Clare Rojas: Modern Dutch Wonderland?

My guess is this is part of Clare's Rumspringa?!
I heart Amish people on drugs, making art.
more of her awesome work! via

Invitations! Aw..hell...couldn't wait

Well, there went the Friday Wedding posts!
I promise this is a fluke. Next Friday more wedding posts!

Final Invitations!:

All tucked in! Here we have the Directions card (TONS of directions - GPS doesn't help!). In the upper corner is the google map I photoshopped up to look pretty. Plus the rehearsal dinner invite (lower right corner) Ahh...All the pieces displayed theatrically. My favorite part? The "Smoke Signal" Reply card left a large space for you to draw in your own smoke signal! We got a lot of Kemosabe RSVPs & tent drawings!
(Pocket folders were from Invitation Kits Direct!)

Previously: Invitation Labor Pains saved by booze
and Invitation Rejects

The Biggest Kitchen Disaster in Years!

Molasses + Brown Sugar + Glass + 2am = This is just SILLY! jebus.

Suffice to say, I think I'm going to be finding sticky spots on my floor for the next 5 years.

Harry Potter Meets Instructables!

In honor of the new Harry Potter, Instructables has come up with some pretty witty/funny things to do for your premiere! (P.S. I'm SO wearing my Hogwarts Badge!)

My favorites!:



Make a Mad Eye Moody Mad Eye








Harry Potter: Henna a Dark Mark

Piles Of Mush = Amazing Shadows!

Neat! Looks like mushy icky trash piles, but shine a spotlight and viola! It's not what it seems!

British-born and -based artists Tim Noble and Sue Webster skilfully skirt the boundaries between beauty and the shadowier aspects of humanity, playing with our perceptions as well as our notions of taste. Many of their most notable pieces are made from piles of rubbish, with light projected against them to create a shadow image entirely different to that seen when looking directly at the deliberately disguised pile.

Next time your parents tell you to clean you room, just pile it up like art and whine about censorship! via/link

Save the Sea Kittens?

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Wait... what!!??

In an effort to stop more senseless "murdering", PETA has taken to rebranding "slithery and slimy" fish to the more palpable fluffy, furry Sea Kittens!

The motive behind the change? "Who could possibly want to put a hook through a sea kitten?"

Really? That's what you are going for? A Fish in Happy Kitty Clothing? Next thing you know, they'll have fish wigs... or better yet icanhasplankton!

Bonus! Create your own Sea Kitten for your Myspace page! (yep, I said Myspace). via/link

Sloughing thru Invitation Making....

Ahh...the good times of making your own wedding invitations. Some family asked me "Why do you want to torment yourself like this?" I had to admit that I've got this horrid habit of needing to personalize EVERYTHING I touch. There was NO way I was going to pay $1000 of dollars for a letterpress design that I didn't design myself! (I'm a designer...I have NO excuses).

The following are pics from the full steam ahead session:

Why pay $3 a lined envelope, when you can cut pretty paper yourself and have slave labor glue it? I did a ton of research and located the best envelope at Envelope Mall and the pretty paper came from Joanns!

I found that tape glue is FANTASTIC and glue dots suck butt. I also found that alcohol helps the gluing go faster.Kitties DO NOT help. Especially when the lick paper and play the game "everything looks better on the floor". Bonus!: No one complained about the pet hair in their envelopes!Each piece of the invitation was meticulously printed on cardstock & cut out by hand! (Never believed I was anal until now!). If I get married again? I'm sending out invitations over evite.
Next posting: The design files & finished product!
(previous reject invites)

Dr. Doom Comedy Hour!

if I didn't see it, I might not have believed it!
Dr. Doom made a guest appearance at the Golden West's Bar Bacon!
Nice job Jim, let the Geek Reign Begin!

Weekend Cooking or How I learned to love Cookbooks

My mom was in town this past weekend and while she was here we did some fancy schmancy cooking. Its so much easier to take the time to cook when there's someone else around. So much fun! It totally inspired me to cook for myself today. Deviled eggs! NomNomNom!

