At Home With Designer + DIY Costume Master Yvonne Lin
Written by Katie Hintz-Zambrano
Photography by Senay Inanici
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Step inside the creative and colorful home of the mom of two behind @eatyourmonsters.
As soon as you enter the front door of Yvonne Lin‘s home, it’s clear: Magic happens here.
From the creative projects strewn across the funky space to a large window-lined room that almost exclusively houses the family’s hand-made costumes, the color and creativity in the home is a clear reflection of its occupants (which include kiddos Roni, 12, and Lenny, 9).
Yvonne is a designer and author with a wide range of accomplishments under her belt (including running a 50,000-square-foot adventure park for kids), but it’s her DIY costumes that have made her Instagram-famous over at @eatyourmonsters. That’s where we first “met” her over a year ago via her impressive pom pom monster creation.
Ever since, we’ve been itching to know the mom behind the fits. Lucky for us—and just in time for Halloween—Yvonne invited us over to her rambling East Bay home to see where it all goes down.
In addition to photographing the family in a variety of fun getups (including a cardboard anglerfish, giant cakes, and a big broccoli stem), we also got to do a deep dive with Yvonne on all things motherhood, creativity, costumes, her off-kilter upbringing, her current list of inspirations (which is a work of art within itself), and raising confident, self-reliant kids.
“As a person, I need to make something every day. So there are always projects happening around our house, and my kids have grown up surrounded by them. They watch me transform things every day, so they assume they can do it too,” she explains. “It also helps that they learned from a very early age that we can build really, really cool things ourselves (better than the store-bought version). My kids have a pretty strong sense of what they’re capable of. They know that if they want something, they can try making it themselves, or we can figure out how to build it together.”
Read and see more in our inspiring feature below!
Be sure to follow Yvonne at @eatyourmonsters on Instagram.
Did you always know you wanted to be a mother?
"Nope, I did not. I wasn’t one of those kids who played house. I was one of those kids who duct-taped a sail to my skateboard to see how fast I could go."
"When I turned 35, I was at the point where I knew I didn’t not want to have kids (if that makes sense), which isn’t quite the same as actively wanting them. But I understood fertility rates, and I knew the clock was starting to tick. I remember being 8.5 months pregnant, walking past a playground, and feeling worried that I was far more interested in the dogs than the children. But, I’ve found that being a mom feels like an oddly correct fit."
How were your pregnancies?
"My husband and I had always planned to backpack around the world for a while, but when it turned out he couldn’t take time off work, we decided to try for our first kiddo instead. About 2 months later, we found out two things: he could get the time off after all, and I was pregnant."
"So we bought one-way tickets to China and spent several months traveling and exploring, figuring we’d head back to NYC whenever I got too pregnant to want to keep going. Honestly, it was pretty glorious. By the time we got back to NYC, I was unmistakably pregnant and mostly getting around the city by subway. I quickly noticed that women were fantastic about offering me their seats, but men were a more aggravating story. Throughout my entire first pregnancy, not a single man offered me a seat on the subway. During my second pregnancy, the same subway gender divide started to repeat. I decided to channel my annoyance into shenanigans."
"I had a trophy made, carried it around in my backpack, and waited for the first man to offer me his seat on the subway so I could give it to him. That man was Ricky Barksdale. Ricky and my family have stayed in touch for the past nine years, and he is genuinely one of the best people ever. The whole thing brought great joy." (Just Google Image subway pregnant trophy and you’ll find it.)
“You have a superpower as an artist. You are magic. You can literally make things exist that have never existed before. Don’t take that away from yourself or your kids.”
Tell us about your kids' names.
"Both my kids are named after Astrid Lindgren characters. My older kiddo, Roni, is named after Ronia, the Robber’s Daughter. In the book, she is a brave, independent, compassionate, stubborn, smart and resourceful, and she has a joyous 'spring yell' to celebrate nature and freedom."
"My younger kiddo, Lenny, is named after Leonard Cohen, but his middle name, Karlsson, comes from Karlsson on the Roof. In the book, Karlsson is mischievous, fearless, charming, and a little bit defiant."
What excites you about raising both a son and daughter?
"I’ve never really cared about the gender of my kiddos. I did find out their sexes while I was pregnant, but it was never a big deal to either my husband or I. I’ve always thought that many toys are meaninglessly superficially gendered. I’m a designer, and I started exploring what gender means in design about 20 years ago, when I co-founded The Femme Den, a design group within Smart Design."
"For me, it’s always been about figuring out what excites my kids and how I can encourage them to explore those interests more deeply, rather than telling them, 'These are the things for you because you’re a girl, and these are the things for you because you’re a boy.' I’d much rather let their curiosity lead the way."
What has surprised you about the experience of motherhood so far?
"I think becoming a mother has helped me get much better at figuring out what matters and what doesn’t. As a lifelong perfectionist overachiever, I’ve always wanted to do and be the most of the most. Now, I’m better at letting the things that don’t really matter slide, and spending time on the things that really matter or the things that bring joy."
