Monday, April 26, 2010

My Week In Pics

View onto Downtown San Diego from Coronado

Mikki enjoying the view

Flowers on the beach

Me posing on the beach

View from the Coronado Bridge

I just love the beach, even on a windy gray day (maybe even more than on a sunny day)

Sign on our road trip through the "backways" to San Diego. "Hazardous Children?" :)

Pink flowers. Really intense pink flowers!

Some road trip lovin'. I can't believe next weekend we've been dating for 12 and a half years!!!

Mikki posing. Is there anything better than road trips on empty roads?

Wild flowers on bare dry branches.

My illegally acquired lemons. I made my first lemonade inspired by hooray. Delishousness!

Amazing views from the Unique LA café area over downtown LA and beyond

My part of the booth

Detail of my display.

The screen printed giveaway sign and the email list.

More details.

and even more details.

Hello and welcome to my very belated "week in pics". I have a pretty good excuse for not posting yesterday: pure exhaustion after a two day show. For not posting today: no excuse...
Last week was my very late Spring Break, so Mikki and I decided to head down to San Diego for and overnight escape. We had such a great road trip! Instead of heading down the coast highway (what we usually do) we headed south going inland, through the Rancho Santa Rosa area. And it was awesome. Everything was blooming and green (this is where rainy winters truly pay off). Although we only stayed one night, it was such a great way to disconnect from our daily lives and nevermind that it was gray and rainy at night and on our way back - it was a very relaxing mid-week-weekend :)
I spent the rest of the week getting everything ready for my weekend: Unique LA! Wow, what a great show. So much fun to be part of and such a great place to get to know other vendors and to pass your time people watching (one of my very favorite things to do!)
So all the pics this week are from our trip to San Diego and the show.
Hope you all had a great week and wish you all an even better one, xx

..and the WINNER is...


Thanks everybody for participating in the giveaway by signing up for my email list over at Unique LA!
I raffled this necklace using random.org and the lucky winner is

Christina Kane!!!!

Congratulations!
Please send me an email with your address so I can mail you the necklace asap :)

Have a great week everybody,
xx

Friday, April 23, 2010

Unique LA Spring Show


Hello everybody,
just a quick reminder while a gather my stuff to set up my booth at Unique LA.
Head over to the Los Angeles Market Center this Saturday and Sunday (both days from 11am to 6pm) to score some truly "unique" (hehe) creations from local independent artists!
What you can expect: graphic tees, swimwear, jewelry, soap, paper goods, fashion, music (the famous recordstore: Amoeba!!!), gourmet food, free (yes, free!) drinks, amazing views over downtown LA, awesome people watching, etc.
Make sure to head over to my booth, #127 to check out my latest creations at low prices: everything will be under $35!
Don't miss out on this great opportunity to enjoy the growing local community.
Tickets are $10. Kids under 12 are free and if you say you come to see NIMO. you might get one of my ten free tickets, xx
Happy weekend everybody!!!

Sunday, April 18, 2010

My Week In Pics

I haven't stopped this week. Most of you already know, but next weekend, April 24 & 25 is the next Unique LA show. An amazing design and gift show with 300 local vendors - and I'm one of them! Next week is my (very late and very needed) spring break, so I've been trying to shove everything on my "to do for unique" list into this week! And I almost succeeded!
I've been screen printing, drawing, sawing, hammering, tarnishing, bending, beading, sewing and cutting all week long! Wow. Now I'm exhausted!
Luckily enough I managed to squeeze in some fun:
A get-together with my girls - this time a laid back afternoon at home featuring cake! Yum.
A concert at the Troubadour: the australian band Karnivool - on the top of playlist these days! Right after "Diamond Eyes" the new Deftones single)
A forced time out in the sun (I locked myself out again)
New shoes!!! Yes. Converse. Again. Of course.
So, without further ado, the pictures!

New shoes and Karnivool live at the Troubadour

As American as it gets: shopping cart with cup holder and pancakes on sunday morning

My forced break in the sun. (I left my keys at home and had to wait for Mikki to return home)

Work: My retro tumbler (the cut out pieces are polished in soapy water and shot [nails and other metals]) and some silver rainclouds

More cut out pieces and my work bench

Signs for Unique LA: hand painted on mini canvases and hand screen printed on paper

Left: screen for my NIMO. banner. Right: printed muslin just cut our with my pinking shears

Detail of my banner (it features a giant copper Phoenix bird) and my sewing machine

TA-DAN: my pride and glory. The finished product hanging in the doorway.
The NIMO. Banner. You should come see it in person at Unique LA :)







