what's n e x t ?

cowgirl

2012-01-24T18:46:00.003-05:00

I started this cg in 2009 and never finished it. I wanted to do another cowgirl but I always stop and leave it unfinished when background involves in the piece. I have lot of unfinished piece because of that reason....

Maybe I'll set myself a goal that this year I'll try to complete unfinished cg.

first cg

2012-01-17T15:07:00.003-05:00

My first cg of the year. Hopefully this year I can do more finished illustration or at least try to complete unfinished ones from year before.....

I wanted to sketch my red scarf I made while ago.

yoga 2012

2012-01-10T00:09:00.003-05:00

Happy New Years everyone, I took 2 weeks off from blog posting. Hope everyone had relaxing and fun holiday!

I want to show this years Yoga calender series my mom got for me. This year they have lovely ladies to show you yoga exercises. Drawings and designs are a lot nicer, there's more interesting lines showing in each pages. And it may be because they used girls as their theme, it has additional information on which exercise will give you better curves on your body.
This calender has been the most inspiring calender I've ever owned.

secret santa

2011-12-19T01:37:00.004-05:00

So I'm jumping right into the highlight of this post. I participated in Secret Santa party over the weekend.

One of the participant spent his quality time making his own handmade gift wrap to wrap his gift. The photo of this man on the gift wrap is one of the host of this Secret Santa party and also one of my oldest friend.
We all burst out laughing at the gift box how funny it was. Then we continued opening the box then more of the same gift wrap appears. At that point my stomach was already hurting.
So many little gifts with so many same gift wrap!

It's been so long for me to laugh so hard. I would give this the best gift wrapping award.

red scarf

2011-12-14T18:01:00.003-05:00

While back, I posted about making red scarf.
I was quite busy with work this past few months, but any possible break time I spent it on crocheting this scarf.

I made it so that you can use it as regular wrap-around scarf, OR button the end of scarf and make it into infinity scarf.

SUPER warm!!!

homemade soba

2011-12-04T13:41:00.004-05:00

Few weeks ago, I took Soba lesson with my mom. I never had an experience with noodles so I had to try.

We had processional to show us demonstration on how to make Soba, then all the participant make their own, and after that we all get to eat the instructor's Soba he made.
Since this was my first try, I totally failed to roll out the dough. I didn't have enough flour on the surface so the dough got stuck to each other. The dough has to spread to the point it's almost like wonton sheet, which I accomplished that part!
The best part was to slice the noodle. The blade was awesome to use!

I'll be honest, I actually hate Soba. There's this strange after taste I dislike about it, all store bought Soba taste like that. But after having homemade Soba it tastes nothing like the regular Soba. It actually tastes like noodle.

So after discovering the TRUE taste of Soba, my mom and I were thinking about making Toshikoshi Soba(Soba served on day before New Years Day) as our tradition. My parents are in Japan right now deciding to buy all the equipments!

All these Soba photos are instructor's, mine was too ugly to show...

mini donuts

2011-11-29T11:30:00.005-05:00

I bought this cute make your own donuts snack pack from Pacific mall. They had different kind like cupcakes, sushi candy, ice cream cake pop and sort. This doesn't require baking so I would imagine it's just as bad as those Easy Bake. But it actually had no preservatives and no artificial colors. How did they do that?
Keep in mind that this is a kid's snack, I wasn't expecting great taste of deep frying goods that doesn't require frying, I just wanted to do the making part.

So this is what Sir Charles and I spent our Sunday afternoon tea party. The actual donuts were gross but the icing were finger licking good~

simmered soybeans and salmon

2011-11-21T12:41:00.003-05:00

I tried out this recipe and it goes REALLY REALLY well with rice. This is more for sidedish but I had it as main entre!
Soybeans has Isoflavone that does similar function as hormones protecting from cholesterol. This is especially good for middle age people.

- 1cup soybeans; in bowl with 6 cups of water sit overnight OR on the day of simmer soybeans for 1 hour.
- pinch of salt
- 1 salmon fillet; cut into bite size
- 1 spring onion; chopped in half
- 1 chunk of ginger; cut into 4
- 1L dashi(fish broth) OR veggie broth
- 3tbsp sugar
- 2tbsp sake OR any liqueur
- 4tbsp soy sauce

1. Pour pre-prepared soybeans in a pot and boil with pinch of salt. Add more water if required. Strain.
2. In different pot, grill salmon.
3. Add spring onion, ginger and soybeans. Saute all together to bring flavor.
4. Add dashi and sugar. Simmer for 8 min.
5. Add sake, soy sauce, and simmer for another 20-30min. At this point it's up to you if want to simmer more for flavor(it just gets saltier).
6. Discard spring onion(I just eat it instead of throwing away) and ginger, then serve.

share my childhood memory

2011-11-16T01:47:00.005-05:00

Who had the REAL Polly Pockets when you were young? I saw the current one and they're nothing like these! To be honest I didn't play with these that's much cuz they were so tiny. It was more like miniature display purpose toys.

So last week I took a week off at my home town. It was time for me to clean up my room and decide what to keep.
I want to share some of my work I did during Grade School. I found my shield I made in Gr. 4 project. Clearly Dragon-ball influence!
The shampoo package design were Marketing class I worked on with my friend Jen. She has the pink version. Unfortunately these were getting gross so I had throw them out..... But here is the photo to keep me reminded.

And my collection of Disney puzzles. I had these since I was Grade 1 and Grade 3. These are worth to keep.

trick or treat!

2011-10-31T16:48:00.003-04:00

Happy halloween everyone! I didn't realize this week was Halloween... I go to Micheal's to buy yarn and I see them carry Christmas stuff and thinking, what happened to Halloween?

What are you dressed as today?

glare 2

2011-10-23T21:02:00.004-04:00

How was your weekend? I had relaxing weekend crocheting and did some sketches.

