK'RS Ketchup logo that they gave us and make a print ad.

Here's mine:We went around the classroom and each one had to vote for their favorite ad. I tied with another kid in class, which he also had pretty good art direction. I hope he's in my 452 next semester.

Tribute to Broadway

2009-04-06T15:28:00.010-05:00

I can't stop obsessing. My inner musicals are crawling back into my skin. I've played Rent for 24 hours straight, followed by Wicked and Sweeney Todd.

I think we've found the place where we belong. Dr. Dillamond, it couldn't happen here in Oz.

Sad how I've fallen asleep to the movie several times. I've never seen it all the way through. But I love the music. I should see it.

The next time I'm in NYC, I'm heading straight to TKTS and getting myself some orchestra tickets for Gypsy!!

Also on my things to see: Spamalot. If the movie Life of Brian is funny enough, this would probably keep me on the edge of my seat.

mmmmmm . Sweeney Todd. Meatpies, anyone?

And the Gods heard her prayer.
Billy Porter is a Genius. ONTI is one of my favorites.

Les Mis.

Jersey Boys. Are you still in Chicago? You were last summer. It's all my co-workers talked about.

.. and much more. More Broadway ranting later.

2009-04-05T15:25:00.004-05:00

I found the coolest thing today.
It's called Idee.

We extracted the colours from 10 million of the most “interesting” Creative Commons images on Flickr. Using our visual similarity technology you can navigate the collection by colour. Also available with Alamy Stock Photography.

So you just choose any colors from the palate on the right, and it'll look on flickr for the corresponding colors, the more colors you add, the more varied your pictures will be from the spectrum!!

IDEO does it again

2009-03-26T16:35:00.003-05:00

Breakin' Things In the Kitchen

2009-03-26T13:36:00.007-05:00

I decided that over break that I would learn some new things in the kitchen. So I learned how to make sushi (after some inspiration from Food of Love's tempura and sushi making night). But first I had to make some cookies.

Here comes the sushi part! I went to the store cuz we didn't have avacados, imitation crab, and also a nice cucumber. At home, I was happy to have short grain rice, carrots, rice wine, and some nori.

I also learned how to make congee (juk in Chinese, or rice soup) with preserved duck eggs and thinly sliced pork.

topped with scallions

A Trevor Filled Weekened

2009-03-01T22:02:00.007-06:00

So this blog is semi unrelated to "all things crafty" but I felt the need to post things of my adventurous weekend. Trevor hall played on Friday in Urbana at the Canopy Club, and then again at the Beat Kitchen in Chicago on Saturday. Of course, we went to both shows as crazy fans.

While on this tour, Trevor had begun a contest of who could decorate the van in each city stop the best. [click][click again]. It's usually people who drew things in the dust of his van.

Me and some people decided to take it several notches higher. We grabbed window paint, made origami cranes [click], and just went all out.

This is what Trevor had to say in his next show:

But we couldn't leave it at that. Then came caution tape in Chicago. Trev thinks we're nuts. But he did say we're on top of the contest! woot.

[He put our origami cranes on the rear-view mirror]

Why Hello

2009-02-21T21:04:00.003-06:00

Valentine's Cards

2009-02-14T19:18:00.006-06:00

Every year I make homemade V-day cards for my staff. Here are the ones from this year..

This is What Happens at the Craft Store..

2009-02-14T19:12:00.006-06:00

(above) Picking out my fabrics for my stuffed Owls..
(below) some of the beads I bought to make earrings. I'm selling a bunch of them so if you're interested, let me know! .. or you can find them on Etsy

10 Interesting Pictures of the week

2009-02-03T22:48:00.005-06:00

I took some pictures around my room today, using the Macro feature on my digital camera. Let me know what you think.

How to Be Interesting

2009-02-03T22:34:00.004-06:00

Quoted from Russell Davies, Planner and Planning Blog Guru

1. Take at least one picture everyday. Post it to Flickr. You should carry a camera with you. A phonecam will do. The act of carrying a camera and always keeping an eye out for a picture to take changes the way you look at the world. It makes you notice more things. It keeps you tuned in.

2. Start a blog. Write at least one sentence every week. It's easy to knock blogging as a kind of journalism of the banal, but in some ways that's its strength. Bloggers don't go out and investigate things (mostly): they're not in exciting or glamorous places: they're not given a story but have to build one out of the everyday lives they lead. And this makes them good at noticing things; things that others might have not seen. Being a blogger and feeling the need to write about stuff makes you pay attention to more things, makes you go out and see more stuff, makes you carry a notebook, keeps you tuned in to the world.

3. Keep a scrapbook. I've talked about this before. It's good. Do it.

4. Every week, read a magazine you've never read before. Interesting people are interested in all sorts of things. That means they explore all kinds of worlds: they go places they wouldn't expect to like and work out what's good an interesting there. An easy way to do this is with magazines. Specialist magazines let you explore the solar system of human activities from your armchair. Try it; it's fantastic.

