can't stop the 'stache

Hooray! Only four mustaches remain on my etsy, two being given a proper home during the holiday season. I wonder who will be next? Baldwin? Gudmund?

I've been poking around etsy a bit, and of course I'm finding tons of things I want, like mathematical looking jewelry, more bright and silly tea cozies, and of course hilarious stuffed animals with cat faces.

p.s. in the new years spirit, let's all look back on bacon, the ingredient of the year.

DTW's Psychedelic Tunnel!

DTW's Psychedelic Tunnel! from Emma Brown on Vimeo.

I finally got a decent video of DTW's Psychedelic Tunnel! This thing is legend among the Trithart family. I know that it makes no sense, and that it really shouldn't exist, but it does and it's AMAZING. Next time you fly through detroit, make sure you make the pilgrimage between Concourse B and A. It's worth it, i promise.

mug design

my parents have a sweet collection of mugs.

merry merry christmas

selections from my wishlist, circa 1993. JP = Jurassic Park. There were several JP requests.

oh mon dieu!

the most recent urban outfitters catalog, I must say, really stepped it up. The past few catalogs have been pretty ho-hum, but this one knocked my socks off with all the frilly pretty stuff- especially this saucy photo! I love the makeup and the hair and the styling and the location. I think part of me just wants to be this girl.

The whole scene seems a little French pop star, very Brigitte Bardot or Gillian Hills, except.. brunette.

booty boot

sadly i forgot my camera cable in minneapolis, so you guys will have to wait for my video exposé on DTW's famous psychedelic tunnel.

Instead, I'm going to talk about boots. Recently I have come to the realization that throughout the years I have rid myself of any shoe item that might protect my feet from the snow. Luckily I am able to weather the soggy feet, but I think that it has been long enough. I need a boot that will actually protect my lower digits.

Here are the requirements: mildly waterproof, must be warm (after all, I do have my extra tall fishing/rain boots, but those make my feet so cold it's almost not worth it.), must be cute, low or no heel (preferably not a wedge). This is proving somewhat difficult to find, but luckily I have some inspiration for styles after perusing zappos:




fuzzy style: timberland fauna lace, merrell spirit tibet



padded raindboot: hunter festival lace



victorian inspired: la canadienne odelle

anyone have anyrecommendations?

oh my goddd

it's here. it's finally here. after four years of lappy lappy holding up, he has stopped charging past 0%, and thus I decided that I needed a new one. And now I have it. IT'S BEAUTIFUL.


(p.s. snow emergency, MPLS! whatcha gonna do?!)

key words

these are some of my favorite keywords that people searched for and found my blog.

(thanks, google analytics. you rock.)

cookies cookies cookies we adore!

Yes, yes, more cookies! This time it's Hershey's Chewy Chocolate Cookies, another recipe my mom has been using for ages and ages. We substituted dark cocoa for regular, which worked out really nicely.

o tenenbaum

i'm obsessed with my christmas tree this year. i even took my wardrobe remix photo in front of it today:







p.s. thanks to katie and scott for buying it some lights!

a two-post day

woo! lots of posts. anyhow, i know i said yesterday that i was going to make an illustration about H.M. - and here it is! woo. There is nothing more satisfying than applying white paint (or, in photoshop, a white paint bucket) to a colored ground.

IT WAS FATE

i just happened to be at the mall yesterday, and just happened to cross paths with a scary bobble-headed mascot, who just happened to hand me two free tickets to a ride for the amusement park, and we just happened to pick ghost blasters, and upon exiting the ride we just happened to find this card.

