magboo candy and jewelryMy Experience at San Diego Comic-Con International 2015
Posted on September 19, 2015
I apologize for the extreme delay in relaying my experience as an exhibitor at San Diego Comic-Con International 2015! I promise this post will have been worth your wait! There are plenty of things to talk about, so here is the break- down: I updated my display, I fabricated several new pieces for my Adorable Mayhem line, saw many new and familiar faces, and I bought several new graphic novels from independent publishers. I can never leave the convention without purchasing a few incredible, beautifully illustrated books.
My booth set up at Comic-Con
Let’s start with display. Every year I have exhibited at Comic-Con, I always assess my space and continually make enhancements to my set-up. I further embellished my circus turret by adding additional painted gold details throughout. In addition, I lined the edge of the turret with white floral lights.
I finally created a wooden base for my tree branch necklace display. Last year, because of lack of time, I merely taped the tree branch to a table leg. This did not display very well as the branch would project out at an odd angle away from the table. I finally carved a base where the branch could sit stably and stand upright, allowing the necklaces to be viewed much more easily. Frankly, the fully completed tree stand looks far more finished and professional.
My necklace tree stand with hand carved base.
In the display, you can see several new felt mini sculptures I made for the show. Several people were very interested in my little felt animals and ended up selling out of most of the pieces I made! I try to combine felting with some metal work to make the felt sculptures more unique and detailed.
My felt menagerie on display.
This year, I also started to invest more time into my physical appearance at the booth. In previous years, I found the idea of dressing up to be too tedious because I must be there at the convention very early in the morning to set up each day. I have to admit, it does take a little more time to get ready in the mornings before the show, however, I figured Comic-Con is one of the few opportunities to dress up in playful costumes. Why not have fun and take advantage of it? I don’t attempt to dress up as any specific character. I mainly dress in such a way that is light and colorful and matches the pastel color theme of the booth. My matching costume seems to pull the aesthetic of the booth together as a whole. Below, I have several images of myself at my booth and the various wigs and outfits I wore throughout the five day event.
First day at Comic-Con! Don’t worry! My more fun costumes come later. 😉
The fun has just begun! I love this lavender and pink wig I purchased from Gothic Lolita!
I made my felted pink cat ear headband. I’m wearing another Gothic Lolita wig in a pastel peach color.
This is a very playful sea foam blue wig with double ponytails that I purchased at Comic-Con last year from Epic Cosplay. It definitely bears some resemblance to the vocaloid singer, Hatsune Miku. Here, I’m displaying my ultimate prize finding from Comic-Con: Hello Kitty Donuts!
This last picture was taken at my booth while I was being interviewed by Cos Connect. You can read my little interview in the Press section of my website. Click on the link below to read!
https://magboocandyandjewelry.com/press-2/
Onto the main event! The featured body of work in my Adorable Mayhem line is my jewelry. One of the new pieces I added at this year’s Comic–Con is my sheepicorn or uni-sheep, whichever you prefer. 😉 I was inspired by my best friend, Keyanna, who is a lover of all things sheep-like. Since I have known her, Keyanna has always loved drawing sheep and renders them in her own characteristic way with rounded bodies and tiny heads. Her sheep sketches were both cute and endearing and I wanted to maintain those qualities while I was carving the wax for my own sheep. Since this necklace is a part of the Adorable Mayhem collection, of course, I had to add some additional quirkiness to this character. The little horn I added to transform my sheep into a sheepicorn gave him that much needed extra sprinkling of magic!
My silver sheepicorn or unisheep necklaces.
Some of you may remember, my smokin’ fox necklace. Last year, I made him entirely in silver. I wanted to visually create a greater separation between the fox and the cigarette, so I decided to make them in different metals. I cast the fox head in bronze and then fabricated the cigarette in silver. This helps differentiate the two parts and makes the pendant more visually eye-catching with the added color contrast. Whether you’re a man or a woman, everyone deserves to feel like a smokin’ fox!
My smokin’ fox necklace in ancient bronze and silver. The photography is by Sara Rey.
I added more color to my new bronze and silver necklaces. Colored donuts, pandas, tigers, and tiny birds are just a few of the many new pieces I added to the Adorable Mayhem collection.
I cannot deny that I was channeling Homer Simpson when I made this pink donut necklace with rainbow sprinkles!
My Hungry Panda Necklace
My tiny tiger necklace
My silver baby bird necklace.
Those of you who were not able to attend Comic-Con or didn’t have the chance to stop by my booth, you can check out my Etsy site and see if there are any goodies you might be interested in!
https://www.etsy.com/shop/AdorableMayhem
Now that I have been coming to Comic-Con for six years now, I have had the opportunity to get to know my fellow exhibitors and make new friends! It is always a treat to see familiar faces each year I return to Comic-Con! Below is long-time exhibitor, Sandra Adair. She is an amazingly talented illustrator and is currently working on a children’s book version of the Three Musketeers. She very generously gave me a beautiful print of a scene she illustrated from Alice and Wonderland as well as her latest self-published book of her work. Definitely click on the link below to see her work!
