Of Erasers and Tracing Paper

Tracing paper is my best friend. I've been working on a children's book the last few days - trying to take advantage of my time off from work. I'm done with writing, and just started illustrating! I've just got a few rough sketches, but here's what the last few days have looked like to me:

Erasers are also my best friend, haha. Oh, and it's going to be SUPER short, in terms of text. It's about feeling like nobody gets you, and having crappy self esteem, because those are things I struggled with a lot that were never addressed anywhere, so, yeah! It has a happy ending, though. I'm gonna scan it all in and color it digitally in photoshop. I just get too scared to go at it with paint and pen - so permanent! My goal was to have a complete self-published copy finished before I turn 25 - which is on February 5th - so I gotta get a move on. Wish me luck! :)



-Elizabeth

Christmas with the Leon-Guerreros

Before Franklin and I head out to spend time with family on christmas, we like to have our own little private christmas at home, just the two of us. This was our first christmas together as a married couple, huzzah! and we've already acquired some sweet holiday traditions:

1. make the house smell like breakfast
2. wear silly hats

 What I got Franklin: Vintage Suzuki Omnichord, Vintage GE Keyboard, Clash of the Kings

My favorite part of christmas was Franklin's reactions to his gifts, haha. Doesn't he look so happy in that last picture? ha! I see christmas gifts as an opportunity to show him how well I know him :) I think I did pretty good this year, heehee. If you've never heard of an omnichord, here's a demo video I found on youtube for your viewing pleasure: CLICK HERE to see what an omnichord sounds like!

What Franklin got me: Diana F+ lomography camera, Speedball screenprinting kit, a Camera Obscura record and a REALLY AWESOME DRAFTING TABLE!

I've been super obsessed with my new Diana F+ camera. It's completely manual, right down to opening and closing the shutter. It takes 120 film, which I've never used before, but I'm oh so excited to see how my photos turn out. After looking through all the photo albums at Franklin's grandma's house, it makes me really want to be more conscious about collecting tangible photos for future generations to gaze upon. It's sad how all my photographic memories are digital, and if my computer crashed, they'd be lost forever.

Anyway, how was everyone's christmas? I hope it was fun! It gets hard to make your own christmas and find your way of cultivating that christmas spirit when you get older, without feeling like you're trying too hard to recreate your own childhood memories. but you get there eventually! I feel like we finally got there this year. It definitely helps to wear silly hats, I tell ya what.

-Elizabeth

An Eventful Eve

Franklin's sister, Lindsey, came to visit for christmas, and today was her last day. We went to their grandma's house to exchange gifts, but their grandma was out running errands, so we snuck in and hung out in her house all day - unsupervised! haha. We went rummaging through old photo albums and peeking in drawers in search of their old memories. It was actually the most fun I've had in a long time. Here are some pictures from our unsupervised adventuring:

1. Old photos of Franklin's grandparents, their sweet old camper van, and their cute corgi.
2. The greatest wall I've ever laid eyes on.
3. So much wood paneling... drool.
4. Franklin kept us warm with his manly fire-making skills
5. Franklin showing me a sweet old book he found. What a handy man!

Also, after admiring Lindsey's outfit, I asked her if I could take a picture of her so I could post it on the blog. She agreed. When we were taking the pictures, there was a really grand painting of waves crashing behind her, and with her loose shirt and high boots, it made her look all sorts of swashbuckling. So we gave her a bottle of rum to use as a prop, and she posed for me so I could make this animated gif of her being very awesome. CLICK HERE TO SEE IT. Haha, what a good sport. I miss her already!

-Elizabeth

Christmas Post Cards, weee!

I've been workin' on a post card design to send out in lieu of a christmas card this year. It took me a few weekends to finish it because, during the work-week, the only thing I can manage to do when I get home is eat and sleep - so the weekend is my only time to work on any sort of creative endeavor. Unfortunately, it is also the only time I can sleep half the day, so not much gets done, ha! I think I'll print them out on card stock, and find some square envelopes to send them out in. It is hip to be square, after all.

My parents flew up to surprise my sister & I this week. It feels so normal to have them within hugging distance, so when they visit it feels like they never left. When they fly back home to California is when it'll start to feel all sorts of weird and surreal. I wish they lived back in Washington!

What I'm listening to: Animal Collective - Brother Sport

-Elizabeth


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Bricks & Burritos

Hooray for matching Franklin today!
His style is like a weird bohemian grandpa bum, which I totally dig. So I embraced it and wore a few extra layers to really emphasize that homeless look, haha. I think we really captured each others' awkwardness with these pictures, don't you?:

I made him wear this Kerouac brooch set I made, because it fit today's vibe pretty well. We had every intention to screech up to our friends' house, and force them go to Tacoma with us, but we chickened out and texted them instead. They were busy. So we turned around and went home to drink whiskey & coke and make music. On the way back, we stopped by this burrito place that boasts their baby-sized burritos. Not baby burritos. Baby-sized burritos. I'd say the description was pretty accurate:

And now, stomachs full and heads a-buzz with whiskey, we're off to go make music in the attic band room.

What we're listening to right now: Nirvana - where did you sleep last night?

-Elizabeth