1 Comment// Posted in Arts & Crafts, Fashion, Music, Thoughts by admin on 04.25.11.
For about 358 day of the year, Hilo is a quite town—that is, except for the coqui frogs. But there’s one week in particular that Hilo becomes a bustling town of dancers, crafters, and spectators alike. The aroma is nothing but fragrant with nature’s perfume.
Hilo. Home of the Merrie Monarch Hula Festival!
Easter Sunday kicks off the annual hula festival with a Ho‘olaule‘a of local hula and Tahitian performances. This year, we had a nice treat by the tupuna of Moorea who sang and danced a number from their native island of Tahiti.
Wednesday is Ho‘ike night with a showcase of hula, international performers and music. This year, Halau O Kekuhi will be performing a hula dressed in traditional kapa. This will be the first time in quite possibly 300 years that a hula will be danced in kapa! Hours and days went into “stripping, soaking, pounding and dyeing the tree bark to create the Hawaiian version of fine linen.” (HanaHou Magazine)
Wednesday also marks the beginning of the craft fairs!! Vendors are scattered around Hilo—from Naniloa Hotel and Hilo Hawaiian Hotel, to the Afook Chinen Civic Auditorium and Sangha Hall, amongst the regular vendors at the Farmer’s Market and across the street at Mo‘oheau Bandstand.
A couple shops/booths to add to your must stop list:
Aloha shirts, hooded jackets, dresses, blouses, tees, neckties, bags, wallets, house slippers, potholders. Make sure you squeeze your way through the door and get dibs on your favorite prints before they’re gone! SigZane.com
Pop-Up Shop (the former Cutlery on the corner of Mamo St.)
Find your latest HomeSteady gear and handcrafted jewelry here!
(photos via malani11 and Mynah Lifestyle)
Sangha Hall
Find more HomeSteady threads here.
Hugs and Honis
Started by former Miss Aloha Hula Natasha Oda, stop by to find vintage prints and casual wear for the wahine. They’re around the corner from Koehnen’s Interiors along bayfront. HugsAndHonisHawaii.com
(photo via kuhao)
For those who can’t make it into Hilo town to participate in the festivities, frequent the Sig Zane Merrie Monarch 2011 page! Stay up to date with tweets from the @sigzanedesigns team, flickr pics from Sig Zane, Kuhao Zane and myself, video clips of day to day in the shop and we will also be doing live ustreams.
For any Twitterers out there who are attending the Merrie Monarch Festival or even just watching from home, hashtag your Merrie Monarch tweets with #MMweek11 and let’s get this trending!
“Hula is the language of the heart, therefore the heartbeat of the Hawaiian People”
No Comments// Posted in Fashion, Want List by admin on 04.23.11.
I came across these wood bracelets on If It’s Hip, It’s Here and I immediately fell in love with them!!
Designed by Gustav Reyes who specializes in contemporary wood jewelry, these wood bracelets are made from salvaged wood “which functions as a reminder of the past, present, and future”. These amazing contemporary art forms, as modern as they appear, hold a deep history and dedication to preserving nature’s infinite beauty. They cost a pretty penny ($120-$320, available at Artful Home) but definitely a pretty penny I wouldn’t mind pulling from my piggy bank!
Reyes has many other beautiful handcrafted wood jewelry pieces including wood-link bracelets, pendants and rings. Discover his amazing art here.
Tags: Gustav Reyes, wood jewelry
No Comments// Posted in Drawing, Thoughts by admin on 04.17.11.
I had planned to make this Sunday a productive Sunday and be able to tend to my project list. And while I was productive in doing some chores around the house, I didn’t find the creative drive in me to do any designing.
It’s weird though…in the midst of thinking about something totally not design-related, I suddenly had an idea for one of my projects.
I got to drawing and surprised myself with how quickly I turned up with something that I was happy with. Scanned the drawing in and now to digitize it.
I won’t reveal the design until it gets printed, but let’s just say it will be a new HomeSteady design. Stay tuned…
Tags: hehiau, homesteady
No Comments// Posted in Arts & Crafts by admin on 04.11.11.
I absolute love getting packages in the mail! Granted that 9 times out of 10 it’s a purchased item that I really don’t NEED, I’m always excited to open the packages—as if I don’t already know what’s in it. Today was a double surprise…I came home to find two packages on the table!
The first package was my new iPad sleeve. I came across OhMyCake on Etsy and immediately fell in love! Best part: I was able to request an extra pocket on the back for my Interisland Terminal Moleskine notebook!
The second package, I kinda forgot I had ordered it. Not that I was any less psyched to open the Threadless package to find my new tee!
