Picture Diary #008

Pip after she got spayed ; o ; and lil Zita on the left <33

Hi guys~~ Long time no blog. I was pretty busy with a lot of stuff going on during the summer/fall months and when winter came around I kinda had to catch up on all the other things in my life and in all honesty, I didn't really feel like sitting and writing a blog/update because everything was so in the air and I wasn't sure how I wanted to move forward with things. Hopefully I can do better this year with the blog, not that I think a TON of people are super invested in this, but for some of you who miss the old blogspot days and reading picture diary's I hope you enjoy this at least!

first snowstorm of the season!

So 2020 was um... not so great. I think that's a statement few will disagree with. As most of you know, I lost my cat Missy P to liver cancer this fall. It was a real shock since, I was just taking her into the vet for dental work and within the span of 3 months, she was gone. I don't want to make this entire blog about that and I've been grieving and healing with my friends and family. I will say this, losing a pet during this time of COVID which is already extra lonely, high anxiety all around, having this happen really knocked a lot out of me and I needed, still need, time to properly process this. It's important to note, I adopted Missy P when my cat Pita who was also white with green eyes, passed away so she was something that healed me during that time in my life when I was in high school, clinically depressed and all sorts of other really bad things. It was my first time losing a pet that I'd had since they were a baby so the emptiness is raw and unforgiving right now. But this is not my first time dealing with a loss that came so suddenly, as I dealt with one a few years back when I lost one of my best friends. Grieving is a process that has no time limit. From what I've been told, it never goes away, but it gets better. I'm definitely not in the same space I was previously, but I'm sad and heartbroken. I'm grateful for my family and friends who have helped make this loss easier to get through and to Missy P for being with me as long as she could. 

On a happier note, Pip is the newest addition to the family <3 She's a medium hair, tuxedo, polydactyl and she's so cute. I haven't had a kitten in my care since I got Missy P and Zita about 11 years ago, and every time she breaks something or climbs somewhere she isn't supposed to, knocks something over or wakes me up to play at like 5 am... I remember how much I LIKE kittens but having them is another story. What I love about cats is the low maintenance but kittens, are high maintenance until they grow up a little so I'm looking forward to her being a little less wacky so I can just enjoy the quiet cuddly moments. Zita seems to like her, tho they fight but it's mainly Zita being like "I'm 11 STOP." and Pip is like "I LOVE U!!!" I firmly believe Pip LOVES Zita and Zita seems to tolerate her. Sometimes Pip will cuddle with me for 2 seconds, see Zita is sleeping in her bed and get off to go lay with her which is so cute so I have a billion and one pictures of that haha <3 

Staying busy in Quarantine has evolved into me still making bread, and crafting more. I finally made the perfect square shokupan bread and ugh it was so good. I wanna make more, but I really need to watch what I'm eating right now since I'm not able to go to the gym due to COVID and I have a pretty sensitive stomach when I eat a lot of carbs so I gotta watch it. I also went insane and bought a pompom maker so I could make some winter crafts since I'm one of those stupid idiots who's like "why pay $20 for this pom pom wreath, when I can spend $19 on supplies and 19 hours making my own!" and I did that and I'm mad but also it looks really cute so I'm also not mad. I feel very neutral about the whole experience. 

I also made this insane pom pom tree that reminds me of some Dr. Suess lookin ass thing but it's so cute. After the way this year ended, I made it a point to make my house more colourful and fun since painting my bedroom, bathroom and living room, doing all these crafts, were a really good distraction for me from Missy P since sitting at my desk to draw when I didn't have her sleeping in the bed next to me was very hard. What wasn't hard? Making like 100 pom poms with Pip jumping into the bag of pom poms and Zita unraveling all my yarn. Well... no that was hard. But it wasn't sad. 

I also went antiquing with my mom recently and bought some little golden books from the like 1950's which are so cute and pretty not pictured here... I also bought like 30 playboys from the 80's-2010's. I was looking at them because 2 of my favourite artists were playboy comic artists, Erich Sokol and Kiraz, so I wanted to see if any of the magazines had their comics. The guy who owned that antique store was like "Uh... do u want them all for like $25?" and I was like um hell yeah. I'm excited because there are tons of references for pin up poses and really pretty photoshoots with like nice lighting, themes etc;; also the 80's/90's aesthetic is really messing with my brain I love it. I've been looking through them and bookmarking certain pages and centerfolds so I can reference them later.

