Mexicali Blues

A few of you know that I have a Grateful Dead bear on the back of my little Volkswagen. And a few of you may know I'm a Dead fan, on some "I hate the smell of pot and the look of grizzledy old hippies but this music is groovy" kind of level. But that bear is on my car because my favorite family in the Constitution State put that sticker on my car. It meant I was one of them. And I have always thought that the Angiolillos are my second family. A favorite memory ever was when the whole Angiolillo gang (John Jack included) took me to Playland in Rye, New York (where the amazing Zoltar from Big was filmed). Or the time I asked Mr. Angiolillo to take his speed boat into Manhattan and up the East River. So they remind me of that sticker and it reminds me of the Dead song "Mexicali Blues."

And that reminds me of these necklaces. They are, you see, of Mexican inspiration. Do you know how Mexicans play bingo? Because it's not with numbers and letters but rather with little pictures of objects. Instead of "B12" or "O64," it's "the lamp" or "the well-dressed woman." And I love me some Mexican bingo tiles. They are awesomely kitschy and so technicolored.

A set of Mexican bingo cards I recently bought in Austin was sacrificed to make a few necklaces out of the tiles. They are really bright and shiny. I kinda won't mind if I don't sell them because I really love them a lot, for me. And I kept enough of the pieces from the game set to have a bingo party for 12 amigos.

A close up, with the watermelon.

Little Stacks Everywhere

All around my apartment are little arrangements. Preparing for this craft show or, more accurately, my booth at a shopping market, has turned my little crafting life upsidedown. And I'm not kidding when I say there are little collections of projects sitting out everywhere. Above you see a collection of Mexican bingo tiles with fresh coats of a kind of plastic lacquer that will make them hard enough to stand alone on necklaces. More details on that to come.

And here are some vintage/random buttons gathered together. Also awaiting their turn at the chopping block, or so to speak, when they'll be turned into projects. All of them have polished, flat backsides so they are ready for use. Sanding a hundred buttons is like a dream come true. (I've never gotten into sanding; if it could be skipped, it would be.)

And, yep, some more future projects. It's amazing to think that I've made any progress at all, since looking at these pictures reminds me that all I've done is set up more work for myself to do later. Yikes. Two weeks and a trip to Chicago thrown in... I better get busy!

And finally, here's a completed project. Woohoo! But like all the others, perhaps a bit difficult to explain. I'm just happy that there's one thing that I'm done with. I guess I do still have to worry about the packaging... I doubt this post has shed much light on my current bevy of projects, but it should let you know ... colorful, found objects...

Sacred House of Blues?

With a West Coast baseball trip for my beloved if not beleaguered boys of summer and a bit of a bout of insomnia (must stop with the drinking of the diet dr pepper so late at night!), I find myself glued to the MLB HDTV (my favorite kind of acronym soup, honestly) with nothing to do but watch the Sox fail miserably and, well, present some new crafts to my loyal readers.
Here is a new painting. It's the first time I've ever left the majority of the canvas (a 12x12 square of glass) even partially unpainted. In fact, I had every intention of making a giant picture with all kinds of zigzag layers, but when I got to this point, I knew that I needed to stop and relish the simplicity. And I feel like the result looks like a cross between Mexican-inspired renditions of Catholic symbolism like the Sacred Heart of Jesus or the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the somewhat corporate, irreverent House of Blues logo. Anyways, I'm pleased with punch by it and I like how I've arranged trinkets around it, especially the fact that I can actually place things behind it and still see them, like the antique Maine postcard. When I started the drawing for this painting, I had intended to channel Indian patterns (as in subcontinental Asia, not Native American ones, though they are quite nice, too). The paisleys were supposed to set that spicy, exotic tone. It would have been fine and Indian looking had I not decided to paint with a bright, Latin pallet. As soon as the pink was layered atop the yellow, I knew that it was headed in a different direction than my original intention, not that I mind.

What's that I hear, did Don Orsillo say "ballgame over?" Long yawn and I think I'm ready to hit the hay. Amazing how awake I am when there's a live game, even if it was a bit of slaughterfest in the yuck direction for this little fan.