Sandra and I are sporting our colorful wigs!
Sandra’s website is: http://sandrachang.net
Once upon a time I was an avid YouTube content creator. One day, I will dip back into the pool of video editing, once I redirect the focus of my channel to more inspiring content. I met fellow YouTuber, Montel Thompson, at Comic-Con last year and he kindly stopped by my booth again this year. Montel creates very thoughtful videos revolving around the topics of relationships, comics, gaming and movies. Check out his videos on Youtube!
https://www.youtube.com/user/navymontel/videos
Montel and I being silly at my booth!
I cannot leave Comic-Con without purchasing some graphic novels. I focus on buying comics from independent publishers because I primarily look for more unique work. Often times, when you purchase books on the last day of the show, many exhibitors will discount their prices and you can often find good deals.
Those of you who may not know, I was originally an illustration major in undergraduate school at the Rhode Island School of Design. I can’t believe that was fifteen years ago! It is certainly evident that a lot of the work that I make, be it jewelry of felting, is heavily influenced by illustration and tends to be representational. I find graphic novels inspirational because they often spark new ideas for my own work. I look for great content and unique drawing styles.
My favorite booth is Drawn and Quarterly which is a graphic novel publishing company based in Quebec. This year, I picked up several comics from Anders Nilsen. I purchased a wonderful book last year called, Big Questions, which contains highly detailed pen drawings and its story poses deeper philosophical questions about existence. Anders manages to scatter bits of humor along with the heavier content to lighten the story. Big Questions still remains his piece de resistance but this would be hard to top since this book took the author 15 years to create and is almost 600 pages long! I purchased three books from Anders this year and I was lucky enough to meet him in person. He signed and drew several small sketches in each one.
The Rage of Poseidon by Anders Nilson. This is a hard bound accordion-fold book with a graphic silhouette style of illustration. This I have yet to read!
Anders signed and made a small pen sketch on the table of contents page o f the book. Here you see his comic dog sketch leaping through the contents box.
God and the Devil at War in the Garden by Anders Nilsen. One can simply lose themselves in the richness of his detailed renderings.
Anders made a little crane sketch and signed this book as well.
The third book by Anders Nilsen, Poetry is Useless, has escaped me. It is lost in my shamefully monstrous collection of books. When I do find it, I will write a future blog post review of this comic.
Melody is an autobiographical book about a woman’s experience working as a stripper in downtown Montreal in the 1980s. She does have a primitive drawing style because she took on this project without extensive drawing experience. Somehow her simple drawings make sense as it coincides with her naivete’ as she enters the forbidden world of stripping. Melody is a fascinating autobiography and I definitely recommend this as a good read! This was another purchase from Drawn and Quarterly.
Melody by Silvie Rancourt: The Story of a Nude Dancer.
Excerpt from Melody
If you are interested in any of the above comics, you can check out Drawn and Quarterly’s website: https://www.drawnandquarterly.com/
From First Second publishing, I purchased the New York Times bestseller, This One Summer by Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki. One Fine Summer is a fictional story about two young girls, Rose and Windy who spend the summer together as they enter that awkward stage between adolescence and puberty. The novel’s refined sketchy drawing style and candid content was definitely reminiscent of Craig Thompson who authored Blankets.
This One Summer by Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki.
Excerpt from This One Summer.
From Top Shelf publishing, I purchased a book called God is Disappointed in You. The book was written by Mark Russell and illustrated by Shannon Wheeler. Do not read this if you are a deeply Christian person! Some of the content may be interpreted as irreverent, perhaps even sacrilegious! Russell summarized each book of the Bible in just 2-3 pages which ended up being quite an undertaking and took him 3 years to complete! If you can read this with an open mind, I cannot recommend it enough because it is absolutely hilarious! My stomach was hurting so bad from busting out laughing. Let’s face it, the Old Testament in particular is fraught with violence, plagues and sexy times and can make for an exciting read especially when composed in Russell’s pointed and comical writing style. Keep in mind that Russell had no ill intention in composing this graphic novel. His was simply to write a candid overview of the Bible without glossing over the vulgar bits.
God is Disappointed in You by Mark Russell and Shannon Wheeler. I love how the book was constructed to look similar to an actual Bible. It has a black hard cover, red ribbon marker, and even has that characteristic metallic page edging that all Bibles have!
Excerpt from God is Disappointed in You. This is the story of Samson and Delilah in the book of Judges.
I had the opportunity to meet the Illustrator, Shannon Wheeler. He signed my book and made a little sketch portrait of me in it!
Another book I purchased was a self-published version of The Wizard of OZ by Evan Dahm. Evan illustrated the original story by L. Frank Baum with his own unique visual interpretation of the characters. Evan’s charming illustration is so well done that I look forward to re-reading this classic.
The Wizard of OZ by L. Frank Baum and illustrated by Evan Daum.