5. Once a month interview someone for 20 minutes. Work out how to make them interesting. Podcast it. Again, being interesting is about being interested. Interviewing is about making the other person the star and finding out what they know or think that's interesting. Could be anyone: a friend, a colleague, a stranger, anyone.

6. Collect something. It would be anything. It could be pictures of things. But become an expert in something unexpected and unregarded. Develop a passion. Learn how to communicate that to other people without scaring them off. Find the other few people who share your interest. Learn how to be useful in that community.

7. Once a week sit in a coffee-shop or cafe for an hour and listen to other people's conversations. Take notes. Blog about it. (Carefully). Take little dips in other people's lives. Listen to their speech patterns and their concerns. Try and get them down on paper. (Don't let them see. Try not to get beaten up.) Don't force it; don't hop from table to table in search of better eavesdropping, just bask in the conversation that come your way.

8. Every month write 50 words about one piece of visual art, one piece of writing, one piece of music, and one piece of film or TV. Do other art forms if you can. Blog about it.

9. Make something. Do something with your hands. Create something from nothing. It could be knots; it could be whittling, Lego, cake or knitting. Take some time to get outside your head. Ideally, make something you have no idea how to do. People love people who can make things. Making's the new thinking. Share your things on your blog, or, if you're brilliant, maybe you can share them on etsy.

10. Read. Great places to start:
Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud
The Mezzanine by Nicholson Baker
The Visual Display of Quantitative Information by Edward Tufte.
All these books are good for their own reasons, but they're also good examples of people who are really interested in stuff that others think of as banal and who explain it in a way that makes you share their passion. That's good.

D'OH

2009-02-02T21:35:00.005-06:00

I was doing my reading today for my ADV 450 class. (Yes, Peter gives us a lot to read). But anywho, this book, which was recently published, interviews many many many famous and well known Art Directors/Copywriters/Art Executives/Account Managers... etc. And talks about the do's and don'ts and how-to's of how to be a good creative. It helps you think of how to think outside the box, what to expect in the Creative field of advertising, and much much more. It's like a .. Advertising Bible for Creatives, if you must.

While on one of my last pages of my 70 page reading, I stumble across an interview with the Creative Manager and VP of Creative Rectuiter of Leo Burnett, Kara Taylor. A Creative Manager is a big deal, and usually only found in larger sized agencies. Her named sounded familiar, and near the bottom of the interview, I realized why her name resonated in my mind so much. I had met her last Spring Break. Face-to-face. It wasn't an interview per say, but more of a question-answer conversation jobber that I struck lucky because a friend's mom worked at Burnett in Chicago and pulled some strings for me to visit the company and talk to someone. But I didn't know who I was going to talk to. Even if I did, I did not know how important she was. She looked very young. Young, but professional; I will give her that. I thought I was talking to some junior art director or copyright, not some big shot like Creative Manager. Needless, my "foot-in-the-door" opportunity was more like a "wide open vault that no one usually can pass through" opportunity that I pretty much blew. What a BIG whoops.

In my defense, I was not even an advertising major at that point. I did not know what a Copyrighter/art director was. (Which of course, she was happy to explain to me the different branches of creatives). I don't know whether I should be embarrassed about my situation or rather brag about my encounter with this higher up Burnett employer (without much detail). Baha.

Leo Burnett building in Chicago. Sorry Kara.

Creatives: Cold Floor or Bad Blood Circulation?

2009-02-02T01:40:00.000-06:00

My "Think Piece 1" for Peter Sheldon's Advertising 450 class.

Creatives: Cold Floor or Bad Blood Circulation?

I’ve decided to make this “Think Piece” not geared towards the ads I saw (or didn’t see) during the Superbowl tonight, but rather something I keep stumbling upon reading endless advertising articles and books regarding Creatives; they think better with their feet on their desks. I’m not saying that I read this verbatim, but however, many Creatives being quoted on how they pity their friends who crunch numbers all day long while Creatives themselves get paid for showing up in their PJs and play around the office during their entire career. And most of all, they can behave in any manner they wish, including putting their relatively large feet on their workspace. This tidbit is usually accompanied with a picture on the lower left corner of the page of a Copyright with their feet up on their work desk, usually lost in a train of thought (or lack thereof). [Want proof? Flip to page 6 of The Robbs and Morrison reading assigned for this week] I began to wonder being a good Creative would mean that I would need to be proficient in ‘leg lifting’ or ‘ankle crossing’. Was there some unspoken knowledge that missed? Perhaps Directors believe that good copy came from those who thought on their feet.. wait...the opposite of that.

Perhaps being a Creative meant to defy all natural etiquette in a business setting. Creatives shall not wear a suit to work, they shall be fed pizza on a frequent basis, they shall be paid for thinking of taglines for a talking hotdog, and most importantly, they shall never place their feet where they should go; the floor. Maybe once I get that job I can start painting my toenails at work (they dry better in the air).

