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July 31, 2006
ATC Monogram Card Swap
For a recent swap I did. You had to make ATCs with monograms of the people in the swap and put it on a card. I used the packing tape image transfer method and pictures from a photo magazine.
Close ups
My favorite one because of Jayne Mansfield
Posted by luluvision at 04:48 PM | Comments (1)
July 28, 2006
damn right I'll rise again!
Last night I went to see The Hold Steady at Castle Clinton with Alison and Brenda for a free show. I got there at 4:40 to get tickets (they were giving them out at 5) and the line wasn't bad at all. I didn't have to get there so early either. New York is just so strange. When I think there are going to be a ton of people, there aren't. When I think nobody is going to be there, there are a ton of people.
Anyway, it was HOT! And it was probably hotter inside Castle Clinton because it's enclosed. It's got an open roof but we didn't get much breeze from the water. But THS put on a great acoustic show and played a few new songs from their upcoming album out in October. I couldn't pinpoint why I liked them so much. Craig Finn doesn't actually sing, he tells a story and I read somewhere (I think it was TONY) that his songs are like slam poetry but better and smarter. And his songs are full of little details. So, that is why I like them. I didn't get many pics of the band cuz like I said, it was HOT and I didn't want to do too much fussing around. They had a horn section and a cello player with a mohawk.
Craig likes to use his hands
Franz also played the piano and harmonica
Posted by luluvision at 10:10 AM | Comments (0)
July 26, 2006
BK BREW!
Last night we went to Brooklyn Brewery for a free tour and tasting courtesy of Tammy. She's so super cool she ordered 3 pies for everyone. Yum and Yum. The beer was quite scrumptious, I do have to say! I got my buzz on, that's for sure. I'm not a big beer person but their wheat beers were delicious (forgive me Makers Mark!) and super cold. Everyone that worked there was super nice too. Yves didn't really drink so he safely got us home.
Posted by luluvision at 11:48 AM | Comments (1)
July 23, 2006
Woohooo Mail!
I've received some great swaps in the mail this week. Here is the Blue/Brown swap from the Colorific group on flickr:
Kelly from TN filled it with some fun stuff and made homemade notecards and shrinky dink earrings.
Here's the Matchbox Shrine swap from Kat's Pad, the ones I sent out are here
And I received my swap-bot print from Shona also from TN. This is a hand carved linoleum cut, isn't it great!
Posted by luluvision at 11:57 AM | Comments (0)
July 22, 2006
Nobu & Whitney, happy together
Pete made lunch reservations at Nobu as part of restaurant week. I was very excited as I have never been to Nobu and man I can't wait to go back!! Besides the food being wonderful, the service was really impeccable! They had a special menu for RW. I had the Rock Shrimp Tempura with creamy spicy sauce and the Assorted Sushi for entree. Pete had the Sashimi Salad and Blackened Cod with Miso Sauce. We also got extra rolls, I got Eel Cucumber (although I wish I just got Eel sushi instead of roll) and Pete got salmon and toro sushi. The Toro was too die for! It just melted in your mouth.
Pete's Sashimi Salad on top and my Rock Shrimp Tempura
Pete's Cod and my Sushi
More goodness when the entrees come. I know I was told to not get the sushi at Nobu because I should try their hot stuff but since Pete was getting the Cod, I didn't want to get the same thing and the only other thing was the Tenderloin of Beef with Teriyaki or Pepper Sauce and I didn't want that. But the sushi was fabulous, melt in my mouth goodness! The Cod was absolutely delicious! And for dessert there was Japanese cheesecake with fruit compote. YUM!! The cake was spongy and light, not like your typical cheesecake.
I didn't want it to end but we needed to be off to the Whitney to see the Hopper exhibit. Seeing the Hopper paintings and illustrations up close and personal was just breathtaking! Unfortunately, no photography inside!
Posted by luluvision at 11:35 AM | Comments (1)
July 21, 2006
I'm Breakin' Out
Last night I went to see Shemekia Copeland for free at Wagner Park downtown. Althought the day turned humid, it was a very pleasant evening. Laying on the grass with a view of jersey (I'm being sarcastic here) and listening to Shemekia belt it out. If you like blues, you should know her name. She can belt it out without the microphone. And I was pleasantly surprised at how close to the stage we were. Plus there wasn't an opener and I was home by 9:30 and she played for 1.5 hours!!
