I recently ordered 4 pairs of shoes from Melissa, and thought I’d give my Vinyl IIs a shot at work today.

Seriously, if anybody knows where I can find these in Red, let me know!! Blue or grey also accepted.

I was all ready to leave, when a package arrived from my dearest Wifey, Miss Marie!!

SWEET JESUS she got me the Zac Posen for Target leather Jacket!!

Dudes, I almost cried.

As you may or may not know, Target may as well not exist for the carless in San Francisco. It was so especially sweet of her to hook a sister up!

I love all the little details this thing has! Especially the safety pin hangtag.

AAH I LOVE YOU WIFEYPANTS!!
Thank you!!

Last weekend, Tim & I got brunch in Hayes Valley & stopped by my fave little candy shop, Miette!
We were greeted by these super cute cacti!
I am wearing:

Short sleeve hoodie — Cosa Nostra/Jeffery Sebalia
Grey lace skirt– H&M
Button leggings– Betty Page Clothing
Shoes — Indigo

Miette is the tastiest spot in Hayes Valley, with more candy than you can shake a stick at, and a working cotton candy machine!

Here’s hoping that the coming weekend is as delicious as the last!

As you guys know, I’m a big fan of iPhone camera app, CameraBag — So it may come as a surprise to you that I should be reviewing another Camera App.

Let me tell you, Hipstamatic is rapidly becoming my new favorite.

This app uses a cute, lomo-like interface, which is demonstrated in this youtube video.

The user chooses a lens, film, and “flash” before taking the picture.
Each combination produces a different effect.

The app comes with a small selection of lenses, film, and flashes, and there are others available as in-app purchases.

Check out the Hipstamatic photo pool on flickr for more examples.

What’s your current favorite app?

I recently got a new pair of glasses from the excellent folks at Phoenix Optical.
They’re the only place I’ve ever been to that has a full selection of vintage deadstock frames on hand, as well as a bunch of newer styles to choose from.

There are tons of resources online with vintage frames, but nothing beats being able to see how something looks on you.
Since your specs live on your face, it’s clear that buying them is not a decision to be taken lightly.

The staff was super helpful and helped me find exactly what I was looking for.
They were a little pricey, but well worth it for the experience.
Do you guys have a fav place for frames? Online or in person?
Show me your specs!

As you guys know, I am obsessed with anything and everything red.
As such, I needed a laptop case to be able to achieve optimal redness.

I bought a SeeThu case from Speck for my Macbook, and I liked it so much that I got one for my MacbookPro, as well.

My only complaint about this case is that, with it on, I can’t fit my Mac into my docking station at work.
This is a problem that I’d have with any case, really, so it’s not really a fair criticism.
Just know that if you use a docking station, you will have this problem–I just use the top half of the case on my work laptop.

Being basically thrilled with spek’s laptop cases, I went ahead and got one for my iphone, too.

However, I had a much different experience.
The rubber bumpers on the sides started coming looks within a month of purchase.
They sort of held on for a few weeks, only coming off halfway, resulting in the adhesive getting all over the sides of my phone & making everything sticky.
My hair would get caught in it, and I eventually just removed them entirely.
After that, the phone didn’t feel right in my hand anymore and I abandoned the case.

so, in conclusion–
for laptops: speck is awesome!
for your iphone: NO BUENO!

It’s been a minute since I’ve done a TumbleDryLow post, so here’s the jury dury edition coming at you straight from the courtroom wifi!
For the record, I didn’t wear this shirt to jury duty.

This most excellent “Sex, Drugs, Helvetica Bold” shirt is from Collapse.

You guys know by now that I’m a certified Helvetica FREAK, so when I saw this I immediately had to own it.

Even the packaging it came in was totally slick!

There are a couple things about the shirt that some folks might not like. First, the lowercase l in “bold” is tilted (which is a trademark of most collapse shirts, as well as their logo). I think it’s sort of neat, but it might offend some type purists out there. Also, they don’t make a girly fit version of their tees. All that said, I’m extremely happy with my purchase from them.