High School Paintings

2009-01-03T00:38:00.005-06:00

Not too fond of these, but I'd figure I'd post them

"roots" Prismacolor. Sold for $35

ribbon study. acrylic.

orphan's feet. Image taken from my friend's simon's flickr

religion study. acrylic on wood panel.

self portrait series. 1 of three. acrylic.

Photoshop Tutorials

2008-12-28T18:16:00.003-06:00

Are Soo much FUN.

Have Yourself

2008-12-25T20:16:00.007-06:00

So apart from waking up past 1pm today, here's some of the things I whipped up in the kitchen.

Pizza Balls - each one stuffed with mozzarella and pepperoni

Peanut Butter Cookies

Sugar Cookies.. in the shape of Gingerbread men (ironic?)

Freshman Year Shananigans

2008-12-24T21:34:00.004-06:00

No question about it: Freshman year was hands down the best

My room was the most ridiculous thing. There were patterns everywhere!

This is a painting I did for Jess as a new dorm warming gift. She rides horses, so I asked her to send me a pic of one that she rides.

Every birthday in our group (of about 20) was celebrated uniquely. This was Lauren's 19th.

Sophmore Artwork

2008-12-24T21:21:00.004-06:00

I spent a semester in the College of Fine and Applied Arts' Foundation program at UIUC. Here's my final project for Drawing1: a large charcoal self-portrait inspired by Chuck Close. It was a 40+ hour/2 week long project, and I made a little home in the basement of Explo. I moved lots of furniture around, brought my ipod player downstairs, residents would be soo distracted when trying to study that they would have to go back to their own rooms (this was during finals week mind you), BSWs would ask me lots of questions on a daily basis. There was charcoal EVERYWHERE, which I'm sure maintenience weren't too happy about.

the final product... Where is this picture now? in the trash, probably another sheet of paper now. I had NO idea what to do with it, and it would be way too creepy putting it on my wall/hallway.

I WOULD have more to show you of my other artwork if I had my old laptop... fucker.

The Way the Cookie Crumbles

2008-12-24T20:12:00.006-06:00

I decided to make use of my day by keeping my oven on and making whatever deliciousness came to mind.

Here's the breakdown:

1 batch of chocolate oat craisin cookie clusters

1 batch of chocolate chip pecan cookies

1 batch of oatmeal raisin cookies

1 homemade veggie pizza

I'll probably make some more cookies tomorrow. I still have Anna's sugar cookie present sitting around!

Vitamin Water Print Ad

2008-12-22T20:02:00.005-06:00

THIS VITAMIN WATER AD IS FOR A FINAL PROJECT IN MY ADVERTISING CLASS.
WE HAD TO CHOOSE A PRODUCT, AND RE-BRAND IT, WHICH REQUIRES RESEARCH ON THE EXISTING BRAND, AND THEN PUMP OUT IDEAS ON HOW OUR NEW "MYTH MARKET" AND "BRAND IDENTITY" IS DIFFERENT THAN HOW IT IS NOW.

RATHER THAN ME COPYING AND PASTING OUR 21 PAGE ESSAY, HOW ABOUT YOU JUST ENJOY OUR PRINT AD...

Ugly Sweaters Make Beautiful Presents

2008-12-22T19:45:00.007-06:00

I attended an ugly sweater Christmas party with some friends of mine. The gathering also included some gift exchanges. Here were the rules.

1. WEAR AN UGLY SWEATER
2. BRING A HOMEMADE GIFT FOR THE REST OF THE GROUP.

Not hard at all. Gifts turned out really amazing, except I cheated a little [lotion was not handmade, although it IS do-able]. Here is our end result..

I should take some more pictures soon and upload them so you could look at them individually.
Here's the breakdown:

CHRISTY: handmade owls that fit our favorite colors and personality. Made from fabric, buttons, and stuffing. I think I want to make some of my own in the very near future.
NATALIE: A framed picture of our favorite animals and colors made from fabric, paint, buttons and thread.
ANNA: our own box of homemade sugar cookie mix! Completed with our own individualized pictures for each ingredient, sample cookies, and a cute reciepe book!
Me (Diana): Mosaic frames with pictures of me and each friend during one of our many adventures. (Rocky Horror on the El, Indiana Dunes, Renaissance Faire), and a bottle of good smelling lotion titled: Enchanting Green Tea. Due to lack of time, I had to resort to semi-hand made gifts. Next year will be better, I promise.

This inspired me to use this blog for all the things that I have made for others or have received from people worth blogging. And even some photoshop/illustrator work for my advertising classes.

Oh Wow!

2008-12-22T18:29:00.001-06:00

This blog will be for all cool things.

Either things I made, or things that I want to make.

Cool?
Cool.

enjoy