I got lot of good reviews from people on my "Glare" so I did a another version! It's not sketchy as the first one but it still got the feeling. Hope you like it!

diy wedding

2011-10-17T21:46:00.004-04:00

I love DIY weddings. There's no end to creative possibilities.

My friend had lot of DIY assets for her wedding. A wedding that couple agreed on to have limited budge and spend more time on making their own decor. I've done DIY weddings for people, you do save TONS of money! The bride has her journey of wedding plan posted that might help your wedding ideas.
The centerpiece was adorable. I love tissue pom-pom flowers, miss making those....
I took few of them home and it's on my dining table right now. But the branches are pretty tall so it's distracting my TV view when I have dinner.

Sorry, color schemes for these photos are kind of everywhere, I'm experimenting Lightroom to see what I can do. And I'm having lot of trouble taking indoor photos without natural light. How do people do it?

other ottawa photos

2011-10-11T22:05:00.004-04:00

My last post on Ottawa trip. They're photos of food I had there and things I saw.
I never had Beaver Tails before so it was delicious experience. I was wondering if you can make your own, I can try that someday.

An idea I saw outside the beads store(bottom photo). I would like to paint my chairs and table like that!

War Museum

2011-10-02T19:33:00.003-04:00

So the same day we went to Caravaggio's Painting at National Museum of Canada, and Aviation Museum, we also went to see the Canadian War Museum!

My guidebook says the War Museum closes at 8pm so we thought we can make it to all the Museum in one day. So we walked to the War Museum with beautiful weather taking about 30~45min to get there. As we arrived, we found out that the Museum closes at 6pm. We only had 45 min until the place closes.
So we completely scanned through the entire place in 45min. Mainly Sir Charles wanted to see tanks so we spent more time there. I honestly had no idea what tank I was looking at because they all looked quite similar.... I was looking forward to actually go inside the tank but they didn't have that kind of service.

You really need more time to look around. It has entire information about WWI and WWII that you want to take time to know everything.

We're planning to go back again someday.

thank you

2011-09-28T22:42:00.004-04:00

For birthday wishes everyone~ I've been swamped by work lately so hearing from friends and family had cheered me up!

Here is a little thank you drawing!

Aviation

2011-09-25T14:13:00.002-04:00

Went to see Canada Aviation and Space Museum. I was quite surprised to see how large these planes were. Especially the bomber(2nd photo), I wouldn't want to see that in the air in this time or ever.
Sir Charles was fascinated by P40 but I don't know the difference from others.... I was more fascinated by the WWI planes, the construction were more interesting.

You can enjoy riding the vintage flight experience over the Capital. I was interested but unfortunately I'm timid by my motion sickness so I had to pass on that....

caravaggio's painting

2011-09-19T21:32:00.004-04:00

So my highlight of this trip was to see Caravaggio's paintings. There were also other paintings of Caravaggio followers who wanted to paint the way Caravaggio did. The followers weren't as impressive as Caravaggio's, but I got to see his "St. John the Baptist" with my own eyes. I really wished they had more of his work.

Unfortunately, the gallery didn't accept photos so I wasn't able to take any of the Caravaggio's work! So I only had one option to take the architecture around me...

my ottawa trip

2011-09-11T22:10:00.005-04:00

I had a little road trip with Sir Charles to see "Caravaggio and His Followers in Rome" in Ottawa. We arrived in the evening, walked around at the night time Parliament.
Last time visiting Ottawa was my Gr. 8 graduation school trip. I only remember seeing the Parliament and shopping at a mall that I would assume was Rideau Centre and dropping by to Hersey's Factory.

When we got to the Parliament, there was a show going on of a team named Mosaika, a sound and light show. They used projector light(or some kind) and used Parliament building as projector screen. It was showing the visual images of a culture of Canada.

Ottawa is a nice quite city. It's not too packed like Toronto where it's packed with people and building in tight space.

More photos of the trip to come!

sketched drawings

2011-08-30T22:24:00.001-04:00

Quick sketches I did today~

balloon sisters

2011-08-22T20:40:00.002-04:00

A little illustration I did while back.
I love balloons. Circle is my favorite geometric shape, so looking at different balloons always inspires me.

my popsicle

2011-08-08T22:04:00.004-04:00

I was watching Food Network's "The Best Thing I Ever Ate!", introduced Cat Cora with her favorite popsicle place. I don't remember the name of the place but definitely I was inspired enough to make my own popsicle mix.

My mom used to make her own popsicle when I was little. The ingredients were just orange juice, and brown sugar. You can almost put ANYTHING you like in your pop!

This popsicle I used leftover fruits in my fridge!
- case of strawberries
- one banana
- 1 cup orange juice
- 3tbsp brown sugar

Chop all of them up and puree. Pour the mix into the mold!
*The flaky and shaved ice texture you need more liquid.

rib fest

2011-07-31T16:48:00.002-04:00

Rib fest was here! It's always hard to choose which ribs to buy. I personally LOVE ribs that are very jerky with amazing unique sauce that meat just falls off the bone.

I forgotten to take a photo of the rib I actually had... I got too carried away eating.

tamagoyaki

2011-07-26T22:03:00.006-04:00

Some of you may know, some may not. Some Japanese owns real "eggpan" to make tamagoyaki.

Tamagoyaki is a Japanese side dish using beaten eggs(I use about 4 eggs) . As you see the diagram below, you pour the egg in the pan just enough to cover the whole surface. Then you fold the egg into 3(or 2 which ever), once the egg is on the edge you pour more egg and keep folding it. It may be time consuming process but this is like other culture enjoying omelette.

Another beauty of tamagoyaki is that you can mix beaten egg with 1-2 tbsp of:
- sugar
- dashi(fish broth)
- soy sauce
- pureed seafood(which is used for New Years Day food)
Any flavor you like!