Excerpt from The Wizard of OZ. This is Evan’s illustration of the great yellow Wildcat chasing a field mouse.
My last stop was at the Fantagraphics booth where I purchased Bright-Eyed at Midnight by Leslie Stein. The author recounts her experiences working as a bartender. Late at night was when inspiration would strike her and Leslie would spend hours drawing a comic page a day. This book is a compilation of her best content from her 365 days of comic creation in 2014. Her beautiful watercolor and pen drawings are simply breathtaking! I have to admit the illustration is what really drew me in to purchase the book.
Bright-Eyed at Midnight by Leslie Stein.
Excerpt from Bright-Eyed at Midnight.
I only took a few pictures of costumes while I was at Comic-Con. Below, are a couple of my favorites that I took while at my booth.
This man looked just like Obi-Wan Kenobi! Even his beard was real!
This woman made her own Steampunk costume! Impressive!
I know this was a long recounting of my Comic-Con experience! This was my sixth year exhibiting at Comic-Con and it never ceases to be an exciting time! It has become something of a phenomenon here in San Diego with this year drawing in over 135 million in revenue for the city and over 130,000 in attendees from across the country and around the globe. I certainly hope that the convention continues to stay here in San Diego and I look forward to my seventh year exhibiting at Comic Con 2017! If you are one of the lucky people that manages to obtain Comic-Con tickets, stop by my booth at E-04.
Women’s Jewelry Association Maker Project
Posted on September 11, 2015
I was recently asked to participate in a Women’s Jewerly Association fundraiser called “The Maker Project”. This project was conceived by Lisa Slovis Mandel who is in charge of scholarhsips for WJA. Lisa Slovis is a well-known studio jeweler that sells her work in several jewelry galleries across the country and teaches jewelry classes at Palomar College.
The Maker Project was created to raise scholarship money for students that are currently enrolled in a jewelry program. While I was in graduate school at San Diego State University, I was a two-time recipient of the WJA scholarship. When this opportunity arose to participate in this fundraiser, I immediately felt this would be a wonderful opportunity to give back to an organization that had helped me tremendously during my studies at SDSU.
The well-known marriage rhyme from English folklore was the primary inspiration behind The Maker Project, “Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.” Jewelry artists were asked to find interesting metal components (something old) that they made in their studio. They then take their handmade creations and give them (something borrowed) to another artist to make a new piece of jewelry. In addition, every participant was given a large blue bead (something blue) and a peach colored freshwater pearl (something new). Lastly, I won the drawing to receive an additional stone, a faceted blue zircon. After receiving the artist pieces and various stones, I was excited to start fabricating my piece of jewelry!
My selection of goodies I received to make my necklace for the Maker Project. I already crushed the blue bead and a piece of it is shown here.
I thank my lucky stars that I received such stellar pieces from Michelle Loon! Michelle gave me several modern silver leaf shapes, some of which had richly patterned raised surfaces! I knew it would be effortless to make a beautiful necklace when I had such fantastic elements to work with!
I wanted to continue with the nature theme and titled the necklace “Leaves and Rain”. I fabricated tear drop shaped silver frames. One of which I set the blue zircon and the other I placed pieces of the blue bead. Because of the large size of the glass bead, I decided to crush the bead into several small pieces so that they were more manageable in size and fit more ideally into my delicate design. I then fabricated a dangling blossom to hang in the back of the necklace and set the peach pearl inside the flower. I also fabricated my signature tag into a leaf shape. Lastly, the clasp I made also featured a leaf and branch toggle bar and ring.
My finished Leaves and Rain necklace photographed by Sara Rey.
The pieces went on display at the Womens’ Museum of California in Liberty Station in San Diego. It was very exciting to finally view all the completed jewelry pieces. It was nice to see how creative the other studio jewelers were with the other artists’ components. Below are some of my favorite pieces from the event.
Michelle Loon’s Necklace: The Golden Birch
Lisa Slovis Mandel’s Necklace: Like Sands of an Hour Glass, These are the days of our lives.
Ardee Atwood’s Necklace: Untitled
Carla Caravante’s Necklace: Untitled
Grace Hays’ Necklace: Sometimes it is good to be blue.
Alexandra Hart’s Necklace: Heart Flutter Floating Pendant
Eliana Zepeda Graham’s Necklace: Falling Petals. She is seen here modeling with her piece. She incorporated a stylized silver chinese lantern that I made into her necklace.
Betsy Kinsey’s Necklace: “a do” necklace. Her piece was chosen for “Best in show”!
I was pleased that my design was chosen to be in the live auction! Lisa Slovis, did a knock out job as both an organizer and an MC! She was a lively host and promoted the work very well to generate more interest from potential buyers. The show was well planned and looked professional in its display.
Lisa Slovis and Eliana announcing the winners of the jewelry raffle.
