Zombies love their Brains!!!

One of the birthday presents I got for The BFF for his birthday yesterday (Happy Birthday Bryan!) was a Monster By Mail zombie portrait of him at work. (all those television monitors to keep track of would surely turn anyone into a zombie!)
So keeping with the theme, I made brain cupcakes for him to take to work to share. (for more info on how I made them and more photos, see my recipe blog) Creativity comes in many forms, you know. ;p
Mixing frosting colors is, in some ways, very much like mixing paints, but of course, presents it's own challenges, paints aren't usually going to get too warm to work with. The color-in-color sripes that can be achieved by using different colors in the same bag, is fairly unique to frosting.

Museum

Due to me not reading the free pass correctly, The BFF, The Artist Extreeme, and I did NOT go to the local zoo as planned yesterday afternoon. And would you believe that the free pass only expired the day before! Arrrrgggg!
So we were still set to go somewhere, and we checked out a few local things on the web to see what we wanted to do, and we all agreed on the Sheldon Memorial Art Museum. After finally finding a place to park, we weaved our way through all the new students finding their way around the downtown and campus area to get to the museum.
There was a very cool video installation, and of course, the permanent collection is great, but the best part for us, was the sculpture/multi media exhibit by Elizabeth King. Sculptures of her face, most about 1 /4 size, with blown glass eyeballs created by another artist, were so life like, I kept expecting them to move. Hand sculptures carved from wood, with animations of them actually moving, with stop-frame photography. Just breathtaking all of it.
One of my favorite parts of this phenomenal exhibit were her sketches of how to make the figures, even cut out with paper, now that's an art journal page! And there was a display case of antique dolls and figurines that the artist has collected to help her explore how her predecessors made their art.
Very inspirational indeed.

No More Excuses

Well, the whole not-posting-because-I-can't-get-photos-uploaded issue is finally solved! Our new computer arrived this week, and photos will be aplenty!
I'm trying to make a point with our new computer to use it for good, not evil. ;p Meaning I want to do artistic things with it, and not just games or time wasters. So last night, I did the first tutorial on our art program Art Rage.
There was one point in the tutorial that it gave a couple paragraphs of directions of what to do if your drawing didn't fit on your screen...well, that's one problem I WON'T be having!
And a funny parental moment happened, well, a couple moments. Both kids saw me working on the tutorial and had very different reactions. The Artist Extreeme, when realizing that I was working from instructions, gave me grief, 'why are you doing what they're telling you to?', he the ever do-it-yourself artist. To which I explained that I was using their tutorial so that I could learn my way 'round their tools, but that didn't convince him. The Rawk Star, on the other hand, was very impressed with this little bit of art, to which I had to fess up that I was tracing their photo, using their instructions, but he was still impressed, his tracing 'looking like a mess' according to him (but I know that was an exaggeration).
I'm thinking that I might make a kind of on-line Art Journal about learning the Art Rage program, still thinking about how and where I would do that...maybe just another blogspot site, dedicated to only the Art Rage art? Whaddya think of that?

Pincushions

Pincushions
Originally uploaded by seeshells

There is sooo much cool stuff on Craft Stylish, I'm sure I miss half of it! Luckily, others share when they find something cool! Crafty Pod pointed to an awesome tutorial for tiny pincushions made from bottle tops. They are so simple and quick, I cranked out four on my breaks at work, even on a week that I took one day off!
Of course, I had to add beads, and some sequins, too! If you click back to flickr, you can see each one closer up!
As I was making them, I decided one of these would be for my mom, her birthday being the last day of July. One just seemed to be specifically for her, and when I was working on that one, she happened to call from their vacation! So that clinched it for me. I'll still let her decide which one she likes best, I wonder if she'll pick the one I think she'll pick...(OK Mom, make your pick!)

And knowing me, I can't just make cute little pretties. As I was stitching the top on one, I thought, 'hmm this feels like it could be a brain' and the zombie pincushion below was born! I think he ended up looking a little like Bert, but that wasn't intended. That one is mine, of course!