Playing Catch-Up

this never seems to get old

I find myself playing catch-up today. I am all caught up on my work at work, but I am slacking on my personal "work." My online portfolio is in dire need of updating and my sock monkey site needs to be up and running fully by January 1st. With Thanksgiving coming and going and no new posts on this blog, I feel like asking myself what the heck have I been doing?!

i guess a little less of this, and more work!

My Thanksgiving was wonderful, probably my favorite yet. My time in Arizona was well spent with family and friends, eating, and gingerbread house making. All of the fun made it even harder to come back to California this time. It's funny, I thought my desire for home would lessen as time went on, but I am finding that it is quite the opposite.

A couple weeks ago Katie got to come out here for a night (she was actually here for a seminar in Anaheim, but I stole her for the night). I loved having her out here, it felt just like our college days with fun conversation and silly behavior. I can't wait for her and Kimmy to visit in February!

This past weekend my mother and grandmother were able to come out and visit me (having visitors is like the greatest thing ever because it brings a sense of home to Cali). They helped me decorate the house with some Christmas decorations (pictures will be posted soon hopefully) and we visited Laguna, downtown Orange, and a bike shop! Christmas came early for me this year, and santa mim and dad with some help from my grandma got me a beach cruiser. I have wanted one since moving out here, and I have already been on a couple bike rides, I forgot how happy a bike ride is.

i don't know what's cuter... my new bike or my grandma?!

Of course other things have been going on here and there and I won't bore you with any more details, but time is going by so fast I can't seem to keep up. This week is all about getting my work done and preparing for Christmas. Can't wait to celebrate!!!

CHALLENGE results 2 and 3

This week has been dedicated to Harry Potter. I have been re-reading the last book and watching movies 1-6 in order to be refreshed and ready for the new movie coming out this weekend. You are probably asking yourself, "does Mykaela know how nerdy she sounds right now?" And the answer is Yes, I absolutely know how ridiculous this makes me seem, and trust me, the guy working at Blockbuster made sure to remind me how silly I am for loving all things Harry Potter.

Anyways, getting back on subject... Since I have been watching a movie a night I have been trying to be somewhat productive by crafting. You remember the challenge I posted a few days ago? Well, I have two new results for you:

mailing label and postage side.

pretty side!

First, I used the papers to wrap a journal that my sister and I send to each other back and forth. I made sure to layer it multiple times (might not be the most fun thing to unwrap) in case it gets tossed around. After making several layers, and using tape to bind them, I ripped out images and placed them on one side and then used a permanent marker to ad some details.

the colors surprisingly look really good

I promise they look much better in person!

For the 2nd result, I decided to get in the Christmas mood (Harry Potter movies always make things feel like Christmas) and make christmas trees. I first wrapped a few pieces of paper around each other to make a cone shape. Then, rip up the papers in squares (I chose to rip instead of cut for a more vintage look) and then begin taping them onto the cone, starting at the bottom of the tree and moving your way up to the top. I actually really like how these look, the mixture of colored paper with the white paper gives it a kind of snowed upon look. I may try to make some and possibly paint on them as well. We shall see!

So if you feel like crafting while watching a movie, these are great exercises because they don't take too much attention, just repetitive steps. And please forgive the poor lighting in these photos, it was a little later at night with not the best lighting!

A Mini Vacation

40th Pier

This weekend was the first weekend that I basically stayed put in Newport, and it was so nice. It's hard to come back to work today when I know that the beach and is waiting for me 150 steps from home. I'll give you a run-down of my weekend, almost the perfect weekend (would be perfect if I had my family and friends here to share it with me!)

Friday: 

• I was an old lady and hopped in bed around 8, read some Harry Potter, and fell asleep by 9. (what has become of me?!)