The live auction was particularly exciting, especially because it culminated in a bidding war between two different buyers! I was so pleased that my necklace raised a decent amount of money for the WJA scholarship fundraiser and sold for $800! My friends Ron and Helen took pictures of my reactions during the bidding process. You can see that I became progressively more excited as the bidding prices kept escalating.
I’m getting excited!
I’m so excited here that I don’t know what the heck I was doing with my hand!
All in all, The Maker Project fundraiser was a highly successful event! All the artist made jewelry sold well, raising thousands of dollars for the WJA scholarship! Right now is an exciting time for the organization, especially because of Lisa Slovis’ involvement. She has plans for continuing to make the organization more interactive for its members here in San Diego and I look forward to participating in future events.
My friend, Jacqueline Gore and I at The Maker Project event.
Designer Con 2014
Posted on October 9, 2014
This will be my second year exhibiting at Designer Con at the Pasadena Convention Center. November 8 and 9 is fast approaching and many preparations need to be made! I just need to squeeze this in along with my teaching, custom jewelry work, and design work for Virgil James. Can’t we all have minions?!? I could use some right now. 😉 I just finished the graphics for my ad in the brochure for the convention. I had to make some minor tweeks to swtich the ad to a vertical orientation but I’m satisfied with how it turned out.
The colors are a bit off here because the color model is CMYK which is commonly used for printing. Just imagine that the image isn’t quite so purple and green. 😉
I definitely have some new cast dessert-themed jewelry pieces that I am currently working on that will be debuting at Designer Con. We all love sweets, don’t we? However, since this is Adorable Mayhem there will be a little dark twist on these sweet numbers. I will be posting images when I finally finish casting them.
I always have new felt animal sculptures at every show. I sold out of virtually everything at Comic-Con and have to build up my inventory. My jewelry inventory is pretty well depleted as well. I have some new ideas I plan on testing out with my felt sculptures by incorporating more metal components. I think this will really enhance the look of the sculptures and make them a little more detailed.
Lastly, I’ve been having a wonderful time going back to my illustration roots! There is something so satisfying about the immediacy of painting which offers a much needed break from the tedious nature of jewelry making. I have been creating tiny art on small birch plywood canvases. These illustrations are 4 by 4 inches and I’ve been painting with my favorite medium: gouache. I love the matte finish of gouache and I enjoy the limitation of painting in blocks of color. I plan on offering both original artwork and small giclee prints on cotton rag paper.
Save the date! If you happen to be in the city of Pasadena on November 8 and 9, definitely stop by my booth at Designer Con! Here is a link to the show: http://www.designercon.com/
Japan Crate Japanese Snack Subscription Review and Giveaway!
Posted on September 22, 2014
Oh my goodness! I know It has been a very long while since I have written a blog post! 😦 Work has been busy, which is a very good thing, however, being a team of one means some things get pushed to the back burner. Unfortunately, one of those things is the blog. Many wonderful events have happened since I have last posted here, so I have much to catch up on!
This particular post is about another Japanese snack subscription service called Japan Crate. The company sent me a sample box from their service for me to review and, of course, I am not one to refuse free candy and snacks! One exciting piece of news is that I finally significantly upgraded my laptop! I have an upgraded video graphics card, bigger hard drive…the works! This also means one other fantastic thing…I can finally up my game on video editing and use far superior software! Yay! Oh my, oh my! I have been wanting to do this for quite a long time now. Learning the new software has been a fun challenge, so I look forward to making new and interesting changes to my candy video reviews!
I have reviewed quite a few snack subscription services so far. This is one of the largest, if not the largest box, I have received. The service does cost significantly more than say, OishiiBox, at $25 a month. However, shipping is included and one receives far more product. The majority of snacks in the box are full-sized snack items. Only the Grape Kasugai Gummies was a sample size.
Let’s see what’s in the box!
Popin’ Cookin’ Sushi by Kracie
Nerunerune by Kracie
In each subscription box, Japan Crate incorporates at least one DIY Japanese candy kit. This box contained two DIY kits as you can see from the images above: Nerunerune and Popin’ Cookin’ Sushi.
Sardine Crackers
The above three items are snacks that are in my giveaway! If you are interested in entering the giveaway, details about the giveway will be in the description box for my YouTube video review of Japan Crate. The video will be posted at the end of this blog post.
Hokkaido Potato Chips
Sweet Potato Cough Drops
Strawberry Cake Candy by Hayakawa
Grape Gummy Candy by Kasugai
Pocky Matcha Green Tea
Pocky Matcha Green Tea, unfortunately, was a casualty from my camera fail! I was filming my review and didn’t realize that my memory card ran out of space. The beauty of having an accompanying blog post is that I can make up for any video failures! 🙂 I like many green tea flavored snacks, however, some are more successful than others. I am happy to say that his falls into the realm of successful green tea flavored delicacies! The cookie stick biscuit has a nice, crisp texture and the green tea flavored white chocolate coating is wonderfully creamy. In other words, Pocky Matcha Green Tea was delicious and I definitely recommend it!
