Lunchbox Awesome

Lunch. More specifically bentos. It's the last thing on my mind at night as I ponder what I have in my fridge and sketch the following days design. It's the first thing on my mind when my alarm goes off at 5:45...  and a groggy "Time to make the bento" plays in my head like the old Dunkin Donuts commercial.

I decided during this past summer that I wanted to make a fun bento every day for my kiddo's lunches this school year. I dug around online for a bit to see ideas and found some very fun sites that have recipes and tutorials for how to manipulate food into shapes and patterns that you don't envision initially when you think about it.

Day one I put together a cute, generic style, bento. I knew immediately that I wanted to do Disney characters and other fun imagery. But little did I know, that crazy idea I had during the summer, would be received so warmly with my Facebook friends. I started posting them daily there and got so many requests for a place to see them all at once. A book, a blog... a tumblelog.

One day a book may be in order. But for now they can all bee seen in one place at lunchboxawesome.tumblr.com.

Goofy, I know. But this morning ritual has become an important part of my day. I love trying to figure out how I can use different food to make a fun piece of edible art. I am creative every day, I'm a designer by day and all around artsy-crafty gal at night but now I get to start every day being creative right off the bat... it's invigorating.

I'd love for you to visit Lunchbox Awesome and try a few yourself! Come back and link your creations in the comments if you do! Bon appetite!

iPad SketchBook

We've had our iPad for about a week and I've played with it every day - reading, playing games, browsing the internet and checking twitter and facebook. After seeing the demos one of the main reasons I, personally, wanted the iPad was for the drawing apps. However the whole week went by and I barely looked at them. Then a friend posted a link to Jim Lee's sketch of Wonder Woman he did on his iPad while getting a haircut.

I'm no Jim Lee, but darnet, I am an artist and we have Sketchbook Pro too! It was the whole reason I wanted the silly iPad in the first place. So I decided to break it out and "get serious." My first attempt is a bit clunky and it's going to take a little getting used to drawing with my finger (I plan to get a stylus soon) but it's so much fun!

I love the splatter brush and I think it was a fun brush to play with to get started and just do a loose illustration. I went into it thinking I was going to do a perfect illustration but found that just playing around was fun and the outcome was still neat, if not polished and tight. I'll get there.

My only complaint (and it's not really a complaint) was that Sketchbook Pro "crashed" while I was working on it and I lost about 30 minutes of drawing. Not sure what happened. The screen just went black and came back up on the apps screen. When I opened the app back up it had reverted to the last saved version (which wasn't much). It appears the same rules may apply to the iPad as any other computer... SAVE, save often.

I didn't put quite as much detail back in as I had in the original... instead I experimented with different layers and brushes and just had fun with it. (after cursing and moaning for about 10 mins about how much I lost). C'est la vie. Live and learn.

The iPad is an amazing little gadget and after a week of the whole family taking turns (very patiently) playing with it, all I have to say is... Do you have one yet? =)

The World Looks Mighty Good to Me...

Oh, the world looks mighty good to me,
'Cause Mickey Mouse is all I see.
Whatever it is I think I see
It becomes a Mickey Mouse to me
Mickey Mouse, Mickey Mouse woohoo
Mickey Mouse I think I'm in love with you.
Whatever it is I think I see
It becomes a Mickey Mouse to me.

Ok, so perhaps I just went a bit overboard with repurposing the 1970's Tootsie Roll jingle. But it fit so well! It's true, I see Mickey's all over and if they don't exist for real, I make them. This is the wreath on my front door. I've attached three grapevine wreaths together and I change out the foliage throughout the year to correspond to the seasons. Christmas being the only exception... I made a Mickey head out of pine wreaths...

For Fall, I have pumpkins on the grapevine wreath. And of course the pumpkins are Mickey's too! They were almost as simple as the new ornaments I concocted.

