Making the Kyoot Scene

Alright so my 2002 Nokia finally kicked the bucket and I got a new phone!!! It is a spiffy pink razr and I absolutely love it! Now, seeing as my old phone was B&W and you couldn’t have wallpapers or customize much of anything, I had not up to this point made any walls for phones. XD Well that stops now. It was actually the first thing I did! So! For you, two new free goodies for your phones: (res is 176×220…if you’d like to see different sizes, leave me a comment and I’ll start covering those too!)

Instructions: I’m not too versed in this yet, but all I did was put them in an email to my phone. (Usually your number@specialprovideremail.com) :3 I think every provider does that now, so you should be able to add them without a charge or anything (well none beyond what receiving a message costs anyhow).

Reposting my recipe from last year. :3 I made these on Friday and it was super awesome! So! If you like garlic please do give these a try! It’s best with the fresh seeds from your own pumpkin. Note: I’ve not tried it with Chinese pumpkin seeds (the green ones?) or papitas (smaller, also green) and have a hard time finding unseasoned white raw pumpkin seeds in the store so…yeah. You need ones that aren’t already roasted or salted because you’ll be putting on a salt mixture with this recipe. Besides I think it tastes even better when you work to scrape out every last seed on your own. *nodnod* :3

Bird’s Savory Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

Hokay chillins’! Preheat your ovens! (300 degrees) If you got your pumpkin seeds from the actual pumpkin, make sure you wash them and separate off the gooy orange stuff. The pumpkins I usually get are pretty big - medium to large around 22lbs. Melt 2 tsp of butter in the microwave. Put your pumpkin seeds in a bowl that’s big enough to mix them up in without dumping seedy goodness everywhere. :3 My pumpkins seeds were still wet and slightly slimy when i did this so wet and slimy is ok…you just don’t want to have them dripping fresh out of the water. Dump your melted butter in with the seeds in the bowl and gently fold the seeds over so everything gets coated. Next take your Lawry’s seasoning salt and garlic powder and sprinkle a thin layer of each over the top of your pumpkin seeds. Fold over and mix those spices through the seeds. I repeated that twice more for a total of 3 spice dosings. You can add more or less depending on how much you like garlic/Lawry’s. Next, dump your pumpkins seeds out onto a cookie sheet (best to use one with rims). Now shake the pan like you’re mining for gold!  Get the pumpkin seeds in an even layer across the cookie sheet and pop them in the oven for 40-45 minutes (or until they are golden brownish and don’t stick to the bottom of the pan). You can stir occasionally if you want, but I forgot about mine until the buzzer rang. XD They turned out awesome anyway :3 Once the time is up, take them out and set the cookie sheet ontop of the oven to cool. I DID toss them about at this point with a spatula to make sure the seasonings were mixed everywhere, but then shook the pan back out so they could cool. And that’s it! You’ve now got yourself one super tasty autumn treat!

The first is 1440 x900 Widescreen, and the second is 1600 x 1200. :3 There is a happy ending!! I like him. *^___^* I need a name for him though!! Any ideas? I should be uploading part 2 tonight as well as my Halloween 2008 story to the webcomic (or at least the START to it.) Heehhehe! Be warned, I think it’ll end up going longer than Halloween. It’s a good story though…and I’m having a lot of fun working on it and writing it. I’m hoping the two Halloween Stories will be going into a children’s book soon!

I can’t wait to start gushing about the new stuff we’ve got coming. \(^o^)/ Most of it should be in time for Christmas too! Woowoo! there will be a massive update coming through the email newsletter and the new site revamp. Which means I need to be working and not blogging. XD I’ll have some goodies for the tut section soon. The vector chibi tutorial as well as more wallpapers and stamps…O_O Ok back to work.