Saturday:

• Woke up at 8:30 (shocking, I know!) 
• Jessica and I walked to Starbucks (about a 15 minute walk). We then decided to go for a walk around the peninsula a bit and looked at shops and paddle boarders wading through the bay. 
• We then walked to the beach. There must have been a high tide because there were beautiful seashells scattered over the sand. I gathered as many as I could and we brought them home for cleaning. (I have some projects in mind to use these beauties up!)
• After that, we got in my car and drove to Ikea on a misssion to find my mom some stacking tables. Thankfully they were there and the mission was a success!
• While Jessica took a nap, I decided to go for a jog. I made it to the pier and back and on the way home I felt myself smiling like an idiot. I couldn't help it, I think while running along the boardwalk it finally clicked, "oh ya, I live here." 
• Tired and out of breath, I came back home and showered. Then Ashley and Mallory were able to come over to the place for the first time and we all went out to Rudy's and Malarky's for the night.
• To conclude our night we went to a local pizza shop and had the best pizza I have ever had!

Sunday:

• I woke up to find Jess still asleep so I got dressed and walked to Starbucks, for the first time, alone. It was such a lively atmosphere over in the Starbucks shopping area, so it felt great to sit outside there and drink my coffee while reading a chapter or two if Harry Potter. 
• I then walked back home, cleaned the house a bit, then grabbed a blanket and sat out at the beach. I was on the phone with my mom (I somehow get to share really special moments with her oftenly) when I saw a group of dolphins swimming by surfers in the ocean. They were so cool looking and it was as if they were just taking a Sunday stroll.
• Jessica then met me at the beach and we sat, talked, and I read more of my book. Then we decided to build a sandcastle. 
• After spending the day at the beach, we decided to go home, get cleaned up, and conclude our weekend with dinner and coffee (decaf) at Alta (a neighborhood cafe). We got some more walking in, ate a good meal, and walked on home. 
• I got ready for bed, read a bit more, and fell asleep. 

The weekend felt productive and yet like a mini vacation. I can't wait for family and friends to come visit and share in the beach life living with me!

collected seashells

so many surfers to watch

our sandcastle

our ikea trip is making me think that this is what i want
for my room decor. thoughts?

CHALLENGE!

Only about 1/4 of the paper I have hoarded over the past 5 months

Although it seems like things these days are all electronic and computer based, magazines seem to still be thriving. I honestly think (and hope) that books and magazines never get lost in all the new gadgets and technology. There is something so comforting and fun to be able to physically touch and flip through a thick book or lay out a group of magazines on a coffee table as decoration. Having said that, I do think it is sad to see how much paper a company, such as a magazine publisher, goes through in such a short period of time. 


At work, we make what we call, "color books," which is basically the whole magazine printed out in color on paper. These color books are very necessary, because you would be surprised at the edits that tend to get lost on a computer screen compared to being printed out on a piece of paper. The editors look over these color books and make edits that we (graphic designers) then have to fix. Once fixed, we re-print out the pages to be looked over and approved. All of this printing is definitely needed, but watching the printer continuously spit out paper makes me think of the cartoon movie, Ferngully (haha I know how ridiculous that is).


It only took me about 5 months to finally decide that I needed to put all those discarded pieces of paper to use, and so the challenge began! I am to use all of the old edited pages to recycle them into crafts. I am not setting any kind of limits on this challenge, the one and only goal is to just use that paper towards something else! I plan on continuously posting pictures of any crafts that I end up making having to do with this challenge, hopefully some neat things come out of it. 


I challenge you to take a look at anything that you may consider waste (people not included haha) and try to make something out of it.
  

First finished project from the challenge. I have become incredibly obsessed with making lists, so this is my "new"
list book. Thankfully I work on magazines that have beautiful photography, so my recycled papers are pretty appealing!

Detail of book tabs.

When some of your dreams come true...

