Outfits, videos and a threadless design

Exciting news guys and gals, my latest design for Threadless is up for scoring! Be a dear and vote for it here <3

Astro Basketball

Growing up, I remember watching a lot of basketball games with my father on our small tv and cheering with him even if I had no idea what was going on, seeing him play in his former company's league (I think he was an MVP a couple of times too? I need to verify this, though, but I'm pretty sure that despite the height disadvantage, he was a great player :) ), and in later years seeing him transition into coaching teams in my youth group, Youth For Christ. That was his other passion, aside from serving in Couples For Christ and jamming on his guitar during lazy Saturdays. Which is maybe the reason why, as "un-sporty" as I am (soccer and wall climbing being the only ones that I really like), I can tolerate watching basketball a lot more than watching football, and thus understand all the hype surrounding that particular game. The design above is a wink to my dad's love for basketball and a nod to one of my many childhood obsessions (I used to reread one particular book on Space during summer vacations). I hope you like it enough to give it a five :) And oh, an interesting tidbit: I asked my older brother to sketch it for me after describing in detail how I wanted it to look like, and he got it 100%! Awesome :D

Here's my outfit for today, in celebration of the uncannily warm weather we're having. Huzzah! I am so ready to see the cherry blossoms in full bloom on Wednesday ^_^

Button-down shirt: Halogen (similar shirt from Jones New York here)

Pants with belt: H&M (I will start collecting these, they're easily one of my dressiest and comfiest pair of pants!)

Leather bag: Cole Haan's Daisy Triangle Tote

Dressing room: Nordstrom Rack (I was returning an item that I intended to use for a contest and saw an opportunity to take an outfit picture hehehe)

Flats: Calvin Klein (my favorite pair, previously mentioned here)

Necklace: Burlington

Here's a closeup of the necklace, which I absolutely adore:

It's a chain of five pearl flowers, each with a rhinestone cluster in the middle - perfect for spring!

Happy Day!

Sometimes when you're down, you just want to be left alone to sulk and immerse yourself in it until you're over it, but more often than not it just aggravates that feeling instead of making it go away. The best remedy, I think, would be to look back at the blessings you've recently received and see that there is more reason to celebrate than sulk! Take a deep breath, and do a countdown of list down these blessings - they can be small, like getting a chocolate chip cookie from your friend during lunch, or big like a promotion at work or a long, heartwarming call from a long-lost friend! Here are my blessings and some things that made me smile:

1. 3 out of 4 of my submissions to Threadless got through! Whoop whoop! And now you have the opportunity to vote for it so it would get printed hehehe. I would be so happy if you give them all a $5! :D Thanks in advance!

Click here to score "Nature <3 Bikes"

Click here to score "Breakdancing Earth"

Click here to score "The World Wants You to be Awesome" 

2. We have a new pope! I have been reading articles on Pope Francis and I liked what I found, one of them being the fact that he has a master's degree in Chemistry (a man after my own heart? haha). May God continue to guide him in shepherding the Church and hopefully he'll leave a great legacy behind. In all seriousness though, he's what we need -a humble yet wise man who cares about the poor and truly tries to live as Christ lived. Habemus Papam! (The pope, formerly known as Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of Argentina, chose the name "Francis" in honor of St. Francis of Assisi)

Weekend Workout

Photoshop skill workout, that is! I barely got out of the house despite the beautiful weather outside because I was on a roll regarding my threadless submissions and I was able to watch some shows at the same time (I just finished all the episodes of Futurama, and am almost done with watching The IT Crowd, both of which are hilarious!) thru my tablet. So all in all, a pretty productive weekend for me :) Here are the things I submitted, I hope they'll all get through!

1. This one is for a bike-themed contest :) I was portraying the environment-friendly aspect of using bikes as opposed to cars. Those flowers took a while to finish, as did the bike, but I think it worked out pretty well.

I'm pretty proud of these flowers, they were hard to make without Illustrator

Random things

1. The making of "The Kiss" starring Superman and Wonderwoman: muddycolors.blogspot.com

2. The Boar Rider (Oil on Gessoed Panel) by Justin Gerard: Original post here

Wowza!