I've been using regular circle pan to make this but my mom got me the "official" pan as gift from Japan. Thank you!

condo view

2011-07-18T20:57:00.004-04:00

Went to my friend Jay's condowarming party that has fascinating view during the day and night.

Threads of Fate

2011-07-12T23:01:00.004-04:00

My friend Matt Chan gave me opportunity to do an illustration for one of his chapter for his book he's working on. He has new chapter posted every 2weeks with guest artists participating. I look forward seeing other artists work!

It's been so long doing a painting with full background. It was fun to do! But so many things I have to consider when you have environment involved. This is another lesson I need to work on.

cheese with crackers

2011-07-04T22:35:00.002-04:00

My current addictions is creamy blue cheese with crackers.

I saw sample taste at Whole Food. Cheese tasted good, cracker tasted awesome so I instantly bought these two.

cat-sitting

2011-06-20T20:08:00.003-04:00

Last week Sir Charles and I had small opportunity to cat-sit for one night.

My co-worker found an abandoned brown American shorthair kitty looking for someone to take him. One of my close co-worker took him for his daughter who wanted a cat. He let us keep the kitty for one night just for us to enjoy the company.

I love almost any kind of animals and this kitty was so freaking adorable!! I had a best Golden Retriever named Safety and I always wished I can lift him up and carry him like a baby. But obviously that was impossible for me so having a chance to lift up a small animal was a great experience.

He really loved my IKEA kid's bear chair. He used it as his play toy and actually sat where you're suppose to. It became his throne. The cutest thing to watch was he tries so hard to sit comfortably on top of the bear's head. But the top was wobbly so he keeps slipping on the side.

face sketch

2011-06-13T21:46:00.002-04:00

I've been quite busy with work and personal work. It's getting a little hard for me update twice a week so I'm gonna start updating once a week.... maybe once in a while I'll have more updates within a week... I really wish I have time to update!

Here is a practice sketch on face study.

grilled corn

2011-06-08T21:41:00.002-04:00

I love eating grilled corn on the cob. You can make many kind of glaze for variation. There is interesting one like butter glazed and sprinkle with paprika, cayenne pepper with grated Parmesan cheese. That sounds awesome! I also like the Japanese style where they glaze soy sauce with bit of sugar in it. It gives this Asian style smoky flavor and it tastes amazing!!!

This one I made sea salted butter with Worcestershire sauce glaze. Just glaze your corn each time you turn your corn on the grill.

fireworks

2011-06-06T22:30:00.003-04:00

I went to Unionville Festival that I never heard of while knowing Markham for more than 10 years. It was part of Paul and Kevin's birthday activities.

This was perfect opportunity to take night shot with my DSLR. We went to the pond fairly early to grab a seat. While waiting, I was setting up my camera for night shots.
I got a little worried when things wasn't turning the way I thought it would. Everything was turning too dark or too bright.
But once the firework started I think I managed to get the right setting. I'm not sure if this was correct settings but some of them has interesting shapes that inspires me enough!

The photo below was a shot(when adjusting my camera) of over exposed night shot that kind of looked like a place got bombed.

practice cg

2011-06-01T22:35:00.003-04:00

Been a while doing quick digital painting. I screwed up the neck but I mainly wanted to study the face. Lately I've been focusing on realism. Looking into anatomy and understand better, but still have long way to go...

The earrings are idea from Anthropologies.

my french toast

2011-05-29T20:09:00.003-04:00

I love French toast, it's simple to make and tastes good as a dessert with scoop of ice cream.

I made breakfast French toast the way my mom makes and stack them like Jenga. Drizzle with maple syrup, spinkle with icing sugar and cinnamon.

natsume ono

2011-05-26T21:05:00.004-04:00

I think it's enough post on my trip to NYC.

Last thing I want to share is the books I bought at Kinokuya that I enjoyed reading. They're all written by same person. Natsume Ono has interesting drawing style that reminds me of Europe pop art, in video game world something like Parappa the Rappa art. You'll notice from her vocabulary and environment she uses, a huge influence from Italian culture.
But her current story she's working on is Japanese jidaigeki called Sarai-ya Goyou(House of Five Leaves) which made into anime done by Manglobe(creater of Samurai Champloo)

My favorite is "Not Simple" I know this has in English translation. Did anyone watched the Oscar nominated film, "Precious"? If you enjoyed that, this is a book for you.

interior

2011-05-23T21:52:00.002-04:00

Home interior is one of my favorite thing to look at. It another way to express yourself and let's people understand who you are. At Kinokuniya, I bought home interior book takes place in Paris. So many inspiration, just having one home isn't enough!

We stayed over at Sir Charles's sisters apartment during our NYC trip. Very cozy and welcoming place to stay. I love the collection in their shelves. Lots adorable glassware and these typewriters I adore!

During your stay there, you always have a company who's friendly and loves full attention. Eartha Katt will come and keep you company while you surfing on the net, reading, and during your sleep! Friendliest cat I've seen!

paintings

2011-05-18T21:59:00.003-04:00

My highlight of trip to the MET was seeing fascinating paintings.

I appreciate portrait painting the most so I took lot of those for reference. I love the way they paint people's eyes, nose, mouth, and blushy cheeks. It has so much detail and yet it has soft feel to it.

Looking at these paintings, I have re-acknowledged how important to observe things you paint, how precise you have to be with your color and many more reasons.

This is one of my goal to paint.

asian culture

2011-05-15T17:54:00.003-04:00

What I like about Asian culture is it has lot of beautiful design elements that inspires me a lot. The samurai helmet has so much details just for one purpose.

The photo of tube case(3rd from top) is my favorite. It's actually a katana case to store but I would love to have one for myself and use it as portfolio tube, or big waste but maybe store my umbrella!

sculptures

2011-05-08T21:09:00.004-04:00

The Metropolitan Museum Of Art was fabulous place. So many inspiration all over the world shown in one spot.

