Category Archives: Art

Changes: Motopresse Year Three!

“Yay!”

Year three!

For year three, I’ve started thinking about who I’m writing for. {Better late than never.} I started this blog to post my recipes & thoughts on fashion & trends through mediums like Etsy, Flickr, & the growing community of fashion bloggers who I admired & wanted to be a part of. I also started making jewelry about two years ago, & wanted an online presence to help me meet other creative minds & to possibly help me launch a business – however small -selling my jewelry to people who liked it.

I got distracted, & let the blog slide, & lost a little bit of the voice I started with when I went back to a sales-focused day job. I stopped making jewelry, & I stopped baking. I lost track of who I was writing for, & so I stopped posting here, too. I’d like post here with those same inspirations, & focus on my jewelry work: creating a space, getting into a creative rhythm & finding a balance. I want this to be a maker’s space, not a consumer space. I want a little less commercial space. I think that this time of year, we all do.

My life has been all consumerism all the time for the last six+ months before I fell down some stairs, & it took more of a toll than I was expecting when I got myself into it. Women’s sales exposes you to so many different types of people in a day, & I needed to find common ground with all of them. This is harder than it sounds, & I know half of your eyes glazed over when you read that. When it comes down to it, we are a disconnected world of that doesn’t always talk about what matters, talks too much about what doesn’t, & mostly waits for everyone to finish talking so we can get to what we want to say. Waiting to talk, not listening.

Finding common ground among us shouldn’t be so hard, but it is, & it’s stressful when I also need to sell you something. In a retail space, I find myself building friendships & finding common ground with women in a social contract that lasts sometimes half an hour, & never more than two, but rarely survives the day, & it’s exhausting.

I originally wrote an exhaustive post draft before this about what I went through in the last year, creatively and otherwise, but what it comes down to is that I’m not who I want to be today.

You know that they say the first step is admitting you have a problem.

The second step should add that you should never admit it on the internet…if this were more serious, I think I’d just go fix it quietly and sneak back here as if nothing happened. But it feels disingenuous to just say that I’m Back! Creative! & Better than Ever! – right?

To illustrate how far gone I am, most recent culinary achievement was finding a good teriyaki place down the street. {I confess, I confess! This isn’t even my achievement. Shawn found it for me.}

After six months, I was still struggling to find a work/life balance between my 40-45 hour/week job & my marriage, building a home {in a rented apartment} & living a creative life the way I had planned when I began this blog. By struggling I mean focusing on trends and fashion by obsessing over the internet in my free time & zoning out with T.V. when I was too brain-dead from work. I’d fill my time with Pintrest just to feel like I was accomplishing something.

I was functional. Dark chocolate gives me headaches now – ask me how! – and I was dissociating most of the time to avoid facing how frustrated I was becoming.

I don’t know exactly what my next year will be like, except that as I’ve said before, it’s going to have to be better. I’m shocked that the house isn’t a disaster – I’ve actually been keeping up with the kitchen, something that was amazing enough before you consider that I’ve been doing it on one leg – I’m managing support systems throughout the house to get around, because the last time I tried to get something while on crutches I fell & gave myself a black eye. I still can’t put weight on my foot, which is also still in a cast-like structure. I’ve been told that I won’t be able to be on my feet the way I was for maybe two years, which is sobering.

I am looking forward to sharing my next year with better people who love & appreciate me, & finding my voice, then building my jewelry line bit by bit.

♥ Momo

Paprika

I have a hard time recommending this film to anyone. That said, I’m crazy about “Girl in Byakkoya”. It’s my new Monday-morning-wake-up song when I can’t get going, & I think you’ll see why.

♥ Momo

Something to Make You Smile: Genki Sudo

This made me smile.

♥Momo

Vintage Love

Secret Stanhope Pin-Up Girl Ring

I love vintage jewelry, & if it has a twist? ♥ {Hidden pictures of pin up girls visible through a bijoux photomicroscopique.}

♥ Momo

AllSaints is Here

Washi Tape!

All Saints. They’ve been a whitewashed, fake-brick facade on the corner of Pine and Fifth/Fourth? until I stumbled downtown this morning and discovered the coolest storefront I’ve ever seen. {I walk by Anthro every day, and this made me swoon more than them. Come to think of it, I probably shouldn’t walk by Anthropologie every day. Bad habits.}

I have no pictures of the floor to ceiling Singer sewing machines that take up the enormous windows at the corner of the building. It was a choice between hot tea or pictures, & hot tea won the first round.

I haven’t even seen the clothes in person, & I know this is going to be a mixed blessing.

{Regarding the photo above; the AllSaints site doesn’t allow the reproduction of their photos, so you get more pictures of Washi tape!}

♥ Momo

Exercise & Excuses

Steampunk Creepy Crawly

It’s been too long since I pulled out my yoga mat. You know how I know?

Because I pulled my mat out of the coat room this afternoon, carried it to the living room, and immediately dropped it and started shrieking.

Giant. Hobo. Spider.

I put off practice long enough that what I’m sure was once a tiny baby spider bumbling through the house, found the dark comforting corner of my mat bag, moved in, and grew to be about 1.5″-2″ BIG.

I am ashamed.

Visual aid provided by Etsy.

♥ Momo

Owl Thursday

Owl Wing

Owls for your hair!

Me & My Owl

Owls for your wall.

♥ Momo

Monday Cats

I need to live in Helsinki. {Too dramatic for a Monday? Tough.}

Kauniste is the source of these adorable cat towels, designed by Matti Pikkujämsä.

♥ Momo

The Big Board

“Gentleman! There’s no fighting in the War Room!”

Scenes from my bench! September updates on the business, and some pictures from recent adventures:

Our beach, as seen in the Mason jar on my window sill.

Stormy Sunday I

Stormy Sunday II

…the view from my work table, to the right of my bench and the big board. It’s been sunny, windy, drizzling, pouring and thundering today; my favorite weather. ♥

Small Work

Small Work III

I have this amazing collection of big and small lampwork beads, and I’m finally playing around with making them into something!

Beads!

Beads! II

Walkabout:

Sad Pillow Sunday

…yeah. There’s really nothing to do when you turn the corner to find this other than to take a picture. Grey sky, grey sidewalk, grey pillow with the stuffing beat out of it. Real feathers.

Pillow at Pike & 11th

“Sidewalk Cat welcomes you to Cafe Presse”

I love Cafe Presse – stop making the waiting list so long, guys.

I sold my first piece last week! I hope that this means good things. {Fingers crossed, working feverishly away.}

♥ Momo

Sleepwalking in Style

Sleepwalking in Style

Sleepwalking in Style: Etsy. I’ve published an Etsy treasury titled Adventuring; check it out!

Oh, and how cool is this:

Kitchenaid Charm

♥ Momo