Next on my wishlist is their “Will Kern for Food” shirt!

A couple of you were asking where I got this fabulous dress, so here’s the lowdown!

It was a gift from the fabulous Mr. Tim, purchased at the wonderful Betty Page Store, in Las Vegas!

The staff there was incredible, fetching me different sizes, styles, and accessories.
I bought some other stuff there, but honestly I cannot stop wearing this particular dress.
You’re all going to see so many pictures of me wearing this dress that you’ll be sick of it.
That’s how much I love it.

If you’re in Vegas, go to this store.
There’s something for every body type, and the staff will make sure you leave with something fabulous.

[photo by Flip Cassidy]

My dearest wifey, Agent Lover, made me the cutest hat I’ve ever laid my eyes on.

She now has a limited stock for sale to the public, so you too can have one of her delicious hats for yourself!
She even named the red model after me– how sweet of her!

Head on over to the Agent Lover Bakery to get yours!

I had the pleasure of going to the Alternative Press Expo a couple weeks ago, and I came back with a pile of really neat stuff.
Here are a couple gems that I particularly liked:

These folks were giving out really sweet screen printed & letterpress posters & zines FOR FREE.
Some of you may already know that I’m a sucker for letterpress, but to those that don’t-you now know the inky way to my heart.

They also were hand stamping custom cards for people at their booth, also for free.
Lastly, on their website, they do a weekly column where you can ask for advice from a squid!
How totally rad is that?

Check it out at poormojo.org.

Icecreamlandia

This book caught my eye all the way across the convention floor.
First, it’s huge & beautifully hand screened.
Second, the cover is purple, hot pink & gold.
Third, it had a huge sign underneath it that said WHITE TRASH, BLACK MAGIC.

Okay one of you sweet darlin’s grab a card.
If I guess wrong, I got some Bartles & James pomegranate raspberry beverages in that cooler over there– go and drink yourselves stupid.

Icecreamlandia is Eve Englezos and Joshua Moutray, and their work is full of sweet illustrations and dark humor.
So far, I kind of love everything I’ve seen them do.

Also, how hilarious is this bio?

“Eve and Josh do not use photoshop filters for their work. in the interest of full disclosure, they have used them ironically while in art school, and occasionally eve has liquidized photos to make herself appear thinner.“

Check out the rest of their work at icecreamlandia.com

Camilla Taylor

I got a sweet stuffed tentacle from this rad lady!

I think this speaks for itself.

Get your own HERE!

& check out more of Camilla’s work at horsefleshproductions.com

The ever-attentive Ashe Mischief pointed out that Tricia from Bits & Bobbins thrifted a pair of the same shoes that very week.

Then, on a tip from Miss Mary Bee, what should I find in my neighborhood thrift store?

Why is this shoe showing up everywhere in thrifty places?
Are we just incredibly lucky?
I may never know, but I’m amped to rock my new kicks around the bay!

Have you found a pair in your local thrift store?

I am proud to announce my new Jewelry line!
I’ve always been a huge fan of laser cut acrylic stuff, so somehow I got the crazy idea to make my own!

This is the soft launch, so there will be more designs and colors added over the next month or so.

Click below to view any of my pieces in my etsy shop!

Awww yeah!

I’ll be vending all these pieces and more at Stumptown Comics Fest in Portland over the weekend!
So if you live in that area, you can come see in person!
I’ll be vending with a certain other lovely lady in red.

<3!

You all may remember the last time I bought headphones.
About a year later, I found myself looking at my beloved but beat up & broken skullcandy ‘phones, wondering if I should get another pair with their awesome 50% off retail replacement deal.

This plan became flawed, however, when I realized that since I have an iPhone now, I should get something with a built-in mic type thing. There’s this one iPhone ad, where a girl is listening to her headphones and dancing down the street. She gets a call, and the music pauses while she gracefully pushes a button on her earbuds and answers without even taking her phone from her pocket. At this point, we notice that her shadow has continued to dance despite the lack of music. The call then ends, and she steps right back into step with her shadow, dancing down the street. Upon seeing this, I decided that I, too, wanted to give my shadow the opportunity to rock out while I was on the phone, but I wanted to do it in something more stylish than apple earbuds.

