My Week In Pics

Vellum for my next CMYK Poster. (Each paper has tiny dots at different angles, one for each color)

What is it with the japanese that they make even the simplest thing looks so pretty?

A red plastic teapot? I think it looks great!

The last screen print I finished:

same principle as the one above. [This one was printed on fabric.]

Eel and Avocado Roll - our absolute favorite.

And look how thinly they sliced the avocado!

UFC. Seriously? The only thing I like about it, is that it gives us

a great excuse for a regular get together with awesome friends :)

Random shot I took while trying to shove my

phone in my bag. Voila, our red door.

I decided to sew after what as been an eternal hiatus.

Dug up all this cute trim I bought ages ago in downtown LA.

Bougainvillea on my kitchen window. That's where it grows at my mom's place too.

I love how the flora in California is soooo similar to the one back home in Spain.

Apparently someone hasn't been taking that many pictures last week. It's been a strange one, sneaking by and providing us with all kinds of weather: sun, wind, even rain (read drizzle) (hello??? SoCal in May???), and pure summer heat today.

I finally finished the layout for my last screen printing project, decided to sew a little (nothing too complicated), and worked on some tribal jewelry pieces I had had on my mind for some time now.

It's funny how inspiration works. I see something that appeals to me, then it triggers something in me. After having it in my head for some days I might draw some sketches in my little moleskin. Usually at the sketching stage something starts happening, either the design works out, or it doesn't. Sometimes I come up with an entirely different piece. But sometimes even while I'm working on a piece it kind of develops a mind of its own. And many times, or even most of the time, I end up with something completely different to what I started off with...

I'm heading out to the movies: Prince of Persia. Mikki's turn to choose :). But there's a few other ones that I really want to see: Exit through the Gift Shop, El secreto de sus Ojos and Please Give.

Have a great first week of June everybody! Can't believe we're already halfway through 2010!

EAT.

Hello and welcome to a new section of the blog. Food.

I've seen so many nice blogs featuring pretty food that I somehow felt compelled to have a small section for food as well. Who would have guessed? Don't get me wrong: I love food. I would even say I love it too much. But I've never had a "thing" for cooking. Or anything too housewifey, for that matter.

But I thought it would be nice to have a small section devoted to food, preparing quick and easy meals and sharing our quest to eat healthy and fresh while trying to shed some of the side effects of being a food (especially sweets) lover, before summer comes around and I can no longer get away with hiding under layers of clothes.

What better way to start this section than with a typical spanish dish everybody likes? And I truly mean everybody. One of the things I have learned to really appreciate about spanish food, once I had already moved to Los Angeles, is its simplicity. The key is freshness. A couple ingredients paired with olive oil, salt and a little black pepper. That's it.

So without further ado: Tortilla Española.

Don't let the name fool you - tortilla in Spain has absolutely nothing to do with tortilla in Mexico. In fact, this dish is like a potato cake/pie.

What I love about it is not only its simplicity - all you need are potatoes, olive oil, eggs, salt and onions - but its versatility: you can have it hot (by itself or with ketchup)or cold (it's a perfect party platter cut up into little squares) or even cold on a sandwich. You can also add zucchini (like my mom) or even pumpkin (like my father in law). My favorite is (hot or cold) tortilla by itself, with a tomato salad on the side. Yum!

As it's almost always the case with "typical" regional food, every household has it's own secret (or not so secret) way of preparing tortilla, and trust me: everybody will tell you their way is the best!

Funny enough I learned to make tortilla in the US, probably because back home it's always available everywhere and I never felt the need to venture into preparing one myself.

{My recipe is a mix of info I got online and tips and tricks I learned from other spaniards}

So here come the ingredients:

4-5 medium sized potatoes

4-5 eggs

1 cup of olive oil

1 handful of chopped onions

salt to taste

Step by step Instructions:

1. Peel the potatoes and cut them into uneven slices (the thickness you're going for is approx 1/4 inch)

2. Chop a handful of onions

3. Pour the cup of olive oil into a pan (try to choose one that's not too heavy)

4. Once the oil is warm, add potatoes, onions and some salt and cook till the potatoes are done but still firm

5. Get everything out of the pan and into a colander, drain [and save] all the olive oil (now would be a great time to prepare a side salad)

6. Once the potatoes are as oil free as possible, beat the eggs. The key to how many eggs you need is to put the potatoes in a large bowl, then add the eggs. Beaten eggs should fill all the spaces between the potatoes, covering everything lightly.