One of fascinating things to see was sculptures, especially pieces from Greece. Their dedication to art is not comparable to any other country.

It's unfortunate how we don't dedicate our life with one thing as much anymore. Well some still do but it would feel amazing to focus on just one thing and see how far it goes until you die. I felt that before growing up and I still admire now when we were a child, when things were simpler and find what you like to do and only focus on that.

cloisters

2011-05-04T22:26:00.005-04:00

First time, seeing The Cloisters Museum & Garden.
They had quite fascinating architectures of medieval Europe. It has early/late Gothic that I was interested.

The place was definitely a lot smaller than The MET, it took less than 2 hours to walk around the whole thing. Museums are always overwhelming, I'll remember what I saw but I can never memorize the description on each piece...

cheese cheese cheese!

2011-05-01T22:07:00.003-04:00

Great place to have grilled cheese sandwiches at Kickshaw! Most of the stuff, I have no idea what I'm eating but everything there are delicious.

We tried their chocolate bars and pastry that they carry. Mast Brothers Chocolate has beautiful candy wrap I adore so much. I love dark chocolate so this had amazing taste!

They also serve pastry from Balthazar's croissants and sticky buns. Their sticky buns are simply amazing, and very well controlled sweetness.

I miss their food so much.

kickshaw anyone?

2011-04-27T21:07:00.010-04:00

Who has gone to The Queens Kickshaw yet?

I posted a little information about the Astoria's friendly and comfy place to hang out cafe + bar(will be in this summer). During my vacation to NYC I practically went to Kickshaw almost everyday for brunch.

Almost everything in here are all handcrafted and reused old items. I especially love their table top that they reused from old wooden board. I would love to make my own dining table like this someday!
The bottom second photo is a light shade that we used as inspiration for Kickshaw logo design.

Next post will be photos of their specialty grilled cheese sandwich and drink that I miss eating them!

NYC 2011

2011-04-24T15:52:00.011-04:00

I took a week off and spend my vacation at NYC. It's been very nice week, I was able to forget about work and free my mind.

The highlight of the trip I went to see Kickshaw, The MET and shopping of course. During my shopping, many of the store doesn't accept taking photos anymore... I was disappointed by that. Soho's shopping district has beautiful interior designs, exclusively for Soho. If I knew this before hand it would of been less difficult for me to carry my SLR and my shopping bags through out the day...

I'll take my time to post photos I took. But for now, I need to adjust my mind to my normal life.

Places I went:
Game Workshop
Deisel
Hagen Daz
Esprit Outlet
Anthropologies
UNIQLO
MUJI
Free People
Kinokuniya
Macy's
Pylones

Food:
Kickshaw - grilled cheese, specialty coffee place
SetagaYa - Japanse noodle place
Shabu-tatsu - Japanese hot pot
Minamoto Kitchoan - Japanese traditonal dessert
IPPUDO NY - tradtional Japanese noodle place
ChikaLicious - Dessert bar

my sandwich

2011-04-14T22:09:00.003-04:00

Sandwich is one of my favorite food. I eat plain sandwich almost everyday for lunch. Once in a while I treat myself with gourmet sandwich at local restaurant.

Here is simple sandwich I made over the weekend:

- 3 finely sliced bread, toasted with lightly brushed butter
- couple of roasted cherry tomatoes
- 1 sunny side up egg
- optional: slice cheese
Stack all together and have it with fresh OJ!

I will be away for blogging next week, I'll get back to it as soon as I can!

grilled zucchini + eggplant

2011-04-10T21:07:00.002-04:00

I was always curious to make grilled zucchini and eggplant roll that I see in cook books. I didn't have a recipe but it turned out well.

The stuffing has roasted cherry tomatoes and caramelized onion with grated parmasean.

my banana muffin

2011-04-06T21:12:00.002-04:00

Sometime I forget I bought bananas for healthy eating and then it ends up sitting on the counter turning all brown(Then I peel all of them and freeze them).

So this time, instead wasting it I baked some banana muffin! Except I used banana bread recipe and pour into muffin tray. On top of that, while I was mixing the ingredient I realized I didn't have enough flour. I was missing a cup of flour..... So as a replacement I used 1 1/2 cup of rolled oats.

It still turned out really good, I was happy about it! I topped my muffins with leftover blueberries~

baked potatoes

2011-04-03T20:13:00.005-04:00

**UPDATE(04/08/2011)** here is the original recipe!

I found this idea from Pinterest but I can't seem to find the photo to show it to you.... The original photo looks so much better!

It looked simple and pretty to make so I tried one for myself. You finely slice a potato but don't cut it all the way. Sprinkle with sea salt, pepper, herbs and drizzle with olive oil. Bake for 45-60min(or until it gets soft) at 325F. Sprinkle with fresh grated Parmesan cheese.

the queens kickshaw

2011-03-29T20:14:00.003-04:00

The Queens KICKSHAW has "specialty coffee, fancy grilled cheese sandwiches, craft beer (starting in the summer) in Astoria, Queens". It's a restaurant, Sir Charles's sister and her husband opened up on March 27th in New York City.
I just love their interior design. They used recycled materials and came up with many beautiful furniture. I love eco-friendly furniture~

So Sir Charles and I had an awesome opportunity to work on their logo design. It was lot of work but you feel rewarding after seeing the finished product.

We heard the opening was a HUGE success! We will visit the restaurant soon to try out their fabulous grilled cheese everyone is talking about!

New Yorkers, please visit:

The Queens Kickshaw
40-17 Broadway
Astoria, NY 11103

Hours of Operation:
M-F - 7:30am to 4:30pm
S-S - 9am to 4:30pm

Photo by The Queens KICKSHAW

creatures of the night

2011-03-27T17:26:00.004-04:00

One of my college friend Shannon Toth recently published her children book. She had her book signing at Chapters few weeks ago. It happened in St. Catharines so it was perfect opportunity for me to visit her.