Some Acrylic Pours!

Which brings us into the update section of this blog! So... This year my friend and I attempted to do a webtoon comic. We submit it for a contest for this website but we unfortunately didn't win which is honestly okay... I ended up finding out more about the site that we were going to use and they have a pretty concerning past in terms of paying their artists so like, mmmm no thank you. I did the story, characters, lines and she did the colours and I think it came out so good. It's 2 full episodes but it's a BL about ghosts and bug witches and stuff so I may or may not post it somewhere for people to check out but after doing all that I kinda decided I want to pursue a webtoon opportunity. I've always had this in the back of my head but because I have a contract with a publishing company, I don't want to stretch myself too thin with a Graphic Novel, Online Shop, Patreon, Commissions and then a webtoon. I have the story, characters all planned out though since I've been sitting on the idea for about a year but I haven't had time to really devote to working on just that. Now I really want to so that'll be happening! 

I know I've said this a billion times, but my art is definitely going through some changes, in terms of style, design, structure and themes... So yeah, the BL is coming the GL is here to stay but I want to be able to do both without feeling like I'm letting people down because I'm not drawing what they want which is stupid because like... I don't get paid in views, follows. I'm really tired from drawing things because I think people want to see it and if I draw something else people won't, like that is a 2020 way of thinking I'm absolutely throwing into the trash. GOODBYE THAT THOUGHT. I don't plan to post/draw anything BL related that's NSFW (though I don't really draw nsfw BL if I'm being honest) to patreon or anything so that place will continue to be a WLW space, but my twitter and instagram will definitely be shifting. 

Raspberry Cream Cheese Danish

Okay so BL Webtoon... That is one project I am going to work on in 2021. Second one... Pin Up calendar B^))) I've been wanting to do this for a couple years now but the hard thing about it is, I never really know what I want to do so I end up sitting on it, and then it's August and I'm like, it's too late now. Making a calendar is a lot of planning, a lot of illustrations and time and the shipping sucks. I did a collaborative calendar a few years back, and it was with... 20 ish other artists? It was the worst... so bad. Mainly because the last minute, 2 of my artists just stopped emailing me, and vanished so I had to ask 2 my of my beautiful friends if they could help me out since I was so busy getting things printed and organized and they did. IT SUCKED. so this year I'm just doing it alone. Because I have all these playboys, I'm planning on using it as inspiration. That being said... I do kinda have an idea that I wanted to offer a more suggestive pin up calendar and then for my NSFW tier patrons I'll be uploading the uncensored versions or I would offer all 12 illustrations uncensored on gumroad or something like that. That way I can get a little more out of the illustrations than just the calendar but they can still be enjoyed in a more SFW environment... unless you're the type to have a full nude calendar in your house then damn props to you. 

SHOKUPAN BAYBEEE

I'm planning on using Heather, my like... idk mascot? I feel like she's my go to girl when it comes to drawing pin ups since she's got the big curly hair and the more seductive nature about her that I enjoy drawing. I originally was going to use a variety of my OC's but I realized I don't wanna do that and I'd rather the theme be more cohesive. My mom was like "oh you should do a clown calendar...." so my brain is also kinda thinking about something small scale for that, but I'm not gonna overwhelm myself. I'll either be uploading the illustrations over the course of the year, or save them all, and post updates as I move since it might be easier for me to work on stages like thumbnails, sketches, lines, colours etc;; so the drawings are all similar. My style tends to shift in 6 month intervals so I'd rather the drawings all seem to be from the same place of design in my head vs. how I draw in January to how I draw in November. 

Online shop update-- I'm going to do my best this year to start planning updates around holidays or doing a better job of announcing shop launches/updates. I have some ideas for Valentines since I wanted to send valentines to some of my friends as I wasn't able to send christmas cards this year. I've uploaded some of the drawings to patreon already. I wanted to try doing more prints/stickers moving forward and saving pins/hats/socks/larger merchandise for later since they cost a lot to make, have a high MOQ which means I just have a ton left over and I only have so much space in my apartment to devote to having overflow of product. I'd love to do a launch of items for Spring time, Summer, Fall and Winter since it just feels more appropriate vs. holidays but also holidays come with fun outfits/colour motifs etc; so we'll see! 

