cupcakes & old times

every year my grandma gives each member of my family a box of see's candy. when most of my chocolates were gone, i realized that i really liked the cute little brown wrapper they sit in and knew that i could make something out of them, so i kept them.
later on i realized what to make so i went out and got some felt.
i took the beads from a broken bracelet i had.

tadaa!
cupackes! they're about the size they appear on the screen-maybe a little smaller. i sewed the beads on and sewed the wrapper to the felt as well. they're perfect for scrapbooking or for cards. i made a really cute card out of one that i wish i would've taken a picture of, but i couldn't find my camera. i made it for jenny lewis. and i still can't get over the fact that she actually got it!

anyway i decided to use them for summer twins art and decided to make some more artwork for our myspace or maybe some future album artwork.

here's a little kitty collage i made:







the pages are actually from a really old copy of to kill a mockingbird. i never would've destroyed it, but it was already falling apart and was missing pages. (i kept the cover for another project). it's really nice to have all old book around to use for different things. i colored them with water colors. the cats are colored with crayons and the border is made of crumpled strips of tissue paper. lately, well i guess for a while now, i've been really into sewing things on paper, or just sewing paper, so i incorporated that.


we had band practice last night, when i was making all these, and while we were waiting for danny to get here i just started messing around since all my stuff was spread out on my floor and ended up making this:





"the good things" is one of our songs. it's funny-later that night after practice ivan hung out and painted while i was cleaning up and going through some of my old stuff. sometimes when i feel the need to write thoughts down, i just write on anything and always end up keeping them, because i keep everything. i have this diary that i keep adding paper pockets to, where i keep these little notes. i found a really old one last night that i forgot i had, in a pocket titled "before italy." it was a few weeks before i left for italy for 3 months. i was feeling bummed and wrote this down on guest checks (i used to work in a restaurant) at my ex's apartment while he was asleep.




i normally wouldn't share these little papers, because i find it kind of personal, and also a little embarassing, but this was weird because this was the roots of the lyrics to the good things, and i didn't even realize it until now. as you can see, i was feeling pretty negative at the time and i guess it's normal to feel uncomfortable about being mortal. but i've always had this attachment to old things; i want to understand the past. and i feel like things just aren't the same. everything
is disposable and made cheaply these days. i feel that things were maybe more genuine back in
"the old days." people actually needed skills and talent to do things; now you just need a computer. so i hold on to these remnants of a past i never even experienced and seeing that these things fade away-vintage clothes all tattered, my dad's records sleeves crumbling into dust-just makes me sad.

well, i just found it funny that i discovered this little piece of paper, because it's so close to the lyrics of the song:

if i could take the world and put it in a book
then every time someone looked at it they'd see
everything they ever loved
one can never have enough of the past
when the good things, they never last

and this old house
will burn to the ground
all the old records
will all melt down
all of the music
will be forgotten
that is my world
will i have lost it


we actually just recorded it and it's freshly uploaded on our
myspace, if you'd like to hear it.
the new artwork is also up and justine made a background
out of the cupcakes.
check it out!


www.myspace.com/summertwins
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