Addressed to me. During the month of my birth.

check one off the list

thanks to ben thompson and with his mixing skillz, i have finally made some linzer stars. this recipe is what my mom uses when she makes HER linzer stars, but for ours we used strawberry-rhubarb jam, which is my fave.

on a completely unrelated note, here is an article/obituary about the late H.M., a famous medical study who had profound amnesia. I heard about this story first on NPR on the way home from work one day and thought it was very interesting. I also can't imagine how hard it would be to not be able to form new memories. I'm working on an illustration about this right now.

a december to-do list

This year I have decided to get into the "Holiday Mood" early, so that when I go home I will be prepped and it won't feel like Christmas came and went. I'm not a particularly religious person, but I love the holidays because they mean things like parties and presets and food and warm fuzzies. Mostly food though. But here are some things I think I should do before December ends:

+Make more Christmas presents. It's the trend this year, after all.
+Buy something sparkly and something with a bow on it to wear to our annual Birthmakhus party. (which I need to plan, eff!)
+Watch the following movies: Nightmare Before Christmas, White Christmas, Holiday Inn, & Meet Me in St. Louis.
+Avoid "A Christmas Story" like the plauge. I CANNOT STAND THIS MOVIE.
+Make linzer sanwiches. (pictured above)
+Concoct a holiday cocktail.
+Illustrate my own holiday card.

What are your holiday to-dos?

another "i want"

How funny is this teapot & cozy set from Eden & Eden? It looks like a little creature with that knitted cozy. If it weren't for the recent-college-grad-just-made-first-student-loan-payment-working-part-time restriction, I'd buy this guy up in a second.

We should all look at more yellow today. This is a good place to start.

turkles

oh hey, turkey. I made him for a little freelance invitation job I did. I think he is thinking about cranberry relish. That's what I'm thinking about, at least.

thanksphotos

in which i sum up my thanksgiving in photos:

mazel tov, mazel tov

Watching Fiddler on the Roof today reminded me of how totally awesome this scene is.

new traditions

last year I decided to make my very own side dish to bring to the Trithart family Thanksgiving dinner - clementine/cranberry relish and a baked squash thing. They went over pretty well, probably mostly due to the novelty of me cooking something and then sitting at the kid's table (which I like doing). This year I turned to Martha and came up with this:




APPLE STUFFING. I will tell you how it goes later, after I make it in my parent's kitchen tomorrow. If you don't hear from me, I've drowned in apples.

WANT

my birthday's coming up, guys. well, it's next month, but still. HINT HINT HINT.

tiny bubbles

has anyone noticed the amazingness that is pop cans as of late (diet coke, coke, pepsi)? Here are some people who have:

+jon berry
+amnesia blog

compositions

The other day at a little gallery opening, bill started taking pictures of "compositions" - snippets of what you're wearing that make a pleasing picture. I've actually been doing this awhile since I started documenting what I wear from day to day, so I thought it might be interesting to put some together.

color block

i was going to write about my most favorite house in minneapolis (if not the whole universe) today, but it turns out that street view doesn't even get near it - who knew Linden Hills was not good enough for street view? I'll have to take a picture of it later.

But then, low and behold, what lays on my desk at work but the new JCREW CREW CATALOG? I like JCrew because their clothing is mostly too expensive for me and looks boring in store, but whoever designs, art directs, and styles their catalogs are all geniuses. They play with color very well, and the type is so hot I would prefer not to even talk about it. Let's just look, shall we? You can see all the pages here. Some are great, although once it gets into the guy's stuff it's kind of boring.

stoli?

When my parents came and visited me last they brought me a few little goodies, including a little plastic bag from Expo 67 - from the USSR booth! ohoho how funny. All historical references aside, check out the color blocks on this thing! I love how strong each design looks, very solid. My favorite is probably the can on the bottom - I like the intersecting colors and all the different kinds of type. Very very wonderful.

Also, saw the new Bond film over the weekend and really liked it. Thought the whole "revenge" plot line was mildly unnecessary, but who really cares? The action was frantic and tots awesome and the TYPOGRAPHY. woah. I am not an expert in type, but in myyyy opinion I thought all the location cards were really wonderful. You can look at screencaps from them here and look at more work from Tomato, the always impressive people who did them, here.

a winner is me!

So this morning I took a shower real quick-like, threw on some clothes and hopped on over to Spyhouse. I didn't check my e-mail since I was in a hurry - my landlord's helper was going to be in our apartment, and recently he has become just friendly enough that I get really awkward and have to pretend like there's something else I need to be doing just so that I don't have to make small talk whilst he's looking at our broken toilet. Yes, this is how my brain works sometimes.