It starts with pumpkin garlands (Check your local craft stores right now, most of them are on sale 50%+). The ears are made from wooden circles. You just carve a little niche in each side the pumpkins with an xacto knife (btw, the xacto knife is one of the "must have tools" in my craft box).

Glue the ovals in the slots and paint to match the pumpkin. I had to completely repaint the pumpkins this year because they got rained on last year and faded pretty badly. I recommend coating with a sealer or mod podge. Seems to have solved the runny/faddy problems this year. I also added a little sparkle to them with glitter.

You can see that the grapevine sections are loose and wonky, it's about 7 or 8 years old and in need of a little maintenance itself. Perhaps I can repair or replace after the holidays this year when the pine version gives it a break!

Happy Holidays!

Surprise Ornament

Are you thinking what I'm thinking...

A Mickey Mouse head ornament right???
You're not? Well, hold on! You'll see...

I couldn't believe how quick this went together! No glue, very little mess, no fuss! I'll be heading back out for more colors to completely fill my tree with these little beauties this year! Let me show you just how simple it is and I bet you'll have a few on your tree too!

What you need:
2 sizes of plastic glittered ornaments
(check your local craft stores for 50% deals!)
Xacto knife

That's it!

STEP ONE



Remove hanger from 2 smallest ornaments

STEP TWO



Gently start poking hole in larger ornament close to the hanger with Xacto knife. Turn blade clock wise increasing pressure each turn to carve away hole until it is slightly smaller than neck of smallest ornament. Repeat on opposite side.





For the size of ornaments I used, the width of the largest part of the blade was the perfect fit.



Line up the neck of the smallest ornament with hole and gently twist into hole. Repeat on other side. Be carful not to push too hard or you could crease the plastic which leaves a bright "scar" across the bend.



Voila! There you have it! A perfectly adorable Mickey Head ornament! I told you it was easy! How many will you make? Please link back and share your creations if you make some! ºoº

Love and Duh!

I took the Facebook quiz of "Which Disney romance will yours be like?" The result was a great big *DUH!* =D

Halloween Jack

He's finished!!!! It only took six... or seven years! Ok, so it didn't really take *that* long. But I did start him in 2001 and just had a hard time completing the project. I had done the whole inside part and left off the border, then put him away and promptly forgot about him. And I know myself better now, I should have started at the top and just worked down like a normal person, but I get so excited I need to see the "face" completed. Once I do, I am done. When I do drawings or anything with faces and I complete the face (and sometimes just the eyes) I can't seem to get any further. So, I try to work on the piece as a whole now, or else, I know I'm doomed.

Anyway, I found him by accident not too long ago and decided he needed to be completed for this halloween. He was made by doing a sketch on 16x20 paper, then the outline was traced onto the latch-hook canvas. I blocked out the rough color areas but just sorta felt my way through the details since I didn't transfer any color marks to the canvas. Ta-da! Nice to have you completed Jack!

Back from the Land

It's so hard to come back from a Disney vacation and get back to "things as usual". My brain lingers on the adventures experienced and sweet memories made. And every inch of me wishes I was still waiting in a line for the next thrilling ride... Oh well, time to plan the next trip and have something to look forward to! =)

(Autopia, Toontown, Teacups)

BLISS!

My Disneyland vacation packet arrived today! Park passes, check. Bus vouchers, check. Magic Extras vouchers, check. Dream Coin, check. Luggage tags, check. Woohoo! We visited the Disney Character Warehouse Outlet tonight and picked up a few new wardrobe pieces among other fun stuff.

For the first time in my many visits to the Land I'll be staying on property... well on-off property, at a Good Neighbor resort. Helps stretch the budget a little further and still gets us close. We have special dining reservations planned already. I just need to confirm opening times etc. to plan Magic Morning and Toontown Morning!

Z and I are both very excited. He'll be tall enough to ride a majority of rides this time too which should be a super-blast. Looking forward to more Disney memories with the Z-bert.

20 days and counting. M-I-C... see ya real soon!