Enter Boosted Pequeño Rojo.

I originally saw these headphones at the Boost mobile booth at the treasure island music festival. I was immediately in lust with them because they’re red, but this is a common feeling I have for most red objects. I later found them again at Urban Outfitters, but decided I could probably find a better price for them online, with the added bonus of being able to read some reviews.

Unfortunately, at the time, I couldn’t find these headphones online anywhere. This shocked me, (wtf? who doesn’t have their stuff on Amazon) and I couldn’t find any reviews on sound quality or anything beyond the typical “They look really cool!”. Frustrated and no more educated than before, I returned to urban and made a blind purchase.

… & I am so glad I did. Not only do these sound better than my skullcandies, but the microphone system works great for calls. The one thing that’s a little unfortunate is that the cord needs an adapter on the end of the cord to fit your phone of choice (shown in first photo), but it fits snugly enough that having it come loose isn’t an issue.

I am so into these, am tempted to buy a backup pair.

Find them in Urban Outfitters stores nationwide, or from the only online retailer I could find, Zumiez.

Let’s talk about CameraBag, shall we?

CameraBag is an iphone camera app that applies effects to photos you’re taking, or photos in your library.
Many of the filters included emulate toy camera photography, vintage photos, and (you guessed it!) Polaroid.
Here’s the official list:

The cameras included in CameraBag:
-“Helga” — A square-format toy camera feel with washed-out highlights and old-school vignetting.
-“1974” — This is your father’s camera. Faded, tinted, and hip.
-“Lolo” — Shoot from the hip and take life as it comes with vibrant, colorful shots.
-“Cinema” — Dramatic, moody, wide-screen stills from the movie of your life.
-“1962” — Dynamic black and whites from the photojournalists of a bygone era.
-“Mono” — Smooth gradation from black to white.
-“Infrared” — Simulation of the popular landscape photography technique.

I found The Lolo filter to be pretty inaccurate as a fake lomo effect, and the Fisheye & Cinema settings to be fairly silly…but all the rest of the stuff in this app’s bag of tricks is pure magic.

There are a lot of things about low-fi photos that I love, but let’s be honest, the iphone camera doesn’t really do it for me on it’s own. CameraBag changes all that, making this tiny camera the kind of gritty it should be.

Reasonably priced at $2.99, it gets the Cute Tech stamp of approval.

Check out my examples of “1962”, “Helga”, and “Instant” below:

For more examples, check out the CameraBag photo pool on Flickr.

Click the pictures to go to that print’s page, or just visit my shop.

Hey guys! Upper playground, who I’ve blogged about on here before, is celebrating their 10th anniversary.

To mark this momentous occasion,

everything they make is 50% off right now.

The sale lasts until tomorrow in their retail locations, and until the 25th in their online store.

I stopped by the store yesterday and got the sweet shirt and bandanna pictured above.

I was chosen to participate in Nokia’s mobile photoblogging project, The Nokia Chronicles. They gave me their new phone, the 6650, to try out for a couple weeks while I photoblogged for them.

Unfortunately, I’m having trouble sending images to them from the aforementioned phone, so my participation as been minimal. I’ll be reviewing the phone at the end of my trial period, so even if the kinks don’t get sorted out, I’ll be posting all the pics as part of that.

Fingers crossed that it gets worked out before that!

1. Deco New York Mini Journal — Fredflare
2. Lovebirds Tea Towel — Ferm Living
3. Large Slab Pillow — LetterSetter
4. Cutthroat tie — Cyberoptics tie company
5. Ratio M tee — Brooklyn industries
6. Asymmetric cadet jacket — Phillip Lim
7. Polaroid tee — Fredflare
8. Phonophone - Tristan Zimmermann
9. Key Ring — Kiel Mead
10. Type Trumps — Magma Books
11. Soda ring — D-LICIOUS
12. Red Fingerless Gloves — Fredflare
13. PANTONE® Flight Stool — PANTONE® Universe
14. Ice Cream Lamp — Fredflare

What’s on YOUR list?

