super excited

I'm super excited about Eddie Vedder's new album "Ukulele Songs"

It comes out tomorrow!

Listen to it here

busy busy busy

Oakland Under $100 is almost here and I have to say my world is a bit upside down... which is to be expected I suppose. The house is a wreck, I have a to-do list that spans what feels like miles and miles and not to mention my own personal deadlines. phew.. I'm exhausted just thinking about it all... but all of this work is for the positive and worth it.

This Friday also marks the 2nd Temescal Art Hop that my event is in.


I've been working hard pulling together different artists and musicians from my event to contribute music or art for a Oakland Under $100 gift basket as a raffle prize. I have to say I'm super excited to be apart of this event as well as being part of the future first Fridays in Temescal.

I guess for now I'm going to have to live with the chaos until after Friday.

If you're in the area.. don't miss all the fun!

my little garden

is starting to take form.. I'm not sure why this picture turned out so small but it did. I ripped the fencing down since it was falling apart but now I need to get another fence up and soon.

I planted similar things as last year and will update you as things progress.

quick book making 101

First off.. I have to say.. my apologies for the sideway pictures, I'm just too lazy to rotate them today.

I had several wedding guestbooks on my agenda to make. Above is the lovely wood all stained and ready for paper.

Here is my desk littered with brown packaging paper. This particular paper comes in rolls so it stays in the tube shape even after cutting it down.

every book gets the same time and treatment.

and now that the paper is hand ripped.. I have to flatten it with a lovely ironing session. I'll save you the details of that. 

Paper before:

Paper after:

Getting ready to stitch it all together.

zee finished product

detail of the pages and book.

that was your quick 101 on book making Emily Coker style. 

jazzing it up while I hand rip pages:

the new orleans jazz vipers.

the lil pocket pal

I spent most of the day yesterday in the studio working away on books. I took a small break and made these little guys. I ended up selling all of them last night while I was out.

They are hand stitched and super compact. They fit perfectly in the coin pocket of your favorite jeans.

I know that it's not needed in today's world but that's why I made it. It's my attempt to take a step back from the smart phone.

Don't get me wrong.. I'm attached to my phone but this is just for your random thoughts or reminders etc.

not to mention it's super cute and if I saw someone pulling that out of their pocket I would die a little inside.

I'm going to sell some of these at Oakland Under $100 for 3.00 each.. and I may include mini pencils to go with them.

on the turntable with all the rain:

messy desk

plugging away on the books.

I so need to clean.

getting ready for June.

sThe rest of this month is going to be a bit busy for me.. I not only have a bunch of special order books to finish but I'm also doing some work for the Oakland Under $100 to hopefully sell.

The special order items that I'm talking about are for various weddings. Who knew I had a market in making guest books for weddings. Either way it's getting my buns in the studio and working again.

Here is one of my little books.. I call it "little wonder" since it's so small and compact. This of course is not for anyone's wedding.

I'm also working on the telephone pole panels.

I hope to have many more of these completed.by the 3rd. 

Um.... I think it's safe to say I'm a bit busy right now.

blowing up the stereo cuz it's that time of year for me to day dream about the best concert ever!

so sad I missed the Napa show.

Do you ever associate music with certain times of the year and feelings around that time?

house sparrows

I have a family of sparrows living in my porch. I've tried to take pictures of them but without fail I always get caught. So I had to borrow this image from the inner-webs.

If you can recall.. or know me well.. you will know that I had a "bird year" several years ago.. what does that mean? Any time I would be out walking I would find feathers littering my path. That was also the year I found 4 birds nest on the ground. I still have those nests.. even though I hear it's not good to pick them up. I also have a jar full of feathers.. strange huh? That was also the year a bird flew into my house and needed help out.

This year so far.. I've found another fallen nest but left it alone, I secretly wanted to take it. The house sparrows live in my porch and I've been seeing the feathers again. I also had to deal with a tragedy involving the sparrow family... let's just say they lost one of their young (enough said).

I wonder what all the bird stuff means?

I welcome the sparrow family and will name them "The Joneses" as in "keeping up with the Joneses". I don't know where this whole community of sparrows came as most of my neighbors have families living in their porches. 

Welcome to the hood Jones Family.

On the turntable this a.m.

a little Neil Young never hurt anyone.

I can't believe I'm listening to something other than Brandi Carlile right now. I'm SUPER obsessed lately.

Oakland Under $100 June 3rd. 6pm-10pm

It's almost here!!! 

I'm lovin the flyer design by Anne Pinkowski! She's done all of the flyers for Oakland Under $100 and she does a great job! In fact I'm off to pick up these bad boys today after doing a bunch of online PR work this morning.

Should be a good time and you should come if you're in Oakland that night!!

spring clean

I so need to do a spring clean on the studio. In fact I need to organize the entire room  for a futon that I bought to come in. I'm turning the studio into a spare bedroom / office / studio space. This should be fun.

Look at this mess.

I'm glad these pictures are dark.. makes it harder to see how unorganized it is.

eeps! it's so messy.

no wonder I haven't done much work these days. 

it's going to be interesting to see how I work in the futon and such. I plan on keeping the studio there but just organizing it in a way that is comfortable for over night guests. I also would like to get a nice set of curtains for the room to allow light during the day but hide people from the ghetto at night. (of course I'm sorta joking about the ghetto, sorta not). 

I'm so happy that I'm just now feeling enough energy and becoming more comfortable in my new job and life. I was having a pretty hard time finding myself through all of  the change. I spent most days burned out and waiting for work to start. This feeling human again is nice and I'll take it.

stay tuned to see what's going on with the studio / spare bedroom / office space.

Tour de Cure 2011

Look at all that spandex!

Sunday I rode 50 miles in the Tour de Cure. It was the hottest day so far this year and it was absolutely glorious in Napa! We had about 30 or so riders for Team Lanesplitter and to my surprise we are in 11th place for corporate fundraising in the Bay Area. We were neck and neck with the Kaiser Team and the Craigslist Team. Way to go Team  Lanesplitter!!!

On a personal note.. not only is fundraising for diabetes personal to me.. this ride also falls around the day I quit smoking. I quite smoking 6 years ago on May 2nd. You may wonder what this has to do with diabetes.. well.. I just use my personal health gain to help motivate me through out the ride and also to push my fundraising.

until next year.