the shiso mama report

we have moved!

2006-05-20T03:58:00.000-07:00

please visit us at our new home: www.shisomama.wordpress.com and while you're at it, why don't you comment and say hi so i know that my readership is not just limited to my husband? see you soon!

collage-a-day, day 10

2006-05-16T23:56:00.000-07:00

Man, these photos really suck rocks. Scanner, I can't wait until I see you again!

collage-a-day, day 9

2006-05-16T23:55:00.000-07:00

collage-a-day, day 8

2006-05-15T04:33:00.000-07:00

collage-a-day, day 7

2006-05-15T01:01:00.000-07:00

The picture quality on these images are going to suck rocks, so please bear with me while I'm away from my scanner.

collage-a-day, day 6

2006-05-11T08:36:00.000-07:00

This will be it for now since we're getting on the plane tonight. But I'll be back as soon as we're settled and I figure out a way to post collages from Taiwan.

collage-a-day, day 5

2006-05-10T16:37:00.000-07:00

collage-a-day, day 4

2006-05-09T14:04:00.000-07:00

collage-a-day, day 3

2006-05-08T10:06:00.000-07:00

collage-a-day, day 2

2006-05-07T10:26:00.000-07:00

collage-a-day, day 1

2006-05-06T11:26:00.000-07:00

A little while ago, I saw an installation of studio paintings by Chris Ofili. You may remember him as the artist whose piece in the "Sensation" show at the Brooklyn Museum used elephant dung on the image of the black Madonna and caused all sorts of ruckus. He got a lot of bad press, which is unfortunate because many of the people who got so upset never took the time to understand the piece. I enjoy his work, especially his wonderfully lush watercolors (like this one on the right. check out more of his work here). This installation that I saw was a collection of watercolors that he did every day, to warm up and get his work day started. They are loose and free, something he did out of sheer pleasure, similar, but all very special. I love the idea of doing something small every day and I think I'd like to do something every day - it can be small, it doesn't need to take much time (meaning I can do them during nap time), and I'll try not to worry if it's "good" or not. I've decided that today will be the inaugural day of my collage-a-day project. Feel free to call me on it if I start to get lazy. Day 1:

shiso bro's wedding - place setting cards

2006-05-06T08:38:00.000-07:00

For some miraculous reason, Otis took a long, leisurely nap yesterday afternoon, allowing me just enough time to finish up printing the name cards that will go at each place setting. It's a block printed shoe, same silhouette as the shoe on the invite. There's about 300 printed, although we had had an unfortunate misunderstanding, and I totally printed out an entire set WRONG and had to start over. stab stab stab. But that's OK, because I wasn't sure I was entirely happy with the results of the other set anyways and I prefer how simple this is.
No matter how I scan it, for some reason the printed stuff always looks so flat and boring, and has such a different quality from them in person. Shiso Bro sent me a picture of the finished wedding invite. It doesn't quite look how I thought it would, but whadya gonna do? I figure at some point, as a designer, you have to sort of let go of the process. As long as he's happy with the results, then I am.

mama's day

2006-05-01T18:46:00.000-07:00

Hey peeps, don't you dare forget The-Woman-Who-Gave-Birth-To-You (And That Birth Was Probably Long and Painful) Day this Sunday. We sent off a card and a package of Otis photos to my Mama and hopefully it'll arrive in one piece (we've been having lots of trouble with the US Postal Service, for some reason). It's a portrait of my Mama, me, and Otis in pen and gouache.
We also sent off a card to F's Mama. It's a cut paper collage.
If you haven't sent your cards/bought your presents/made a reservation for brunch, you better get a move on. EDITORIAL NOTE - Due to misinformation (fingers pointed in F's general vicinity), I've browbeat you too early. It's true, Mother's Day is NEXT Sunday. Breathe a sigh of relief. I believe we may have actually given one or two people a heart attack.

whipup whiplash, week 2

2006-04-22T13:54:00.000-07:00

This week's theme for the whipup whiplash competition is "your surly side." Some of my detractors, I mean "friends," have suggested that maybe this might be a pretty easy concept for me. Ahem! I don't know what you mean by this scurrilous comment, but I'm pretty sure that you're looking for a fight. Don't think I won't fight you. I'll do it, and I'll do it while I'm holding the baby. No, actually, I had a lot of trouble thinking of something I wanted to do. But here's my entry, a sort of self-portrait, if you will. It's a stuffed porcupine who needs love. I mean, a person can't be surly ALL the time, can they? Maybe? F says that it also looks like a prickly dinosaur, or maybe it could be a blowfish, and I'm open to those interpretations. In the spirit of using what i have, which I've been seeing a lot of on many crafty blogs, I just used materials that I had at home. I crocheted her quills out of little bits of extra yarn that I have been hoarding and I sewed her body out of an old sweater that has been sitting for ages, unworn, at the bottom of my sweater drawer. I threw it into the wash and dryer to felt it up a little so she's actually pretty soft. And she's sticking her tongue out. Then you can sit her on her bottom, exposing her soft vulnerable belly. She wants you to hug her. Go ahead, do it. Just be careful of her sharp side. Here she is with her friends. If we're going to take this whole self-portrait idea a step further, which one of you friends o' mine wants to be the pig, and which one wants to be the chicken?

whiplash

2006-04-21T13:38:00.000-07:00

hey people, check me out, i won!