7. Put 1-2 tablespoons of the saved olive oil back into the pan. Heat it up and add the potatoe egg mix. Make it as even and flat as possible and cook it on medium heat until the egg part solidifies a little.

8. Cover the pan with a plate or lid. Take one deep breath (I was scared to death when I did this the first time!) and flip the pan over. Now you're holding the tortilla on the plate and have an empty pan.

9. Repeat step 7 for the other side of the tortilla. (Just slide it back into the pan after adding more oil).

10. Ready! Flip the tortilla back onto a clean plate, cut it up and eat it!

Step #1 sliced potatoes

Step #4 Potatoes, onions and olive oil in the pan

Step #5 Getting rid of excess oil

Step #6 Beaten Eggs

Step #7 Everything back in the pan

Step #8 Flip the tortilla onto the plate

Step #10 The Final Product

Wow. I can't believe I just posted my first recipe! Hope you enjoy your tortillas, if you decide to make them :)

My Week In Pics

Sunshine = Smoothie Time!

These are Raspberry Craze, Ultimate Açai and Green Tea from Juice it Up!

Hello and welcome to my very colorful week in pics! Oh, and to my new blog design.[I decided it was time to change things up a little.]

As you might have seen in my previous post, I spent a lot of time this week working on updating my store. And let me tell you, it takes a lot, and I mean a lot of time to take at least 5 good pictures of every single piece of jewelry, then come up with a good and fitting name for it (if it didn't already have one) and then measure it, and add a nice and informative description for the piece and the origin of it's name....

I finally finished printing my CMYK halftone screen print - pretty intense printing I must say. CMYK always prints darker than originally intended, so it involved a lot of experimenting with quick and light squeegee strokes and re-mixing of inks on the screen. I'm happy it's done :) I printed on white fabric, so I'm thinking I'll probably make some cushion covers or appliqué the prints on some tees. I'll post the finished products.

I've started working on a new design already. My last or second to last screen printing project in class. I hope the design process comes easy and quick, as I only have 6 classes left before summer. (whaaat!?)

On friday we saw a mini Massive Attack concert at the Jimmy Kimmel show. So much for how cool it is to live in LA :) Oh, and we found out about it through twitter! And they played Teardrop.

Here is the video

Lunch at the Souplantation

My favorite is the broccoli salad. Yum!

Some of the beautiful contents of our weekly organic basket. Doesn't it all look delicious?

Working on my CMYK, four color process print. [ Here is the design]

Halfway through the printing process

My colorful printing apron.

I worked a lot on my shopnimo etsy page this week. Taking photos of jewelry, naming each piece and writing descriptions.

Mikki convinced me to download "words with friends", a scrabble game for the iPhone.Guess who is completely addicted? That would be me, of course. So we've been playing against each other all weekend long. 2 games at a time!!! Oh and on my laptop screen you get a peek on a new print design I "am" {read: should be} working on.

Shop Update

Tribal Mask Necklace

La La Land Necklace

Hello everybody! Let's get down to business :)

I'm working on a shop update and will be posting new items on my etsy shop over the next days few days.

I'd love to get some feedback on the pieces, the descriptions, the pricing...and if you see anything you like - well, there's free shipping for my blog readers! Just enter "blog" on the message to seller and I'll waive the shipping.

Have a great week, xx

My Week In Pics

If I had to give this past week a theme name, it would be movie week! Mikki and I are huge movie fans and we had made it our habit to go watch a movie almost every week. But during the last few month we haven't been going nearly as much, mostly because none of the movies caught our attention. Well, this week we made up for it :o)

We started by watching "The Hurt Locker" at a friends place. And we liked it a lot. Be warned though, it's about people that disarm bombs in Iraq. So that's what you get. For two hours.

