A Birthday Plan Gone Awry

So...a great idea, right? I made these for Suzi's birthday. This is mine:

Kelly's:

Suzi's:

Alas, I put mine on and forgot the others...sigh. They had a lovely day on my couch. So, I was the idiot at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts yesterday wearing the "happy" shirt. 

BUT let me tell you how I made them - it was genius. I got some of those vinyl sticky letters and stuck them on the shirts. Then I put liquid Rit dye (black) in a spray bottle and sprayed over them. I was worried that it would seep under the letters, but it worked beautifully! I wanted to use blue on the blue shirt, and maybe red on the pink, so it wasn't so stark, but I wasn't sure if it was going to work, so I just got black. Since it was freaking AWESOME, I'm going to do it again with better colors.

Genius!

No, you're probably not going to think this is genius, but you know those moments you have where you're like "Whoa! I'm TOTALLY smarter than a fifth grader!!"? This was one of those for me.

Since no one bought me this for my birthday, I got it for myself at Michael's with a 50% off coupon:

Now, it comes with all those little pans wrapped in plastic, then paper with the name of the color (and the brand and blah, blah, blah) on them. But what about when you throw that wrapper away? How the heck would you remember what color you ran out of to buy a new one? I turned the pans over to see the bottom - NO color indications at all.

This was my solution:

This is my newest Cheap Thoughts Journal. I've ALWAYS carried some kind of book around with me. Not a planner, not just a notebook, yes, I sketch in it, but it's not really my sketchbook, either. I take it to school and write class notes in it and doodle and take it everywhere. It's thick and new and will be better than putting them in my planner because that's just for August and I'm not likely to remember. I'm SO EXCITED that I thought of this, I just had to share with you. Sometimes the simplest solutions are the best ones. I could have just stuck them on a piece of paper that would end up in "the safe place" (you know what that is - the place where you're never going to forget you put something, and then you forget). Instead, there it is. All safe and sound in my CTJ. Love it!

Hell, take 2

I'm slightly obsessed with this one, I know. I'm really not sure why. But I added some red to her letters and I think it's freaking fantastic. Amazing. I love it even more than I already did. Seriously, how in love with my own work should I be? I can't help it, I guess! Every once in a while I'm just like "Wow. I did that?!?!?"

This is what I used for the red. So many people seem confused when you say "Sharpie water-based poster paint pen", so here is a picture. It says "water-based" on it. The oil-based ones are NOT the same. 

What IS that??

This is my hair. It's black. Those little streaks? White and yellow paint. I'm out in public, after a shower, when I notice this...

It makes me notice these things, too...

This is what happens when you paint near your computer!

Don't get me wrong - I have no problem with the paint on the computer, it was just an observation!

BIrthday pretzels!

Pretzel story: my friend Jess sent me these for my birthday. They were supposed to come two-day shipping, so I would have gotten them Friday. She texted, wanted to know if I'd gotten them. Nope. Since I live in an apartment and it's not a walk-up, the process is for the UPS man to check the call box (I'm not in there because they wouldn't put an out-of-state number in the box and I'm not changing the cell phone number I've had for a zillion years), and then to leave a sticky note on the glass door with my name and apartment number on it, telling me that the package is in the apartment office. Then I take the sticky note over to the office, with a picture ID, and they have a book with the deliveries (which are locked in a closet) written down - when they came in, how they came in (USP, USPS, etc), the name and apartment of the person. If it's on the list, they get it out of the closet, check your ID, you sign, they give it over.

My friend Jess calls UPS and they tell her it didn't get on the right truck, it's going to be late. She, of course, is pissed. It's HOT, those are CHOCOLATE, she's picturing disaster. They tell her it won't make it to me until Monday and she raises hell and they agree to send a fresh one - once this one gets here.

Monday comes and she calls me - gives me the time of delivery and the name of the person who signed for it. I look for the door sticky and it's not there, but when I actually go out into the lobby, it's sitting on the floor. So I stick it in  my notebook and write down the name of the person and blah, blah, blah. But I have school on Monday nights, and I didn't want to traipse over to the office myself and be confronted with a box that was too big for me to carry home (it's a long story, but I can't carry things with both hands, my right arm is not fully functional). Tuesday I forgot about it, we took Liam to the park when Tim got home, made fajitas, and watched the Olympics. Wednesday Tim was off and I was going to spend most of the day studying and then meeting a friend, and then studying some more. So he goes to the office for the package, then comes to pick me up that evening. He tells me there was a package in the office, but it was my contributor's copy of Suzi's book, NOT the box from my friend. Well, my friend had called UPS, confirmed the delivery, and given me a name to yell at if I needed to.

6:44 Wednesday evening, we go to the office. The sign says "open". The hours posted are 10A-7P. The doors are locked. There are people inside. I pull out my phone to call and make a fuss (embrace the mayhem)  when the girl who is supposed to be inside, helping the boy who is obviously on his day off and there to give her a hand, walks up. She lets us in, with an attitude. I explain the deal. She opens the book and points to the page where Tim's signature clearly says he's picked up a package that was delivered Monday. I tell her again that he picked up a package, but NOT the one that I know is there. Instead of looking for the actual package, she pages through EVERY piece of paper in that book, determined to prove me wrong. RIDICULOUS. She finally opens the closet and looks for the box, and it's RIGHT THERE.

So I rip it open on the seat of the car, preparing to take pictures for my angry friend so she can send them to UPS, and here is what I found:

Look at that! Perfection:

The cold packs were still cold! How great is that?? They're super tasty, too. Worth the wait!

Uncomfortable with attention

Maybe it's "credit" more than "attention" that I'm uncomfortable with? I have a friend who wants to submit our Zombie Bunny project to Somerset Studios next Easter and the thought of my name in print makes me squirm. I've been avoiding putting anything in my eportfolio at school because that will be my name AND my work out there on the web for anyone and everyone to see. It just creeps me out, and it makes me feel like "Who the fuck are you to put your stuff out there like you're somebody? You're just a chick sitting on the couch animating fruit for idiotic cartoons." Harsh, right? We say meaner things to ourselves than we ever would to anyone else. See how I'm babbling to avoid  saying what I'm here to say? I'm super squirmy about this!

This is Suzi's book. By now, you guys all know that Suzi and I are good friends. She moved here to be close to me and Kelly, we hang out and drink a lot of coffee together. We paint together. Her book is really great. Amazingly great. It comes with a DVD, and shows all the steps and stages of making a mixed-media girl, Suzi Blu style. I LOVE it. But I've avoided promoting it (which is silly) because....

I didn't want to tell you about this! How sill am I? It's my painting in Suzi's book. 

So, the book is AWESOME, and you can get it at Amazon or Barnes & Noble, or from the amazing Suzi herself! Now I have to be done talking about it, I feel a little sick. Ridiculous, I know.

Hell is...

So, here is a girl...I might have posted her before. The shading is better in person, of course. 

And I really wanted to stamp "hell is other people" on her, my new favorite quote. I was using the alphabet stamps that I carved myself, and I thought were going to take up more space so I thought I'd put two words at the top and two at the bottom, but the first two didn't take up very much space. I was a little torn then, because leaving a HUGE space between the words - two all the way at the top and two way down at the bottom - seemed silly.

But I just went with it! I'm happy. She rocks my socks.