*****

update: by the way, have you seen the new contest theme for this week? it's "your surly side." if you're crafty, get a move on! i'm already working on mine...

Otis's new bib

2006-04-16T12:42:00.000-07:00

I made this bib for the whipup whiplash competition. They are hosting a series of contests over the next few weeks, and this week's theme is "everyday creativity" so I wanted to make something that I use every day. And although a bib doesn't always work as well as we need, it's a better option than wrapping him in a tarp. When the bib is open, you can see all the food going into his mouth and on it's way to his tummy (or it would be if he were eating nowadays): (He was not being the most cooperative model.) But then you can flip up the bottom of the bib, snap it into place so that there's a little food catcher pocket, and you just see his top and bottom teeth. Unless you peek into the pocket (mouth), of course. It's made from flannel, with eyelashes stitched on, and felt teeth and "food particles" appliqued. You'll notice that the bib has 7 teeth, because that's how many Otis has now. It's all covered with vinyl so that cleanup is (in theory) easy. But please, remind me never ever EVER to try to sew vinyl ever again. Unless I want to check myself into an institution, or, of course, I'm making myself an android costume.

shiso bro's wedding invite

2006-04-12T09:58:00.000-07:00

Yes, ladies. In case you've been walking around with the feeling that things aren't entirely right with the universe, we can now confirm that it's because my brother is engaged. And he's getting married on F's and my fourth wedding anniversary in Taiwan so we're planning a big trip to the exotic Orient. So I've been trying to help him think of ideas for his wedding. (Yes, I swear I've been working away!) And the theme of some of the stuff I'm doing is SHOES. Yes, my entire family shares an excessive love of the shoes. But he also likes the idea because he works in the shoe industry. Boy, how do I come up with such genius? I hope it's not too cutesy obvious. I originally was going to make little felt shoes as wedding favors, but the planets were all aligned in my favor or something because that ended up not really working out or else I would be eyeball-deep in 500 tiny little felt shoes. Plus, all the crazy Chinese people would surely take that as some sort of sign and start asking Shiso Bro if his wife was already pregnant. With their first-born son. And when would they have their second child, a daughter, to go with that? So here's the invitation prototype that I've been working on. It will be very plain and simple, and is two parts. The first part is this silhouette of a shoe, which will be cut out in leather, with their names and the wedding date embossed on it.
Then it will be grommetted to the back, which will have all the important details on it, along with the laces. Shiso Bro liked the idea of "tying the knot" so I worked on those two elements together. I'm hoping it'll be letterpressed, but they may just settle for engraving, which is OK, but doesn't look nearly as nice. You'll be able to pivot the shoe on the grommet to read the information underneath.
I'll post an image of the actual invite after everything is said and done and mailed, and I'll keep updating on the wedding craftiness.

thank you card

2006-03-28T15:36:00.000-08:00

Here's the card I made to thank all the people who gave Otis such lovely birthday presents and who came to the party.

I printed them using these eraser-like printmaking blocks and black and silver printmaking ink, mixed together to form a pearl-y charcoal grey. And here's the part I'm most proud of - I used paper that I scaveneged from SCRAP, where they have tons of art materials for people to creatively reuse. It's letterhead from a print shop that for some reason or another couldn't be used. The card stock is nice and thick, and in this lovely mustard yellow color. The cards look better in person, more tactile.

hat for tama

2006-03-25T19:17:00.000-08:00

Of course we had to send Taka and Tama a package after receiving Otis's birthday treats in the mail, and I hear they've already received them. I felt inspired to make Tama a little hat for him to wear, and I've learned my lesson - never make a baby something with "baby" yarn. It'll take forever. I used a chunkier yarn for Tama's hat, and this is what I imagine he looks like, wearing it: Taka told me that it was cold in Boston the day they received the hat, so I hope he's getting some use out of his new hat.

otis party invite

2006-03-20T13:42:00.000-08:00

Here's the invite I made for Otis's birthday party. It's a housewarming party too since we still haven't had too many people over to see the new digs. It'll be brunch, and I'm still thinking about what kind of menu to plan. I'm sort of doing a chicken theme for the party, and am going to get some fresh organic eggs from Gemma the chicken lady. More details to come later this week as the planning continues...