Chocolate Cookie
Cookie Chocolate by Kasugai was another video failure. Fortunately, this is the last of my accidental video omissions. This was excellent! This chocolate is certainly in my top favorites from this box! The chocolate was rich and creamy with a subtle sprinkling of fine cookie pieces inside. The proportion of chocolate to cookie was well thought out. This almost reminded me of Nestle’s Crunch because the scale of the cookie pieces is similar to Crunch’s rice crispy bits, however this is far more sophisticated. Cookie Chocolate has a much more rich, darker milk chocolate than Crunch. This was excellent and I definitely recommend Cookie Chocolate!
Apollo Chocolate
Chococones by Meiji
This box contained eleven snacks, most of which were full-sized snacks! If you consider how much you would spend to purchase these from a Japanese Market in the U.S., you would easily spend far more than $25! My favorites from the box were: Chococones, Cookie Chocolate, Kasugai Grape Gummies, Hokkaido Potato Chips and Strawberry Cake Candy.
Now that I have reviewed quite a few Japanese snack subscription services, it seems that there are several that exist out there in the marketplace that can fit your budget or needs. Many of the services include shipping and can be canceled at any time. Some even include small toys in the package if that is of interest to you.
As I mentioned earlier, if you want a service where you receive a lot of Japanese snacks then Japan Crate is a good option. Their website is: www.japancrate.com
If you would like to check out my video review, watch it down below! 🙂
OishiiBox Asian Snack Subscription Review and Giveaway!
Posted on July 13, 2014
It seems like I’m on an Asian snack subscription kick lately and I most certainly welcome it! The company Oishiibox box contacted me to review their snack subscription service. This is a new company that is actually based in San Diego county! What makes this monthly service different from others I have tried in the past is that they offer a variety of Asian snacks from Japan, Korea, China and more.
Exterior of OishiiBox
Interior of snack box
The subscription costs $12 a month including shipping which is a very good deal considering the large variety of snacks you get to taste test. You can check out their website at www.oishiibox.biz The company is offering to send two of my YouTube subscribers a chance to win an Oishiibox! Watch the video review at the end of this blog post for details. This contest is only available to residents of the USA.
Let’s see what’s inside this bad boy!
Lotte Koala’s March, Chocolate Panda Biscuits, Baby Cookie Snacks
Strawberry Pocky and Umaibou Vegetable Salad
Kameda Kakinotane Wasabi Snack and Ostumami 10 Sen Baked Rice Crackers
Lotte Choco Pie
Lotte European Waffle Cookies
Marukawa Fusen Melon Gum, Matcha Green Tea Crunch, White Rabbit Creamy Candy and Super Soda hard candy
Matcha Green Tea Kit Kat
Baby chick eraser
Check out my video review below to see how I rated each of these Asian snacks!
Japanese Treats Snack Subscription Review
Posted on June 27, 2014
I recently traveled to Maine to complete an artist residency at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, which I will blog about in the near future. Now I am back and ready to indulge in candy decadence!
Before I left for my trip, the company, Japanese Treats, contacted me to see if I would be interested in reviewing their snack subscription service. As I am in the business of reviewing Japanese candies, I was excited to give this a shot! They recently sent me a package of eleven items consisting of Japanese candies, cookies and savory snacks.
Below are product shots of the snacks contained in the package.
Chokobi: chocolate flavored cereal stars by Tohato
Ju-C: grape flavored hard candy Kabaya
Maze Maze Drink: soda flavored taffy by Meigum
Kino no Ko no Yama: mushroom-shaped biscuits with a chocolate cap by Meiji.
Zoo Crackers: Animal-shaped butter cookies.
Don Don Yaki: Japanese rice crackers flavored with Northern Japanese frying sauce.
Kyabetsu Taro: Octopus flavored corn puff snacks. Though I stopped eating meat, I taste-tested this for the sake of my viewers. 🙂
Fortune Telling Candy: A hard candy that can predict the future!
Pakuncho: Cookie biscuits filled with creamy chocolate. Disney characters are imprinted on each cookie.
Pudding Flavored Kit Kat: White chocolate coated cookie wafers. This is a bake-able food item!
Nigi Nigi Osushiyasan: Diy gummy candy set. The gummy rice can be paired with different seafood-shaped gummies.
Of all the subscription services I have tried thus far, this has been the best! Every snack contained in the package was excellent in my opinion, which is a very rare occurrence. If you are interested you can check out the Japanese Treat website at: www.japanesetreats.com
If you would like to watch my video review of this snack subscription, you can watch it below.
Matcha Love Review
Posted on May 18, 2014
Shane is definitely very skilled at finding new, interesting places to consume sweet treats. He found another intriguing dessert place while searching on popular food blogs called: Matcha Love.
We were excited when we found out that the shop was close by in Kearny Mesa, San Diego, so off we went to taste test more new desserts! We were surprised to find out that this place was located in the Mitsuwa Marketplace inside the bookstore! Shockingly, I guess it’s been a couple of months since I have been to Mitsuwa.
