So this post is a bit early, but I couldn’t stop from posting it as this weekend is SO busy I know I cannot post it later!
May 10th is Chococat’s birthday, so I have been making things Chococat since it’s been on my mind…

 

 
I used fudge “Funfetti” frosting (only put the sprinkles on cupcakes) and a golden butter cake for this. Actually, Chococat is the “Chocolate Chip Cookie cake” which is a golden butter plus a lot of chocolate chips. The yellow icing didn’t come out too well, and I was disappointed.

 

Chococat Pizza! So I have made a hello kitty pizza, but I was making a pizza tonight and didn’t know what to make. My Chococat Pez dispenser was on the counter, so I just modeled the dough and stuff off of it. I think it turned out pretty well!

So Happy Birthday Chococat! I hope you all enjoy.

Something I am looking forward to is the Hello Kitty Online Trailer Contest. I have already started diligently working on stuff for it. I have to do some voice overs (perhaps this weekend? Sometime soon!) and some more artwork for it. But here is a small preview of what is to come….

I am taking a lot of time in Illustrator to make the characters more vector-y and my style of illustration so it has a lot of me in it. I do ask that you not use this image for anything (especially not the contest) as I have spent hours in Adobe Illustrator making everything perfect.

For those of you who want to participate, I suggest taking screen shots from the closed beta! But what if you aren’t in it…? Ask me - I can probably help you take screen shots, and anything I have up you may use. Somethings are against my agreement to take, but I can do my best to help everyone out!

I am SO excited to see what everyone comes up with, and I hope you are all looking forward to what I create!

So in our pretty much weekly trip to Target (what can I say?), I grabbed some Hello Kitty / Chococat things…

 
Hello Kitty and Chococat Folders
These were 1 and 2 dollars. The folder is great because now I am not just throwing all my sketches into the backpack and letting them get crinkled. And the notebook will soon replace my other Hello Kitty notebook as I have almost used all the pages.

 

 
The Hello Kitty Mother’s Day Card
So I bought it in the mother from child section. Well, I am my mother’s child. So who cares that I am 20. I thought it was such a cute card, and I didn’t really like any other ones. I have trouble finding cards, and this seemed so like me. Beats the time I gave her three random cards that had NOTHING to do with Mother’s Day… Tehehe. This was such a cute card though.

That was all for the Target trip. Still, super cute!

So, new post time!!! Hurray! This is a kind of tutorial for stenciling a tote bag.

 
Hello Kitty Tote Bag!

First off, these pictures are kind of a tutorial that shows how I made this Hello Kitty Tote Bag! If you want more instructions, the web site I learned from as a sophomore in high school (so that’s nearly 5 years ago) is . Probably one of the best tutorials ever. Choose all of seethesky’s tutorials. It’s changed a bit (I haven’t looked at it in years.. one time really is enough.)

The materials you will need are as follows:
-T-Shirt / Tote Bag / Something To Paint On
-Freezer Paper
-Printer
-Fabric Paint (You can find this at Wal-Mart, Micheal’s, Target - many places. Craft stores offer more choices. I use the 99 cent kind from Michael’s or whatever is on sale at the time).
-Foam brushes or other paint brushes. I suggest foam because it leaves less brush strokes.
-Iron
-Extra/Old Newspaper or Paper
-Ironing Board

So first thing first, creating a stencil. Once again, there are some good tutorials out there. You can do a few things to prepare the image. If it is a photography, I use the “Cut Out” filter in Photoshop with 2 colors. For most things, I just leave the image as is so I can choose where to cut. If you want to make your own image, I suggest using vector art. That way if you want to re-use it, you can re-size it at any size. I use Ilustrator - but I am a student and have to own those programs.

Once you have your stencil ready, you can do one of two things. My favorite is to cut the Freezer Paper (available in grocery stores, Target, etc) down to the 8.5 by 11 inch paper that printers print on and stick that into the printer. If you do that, make sure you print onto the non-waxed side. The paper feel side that isn’t glossy is the side that you must have facing upwards when you iron. So don’t print on the waxed side - this may take a few trys to figure out according to your printer. Or, you can print on normal paper, then somehow adhere that paper to your freezer paper. With this, I have spray mounted onto the non-waxed side, taped the normal paper to the freezer paper lightly, or just held it in place and hoped for the best (which generally works.