First, this notebook from the folks at Recover Your Thoughts.

I saw this on the shelf, and for reasons I will not have to explain to you, purchased it immediately.

I am a total sucker for notebooks, and this one, made out of a recycled library book, was quick to steal my heart. After some research, I figured out that the notebook began it’s life as Red: A Biography of Red Smith.

On the inside, it had pages from the book interspersed with the blank notebook pages.
They are evenly spaced throughout the notebook so they can be used as dividers. Neat!

I also picked up this sweet notebook cover from eleveneleven.net.

It seems waterproofish, and will fit over and standard comp book!
I also couldn’t resist their cardholders, which come in equally delightful anatomical patterns.

What awesome stuff have you guys bought lately?

As such, you’ve probably already read countless articles about twitter and what a great tool it is for networking, supplementing your blog, and killing time at the office…

But I want to talk about twitter in a different way.
I want to talk about twitter as a means for artistic expression.

I, myself, have been striving to use twitter in an artistic way…but it’s so very hard to do so when you’re also trying to use it to facilitate your social life.

However, there are some people who have pulled this off much better than I, and you should know who they are:

Who she is:

Jenny Holzer is a conceptual artist, best known for her use of profound text in prominent public spaces.

Why you should follow her:

Quite frankly, twitter is the perfect digital canvas for the work she’s been putting on billboards, posters, and bathroom stalls for the past several decades.
It’s unclear to me whether this is Holzer’s official twitter, or if someone is just republishing her work. This doesn’t matter much to me, because I just can’t get enough of what she has to say.

Sample Tweets:

“ROMANTIC LOVE WAS INVENTED TO MANIPULATE WOMEN“
“PEOPLE WON’T BEHAVE IF THEY HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE“
“MYTH CAN MAKE REALITY MORE INTELLIGIBLE”

http://twitter.com/jennyholzer

Who he is:
Filmaker, Marxist, and leader of the Situationist International, best known for writing Society of the Spectacle and Comments on the Society of the Spectacle.

Why you should follow him:

Whoever is tweeting Mr. DeBord’s words from the grave (DeBord died in 1994), picks selections that relate to each other in succession. The things said are made more profound by what has been said before.
Unfortunately, this account has been inactive for several months…Perhaps new followers will make the DeBord ghostwriter pick it up again.

Sample Tweets:

“The spectacle within society corresponds to a concrete manufacture of alienation.“
“This is why the spectator feels at home nowhere, because the spectacle is everywhere.“
“What binds the spectators together is no more than an irreversible relation at the very center which maintains their isolation. ”

http://twitter.com/guydebord

Who he is:

Chip Zdarsky is a cartoonist from toronto who’s gritty take on life is nothing short of hilarious.

Why you should follow him:

If you’re like me, and enjoy dark humor, you will laugh until you spit your morning coffee out all over your keyboard.

Sample tweets:
“I’m going to tear you a new one, right next to the old one.“
“I find that a real conversation starter on a first date is a shovel. Bring one along and see!“
“I need to believe in something bigger than myself, like, say, a seven-foot version of me.”

http://twitter.com/zdarsky

What it is:
Oblique Strategies is a set of published cards created by musician Brian Eno, and artist Peter Schmidt. The cards are printed with odd and interesting methods to solve a conflict or dillemma.

Why you should follow:

Eno and Schmidt solve problems in ways I only think of in dreams.

Sample tweets:
“Take away as much mystery as possible. What is left?“
“Instead of changing the thing, change the world around it.“
“Question the heroic approach.”

http://twitter.com/Oblique_Chirps

Please let me know if you’re aware of other people using twitter in anything but the usual way!
Also, y’all can add me here: thisisstar on twitter.

First, this video amused me very much:

(via Laughingsquid)

Second, I love the guys at Turn Nocturnal.

Check out this shirt:

& Comic Book Tattoo is totally out tomorrow!! (for real this time!)
OMG!