Thursday, April 15, 2010

Food is Good

Fresh produce from the Hollywood Farmers Market

Has it happened to you, that when you start getting information about something it suddenly seems to be everywhere? It has happened to me many times. The latest thing which appears to be following me everywhere I look is food. Not just any food, but good food. Healthy food, ecological food. Clean food.
It all started when Mikki and I watched two documentaries, the scary (in a "oh-my-god-you-can't-eat-anything-anymore" kind of way) Food Inc. and a very fascinating documentary Water, The Great Mystery, which focuses on how this vital fluid is actually affected by anything and everything that surrounds it. Trust me, after watching this docu, you'll be extra kind to your water!
Then I came across this link to Jamie Oliver's TED talk, and who hasn't been hearing about his Food Revolution!?
To top it all off I read something about buying fresh food from local farmers in a blog post. The idea is that you sign up on the CSA website, and for $20 a week you get a basket of fresh produce (fruit, veggies and herbs - eggs and meat can be ordered additionally). Basically it's a group of local farmers that contribute their products to these baskets. The contents varies every week. So once a week (saturday morning in our case) you head to a location (usually a parking lot), where you pick up your extremely fresh, organic food from your local farmers - all in one box - no extra packaging. You don't get to choose what you get, which forces you, in a very positive way, to eat a wide variety of food that is currently in season.
Needless to say, Mikki and I signed up for it the other day and we'll be picking up our first basket this saturday!

Monday, April 12, 2010

My Week In Pics

Where did the time go? It's been a week already and I'm one day late with my post!
Last week had three highlights. In chronological order they were
1. A meeting for all the Unique LA vendors at the Grammy Museum in downtown LA. Where Sonja, the organizer gave a fun presentation and lots of posters and postcards to spread the word about the Spring Show, April 24 &25 (I'll be sharing booth #127 with Miss Scuba)

2. Saturday was my weekly meeting with the girls (do you do something like that? If not, I definitely recommend it). We headed over to Melrose for some windowshopping, peoplewatching and an awesome lunch at the Blu Jam Café. I sipped my Chai Latte extra carefully because I was enjoying the milk-foam-art so much :). Oh, and the sandwich was the Chicken Curry on Ciabatta bread - yum!

3. To finish off the week I had a table at the Pasadena Art and Design Market in oldtown. It's a biannual market where students from the famous Art Center and the local College (that's my category) can sell their art. It was a cold and gray day, but people still came out and shopped quite a bit! Thank you Pasadenians, for supporting your local students :)
I ended up so exhausted that I went to bed really early, and forgot all about blogging, sorry.
The rest of the week was filled with food, jewelry making, lots of coffee from my new french press, and wearing my bangles after a long winter break!
Hope you had a great week, too
xx Naomi

Friday, April 9, 2010

SS Fashion Wishlist ;)

Brace yourselves, here comes the girl-post! It's all about fashion :)
The thing is that I feel bad for not posting anything this week, but I'm not really feeling creative.
It's not like I didn't have enough things to work on, creating more of my customer's favorites for the upcoming shows (The Pasadena Art and Design Market this sunday and Unique LA on April 24 & 24), working on the signage for those events (I have an awesome idea, if I dare say so myself), designing online ads to promote my little etsy store (I'm sorry I have been ignoring you for far to long!) and redesigning the shopnimo twitter home page (now that I'm tweeting more!)...
But instead of doing any of the above, I keep thinking about spring and summer and how desperately I'm in need of new clothes! I keep thinking about tomorrow: I'm headed to Melrose with friends, which is always very inspiring, even if you don't buy anything. Truth is, that I've become more and more picky with clothes, a fact that I blame on taking fashion classes. Now every single tee is lifted and studied, judged upon: could I do this myself, is it worth the price, was it sewn sloppily, etc...
Anyways, I've been wasting time, err... browsing the web, looking for spring summer outfits that more or less fit my style (some more than others).
I am a very "black on black" person in general, which is obviously most noted when you open my closet. To me anything (from bras to shoes, over bags, coats, and tees) just looks so much better in black! The only thing I adore is colorful socks and undies :) Anyways, what I'm trying to get to is that I'm trying to insert more color in my outfits, not too much, but a hint here and there. Let's see how that goes :)
I hope I didn't bore you out of your mind by now. I hope you enjoy the pics.
What's on your SpringSummer Wishlist?

My summer outfits always include a version of the plastic flip flop.
New on my list: grey havaianas

Oh and what would my outfits be without a pair of these all stars?
Luckily I live in a climate where I can wear them year-round (with varying sock-thickness) unless it's pouring.
I'm still not a huge fan of the TOMSshoe design, but they are growing on me and I fell in love with the idea behind it. (Buy a pair and TOMS sends another pair to a poor kid)

I saw these two beauties at american apparel. Visualize them with boyfriend jeans, messy hair and in case of the top one, with a tiny bolero jacket.

I really want a boyfriend jean. I especially like these not too cropped ones from jcrew.
Hmmm... I'm not so sure about this one from urban outfitters. Maybe I could make it my own, with plenty of accessories, the pink all stars and messy hair?

I'm frequenting the same craft shows as Salt Swimwear. All their pieces are made in downtown LA and named after girls.
I love the Naomi Top with the Helena Bottom (My full name is Naomi Elena Plange - how fun is that!?!)

These have been on my wishlist for way to long. I love the baggy pant look. I already ordered some black (obviously!) thai fisherman pants. Let's see what they're like when they get here!

I spotted these two dresses over at anthropologie. I'm not so sure about the pattern panel in the first one, but I loved the second one. Too bad that they're so expensive. I guess I'll try them on anyways to see if they look that nice in person :)