Purple-flavored Cupcakes for Hailey

Happy Holidays! Closing out this 2011 year, I have 2 pairs of customs. This first pair is a craft-trade that I'm pretty excited about. So these sneakers are for a friend's daughter. Hailey loves cupcakes and purple, so that was definitely doable, and I love cupcakes as well. Shout out to Cups in La Jolla! Aaaaaaanyway, since the theme was pretty simple, I made sure to add little fun details like sprinkles, the "H" and mini cupcake on the back heels, and "Hailey" and another mini cupcake right at the base of the laces. I added some dull-purple laces so it didn't over-"pop" the rest of the design, but it still tied it all together. Both sneakers were the same with variations of cupcake flavors. I dropped off these freshly-mades yesterday, so I'm excited to see how little Hailey likes them :)

California Love

So a few months back, my buddy Shannon wanted me to do some customs for her friend. Her friend's from Europe and had fallen in love with California after a visit. Shannon was traveling to visit this friend and a pair of Cali-Love sneakers were a must. This was a tall order: there's so much awesomeness about California and only 4 sneaker sides.

I didn't want it to look crazy, but a nice clean representation of some of Cali's finest and iconic landmarks. Shannon was kind enough to give me free artist expression and let me do my thing. So these all white Superstars have the Golden Gate bridge, palm trees, a beach scene with a lifeguard tower (think Baywatch, haha.), the Hollywood sign, and the outlined state of California. We Californians like the shape of our state.

These were a lot of fun to do. I've lived in California pretty much my whole life and love it. I think Cali-Love sneakers should be in every Californian's sneaker closet! Ahem... The bridge was by far my favorite section. It was also the most stressful. I didn't want all the cable lines to look like a mess. I added some other little details like the "Golden State of Mind", the heart with "California" through it (who doesn't know that song?!), and the quote "What's Your Dream?" (from the movie Pretty Woman - did you pick up on that?)

Anyway, Shannon had them mailed overseas for fear of airport-luggage-check-in-crushage. I've mailed sneakers across the Pacific to Hawaii for my first family-pack for Reese, Belle, and Makana, but this was my first international send-off :) Pretty special. Hope you dig 'em like I do!

Back on Display

A few weeks ago, my buddy who runs the Originals store in Costa Mesa asked if wanted to display sneakers in their cashwrap display case. They were running low on accessories, so the case was available! I had some sneakers there in the past, so it was cool to be able to show some stuff again :) The Yo Gabba Gabba and Pacquiao sneakers are from the past, but I decided to do a new pair too -- a junior version of the "Get Your Own Style". They have the same elements just on a kids Superstar. I like how they turned out -- clean chaos! So the case has 3 pairs and a few business cards. My favorite spraycan vinyl toy holds a card up as well! What's super cool is that within 5 hours of putting the sneakers in the case, I got a new client who wanted his own pair of customs. He like the cartoon Pacquiaos, so we made arrangements to hook him up!

Update: Green Day & Sneaker Show

So a while back, I did some Green Day-themed sneakers for my younger cousin Reese. He's a HUGE Green Day fan and I just got this picture of him wearing them out :) It's always fun to see how the sneakers look on each person. Lookin' good Reese!!

Also, I mentioned that I was displaying sneakers at Visual Art Supply last week. Here are a few pictures of the wall. I displayed ones that I've done before: Manila Royals and Rizals. Then I did a new pair as well, which I gave you a sneak-peek of earlier in the "Stylo Preview". They will be there for the entire month of August, so I'm happy to get some exposure and have people see my stuff :) I was able to get in touch with some people to possibly display some of my "Filipino-themed" sneakers at the upcoming Fil-Am (Filipino-American) Festival later this year. Any exposure and possible business are always worth it!

My Heart Skips Tee

So along with sneakers, I do graphics as well. My heart beats like crazy and skips a lot too. This design came to me and this is a revised version of the original...way different if you saw the first one. I decided to submit it to some sites for fun and one of them is threadless. My younger cousin has done it is the past and my other cousin is a pro on Riptapparel. So here's a go for me, but this site requires votes and whatnot. So I'd appreciate votie-votes and some love. Pass it along please and my heart will leap and skip for joy!! :)

"Stylo" Preview

There is a pretty cool independent art supply store on Adams Ave near my place called Visual Art Supply. They are always having art shows and displays, along with selling great stuff to get yo' art on! They are having a show at the end of the month for custom sneakers, hats, and vinyl called "Kicks & Lids Re-Covered". I'm gonna submit 3 pairs of sneakers and we'll see how it goes :) I've got 2 done already that I've had for a while, but I did a new one just for the show. The picture is a sneak peek until I know more info about the show and which sneakers get chosen, etc. I'll keep you posted. This pair of sneakers was, by far, the most extensive taping job I've done so far. Even so, I think they came out clean, simple and still keeps my "style".

Yo Gabbadidas!

So I'm trying to stay up on my sneakers and balance my life more. I had finished the Jose Rizal sneakers for my cousin's event up in Oakland, and I wanted to keep the momentum going as best I could. I've had these velcro kid's CG (Carlos Gruber) sneakers for a while and decided to have at it. Yo Gabba Gabba seemed fitting with the color scheme of the velcro ctraps. Silly characters and a boom box did the trick. They came out fun and playful. They are a kids size 1 if anyone is interested...otherwise, my niece will eventually get them when she grows into them :)

I'm not well-versed on Yo Gabba Gabba and I'm sure I could look up the characters for their offish descrip, but I'm not. So we've got one-eyed red guy, green fuzzy monster guy, pink weird girl, yellow robot guy, and the blue cat spread across both sneakers. Then I put the "Yo Gabba Gabba" logo and a boombox and the black thick-rimmed glasses of the dj guy. The background is a series of circles and dot and lines to add to the fun-feel. Good stuff. Thanks for the look!

Rizal 150

Hey hey! So these are the newest sneakers I've done :) I'm lucky to be involved in a great project put on by my cousin, Jim. Check it out here! June 19th will be Jose Rizal's 150th birthday and if you are filipino, you should know who he is! June 18th will be the big day of the celebration, and I was asked to be a featured artist! My sneaker customizing services will be auctioned off and these are for display.

These sneakers are on toddler size Stan Smiths. "Rizal" on one sneaker and his face on the other sneaker. On the insides read one of Rizal's quotes, "Genius has no country. It blossoms everywhere. Genius is like the light, the air. It is the heritage of all." Also, you can't do a filipino-theme sneaker without stars too! Well, you can but it just doesn't feel right - lol!

I'll keep you posted once the event happens :)

Thomas2.0 for the Holidays

This is a bit late, coming off of the holiday season, but here's a picture of the sneaks I did for a lil' guy named Esteban. My co-worker's boyfriend's godson is a huge Thomas fan and a sneaker fan...so the answer was very easy :) Thomas + sneakers = THOMAS SNEAKERS!

This is actually the second pair of Thomas sneakers that I've had the pleasure of doing, so we decided to follow the same template. I changed up the track design and did a simpler text for the name. I changed out the laces too for a little extra fun, and I think they came out nice. They were all set to go, ready just in time for Christmas.

Always fun to do sneakers for the kids :)