Block Party July 10th

p.s. I super love this image
On Saturday, July 10th I'll be exhibiting at the Handmade Brigade of Orange County's BLOCK PARTY indie craft show. I hope you'll be there too!

What's in it for you:

• NO admission fee!
• more than 70 vendors for your shopping pleasure!
• Kogi BBQ truck! You know you've been wanting to try it - no need to track it on Twitter, they'll be there!
• the mobile cupcakery Oh, For Sweet's Sake will be there!
• lots of freebies!
• I will be there! Heck yeah! You can come see me in my very own little booth!!

wedding cake toppers

I was recently asked if I made wedding cake toppers out of my peg people. I haven't yet, so I wanted to test out painting a bridal party - just to make sure I've got the Right Stuff. What do you think? Be honest!

I used my sister's recent wedding as the jumping-off point for the attire. Her dress had tone-on-tone embroidery that had small crystal beads stitched into the design, which I replicated by doing a tone-on-tone painted detail and then touched up with irridescent glitter paint for sparkle. Her veil was shoulder-length and was dotted with rhinestone jewels, which I have also included on my tiny bride's veil.























The bridesmaids wore pink sashes that also had an embroidery and crystal detail on them, along with rhinestone barrettes -- I used the same glitter paint on the barrette.










. : * ~ * : . _ . : * ~ * : . _ . : * ~ * : .Interested in owning a piece like this? Check out my Etsy shopor email me for a custom order!. : * ~ * : . _ . : * ~ * : . _ . : * ~ * : .

Phoenix Comicon!

Last week was bonkers. I spent the first half of the week traveling for business and was in Minnesota and didn't have a chance to get home before the Phoenix Comicon, which meant the burden of not forgetting anything and also getting to the show on time was laid heavy on the shoulders of Ryan and Adam. Ahem.

I flew to Phoenix and arrived with only my dirty laundry and worried that the guys wouldn't show up or get hopelessly lost in the desert. Eventually, the boys DID arrive with all of my stuff (and by "arrive" I mean they roared up in a Volvo c70 convertible, sunburned all to heck) and we set up quick. I snapped a couple of pictures and then totally forgot that I'd dragged a camera all over the place and only took 2 more pictures the whole weekend. C'est la vie!

I decided to only display one example of the peg people on the table -- all the duplicates were under the table. To me, it looks kind of sparse, but there's still quite a lot going on here.

New Star Wars inspired peg people


And Ghostbusters!



Plus, the staff of Sterling Cooper


Santa and his cohorts


Plus the usual arsenal of heroes and villians.


The second story of the house was for animated/cartoony folks...


Including the Futurama set, which was my first attempt at painting these characters and they proved quite popular. Everyone loves Dr. Zoidberg! Hooray!

Thanks to the good citizens of the Phoenix area, a LOT of these peg people went home with someone else. Which is always my goal, obviously, but it made me feel REALLY good to see how some of these goofy little goodies made someone smile.

I have a new theory that there is a single detail on each one that "sells" people on it. I could watch people look them over and smile and think "that's funny" or whatever and then their eyes would go big and they'd squee over a detail -- the Jawa's yellow eyes or the Ghostbusters' ghost traps or the vampire's little teeth -- and that would be when they'd get a giant smile on their face. I love that look! That look is enough to make me want to paint forever and ever...

Special thanks to the little boy with the missing front tooth who had that magical Disneyland look on his face. YOU MADE MY YEAR.

p.s. my etsy shop has re-opened!

Thank you to the good people of Phoenix!

The Phoenix Comic Con was extra super fun and I had a wonderful time! And all because of YOU! Such fun people, such fun costumes! And thank you to everyone who gave one of my silly little peg people a new home!