One of the most memorable things that ever happened to me was when I won the Threadless dog hoodie challenge, besting Threadless' top illustrators with such a simple illo. I know they hold tons of challenges every year, but to be able to tickle people's funny bones and earn a lot of 5's - good gosh - I could not help but squeal at work when I got the email that my design won.  A lot of high fives ensued that day, haha! Still, I am by no means an illustrator, I consider myself a winner but I don't think I'll ever be in the same league as other Threadless illustrators.

http://www.threadless.com/product/4395/Tally_Ho 

Case in point: a fellow Filipina designer who's currently based in China, Hana Bascano. Her vector designs are so good. See for yourself! Images taken from http://shadowness.com/hanabacasno and http://hanabacasno.deviantart.com/#

Semi-productive Day

Watched the first quarter of District 9 on my tablet via Crackle, called up my parents because it's their anniversary (29th! Have to save up for their 30th :) ), chatted with my big bro online, ate breakfast and lunch, did my laundry, cleaned the basement, and in between all of that I managed to churn out two three Threadless submissions.

 I hope the animated gifs above aren't too much haha. First off:

ABS OF STEEL!

This one's for the Power Tanks contest, to motivate the wearer to work out. I had to look these up:

1. Pictures of robots (illustrated, mechanized and toys)

2. Abs - because I don't have any :P

3. Metal - or specifically, how light bounces off it

I had to do it with a minimum amount colors but still have the look of metal to it, and it had to look like it was actually hole-y/ripped. Whew!

Sketches

Listening to Mika while sketching some submissions for Threadless.

It's been a while (cue Staind), and I was really, really rusty. I think it's partly due to the fact that today is my late grandfather's birthday, making it hard for me to concentrate because memories of him kept surfacing throughout the day (like when I used to watch him comb his hair meticulously after putting some baby oil on it in lieu of hair gel, and when he and I reupholstered this beautiful cherry wood chair with a rose-print fabric my Ma and I bought from Michael's. Gosh I miss that chair, it's been in storage since early last year). I miss him sosososo much! So before I post my sketches, let me include this card I made for him :)

*Sniffsniff* I know I won't be seeing you soon Lolo, but I just wanted to thank you for the wonderful memories you left behind. I sorely miss your cooking, your jokes, and, well, YOU!

To lighten up the mood, let me conclude with the sketches I mentioned earlier :) I'm still processing some of them so please don't copy! Thanks, and hope they get at least a chuckle from you.

Tally, Ho!

I loooove dogs, which is why I was ecstatic when Threadless held a dog hoodie design competition. I sent a total of 5 designs (2 of which did not go through) on the last day of submission because all these ideas just started pouring in about 7 hours before the end of the contest. I've been wanting to get published (is that the right word?) on Threadless ever since I started designing shirts for them, and lo and be hold, the one that finally made it was the very last design that I submitted, and which had taken the least amount of time and effort to make. Weird, right? I guess sometimes that's when genius really strikes, when you're pumped with adrenaline and your brain cells finally cooperate to provide you with a brilliant idea that's actually pretty simple and will resonate with more people than the complicated, carefully constructed ones that have been sitting in your mind for eons. Finally, here it is!

Original submission

What's even better is that they're currently on sale for only $24.99, slashed from their original price of $29.99. Please support Threadless (and me) by purchasing this hoodie! A (bit hoarse from a sore throat) shout out to all the people who helped me scratch this off of my bucket list by voting! Thank you for all the love, now I can recuperate in peace :)

<3,

Threadless Tee Sale!

$9.99 shirts over at Threadless.com down from their usual $20 price. Since I already spent some moolah on forever21 items (mostly gifts, OK? :P) because they have a 50% off deal on all sale items (hello, $6-$8 for a cute top?), here is my mini wishlist of threadless shirts that I find witty and/or cute! :) Hurry, sale ends TODAY!

Side note: I'm still procrastinating on whether to go over Old Navy or not, since I and my cousin will be hitting the outlet malls tomorrow, but the deals in store are awesome too. I'm trying not to spend too much but all these Black Friday sales are not helping AT ALL.

I love owls, I think they're interesting creatures - You're a Hoot