Off the Shelf

Normally, I don't like to post pictures of projects until they are completed. But today I wanted to give you a preview of something that I am anxiously working on. Of course, fate isn't cooperating as I'm having a hard time getting my greedy paws on some of the key ingredients for this project. What is this project you ask? Well, I'll tell you. It's a spice rack/shelf for my kitchen. And it is super personalized, as the spices will be stored in glass Diet Dr Pepper bottles, with precious little red, yellow and blue rubber caps (from Sweden) on top of the bottles. I was really inspired a few months ago when I saw a project by a super cute pair of designers in Virginia, who painted up bottles for storing odds and ends. And I immediately wanted to do something like they had done, but instead of using it to store ribbons, buttons and the like, I thought it would be fun to use to store cake toppers, cocoa powder, curry powder, cinnamon sticks, you know, kitchen items. So I've been tossing this idea around since April! That's when I first saw the Virginia version of this project and was really inspired.

Often in Dallas, I go to Corner Market, which is on the corner of Greenville & McCommas. It's so old school and the food is delicious! It really feels like it's not in Dallas somehow. I feel like I'm some other city... try the A-1 To Go in Gardiner, Maine. Anyway, whenever I'm there, I order my sandwich, read my Observer and drink Diet Dr Pepper out of a glass bottle. In a stroke of genius, I decided that instead of using milk bottles, I'd use Diet Dr Pepper bottles! Of course, I have this idea at the very time that Corner Market sells out of Diet Dr Pepper. I've been waiting a couple of weeks for them to restock their selection and then I'll be buying 30 bottles. The next step will be drinking them, then I buy/fill all the bottles with exotic spices and baking decor items and, voila! Project Completed.

For now, I'll tell you what I've done. Above is a picture of the supplies I needed to make the shelf. And below is a picture of the area to be perked up with the shelf/spice rack. Pretty dull, huh? Give me some credit though, I usually keep a collection of cookbooks, cute plates and cups and that kind of thing in that corner, but I really don't use the area as a cooking surface, so I thought I'd build a spice shelf. I got a 48" wooden beam and covered it in Mexican oil cloth from La Mariposa, right in my neighborhood. Then I painted little "L" brackets to match the bright Mexican oil cloth. And that's my progress thus far! I'll update as soon as the project marches forward.

* Sorry I went a bit links crazy today. No explanation. I just got carried away.

This Just In From the Party Planning Committee...

So, I was put on the company's party planning committee. Yeah, it's JUST LIKE ON THE OFFICE. We sit around and plan parties. There's no snatchy Angela to rule the roost, and its not just a collection of every girl in the building. Actually, its one person from each department. We meet every month to discuss fun things that we could do to brighten up the office atmosphere. And well, today was my first event to plan. Can you say fiesta? Well... they gave me a tiny budget, but I dreamed the impossible: coming up with something cute, Mexican, and tasteful. So these are the pictures of the break room all decked out for Cinco De Mayo. I used a roll of red gift wrap with a green one on top (think the Mexican flag) as the table cloth -- have you gone table cloth shopping recently? It's a little ridiculous. Everything is either Disney or Pixar or Disney/Pixar. There's no plain colored party table cloths anymore. Geez. So I settled for gift wrap. It has to last for half a day, so I figured even cheap dollar store gift wrap could fit that bill. Then I found -- total dollar store miracle here (after all I asked the saints for some assistance) -- a book of 20 postcards from Mexico! So I spread those out around the table. Toss in some chili peppers, Jarritos and chicklets and I think it's a pretty great setup, considering the decorating budget was under $10. That's the cost of two helium balloons, which, in our office breakroom, is really not that festive.
So enjoy the pictures! And Happy Cinco De Mayo.

My mom was with me when I went to the Dollar Grocery Store (actually, it's the 99 cents Only store) and she approved of the bandana with the Virgin of Guadalupe on it being used as the liner for the chips & salsa bowl. And if my mom says that's OK, that's OK.