What I’m working on right now…

… is a continuation of the update I posted on Instagram last night. ((Please pardon the dirty cutting mat… I’ll clean it this weekend!)) I made these jeepney, tricycle, and pedicab doodles  ((The jeepney was especially tedious to carve because of all the detail I put! Masochist much?))  a week ago and thought of printing them on the Gocco… until I realized that I didn’t have enough screens.*headdesk*  But as explained in the previous post, this is what led to my interest in rubberstamping in the first place which just proves that necessity is the mother of inven innovation (and crazy new obssessions).

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On the home front, Arn is happy that I’m spending evenings being artistic — not just vegging out in front of the TV watching J-dramas (Teehee. Now you know. ) So now I’m either carving or doodling while my iTunes blasts out J-pop. Same difference. 🙂 I’ve actually been semi-passively studying Nihongo since 2011 but I’ll reserve that story for another time…

Before I went off-tangent, I was gonna say that Arn and I have been talking about what sparked this sudden desire to create with my hands.After some thought, I had the answer: Design Festa!!!

This cheezy photo below was taken at the Design Festa Gallery in Harajuku, Tokyo in 2006. (Whattapose *cringe*)

(More photos — and cheezy poses — in my old Flickr gallery)

That was the first time I heard of it. Since then I’ve been wanting to attend the actual festival but our timing was always off. When we planned our trip for this year, I made sure to check the schedule. They usually hold it in May and November. We chose to go in the fall because Tokyo would be just as hot as Manila if we went in the summer.

So here I am all giddy, holding our pre-bought tickets which we purchased at the HQ in Harajuku (the same place in the 2006 photo I posted above). We actually arrived at Tokyo Big Sight 30 minutes before it opened.

This is not even half of the crowd that was there bright and early. See how behaved and properly-queued up everyone was though.

Inside, the place was bursting with kawaii, I didn’t know where to start!

I went bananas over all the cute stuff and even had photos taken with the very friendly and talented artists who were only too happy to indulge our whims.

Arnold, meanwhile, enjoyed taking photos and videos of the kids who were painting on the scene.

We originally planned to stay until around 4pm so that we could go somewhere else afterwards but we ended up leaving at 8pm, closing time, because there was so much to feast our senses on. Indie bands were playing outside. Strange short films were showing upstairs. A diverse selection of food carts dotted the place. At the end of the day my tote was filled with handmade puraban brooches, plushies and some stationery. Arn bought several art cards and  indie comics. Ironically, I didn’t notice any keshigomu hanko (hand-carved erasers) although I’m positive there was a whole section devoted to it…

There are more photos in this Google album.

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Hope you enjoyed this post and hopefully I’ll have finished prints to show in my next post! 🙂

Wow, in four days it will be a year since I last updated this blog! Where did the time go? I don’t even know what to write about here anymore. *sheepish grin*

There are actually TWO things that prompted me to post an update.

1) A conversation I had with my friend Ramon a few nights ago. He said that he and Neva have been wondering why I haven’t posted anything new in a while. Often wondering about that myself, I arrived at the conclusion that, well, unless I do a major overhaul and talk solely about how I make money online ((just see how many hits this site will get with that keyphrase plugged in!)), no one will pay attention to this entry, or even this blog. In this age of Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr, “About Me” blogs have become passe, I figured . They are so 2001 and so is this site. *mopes*

but then…

2) Surprise! A comment came this way (why thank you Rand Al Thor) and this fact offered me some assurance that this site is still getting visitors! Triple exclamation points!!!

… (silence)

… (cricket sounds)

Aaaanyhoo ..  for the benefit of the lovely readers who still drop by every now and then (yes, all three of you LOL), I will try my best to fill you in with what I have been up to since the last time I checked in.

Eraserheads The Final Set

* Eraserheads: The Final Set. You all know that this band holds a special place in my heart so naturally, we were there for their last. ever. reunion. concert. Arn has videos of some of the performances on his Youtube.

KL Design Week 2009

* KL Design Week 2009. Arn & I flew to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia with our good friends Carlo & Nina to stalk Stefan Sagmeister… I mean, to see, meet, and listen to some of the world’s top graphic designers talk about their thought processes and showcase their latest work. Aside from Stefan Sagmeister, other highlights for me were the presentations by Kuntzel&Deygas (the French duo behind Caperino & Peperone and the memorable Catch Me If You Can opening title sequence) and Lava Architects (the Australian firm that designed the glorious Water Cube that was launched at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, among others).

