I'm a Daiso virgin no more!

Yesterday I told you the tale of my experience at 

The Bone Room in Berkeley, CA. It was a wondrous experience.

Before my friends and I made it to the mecca of bones, we 

arrived at the largest scrap booking store in the bay area, 

Scrapbook Territory.

My friends have told me about this store for years, and that I just had to 

check it out. When we planned this trip we were expecting to spend a small fortune,

but the night before we left we found out that ST was closing, and were currently

selling everything at 50% off. We were two weeks late for the start of this

sad sale, but we were hopeful that there was still some inventory to peruse.

Since I had never been to the store I had no idea what I was missing, but my

friends were horribly disappointed. The shelves we nearly bare. Like one sheet

of 12 x 12 paper left of 20 designs, a smattering of May Arts ribbons, and 

random odds and ends. Now if we were in the market for counter tops and storage 

for our craft rooms we would have been in luck. They were selling 8 ft long

by 6 ft tall shelves for 12 x 12 paper for $20, and tons of other displays

for dirt cheap.

I did manage to grab these Leavenworth Jackson stamps for 50% off,

but see now that I was charged for the credit payment I was told didn't go through,

so I paid cash. Still waiting for a call back on that one.  

My friend, MacKenzie's husband is half Japanese, and her sister-in-law was with us

so we were destined to go to Japantown in San Francisco to get special Japanese

goodies. After we stopped at a couple of bakeries, book stores, and had a wonderful 

noodle lunch in the Japantown mall, we went to the Daiso store.   

Daiso is like the Dollar Store, but better. 

Everything is pretty much $1.50, but such a bargain!

Always need those rings and who can pass up glittery polish and

a green eraser frog? 

The critter erasers came three to a pack, the glass bottles are perfect for my

apothecary collection, the paper flowers were really pretty, and I am always on the 

lookout for a good white paint pen. Not bad for $1.50. 

They had a glorious selection of nail polishes. 

And I'm always a sucker for DIY organization. I bought some cool

metal trays that fit perfectly on the side of my Sam's Club carts for 

extra storage. And I scored on some white ramen bowls. I have been wanting

some of those for months now. I eventually want all white dinnerware, so it

looks like another trip to Japantown is imminent. I'll be sure to take more pictures

next time. 

     

That's it for today. 

Thanks for stopping by.  

Bittersweet: The Bone Room

I had the most amazing time with a couple of my very

favorite people on Saturday. We planned a trip to Berkeley, CA

(about 1 1/2 hours away from Sacramento) to check out a scrapbook

store that my friends have been bragging about for years. 

"They carry Stampotique stamps" was pretty much all I needed to hear.

Since we were going to be in the city (San Francisco) it was suggested that

I make a list of places I wanted to check out as well. 

Our tastes tend to differ in places of interest.

I spent quite a bit of time on Yelp and read some rather disparaging

reviews of "Loved to Death", the curiosities shop spotlighted on the

Science channel's Oddities series. I loved the show, and always wanted to check it out,

but after reading that they had gaff taxidermy, mass produced trinkets 

scattered around their store, and shitty attitudes, I decided to skip it. 

But, in reading those reviews I was turned on to a place called,

  "The Bone Room", in Berkeley.

What a nugget of awesomeness. 

That is a skinned rooster on the top left, inside of the massive oyster shell.

They have such a varied array of natural history and science, from prosthetic eyes

to fetal pig specimens. Their wet specimens were on sale, but that is just not my

cuppa tea. Maybe because they all look so, dead. Makes me sad.

I was so busy shopping that I didn't take any more photos except for the ones of the

stuff I bought. Wanna see what I got?

I went on their site online the night before and did some pricing and window shopping

so I had an idea of what I wanted before I got there and became overwhelmed.

I'm glad I did that. There was so much awesomeness I could have spent

the entire day there. No joke.

Spider Webs Under Glass - These are real spider webs sprayed 

with a fine metallic coating, mounted on a black background, 

and protected by beveled glass. Each web includes a tag providing 

the genus and species of its maker, along with collection information 

and a picture of the species. Only the webs were collected 

for these works of art, the spiders themselves go on to build more webs. 

Cool, right? Mine was made by a Feather Foot spider.

It's about 3" round. 

This is a mouse skull pendant, complete with mandibles.

These are made exclusively by The Bone Room.

I originally wanted a bat skull pendant, but fell in love 

with this truly unique piece as soon as I saw it.

Got Bobcat claws? I do.

This little acrylic encased baby is my bat specimen.

I named him Bartok. 

Got some bad ass African porcupine quills.

