What color is your hair?

I had fun searching through this great site today called 'Beeunique' Alternative Hair Dye Photo Gallery, that features a ton of wild Manic Panic hair colors on real people (no mannequins here, no siree bob!), some of them are really creative! Rock on hair rebels!
above: some of my favorites from the site

Sailor Jerry's Jello Shooters

1.) 1 package of sugar free jello

2.) add 1 cup boiling water

3.) *stir*

4.) add 1/2 cup rum or whatevah and then 1/2 cup cold water. You can add more rum or liquor if you'd like and add less cold water (as long as everything equals one cup).

basically you are just substituting the 'cold' water on the package for liquor.

note: all I had was paper cups but these work much better in small plastic ones, or grab a spoon!

From Brooch to Necklace!

Tada!, I took a vintage brooch (an ebay impulse purchase) and made a silicone mold of it, the end result is a two tone horse necklace! Available now in the shop!

Oh Thank Heaven...

...for 711! Today is officially Slurpee day! My friend Jessica of Kustom Voodoo messaged me today to tell me about the free slurpees at 711! 'cept my lazy butt got up too late and missed the free 7am-11am slurpee rush!! I'm bummed but happy too because I found this very funny, very cool (get it, cool!) site dedicated to the tastiest frosty treat around! At MySlurpeeCup.Com you can find bullet pointed (who doesn't love bullet points?) facts about 711, Slurpee Addiction (are you an addict?), Brainfreeze symptoms and more!

Some of my fav. addiction symptoms include:

• You cry if the 7-Eleven gets robbed, and calm yourself down with another Slurpee

• Your tongue is stained the color of your favourite Slurpee flavour

• You deliberately take your time while drawing your Slurpee from the machine and wander around a bit before going to the till, in order to "defrost" before heading back into the cold.

• You know when the "rush hours" are, and (thus) when to go for a Slurpee in order to guarantee the best possible consistencies.

• If you don't arrive at your usual 7-11 store as you usually do, they ask what happened to you the next time that you go there.

• You know when the month has changed only when you notice that the "flavor of the month" has been changed.

• You do favors for others only because you've been promised a Slurpee reward.

• You find yourself lecturing others on Slurpee Etiquette, the importance of Consistencies, and the best 7-Eleven’s around town.

• It's not uncommon for you to phone them up and ask what Slurpee flavours they have and what the consistencies are like. (That is, if you haven't been there yet that day)

• When your sister wakes you up in the middle of the night and asks if you want to come to the 7-Eleven with her, you only hesitation is whether or not you should wear a jacket.

• You dedicate a website to Slurpees.

haha. I love these, there's even some reader submitted 'addiction' symptoms that are equally as lol-able! Oddly enough, I'm craving a slurpee just about now.

Rear Window-Photoshop Fun

Hey everyone, I hope you had a great 4th of July! The park near my beau's house had a fireworks show again this year (after a two year hiatus) so the good thing is that we can sit (or stand) in his backyard and see the whole show without having to fight for parking and wrestle the crowds! On top of the 'bombs bursting in air' we had a great bbq, thank you grandma Gloria and mama Alice, with hot dogs wrapped in bacon (a cholesterol watchers dream!) with steaks, potato salad, corn and beer (you didn't know that corn goes great with beer?)! It was a lot of fun!

So after a long night out I usually veg out in front of my computer the next day and that's exactly what I'm doing now. I had some pictures on my desktop, one of Drew Barrymore and one of Princess Grace Kelly (I watched Rear Window yesterday on TCM, I love G.K.'s style!) and thought I'd 'Drew Up' the Grace pic and try and recreate the antiqueness of it! So here's what I came up with:

Rear Window, Before & After:

Inspiration:

Like most photoshop stuff it wasn't that hard to do but took a little trial and error. Basically I just started off with the Grace Kelly photo and changed the opacity (in the layers palette) to around 60% and added a frame picture in the background (probably should have put it first) and lightened it and changed erased the harsh edges and then added some burns and scratches around the edges (with my selections from the brush palette) and again erased any harsh areas and spots around the subjects faces. Tada!

The burn and scratch brushes were downloaded from Deviant Art members: Lailomeiel & Chain. I *Heart* DeviantArt!

P.S. Did I mention that tomorrow is my birthday?!!

Etsy Roulette-Week #2

The rules are simple:

1. Go to Etsy.com
2. Come up with a word. 'Mustache', 'Boxer', 'Dracula', etc., now enter it in the search box.
3. Click and see what comes up.
4. Look at *Everything* that comes up under that word.
5. Choose your favs and post them in your blog (give credit to Charcoal Designs for 'etsy roulette' in your blog too if you please)!
6. Yeah, it's a gamble but that's how I like it!

Etsy Favs From Week #2 "Camera":

Cute:
$16.00 Fluffington

Clever:$18 Camera Case by Librarian Barbarian

Better Wait Until Payday:$110 Lamps Reborn

I've got enough in my Paypal for that:$1.25 Loverly Ink

Love At First Sight:$13.80 Plushism

Tune in again next week as I shall spin the (etsy) roulette wheel again!

I fought a good fight...and lost.

I now listen to folk music, and I love it! I guess I've been fighting it for years, my mom and pop are kinda into folky stuff (Joan Baez, Peter Paul and Mary, Bob Dylan among others) but it took me years and years to finally give in. I think the turning point was this documentary on PBS about the folk singing group The Weavers (mostly about their lead singer Pete Seeger) who were popular in the 60's until they were blacklisted for allegedly being commies! Alot of their songs are classics that many generations grew up on, let's bring 'em back, hootennany anyone!?


