weekend outting

This weekend we ventured out to a place called Independence Grove, about 40 minutes from where we live. Apparently a forest preserve with gigantic bass and lots of it. We met up with friends on Saturday and... we actually caught nothing. But let us not dwell on the negative. SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY. We set out for revenge and headed over to IG where, for the first time this season, I caught me a bass!! (so did my husband, but his was itty bitty ;P) It was twilight, and the day was about to end again in failure, when at last I got a hit and was able to pull this sucker in. Not the largest of monsters, but a well fought one. My first fish with a plastic worm. So happy!

**kitty kat korner**

I made a run to costco to buy some things and came home with a cardboard box, which I WAS going to throw out on garbage day (which was yesterday), but since the kittens took such a liking to it, I decided otherwise. I feel like my house is full of half chewed cardboard boxes all over the place...but it's worth it cuz they're so cute...And of course the box was adorned with small holes they could slide their small little paws in which made it twice as fun!

Some fine simple die-cutting

Well here's a super solution to dull boring keys! I mean, all anyone has ever come up with was to make those small rubber or plastic caps to cover the ugly key head, but why not just recreate it! Kudos to Stat Key Designer!

from Stat Key Company.

OoooOOooo~

is for octopus! What a cool children's alphabet book by Werner Design Werks. This is the kind of stuff I would want my kid to be looking at when he/she learns the alphabet...

by Wernerdesignwerks. Follow on flickr here.

yet another cute store

I stumbled upon this website over the weekend. cute stuff indeed...From mxyplyzyk design.

papercutting kind of Friday

It seems like self-promotion is the thing right now, so I thought I'd upload a piece I worked on a while ago. I've been meaning to make it a series...but you know..the lack of discipline (and my mind wondering elsewhere)... It was cut from thin art board, and I used origami paper I had lying around. (I was later surprised to find out that origami is in fact quite expensive when purchased). If you can't tell what that is, it's a butterfly dangling upside down. The smaller circular cuts on the butterfly wings actually have shiny gold paper behind it, so it's rather pretty in light. The web is definitely not doing it justice in terms of color... Any piece name suggestions?

© Ayako Kochi

CRISTAL

It almost seems too good to be true. If I had one of these in my home...

CRISTAL (Control of Remotely Interfaced Systems using Touch-based Actions in Living spaces) is a extreme simple user interface for controlling multimedia devices and home automation systems. Check out the video. I think it's one of those, it's what you make of it things, because in the end you would have to upload all you DVDs, songs, and images yourself right? That would take forever! But worth it, I suppose, for all the organization...

rainbow watch

ouuuu. I'm liking Mr. Jones. Here's the concept for this watch, the Cyclops:

Cyclops dispenses with a conventional arrangement of hour, minute and second hands; instead a single hour marker passes around the coloured dial. Each hour is represented by a different coloured circle, the black hoop gradually passes over each circle to indicate the time.

Cyclops can be read with a relaxed kind of accuracy that offers a counterpoint to our hectic modern lives.

I never wear a watch anyway, you always have your cell phone with you...

more here.