Happy New Year!

I can't believe another year has passed and we are now on the eve of a brand new one! 2010 has been interesting, fun, emotional, experiential, happy, sad, educational... I wonder what 2011 has in store?! May all of your celebrations be safe, happy and fun! I look forward to sharing more of my life and interests with you in 2011! Cheers from Mookey's Mood!



(**Please note these images are borrowed from Miss Suzee Que and all rights are reserved by her. Please visit her Flickr page for details: http://www.flickr.com/photos/suzee_que/4226528794/sizes/m/in/photostream/)

Christmas Weekend in Los Angeles!

Thankfully, the drive down HWY 5 was smooth and speedy and full of beautiful stormy cloud formations!



Christmas night, stopped by Mireya & Oscar's place of El Ponk fame for a visit and gift exchange. We also made a trade...I took home one of the Ramone skulls in the second photo and the lovely Frida one in the first photo.



My mom and I spent Sunday together visiting friends, doing a little shopping and completing our night at Oomasa, my favorite sushi restaurant in Little Tokyo. Because it was so cold out, I opted for the shrimp tempura udon and shared a scallop dynamite with my mom, who enjoyed her own plate of chicken teriyaki, salad, rice and pickled veggies!


The Japanese are so cheeky with their bathroom signs! Guess us ladies often find ourselves running to the bathroom!


This lovely bikini clad lady has breasts that bob from side to side and is powered by solar! You know you need one of these on your desk at work! ;-)


Monday morning when I got in my car, the thermostat told me it was 79degrees! That temp only stayed there for a couple of minutes before dropping down to 71, but it was still a lovely December day in L.A.!


I spent all afternoon with my grandma. She will be 95 years old in February. We had a great time together. I took her out for lunch, we went down to the Marina to watch the boats go by and ended our visit with an ice cream. I don't get to see her very often, so these times together are extra special.


And, signing off with a photo of an amazing piece of art created with gelatin! It was tasty too!

Latest visit to Shorebird Park in the Emeryville Marina!

It's New Years Eve day. Had to run a few errands and make a stop at the local Target, which is right by the Emeryville Marina, so thought it would be a nice way to spend the afternoon with my lovely baby doggy, Shuka. She loves the beach and anywhere that's full of smelliness makes her even happier! It was extremely low tide during our visit, so we had a chance to walk along the shore and climb on rocks and take in all of the garbage that washes up along this shore. That part is depressing, but also interesting to see what is discarded by us humans.


While stepping out a little farther than I should have to snap a photo of one such pieces of garbage, my right foot landed in a thick patch of mud and just sunk in! Only problem is that the mud is grey! Since when is mud at the beach grey??? It looked more like concrete mix without the rocks than beach mud!


Well, back to Shuka enjoying her explorations! ...and me finding an uncanny resemblance between curly party ribbon and seaweed. :)

Dark Whimsy in a Gallery Window!

If you happen to find yourself anywhere near the Lower Haight in San Francisco, I highly suggest that you take a walk about half a block down Fillmore St. to view the window display in the local gallery. I'm sorry that I did not catch the gallery name, but it is next to the Upper Playground space. I caught a glimpse after hours, so I also do not have the artist's info, but I was able to snap a couple of shots of this amazing display! The subject narrative is quite dark, but the characters are so whimsical! The attention to detail is overwhelming and keen. As I said, a viewing of these windows is definitely worth while!

I love to wrap gifts!!!

This Christmas, I decided to wrap each person's gifts to match their personality. I chose unique paper in a pattern and color that I associate with those special people in my life. Everyone seemed to appreciate the extra effort I put into the wrapping and that made me feel good because I spent more than a couple of hours putting all of the packages together! In a perfect world, I'd be able to make gift wrapping one of my main methods of income! :) Here's a few snap shots of the special packages.

Steven Kemper

Someone that I recently met and am now linked to on Facebook shared a link to a Steven Kemper video. I took a look and listen and found his instrument to be pretty fascinating and wanted to share it with you. Hope you enjoy!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Kara's Cupcake treats at work!

The week before my assignment ended with the Gap Co., they held what they called "The Week of Giving". It started off with a nice boxed set of black leather luggage tag and passport cover, then we had free chair massages all day long, then a free Italian lunch and finally free cupcakes and coffee and hot cocoa from Kara's Cupcakes! I had the S'mores flavor and it was pretty amazing! Crumbled graham crackers were the bottom layer, then came chocolate cake and finally topped with whipped marshmallow and a cute candy. Thanks to the Gap Co. for their generosity and yummy cupcakes!