What was your own upbringing like?
"Despite being Asian, I had a very non-tiger-parent childhood. I think my parents were genuinely shocked when both my little sister and I were accepted into quite good universities (they had never asked to see our report cards)."
"There is a Chinese proverb that says, 'A thousand miles traveled are more educational than a thousand books read' and my parents walked this walk. As kids, we didn’t go to Disneyland, we went to rural China, the Congo, Uganda, the Amazon, and other places where we learned about the possibilities and breadth of the world."
"My parents are also serial entrepreneurs who were always experimenting. One of my earliest memories was my mother duct-taping 360 degree swivel wheels to the bottom of my shoes because she didn’t think roller skates have enough degrees of freedom. I can confidently report that roller skates, as they are, absolutely have enough degrees of freedom. The upshot is both my sister and I have probably irrational amounts of self-confidence, are not afraid to fail, and are pretty willing to try things."
Is the "type" of parent you want to be something you've ever thought about? What about consciously incorporating creativity into your parenting?
"Honestly, I have never really thought about the type of parent I want to be. Incorporating art, design, and creativity into my kids' lives and my life isn’t really a conscious decision, it’s just something that happens. As a person, I need to make something every day. Otherwise, I turn into someone extremely unpleasant to live with. So there are always projects happening around our house, and my kids have grown up surrounded by them. They watch me transform things every day, so they assume they can do it too."
"It also helps that they learned from a very early age that we can build really, really cool things ourselves (better than the store-bought version). For a long time, my son’s favorite toy was a multilevel cardboard parking garage that we made together."
"At this point, my kids have a pretty strong sense of what they’re capable of. They know that if they want something, they can try making it themselves, or we can figure out how to build it together."
What advice would you give to other moms—especially artist moms—about to start their motherhood journey?
"Motherhood and art are not mutually exclusive. You have a superpower as an artist. You are magic. You can literally make things exist that have never existed before. Don’t take that away from yourself or your kids. If you’re short on energy and time, art shouldn’t be the first to go; prioritize it. When your kids see you make art, or when you make art with them, it completely changes their understanding of what’s possible. Give art space and time; it matters."
“There is a Chinese proverb that says, ‘A thousand miles traveled are more educational than a thousand books read’ and my parents walked this walk. As kids, we didn’t go to Disneyland, we went to rural China, the Congo, Uganda, the Amazon, and other places where we learned about the possibilities and breadth of the world.”
Tell us about your home.
"We’ve been in this house for a little over 3 years. My favorite thing about this house is that it was built by an obsessive person and it was a labor of love. The wood was salvaged from a 100-year-old pier and the beams have hand-chiseled mortise and tenon joins."
"It’s also full of wonderful unpractical odd spaces and quirks. The second story railings are both hand carved and entirely not child safe. The ceiling over the toilet is absolutely unnecessarily vaulted. The kids 2-room loft is a fairy tale delight. All the doors are handmade and 3 inches thick. The house even came with an enormous socket wrench that we need to use every 2 years or so to take apart and tighten the front door so that it hangs straight."
"It’s the kind of house where someone clearly cared about making something extraordinary and deeply personal, and I love that about it."
What do you like about raising your kids in the Bay Area?
"It’s definitely been a bit of a transition from living in a 1000-square-foot NYC apartment to moving to the Bay Area suburbs. The space has been a big positive. My kids love having their own rooms and we’re building a lot bigger things now. In the last 3 years, we’ve built a rideable vacuum-powered hover craft, a full-sized sidewalk cart, and far too many large cardboard costumes, all which would have been very hard to do in our NYC apartment."
"On the other hand, I’ve been actively searching for an arts community here. I’ve found wonderful pockets of it, but it’s not nearly as in-your-face or woven into everyday life as it is in NYC. I definitely miss that."
Do you have any favorite spots in the Bay Area that folks would find you at when you're not at home or in the studio?
"Adventure Playground in Berkeley (I’m so glad this exists). The Flipper Room in Concord (vintage pinball arcade, these old machines are works of art). New Parkway Cinema in Oakland (it’s the ideal movie theater). The French Spot in Concord (I’m a food motivated mammal, and this place is great). Box Shop in San Francisco (art studios with open hours)."
Can you tell us about your career in a nutshell?
"I’m a designer and the founder of 4B Collective and the Femme Den at Smart Design. I was named a Master of Design by Fast Company and have designed numerous award-winning and best-selling products and services for clients including Under Armour, LEGO, Hasbro, UNICEF, Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, Gatorade, Nissan, Harley-Davidson, and American Express. I’m also the inventor on more than 20 patents and the author and illustrator of The A–Z of Wonder Women."
"I’ve taught at Parsons School of Design and serve as the Design Chair of YoungArts, a national organization dedicated to identifying and supporting exceptional young artists. I also built and run a 50,000-square-foot adventure park."