Next you have to cut your stencil. You can do this with an exacto knife (which requires a cutting surface) or scissors. There are some complicated issues here, and I will just send you to an external link because it is quite hard to explain. What are called “Bridges” and “Islands” are an important thing that you probably need to read. Here is the link. Be careful when you are cut - and don’t hurt yourself!

Next is ironing and painting! Set your iron to a cotton setting, and let it heat up. Place your cut stencil on to your fabric. Usually I put on the shirt (if it’s a shirt) and make sure the stencil is in a good place ( not too low/high or something) and with tote bags I just play around. Once you like it, take the iron to it. With the GLOSSY SIDE DOWN and the PAPER SIDE UP iron in a circular motion for about 30 seconds. You may need to go longer, depending. Just make sure your stencil is sticking well to the fabric. Don’t worry, it comes off really easily.

Painting is easy. For beginning, I suggest one to two color stencils. You can just pour the paint on and spread it - that is what I do. You can paint on the paper which make this easy. Just make sure you coat it well, but not really thick. Then you wait. Some take the paper stencil off right away, but the paint can bleed this was. Some take it off at the end. I generally take it off at the end because I find it does give crisper edges. I wait about 2-3 hours to take stencils off. Or overnight.

After that, let it dry. Then, if you have any clean up (like bridges to gap) you can do that with a small paintbrush, q-tip, or something else (I tend to take a pencil and dip it into the paint… which is kind of weird.) After that dries, you are ready to go!

I know I have spoken of guilds, and perhaps the “buddy list,” but one of the main things of Hello Kitty are the friends. I feel that this is somewhat important to talk about because it’s not a “feature” of the game that the programmers write, but something that the users create.

 
A bunch of players sitting around, having a good time.

Currently, it seems that in the main town of Florapolis, people gather and talk. Every time I get on, someone is there to talk with. I got a call back for a job interview (I am trying to get my first co-op, a intern like thing where a job is tied to my schooling). The first person to find out and congratulate me was a GM online at the time. Just today a bunch of us gathered in Florapolis to talk about Hello Kitty, hoodies with ears, and more.

One of the things I feel strongly about is community. I have played a fair share of XBOX Live, and as fun as I find Halo 3, I can’t help but shudder every time a rude or just down right mean person comes across my headset. It is one of the more depressing things of online games. In World of Warcraft, it seemed people did nasty things all the time like steal loot. For beta testers and soon to be HKO players, I feel there is something we all have to keep in tact, and that is the sense of caring and community currently in the Hello Kitty Online game.

Helping other players means they will help you, or help others. I have seen it done, and done it myself. You can interact with people, and they become your friends. You know perhaps what age they are, or their favorite character, or perhaps each time you get online you discuss music, anime, or anything really. I’ve already spent hours chatting away with my friends in the game. Any people are so personable.

So I encourage everyone to strive for a friendly community that supports. Helping others figure out quests or get items is not only fun, but nice and helps to build the sort of game atmosphere that really makes gaming fun.

So one of the things I have been wanting to do is interview the GMs (Game Masters) and the players in the Hello Kitty Online beta. These are the people who are currently dedicating their time to making the game it’s best.

My first interviewee is character GM - Abby, a dedicated GM who is always there to help. Abby always says hello whenever a player enters whatever town/area she is in and is always willing to help with anything. Here are some of her opinions.

kitkatherine: What are some of your favorite features of HKO?
GM - AbbyFarming, definitely, and houses, cause the’ll http://blog.sanriotown.com/hkotest256:hellokitty.com/files/2008/05/abby1.JPGreally have a lot more stuff in the futre. Also that you can customize your characters so much, as you will see inthe future versions. But farming is so addictive for me. (And the cooking game!)
Note: The cooking game is a minigame available within the Hello Kitty Online Game

kitkatherine: Who is your favorite Sanrio chracter?
GM - Abby: Actually it’s an old character named Zashikibuta– But here in the game I love Purin Note: In each guild, the guild master chooses a character as a guild guardian. This affects some features in the game, but not many. You can choose from a few of the different chracters to be your guardian.