I didn’t sleep last night. ;_; I couldn’t even get tired until around 3AM so I tinked around in Illustrator and ended up making a free giftart for a friend of mine on Gaia:

I might take this into a tutorial or make another one and document the stages. Right now my head feels like a big goopy slush bucket despite my best efforts to shake the no-sleepies. My first try was breakfast…not good. Sat like a lump in my stomach. Next try was a donut. The donut was delicious and might have bumped my HP meter up a few points. My energy drink also contributed a few points. I might be sitting at half now. All I really wanna do is tink more in Illustrator and get these new designs out of my head. XD But I’ll get plenty of that tonight as I start the Halloween Story on the webcomic. Heehee. I can’t wait!!
Ok. getting back to work! I’ll be posting some goodies soon. Oh! If you wanna find me on GaiaOnline, my name there is lafhaha. I shall add linkage on my blogroll sometime tonight.

The first is widescreen (1440×900) and the second version is standard (1600×1200). A little bit of trick AND treat I’d say, wouldn’t you? Though I’m not sure who is getting the treat…!

Working away on the new site design. I’m trying my hardest to get it out as soon as possible. I’m just about finished on the third office painting. Those will be going up for sale shortly. The third features Berry Ninja, Bombchan, Samu Rye and Celebration Cupcake. I just realized that poor Bomchan is the odd man out in the picture…everyone else is some type of food! LOL whoops! XD ah well.

I’ve been venturing into Second Life recently. O_O goodness. it certainly does involve a steep learning curve. I got lucky though — I created an account in 2006 and abandoned it when I figured out my laptop wasn’t compatible with running the SL interface. Boot it back up on my main computer and I didn’t have to figure out Orientation Island! Woohoo!!! snaps for me. :3 Though i was still a fearful noob, but thankfully I met some really sweet people that were willing to help me out. I’m really excited to start making my own stuff and a virtual BeKyoot apparel line. I’ve got a bunch of ideas I’ve scribbled down in my idea book.

Sketches and commissions are coming along slowly but surely. >_< I’m hoping to get a majority of them done soon. I’ll also be posting stuff/scraps in here as I scan them. I think i mentioned that already though… (^_^;;)

That’s about it for tonight I think…
xoxoxo

I just created the BeKyoot pages on Virb and Twitter, (http://www.virb.com/bekyoot) and (http://www.twitter.com/bekyoot) so you’ll be able to see us there as well as follow our tweets if so inclined. I plan to have a live Twitter feed on the frontpage, and will probably be experimenting with my own on here. Yes this will be under construction too. XD I’d love to have some new content lined up but the main site is going to be coming first. Actually I’ll probably start sketch dumping here just because I feel the need. XD Tutorials…OH!!!! Hey!!! I could start with my Halloween Pumpkin Seeds recipe!! Woohoo!!! XD ok so that’s not exactly art, but they sure are yummy! (if you like garlic.) I’ve got the new line of shirts coming…:D There will still be some of our tested favorites, but I’m really excited about the new products we have coming. Think…huggable Happi and Momocheet. And I know I’ve been saying that for ages, but it really is happening, and I’ll be posting the prototypes as soon as we have them and they go into production!!!

Additionally, there’s some internal boobalage (bubbling) on opening a front in Second Life and IMVU. We’re working on a product line and storefront for those and I’m busy drawing. O_O I’m gonna go crazy here soon I know it. The only thing keeping me sane are my runs at night. Houston has had the blessing of gorgeous weather ever since Ike blew his swarmy butt out of town and I’ve been taking full advantage with runs at the park every night. 3 miles or more depending on if I get going in time to get home before the sun sets. I hate running in the dark. Not so much because I’m scared or it’s dangerous (which it is) but more so because I can’t see that well in it. XD I do better in full on night than I do in dusk. I do better with glasses or contacts than without, but my current running system (read: my headphones) doesn’t allow me to wear glasses. So yeah. I’m weird. But you probably knew that already, right? I do have some awesome results to report though! I’ve lost 6lbs since my last weigh and am still going! I am within 10lbs of the lowest I’ve ever been and within 20lbs of my goal! Man…I thought I wasn’t going anywhere and stepped onto the scale fully expecting disappointment…\(^o^)/<3 hehehee! Maybe I’ll post a working tutorial on that!

