Flossy Flags

My schedule was pretty squeaky clean free so I decided to start cranking out some cards.

The first is for a friend of mine whose birthday was during my finals week so I put together a card for her. 

I tried stringing floss to the postercard paper and stringing pieces of glued paper so they could hang off the floss and spell things out. Then I hid the holes by gluing little icons over them (like the balloon and party hat and crown). It worked out pretty well!

Wooooot.

I made another card for my new neighbors that are moving in next door. All the houses look the same on our street, so I shaped the card like our houses and stringed a "Welcome!" message. 

...and the final product:

I hope they like their cards...

It felt good to have time to get all crafty again.

Painting 4: Windows

During this past Winter break, I painted another painting. This one's for Mom. 

The idea was to have a desk facing a wall covered with windows that could also be paintings... 

The ambiguity allows the viewer to pick and choose which one gets to be the window and which gets to be the paintings. 

They are all pictures I've dreamed of going to or places that mean something to me. 

The pictures of Santorini and Paris are images that swim in my mind from time to time. 

The skyline of Boston, however, is inspired by the view outside of my college dorm, and the bridge is a bridge near my old home in Kawasaki, Japan. The colorful, snow-covered leaves are of the tree outside of my house in PA. 

This painting makes me smile. It's like an intersection of my dreams and my history.

Does the average of my future and my past become the present?

The Paris part was inspired by that Chanel fragrance campaign

Inspired by the river view from my dorm room

View of a church across the street through the seasonal leaves of a tree on my yard

Santorini was my favorite part to paint

It surprised me to see this painting hanging in my dining room when I came back for summer break. I had almost forgotten I'd painted it and it made me happy to see it.

 It was like seeing an old friend :)

Moving out of My Dorm

Yeah. This episode was a doozy. My roommates had left a day before me so they finished packing 3 days before I even began.

This was their side of the room. So bare and therefore, clean.

I had about 3 times the amount of stuff they had and it was.... a mess. I pulled an all-nighter and still was packing as the moving truck driver was taking the boxes I had taped up out of my dorm room. Somewhere through the night my friends crashed on the other beds and were just eating pizza and dancing while I was packing. Everything's more of a blur though.
A while into the process of moving out, the dorm's elevator started getting stuck from all the traffic, so I had to carry my fridge (it's decently big and I packed some pairs of my shoes in it too [haha] because I ran out of boxes) down the staircase. It was scary.

So here's some photos mostly to remind myself never to pull a stunt like this again.
Fall 2012 resolution: DONATE EVERYTHING to Boomerang's (a thrift store in Central Square). Like everything. And maybe then I'll be able to move in with some grace.

It's okay if you need to shield your eyes:

This is the view when you first walked into my room. 

This was the wake-up call.

This may have been at its ugliest state.

It was after I'd emptied all my drawers and hangers. 

So painful. 

The good news is I did finish packing after throwing probably 1/4 of my belongings crap into the trash and having my awesome friend help out.

Off Duty

When I'm "off duty," I wear a cut-up tank and boxer shorts.
But these models have to go and be all glamorous when they're supposed to be chilling.
Why are they all effortlessly chic and cool? It may be their genes that landed them on the runway, but they have a rocking style that's all their own.

Bonnie Chen

via kalchoee

Jessica Clarke

via Altamira

via Chloe

Karlie Kloss

via Telegraph

Elsa Ekman

via Moi Contre La Vie

Rosie Huntington-Whitely

via CC

Finally... I was expecting more of this:

It's the closest to sweats a model would get right?

Karlie Kloss

via Altamira

A D for Architectural Dreamin'

Summer gets me dreaming about space. White space. With blue skies and clear water.

From the original AD:

(above by Doug Meyer)

(from citified)

Mmm Mmm Mmm... Feeling the summer breeze yet?

Adante.

Going home after a long semester at MIT just felt weird. Every time I come back home from school, it's like I completely shed my skin from school and reassume whatever I was at home before school ever happened.
When I got home, I literally threw my suitcase in a corner of my room, pulled out what clothes I had remaining in my closet, and pulled out my Mac and did everything I didn't do at MIT. I blogged. I put together outfits. I browsed through magazines. I used my hands and adjusted things. I thought about painting things and writing things. It's like slowly rebuilding my sense of self and slowly re-familiarizing myself with what thoughts I used to have in my mind. It's like rehab for the creative side of my mind. Slowly taking steps again. It feels awesome.
MIT is allegro. And I know August will be allegretto. But for now, adante feels just right. There's no rush. Yet there's a decisive rhythm to my work. Because I know I won't have this calm time forever and I want to savor each second. Each sound.

Let the SummerFUNtymes Begin

Summer is here and all I can say I've done is catch up on all my spring TV shows and eat a lot of good food. That's good and all, but it's time for a change in scenery.

So it's time for a summer checklist:

= Cook 3 times a week. (I don't mean microwaving things or easy-peesy ramen. Let's try a nice, well thought out meal.)

= Run at least once a day. (Where's the motivation from high school varsity preseasons? Come on now, early morning runs were dabomb!)

= Make at least one DIY project happen every 2 days. (your Pinterest isn't going to sit there being all pretty forever... Pull out that sewing machine from so long ago!)

= Culture youself with a new music artist/album each week. (new albums by Eric Hutchinson, Lenka, Regina Spektor, EP by Sara Bareilles... check out Beck, older Beirut songs)

= Program (keep coding - you won't regret it)

= Tell your sister stories. (Share about things - even imaginary, spontaneous things - with JoJo and make this quality sister bonding time too!)

= Take more photos. (Yeah yeah, uploading might seem like a pain to you, but hey, there's Instagram :) )

I'm excited for this summer! 

What adventures await,

 (via urban-gear)