Barefoot Contessa's recipe for blintzes. Its the easy version where you layer up the ingredients in a pan. Worked out great! Mom even licked the plate.

btw, I will probably have blintzes in my freezer till the cows come home.

Wood Cut Handles! Brilliant!

I've been sitting on this post from Creature Comforts from, oh....since MARCH! Maybe I was secretly keeping it to myself, so I can start making my own hand crafted wooded handles! So smart! These are Robin's Egg Bird Clutchs from Ink & Spindle...but I didn't seen them up on their site. Ah well.

How DO you do Honeycomb Pleating?

I've actually always wondered how to do that...Mine never looks that good!
Tumbling Block has an easy to follow tutorial!
I'm off to try it again.

My Invite Rejects

The plan is: to update each Friday with some sort of DIY I did for my wedding!

Last weeks Plan: Show the Spinner Save-the-dates
Today's Plan: Show the invite rejects!

Me = extremely indecisive...so I made at least 15 different types of invitations. And since I can never make up my mind, they ranged from floral & elegant to rustic & relaxed!

P.S. I still have these files, so if you're interested in one of these for your wedding, I can enter in your details & send the file over for your own custom design!

(the whole flickr set is here)

My new residence

I want a yurt.
Better yet, I want a yurt in a tree.
Guess I could start to build a fancy ones like these guys.
Or learn to do my own with an Instructable!

Sam Flores: Dragon Boy Vinyl Figure

A Haiku:

Dragon Eats Boy's Head.
Boy Doesn't Seem to Mind.
Makes Loopy Hungry.

Presale at Upper Playground!

Fail Blog: Making your Mondays Awesome

via

My DIY Save The Date

Save-The_Date, originally uploaded by lazergir1.

Here it is, in all it's glory, my save-the-date!
For a lot of friend's save-the-dates, they went the magnet reminder route. Really cute, but I had to do something different, something interactive... something that said, "Hey I'm a designer getting married! Let's Party!"

Putting it together actually proved a little more involved than I thought. Thank goodness for friends in printer places. Let's just say there was A LOT of math that went into the dial! (and my poor little kitties in scuba gear turned into more of doggies in space..ah well..).

And if you look closely at the house in the background, a pic of thorpewood plus tons of photoshop filters!

Up next: the wedding invites that didn't make the cut!

Springtime Clothes for the Bored Effeminate

Oh I want that Jackson, Johnston & Roe coat so bad I can taste it!
I'm a big fan of the simple soft pattern/color. These look easy enough to make at home (I'm thinking Built By Wendy should do these next!). Adore! Buy. Via.

Sweetest Artiest Personalist Invites by Anna Bond

ahhh...these are so adorableness, I had to make up new adjectives for it!
I wish I knew about these when I was designing my invites. (although I had a ton of fun looking thru antique clipart books!). See more squeal worthy artwork on her site here! via.

Tim Burton's Alice Opus

Words just don't work here.
Needless to say I'm in HIGH anticipation for the 10-yrs later "sequel" to Alice in Wonderland. I'm thinking dark, scary and pretty durn creepy. Hellooo Tim Burton's next masterpiece!
Whole gallery here and USA Today article here.

How to Use a Squat Toilet: The "Instructional Video"

and where was this for my trip to China? I could have save myself so much backsplash! Hmm..was that TMI?
(vid via)

What I'm Wearing to the Next Graphics Meeting

Celtic horned god leather mask: A must wear for the next Bacchus party! (they get a bit out of hand dontcha know.)

Brass and Leather Monocular Sensory Inhibitor in black: Secretly I really really want this. It makes my "Intense Angry Stare" that much more powerful! Especially if I don't blink.

Pair of Fire leather masks:His and Hers "My face exploded" masks!

These seriously amazing masks all from Tom Banwell's Etsy Shop! (No Snarky Involved!)

My Very First How to!