"I hold degrees from Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design. I share my late night projects on Instagram @eatyourmonsters. Among them is a Reel about me meeting Martha Stewart and presenting her with a Wonder Bread Nativity Jesus I made—a tribute to my 35-year love of Martha and her indomitable commitment to crafting, a peek into my recent foray into making potty training and colonoscopy cakes, and an ever-growing collection of homemade costumes that some might consider excessive."
Tell us about the costumes! Have you always been making costumes (even pre-kids)?
"Pre-kids, as a designer, Halloween is our Olympics. At design agencies, actual design work gets pretty spotty the week before Halloween because everyone (including me) is working on their costumes."
"Post-kids, I’m a maker and I don’t really care what the medium is. Cake, oil paint, clay, old cardboard boxes, marble, and hot dogs are all equally legitimate art materials to me. As a designer, I love making things that are both artistic and functional. And costumes tick both boxes. Funnily enough, having kids creates yearlong costume demand. Between the 100th day of school, Halloween, school plays, Book Character Day, Dress Like Your Hero Day, and the release of a new Star Wars movie—there is always another reason to make a costume."
"The first pom pom monster that I made with the purple cone horns has probably been the most popular costume that I’ve shared. One of my favorite things, is that each year I get a couple of photos from people who have made their own version of it."
What are some of the favorite costumes you've ever made? Anything on your bucket list you're still itching to do?
"I just came back from a weeklong art camp where I made 2 autobiographical costumes and it felt really good to turn my nebulous feelings into something concrete. I’ve been in emotional chaos lately, and I’m 99.9% sure I’m perimenopausal. The headliner for the 2 costumes is 'Yvonne is full of rage and whimsy.'"
"Costume 1 is Big Whimsy, Some Rage. The feelings/abstract thoughts that drove this costume are: alien invasion, enormous Earth wart, pain in the ass, god damn delightful, obnoxious, overwhelming, delirious, too much, and wiggle waggle. It’s an enormous, uncontrollable, balloon-covered inflatable worm."
"Costume 2 is Big Rage, Some Whimsy. The feelings/abstract thoughts that drove this costume are: perimenopause, fire, more fire, laugh cry, perfectly fine, what would Martha do?, not my circus, not my monkeys, make or break, I’m a burning house."
"Kid wise, Roni made an Eggward Scissorhands hat last summer and it’s pretty incredible. I helped her with brainstorming and with some technical help, but she made 95% of it on her own. Lenny loves cooking and baking. Earlier this year he made two incredible looking brain cakes that he is justifiably proud of, one of his brain (wrinkly) and one of his sisters brain (smooth). He got away with it because it was cake and she wanted her cake, so she couldn’t kill him."
For folks feeling intimidated by making their own costumes — what advice would you give?
"Hot glue, Pop Rocks candy, and Mr. Clean Magic Erasers are the three most magical things in the world. Get yourself a dual-temperature, mini-stick, corded hot glue gun. It will change your making life and open up a world of possibilities (mainly cardboard monsters)."
"Start with a box-based cardboard costume that amuses you as an adult and goes completely over your kid’s head. The Winosaurus I made for my whiny kid out of wine boxes is a good beginner-friendly costume. It’s inexpensive, creative and open-ended (there’s nothing that it needs to look like), inexpensive, and proof that you don’t need fancy materials to make something wonderful."
Do you know what your family is "going as" for Halloween this year?
"Lenny is pretty set on being Hungry Broccoli, so that he can run after kids and yell, 'Just one bite.' Roni is still a bit undecided, she’s either going to be an angler fish, the Mangolorian (mango, not mando) or something that we haven’t made yet. My husband might go as a kawaii pink cake and I might be a goth cake. But all of that is subject to change, possibly several times before Halloween."
Do you have any go-to creative habits or practices to get grounded in yourself, inspired, and ready to create?
"My go-to creative habit is mostly setting aside me time to make stuff after my kids are asleep. The reason so many of my project updates on Instagram have pitch-black windows in the background is that it’s usually 1 a.m. The combination of Netflix, a cocktail, and a repetitive artsy task is my happy place."
What's inspiring you lately?
"Oh yes. This is my current roster of crushes (in no particular order): Eiko Ishioka. Nick Cave Sound Suits. The Fall (2006 movie). Blade Runner (1982). Pilobolus. OK Go videos. Paula Rego. Mexican Brutalism. Luis Barragan. Javier Senosiain. George Nakashima Woodworkers Complex. @icantaffordthisbutmaybeshecan. @lillimarenbakes. Little Free Libraries."
Any big goals or happenings—professionally or personally—that you're excited about for the year ahead?
"I was voluntold that I am now the artistic director of Cake Picnic and I’m very excited about the upcoming Sweet & Spooky themed Cake Picnic. I’m very much looking forward to hundreds of Halloween cakes in one place made by aggressively ambitious, cake-motivated people. I’m also starting to get itchy and it’s time for me to start working on my next business start up—whatever that may be."
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Yvonne is thee coolest mother I’ve never met. Her + her kids creativity inspires me on a very regular basis. I’ve never made so many projects during halloween as I did this year, and I attribute that to the fact that she has been teaching the masses how to make and create all on their own all month.