Hmmm what else? oh! If you follow on dA, I’ve started posting some pictures of acrylic paintings that Kendra and I have done for the entry here at the office. We decided to put them up for sale! So! If you want a one-of-a-kind HUGE piece of BeKyoot art, then keep your eyes open for the new section going up. I don’t know if we’ll ever get up to the production and scale of Threadless (they put out three new designs for their Chicago store each WEEK O_O;;;), but we’re trying! Each piece is hand-drawn by me and either hand-painted by myself or by Bu. Please go harass her on her blog next door. She needs to update it. But she’s sick right now so don’t push too hard.

ok. back to work!

Or just post a new wallpaper and go back to work. XD

Well this has turned out to be quite an interesting week! Right now I’m waiting to be hit by Ike and spent most of this morning watching the waters rise over Galveston. I do not understand why people are still staying. The news crews are bewildered too! Apparently they had a lot of people down there taking pictures of the waves and surge like tourists. >_< good grief. Thankfully they closed the seawall to everyone but media now (and I think it’s been further closed just recently) as so if people want to be dumb they’ll have to do it at a distance and not risk getting hit by debris. It was weird driving home last night. Houston was on the light side in terms of traffic. I’m charging my camera and my video cam batteries right now — XD It sounds bad but I’m really hoping to get some good cloud shots. Of course…the really good shots will probably be missed because I’ll be too busy running inside for cover at that point. LOL!! I’m on the west side of Houston out of range of all of the evacuations. I got a bunch of calls last night from my family and friends and assured them I was well prepared and good to go. Yesterday everyone worked on buttoning up the office. The last thing I did before shutting the lights off was turn my Snape picture towards the window. If that Alan Rickman baleful glare doesn’t stop the rain and winds, nothing will, right? heh.

Secretly over MySpace, I have been in discussions with my sister about designing her a tattoo. (We figured Mom would kill us should she find out.) As it turns out, though, somehow the beans were spilled and I’m now designing a “family tattoo” for everyone — my sister, BOTH my parents and my nephew! \(^o^)/ When my Dad asked me about it, I was like “whut?” not sure if I should be in denial or secret cahoots, and then my sister got on the phone and told me they both wanted one too. XD I can’t imagine my mom in the tattoo chair though!!! It’s awesome but so funny at the same time! *^___^* At any rate, I’m super excited about it but also intimidated. I’ve got to create something that will work and even be custom for several different people, but have the same theme running throughout. At first (when I was only designing for her) I thought it would be cool to do something based around my sister’s family with all of the initials of her kids and her hubby, but now I’m thinking more along the lines of  keeping that but making it different…like designing something that would show each member as a piece of the “family tree” with my parents being the roots…I dunno! *^__^* I’m still in the ideas stage and I brought home an extra sketchbook so I’ll be working on that for quite a bit. It’s going to be really cool.

Alright. Enough babble. I might update again tonight when the storm hits if I get some good pictures and still have internets.

Alright. If you live or visit in Houston and you love CUPCAKES…you must go to this place. Crave Cupcakes in Uptown Park. But don’t go too late in the day because they won’t have any cupcakes left. XD And go even if you don’t love cupcakes…because this place will make you love them. I’m dead serious!!! I’ve sampled gourmet cupcakes from many a major metro area (Billy’s Bakery is my fave in New York) and these have become my treat. It used to be Gelato Blu, (which is still uber, btw. Go there too.) but I’m on a cupcake kick. I’m pretty particular on what I like. A butter frosting is ok, but if it tastes like I’m eating a stick of butter then I scrape it off. Also if there’s too much icing…if that happens I cut the top off and take part of the icing and put it on the bottom and turn one cupcake into two. XD This place has gotten it just right. And they do breakfast cupcakes too! It’s like a donut in a cupcake cup. So yes. Gogogo!

On a responsible note I’ve updated the webcomic with a page on……………a cupcake with legs. More to come very soon too!

xoxoxo
\(^o^)V