Tagged: party

Alex Turns Two

IMG_4427

It’s been a busy couple of weeks for me, and I have basically abandoned this blog for the time being.

Two weeks ago, I flew to Los Angeles for Alex’s 2nd birthday. You can see some of the photos in my gallery. This year’s festivities featured a lot of the same attractions: food, beverages, lots of presents, and, of course, Alex. However, unlike last year, Sarah did not come with me, there were a few people absent, but Alex did blow out all of his candles.

IMG_4463

My brother and sister-in-law staged the birthday party on the day after his second birthday at a nearby park, Veteran’s Memorial Park in Sylmar. (I should note that we did go to Shakey’s the night of Alex’s actual birthday, which sated my craving for mojo potatoes.) Alex is a popular kid so there were a bunch of his and his parents’ friends at the party, in addition to some of my family. My parents, of course, were in attendance and could hardly keep away from the birthday boy, especially my mother.

I’m not sure when I’ll be back out there, but I’m hoping for another trip before the summer.

Congrats to Molly and Sam

http://www.flickr.com/photos/juanomatic/8479479131

Our friends Molly and Sam, who we met a few years ago through our mutual cycling interests, were married last week in a small, family ceremony in Albany. For their friends, they planned a more festive event in Brooklyn on Saturday. However, as you may have heard, New York City and the entire east coast was under a hurricane warning and because the entire mass transit system was shut down, they had to cancel their party. But in a stroke of good luck and with the help of some good friends, they moved up their party to Friday and held it at their friends’ apartment in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn.

Sarah and I were assigned to make chips and salsa for their original Saturday party, and because the party had been moved to Friday, we had to rush and make fresh salsa (pico de gallo, to be exact) for the festivities.  We had a blast at the party, although we had to leave my mom at home since she was stranded with the shutdown of the region’s airports. I inadvertently gave them a small wedding gift. I shot a ton of photos of the party and sent them high-res versions.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/juanomatic/8480569206

Congratulations to Molly and Sam. They are truly some of the greatest people I’ve ever met.

Bachellorette Party T-Shirts

Align shirt...

Last Saturday was a surprise bachelorette party for our good friend Molly, who is getting married to Sam at the end of this month.  Part of the festivities included fuchsia-colored t-shirts, which we printed last week, and fake beards for everyone. Since the party was a surprise, I didn’t post the pictures until today so as to keep the shirts under wraps.

The printing project was a nice simple one, only fifteen pieces, printed in one color (black), and once we had the screen burned, it took us all of ten minutes to print the shirts. The process was fairly basic, consisting of the following steps:

  1. Buy shirts
  2. Design your artwork, using a vector graphics program such as Illustrator or Inkscape.
  3. Print your artwork on to a transparent paper. I prefer using vellum made of acetate to the transparencies one used for those ancient overhead projectors.
  4. Burn the screen. We almost always go to the print shop at ABC No Rio for their weekly skill share nights, usually Wednesdays and Thursdays.
  5. Once the screen is burned, prepare the textile ink using a bonding agent and/or a retarder, such as propylene glycol.
  6. Print using a squeegee, designed for screen printing and for your screen’s mesh count and your ink’s viscosity.
  7. Hang to dry, preferably overnight.
  8. Heat treat the ink on your shirts, using an iron or trouser press at about 300° F.

Hanging....

I didn’t go to the party, of course, but I heard that the shirts were a hit… and that the beards were itchy.