Because 2020 was such a wild year and I ended up failing at keeping up with my sketch challenge I created (though I definitely still kept on practicing just not as much as I wanted to) I would like to be a little less hard on myself this year and try to find more mental clarity on what I want to draw, how I want to draw and how I want to live off my art moving forward. I've made some monetary goals for myself and numerical ones just to see my progress. I don't care about follower count or engagement as a value to my art, but it does help me see how i'm progressing and my overall reach. As someone who relies on my online shop, patreon and commissions as a means of income, I do need to be aware of what these numbers mean but I try not to let them bog me down. I've been stuck at the same follower count on all my social media for about a year so I hope I can increase those numbers a bit and see it reflect in my finances and shop. 

I am making this attempt at not doing any commissions all of 2021. I just.. don't want to. They're too hard, and I charge too little for the amount of time and energy they take me. I'd rather work on large projects so I think if I do take any commissions, they will need to be $250 or more otherwise, I just can't be doing little $50 commissions here and there and I need to stop myself from accepting them since nothing burns me out more than commissions. I'm hoping to work on patreon, online shop and personal projects more so I don't have to take commissions. I'm still finishing up a few that I have left over from last year so once they're done I'll be free from commissions hopefully for a LONG time, maybe forever. 

Okay! That's it I think? I tried to recap things as best I could, since I had a lot to say. Looking forward to 2021 being a year of reflecting on 2020, and doing better. Feeling better. Definitely drawing more and drawing things I like and enjoy. 

Some recommendations! 

Soul by Pixar~ Just watched it and I really enjoyed it. I'mma say this once... when twitter has a big opinion on something, please go into it with your own unbiased opinion. This movie was thrown under the bus before it even was in theaters by people who thought they knew what it was about and it wasn't. I really enjoyed it, and I felt like it was definitely a message that anyone can understand and resonate with. And whilst the main black character is a blob for like... idk 20 minutes of the movie, the rest is a lot of black culture in brookyln, and there are TONS of really great black characters in the movie. The entire theme of Jazz and music was really appreciated. Moral of the story, don't write off a movie so fast. 

Music Lab Youtube~ Just discovered and I've been listening to their stuff while I work. I don't know if it really is making me more creative but I'm a big fan of hour long mixes since that's about how long I can work before I need a break so it's helpful. 

Pat's Nails ~ Chinese nail tech. I love her video's. They're short so they're not really for people who wanna get new nail design ideas. I finally have a pretty good collection of things to do my nails at home so I've been watching a lot more nail video's and I think her nails always come out so pretty ; o ; 

Plastic Hearts by Miley Cyrus ~ Her newest album. I really liked all the rock songs! Not so much the slower songs but that's cuz I'm just... not a huge fan of R&B, Ballad type songs. 

I've been watching lots of like... 30 minute nail tech video's while I work, and listening to my usual scary story/creepy pasta youtubers from past blog posts (mr. nightmare, Be.Busta, Corpsehusband, Being Scared) and then ambience background noise. 

Okay thanks everyone! Hope this was enjoyable to read and if not, the pictures were enjoyable to look at <3

Here's looking at you 2021. Let's go and be ready to catch these hands. 

~Mo 

Picture Diary #007

Missy PEE PEE

In the Air wax melts! Black owned (: 

Hey hey hey~ It's been a while haha. I've been up to myneck incommissions and other junk so I've just not made time to write a blog post and well... because everything is still closed down right now I haven't really done too much. My baking days have slowed down because the ramifications of making tons of bread are that I need to eat tons of bread and I really don't maintain a high carb diet so I've had to either give it away or freeze it and my freezer is full ofbagels AH.

Everything Bagel!