Creatures of the Night is a bedtime story for children created to make them feel safe. To sleep and dream in peace.

mojo

2011-03-23T22:27:00.002-04:00

This photo was taken long time ago when I did watercolor with Celine. I was playing around with my camera.

This is Mojo walking towards the kitchen waiting for his food to be served. While he waits, he took a glance at me.

shop at anthropologies

2011-03-20T21:44:00.004-04:00

LOVE shopping at Anthropologies. Best place to do window shopping there! So I went to shop at Don Mills's Anthropologies, as some may know they always have fabulous window display that blow your mind. I was ready to take picture for this time but unfortunately they didn't have anything on their window...... I was quite disappointed.

I'm still having trouble taking picture with a camera that's bigger than my hand, and my shyness.

I bought an adorable "artist" dress in sale section, it'll look cute with skinny pants with black flats!

Happy St. Patricks Day~

2011-03-17T19:27:00.003-04:00

My work gave the girls holiday necklace. I don't celebrate this but Happy St. Patricks Day~ Enjoy your epic drinking night~

cookies?

2011-03-16T20:41:00.002-04:00

Small decoration I did when I baked some gingerbread cookies. Decorating baked goods is fun! Someday I want to decorate tier cake~

tomato soup with parmigiano reggiano

2011-03-13T23:15:00.002-04:00

My simple tomato soup with shaved Parmigiano Reggiano~ I love Parmigiano so much, I almost put it on anything or just eat it by itself~

simple scarf

2011-03-09T20:50:00.002-05:00

I started this crochet scarf years ago and I finally completed it recently. I used Paton's 100% organic cotton, it's so soft and comfortable!

I have few projects I put on hold that I wish to complete them. One down, what's next?

leftover tortilla?

2011-03-05T14:45:00.004-05:00

Do you ever have leftover tortilla after having homemade taco? I tried making a stacked tortilla with sauteed leftover veggie.
It's a recipe for leftovers in your fridge.

Stacked tortilla:
- sauteed leftover veggies(onion, zucchini, eggplant, green/red peppers, mushrooms etc.)
- 2~4 leftover tortilla
- leftover shredded cheese

Optional leftover tomatoes:
- chopped and simmered with butter, basil, salt and pepper for sauce.

1. On baking tray, lay 1 tortilla on, put veggie on top and sprinkle with cheese.
2. Add another tortilla on top and put veggie and cheese again.
3. Stack many as you want and bake in the oven for 15 min or until cheese melts at 300F.

Additional idea:
You can stack with leftover chopped lettuce and nachos in between(after you bake) so it's like Taco Bell's crunch wrap!

The birds

2011-03-01T22:02:00.005-05:00

Rats with wings! Chase them away! +2 for every one you catch in flight! (Max cap of 10).

We had an epic scavenger hunt for our friend Matt and Jo's birthday party. This was one of the task.
Our original plan was to scare all them while an old man on bench was peacefully feeding those pigeons. But that would be pretty bad so we walked into them gently~

J E L L - O

2011-02-23T22:05:00.004-05:00

I made Jell-o over the weekend~ I love coming up with decoration that make things a little more interesting to look at. I thought of layering jello with different color. Stripe is my favorite design element~
Next time I want to do 1cm thickness so it's looks more psychedelic and maybe more color!

baked pasta

2011-02-19T12:10:00.007-05:00

Baked pasta is one of my favorite food! I like making my own cream sauce that doesn't require too much cheese and butter.

2 serving cream sauce recipe
- 2cups shredded cheddar cheese
- 1-2tbsp unsalted butter
- 2-3cups milk(any kind)
- 1/2 cup flour(this makes it creamy)
- salt and pepper

1. In the sauce pan melt the butter.
2. Pour milk and flour and mix well. In low medium heat so the milk doesn't burn.
3. Then pour cheddar cheese, mix well.
4. Add salt and pepper for flavoring.
* Add flour for extra creamy texture and add milk if it gets too thick.

Baked pasta:
1. Mix boiled and strained pasta and sauteed veggie(optional)into the cream sauce.
2. Pout the mix into ceramic pot.
3. Sprinkle panko on top and drizzle with olive oil.

be my valentine

2011-02-15T00:36:00.005-05:00

Happy belated Valentine's day~ Hope everyone had wonderful day~

On my valentine, I baked a small heart shaped cake for Sir Charles. The inside cake was epic fail, it didn't bake fully so the texture was dense.... I was making baumkuchen cake with chocolate cover that tasted almost like Timmy's chocolate dip donuts~

I tried not to waste the cake by finishing off the decoration and take picture so at least I have something to remember.
The top layer of the cake was fully baked so we sliced off the unbaked bottom layer and just ate the top. It was still yummy~

celine kim

2011-02-09T19:55:00.005-05:00

One of my favorite photographer and my gorgeous friend, Celine finally opened her wedding photography site~ Please check out her photos because they look fabulous!

Her personal photos has cozy and warming feel to it, it's very mesmerizing~ Always updates in her blog! Hurry and check out her site~

Pickled Sweet Vinegar Garlic

2011-02-06T18:40:00.008-05:00

My mom has a Japanese magazine with interesting topic about pickled garlic. It has a recipe of how to make it in quick time and the benefit of eating it.

So here is the recipe:
Ready-in-One-Night Pickled Sweet Vinegar Garlic
- 4-6 whole garlic(each cloves peeled)
- 1 cup vinegar(any kind)
- 1 cup brown sugar(or any other kind of sweetener (if honey use 2/3cup)
- 1-2 tsp salt
- 1 empty Classico Pasta sauce jar or bigger jar.

1. Mix vinegar, sugar and salt until they're all dissolved(you can do directly in the jar or separate microwave safe bowl).
2. Put in garlic cloves into the jar(or bowl) until it's all packed in.
3. Put jar into the microwave and nuke for 2.5 min(It will bubble and overflow so you might want to put a plate or paper towel under the jar)
4. Pull it out of the microwave(jar is piping hot) and ripe off any excess water and quickly close the jar with a lid. Let it sit until the lid makes the "pop" sound(takes about 20-60min).

