Did anyone notice something different about my little illustration yesterday? Well the other day I was reading Secret Agent Josephine. She had a post about how much she loved Adobe illustrator so I decided to give it a try. And yesterday’s illustration was the result. Illustrator is really awesome. It makes vector art. And I can control the thickness of my line, or not have any lines at all (like yesterday), or even change the colors all with a simple click. See.

So I’ve been playing around with it.

That’s where this illustration came from. I was playing with Illustrator and trying to read some of the blogs I’m subscribed to. But Bloglines was not working. For those of you who don’t use Bloglines, when it’s down a little plumber pops up. I was a little perturbed. Ok a LOT. I actually made that noise. Arrrgg!

Well happily I was distracted with Illustrator, how fun! I think I’ll be using it a lot more.

Posted in: Illustrations
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I feel bad for getting mad at the plumber. Because, really, I adore Bloglines. I can’t imagine ever going back to reading blogs without Bloglines. So I shouldn’t be so mean when they have downtime.

And I’m going a little crazy with Illustrator here. Just drawing everything!

Posted in: Illustrations
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I made the carrot cupcakes and success! Well almost. They didn’t come out wet sodden messes but they didn’t poof up as much as I was expecting. They are, however, delicious. I don’t even need the frosting. Yay! Less work for me. I only frosted two of them.

And also, YAY, I got three new Japanese craft books. THREE. As if I needed more. Alan actually asked me why I don’t take Japanese classes since I have so many books. Yeah why don’t I?

So where is the picture of the new books? Here. One picture for you. Of one book, ISBN 4579111494.

Am I being mean and teasing you? No. So why only one book? I had this brilliant idea of taking pictures of each project to share with everyone. That way you’ll know if you like it before you buy it. But damn that took a long time. There are 28 projects in this one. TWENTY EIGHT!

The light was bad and Isabelle was all underfoot. As a result the pictures just turned out a mess. But I had decided it was a brilliant idea so refused to give up. I then tried taking the pictures with a tripod. Still didn’t work. I would not quit. I ended up scanning them all in, all 28 projects. Then I laid them all out six to a page because I didn’t want to upload 28 pictures. (I believe I have my account set up so you can click through to the larger size.) And when I was done, I WAS DONE. Too tired to scan the other books. Too tired to finish this post properly. Another day. sleep. now.

Posted in: Books yum BOOKS, Food
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For Illustration Friday. Wow I haven’t done one in a while.

The girl and the cat are based on the doodles I’ve been drawing with Isabelle lately. Well that is when she’ll let me draw. Sometimes she turns the pages so fast I can barely get a scribble in. The doodles look familiar to me, like I’ve seen them before. Maybe? I hate it when that happens, when something seems familiar but I can’t place it. Maybe the bumblebee reminds me of Isabelle on Halloween? Ya think?!

Posted in: Illustration Friday, Illustrations
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Isabelle turned another month older a little over a week ago. Here are some pictures from the last month.

Isabelle is full of boos. Did you know that? Not boos as in booze but boos as in peek a boo. She’s full of peek a boos. Today at the store she gave everyone she walked by a boo. Sometimes it’s the full on two handed boo. But today I was holding onto her so it was the one handed boo. She even boos when she’s being naughty. Alan says she’s trying to distract us from whatever bad thing she’s doing by being cute and doing the boo thing. Boo!

Did you know that Isabelle likes to chase the dogs around with her toy stroller? Around and around. How fun! Lucky for them she can’t quite reach the pedals on this bike yet. But watch out, she’s getting closer everyday! And when she does do you think she’ll chase them with her bike? Yikes!

Why does Isabelle run around crazy and jump off things at home but in class just wants her hand held constantly?

And I know you can’t see her face in this picture but it just cracks me up.

As well as this one. It should be titled, what happens when parents are bored. Or more specifically when Alan is bored.

And our monthly family picture.

Go read month twenty five.

Posted in: Family, Monthly Family Picture
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I’ve been drawing these girls lately. So obviously with it being Thanksgiving this turkey girl came out. More strange girls after the holiday.

Have a good Thanksgiving! I’m off to bake apple pie and brine a turkey.

Posted in: Illustrations
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We had a lovely Thanksgiving. Usually we spend it with Alan’s side of the family. My family doesn’t usually celebrate holidays, only Chinese New Year. I don’t remember growing up with Thanksgiving or Christmas. In fact in elementary school I was in a spelling bee and got the word wreath. I had no freakin’ idea what a wreath was. And the example sentence was something like “you hang a wreath on a door“. What the hell? They might as well have said, “you hang a scakabloob on a door“. But I digress.

Celebrating Thanksgiving and Christmas have become traditions for me since I’ve been with Alan. And as I said, we usually spend Thanksgiving with his family. But this year we stayed home. Olinda came over and I cooked food, too much food. Sage butter turkey, stuffing, brussels sprouts, green beans, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, and an apple pie. All for four people.Well for three adults and a toddler. Actually for three adults. Isabelle didn’t have a bite at all. But I ate enough for her and three people! I ate so much I felt nine months pregnant. Why do I do that, just eat and eat? Not like that made a dent in the food. We still had loads of leftovers.

I was going to talk about the rest of our four day weekend but it’s late. I’ll get to it tomorrow. It’s time for bed.

Posted in: Family
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