Bayguls proofing

My lil pink patio <3

But I did have fun making a couple dozen batches of sourdough bagels! I'll probably make them again soon since I ended up giving away some to friends and I only have like 2-3 left. I'm trying to minimize my morning routine by just having something ready to eat and obviously bagels are super easy to assemble, plus with my big ass gallon sized mason jar of coldbrew I make every 2 weeks, I've finally started getting to work quicker rather than spending an hour dilly dallying in the kitchen and trying to figure out what to eat and drink for breakfast bleh.

Also made pretzels they were OK.

ZITA!!!

Add caption

N E WAYS yes, been inside all ofJune and July... and Missy P suddenly started showing signs of one of her back teeth bothering her, and had to have 2 teeth pulled so that was a $500 expense I really hadn't anticipated THUS I've had to kinda take on gosh... I think this month alone I've done at least 30 commissions which is, a lot. I am not a commission artist, in the sense that I make the bulk of my money from commissions, I personally don't like doing them. For me, it's a lot of mental stress to jump around, sending emails, editing illustrations and etc; the money is OK. Of course I get commissioners who tip me and etc; but when it comesdown to it, knowing how much your art is worth vs. knowing how much people are willing to payfor your art can be difficult to balance and figure out. When I need money fast, I tend to try and create a very cheap alternative commission option that's like, something that takes me under 2 hours at least to work on... but I draw very slowly, I tend to take at least 3 times as long to finish things so I'm still figuring out the best way to juggle all of that. 

Add caption

In other news, I've been working on a secwet pwoject with a friend <3 I won't be sharing it anywhere so uhhh if you find it, and see it eventually, then you'll know probably. This project is time sensitive sowe have to finish it before the end of the month, hopefully we can. Like I said, I've been busy with trying to cover some surprise bills and some BLM shenanigans that I have had to put a pin in a lot of things and figure out how to better organize my time AH. 

Add caption

Coffee Jelly :0

Now let's see... the rundown for the month... Celebrated Juneteenth with some family and friends and made this obnoxiously tall cake that I should have just, not done. It was hellish to cut and I dropped it so I had to fix it beforewe servedit but the whipped cream cheese frosting was really good so taste wise-- pretty good! Ialso figured out how to properly keep the cake moist by doing the lemon water brushing inbetween layers so that was a good lessonlearned. 

it's so pretty

Been messing around with coffee shit... I tried making coffee jelly with my coldbrew and it was pretty good! I don't normally have unflavoured gelatin on hand so I kinda stumbled across a video on youtube and was like "Oh okay yeah I'll make this for no reason aside I'm getting bored of my same cold brew every morning". It was pretty good! I feel like, there's a way to make it tastier but it requires a lot more sugar and I'm trying to cut back on sugar and salt right now.

Missy Peach

WHITE PEACHES ARE IN SEASON! Just for another month or two in upstate ny ))): I was really hoping my grandparents would help me with making white peach jelly, jam, preserves and maybe a chutney but they've been... really weird because of BLM and COVID so I'm kinda keeping my distance, socially and like mentally cuz idk. I don't have time for that. I don't want them making my jelly taste racist lmao. I might see about doing it myself the only issue is my grandparents have like TONS of supplies for canning, including tons of jars and pectin and blah blah which I don't have, and I don't really want to have to buy a ton of supplies to do this. I feel like I might usesome of my clay and paint some fake white peaches so I can just have them whenever I feel like I need to see a pretty fruit since I think, I've finally decided white peaches are my favourite fruit. I love mango and melon like they're up there in the top fave fruits, but White peaches really do come in clutch for me. Like talk about a fruit who can do it all... the flavour, the colours, the texture???? UM yes please. 

Alright onto recommendations... 

Movies/TV

The L Word -- Um... I'll be real with you, this show sucks LOL. I'm watching it because someone highly recommended it to me and it's such a bad show the writing is terrible, every character is in a horrible relationship and yeah.. I think the only reason I'm watching it is it's like, my shitty drama cuz everyone else has dramas, but this one is exclusively WLW so I don't have to look at anything I don't wanna see very often. I'm on season 5... I would not recommend this but if you're bored, give it a shot. 

Youtube

BONNIE!!!!