The garlic will hold in room temperature for a month or 1 year if it's in the refrigerator. You treat this garlic as regular garlic for cooking.

Some people drinks the liquid after you finish using up the garlic in the jar. It's just as healthy as drinking garlic sake. In a 1/2cup garlic liquid, add 2.5 cup water or more(just don't drink it with empty stomach).

Reduces:
- cholesterol
- high blood-pressure
- blood sugar concentration
- weight loss
- knee inflammation

Try it when you have time!

new layout

2011-02-02T16:48:00.004-05:00

I worked on a new layout for me site~ I always wanted to try re-sizable background image using CSS, it was quite fun!

I enjoyed drawing "Wind" so I wanted to do another version of that.
What do you think?

in my dream

2011-01-28T22:50:00.002-05:00

I always wanted to re-visualize a part of a scene in my dream.
Some can be creative that you just don't want to forget. I usually just sketch it in in my sketchbook but after watching Inception, it inspired me to do quick illustration of it.

- Magic House -
This dream, where I was in kindergarten room sitting at carpet area, imagined toys to appear in front of me. Then these solid colored miniature houses slowly rises from the ground, the room becomes empty world where everything you see are colorful miniature houses with horizon line.

simmered and baked chicken drumstick

2011-01-24T22:43:00.004-05:00

This is one of my made up recipe I use quite often.

1. Simmer chicken drumsticks using boiled water(enough to cover the whole drumsticks) and soy sauce(1/2cup) and sugar(1cup). Sugar makes meat extra soft so I let it boil until chicken almost falls off the bone.
2. Place drumsticks on oven tray and brush on the drumstick with your favorite chicken sauce(Mine is: 2tbsp honey + 3tbsp soy sauce + 1/2tbps sesame oil + 1/2tbsp vinegar). 3. Set the oven to Broil and bake for 2min, turn the drumsticks and apply the sauce. Repeat that until the skin is golden brown.
4. Garnish with sesame seeds and sliced green onion.
5. For veggie I used boiled spinash. <--Any extra chicken sauce pour on spinach for extra flavor.

iced tea~

2011-01-20T22:15:00.002-05:00

I bought a set of clear glass cups~ I never owned one and was really excited about using it so I made my own iced tea with Tazo's Passion tea.

I didn't know Passion gives this nice bright red!
Here is a quick recipe:

Homemade iced tea:
- 1 tea bag (any flavor) I use Tazo tea
- glass cup filled with ice and sliced lemon on top
- 1 or 2 cups of boiled water
- 2~3(or more) tbsp honey or maple syrup or sugar

1. Boil water and simmer with tea bag for 2~3min.
2. Discard tea bag and add sweetener until fully dissolved.
3. Pour tea into the glass cup and ta-da~

cupcake season

2011-01-18T20:38:00.002-05:00

Every year I go buy Starbuck's cupcakes around this season. Before they used to only have it on Valentine season but seems like they have it regularly now?

Having cupcake in Valentine season is my thing now so I wait when this time comes~ Yummy!

classic jewish chicken soup

2011-01-13T20:28:00.005-05:00

I made classic Jewish chicken soup the other day.
Everything went well up to the point where I was waiting for the soup to finish simmering, I realize something was dripping from the ceiling. I look up and the entire kitchen ceiling was soaked! All that simmering condensed my ceiling. I live in a ghetto apartment that doesn't have fan above my stove. The water was dripping a lot from the ceiling so I quickly grabbed papertowel to absorb all the droplet and pulled out my dehumidifier and a fan. Luckly soup was safe.

So the bottom photo, that's how soaked the ceiling was. It literally looked like thick paint leaving droplets.

The soup was very yummy! Dill makes soup delicious~

yoga calender

2011-01-11T21:31:00.004-05:00

My mom gave me this cool looking yoga calender from Japan. The paper is from Nepal, thinner than rice paper. Each pages are hand screened and painted~ Very cute drawing~
Supposedly it's a really popular calender in Japan for people who does yoga. They reuse the design every year.

So each pages has 2 months calender with different category. Jan/Feb(3rd photo) has poses that's good for your blood circulation in your brain. The 4th photo are poses to release muscles on your neck and shoulders.

The bottom photo is mini yoga in office. Now let's all try~

simple granola

2011-01-08T11:03:00.003-05:00

I made simple granola over the holiday~ It only has oatmeal in it because that was the only dry ingredient I had with me.

I was curious to make this because I usually eat Nature Vally granola bar but one time I had Kashi's granola bar. Both of them tastes so different from each other so I wanted to see what it's like if it's homemade version.

Turns out all 3 of them tastes different and they're all good in different way. If you're a sweet tooth Nature Vally granola is perfect for you. For opposite people, Kashi granola is better. I've been used to eating Nature Vally that it actually feels like Kachi is missing something because it's so clean and has neutral taste.

As for homemade granola, you keep snacking until they're gone.

Happy rabbit year

2011-01-03T23:16:00.003-05:00

How was everyone's holiday? I spent my holiday back in hometown spending time with friends/family and completing an old ps2 game "OKAMI". Beautiful game! I'm ready to play Okamiden now~

Happy Happy Holiday~

2010-12-24T00:25:00.002-05:00

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope everyone have wonderful holiday~ During my hoilday, I'm planning to work on my new webpage layout. This is going to be a big project for me, I hope I'll get it done soon for next year. I should also think about my new year resolution!

I hope we have white Christmas this year!

scott pilgrim

2010-12-21T17:05:00.003-05:00

I bought myself box set of Scott Pilgrim. I enjoyed watching the movie so I was curious to read the original story. I have a bad habit when the story is completed I read all of them in one go. So I finished reading this in one day~ Great book!

