FAR OUT

If you want to spend a few minutes browsing around the universe, I highly recommend checking this out. (Only works in Google Chrome).

HELLO!

Hi there! Sorry for the radio silence over here. Posting is going to be a bit spotty over the next week as I try and get everything done around here before flying home to Vancouver for the holidays. Thanks for hanging in there and have a great week!

In the meantime, check out these awesomesauce coasters. Puns and science. Hurrah!

THE INEFFABLE IRIS APFEL

I was going to roll this in with the Friday links but decided that Iris deserves a post all to herself. She is so magnificent.

CITY MUSEUM

Let me preface this by saying that no pictures and nothing I write can do justice to the magical wonderland that is City Museum. I pretty much spent the first fifteen minutes of my visit just walking around in awe and repeating, "This is the coolest place ever."

This was a must-visit on my recent trip to St. Louis. If you ever find yourself in St. Louis, please do yourself a favour and go here. It is a crazy jungle gym play place that looks like it is straight out of a children's storybook. Pretty much anything you could climb on or through, you can. There is a cave area with tunnels through the walls, a rainforest area with a sturdy wire mesh canopy to climb around on, a crazy outdoor play area with wire tunnels suspended fifty feet in the air to climb through, slides that are multiple stories tall and you have no idea where they might come out, as well as an entire rooftop area that was unfortunately closed when we were there because it was a tad drizzly out. You could easily visit here four or five times and still not explore every nook and cranny in this insane museum.

A little tip, make sure you wear good climbing clothes! Long pants to cover your knees and some comfy shoes are a must.

THE COLOR RUN

Have you heard of The Color Run? I can't believe I didn't hear about this sooner! It is a 5K run where participants wear white shirts and have a new colour powder thrown on them every kilometer so that by the end of the race, you are covered in a rainbow of coloured dust! Coincidentally, I discovered it a few days after mentioning my dream of participating in Holi Festival. Unfortunately, the race near me is only a couple weeks away and I already have plans. Bummer. But I will definitely be keeping my eye out for next year's dates! You can check the map to see if it's coming to a city near you. Seattle, Denver, and Chicago are coming up. And for Milwaukee locals, the race will be in Racine on the 19th of May! UPDATE: The Color Run will be in Milwaukee on August 24th at Miller Park! You can sign up here.

MAPLE BACON S'MORES

I just wanted to take a time out from our regularly scheduled illustration/design programming to say look at these beauties. Those are maple bacon s'mores. Made with maple bacon marshmallows. (And you can thank Jacey for these being brought to your eyes.)

CRASH COURSE + THOUGHT BUBBLE = MADE OF AWESOME

I am a big fan of the vlogbrothers. Hank Green, founder of ecogeek.org and creator of 2D glasses (to name a few), and John Green, New York Times Bestselling author, created this youtube channel in 2007 and since then have built a huge following known as Nerdfighteria. They recently launched a new youtube channel called Crash Course where they will be sharing videos about biology and world history. I was understandably excited about this (it's learning made more awesome!) and that was even before I saw the fantastic infographics designed by the talented team at Thought Bubble for John's world history lessons. You can check out the first video about the Agricultural Revolution below. Can't wait to see more throughout the year!

SO MUCH LOVE

I love this David Klein TWA poster so much I can't even stand it.

FRUMPY DUMPLINGS

I felt that these deserved a post all to themselves. Because they are a thing of beauty.

FLORENCE + THE MACHINE

The new Florence + The Machine album. Wow. I can't even remember the last time I just dropped everything to listen to an album from beginning to end but I spent a couple of hours last night just being immersed in her new album. Decadent, intoxicating, haunting.

Here's the video for the second single off of the album and here is one of my other favourites.

INSTANT HAPPY

How amazing would your morning commute be if this bridge in England's Carlisle Train Station was part of it? Also, I didn't notice the chandeliers until I was writing this post. Chandeliers. Magical.

GROUND CONTROL TO MAJOR TOM

Children's book illustration + Andrew Kolb + David Bowie? Too awesome for words.

 

via // bb-blog

Muppets: The Green Album on First Listen!

Instead of sharing a mix with you today, I'd like to direct you to the NPR First listen for the Muppets' Green Album! I spent last night jammin' to this. (I love the Movin' Right Along cover!)

Now I want a chocolate bar...

Thought I'd start Tuesday morning off with a video of the Milky Way. No big deal. (seen on poppytalk last week)


The Mountain from Terje Sorgjerd on Vimeo.

Now THAT'S a piñata!

Ohh the things I find while doing research for illustrations....

Will someone have a birthday party, make this piñata and invite me? Thanks.

Step-by-step instructions here.

Happy Magic Water Park!

(Yes, that is what it is actually called)

And I think any other name would be an injustice to what Beijing did with the Olympic pool from the 2008 Summer Olympic games. Insane! I hope Vancouver does something even half as cool as this with our Olympic facilities.

(The jellyfish!!)

Seriously, I want to go to there.

Have a happy magic weekend!

Get those socks a-hoppin'

Cover Me posted the lasted video from these guys today and I had to of course go check out the rest of their stuff. Taking (mostly annoying) pop songs and infusing them with 50s sockhop goodness? Genius! The Baseballs are my dream wedding band (and I mean that in the least insulting way possible because that would be the rockin'est wedding ever)



Here's their lastest video, a cover Snow Patrol's "Chasing Cars" and here is my favourite song from their first album (it was really hard to choose! They make everything sound so good! Even the gag-me-with-a-spoon "Umbrella")

Seattle eats: Cafe Flora - a long, raving review

In Vancouver, if you use the Naam as your measuring stick for vegetarian restaurants, then you would expect every animal friendly establishment to be full of mediocre food and hipsters (and sometimes David Suzuki). So naturally, I was a little dubious when my sister (the vegetarian in the family) added Cafe Flora to the dining docket on our Seattle trip. (It's the first hit on Google if you search "vegetarian restaurant Seattle").

Holy Trinity 2.0

Here are the results from my early morning baking the other day.

Where I work, there is a backwards tradition that you have to bring treats in for everyone when it is your birthday. Apparently my mom had been talking up my skillz so I couldn't disappoint! At the company barbecue on Sunday, one of my coworkers came up to me and was like "Ok, you can't bring your birthday treats in on Thursday or Friday because half of us won't be here. So bring them in Wednesday". I have Wednesdays off, I told her. "Ok tomorrow, then!" (This was while I was still at the barbecue and it was about seven at night). "Pfft, I haven't made them yet!" I told her. "Well, then Tuesday it is!" she said.

I had forgotten that I would be occupied on Monday night attending this, so this is how I found myself pouring cake batter into tart shells at 1 in the morning.

It's a good thing they turned out because I probably would have cut someone if they hadn't.



Kidding.

I don't know if anyone remembers what I made for my birthday last year but I had to up the anti this year. (Which was pretty darn hard). So, I figured I would combine these with the other most awesome thing I've made all year and voila!




Here is the recipe from last year. I cheated and used a tube of store-bought chocolate cookie dough and some frosting from my good friend Betty, but I made my own tart shells and cake. Here are the instructions for the rainbowfication of the cake.

I doubled the pie crust recipe but still had some cake batter left over (the recipe makes a three layer cake for crying out loud—and it's impossible to halve it because there are 7 eggs in it) so I just made an extra cake once I ran out of tart shells.

I guess they liked it.

Holy Amazingness, Batman!

There are no words to describe this cake. Happy Friday people!

via greedy girl