And the quills look pretty cool in this little jar I picked

up at the Daiso store in Japantown, but that's another post.

Imagine my surprise when I happened upon these tiny,

headless porcelain dolls. I didn't expect to see jars of heads

and limbs either. What a find!

Also on my shopping list was a rattlesnake rattle, but when we

opened the case containing not only rattles, but striking heads too,

it smelled something awful! So awful in fact, that I opted to leave

without my rattle. Once I got home and recounted my trip to my husband,

and told him about the rattle snake stink, he went out in the garage and came

back with a rattlesnake rattle. Oh, how I love that man!

While we were waiting for The Bone Room to open, we popped

into a shop next door called, Therapy. 

I have been coveting this book for a while now, so I snagged it. 

At first, the book had me in stitches. The sheer ridiculousness of it all.

 

But then it just kinda got sad thinking of how disrespectful this type of 

crappy work is to the animal's spirit.

Yes, that is a Mallard head coming out of a lamb's ass.

I'm all for Rogue Taxidermy and gaff taxidermy, if done well.

The lamb is done well, despite the craziness of it, but that poor lion

and hyena... Pretty sad. I do like the book, though. Just didn't expect to feel

that way about it. 

Okay, now for the bittersweet part of my post. 

It seems that the owner of The Bone Room passed away very unexpectedly,

very recently. As of May 1st, they are closing this store front and going to

be selling online. At least their incredible treasures will still be available,

but it won't be the same as walking into that store and seeing everything

all at once. The staff were super sweet and helpful, too.

See? Bittersweet.  

Thanks for stopping by today.

I'll be back tomorrow with my Daiso haul, and my story about the

scrapbook shop that started our entire trip.

A real oddball spring

It's the middle of April and it's 90 degrees out today.

Very odd. And pretty scary considering we're in the fourth

year of a drought here in California. Fire season is gonna suck.

And it's already begun two months early. Yikes.

Since odd seems to be the word of the day, I thought 

I'd color up this pretty little Oddball Art Stamps fairy

and play along with the current challenge at Oddball Art Stamp Co.,

Spring. 

I get tired of making cards all of the time, and since I have

quite a collection of tags I use to mop up my leftover distress inks,

I thought a tag was a good idea.

This is 'Sweet Sai'. Isn't she a cutie?

And, as is my usual M.O. I have colored her with

unconventional skin tones and hair color. Fairies are 

magical creatures, and should be colored accordingly. 

I sprayed a small clothespin with Dylusions spray in Cherry Pie to match

my project. The clothespin already had the hole in it, so it was super

simple to add that dragonfly charm. I stamped out a fairy sentiment 

from Kraftin' Kimmie. I am a big fan of the Kraftin Kimmie sentiments.

When I hear the word spring, I think of flowers.

And I'm sure I'm not alone when I say I have a shit ton of old

flowers in my stash. I layered up five flowers of varying oldness

and even added an equally dated leaf. I like how it turned out,

and am glad to have used a few of my ancient fleurs.  

I used a diamond patterned stencil and some crackle paste to

add some texture and interest to the tag. I think my crackle is old

as it didn't real crackle much. I ended up rubbing some of it off with my

fingers to give it an aged appearance. I also dusted the diamonds with 

Stickles for a nice sparkle. I dug even deeper into my stash and found some

chipboard glittered flourishes and dew drops. Nice touches.

  I had fun making this tag. Gave me a chance to use

up some stash and make something pretty with it.

I'd like to enter this tag in the following challenges:

Oddball Art Stamp Co. - Spring     

613 Avenue Create - Anything Goes/Diamonds  

Corrosive Challenges - Floral Fantasy 

Mixed Media World - Use bright colors

Left of Center - Tag or ATC (mine's a tag) 

4 Crafty Chicks - Fairies

Creative Knockouts - Texture

Short and Sweet

Today is the start of the new challenge theme at the

Aurora Wings Challenge blog.

The new theme is Flowers.

Pretty easy to be inspired, as spring is in full bloom everywhere you look,

and there are a ton of beautiful, flowery images available at

the Aurora Wings Etsy shop. 

I picked up a bunch of 4" x 4" canvas boards on sale at Mike's

last week, and wanted to use one for this project. I get tired of

making cards all of the time.

  

I decided to work with an image that I haven't colored up before.

This is 'Bunnirina'.

She's adorable, right?

The canvas was a nice gray color already, but it didn't

go with my color scheme. I painted it using Deco Art's chalk paint

in the color, 'Timeless'. This is my first time using this paint,

and I love the coverage and the quick drying time. Oh, and no prep

is a big plus, too. This chalk paint gave me a perfect base for the 

pearlized crackle paste put through a fancy stencil. I love that stuff!