As you can see below, the menu is very simple. They have ice cream, shakes, hot tea and boba tea flavored with either green tea or black sesame.
We both opted for black sesame desserts; Shane got the ice cream and I got the shake. We first tried Shane’s black sesame ice cream. As you can see, this is a creamy soft serve ice cream. This was delicious! The black sesame gives a wonderful nutty, toasty flavor to the ice cream. Plus, the texture was thick and creamy. We both definitely recommend this!
My dessert was the black sesame shake. This turned out to be more like a liquid milk tea as opposed to a rich, creamy shake. The drink was nicely flavored with the toasty black sesame flavor plus it had just the perfect level of sweetness! If you enjoy your drinks not overly sweet, I recommend this. If I could make one suggestion, I would get this with boba rather than without. I think this needs that extra textural element to create a more full-bodied dessert drink. Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures of the shake, but you can see the actual item in the video review.
I definitely recommend heading over to Matcha Love! It’s a cute little shop tucked away in the Japanese supermarket! If you suffer from indecisiveness, this is the place for you as they have a relatively limited menu.
Thank you for reading our dessert review of Matcha Love and don’t forget to watch our video review below!
Mochi Cream Review
Posted on May 10, 2014
Shane discovered Mochi Cream from reading Kirby’s Cravings food blog. When he showed me the beautiful images of this dessert, I told him that we absolutely must find this! Fortunately, we found out that a store is available in Mitsuwa Marketplace in Costa Mesa, not too far away from San Diego.
Mochi Cream is a dessert store that carries mochi with fillings that go beyond sweet beans. They can be filled with a variety of fruit, chocolate ganache, whipped cream, coffee and much, much more!
Off we went on a quest to find this new twitst on mochi. When we entered the store, I immediately fell in love with this Mitsuwa location! I have been to the San Diego store many times to purchase Japanese treats for video reviews, but the Costa Mesa location is much larger! They have a giant food court with multiple eateries and, of course, they have Mochi Cream! Their colorful display was to die for! It took all my willpower not to purchase every possible flavor option.
The colorful mochi are all neatly arranged. So beautiful!
Mochi shaped like donuts?! How adorable is that?
These are plastic desserts. The real Mochido are kept behind the counter. The Japanese win first prize for their realistic looking plastic food displays!
We eventually finalized our purchase and picked up these flavors of the donut-shaped Mochido: Cafe au lait, Double Mango, Strawberry Shortcake, and Chocolate Banana.
We started off tasting the fruit flavored Mochido: Strawberry Shortcake and Double Mango.
Strawberry Shortcake and Double Mango Mochido
These fruit-flavored mochi, slightly melted in our two hour drive back home. 😦 Fortunately, this didn’t seem to affect the flavor much. They just weren’t as aesthetically pleasing as when we first purchased them.
The Double Mango was filled with whipped cream and flecks of mango. The rice mochi exterior had a nice, soft , almost melt-in-your-mouth texture and was also mango flavored. This was delicious and ended up being the favorite of all the Mochido flavors we tried!
Next up was Strawberry Shortcake. The rice exterior had a strawberry flavor and the interior was also filled with light whipped cream. This was also very tasty, however, the addition of fruit like the Double Mango, would have made this mochi taste even better.
We enjoyed these fruit -flavored Mochido a little more than the upcoming flavors.
The last two Mochido we tasted were Cafe au lait and Chocolate Banana. We noticed that these were firmer in texture than the previous fruit flavored Mochido.
Cafe au lait and Chocolate banana Mochido
The Cafe au lait’ flavored Mochido had a very strong coffee flavor. The interior was a coffee-flavored sweet bean paste. The top of the exterior was topped with an additional coffee glaze and small cubes of white chocolate. Shane and I both felt that the coffee flavor was a little strong for our taste. We both have never been coffee drinkers, however, if you enjoy your cup of coffee in the morning this might just be the perfect thing for you!
We enjoyed the Chocolate Banana flavor much more that the Cafe au lait’. The interior filling was a real banana-flavored bean paste along with chocolate whipped cream. The exterior of the Mochido was covered in a chocolate glaze. This was delicious and definitely recommend this flavor! Having two flavors and textures commingling in the filling greatly enhanced the taste.
Overall, our Mochi Cream experience was superb! Even just writing this review, I want to head back and try more flavors of Mochi Cream! I highly recommend for anyone to visit the Mitsuwa Marketplace in Costa Mesa to experience this amazing dessert!
If you would like to watch our video review, you can watch it here!
Field Trip to David Freda and Trish McAleer’s Jewelry Studio
Posted on May 8, 2014
I recently took my Marriage of Metals class last quarter on a field trip to visit David Freda and Trish McAleer’s studio. I thought this would be a great way to expose the students to practicing metalsmiths who incorporate good design and phenomenal craftsmanship. This was such a great experience for everyone that I would like to incorporate more jewelry field trips in the future for my students! Both David and Trish were very gracious in letting me schedule an appointment with them for my students to come to their home and see their metal work and jewelry processes.
