Because Beauty is in the Basics

I'm a lover of simple things. Well it's more about simple colors. I am currently working on a project for my screen printing class, which has to include a minimum of eight colors. If you happen to know me, you know what a daunting task that is to me. My closet, - I meant my life - is filled predominantly with black, and a few accents of neutral, earthy colors. Very few bright ones, but I'm gradually working on incorporating more of those! (Think red kitchen accessories, one (!) yellow tee for summer...)

Doing laundry always makes me laugh, everything - and I mean truly everything (clothes, underwear, socks, towels, bedding...) matches perfectly: blacks, military greens, beiges, grays, a few whites...

At least my designs are usually more colorful, although I have a hang for duotones, sometimes I incorporate different shades of the same color. One of my favorite color threesomes is black white and red. It has something very refreshing and crisp and I love that its somehow genderless.

This is why I wanted to share these finds with you. Not only do they look really nice, but they are meaningful, too.

My first find is The Pomodoro Technique. No, it's not a new recipe. It's actually a time-management tool. It's supposed to help you focus on tasks, thus getting them done quicker. The name choice "Pomodoro" (italian for tomato) comes because you use a kitchen timer to divide your time in 25min batches! How fun is that!? If you are as intrigued as I was, when I first read about this over at the amazing design*sponge blog, just go to the this website and download a free pdf about the method! I can't wait to try it out!!!

My second find comes from creative review, where I saw these neat book covers. Redesigned classics, a Penguin and product (RED) collaboration. For those of you who don't live in the US and might not have heard of (RED), they collaborate with established brands (Converse, GAP, Nike, Penguin Books, etc) and a percentage of the (RED) products goes to fighting AIDS in Africa.

Today a had a very colorful clothing day - i finally wore my Help Haiti Tee from Tiny Whales - after customizing the collar, that is ;)

Last but not least, I received the flyer for the next pop up event I'm participating in. And guess what? It's all white, red and grey - how very convenient :)

My Week In Pics

Oh no: shame on me! - I never posted anything between last weekend and this weekend. In my defense I have to say, that my Spring semester started last monday, and even though I'm only taking two classes, it wasn't too easy to get back to the routine, after an amazing 2month period in which I did whatever I wanted whenever I wanted! This last week has been a bit on the strange side, not really eventful, but it has brought change in to my life.

I'm enjoying my classes, both related to printing. One is a hands-on screen printing class, the kind of class I'm addicted to: great teacher, surrounded by creative people and I can work at my on pace. The other class is an intro to Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign, it's the last requirement for my screen printing certificate and a bit boring because I have been using these programs for years now. But the teacher is great fun and I'm expanding my list of shortcuts: oh how I love those "apple-shift" combos ;0)

Another great thing about classes starting is that I can indulge in quick escapes to meet my friends more often. I live right next to the campus, so whenever they get a break and I happen to be free I can just walk the block that separates me from the variety of coffee or restaurant joints and meet up to chitchat for a while!

I had the pleasant surprise of receiving two packages on the same day: some much needed workout shoes and a book I had talked about with my dad's wive back in January. She decided to mail me a copy, when I had completely forgotten about it - how I love surprise packages :)

The shoes are my second pair of the rykä. I love how lightweight they are and how they are wide at the front: which is good for my eyes (because I love wide shoes!) and for my feet (because so far I haven't met anybody who can surpass my feet in width!

Finally on friday we had another appointment with an immigration lawyer. I decided to make an appointment, because my whole listmaking idea (listing all the good and bad stuff about Europe and/or the US) didn't make much sense without knowing if the US was even a realistic option. Well, turns out it wasn't! What the...

Well, so our mood has been pretty weird over the weekend. The days included rain, working out, comfort food, visiting friends, working on some graphics for my next screen print, going to the movies and laundry. Ha!

Mikki and I watched "Valentines Day" and it was a great choice to hype us up a little, such a funny movie. Of course it's cheesy at times, but if you are mentally prepared for some kissing, sadness and happy endings, all the funny parts make it really recommendable :)

How was your week?

This weeks font is called VKB KonQa.

My Week In Pics

This week involved a lot of movement. To mix it up a little, I'm going to start with the end, just because everything I did this week makes more sense that way ;)

I attended the my first pop up store in 2010 this saturday in Costa Mesa, CA. The event was inside a huge eco life style store, which is part of an ecofriendly mall in the aforementioned city in Orange County. I was very impressed with the whole site, its amazing architecture (I'm a huge fan of the wood-concrete combo), the great stores and the very cute Milk+Honey Café. Overall the whole place just emanated such a great vibe.

Because of this event I spent some days of this past week in my workshop, taking pictures and buying supplies. Some of them I got by mail, others I had to go pick up myself. So my week included a trip to downtown Los Angeles. Whenever I have to go downtown, it gives me mixed feelings. I love shopping for supplies (especially chains!), but I dread the parking situation. I love the art nouveau-ish architecture of downtown's big old buildings, but I hate walking on the overcrowded dirty streets. So what I end up doing is parking in one secret parking spot and walking to all the places, averting my gaze from the streets and looking at the pretty skyline and old signs instead :)

One sunny day (this week has been an ever changing mix of sunshine, clouds and rain) Mikki and I decided to treat ourselves to lunch, so we ended up going to Nicole's, a cute little french bistro place in South Pasadena. And we absolutely loved it. It's definitely the place to go if you crave some European style food. I'm so glad we finally went and checked it out.

