Orange & black all over SF

I was looking through all my pictures from 2010 recently. I noticed a LOT of them I took with the intention of posting them on this blog, and hardly any of them actually made it. I guess it isn't too early to start thinking about new year's resolutions...

Well, since we just had Thanksgiving, that must mean it's time for me to post pictures of Halloween decorations (from last year). I didn't even take pictures of Halloween this year bc the decorations were pretty much a repeat of 2009. So here are the '09 pictures. We went the homemade route, using whatever materials/paper we already had. I got some great inspiration from my idol. I thought it turned out pretty spooky!

1. Spooky ghosts in the hallway. 2. Rat infestation! 3. More ghosts and spiders in the stairway. 4. I tried to give my cat whiskers, but they turned out more like laser eyes. Ooooo.

One of the best things I love about our neighborhood is the amount of trick-or-treaters we get. 2009 topped the record so far: we gave out 17 bags of candy (one piece per kid). 2010 had a poorer showing, maybe rounding out to about 12 bags. I blame Sunday nights and the World Series. Nothing against the Giants, tho! Now I'm not a sports fan, but having the SF Giants win the World Series was pretty awesome. The city was just electric. I loved feeling the energy and excitement. At home, we have our own version of the... ORANGE & BLACK ATTACK!!!

The handy BF's manual labor day weekend

Maybe it's because it's now Fall, which makes me feel like nestling in and staying at home. Or maybe it's because this is SF and only now (in September!) are we starting to get nice weather, which is giving me a belated spring-cleaning feeling. Whatever it is, I had a couple home projects that needed help.

I'm very lucky that the BF is handy. He can take my idea and actually make it happen. If this was the advertising world, I'd be the creative director who never got their hands dirty, and he'd be the lowly, sweating production grunt. I can say this bc in reality (in work life) I am the lowly, sweating production grunt. But luckily we're talking about home life...

A while ago we got a kitchen cart to house our small appliances and such. Now I just needed to free up some more cabinet space and find a new place for our wine glasses as well as a new place for the BF's cookbooks. Over the years, I have really grown to hate Ikea, so naturally we ended up there. One shelf cut in two + a couple of brackets + a bunch of holes in the wall = the After picture below.

BEFORE & AFTER:

Yes, I've started a couple fires in that toaster oven.


Now that the wine glasses had a fancy new pad, we couldn't just neglect the wine. They needed a new home, too, which (after the BF did a little hack job on the legs) fit rather nicely under the shelf in our pantry. Bye-bye, ugly boxes!!

BEFORE & AFTER:

Glug, glug. There's plenty of space in the new wine rack for a few more bottles.

Silly piggers

After all these years as a Pig Mom, I'm still surprised (and always entertained) by just how much personality piggies have. Sure, they're small and classified as rodents, but they really do have some spunk and smarts. I just wish they'd use their powers for good...

Pig wigs up to their old tricks:

1. Got a closet eater. 2. I left a bag of spring mix unattended. Had a visitor. My bad. 3. Rusty's only interested if it's off limits. 4. No tricks here. Just enjoying lunch in the sun.

Jewelry biz makeover

The Open Studios 2010 show is this weekend (May 1 & 2) and I've been better this year about getting myself organized ahead of time. No repeats of last year's procrastination, pls. One major change this year is the rebranding of my jewelry endeavors. I decided to do away with the SugarCube Jewelry name. I was never too fond of it and I didn't feel like it really represented me. Along with the name went the website, which I never updated. I was paying monthly service fees for essentially an outdated photo gallery. I needed an easier, simpler way to catalog my latest work. Hello, Flickr. Pleased to meet you!

My new venture is called Designed by Jess. Check it out, yo.

I plan to open a new Etsy shop soon, probably later this month. Stay tuned...

Beauty of public transit

Now, the SF Muni system has its share of woes. But let's take a moment to look past the budget shortfalls, schedule delays, rising prices, stinky riders, and the overall petri-dish-of-bacteria feeling you get when you step onboard. I take public transit everywhere, commute on it every day to work, and rarely ever drive my car. It's pretty convenient actually. And the monthly passes are so pretty--too pretty to toss out--so I used them to decoupage a cheap table off of craigslist. Then I went to a glass place and had them cut and finish off a 16"-square piece of glass to go on top. I had enough passes to do the top tier of the table with a few left over. Who knows, maybe in another two years I'll have enough to do the bottom tier.


1. craigslist table, painted light gray; 2. Laying out four years of passes; 3. Good ol' Mod Podge! 4. Pretty colors.

Bedroom makeover

The BF and I decided we needed to spice things up in the bedroom. Ok before you go there, I'm talking about our bedroom wall decor obviously! I found these fun vinyl wall decals that are removable, but not reuseable. So once they're up, they're up. The application process is a little tricky, but once you have a system down, it gets easier. Luckily with the vinyl, you've got a little bit of wiggle room to get your placement just right, so mistakes are easily corrected. Which was good for us because these suckers were 8 feet tall!

It took us about two evenings after work to finish this project. I'll admit that most of our time was spent because I was getting OCD about the placement of the branches, getting the overlapping just so, etc. Yep, the BF is a patient man.




1. Meh. The "before" shot; 2. Getting the placement of the trees perfect; 3. We made one branch turn the corner; 4. Placement is good. Jess is finally satisfied; 5. Time to transfer the decal and strip off the blue backing; 6. All done and ready to sleep under a canopy of trees. That's my kind of camping!

Two months off!? and a birthday!!

OK, I've been lazy and set this blog on the back burner. But I've also been having memory/hard drive/space issues, so haven't been able to get the pictures off my camera and onto this blog. I know, enough excuses already. On to pigs!!

We celebrated Oliver's 4th birthday a little belatedly this year. Right around his bday, he wasn't doing too well with his teeth. He was off-food a bit...but luckily with another toothtrim and lots of TLC, he perked back up and is doing fine now. And he looked fine, too! Seems he couldn't decide between his party hat and his tiara.

1. A tasty bell pepper tower treat; 2. Brothers share; 3. He's the prettiest birthday boy! 4. Still calm and enjoying food; 5. And then a feeding frenzy tug-of-war! 6. Don't worry, they made up and had a nice cuddle.