David Freda and Patricia McAleer
Every time I have walked into their studio, I am always blown away! The huge space, abundant natural light streaming in from windows surrounding the entire studio, and every tool you could possibly imagine: quite simply, this is every jeweler’s dream! The studio is impeccably organized down to separating each step in individual containers of every phase of David work.
The rightmost bench and adjacent table are Trish’s work area.
I have known Trish and David for quite some time. I became more acquainted with Trish early on as she was the former president of the Metal Art Society of Southern California. Though she finished her term as president several years ago, Trish is still very involved in the MASSC organization. Trish is a very kind, outgoing and friendly person. She is also an accomplished metalsmith and wrote a book on metal corrugation techniques that she had been exploring for many years.
Trish McAleer’s book on Metal Corrugation
Trish investigated every possible texture you could create with metal corrugation. There are textures you wouldn’t believe would be achievable with this technique! I definitely recommend this book if you haven’t picked this up already. If you are interested, you can find it here:
http://www.riogrande.com/Product/Metal-Corrugation-Book/550147?Pos=1
Below is an example of Trish’s work. This piece of jewelry was a collaboration between David and Trish. She fabricated the piece and he enameled it. The corrugated textures truly enhance the piece!
“Poppy Pods” by Trish McAleer and David Freda
I had a small mention in Trish’s book. I fabricated a necklace a long time ago using the metal corrugation technique. You can see what my very early work looked like.
“Autumn Leaves” necklace by Tara Magboo
While I was in graduate school for Jewelry and Metalsmithing at SDSU, I took a Professional Practices graduate seminar where we were required to interview a current metalsmith. I was and still am a big fan of David Freda’s work and I contacted him in 2007/2008 to request an interview. He, fortunately, said, “yes” and this turned out to be a great opportunity to become better acquainted with his work and life story. I met him in the past through MASSC functions, but never talked with him at length.
David Freda was first a wildlife illustrator, falconer, and taxidermist. He took jewelry making on a whim and became instantly hooked! His jewelry work later evolved to incorporate all his abilities. His hyper-realistic, representational metalwork shows clear influence from his illustration and taxidermy background. David renders his depictions of wildlife with almost terrifying realism, but his work is so expertly crafted that it elevates his work to the level of the precious. It’s his juxtaposition between beautiful and disturbing that really drew me to his work.
I recommended for Jay Whaley of Whaley Studios, where I teach, to interview David Freda. Check out David’s recent interview on Blog Talk Radio with Jay! David is truly a renaissance man!
Below are some examples of his personal jewelry work.
David’s work in progress.
David’s hatching turtle necklace
He also won grande prize for his Stag Beetle Necklace in one of the most prestigious competitions in the jewelry industry: Rio Grande’s Saul Bell Competition.
David Freda’s Stag Beetle Necklace
Detail of Stag Beetle Necklace
David Freda’s grand prize trophy for Rio Grande’s Saul Bell Competition
David currently works for Tiffany and Co. making one-of-a-kind jewelry pieces for elite clientele. Sultans have purchased David’s work! Apparently, Tiffany puts out two catalogs: one for the general public and another for the high-rollers. He recently completed a series of orchid brooches, finishing close to sixty pieces! Below is a photograph of his work in the Tiffany catalog. As you can see, the work is exquisite! If you are in the market to buy meticulously crafted enameled gold brooches, you know where to get them!
2007/2008 Tiffany catalog with David Freda’s orchid brooches.
David is one of the few people in the world with such tremendous skill that can carry on the tradition of fabricating the well-known Tiffany orchid brooches made famous by Paulding Farnham in the late 1800s-early 1900s.
He is currently working on a new series of jewelry pieces for Tiffany which has yet to hit the marketplace. Coming to see David’s work in progress is quite literally watching history in the making!
Back to the orchids, David and Trish have a nice collection of unusual orchids that has served as inspiration for his orchid series. David has also cast directly from their flowers as well.
This small orchid flower looks like a little bee!
It was very generous of Trish and David to allow my class into their home and to generously share their knowledge and experience with us! All of the students, myself included, left very inspired by this field trip. Thank you again David and Trish!
Blast from the past! This is a picture of me and David when I first interviewed him for my graduate studies.
American and Japanese Sodas from Galco Soda Pop Stop
Posted on May 1, 2014
Galco’s Soda Pop Stop or Old World Grocery, is awesome! I believe this is the second largest soda pop store in the country! Shane did a little bit of research on fun places to visit in Los Angeles and he came across Galco. When he found out that they had such a large and unusual inventory of bottled sodas, I was excited to check this place out!
We went a little soda crazy! Some of the sodas we bought were recommendations from the owner, John Nese, from an interview we watched on him on http://www.chow.com/food-news/55189/obsessives-soda-pop/.