I didn't figure out until college that I wanted to pursue a profession in the creative field. Growing up my mom was always so amazingly creative in everything she did; she made all of my halloween costumes, she was my class' masterpiece art teacher, she always decorated the house in the most beautiful ways, and no matter what age she is, she will always have a great sense of style (seriously, since high school I have been borrowing pieces of clothing from her). My dad swears that he isn't "fuzzy" (his slang for a creative person) at all, but honestly he gets these ideas at times that are so creative and really thought out. My brother, Kipp, I think is very creative too, I remember being young and seeing his drawings and doodles and they were always so good, not to mention, his penmanship is beautiful. My sister, Summer, is so very creative too. She started early on with drawings of dresses (at the time we all swore she was going to be a clothing designer) and then she moved on to interior design and now works for an architecture and interior design company. So obviously, my family all has the"fuzzy" gene in them, it just took me much longer to realize mine. 

I think no matter how happy a person is in a specific career, they always aspire to be something else. I am so incredibly happy to be a graphic designer, but over the past couple years I have found a whole new passion within myself... Movie Trailers! You know, like Cameron Diaz' character in Love Actually. This may sound weird, but I think this would be my "dream job" . I find myself continuously getting obsessed with certain movie trailers (all of the dramatic ones of course) and I play them over in my head and think about what I like and don't like and what I would maybe do differently. Or when I hear a song on the radio, some of my first thoughts are, "oh this song would be so good for a trailer of this movie..." I took a mixed media class once in college and I loved one of our projects were we got to use digital media and create our own music video. I actually put more effort into that project than most of my others. 

so even though I am currently living part of my dream, at night, I tend to dream of trailers... 

Ok, so to give you a taste of what I am talking about, here are two of my most current trailer obsessions: 

The Social Network

Social Network: Not only do I love this trailer, but it is also spot on on conveying the feeling of the movie (I saw the movie and actually really liked it and the whole mood of it was just like the trailer. I really dislike it when trailers trick you into thinking a movie is something it isn't. 

And of course, this trailer:

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: I am a little biased because I am already obsessed with these books and movies, but honestly this trailer is just so exciting to watch and it looks action packed! 

Tell me some of your favorite trailers out there! 

Beach life living?

So, its been quite a while since my last post... whoops! Things have been busy... Jessica and I finally found a house that is at Newport Beach on Balboa Peninsula. Immediately after finding the place we were insanely excited, but then we began dealing with the rental company and lets just say it has been anything but an enjoyable experience. When I first moved out here (over three months ago already!) I made a deal with myself that I would live by the beach for at least a year so Jessica and I have been really pushing through this and we are finally starting to see things work out.

We got to take our first walk-through yesterday and immediately started planning in our heads what all we want to do to the place to make it ours for 18 months. Then, today we stopped by again to see if the rental company would stick to their word (they said that we will be able to move in this weekend) and we were happy to find the place smelling like fresh paint!

So, to my followers... Mim, Summer, and Steve haha here are photos of the place... It still needs to be cleaned, but hopefully we will get it soon!

And here is the couch/futon that I am purchasing tomorrow. Mom, I know you told me to not buy anything until you got out here, but the sale for this ends tomorrow and I think it will be a great investment. Since I plan on having you all out to visit often, this little couch turns into a bed in a second!

And last, but not least... It has been rainy the past two days (and I have loved it!) and so after we looked at our house, we walked to the beach (a whole 5 houses away) and saw this beautiful sunset. I know this sounds weird, but it kind of reminded me of Arizona. Ok, yes, I realize that there is an ocean in the image, but the colors in the sky just made me think of the beautiful sunsets in Arizona during monsoon season. 

Sending my love to everyone!!!! Although there is all this excitement, I just really miss everyone a lot... as usual. Thank goodness Summer and Steve are coming to visit this weekend!!!! xoxo

Fun with photoshop

Since working at Stampington and Company I have been a lot more excited to try new art projects including all different kinds of mediums. I submitted a bunch of sock monkeys to our publication called Stuffed and I am happy to announce that they will have their own article in the January issue! It is going to be so hard to wait for it to come out, but it will be fun to watch them take pictures of them and then Jessica gets to design the magazine so that will be cool too. I'll have pictures to come soon...


Also, whenever I mail or package anything now I have to put a little spin on it. I'll have those pictures up soon as well to explain more what I am talking about.