Scott Pilgrim has same birthday as me~

bookhou

2010-12-15T20:19:00.003-05:00

Continuing from my last post I went to Bookhou for the first time. I knew about them at One of the Kind Show few years ago. When I first time went to their booth at the show I loved their felted hot plate mat. I told myself not to spend money for myself until last weekend, I finally pushed myself to purchase it~

Bookhou is having Ornaments Group show at their store! Lots of adorable ornaments you can see and purchase~

watercolor

2010-12-12T23:55:00.003-05:00

Everytime I meet with Celine we always plan what activities we should do for the day! This time we decided to do object painting with watercolor.
It's been so long doing object painting, doing this re-acknowledge how important to use traditional medium. I keep telling myself to do painting again but I've been not putting that as my first priority....

So this is one part of our day, more posting coming soon~

xmas tree

2010-12-08T20:56:00.000-05:00

Sir Charles and I bought a little christmas tree for our apartment~ I like miniature objects, especially ornaments when they're so tiny and cute! Tree top is my favorite! Simple shaped silver star always makes the tree look beautiful~
Someday I want to get bigger tree with bigger star.

Happy holiday everyone!

i love pasta!

2010-12-05T00:41:00.003-05:00

Pasta is one of my favorite food! I can just eat plain pasta with salt and butter! I grow my own basil and it goes so well with my quick-to-make tomato sauce.

Simple tomato sauce recipe:
- 4~5cups of any kind pasta
- 6-8 sliced tomatoes
- sprig of fresh basil (or whatever amount you like)
- 1 tbsp unsalted butter(more the better taste)
- sea salt and pepper
- 1/2cup grated Parmesan cheese
- grated Parmesan cheese for garnish

optional ingredient: roasted red peppers or zucchini/ sun dried tomatoes/ garlic

1. Put butter in heated sauce pan, throw in sliced tomatoes and sprinkle salt and pepper.
2. Let it simmer for 15-20 min, stir occasionally.
3. Add basil and leave some for garnish.
4. Add any optional ingredient at this point and simmer another 5-10 min.
5. Stir in 1/2cup Parmesan cheese until thickens.
6. Pour the sauce on boiled pasta and garnish with cheese and basil

hot pot

2010-11-30T21:08:00.004-05:00

One of Sir Charles's favorite food is hot pot. I forgot to take picture of us eating it but I took picture of what I drew~

We bought a portable stove just to have hot pot over the weekends. Boiling that water for very long time fogs up our windows. So I drew a little picture~

wedding decorator's workshop

2010-11-25T21:12:00.003-05:00

While ago I posted wedding decoration details I did for my friend Antia.

Just recently I finally finished making a website of "the making of" wedding decorator's workshop. These are photos of work in progress shot of decorations I worked on. I had so much fun making them!

So the moment of truth...

2010-11-22T21:28:00.003-05:00

Here are the winners!
Jinny Liang -1st winner: Receives "A Little Pain" print.
Nekrath -2nd winner: Receives postcard set of - "A Little Pain" & "My Antoinette"
Congratulation to both of you!

Thanks for wonderful and encouraging comments everyone, and participate to my giveaway! I had fun organizing this. I will for sure have another giveaway for special occasion. Maybe my 20th anniversary! haha~

best ketchup

2010-11-17T21:08:00.002-05:00

I just had the BEST ketchup!!
Celine shared her homemade ketchup with me. I wanted to use this ketchup perfect as possible so I decided to make fried chicken and homemade baked fries! The ketchup was so good that sir Charles and I were digging in the ketchup. We finished the entire jar~

Thanks Celine! It was delicious!!!

my very first website

2010-11-14T14:15:00.002-05:00

This is a layout I did for my very first website. It's back in the time when FrontPage was my favorite web design software and used Geocities that has closed down few months ago.
I still remember when I made this, I ran into trouble of trying to figure out how to get rid of the blue border line when you have linked image. Took me a while to understand how precise you have to be with html. I look back at this and this site is just a one large image with 5 masked link using hotspot tool with colored background! How simple is that!

"KiDDy Factory" was my old website name I used to use. I still use this for user name for other places and name of my illustration series in my website. I decided this name to remind myself while you grow old with art, never to forget the heart you had for art when you genuinely love doing art when things around you didn't matter. I do miss how things used to be so simple.

So for my next layout of my site, I want to go back to my first layout where it's just a one image that shows my work. Hopefully I'll have it up beginning of next year!

my first giveaway

2010-11-07T10:51:00.008-05:00

It's been 10 years since I had my website! I wanted to do something special for the visitors who have been supported me all this time! As a appreciation I will be giving 2 winners:
-1st winner: Receive "A Little Pain" print.
-2nd winner: Receives postcard set of - "A Little Pain" & "My Antoinette"

TO ENTER: leave a comment in this post by Nov. 19. I'll randomly pick the 2 winners and announce it on Nov. 22! (*You don't need blogger account to leave comment! Anyone is welcome! Leave your email for me too to contact the winners)
Thank you everyone and good luck!!

flags

2010-11-05T13:12:00.001-04:00

A birthday card I made~

Kiki and Jiji

2010-11-02T22:11:00.004-04:00

Kiki's Delivery Service is my favorite Jiburi movie! I always wanted to have my own talking cat on my side.
Few years ago I found out that the movie was based on novel so I couldn't resist myself from not getting it. The novel started like almost 15 years ago and it JUST finished the whole issue. It was definitely good timing to get the box set! The story is slightly different from the movie and it has more information about witches in their world.

I'm looking forward to reading this!

quick sketch

2010-10-26T21:06:00.000-04:00

shinzi katoh 2011

2010-10-20T19:28:00.004-04:00

I just received my 2011 agenda! It's Shinzi Katoh's 3rd agenda! There are size A5 and A6. A6 one comes with full color, so I got the A6. It's nice to see his illustrations in color.

