Studio Log: Starweek Twenty-Six!

We've been busy the last couple of Sundays, so this is a big one!

• Studio Obsession of the Season: XENA.

We've been watching a lot of Xena... Warrior Princess.Have you heard, she was forged in the heat of battle?

Studio Event of the Season: GLEE LIVE. Nora's birthday presents from Lucy were two tickets to Glee Live (under the condition that one of the tickets would be for her). Of course, it was fantastic and ridiculous and we weren't even the oldest people there!* It was in a packed arena full of screaming nerds such as ourselves, being blown away by TV people and pyrotechnics and epic lighting and assorted types of home-made costumes.

*There were definitely some parents who were older than us. We checked.

We were right next to the teeny rear stage, where the actors would occasionally sneak-surprise us with a number about five feet from our heads. It was amazing. Look how close we were to Chris Colfer:

Our home-made T-shirts for the show, referencing this scene:

If you watch Glee, you'll know that the meaning behind these particular T-shirt phrases are coded for other actual attributes that fit us rather well. Hint: Nora's not actually Lebanese.

More Photos of the Fabulousness Here

And More Photos of our Fabulous Gleeference T-Shirts Here

• Studio Update of the Week: Here at Sowmoles! We have a "new" comic available for sale as a digital download and/or minicomic. It might look familiar to some of you... With one crucial (legal) difference.

We hope you and our good Brothers Warner like the change!

• Studio Project of the Week: Center for Cartoon Studies Pencil Cases! Designed by Lucy and printed by Nora this week.

• Studio Outing of EVERY Week: The Logan Square Farmer's Market! Every week we skip through the glorious hipster-filled morning market located in our neighborhood. Nora goes crazy buying plants for the garden and Lucy goes crazy buying food like this tiny ice-cream cone ("tea-and-cookies" flavored).

Last week we saw were trampled by Mayor Rahm Emanuel's camera crew, as Mr. Mayor wandered through the market shaking babies and kissing hands and preventing us from getting to the free samples of fancy jam. Somewhere there's probably a news feature where you can barely hear Rahm answering some constituent's question over Nora yelling "I JUST WANT SOME JAM, RAHM!" in the background. Please send a link if you find this video.

• Studio Improvement of the Week: Garden Overhaul! Nora has been toiling in the hot sun over our teeny backyard to transform it into a nice little garden space. Here's what she's done so far-- it's WORLDS away from the desert-cement of urban depression that it once was.

Lucy and Linney helped.

• Studio Drink of the Week: MOREjitos! Nora took about a metric ton of mint out of the back garden in preparation for planting a wider assortment of herbs. And since we had all this mint, plus we were on our way to see the latest Pirates spectacle at the $4 movie theater (which = RUM), there was only one thing we could do.

Smuggle mojitos into the movie in our water bottles!
Our recipe:(over ice)Muddled MintA Couple Muddled StrawberriesCoconut RumClub SodaTwo LimesOne half LemonHoney or Maple Syrup (to taste)

• Studio Jam of the Week: Vegetables! (Beach Boys Cover by Kayla Willi)

• kitty photo of the Week: Linney had to get some butthair shaved off because it was dreadlocking. Ripley HATES the new 'do. But when has Ripley really needed an excuse to chase Linney around the apartment?

The answer is NEVER.

Studio Log: Starweek Twenty-Five

• Studio Project of the Week: Air Plant Adventures!

Spraypainted thrift-store frames with velcroed-to-the-wall air plants!

• Studio Visitor of the Week:

Our pal Lonnie Mann flew in for a few days.

• Studio Jam of the Week: Tightrope, by Janelle Monae (f. Leftfoot)

• Kitty Photos of the Week:

Ripley's one classy dame.

Studio Log: Starweek Twenty-Four!

Hey! We're in the midst of one seriously bipolar spring here in Chicago. It was 90 degrees... It was 35 degrees. And mostly there's just been wind. If The Burrow blows away, we'll be updating next week from a tree. We're all over the place. Now that Lucy's convention schedule is winding down, there should be more collabs and blog posts up in here.

• Studio Project of the Week: Elephant planter! We've been going to thrift shops to find various items to hold all our plants. This is the first of many, converted from a small dog chew toy. (holds one wee eschevaria)

• Studio Visitors of the Week: Erika Moen and Dylan Meconis stopped by to pick up Lucy on the way to the Toronto Comic Arts Festival! You can read about their visit and see Erika's lovely photos of The Burrow on Erika's Blog Entry.

• Studio Outing of the Week: We went to see Girlyman in concert with Coyote Grace up at Evanston Space (this very cool small concert venue). Nora and Nelly have been Girlyman fans for, like, ever, so this was a big deal.

Our signed Coyote Grace CD:

Which leads us to...

• Studio Jam of the Week: "Do You Like Me" by Coyote Grace (Awesome and creepy and lovely, and check out Ingrid's amazing poppy dress!)

• Kitty Photos of the Week:

• Studio Fanart of the Week: By the delightful Peter N. Trinh, it's us as VAMPIRE SLAYERS!

Studio Log: Starweek Twenty-four

We're back from our miniature blog sabbatical! Lucy was traveling East for a New York comic convention, and is now returned to the bosom of The Burrow. And now that we're all here again, let's BLOG.

(Above, Lucy's welcome-home banner that Nora made for her triumphant return.)