We purchased eight sodas as well as a few old time candies and chips. As soon as we bought them, Shane and I quickly opened two of the sodas in the car before we headed off to our next destination. The first soda we tasted was Plantation Style Mint Julep.
The color of the soda was this beautiful sea foam blue/green color which, by the way, is my favorite color! Shane picked this one out as he had tried similarly flavored sodas that he loved in the past. Unfortunately, it didn’t taste quite as wonderful as he had remembered. This soda tasted exactly like toothpaste. I can’t say that I enjoy food that tastes like toothpaste so, sadly, we had to give thumbs down on this soda.
The next soda we tried was my pick called “Mr. Cola”.
I was drawn to the old world graphics and I also love cola! If any of you have tried “Q cola” it is my absolute new favorite cola beverage! Let me tell you, if cola was a healthy beverage to drink, it would be my sole source of liquids! Fortunately, I try to limit my soda intake to once a week. “Mr. Cola” tastes very similar to Vanilla Coke. It has a soft cola flavor that’s softened by that additional vanilla flavor. Shane and I both liked this soda and gave thumbs up for this!
The next soda, I tasted was “Rock and Rye” by Faygo.
This was a recommendation by owner ,Nese, for a smooth cola. I have to say, this didn’t taste much like cola. “Rock and Rye” just had the slightest hint of cola flavor but tasted predominantly like cream soda. If you love cream soda, this would be a good one to try. I would give this product thumbs up, however, don’t purchase this if you are wanting a cola flavored beverage. If you are looking for a vanilla cola flavor, “Mr. Cola” is a much better option.
The fourth soda I tasted was Mr. Q Cumber soda.
I decided to try this because this was another recommendation from Nese. I was a little skeptical about this soda because I was not sold on the idea of vegetable flavored soda. Don’t get me wrong, I love vegetables, I’m just not sure about vegetables in soda form. My first sip was fantastic! Wow, was I wrong! This cucumber soda was delicious and I have to say this was actually my favorite soda of all the sodas I tried from Galco! It does have a cucumber flavor, but paired with the sweetness and carbonation it is very refreshing! I highly recommend “Mr. Q’ Cumber” soda . Plus, it comes in such an adorable little green glass bottle!
Of course, we had to try some Japanese sodas! Even though I have tried Ramune many times, I have not tried this particular flavor: Melon. I have tasted a Japanese melon cream soda in the past that I loved! It comes in an aluminum bottle and is also by Sangaria.
The great thing about Ramune is the unusual way in which the bottle opens. There is a marble that is trapped in the opening of the bottle. You take the plastic stopper that is included in the package and you use this to push the marble into bottle. This creates a nice, satisfying loud pop! I remember cutting the blue plastic at the top of the bottle as a kid just so I could get the marble out! This melon Ramune just tasted like sugar soda. I couldn’t really detect much of a melon flavor. Upon tasting it multiple times, I had to change my rating from my video review to thumbs down on this soda. It doesn’t taste bad, but I don’t particularly like soda that has little to no flavor.
Next on the list is “Bubble Up” Lemon-Lime.
This was another recommendation by Nese. What intrigued me about this soda was that it was made with real lemon and lime oil and cane sugar. I liked the idea of a natural 7-up and wanted to give this a go. This tastes just like 7-up. In fact, I couldn’t really tell the difference between the two. I think I would have to do a side-by-side comparison to identify subtle differences. This was good especially if you are looking for a natural type of 7-up.
Soda number seven was River City’s Old Fashioned Blueberry and Lemonade Soda.
This sounded unusual and I loved the blue color, so I had to try this! The ingredient label states that it is flavored with quillaia which I found out is an extract from the stems and branches of soap bark. Quillaia is a common flavoring in cream soda and root beer. This tasted exactly like the soda described: the flavor is mostly blueberry but there were definitely citrus notes in the background. This was delicious and definitely in my top four favorites of all the sodas I tried from Galco.
The last soda I tried was the plum-flavored Ramune.
This was delicious! This soda had a nice, fruity flavor with floral notes! I definitely give this thumbs up putting this also in my top four favorites!
My top recommendations are:
1. Mr. Q Cumber
2. Plum-flavored Ramune
3. Mr. Cola
4. River City Old-Fashioned Blueberry Lemonade Soda
Galco is such a fun store to visit and I will definitely come back to try more unusual sodas! Anyone would be overwhelmed by all the soda varieties! The nice thing about Galco is that the owner makes an effort to find unusual sodas manufactured by small companies. For example, you won’t find Pepsi-Cola products here. It is wonderful that Nese supports small businesses and also tries to find naturally sweetened sodas.
If you would like to check out our video review of Galco sodas, check it out here!
If you are interested in finding out where to purchase some of these interesting sodas check out the affiliate links below.
Mr Q Cumber Soda (Pack of 12)
Sangaria Ramune, Plum Flavor 6x 6.76z
Sangaria Ramune Marble Soft Drink Melon Flavor 6 Pack
magboo candy and jewelry 
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