Tops & Powers of 10 by Charles & Ray Eames

Many years ago...around the end of my college years or maybe just after, I went to see: "Work of Charles and Ray Eames: A Legacy of Invention" at the LA County Museum of Art. I was already familiar with them as designers, but had no idea how wonderful that exhibit would be! It is an experience that I will always remember. Not sure why the memory popped into my head this week, but it got me onto Youtube looking for links to the short films that they made throughout their careers. "Tops" is one of my favorites (see it above). There is also "The Power Of Ten", which is pretty interesting. (see below)

Charles & Ray were an important part of Herman Miller, who produced most of their furniture designs. http://www.hermanmiller.com/Designers/Eames If you are not familiar with them, I encourage you to take a look. They are truly inspirational and a good reminder that some of the best things in life take time to evolve. And for a bit on how far their influences have reached, enjoy this into from the Simpson's, titled Universe:

Recent Finds! Keep an eye on my etsy shop!

I found this cute vintage coloring book and really wanted to buy it, but unfortunately for me, the inside was well loved and aside from the cover art, had no value to me, so for posterity, here is the lovely illustration for viewing pleasure and inspiration!



These are a few items I picked up. The shoes I really hope to be able to keep for myself, but upon second try at home, I'm afraid they might be just the teensy bit too small. :( Sooo sad about that as it's hard to find nice vintage women's shoes my size or anywhere close to it for that matter! Anyway, that's another subject. If I decide not to keep them, they will be added to my etsy shop. The paisely shirts are all slim fit button downs for the Mod aficionado! These will definitely be in my etsy shop...keep an eye out!
www.questionetc.etsy.com

Enamelling is FUN!!!!

This weekend was full of busy-ness. I stayed up until 2am Saturday night wrapping gifts and woke up Sunday to wrap even more! I'll share pics of the packages in a later post, as I am quite proud of the end result. :) But, back to business...I joined an enamelling workshop this evening at Gravel & Gold in San Francisco's Mission District. I've posted about this several other times, but I am now on the other side of the anticipation and returned home with enameled pendants in hand! It was soooo cool to learn the basics and to see how many possibilities there are with this! Here are the 2, two-sided pendants that I made.


If you have an interest in enamel and ever get a chance to do this, I'd highly recommend it!

Cool Fun on a Sunday afternoon in SF!

Sunday, December 19th has a lot to offer the handmade connoisseur! Renegade Craft Fair makes it's second ever Holiday visit to San Francisco this weekend. I'm hoping to stop by to see about finding a few last minute gifts, before heading over to Gravel & Gold ( gravelandgold.com ) in the Mission to take part in the Enamel Wow II workshop, taught by Raissa Bump! I think Sunday afternoon will be a very enjoyable one indeed!

Craft Project for tonight!

I was supposed to spend the day sewing and wrapping Christmas gifts, but instead, I got caught at a new little spot full of wonderful vintage finds and records galore! Well, with this aside, I didn't get around to the sewing, and have yet to get around to gift wrapping...but all was not lost! I did make something! Yay!!! Saw something like this at a neighbor's house and thought it would be a lovely way to decorate a gift box! It's made from a chopstick and looped strips of colorful magazine pages! I bought the chopsticks from Daiso (http://www.daiso-sangyo.co.jp/english/products/) and used an old magazine that I had sitting around the house. I am a collector and hate throwing things away that could be useful in the future and I love when I find a fun way to make good use of these things!

I Baked!!!!

Ok, so this is somewhat of a milestone for me...I've baked things before, like brownies and such, from mixes, but this time, I wanted to make something special! I was shopping at Daiso (http://www.daiso-sangyo.co.jp/english/) a few weeks back and noticed the cutest little mini cookie cutters. They had several shapes - I chose the stars and flowers. Not sure why seeing those so inspired me to buy them and then to make my first attempt ever at sugar cookies...but they did! And, in the end, the cookies didn't turn out half bad! I finished up a freelance gig this past Friday and wanted something special to give as a thank you to my supervisor and another woman that I worked closely with. I found pretty silver flourish printed pastry bags at the Dollar Tree (http://www.dollartree.com/home.jsp) and filled them up with powdered sugar covered sugar cookies and chocolate chip cookies! They were a hit and it made me happy to be able to give something that I made! The recipe is from an original Better Homes & Gardens New Cook Book from the 1950s. Crisco makes the best cookies!

...and yes, I love shopping at discount stores! They have the most unique finds sometimes and the most inspiring, as I've learned with this experience! :)