Zoe's Studio -- Korean Cafe Vlog shot from the table perspective. I've been watching tons of these lately since it's like, ASMR, I like watching people cook and not talk and I can focus on it while working but not worry about looking away any missing anything... it does make me wanna get fun drinks tho. 

Music 

Lady Gaga Chromatica Album -- Listened to it from start to finish and there are some BANGERS. I personally like Alice, Stupid Love, Rain on Me and 911 (including the Chromatica II transition). 

Girl In Red - Girls   &   We Fell in love in October   Very Dreamy music makes me wanna run through a meadow but can't rn 

Ok thanks you guys! I hope you enjoy the pics! 

~Mo 

 

picture diary #006

Hey hey hey! Blog time! To be honest I don't know if anyone really enjoys this as much as I do writing them but this is more like... something I enjoy looking at over time and letting you guys peek into my journal essentially. Hope that's ok.

Bonnie shed this week so she's extra bright <3

made some face masks for family!

Last month was a lot. I started working on my next comic pitch while finishing up the thumbs for my current deal I have. Unfortunately because of COVID19, this and that has changed for my finances so I'll be kinda messing around with ways to hustle on the side so I don't lose my mind. Anyways, cool stuff, I'm pitching 2 idea's for YA comics that I just spent a buttload of time on (one more than the other) so the fruits of those labours will come probably... not for a long time haha. We'll see! I also am working on 2 pitches for a webcomic, don't get excited, they'll be BL so I'm not planning on making it exclusive to Patreon. I might set up my Ko-fi or set up a separate tier on Patreon JUST for things related to that comic (early pages, BTS etc;). I've been toying with making a BL tier for a while, since I really don't want to have people who came here for lesbians have to see that and lose interest. I get it. If I was following someone to see the good sapphic content and they started uploading idk, straight romantic stuff I'd be like *yawning* kinda bored. I don't want that to happen LOL I know some of you are loyal and that's great I appreciate it, but Patreon isn't a hobby for me, it's how I make money enough to cover monthly bills and part of my rent so I gotta make you guys happy to an extent... but ofc not too crazy like I'm taking requests and stuff cuz I'm not like, a factory that can draw only for Patreon and hopefully make enough content to post elsewhere.

souffle omelette!

souffle pancakes! 

I also got the OK that I can post more of my concept/character/BTS of Lovely Recipe, my upcoming YA graphic novel ((((: I'll be posting it to twitter since I don't think it feels right to post it exclusively to Patreon, for contract reasons, so stay tuned for that in the future! It's hard though, since I have to make sure I don't post anything that gives away any story stuff or you know all that good stuff... I hope I can still show fun stuff tho ; o ;

I signed up for a course with Schoolism which is an online art course platform where you can pay monthly or yearly and watch online lectures from art professionals working in like, studios, successful freelance etc; I've actually taken courses from them before that I really enjoyed but I ended my subscription and ran out of time to take courses when I was using it so now that I have more time and I really want to stop feeling rusty and inadequate, thought it was a good idea! I'm taking Alex Woo's Gesture Drawing course to help me better with posing and expressive full body poses as well as simplifying the form better. I only watched the first lesson and he kinda reminded me of a bunch of things I totally forgot about haha. Here's hoping!

pre baked shokupan~

Lots of adventures in baking... I made japanese milk bread so I could make the strawberry fruit sandwiches... I ended up making a whipped cream cheese instead of straight up whipped cream since.. I love cream cheese hi. They turend out really good but I need a proper baking pan since I can't get the square shape without a pan with a lid. Hopefully the next time I make the bread It will be better!

finished shokupan~ 

I wanna thank baking, animal crossing and finally decorating/organizing my house as being distractions from the stress of this entire global situation. Actually no, Animal crossing get off that list because ever since I got terraforming I've just been making my island look worse and worse and none of the ugly villagers who are living there will leave cuz they think this island is ugly, so their ugly asses can stick around. UGH. I don't even have a membership to nintendo to invite people to my island which is totally fine my island is so UGLY. And not like, oh haha no we all think that U V U like i still haven't put paths up, I haven't been weeding so it's just. We're not gonna talk about it anymore.

ANYWAYS! Onto the recommendations!

