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And on the Second Day of October She Caught Up
At last the baby shark jack o’ lantern project is done! Whooooeeeee! It’s not that this project took me so long (maybe two days) it’s that I procrastinated on it for a good week or more. That’s what I do. I stress about projects for days until I finally get up the nerve to bang them out. It’s a love-hate relationship.
I’m really happy to be done with this one. It was a little bit of a pain in the butt. Mostly the spray paint…I think it was worth it but carving into painted pumpkins can get messy. I’m not saying don’t paint pumpkins, do! Especially if you aren’t going to carve them. But carving up spray-painted pumpkins can cause little flecks of paint to fall off. I had to do a lot of touch up. That’s what you get for reading a small blog like this one: the behind the scenes secrets. Real crafters have Pinterest fails all the time, we just keep going anyway.
My next projects involve costumes and photoshoots. I have so many photoshoots scheduled this month. I also planned another golden hour dance party for October 24th. Stevie Nicks-themed. I already have my costume planned and everything. I bought this floor-length lace black dress with a neckline down to there and I’m going to wear Payam’s top hat and feather my hair. I might wear a bralette to make the neckline down to there not so risqué. The location of this party is this really weird run-off drainage system in a local park. It almost looks like a skate park but it’s not. There’s a huge pipe that lets out water onto a cascading series of cement steps. The steps are all different heights and make no sense but when I found this place I immediately thought it would be excellent for a photoshoot with various pedestals for models to stand on. Let me see if I can dig up a picture of it.
Here’s a picture of Looby modeling my SAJ t-shirts that never really happened. Isn’t it a great location? Can anyone explain to me how this run-off situation works? It seems more like a stage to me than water drainage. Is there a civil engineer in the house? I can see they do NOT want skate boarders. I hope they don’t mind dancers!
The plan is to get everyone to show up in costume and bring along my portable boom box and have a fun golden party dance party for an hour. Cool, right? If you are local, you should come. Parking is kind of a pain. It’s better if you can walk in. If you know where this is, then you know. If you don’t, private message me.
That’s all for now! First of the month priorities: get a new banner done!
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Blogging Everyday is for the Birds
I was about to give up on this idea of blogging everyday and call it all rubbish until I read Cathy’s comment. It’s amazing how an audience of one can totally change your opinion of yourself. It’s still probably rubbish and you are just being kind, Cathy, but thank you!
Yesterday was an exercise in failure. Like many behind the scenes crafting days. Painting an organic object like a pumpkin is challenging. It’s totally doable but you can’t be a perfectionist about it. The surface of the pumpkins is porous and has some moisture to it so the paint doesn’t want to adhere as easily as you would think. It does actually stick and it works but you have to be patient with it. The other hurdle is the bumpy surface of the pumpkin. First go around I used painters tape to create the top layer. That peeled the paint off and there was no way I could paint the other half without peeling even more off (because I never wait for paint to completely dry—who’s got time for that?!!) so I gave up on that idea. Then I tried a piece of cardboard cut into a reverse circle to act as a shield when spraying. That sort of worked. But the surface is bumpy so a slight haze of paint snuck through the divots between the cardboard and the veins of the pumpkin. This is probably impossible to visualize. Just add it all up to why I am procrastinating on this craft.
Today I carve the painted pumpkins. I’m nervous I’m going to screw up my paint jobs. I probably am.
In other news we found a yellow pumpkin at Pavilions this weekend. I’ve never seen a yellow pumpkin before. They are called “Mellow Yellow.” You can google them. All sorts of places sell them. They were the coolest thing I’d seen since that year we found a bunch of green pumpkins. That post is gone now for some reason. Looks like anything older than 2004 is gone from this blog. Ugh. I am so over trying to fix it.
Speaking of fixing websites. I am almost done with brendaponnay.com. Well I’ve got the bones of it done. I’m not a web designer. I’m just mucking around with a WordPress template and I am forever frustrated because it works nothing like the layout programs I work with as a graphic designer. I’m currently stuck on trying to get my social media icons into my menu bar. Nothing is working. And I need to write an actual bio with a photo that someone can’t crop to make me look like I’m wearing nothing instead of a strapless sundress. Sigh. AND I need to link all my books to amazon. So much to do.
What else is new? I’m currently dropping my exercise ball. I was juggling that one in the air for so long and doing so well. Something always has to drop. I used to take the dogs on epic long walks and get 20,000 steps in a day. Now I’m lucky if I get 2000. I quit the boxing program, though I do intend to start up again in November. I am feeling like a fat slob. AND it’s baking season. Not a good combo.
Okay! Off to go clean some pumpkins and then maybe illustrate a new banner and pay some bills. It’s the first of the month! Happy October!