First though, I edged the entire canvas using some distress inks.

They bled through the crackle paste beautifully.

Didn't someone say something about flowers?

I dug out a bunch of paper roses, some of which I colored

using Copics, some that I left natural, and a few were already

dyed. I managed to pop in a few pearl dew drops, too. 

I also worked in a pretty floral spray I picked up in the 

wedding section at Mike's. I really like the height and 

interest those types of embellishments add to a project.

As a last added element, I broke out with a new pot of

Rock Candy Distress dry glitter. It added just the right amount of

sugary sparkle the outer perimeter of the canvas. And then while I was

in a glittering mood I used some Stickles on the roses, too. 

Someone is going to make me cash in my creepy card for this project.

But I don't care. This is was so fun to make.

So sweet! 

I hope you'll stop by the AW challenge blog and see all of the other

fabulously flowery projects the DT have created for this theme.

Thanks for stopping by today.

I'd like to enter this in the following challenges:

Artistic Inspirations - Anything Goes with a twist of Spring

All Crafts Challenge - Anything Goes but No cards

Not Just Cards - Anything Goes

Kit and Clowder - flowers

Sweet Stamping Challenge - Anything But a Card

Fussy and Fancy - Spring Flowers

Little Kitsune, Anko

In retrospect, I guess I have always kind of had

a thing for foxes. I have a few different fox stamps, 

a paper mache fox I picked up at WallyWorld a while back,

a fox ornament for Xmas, and my leedle dog is named, Foxxi.

(Check out Miss Monster@ shopify. She is an incredible artist!) 

I really like the Japanese Kitsune with nine tails.

I like the version of a white fox with red details.

So, when Mitzi at Aurora Wings shared her newest image,

I was in lurve! 

She doesn't have nine tails, but I'll overlook that

trivial fact for this Little Kitsune, Anko.

I colored her with Copics and decided to go with a geisha

inspired make-up. I really love the the bold red eye makeup

against the white powdered face. I had to go with the red geisha lip, too.

Very dramatic. Love it!   

In keeping with my 'less is more' mantra (when using AW images),

I have kept this one pretty CAS only using two dps, some gold Stickles, and 

three red pearls to symbolize The Three Jewels: the Buddha (the enlightened one),

the Dhamma (the teachings), and the Sangha (the community of followers).

I really love the linen texture of this DCWV Far East paper pad.

It's always my 'go to' paper pad when doing anything remotely Asian themed.

I think I'm going to pop this little gem into a shadowbox frame

for a friend's birthday coming up. Or maybe she'll just reside in my

craft room for inspiration.

Thanks for stopping by today. Be sure to stop by the AW Showcase blog

to see all the different variations on this fabulous new image available today

at the Aurora Wings Etsy shop, here.  

Going to hell. Can I save you a seat?

DISCLAIMER: This is my blog. I am a person who fancies herself

pretty funny. Snarky. And even a flat out smart ass. What I create is

never intended to offend, but ultimately I have no control over

how you choose to interpret my art. Proceed with caution, 

and with your big girl/boy panties on.  

There, I said it. Or I wrote it. Whatever. It's out.

Yesterday was Easter, and in honor of the first zombie ever, 

I have created a small tribute in his likeness.

I was inspired to create said homage by the new challenge at

Haunted Design House - Going Green With Envy.

Yup. I went there.

It is no big secret that I don't lend much credence to organized religion.

I wasn't indoctrinated into a religion as child, and have never been able

to wrap my head around giving myself over to a higher power. 

 I do, however, consider myself somewhat spiritual.

And that works for me. 

Anyhoo, I found this guy at my local thrift store, and

after my giggles of insane inspiration subsided, I got to work

making him into the true zombie he was always meant to be. 

After several coats of various acrylic paints and washes,

he was complete. And far more interesting than the way

that I originally found him.

While straightening, and purging my workspace I happened

upon this tiny dancer. Also a thrift store find.  

After the official "Creepy Zombie Concoction" has been applied,

she is the star of the zombie ballerina recital.

Thanks to this challenge theme, I have been inspired to start painting the 

numerous statues and figurines I have been collecting. I have some cows,

a trio of babies, and even a Buddha that are all dying to be zombified and given

a new life. Most of which will end up in my Etsy shop by the end of the month.

Remember to stop by the HDH blog to check out all of the incredible art that

my fellow Minions have created for this inspiring challenge.