kitkatherine: What is your favorite item in the game?
GM - Abby: Hmmm… that’s a tough one. Of everything here in the CB, I suppose it’s this boar pet. Like a living cardboard box :P. *hug* It’s too cute.

kitkatherine: Which town/land are you looking forward to the most?
GM - AbbyKitkat, tough call between London and Moscow. But I’d have to say London.

kitkatherine: Do you have any least favorite features?
GM - Abby: Definitely the lack of tooltips, but they’ll definitely be up in the future anyways.

kitkatherine: Any other thoughts or anything else you’d like to say?
GM - Abby: Hope you all enjoy playing the game. I can’t tell you how excited I am for you guys and future updates! See you around. :]

So thank you Abby for your interview. I am hoping to interview more gamers and let you know how people are feeling about the HKO CB!

In a sense this kind of has to do with HKO, and kind of not. I love the Hello Kitty and Friends themes that this blog site uses, and I was really excited to see the new themes. I changed mine to a different CoCo Kurinin (one of my other favorite characters). He’s sleeping, and let me tell you, I love sleep, so this seemed perfect. If you haven’t had a chance go check out the other themes. There is a really cute Pom Pom Purin one that I almost picked! Hopefully there will be a Chococat one soon? *hint, hint* ^_^

I wanted to thank the people at SanrioTown for http://featuring my blog this week. It’s a great honor to have this recognition! So thank you again!

Speaking of blogs, I wanted to let you all know that blogs, videos, and all the features of Sanriotown.com are featured in HKO! I don’t believe I can show screen shots (I think it could go against the certain things I cannot show.) But essentially, all of this stuff you can get from in-game. So if you have a friend in game, you can get to their blog and stuff by meeting their character. This makes for a really nice interaction between friends. Already I have visited friends blogs and videos from the game. It’s one of the nicer things about HKO that makes it a good game. It also encourages people to blog about their experiences, life, and loves. It helps you to make good friends.

So once again, thank you SanrioTown! I’m honored to be the blog of the week!

So… I’ve made it PRETTY apparent that I love Hello Kitty, but my love for Hello Kitty is really just a love for all things Sanrio (and. cute.. for that matter). My favorite character is actually Chococat. I’m going to say when I was in junior high, my sister decided that we each had characters from Sanrio that fit us, and mine was Chococat. She got Hello Kitty (and later Chi Chai Monchan…). But I really do love Chococat. There’s something about dark kitties I always find lovely - even though the cat I fell in love with and cried over was white (but we don’t talk about that…). Anyhow, here’s some of my Chococat stuff.

 
This was a gift from my sister. She lives in California, and from the time I was in 4th grade up until my senior year of high school I visited her 1-3 times a year. She bought me this as a nice thing to put my shampoo and stuff in because I always had problems with it spilling. It is one of the BEST things I own - I still take it on every trip. And the shampoo bottle and conditioner bottle make traveling sooo easy.

 
This little Chococat Pencil case was pretty cheap (2-3 dollars I think ?) and I use it to hold all my makeup brushes. It’s pretty cute, and super useful.

 
This was something my boyfriend bought me our first Valentine’s Day together. We agreed to not get gifts, but I found this and a talking toy that morning. Super sweet. He knows my loves.

For now that’s all. I had an adorable mirror (couldn’t find it for the life of me), and you’ve seen the Chococat CD case. I feel like I’ve had more stuff in the past.. or maybe I’m crazy. Probably crazy - :). But whatever.

So yeah.. more. Here is what I didn’t fit into the last few posts. Tehehe.

 
Hello Kitty Notebook
This is my notebook for school. Most notes and doodles. It’s nice to have.

 

 
Hello Kitty and My Melody Pez Dispensers and Case
My boyfriend bought this for me the other weekend to go along with my collection. I love the clear plastic that they used for the heads. It makes them special. The whole thing was only 9 dollars too!

 
Hello Kitty Shoelaces
I’ve had these on my shoes so long I almost forgot they were Hello Kitty!

That’s all I had left for now Chococat craziness is coming - beware!