On friday we decided to venture to the beach, to improve our pitiful skintones and get out of town. Well, sunshine and heat 20 miles inland, doesn't necessarily mean sunshine and heat at the coast. At least not around here. So that's what we got - again. Breezy sunshine in Santa Monica. So our beach day became a shopping day! (Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining.) But shopping and eating was done and we still had a little over to hours to kill before heading to a friends gig in town. So we decided to watch "Robin Hood" at one of Santa Monica's old school movie theaters. - And we both liked it a lot. It had a fresh twist to it (as far as that is possible with such an old story), because it was the story about how Robert Longstride becomes Robin Hood. Although I kept expecting Kevin Costner to show up all the time, the cast was great, my absolute favorite being Cate Blanchett as Marian.

To make up for the lack of beach I spent most saturday reading in the sun. I just got the "The Handmade Marketplace" by Kari Chapin. I had read about it over at decor8 blog and decided to order it. It's definitely a nice read. And the fact that it's beautifully done and the fonts are a delight, makes it even more enjoyable: useful eyecandy - ha!

The highlight of the week was the Thirty Seconds to Mars concert at the Greek Theater. What an amazing location, sandwiched between Los Feliz and Griffith Park, this open air theater is surrounded by trees! Gorgeous. I just wish I had done a little more research, so we could have worn warmer clothes :) Bottom line the gig was great. Loved the show and the location.

Today I had a nice lunch with my girls and later we'll be heading out to watch Iron Man 2. Let's see how that goes :)

I don't want to leave you under the impression that all I did this week was drive around an have fun, though. I also got some important stuff done: like taking billions of pictures of my jewelry, naming each piece and writing descriptions for my etsy shop. So next week I should be ready to start uploading more goodies, a few at a time.

Hope you all had a great week too,

xx Naomi

Attempt to make old school popcorn - complete failure . Luckily we had microwave backup

I've been wearing this ring all week

One of the screens for my next print

Books, water and sunshine - one of my favorite combos

One of the highlights of this weeks organic basket: Apriums (Apricot+Plum)

You just gotta love those old school neon signs

Talking about old signs. This is the movie theater in Santa Monica

Mikki posing for me in Santa Monica

Me in my "I'm just gonna pretend you're not taking pictures" pose

Olive oil and balsamic vinegar on a plate, add some bread and you have one of the best inventions ever

unmade beds can be very inviting - if it wasn't for the guitar that seems to always magically appear wherever I want to sit or lay down :)

Seats at the Greek Theater

Procrastinating

Design for my next screen print (CMYK process on white fabric)

Oh man! And here I am, procrastinating again.

I don't know what it is - I just can't seem to peel my butt off the chair and get my stuff together.

And it's not like I didn't have enough things to choose from. The things that await me cover a broad variety of categories.

- I could be working on making more of my "best-sellers" for a shop update that I have promised.

- I could be taking pictures for the aforementioned shop update.

- I have been meaning to change my shop banner for a while.

- I should proof my ad for N.E.E.T and send it to them.

- I could be working on designs for future screen prints

- I could be doing laundry.

- I could be mailing a package.

- I could be drawing new jewelry designs...

-I could... oh well...

Instead I'm off to the gym (I'm almost running late with all this procrastinating business), then it's movie night at my friend's place: The Hurt Locker. We've been meaning to watch it for months now....

My Week In Pics

view through our living room window

I had a great week. How about you? I'll let the pictures speak for themselves (kind of) this time. Have a great week everybody, xx

homemade berry lemonade

(1 cup lemon juice, one cup sugar, 5 cups of water. Dissolve sugar in one of the cups of water on the stove, then mix everything)

surprise package from my mom - yeay!!! [pj shorts and yummy tea (not pictured)]

highlights of this weeks organic produce box: lettuce and artichokes

My free Moo and Etsy cards arrived!

My riogrande order arrived!!!

And it inspired me to organize my workspace and to make a new prototype

Freshly organized work bench

Details: stones and seashells from the Atlantic Ocean [collected back home in Spain]

Work in progress: a new NIMO. prototype

Hiking through Topanga Canyon with friends. These wild flowers were buzzing with bees

The amazing views over the Canyon.

Seashell marks on a rock on the mountain

Partying in Hollywood