I have started a new thing where I create a birthday crown for people. It started out with my mom's birthday (the crow turned out kind of rough, sorry mom) and then I made one for Summer, Jessica's dad, Jessica's mom's friend, and now I need to make one for Jessica's mom. haha. Pics to come for that as well!


Other than those little projects, I have been experimenting with Photoshop. U of A never really sat us down and taught us all of the Adobe programs, most stuff has been self-taught or learned through internships. Well, at Stampington we use photoshop pretty often to fix up photos and the I get to see all the photos that artists send in and they are so inspiring. So, to start off, I took a photo from my "photoshoot". This picture was actually my favorite that Johanna Love took. She is such a great photographer. Anyways, I played around with the image a bit and come up with a couple different styles. You'll have to tell me what one you like and hopefully I can try more things in the near future.

Original photo taken by Johanna Love

CMYK photo with different filters and grain effect

Black and white photo with a lens glare

A Different Kind of Family Time...

My day got to start with a package sent from my mom. I was so excited to get something in the mail, and then I saw what was inside the package and I got even more excited. My mom, as most people know, is a creative genius! You can follow her blog, Paper Parfait, to understand fully. Anyways, she altered a photo album and made it beautiful and then placed images reminding me of home in it. I know my words don't do this album justice so I took some pictures to show off! 

album created by my amazing mother, MIM!

After receiving this album and looking at it over and over again I then hopped on the computer and saw that I received a message from my cousins. Two of them are getting ready to head off to college and I am so excited for them! The younger of the three is also the only girl, and she is about to see the perks  of being the only child. I love facebook, not just for the stalking factor, but because it keeps me connected with everyone. 


Then, I got to visit my sister's blog to see what she is up to. Once again, just another great thing about technology... I think everyone should have a blog and post their updates on that instead of Facebook.. .I think everyone would appreciate that.


And after being on the computer, I got a text from my Dad and got to talk to him a bit. 


On top of all of this, I got to talk to Katie today during her lunch break and catch up on her life and past weekend. 


I am so thankful for all this technology because it keeps me in touch and up to date with everyone. In a way, I felt like I got some family/friend time in today which is great because this past week things have finally been really setting in. I am realizing that I am not just on vacation, and that I don't get to see the ones I love as often as I wish. I am not going to complain, because thankfully I am still only about a 6 hour drive away. So, instead of complaining, I am going to be thankful that I have such amazing and loving people in my life to miss. 

Just some of the people that I love and miss! 

New Adventures and Experiences

DRYER SHEET-MODELING ADVENTURE

On Wednesday, I was having just a normal day at work when Jessica (friend and co-worker) brought over the magazine that I got to work on last month. It is the September/October issue of Belle Armoire (yet to be released in stores), but the editor got the first copy to look over. This magazine is extra special, not just because it's the first one I got to work on, but also because I got to model one of the featured pieces. Its actually a really cute dress, but made entirely of dryer sheets (it smelled really fresh and clean). It's fun to see some of my work being printed professionally and to also have a picture of me (I realize that its from my chin down haha) in a published mag! 

Spread in Stampington and Company's Belle Armoire publication. On the left side is a picture of me modeling the dryer sheet dress! Kind of cool to see in person! 

BAC- ACTING ADVENTURE

In other, not so glamorous news... Jessica's sister's friend needed help at a convention that was being held in Anaheim. It was a Food Protection convention and their company has a mascot... a Bacteria! They call him BAC and their little slogan is "Fight Bac." The job was for me to dress up in their costume for one hour and walk around the convention while taking pictures with people. This didn't sound too bad, and I was promised some money in return. I agreed and this is what I ended up looking like...

FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: 1. I think if people would have known that it was me inside the costume, they may have posed a little differently. 2. Suiting up in the costume. This little waist thing, the air vent/inflation device, was pretty heavy and made me so sore the next day. 3. BAC taking a walk around the crowds. 4. I loved giving people hugs in this costume and I think people enjoyed receiving them too because their faces always looked so happy! 