She had on a cute dress and hot pink shoes
a nice view of the sunset
Posted by luluvision at 09:50 AM | Comments (0)
July 19, 2006
Life & Death
Last night was the July mixer and we were supposed to have it at The Porch but they were closed for renovations! Grrr!! Bill's wife Laura was meeting him there and discovered it was closed. He called me while I was on the train coming into the city so I made a mad scramble of phone calls changing the venue to d.b.a., the place we went to last month.
I'm not entirely satisfied with my mix. I did it kinda last minute and with it being my birthday month, I originally wanted something happy but with my grandfather dying and going to the wake/funeral right after my birthday really put a downer on things. I've never been to a burial before and there's all this traditional stuff you have to do. So that combined with the heat and humidity we've been having really sacked my energy. I wouldn't say my birthday sucked but I've had better ones. So I came up with this Life & Death theme and used a picture I took at the Greenwood Cemetary.
So it was a wonderful surprise when everyone at the mixer sang happy birthday and gave me a birthday card and cupcakes and cake from Sugar Sweet Sunshine. YUMMY!!!! I think I tried just about all of their cupcakes now. The pistachio is always top notch but the red velvet, YUM! Even the chocolate one was good (which I didn't like on a previous trip.) and the carrot cake one. The cake was delicious too with almond paste inside and cute almond bees on top. Yup, I ate that too!! It's my birthday dammit!
Posted by luluvision at 09:51 AM | Comments (0)
July 18, 2006
The 2nd piece
that I made at my newly re-modeled work area is a postcard from Serendipity. She fell in love with this dancer on this postcard advertising Feria de Primavera, a Spanish Spring dance. This is the postcard:
and here is what I did with it:
Does the background look familiar? I ended up mailing it in a little clear plastic envelope because I was worried about the stickiness since I used Xyron to stick all the images on it. The buildings were stamped onto a AI covered matte glossy paper.
Here's another postcard I did for the Handmade PC swap at swap-bot.
I liked the way it turned out. It's an old postcard that I painted and added the asian image from a travel catalog and the chinese characters I embossed onto a cardstock several times and then stamped it when it was still warm.
Posted by luluvision at 06:00 PM | Comments (1)
July 16, 2006
Easy Acrylic Background
So far my first project using my wonderful clean space is the Easy Acrylic Background on the recent Try It Tuesday blog that I discovered. This was from week 1 and yeah, I know, they are up to week 7 but I wanted to do something Easy. So I only had a chance to do one before I had to prepare dinner but I like how it came out!!
I was concerned at first because I wasn't sure if it was really going to turn out. I skimmed an important part of the instructions, the part where it says make a color wash of 1 part paint to 3 parts water. I did it more like 1 part paint to 500 times water. HA! So I improvised and squeezed some paint on the paper and used the heavily diluted color wash to squish it around. I used pink, lime green and orange. I can't wait to try more!
Posted by luluvision at 12:13 PM | Comments (1)
Wow! A clean desk!
I'm very excited because yesterday my wonderful hubby, Yves, put up 2 shelves above my worktable for me. I've always had orgranizational problems and when I first got the 12 drawer Ikea desk, I thought my problems would be solved. HA! Those drawers filled up pretty fast and not surprisingly, the tabletop was getting cluttered. It got so bad that I end up with a tiny area to do my work. I just couldn't go on like that! So we went to Home Depot yesterday and got 2 shelves. Look how clean my work table is!!
As you can see, the shelves are already filled up. I really am going to try my hardest to keep my area clean. I moved the inspiration wall to the left but will probably hang some stuff right under the bottom shelf. Yves is also going to put up 2 shelves in the deep closet that we have so that should help also.
Posted by luluvision at 11:54 AM | Comments (1)
July 14, 2006
Matchbox Shrines
I made these matchbox shrines a couple of weeks ago for a swap. It's the first time I ever made them and they were fun! The heart is a pin I made by gluing paper together and coating it with a secret ingredient. HA! It's clear nail polish! The imagine word inside is made out of shrinky dinks.
Posted by luluvision at 11:49 PM | Comments (0)
July 12, 2006
It's all about the EATS!