So yesterday my beau and I went to the library to return some books and I spotted what I never saw before, CD's! Yes, amongst the junk was a folk CD with you guessed it some songs and duos with Pete Seeger, also a full length Pete Seeger CD and a full length CD by The Weavers! Check your local library first or if you live in L.A. county you can request stuff here! Love it! So I still don't listen to Joan or PP&M but any start is a good start, now if only I can STOP listen to stuff like Hall & Oates...Nah, Never!!

Making Fiends...On Nickelodeon!

Good News, Nickelodeon is introducing a new show called 'Making Fiends', Since I'm already a fan of Nick shows including Jimmy Neutron, Yo Gabba Gabba (Nick Jr.), The Mighty B and iCarly (hello, she has her own web show that she and her friends promote!), I know this show is gonna' rock too! The best news is that my long time friend Ego Plum of the Ebola Music Orchestra is going to compose the music for it!! Oh happy day!

I haven't found any news about it on Nick.com but you can get a bit of info. here at: Ebola Music!

Ironic Arts

We've all heard of the ironic t-shirt but there's something about this ironic art that I love. I have been to Amsterdam (luckily twice in my lifetime!) and have escaped there Delft Free, if only them made 'em like Charles Krafft does!


Charles Krafft's Disasterware: God Bless Our God

King Of Kitsch

Uzi

Crucified Mickey

Machine Gun Round

Martha Steward Prison Plate

Etsy-Russian Roulette Week #1

There's a game I like to play on Etsy that I like to call 'Russian Roulette', basically you search for a certain word...like 'hobo' or 'wicker' and see what pops up! Yesterday I was flippin' for 'Tentacles' and woo did I find some doozies!

The winner of the following categories is:

Cuteness:



$9.99 www.doctorgus.etsy.com

Insane In The Membrane (Crazyness but I love it):



$60.00 www.societysedso.etsy.com

Budget Breaker:



$160.00 www.octopusme.etsy.com

Budget Buddy:



Made by Voz Perkins, $2.50 www.vozamer.etsy.com

Cleverness:



$13.00 www.oddball.etsy.com



$40.00 www.lumpkin.etsy.com



Creepiness:



$15.00 www.flushplease.etsy.com

Wanna' play Etsy Russian Roulette? Found something I might like to feature next week?, please comment and let me know!

Clever Bag Lady

I totally need this bag to go with my sweater that has holes cut out where the thumbs would go. Seriously, I don't have one of those (when we were younger we'd have to cut our own holes now they have sweaters with them stitched in, la de da) but if I did this would go perfectly with it!



By: Broth giuggiole hand-made accessories / www.ilbrododigiuggiole.it

As seen on: popgloss.com

Sparkle Cameos!

Today I battled the heat in my studio to create some new sparklerific cameos! I might use them for religious praying hand necklaces or maybe something else, the options are endless...as long as whatever I pick fits in a 18X13mm space!

Photoshop Brush Fun

So ever since I learned how to create brushes in photoshop I've been hooked! As of late I discovered some awesome *FREE* photoshop brush downloads on www.deviantart.com. Just search for 'spider brushes', 'grunge brushes' etc. and they will pop up! Most artists ask that you link back to their D.A. page for credit (especially if you use the brushes for things you are gonna' sell) but some don't, it differs from artist to artist so read up before you download and/or use these brushes.

If you aren't familiar with brushes but do use photoshop here's a quick run down (p.s. I am using photoshop version 7):

1. Open up photoshop, find an image that you like (drawings and thick lined images work best, or images with the background cut out)
2. Edit your pic. (cut out background if necessary)
3. Click on 'Edit> Define Brush Preset'. Note: If your image is too big then 'define brush preset' will be ghosted, make your image smaller and try again.
4. When the 'Brush Name' option comes up (see photo #1) click on 'OK'
5. That's it! Now click on your brush icon (from the photoshop palette) and scroll all the way to the bottom, there's your new brush!

Note: When downloading brushes from a site like DeviantART you must first click on 'download' from the DeviantArtist's page, then while in photoshop click on your brush tool then click on your brush options. From there you will need to click on the arrow on the top right and scroll down and click on 'load brushes', (browse through your hard drive and) scroll to your recently downloaded brushes and click on the correct file (the file you just downloaded from DeviantArt) then click 'load'. Now your brushes will automatically be loaded into your brush palette! It's that easy!


A brush sort of acts like a rubber stamp of sorts and the great thing about brushes is once you've created it there's no backgrounds to cut out and you can choose whatever color you want your 'stamp' to be. Brush away!

I used some of my deviantart.com brush downloads today to create some images to use for mini pins I'm gonna' hand out at shows (for free) this summer. Cute Promos! Woo Hoo! Aside from the donkey (I created this brush myself) the cute 60's style chicks are all from punksafetypin at www.deviantart.com.



Brush Set 18 - That 70s Girls by ~punksafetypin on deviantART

Reliving the Past With Netflix by my side!

O.K. I was and still am so I'm sort of a couch potato! But I gotta tell you, shows like Nickelodeon's Pete & Pete and Comedy Centrals: Kids In The Hall, got me through the tough teenage years of my life. Knowing that there were people out there with looney ideas like mine, ironically kept me sane.


I have been looking for old Pete and Pete episodes for the last couple of years and I'm glad to see that Netflix finally has them! My guy and I have finished season one and just started season two, personally my favorite episodes were from the first season but season two rocks as well. With cameos from Steve Buscemi, Bebe Neuwerth (Frasier, Summer of Sam), Debbie Harry, Toby Huss (King of the hill, Carnivale, Reno 911) Michelle Trachtenberg (Buffy's little sis) and more, you can't go wrong!!

newbie

Well this is my first blogger journal entry. I was previously using lj but posting pics. there was driving me crazy. Am I just a dummy?

I'm listening to music now and need to work on business stuff soon, like make more ipod cases.

cheers for now! -Laura