Nins and I did actually manage to corner Stefan Sagmeister and ask for a photo with him each — twice — so that’s now off the bucket list. 😉

* Volunteering for Rock Ed Philippines and designing / maintaining Rock Ed Radio‘s website. I first met the brilliant Gang Badoy in the early 90s but she flew off and lived in the US for a decade.  Armed with several masters degrees, she put up Rock Ed Philippines upon coming home in 2005. Rock Ed is a volunteer group dedicated to promote alternative education through holding classes on different areas of knowledge such as music, the arts, sports, science, and cultural studies. It has been (and still is) always a pleasure knowing that our contributions, however small, are helping make this country a better place.

* Saying goodbye to Wedding Essentials Magazine as Design Director. It was a difficult decision to make ((many tears were shed, yes)) since Editor-in-Chief and good friend Marbee and I make up the “we” in Wedding Essentials. We saw the magazine from its inception, to its birth in 2004, and through its growth into the big player that it is now (seeing how successful it is now kinda makes me feel like a proud mom). I thought it was time for me to move on since I knew the magazine would be in very able hands with Marb and Kitten at its helm anyway, although I am still with them in spirit. The issue above is the last one I worked on.

…but wait, Marbee and I have a wedding blog, We Heart Weddings. Because we really love weddings (and we really do like working with each other!)

* My Arn made a short film, his first ever. Arn has always wanted to make films, ever since he was a kid, so now that he can, he did. This is the trailer for the suspense/thriller short he made called Chapter:-0ne. We held screenings for it during the second half of last year at Fully Booked (twice) and Nomnomnom. He hopes to make another one soon, so watch out for updates on here.

* Uno Magazine named me one of their “Women on Top”. Me? Really? Aaaawwshucks *blush*. Being in a 12-page spread along with smart, innovative, trail-blazing women makes me feel that I probably am doing something right in my life.

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That’s it for now. Next time, I will give you a sneak peak of the super secret project I’m working on. (Clue: it starts with an E , ends with heads and it will come in a box) 😉

Sigh, my only excuse for not updating except is that I’ve been preoccupied ((With this, this, this, this, and this.)). Anyway, here are a few notes:
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* It’s been out for a while but here’s a plug nonetheless: our mag Wedding Essentials came out with the annual Beautiful Weddings issue last month. It features 25 real-life weddings, over 75 wedding element inspirations, plus over 200 pages of articles, tips, and everything there is to know about planning your big day! Please do grab a copy now, it retails for a very reasonable P200. 🙂

You can see a bigger photo of the cover here, and view the launch party pics here.
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* You can find a couple of artworks by Arn in the September and October issues of Rogue mag ((A new-ish cutting-edge literary lifestyle magazine for the modern and might I say intelligent Filipino man.)) one’s an illustration for our dear Quark Henares‘ really funny article about meeting Sarah Silverman and the other’s for Quark’s Quentin Tarantino fanboy chronicles.

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* A sister publication ((Meaning they also belong to Manila Bulletin’s roster of magazines.)), Imagine Magazine‘s maiden issue is now out. It’s the new, innovative fashion and design glossy by the team behind the i section of the Manila Bulletin. A high-end, 280-page glossy, Imagine takes fashion coverage to the next level, following the trends in international fashion publishing, where fashion is treated as an exhilaration of an art form, and a magazine serves both as a portfolio and an idea platform. .

There’s an article on Arn in this issue ((Which we haven’t seen because we haven’t gotten a copy yet, oops!)) penned by no less than one of our favorite writers in the world, Luis Katigbak.
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* I was invited to judge for this year’s NU Rock Awards, yes exactly 10 years after I won one. I initially thought that I was only judging for the album packaging design category; it turns out I had to pick winners for the other sections as well. Gasp! The result: a night of cram-listening to all the finalists’ albums because I wanted to be fair to these musicians ((Never mind if I only got to hear of some of them and their music for the first time last Sunday night.)) and make the right decisions after all.

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* We managed to squeeze in a week of R&R in Hong Kong. I’ve been there tons ((Also because I’m old na.)) of times before for leisure with either family or friends and mostly for work ((When you’re in the advertising biz, going to Hong Kong becomes just like going to Cebu or Baguio. Most post-prod work is done there.)) but it was my first time to go with Arn so we allowed ourselves to “do the touristy”. 🙂

More here.
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