I had lunch with Richard for my birthday yesterday and we went to Trailer Park. What kitschy fun! They had a whole bunch of retro fun stuff and I definitely want to go back just to continue looking at everything. Richard ordered a cheeseburger and sweet potato fries. I had the chicken salad sandwich and couldn't resist the TATOR TOTS. Man, haven't had tators in ages! I also had a mango margarita.
For dinner, I opted out of the group dinner that I usually have for my birthday so me and Yves went to Alma in Cobble Hill/Red Hook. They have a roof deck and this is the view.
It was a bit hazy cuz it's been so damn HOT and HUMID but the view looks better in person. I ordered a mojito and man, it was HUGE!
Yves had the chicken enchiladas with mole sauce and I had the fish with corn meal crust. They were both delicious! And it came out like probably 10 minutes after we ordered. I think we were in and out of there in an hour! Which is fine because of the alcohol and the heat, I was getting damn HOT! LOL
Posted by luluvision at 09:56 AM | Comments (2)
July 10, 2006
What is your power color?
| Your Power Color Is Blue |
 You are empathetic and accepting - and good at avoiding conflict. If someone close to you is in pain, it makes you hurt as well. You try to heal the ones you love with your kind and open heart. |
Posted by luluvision at 11:12 AM | Comments (1)
July 09, 2006
More Coney fun
After the museum on Friday, we continued the day by going to Coney Island, specifically for the lighting ceremony for the parachute jump ("the Eiffel Tower of Brooklyn" HA!) Borough President Marty Markowitz decided to add 'bling' to the parachute jump and have it lit every night and on special occasions/holidays it would change colors. I think it's a waste of money but whatever, I'm not a politician. Anyway, we had dinner at Totonno's. Peter has never been there but it was all agreed that it wasn't the best pizza they ever had. Plus Yves is not a big fan of the woman who owns it and her kinda rough attitude. I don't mind going there as long as the wait isn't too long, at least it's better for you than Nathan's.
We went on the Wonder Wheel! YAY! What fun! I don't remember having been on it before and of course we got on the swinging car. Yves has funny video of us screaming and acting like idiots.
Not a Wonder Wheel virgin anymore!
Pete's amazed with the powers of the Wonder Wheel
We took some night shots while waiting for this lighting ceremony. They were going to show all the different lights on it and this was the only time they were going to do that. Well, it was LAME! There really wasn't much to it. They had their regularly scheduled Friday night fireworks and that was actually pretty cool.
Posted by luluvision at 11:45 PM | Comments (1)
July 08, 2006
Nat. History Pt 2
Museum Friday continues and we went back to the Natural History museum for more fun. This time we hit the Gems and Minerals and the Biodiversity exhibits. The Gems and Minerals room was fun 70's brown carpet and circles and we amused ourselves taking long exposures. I'm sure the guard didn't understand our goofiness and the other people seemed to be oblivious. The Biodiversity room was really cool and the exhibits were really amazing.
Posted by luluvision at 06:34 PM | Comments (0)
July 04, 2006
Nuts for Nuts
Rich and Theresa visited us from Chicago on Friday and Saturday. Rich was Yves' best man when we got married. On Friday we took them to Coney Island and they went on the go-karts. I couldn't get them to ride the Cyclone. We then went over to the Dumbo/Brooklyn Heights area and walked around there as well. We were tired by the end of the day, them especially since they woke up at 3 am to catch a 6 am flight that didn't leave until 8:30.
Saturday we took them to Chinatown to have dim sum at Golden Unicorn, which renovated their 3rd floor and now has flat screen tvs and rainbow lights.
We walked from Chinatown to Union Square and then hopped on the train to Central Park. We took goofy pictures of us, watched some roller bladers and the ducks in the pond.
We met up with Richard and had margaritas at El Azteca. I only had 1 medium frozen melon margarita and I was buzzed! I turned lightweight.
As usual, Skippy is a big hit with everyone so on Sunday, Rich and Theresa were getting ready to leave to go to Astoria where her brother lives. They tried to kidnap Skippy!! Luckily, Skippy knows the good thing he has with us and escaped his bag! LOL
Posted by luluvision at 09:28 AM | Comments (2)