• Studio Obsession of the Week Forever:

Guess which crazy studio duo are going to a GLEE LIVE SHOW? Guess which SAME duo will probably cry during the solos? You guessed it, the SAME duo who will be waiting outside the stage doors with a home-made Pigfarts T-Shirt for Darren Criss. So. Excited. Countdown to June.

• Sad Studio News of the Week:

Our good BFF Nelly headed off to grad school this week, departing Chicago for Austin, Texas. To see her off properly, we ate a metric ton of encased meat at local fancy-hot-dog venue, Hot Doug's. We'll miss her greatly, but at least she will be full of fancy meat to remember us by. (hee hee)

Nelly has started (and we hope, will continue) a new blog to chronicle her adventures and creations at Costume Technology school and in her new Texas residence. Check out the first little photo post here (featuring The Burrow):

Texas Wants Me Anyway

• Studio Jam of the Week: Pretty Girl Rock by Keri Hilson

No question that this girl's a ten.

• Kitty Photos of the Week: Stump Pillow Love!

---

Again, we apologize for the pause in updating. You see, we were attending a VERY special event, and it was simply impossible for us to leave the side of the royal family at any time over the last month. They absolutely NEED us. Good thing no-one managed to upstage us at the wedding.

More photos of our amazing Royal Wedding Hats here.

Plus OTHER attendee's hats here.

Happy Kate and Wills Day!

Studio Log: Starweek Twenty-Three

Yet another busy week here at The Burrow. Check it, yo.

• Studio Outing of the Week: HOUSE ON THE ROCK; Ramp It Up.

We took an overnight to Wisconsin with our pal Nelly to visit the famous landmark, House on the Rock. This is an excellent trip to take if you EVER plan on moving, because it'll make you feel WAY better about how much strange and extraneous stuff you keep around. Alex Jordan, the architect and "curator" of the bizarre collection was way crazy and had a penchant for mechanized bands, creepy dolls, carousels, and ENORMOUS sea beasts. The whole rambling, eccentric place is only semi-lit, so photos are hard to take (not that a photo could ever do it justice), but here are a couple we managed to snap:

Nora seated at one of Mr. Jordan's many illuminated wartables, in but one of his many lounges.

Lucy braves the "infinity bridge," an unsupported architectural structure that appears to go on forever while simultaneously being unconnected to the ground. What fun.

There are a lot of ramps at House on the Rock, so while hiking up the four-hundredth ramp of the day, we came up with this new slogan for them:

See more House on the Rock photos on Nora's Flickr!

• Studio Craft Project/Houseguest of the Week:

Paper flowers and Mark! Nora taught Lucy and Mark how to make these fabulous enormous paper flowers to usher in Spring!

• Studio Event of the Week:

Remember our Halloween Photobooth?

We did another one, this time PROM themed!

Thanks to Beck!

Thanks to Ed and Mark!

Thanks to Erika and Maggie!

You can make your own party photobooth! We simply hook up a remote shutter-release to a digital camera inside a painted cardboard box with a hole for the lense, allowing people to take photos of themselves in front of RIDICULOUSLY sparkly fabric. It's really fun, and you get great photos the next day.

See the whole set of photobooth photos on Lucy's Flickr!

• Studio Jam of the Week: Born This Way by Lady Gaga

We were skeptical of this song when we first heard it. Too Madonna-y? It took (a few viewings of) the ridiculously long Matthew Barneyesque-vagina-chin-eyeball-skullmakeup video to convince us of its genius, combined with the poppy dancy-dance beat and Gaga's love of being in her underwear. PLUS, we ALMOST get to see her SMILE in this one!

• Kitty Photo of the Week:

Prom kiss!

Happy Spring, Everybody!

Studio Log: Starweek Twenty-Two

Spring is BUSY! We've been rushing around working on theater shows, conventions, preparing for travel and enjoying the above-freezing Chicago weather. In fact, today we're headed up to Wisconsin to visit House on the Rock!

But we've been sending out lots of Here at Hogwarts orders. Look at this beautiful photo and review we got on NotMartha! (NotMartha Covers our Here at Hogwarts project!)


And we are LOVING some of the notes we're getting in response to the book. Here are a few of our favorite photo replies. Thanks so much to everyone who got the comic. We are MADJAZZED that the response has been so great!

@creativemachine

@Verwho

@Kneecoalie

@Ally_Box

Wanna send us your own photos of you with your beloved H.A.H.? Please do! If you're cool with it, put them all up in this flickr pool, here!

Now EVERYBODY IN THE CAR. 3.5 hours to House on the Rock!
Lucy already has to pee.

Studio Log: Starweek Twenty-One!

Howdy y'all. How ya been? We's been busy. Reeeeal busy.

• Studio Project of the Week!

We finished our comic about studio Kickstarter trip

to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter!

Buy or download your own copy from The Burrow Store!

(you can also pick up a copy in person at C2E2 on Friday)

Here are all 300 of the copies we mailed out for our lovely kickstarter donors. Phew!

• Kitty VIDEO of the week:

Ripley vs. THE WALL

• Studio News of the Week:

Our bosom pal Nellie got into University of Texas in Austin. She's going to get her MFA in costume technology! Fancy right? What even IS that??? Do you guys have anything fun for her to do in Austin? Restaurants? Parks? Music? Awesome Stuff? Country Music Lesbian Bars? Let us know! She made us this most awesome Texas mix, which is (of course) just the beginning of MANY Texas themed playlists. Here is our favorite song from the mix:

• Studio Jam of the Week: These Old Bones, by Miss Dolly Parton

Thanks fer readin' fellers.

Y'all come back now, y'hear?