JJM Handcrafted: October 2008

Friday, October 24, 2008

Monday, October 20, 2008

This year's Fall Brewery ArtWalk is on November 1&2. I am taking full advantage and doing lots of fun skull art.

6x6 panel with a rough sketch of my skull. you can see some of my color palate off to the side.

Flowers play a big role in Day of the Dead festivities and most skulls have flowers for eyes.

This is step one of many to create the flowers. I chose a hydrangea flower.

The classic "Skinner Blend", a perfect transition from hot pink to purple.

Next up is a sparkled blue. In the background you can see clay in various states.

The beginnings of a flower.

It is really hard to picture what you'll end up with, but you just have to have faith and picture things in a different dimension.

And finally, petals! Sorry for the crappy quality image.

Almost a flower.

Eyes and the early dental work.

Say cheese

I'm don't totally love the nose, but sometimes living with it is better than debating.

Finished? I'm still on the fence about doing my traditional swirly sparkled clay in black in the white areas, or I'll just paint it white. I'll probably try the clay and see if it is too much.

I like the way it turned out. It has lots of texture and is really sparkly, I do love the glitter.

Sugar skulls made out of clay.

Resin bottle cap sugar skulls. Some are magnets and some are pins.

my drawings for the bottle cap pins and magnets

And the Obama logo! Thanks to A Patchwork World for the DIY on the resin bottle caps! I want to encase everything in resin! I also did some YES WE CAN.

I love that Obama has all his logos and catch phrases on the site in high res. Make some Obama art of your own! I plan to make funky Obama shirts to wear both days of ArtWalk. Fun Fun Fun!

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

6 years

Matt and I celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary on Sunday. Modern tradition calls for candy. Chocolate is candy, right?

Off we went to the 90210 to get chocolate.

We started at www.edelweisschocolates.com, we waited a long time behind a fancy old lady who bought $75 in chocolates. She comes every Saturday to buy chocolate. Lucky! She was the typical old Beverly Hills actress, perfectly coiffed and wearing fancy jewels. Too bad I don't know old movie star types. We got some chocolate peanut butter bars and marshmallows coated chocolate and rolled in nuts.

We continued to walk throughout Beverly Hill seeking out www.teuscher-beverlyhills.com . This was a totally different vibe, new innovative and hip. Here we got the signature Champagne Truffles and a few other small, small pieces of chocolate.

We ate the marshmallow chocolates in the car, they were alright, nothing great. Once home I cut the 3 pieces of chocolate from Teuscher in half, one for each. OMG this is amazing chocolate. I've thought about it frequently since. YUM. The Edleweiss was only ok.

For our dinner out we went to a place that I think looks cool from the outside. We had no idea what we were in for, fortunately it ended up out great. The Next Door Tapas Bar, no sign outside, just a valet parker. No clear entrance you kind of wander through the dining area to find the bar. On our first venture in we backed out and wondered if we were entering the right door. I pulled Matt in and into the darkend bar with big funky chandeliers. I suggested we stay for a drink, especially since the valet parked our car. Midway into the drink the other couple sitting at the bar ordered some sliders, not listed on the menu. So of course we also have to order the sliders. They were great! We proceeded to order tuna ceviche, carpachio with roasted artichokes and some fancy ham from Spain. The pigs roam free along the countryside in Spain eating acorns, dreamy. We also lucked into pepitos fritas, the computer crashed and the kitchen got the order twice, that was served with a spicy cheese sauce. For dessert I had a honey caramel pastry thing and Matt had a coffee something. Again super good!

It was a fun weekend. I'm a lucky girl.