Anyway, I get to Spyhouse, and LO AND BEHOLD WHAT DOTH AWAIT ME IN MY E-MAIL INBOX?! Yes, oh joy, an e-mail from weardrobe.com informing me that I had won their "scarves are the new black" contest and would I please give them my address so I could perhaps receive my totally sweet giftcard to H&M? YES PLEASE! This was exactly what I needed to start my week off, given last week was fairly typical of an art school student who has recently graduated (worrying about: job,student loans,money,work,creativity,talent,etc). HOORAY!


also, this marks the first time I have ever been interviewed via e-mail (they'll be posting the interview later). a new day dawns.

p.s. AND TO TOP IT OFF, the wonderful Alli-san featured me during her stint as guest blogger over at The Minneapoline. Sweet!

ohhh heyyyy

I spy with my little eye a real life usage of my Trihart font! Seems as though the very talented Johnathon McNicol or Never Mind That Now used my one and only real font for a little Kurt Vonnegut project. If you want to see all of it, and golly it looks nice, it's ready for download on the blog!. This makes me excited! I always wanted to see something I did at YWFT put into use.... I just wonder if there's anything else out there.....

oh what our eyeballs do

Forced perspective is hilarious! There's a good flickr group for it that I would spend all day looking at if I didn't have to go to work.

today.

today i watched breakfast at tiffany's and found out my phone number spells out "peg wild 5-I-0".

It was obviously a good day.

the mean reds

thanks, Russian Revolution, for giving us a reason to make little construction paper hammer & sickles, wear red, and listen to Tetris music the whole night through.

built in a day

I redesigned my website! I'm kind of impressed with myself, not gonna lie. Besides the hand-done stuff this was all executed yesterday, including figuring out how to use div tags for placement (this was done by observing and snipping others code) AND figuring out how to position my image placeholder in the java. I'm not so good at retaining the htmls. yup! I'm liking it a lot more now - I know this style is pretty popular right now for portfolio websites, but I also think it's the most effective as far as getting someone to see your work right away.

it's snowing. fart.

breakfy

What's your favorite meal? Mine is breakfast, most likely because it can be sweet or savory AND there is almost always a lot of cheese and potatoes (my most favorite things) involved. Today it was more on the sweet side, with oatmeal and various toasts. The cinnamon tea was really yummy.

If you don't already point your browser in simply breakfast's direction, you probably should. It is a wonderful celebration of all things breakfasty.

might as well blog about it

It was worth waking up early, now the line's all the way around the block and into the park. Keeping fingers crossed, etc.

'stache

The good churchgoing people without facial of Alabama need your help! There is some wrongful fake mustache outlawing, and this petition could change all that!


(Anyone know where I could get a bulk of fake mustaches in the greater Twin Cities? I gots to have some for the art sale deadline.)

straighten up and fly right

look, a drawin'. I'm trying to make things.

at work I listen to Martini in the Morning, because it doesn't have the swears (it's a kiddie boutique so no effin a's) and it plays a lot of Fred Astaire songs. They also are very popular on Second Life, which I think is crazy. I remember fondly the class I took in which we all had to get a Second Life account. I made my body tiny so I could fit it into an egg shape. And then I had an egg body with little spindly legs.

cat skills

cats are cute! that is all.

miss white in the hallway with the crown molding

I was trying to find interior shots for The Shinig, given that I'm watching it right now and wanted to speak of its beautiful interior design. Along the way, however, I came across this article in the Times. It's kind of like a real version The Westing Game or Clue... without the whole "dead guy's will" thing. Basically a rich family hired an architecture firm to redo the interior of their apartment, but the designer didn't just redo their interior. He put a giant, complicated puzzle literally into the woodwork. How weird would that be to come home and be like "hey honey, how was work? mm, yes, good. well, how about we go solve the next leg of the puzzle? I think there might be a clue in the kitchen cupboards."


JUST IMAGINE.

p.s. J.J. already has the rights to the movie