Movies/Youtube

The Half of It- Netflix - Pretty cute movie! I think it was very good in the sense I wanted to know what would happen, I absolutely laughed and held my face multiple times, and it wasn't too high stakes that I was like feeling really crummy and gross. I'd recommend it!

Long Hair Pretty Nails- Youtube Channel I'm like... low key obsessed with. She just does her nails for like 20-30 minutes and it's so mesmerizing. I don't even do my nails like that, I haven't painted my nails in probably 3-4 months it feels like, but I love watching people do their nails it's so like relaxing to me? She's also just good mom energy she's so bubbly.

Music-

Blood Machines OST-- I'm a like, listen to the whole album kinda person then decide which songs I like, but Intro and Blood Machines Theme are my faves! By one of my alltime fave artists, Carpenter Brut, this OST is for a movie I believe that's already out? I low key haven't seen it cuz idk... it feels like something I'm gonna find boring, but I stan my boy Carpenter <3

Sorry I don't have as much to recommend this month since I was really busy with work stuff that didn't let me like... watch a lot of tv or listen to new music as much as I normally do.

Stay fresh and safe all!

~Mo

picture diary #005 + Lavender Honey Cold Brew

WELL THINGS SURE HAVE BECOME CRAZY HUH. 

Talk about a lousy birthday month. In all honesty, from someone who works from home and loves when plans get canceled (save for certain things) this hasn't changed much for me. The only real changes are when I need to buy something and do errands I just have to see what stores are open, dress carefully and wear gloves etc; I have some face masks like scattered around the house that I use for painting but I feel like it's overkill since everyone is doing a pretty good job of just not being out and staying 6 ft apart.

I am sad that Easter won't be happening since it's my favourite holiday, aka the best food <3 I don't go to church since I'm not very religious in that sense, but for me Easter is having dinner at my great Aunt's house, cooking food with my family, and enjoying the beginning of spring, the beginning of the gardening season, getting flower advice from my much better at gardening family and of course candy, I am but a child.


I managed to do some fun stuff before all this craziness happened however! I got to go skiing for the first time and it was a lot of fun! I would honestly look into doing it more if it wasn't so expensive in terms of equipment, transportation. It's not really a sport I can see myself doing long term, but it was a lot of fun! I forgot how much I love snow, living in California for like... 5 years, I didn't see it except for visiting NY in the Winter and it's a much different experience driving/traveling through snow than just being indoors and enjoying it or going out and casually being around it.

I've been doing a lot of baking which is always fun when you're like... stressed but in need of some nice distractions. I've made maple squares a second time, had the proper ingredients finally, as well as baby's first focaccia! It turned out really good though I will say, I made way too much. I'm kinda, dreading eating it for a third night in a row tonight, but I wanna get rid of it so I can make other things.

WARNING: This is a big rant about snooty people BE WARNED.
Talk about a time to have an epiphany. So... Long ago, some bitch at a coffee shop raised her incredibly long and pointy noise at me when I brought up the notion of "How do you make Coldbrew at home." She SCOFFS at me, her nose hitting the ceiling and breaking the roof as she tells me, "Um you can't make cold brew at home it just won't taste right unless you have the right equipment..." She's talkin about one of these dr.suess lookin ass contraptions she points to the stupid thing in the store window with all this like "DID YOU KNOW COLD BREW BLAH BLAH HERE'S THE HISTORY OF COLD BREW BLAH BLAH" and then turns to me with her "I have been working as a barista for 2 months I know ALL THERE IS about coffee and I gain power by making simpletons like you feel embarrassed for even ASKING how to make my superior coffee," attitude.

Anyways, this is a dramatization, but I've experienced this like elitist attitude from people about shit like this mainly because, well 1 they think they're the best at their job, they know all there is to know and are excited to call you out on being wrong if it means they're right. Second reason, is they want your money. I had a hairdresser tell me never to buzz my own undercut just come in once a month for $15 to get it buzzed by her, I still gotta add the tip mind you and it was in NYC where I would have to take the Q train, transfer to the F (never working/always packed train) then walk about 5 blocks, one avenue which the avenues take like 5 times as long to walk... Time and money, just so I could pay her a crisp $20 i got from working my 3 jobs, to shave and trim my undercut... Now I didn't tell her, that when I lived in California, some buttmuncher told me the same thing and I was skeptical, I went to CVS, used that crisp $20 to buy a hair razor, and I have been doing my own undercut and other people's FOR FREE whenever I need to. Even if I do a bad job, it's like an inch of hair... it'll grow back.