The booklet comes with 2 full pages of 2011 new years resolution. I don't think I have 2 pages worth of resolution.... But this is good opportunity to think about what I can accomplish next year!

testing testing (outdoor)

2010-10-14T19:17:00.003-04:00

The long weekend we had last week had absolutly wonderful weather!! One of the tree in my backyard had a patch of red leaves. It was pretty!

Fall is really here~

testing testing (indoor)

2010-10-11T21:55:00.004-04:00

This long weekend I was kind of experimenting with my new camera I got last week. It's so much nicer to able to manually focus where you want it.

Although there's not much to look at here but hopefully I'll have something more interesting to show~

hello to my camera!

2010-10-06T22:20:00.002-04:00

I'm quite speechless right now. I posted a photo of my DSLR and thinking what I should say....

My mind is thinking of how much thing I have to learn about camera. And it keeps coming back to me how I should of took Photography class in high school.

Well I'm off to enjoy this camera~

do you remember Piddlesworth?

2010-09-30T20:04:00.003-04:00

Couple of years ago, I posted crochet project of panda bear named Piddlesworth and Baby Piddlesworth. I also posted this on a forum at Craftster with Baby Piddlesworth's pattern for people who's interested making one of their own.

noali made 2 adorable Baby Piddlesworth where one of it is a custom color~

I was worried if the instruction was properly informed but she said everything else went well except for the "Making into an arm(with paws)" section. I tried reading it back and I don't even understand what I wrote... haha so I'll go back to it someday and fix that instruction!!

Other than that, I'm flattered to know someone created their version of Piddlesworth. Thanks noali~

my dress concept

2010-09-23T21:20:00.002-04:00

I did a illustration of a dress I made few years ago. Still fits me right~ Fashion illustration is fun to do. It let's me free my mind.

I still have extra fabric of this nice wool maybe I'll make something else!

big pom-pom scarf

2010-09-20T22:09:00.003-04:00

Few days ago I illustrated a girl and a scarf with big pom-poms. I just recently finished knitting a scarf like the image ~

I was happy the way it turned out and the selection of the yarn I used (LOOPS & THREADS; Charisma) was so soft on my skin! The pom-pom was the difficult part. I have never made a pom-pom this large so I had to be precise. Each pom-pom used 1 1/2 of yarn to make! 3 whole yarn to make 2 big pom-poms!! That's a lot!

After attaching the pieces together I was looking forward to wearing this this fall! ....I tried it on and it turned out to be the HEAVIEST scarf I ever wore.... It almost feels like wearing ball of chain on your neck!

So I have totally miscalculated how heavy 1 1/2 worth of yarn would be...I'll leave it for now and see how this goes. If it's too heavy then I'll consider trimming them to smaller size!

yummy jam

2010-09-12T23:48:00.002-04:00

Now that I have time to cook I made pancakes and french toast for breakfast this week. I ate it with Celine and Melinda's homemade cinnamon plum jam. It was DELICIOUS!!! (Thanks you guys! I would want more of these!!)

I didn't expect the french toast to be this heavy, it lasted me whole day! I actually didn't want to eat dinner because I was still full!!

banana republic

2010-09-01T23:07:00.002-04:00

I kind of like the banana republic's fall season window display~ It maybe a little busy but it shows variety of outfit you can choose from.

They have lot of nice fall's new release.

fashion art 2

2010-08-29T12:33:00.006-04:00

Every year near end of the summer I always feel like making scarf for next winter season. I started doing this since beginning of college, so I now have so many collections of scarves in my closet...

So this is my second series of fashion illustration. I'm currently knitting a scarf similar to the drawing.
I'm thinking of making the pom-pom that big but do you think it's too big?? That will be A LOT of yarn!

wedding details

2010-08-23T22:50:00.005-04:00

Hello everyone, I've been away for a while! I just finished another intense project for my friend's wedding as wedding decorator! What I took care of are decorations for table settings, and any decorations for the ceremony.
Lot of work but it felt like I was in heaven. Creating beautiful stuff for people to make them happy is always rewarding!

For now, I'll show you few photos of stuff I made. I'll post more photos near future!!

So now I'm here, where weddings are over. Something feels empty inside me... It feels like you just got back from awesome vacation and now you don't want to go back to real world.

fashion art 1

2010-08-12T11:05:00.003-04:00

Taking a quick break from wedding stuff~ Experimenting fashion art style. Near future I want to illustrate clothing I've created or designed!

This illustration is my first step!

tags sneak peak

2010-07-30T00:49:00.001-04:00

Here are the sneak peek of napkin/gift tags I worked on! They turned out very cute, I can't wait to use them!

cake top

2010-07-22T00:11:00.003-04:00

Here are the cake top I've been working on!

I used oven-baking clay to make this. I printed out the text and traced it out and pulled my old toy from my closet(best toy ever!) and baked it in there. It' been more than 15 years and the light bulb powered oven still works for this project. It came in handy still.

Did anyone owned EZ 2 Do products?
I still remember the commercial for this!

little berries

2010-07-13T22:44:00.002-04:00

I didn't realize I had these bushes on my lawn. It has these adorable tiny berries, they're so translucent and juicy that I want to eat them!

car wash

2010-07-04T23:18:00.002-04:00

I always liked going to Parkway Car Wash when I was a kid because we get out of the car, the employees vacuums inside and then the car goes into the wash while we walk through the hallway where we can watch our car getting washed through glass window. In the end of the hallway we reach to the cashier and get free lollipop from them.

The Parkway Car Wash was there since I was born or even before I was born. It's a car wash place that my dad goes since when I remember.

For some reason I stopped going with my dad and just today I went, to get my car cleaned and washed. It's been more than 15 years last time I went. It's always nice to go to a place where things haven't changed since you remember!

I always liked their colorful cars on the wall.