Tags: etsy, interisland terminal, iPad, moleskine, threadless
2 Comments// Posted in Arts & Crafts, Food & Drinks, Thoughts by admin on 04.09.11.
As promised, I haven’t gone creative-less while my blogging has been stagnant. Here are a few things I’ve been up to.
This design for HomeSteady is in honor of Princess Ka‘iulani, He Hulu Ali‘i. The peacock—commonly associated with Ka‘iulani—breaches the heHIau logo. The heHIau logo alone is a bold statement, yet the whispy feathers softens and feminizes the look and feel of the logo. The peacock’s crest reveals Ka‘iulani’s homeland and the backside dons a single peacock feather with none other than the HomeSteady name.
Because she was a fierce fighter against colonists WE were more than happy to think of her in every step of this design. ʻO Kaʻiulani, he hulu aliʻi ʻo ia. Princess Kaʻiulani will always be loved and esteemed by all of us at wehomesteady.com.
Last month was a busy birthday month in our family. The last of the birthdays in March was my cat-loving Aunty’s birthday. My cousin and I whipped up a box of Fun-fetti cupcakes and piped out some cat-like cupcakes with jellybean noses and tongues.
Being the cat-loving lady she is, she just so happened to adopt a stray kitten found at work. Meet Scooby-Doo =)
Last major creative project I’ve been working on is a logo for a new and soon-to-be-operating “lunch wagon” selling fresh fruit juices, smoothies, milkshakes and chocolate covered bananas. Wailana’s Juice Bar anticipates to be making it’s debut stroll in Hilo by the month’s end so keep an eye out for a yellow lunch wagon!
To be honest, I was beyond intimidated with this project as it required me to personally illustrate the entire logo in a style I’m not fully comfortable in. The ladies from Wailana’s Juice Bar wanted to emulate the look and style of Frank McIntosh. While his artwork is burned in my brain as classic mid-1900s Hawaiiana artwork, I knew that his style of artwork was nothing like my personal drawing style. Fortunately I was able to gather up a motherload of McIntosh paraphernalia from my mom and pulled off a logo that my client is stoked about. Bringing out dimple-filled smiles from Michele and Cheryl at Wailana’s Juice Bar!
1 Comment// Posted in Thoughts by admin on 03.21.11.
Hi all, thanks for stopping by! My blog posts have been pretty vacant the past week or so. I haven’t forgotten about posting nor my daily drawings. It’s been pretty hectic but I assure you that I have been getting in some daily designing! Just nothing that I can post right now per client request.
But follow me on twitter (@67mele) and keep up with some visual imagery I come across at Snaps.
Mahalo for stopping by!
2 Comments// Posted in Food & Drinks by admin on 03.12.11.
Yesterday was my Aunty—my baking partner’s mom’s—birthday so it was another baking Saturday for us! We found this really cute idea in a book and decided on making mum cupcakes. It was super easy to do and they came out so pretty!!
They’re regular cupcakes, iced with regular icing and the mum petals are just marshmallows! Just cut mini marshmallows diagonally and put them in a container or Ziploc bag of colored sugar and shake them up. The sugar only sticks to the cut sides. We found that if you let them sit for a little while, they poof back up to a nicer shape after being squished when you cut them. Arrange the marshmallow halves in a circular pattern starting from the outer edge and working your way in. The book suggested using Mike & Ike’s licorice jelly bean thingies for the stamen but we opted to do without. We started off with making single colored mums but decided to play around with color combinations on the last four cupcakes.
No Comments// Posted in Daily Design by admin on 03.12.11.
A horse is a horse of course of course…unless it’s a zebra-horse, or a zorse. In most cases, when a zebra mates with a horse, the outcome is a zorse, where its entire body is covered with stripes, much like a zebra—apparently zebra genes are dominant.
In one particular case, the little foal came out distinctly part horse and part zebra. Eclyse the zorse’s father is a zebra and her mother is a horse. And while photos of Eclyse may seem like a Photoshop project, she actually has two patches of zebra stripes and the rest of her body remains white.
As a quick drawing, here’s Eclyse…not an unfinished zebra drawing.
Comments Off// Posted in Daily Design by admin on 03.08.11.
When looking up images, there were quite a few photographs I came across of yellow jackets on honeycombs and collecting pollen. Hence the background. However, I later learned that they don’t produce honey. Oh well…in my book they do!
No Comments// Posted in Daily Design by admin on 03.06.11.
The past couple of days yielded no daily drawing, mainly because I was preoccupied with making a birthday cake for my mom which seriously took all of Friday night and Saturday.
But I’m back on track today with my daily drawing. For the letter X, I had to Google some animals that begin with the letter X. I’ve never heard of before the animals I came across, but I did learn that a xerus is a ground squirrel that’s unique to Africa.
So here you have it…X is for Xerus
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