And last but really not least, I got myself a very cute and simple Tee at the Seeds People's Market, in support for Haiti. The makers are Tiny Whales, and an amazing $20 (the shirt is sold for $25) goes to the Hungry's Haiti Earthquake Fund. I'll probably customize the plain round neck of the AA tee with my scissors pretty soon :)

Anyways, I hope you had an amazing week and have a even better one as of tomorrow!

Thanks for reading, xx

Polaroids are done with this free app.

This week's font is Kushtie.

Just a Quick Reminder...

... if you happen to be in OC this weekend, I am participating in this cool Pop Up Store event called Graffiti Beach. It's an indoor market event that will be hosted at The Camp in Costa Mesa on Saturday from 1pm to 8pm and Sunday from 12pm to 5pm.

You should definitely come by, there's going to be music, free food and local artists and fashion shows!

Hope to see you over there and happy weekend!

Neither Here Nor There

Well, today's post is going to be a bit more on the personal side than usual. I'm hoping it'll have some eye-opening effect, or, if that should fail, I'm hoping for some comments, to know what you think ;)

The situation is the following. Two and a half years ago, my boyfriend and I decided to make a big move: pack our belongings in sunny Spain and move to sunny California!

For Visa reasons, we decided to go back to school, so I decided to go back to college, taking classes in fashion, screen printing and jewelry.

I was a frustrated photographer and graphic designer, and hoping to bring some sense into my life. Mikki moved here for his music, a pretty awesome nu metal band, called Loyal Enemy.

Over this past years living here in Los Angeles, I believe we have both learned a bunch and evolved a lot on a professional level as well as on a personal one.

Believe me, it has not always been easy. We went through some rough personal times: being so far away from the people who are closest, making new friends, a roommate situation gone awfully wrong, just to name the essentials.

But after the first hard year, the friends came, and so did some successes: Mikki has played some pretty amazing gigs; I finally got the guts to start my own business, with all the self-doubt and pride that involves.

To make a long story short, our student visas expire this summer and it seems about time that we made a decision as to where we want to spend the next years of our lives. Believe me, this is being extremely hard.

Although our choice wouldn't have to be final (we are not necessarily deciding where we are spending the rest of our lives) I still have to admit that as the years go by, I'm feeling a strong urge to nest :) Yes, I admit it: I want a home, a dog and a family!

So I kind of do have the feeling that whichever decision we make, it's going to be a bit more on the long-term side, rather than just choosing where we want to live for the next year.

Unfortunately, the more we think about the pros and cons, the more pros we have for each location - instead of making everything clearer, everything is getting foggier all the time!

I feel as if we were choosing between giving personal and professional life more importance, because in one continent we have our folks close by and in the other we have more chances to succeed professionally - that is as long as we get the necessary visas! At the same time Europe could provide great alternative business opportunities without the nerve-wracking visa situation, but we have made many very dear friends in the US as well...

I guess you get where I'm coming from.

So my question for you is: do you live far away from where you grew up? Did you decide to leave everything behind and just jump into a new life far away and never looked back?

And how many years do you need to be living somewhere to call it "home"?

My Week In Pics

Wow. Another week has gone by so quickly. It was a good one, too. Just the way I like them, a bit of work and a bit of fun.

The first pic is of my Scheherazade tassel lariat. A part of the SS2010 Collection I've been working on, especially because of the Graffiti Beach show I'm participating in next weekend.

Then on saturday I had the pleasure to go to the opening of an art exhibition at the James Gray Galleryover at the Bergamot Station Art Center in Santa Monica. Where Australian photographer James Tapscott is showing his series on light.

I finally got myself to invest some of the money I made in the past shows into a stamp that I can use to brand my jewelry. So watch out for those NIMO. letters in the back of my new SS2010 collection!

So after getting my metal stamp I thought I might as well get myself and ordinary paper stamp, just in case I run out of business cards or need to brand anything else (like the terrace floor, as you can see in the pic).

Oh and then it was Valentines day today. As most of you might already know, Mikki and I have been in a very long term relationship :) - twelve years and 3 months, to be exact. We have never been big fans of all the Valentine-craze, but we decided to go out and have a nice lunch, as we had one of those sunny and warm days California is famous for. We chose a cute little restaurant that has tables set outside on the boardwalk, but apparently we weren't the only ones! After what seemed to be a never ending wait to be seated, the staff just seemed to forget about us constantly. Not only did they seat customers which had arrived after us, before us, but when we finally got our table they forgot about us again! Finally they realized that we weren't part of the decoration, apologized and... ta-dan: invited us for lunch!!! So we ended up having a great Valentines lunch in the sun, and we didn't even have to pay for it! I must say, it pays off to be patient ;)

"The Hooligan of English Fashion" is dead

This morning I got the sad news, that Alexander McQueen has died today. A master in his field and definitely a great inspiration, not only for me, but for so many people in the fashion world.

What a great loss. Here are a collection of pics, my tiny tribute to an amazing designer.

1. FW 1994/95 Famous "Bumster" Pants

2. PF 2009

3. F 2008 & RST 2010

4. S2010 & F 2009

5. FW 1998/99 & S 2005

6. Björk "Homogenic" Album cover 1997

All images via style.com & Contemporary Fashion Archive