So this story is long, the point of the story is always be skeptical of know it alls cuz guess what... I woke up one morning like "I think... that cold brew barista bitch lied to me?" and you know what? SHE DID! I feel like an idiot because when she told me this I was like... 20? 21? I just started drinking coffee more consistently, since I've always been an avid tea drinker and I worked in a tea shop for a year I knew more about tea than coffee and coffee scares me. I don't really know what I'm doing or at least, I didn't. I thought this barista was wise, making me feel like if I wanted to take cold brew seriously, I should get this $250 cold brew tower if I want to make coldbrew at home... Well guess what. I owned several of these machines and they may look slightly different- they kinda look like mason jars... Insert a picture of me smashing my skull against her coldbrew tower.

This is the tall tale about how I learned I can make coldbrew at home, it's delicious, it's sweet, it's everything I want, and I think it tastes better than the nasty coldbrew coffee I bought that day after the barista lady gave me her finger waggle rude obnoxious i-am-a-coffee-snob talk.

Now I'm here to spread some good vibes... """"Recipe"""" for Lavender Honey Cold Brew...

1 cup course ground coffee beans (I use a medium roast since my darker roasts are very strong)
2 heaping tablespoons of food grade lavender (order online or specialty tea stores sell it)
5 cups of cold/room temp water
Honey
optional Oatly Oat Milk (my preferred brand but you can use whatever milk u want)
Big ole mason jar

1. Mix lavender with ground coffee in mason jar then add water. Stir.
2. Tighten lid, put in fridge for at least 12 hours (I do 24 hours).
3. Next day, strain coffee. There's like a billion ways to do this but I use a chemex pour over and just strain it like my normal coffee. This might take a while depending so be patient <3
4. Wash out mason jar, place strained coffee in mason jar, add 1 cup of cold water and tada it's good in the fridge for 2 weeks.

Now. For the lavender coldbrew, I find the lavender is kinda strong so I make 2 mason jars of cold brew, 1 with the lavender the other just regular. Then whatever glass I'm using, half lavender cold brew, half regular cold brew.

Then, froth your milk a bit, if you have a frother, and before you add the milk, add your honey. 1/2 tablespoon is pretty good, but if you're a sugar fiend, like me, just add till you start seeing stars. Mix it, THEN add your froth and tada <3 Enjoy!

It was very good. I can't wait to make it again. I wanna try doing rose or jasmine, maybe try maple or I don't know... I gotta think of some other fun flavours cuz the infusion process for cold brew seems so incredibly easy. With florals though, I've noticed you should be careful since it can become very bitter if you steep them too long, but because of the cold brew process, it's less likely to extract that bitterness and acidity which is why I really love cold brew coffee now. Hot coffee, is great, but it can really hurt my stomach and sometimes comes out bitter. So far, all my cold brew coffee's I've made over the last few weeks have been really delicious.

I'm done ranting about coffee <3 lets talk about some recommendations!

Movies-- 

Call Me By Your Name <3 -- I feel like I don't need to say much about this other than very pretty, cinematic eye-candy and I love gay romance stories that go the extra mile. 10/10 low key waiting for the library to open so I can read the book.

Music-- 

Algorhythm -- Childish Gambino

Only Silence -- Yuck

Podcasts/Youtube -- 

Abetweene -- DIY/Natural youtuber. She has lots of nice little crafts, does some very thrifty and simple decorating ideas and is just very chill to watch!




Lastly, before I go... Thanks to everyone for sticking around as always! I won't be uploading the Sketchbook Challenge this month, since I ended up spending this entire month working on my comic revisions, script editing and it's just... burned me out. I'll be uploading just a regular sketch dump instead. I'll be uploading rewards end of this month unlike how I normally used to. I'll keep y'all updated and get you guys goodies when I can!

Thanks as always <3

~Mo