How To Make Pickles and Ice Cream Cone Cupcakes

So many people had asked me how to make these that I went ahead and documented the whole thing so I could make a tutorial. I made these for my friend Natalies Baby Shower, the theme was Pickles and Ice Cream! So here is how we did it.

Step One: Baking

Place ice cream cones in your cupcake baking pan using aluminum foil to create and extra wall to hold them upright. The foil will not brown the cones so use as much as necessary to hold up each cone.

Use any cake mix that would normally allow you to make cupcakes and follow directions per the box. I used my favorite funfetti mix for these cupcakes.

Fill each cone with the batter but only fill to the middle of the cone to allow for rising. Spoon batter into cones slowly as it will seep into the nooks and crannies at the bottom of the cone after a few seconds.

Follow baking guidelines from box but keep an eye on them as they may take slightly less time than normal cupcakes. Mine were two minutes faster than the box stated. Once you can stick a toothpick in and pull it out without any residue than they are finished.

They should rise to the top of the cone, if you used too much and they are overflowing up and out of the cone use a sharp knife to level them off and save the extra cake as a snack for yourself.

Step Two: Display

You obviously can't serve these on a regular plate or cupcake tower as they are unstable and would fall over. You can make your own display holder by using a cardboard box and some wrapping paper. I got these perfectly sized boxes from my local liquor store, they are used to store cases of beer and they are the perfect size! You'll want to measure around using a cone and make your holes a little bigger than the bottom of the cone. cut them out of the box allowing for at least 12 holes per box.

Wrap the box like a gift then from the underside, cut an "X" into each hole with an exacto knife.

Fold the excess paper under the box and secure with scotch tape.

Now you have a nicely decorated holder for your ice cream cupcake cones!

Step Three: Decorating and Storing

Using fondant that can be found at your local baker or cake shop I rolled out three balls of green fondant. One is for the outside of the pickle, one for the inside and one for seeds. I had also considered using one color and making individual sized solid pickles using the same fondant but just the one color. Use your imagination.

Like rolling sushi I made the darker color wrap around the inner color and created an easy to cut roll.

Once it was rolled I cut the pickle slices using a sharp knife and hand rolled little seeds to add to the top of each slice. After I finished I chilled these so they would firm up a bit.

Next I used a pastry bag and a large star shaped tip to ice the cupcakes like ice cream cones (soft serve). I put them quickly into the freezer to firm up so that the icing would not slide off.

Once in the freezer I added a pickle slice to each cupcake as the finishing touch.

Then Walla! I have an interesting and delicious desert for my pickles and Ice cream themed Baby Shower. I think in the future I would make these for a regular party, only I would add jimmies to make them look more birthday party-ish.

Pirate Booty! (In a Jar)

I'm seriously "bummed" the etsy shop is gone... I really wanted my own Pirate Booty.

CasidysCloset Come BACK!

(I'm so sneaky! I'm not actually here! Be back in 2wks!)

Married!

Yep! Today's the big 'ole day!
What's this you ask? I know, I've been kinda mysterious about the whole shebang, and I apologize! It's not cause I'm all secret secret, it's cause I AM LAZY! Eventually, when I decide to take some Ritalin and type my heart away, I'll upload all the f'in DIY stuff that drove me INSANE! (I kid, I kid!)
Next marriage: Courthouse.
P.S. Pic is from our Engagement Session. Notice Andy's hook is dangerously close to my cigarette (which I promptly dropped in my red water glass).

Real Estate Listings: "It's Lovely! I'll Take It!" ...or not

With all those staging shows on TV now-in-days you'd think people would think twice about some of their listings... Good thing "It's Lovely! I'll Take It!" blog is watching out for us!

Finding such gems as:

UPS is at the door! But you're on the throne!
Problem Solved:

Crime Scene #1
Guns aren't just for protection, they're for decoration too!

Sure it looks nice & modern, but does it come with the photographer too?

Closeup: SOLD:More time-wasting here!