It was quite the experience. I am glad that I did it because it's a fun story and it's just something that is exciting to say that I've done in my life. The costume was a little bigger and heavier than I expected, so afterwards I was really sore, but it was fun walking around messing with people without them knowing that I was the girl inside! Jessica took really good care of me too, she definitely had my "bac"! These are just a few images, but I have soooo many more that are hilarious to look at. 

Sine having this experience, I have decided that I want to be more of a "yes man (woman)" in life. I want to say "yes" to more experiences in my life, because they will always be great to look back on and you never know what could possibly come out of it. I mean, I can now say that I have modeled and acted hahaha ok, thats a bit of a stretch, but I like the sound of it! 

I recently got the opportunity to fly home and visit my family for a fun-filled weekend celebrating my sister's 27th birthday. It hasn't been long since I moved out to California, but seeing everyone was much appreciated. 

My sister started a blog called, "My 27th Year." In this blog she takes an image a day and writes an entry to go with it... in total this blog will include 325 entries. Her images and creative writing are amazing and they make me want to "step up my game." So, from now on, I will try to take my knowledge of Adobe programs and apply them to my photos. We'll see what I end up with! 

First try... Departing from Phoenix, heading back to Orange County, I was able to get a shot of downtown Phoenix below the wing of the airplane. You can see Bank One Ballpark (now known as Chase Field) along with all the other buildings. The Southwest.com logo on the end of the wing made the image look like an advertisement for them, so I photoshopped that out and placed my own silly words, "Goodbye Phoenix." Then being inspired by my sister's recent Etsy purchase, I placed different fonts saying "Keep your head in the sky and feet on the ground." Kind of cliche', I know, but oh well! 

Two-post Tuesday!

Well, I skipped a couple days so I decided to make up for that by hosting a two-post-tuesday :) Working at Stampington & Company has been great so far. They are keeping me very busy, and although I don't have a huge range of creativity to work with doing layouts, I am still learning a lot. My desk is in a "hoteling station" (says my sister who is a commercial interior designer) and needed to be fixed up a bit. So here are my before and after pics... I am pretty proud of how it turned out!

Before

After

I think people at the office thought I got a little out of control, but eh, gotta make the most out of it right!? 

As I mentioned before...

daaaa naaaaa, daaaa naaaaa, da na, da na, da na, 

DA NAAAAAA........

AHHHHHHH, I found two of these the other day in the room that I am staying in. I had a complete "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" moment, while killking the two critters I couldn't help but scream out, "i'm sorry, i'm sorry!" haha. Let's just say I have a hard time killing anything, even a fly, so I guess I need to "buck up" if I want to make it out here in CA. Watch out spiders, I show no mercy... ok, I'll try not to.

A Blogging Reason

When I look back at the past year or two I realize that so much has happened. There are so many lessons, moments, and people that I hope to remember for always. I just turned 24 years old and although I am still pretty young, I realize that my memory doesn't have the capacity size that I wish it did. Therefore, I have a reason to Blog! I will try to keep these posts short and sweet, and they will cover nearly anything in life and will most likely be really random, because lets be honest... I am really random.

Speaking of memories and moments, I just moved to California. It's a surreal feeling and I don't think it has even really kicked in yet. I feel as if I am back in College, work being my college now. You wouldn't think that California is much different than Arizona, but I have been slowly making a list of differences in my head. Here is what I have come up with so far...

Differences:

• An obvious difference: there is an ocean here haha
• I am actually cold here about 70% of the time
• Hands free phone policy in the car (yes, I am now one of those people that look like they are talking to themselves in their car... the thing is though, I really like it!)
• There are hills everywhere to navigate around. Unlike Arizona and their grid system.
• More vegetation
• Pat and Oscars is still up and running (yum)
• Movies are about $11.50 or $12 (yikes)
• Instead of being scared of scorpions, I now fear spiders.
• There is literally a Starbucks on every corner (I'm in heaven)

I guess thats about all I got for now on differ

ences. Maybe more to come. Now to leave you with a bit of a visual...

I went from this:

To this:

photos found on Google