I haven’t written much on why bilingualism is a topic that interests me so much. The truth is, I am not bilingual myself. My parents are fairly fluent in both English and Spanish, but me and my brothers grew up without having to speak Spanish to communicate with those around us, so it never became part of our daily lives. (My parents both had to speak in Spanish to their grandparents and other relatives, although each of their parents spoke both English and Spanish as well.)

I did, however, grow up hearing Spanish quite a bit, and I knew how to say basic things and ask for more salsa or napkins or for the bill, at restaurants. I never thought much about my exposure to the other language my parents could speak until I left Texas for Pittsburgh, and suddenly I was one of very few Latinos. I had much more pride and respect for my culture and the limited amount of Spanish I could repeat. Conversely, when I decided to move to Guadalajara on my own, I realized how foreign I was in a city that my mother was completely comfortable in.

And now, back in Portland for a while, I am incredibly grateful for at least being exposed to Spanish when I was growing up, although I wish I was a bit more fluent. I do realize that that is something I can do something about, and I try to incorporate Spanish in my daily life in little ways. There is a significant Spanish speaking population in Oregon, and I’m fortunate enough to have some exposure to those lovely people on a pretty regular basis. Bilingual schools are also a common thing in Portland, which is something I’m excited to see.

This great article from the NY Times touches on the benefits of being bilingual, of which my favorite part is : “…individuals with a higher degree of bilingualism — measured through a comparative evaluation of proficiency in each language — were more resistant than others to the onset of dementia and other symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease: the higher the degree of bilingualism, the later the age of onset.”

read it all here : http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/opinion/sunday/the-benefits-of-bilingualism.html

A quick re-cap of how to make some simple paper candle covers. I wanted a few interesting ways to have some candles on the back deck table for porch beers with friends. I always have lots of cover stock paper and turning them into back-lit cut paper displays seemed like a perfect table addition.

Here’s the simplest jist of it :

ONE : Cut a standard 8.5 x 11 piece of cover stock paper in your choice of color into thirds or half, parallel to the long side.

TWO : Score and fold into fourths, and draw patterns or a design to cut out within those 4 sides, leaving enough space at the ends to allow for taping or gluing. (I made a template of shapes that I wanted to use for patterns, shows in bottom photo.) Cut out pattern/design with x-acto knife.

THREE : Fasten the two ends with strong tape, or glue together with steady hands and a lot of patience. (tape is the easiest option.)

FOUR : You still need to use a tealight or votive holder for your candle. Place your cut-paper covers around the glass holder, and sit back and enjoy the night.

I’ve been wanting to screenprint business cards for the cloud machine for a while. My excuse? Well, I couldn’t use a cut stencil, I needed new emulsion, and screens with a finer mesh for paper printing, and acrylic ink so they’d be water-proof… small things that I could remedy real fast but never did. But we finally got around to getting all that stuff and Justin re-designed our business cards. They’re much simpler and effective and I truly love them – the website (and this blog) is also re-designed and everything follows the same visual language that our shirts and cards are designed with. Looks good, eh?

To screenprint these cards, I burned a stencil that I could print on standard 8.5 x 11 paper, and cut the cards out myself. I picked up multiple samples of French Paper’s Pop Tone line, and I had a few sheets of chip board that I also printed on. I had printed some samples in black ink with my inkjet printer onto some of the Pop Tone paper, but the idea was that we’d print them in a lighter ink like white or light blue – to emphasize that they were screenprinted and not offset or inkjet printed. So finally getting to screenprint them was extremely satisfying.

I ran into a few hurdles, though. I usually don’t use a piece of glass on top of the transparency when I’m burning screens, but something this detailed needed it – and I didn’t use one. So as a result, some parts of the smaller text didn’t wash out and therefore didn’t get printed very well (mostly the “.com” and a few letters in “goods”…nothing major and some of them still look neat without all the ink.) I’ll have to re-burn the stencil for a longer run of cards, but these were kind of test prints to see which paper I liked. My favorites : chip board, green, and razzleberry.

swedish fish. nutella. babies. love.