happy hallowe'en!

from your favourite spooky pies. this is a photos taken by sandi at her awesome party saturday night. what fun! stay safe tonight, goblins!

awards for something.

the folks at broken pencil asked me to make some custom awards for next weekend's canzine. they also gave me total free reign and, other than the fact that they should be awards, absolutely no constraints. so i made these. yup, three glorious inches of isosceles triangles. these is no greater meaning or rationale involved in these except that i like triangles and i like colours. what fun!

i also have to admit to being so swamped these days that i don't rightly know what they are for. i am sure you can win one, i just don't know how. pitch a book? pirate a zine? discuss mental health? regardless, you should come to canzine, do everything and feel like a winner with or without a big fat button.

laugh attack.

this is another knuckle-busting custom order for my buds at laugh sabbath. if you come to their show on sunday, you will probably be able to sweet talk your way into one. they are generous that way. the design is by emma segal. she's great!

craftstock rising.

poster by selena wong

have you been dying to get your hands on sweetie pie press goods, old and new? do you like to be cool and listen to live music? if so, then your are doubly in luck. i will be setting up shop at craftstock 3 this friday night. an effortless fusion of indie pop and crafts, this quarterly event reminds me so much of the craft/art/music mash-ups of my youth (r.i.p. pedal to the metal). i love shows like this because the back and forth between music and craft makes for an easy evening and because i am so uncool that i get exposed to wonderful new music without making any big effort. you can turn with cool with me, too!

craftstock 3
friday, october 14, 2011
8:00pm - 2:00am
kapisanan philippine centre for arts & culture
167 augusta (kensington market)
toronto
19+
$8

night terrors.

oh, spookiness is in the air. on the way to the workroom's 4th anniversary party i managed to steal a quick peek at brette gabel's latest show, bad dreams, at gallerywest. brette has taken iconic images from scary movies and worked them into a series of quilts so that you can snuggle right into your nightmares (bigger image). although i don't know what movie it references (the omen?), my personal favourite was the black-on-black cross - creepy, subtle, cozy, cursed. eerily, the cross showed up red in my pictures but it didn't look that way in person. totally haunted.

charmed.

fall is in the air, it is a bone-chilling 23 degrees celsius and the leaves would be turning and falling if it didn't feel like nuclear summer outside. that can only mean one thing - hallowe'en is right around the corner! i can hardly contain myself. for me, hallowe'en is the absolute best holiday of the year - it's all witchy and tricky and theatrical. so imagine my delight when i connected with sandi falconer this year over the city of craft design job and, in so doing, discovered a comrade in charms (you can see what i mean over on the city of craft website).

this set was created as an extension of our mutual love of all things superstitious. sandi selected five charms - a crystal, a rabbit's foot, two arrows, a wishbone and a watchful eye. not only will these charms protect you and keep you lucky but they also provide a comely set of accessories that you can wear to your next spiral dance or dark alley.

the charms sets are available in the etsy shop now and in person at all upcoming events. look for them in discerning independent shops near you sooner or later.

chair repair.

this just in from the late night fixit files: tape your rotten old chairs up for fun and decoration!

i probably should have taken a before picture but tidying and fixing is so manic these days there is no time for such diversions. the point is this - chair + duct tape + washi tape = possibly temporary but nonetheless pretty repair solution.

this picture also illuminates the greater disaster that i am up against in my office. we use it as our storage room when we tour so there is always a pile of boxes being chipped away at for months after returning home. the mess is definitely adding weight to my psychic strain at the moment, but with non-stop city of craft tasks to attend to through december, i don't foresee this space being entirely clear until february. oh well, at least i fixed that holey chair aitor gave me! and i am back to work at the making desk.