It Pays...

 It pays to be a smart-ass...sometimes.  That's how I won the fabulous Mrs. Evils doll from Zombie Hoard!

In order to enter the giveaway, you had to answer this question:

If Barbie was in the middle of a Zombie Apocalypse, which one of her accessories would she use to kill the Zombies?

This is what I said:

I'm hoping that she would use her super, huge motor-home as some sort of killing machine. She could take advantage of that relationship she's maintained with GI Joe, all of these years behind Ken's back, for an ammo hook up. He could outfit it as a giant pink tank with plenty of guns and they could run away together. Anything they couldn't shoot, they would just plow over. Then just for fun- they could fill up the camper's hot tub with some sort of red bubble bath and they could take a soak. While enjoying the "blood bath"they can sip on champagne and contemplate were they will settle to repopulate the planet with their "perfect" plastic babies.

I think it's perfectly reasonable.

I Love Mrs. Evils!!!

Have I ever mentioned how much I love Mrs. Evils? She is a lovely and talented, fellow Sonoma County, crafty lady with a special place in her heart for Zombies.  I should actually say, multi-talented, not only does she stitch but she also makes amazing Barbie art dolls and dioramas.  Oh, and she makes super lovely eyeshadow.  What can't this lady do?  Check out her shop, it's full of awesome sauce. 

Guess what?  I won a Mrs. Evils doll in a giveaway from Zombie Hoard!  Can I tell you how pumped I was to have my very own, one of a kind, masterpiece from the genius herself?  Over the moon!

Here she is, Emanuelle.  The 70's, French clown Zombie. 

She's creepy and bloody...and perfect.  I love it!

Mrs. Evils was gracious enough to answer some questions for me.  So, read on and learn why I adore this hilarious lady!

Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Just turned 36. In real life I supervise a bunch of kids in a drug testing lab. I have a super awesome guitar playing husband who I've been with for 11 years. I have 3 evil dogs and one evil cat. I don't sleep enough and I watch too much TV. When I'm not drinking Champagne out of the bottle with a straw, (J is my favorite) I drink way too much decaf Constant Comment. I'm pretty awkward in most social situations and I tend to trip and fall down for no real reason at all.

What was your inspiration for My Pretty Zombie?

I started making the zombie barbies on a whim as gifts for friends. Once I found out about Etsy, I needed a name. I wanted something gory, yet girly, which pretty much sums up everything about me. I don't know too many other chicks that like the color pink and fake blood as much as I do.

What was your inspiration for this particular doll?

The inspiration for the 70's French Clown Zombie was from this terrible French 70's almost soft core vampire movie called "Requiem for a Vampire". There was hardly any dialogue, and it made very little sense. The opening of the movie is two girls dressed as clowns shooting at a car that is chasing them and returning fire.
The whole premise of them being dressed as clowns is never explained in the movie, but makes it worth watching for that alone. I had no idea how difficult it would be to make a zombie look like a clown and the whole process took way longer than I anticipated. the snowcone is my favorite part!  (It's my favorite part, too!!)

Besides zombies, what else do you dig?

Barbies, make up, anything gory, horror movies, Trailer Park Boys, totally obsessed with my iphone in general and Tapfish, in particular, and buying all the barbie stuff that I either had or didn't have as a kid. I think it's a midlife crisis thing, but as my husband pointed out, it's cheaper than a ferrari or a boob job.

You know I'm a movie gal, what is your favorite one?

I have so many favorite movies zombies and otherwise that I couldn't pick just one:

*Non traditional zombie: The Signal
*Traditional Zombie: Dawn of the Dead (original and remake)
*Italian Zombie: Zombie
*Campy Zombie: Return of the Living Dead Part 2
*80's slasher: Sleepaway Camp
*Kung Fu Asian: the Mr. Vampire series
*Horror Asian: The Eye 2
*And if asked I'll always take Jason Voorhees over Freddy or Michael Myers.

Who are your favorite artists?

My favorite artist of all time would have to be Mark Ryden. Oh and Tom Savini. More Meat and Blood please!

What would your zombie movie be like?
My Zombie movie would be a non stop bloody gore fest! And totally campy and stupid. I love doing the zombie make up, I think it would be so fun to do a zombie flash mob on Christmas Eve at the mall! Maybe that should be my movie!

Worst zombie movie ever?

I've seen tons, but most have some redeeming qualities. Zombie Honeymoon, on the other hand, couldn't watch it long enough to even get to the zombies...ugh.

Who is your favorite TPB? (Trailer Park Boys- an amazing Canadian TV show that we are in love with!)

This is the hardest question of them all!
My first instinct was to say Corey and Trevor, but then I was like "who am I kidding?! Conky!" Although, the Ricky-isms are such huge part of my life and regular speech. I constantly describe situations and even inanimate objects as being "effed in the head"
I love that show so effing much!

Bonus just for fun- How many tattoos do you have?

Another huge obsession. I'm always plotting out the next one, but I'm running out of room! My favorite one is always whatever one I had done last. Right now its the stiches on my shoulder that makes it look like my arm is falling off.
I started when I was 17 and have been adding steadily for almost 20 years. I'm pretty much covered to mid thigh except for my stomach and my upper chest. When people ask how many, I really don't know how to even count them anymore so I just say "One big one"


Now, do you see why I say she is awesome?!  So, go check out her blog and her etsy.

YAY for Mrs. Evils!!

Amazing Ends (And the Winners!!)

Hey there, gorgeous!  Happy Saturday.  Hope you are enjoying a fabulous weekend so far.  

Betcha want to know who the winners are, right?  All in due time, my love, all in due time.  Remember those wonderful end pages I was telling you about?  You have to check them out!  Just a little sneak peak at what the lucky winners will get to be inspired by while sketching and journaling in their new books.

(Click on any picture for a larger view.)

 

 

Now do you see why I love Ex Libris Anonymous so much??  Their book journals are filled with so much charm.   I just think of when I was a kid with my arms loaded up as we left the library.

My favorite part!

Brings back memories, doesn't it?  Not every book has this little piece of happy in them.  However, the ones that do are extra special.

So not only does Jacob make an awesome product, but he can make a custom one- just for you!  That's right, for a mere 11 bucks!  You simply send him your book, mark a few pages that you want kept in and he binds it for you.  Then he ships it back to you free!  Can you believe that?  AWESOME.  Now I have my eyes peeled for special books that I want made into journals.  Think of kid's books that little ones have colored in or perhaps an awesome looking book that has seen better days...salvage it!

Oh, and guess what?  He ships internationally.  For only $11.  I can hardly get anything shipped to me from other parts of the US for eleven bucks, that's cheap.  And he'll send up to two books at that price.  Super cheap!  So, show some love for Jacob and his awesome book journals.  Visit his shop and his etsy.  You won't regret it.

Alright, down to business.  THE WINNERS!

The guy helped me by selecting the winners.  So if you are disappointed, please, blame him.  (Sorry, babe, but it's true.)

Ladies, please email me with your address at Mafiosagrrl[at]aol[dot]com, or through FB, Swap-bot, flickr... whatever works for you!  

Congrats to the winners!  If you didn't win, have no fear, I'll be hosting another giveaway very soon!

Thanks for looking!  I'll be back soon with Zombie stuff.  Ohhhh, scary!

Craftastic Swap!

Becky of Strumpets Crumpets thought of the best idea!  A craft supply swap.  A quick and painless way to get rid of some of the unused supplies we have lying around.  You know, that stuff you bought when you had a grand plan for it...but it never worked out.  Or the goodies left over from past projects.

All you do is upload photos of your crafting supplies to the swap's flickr group.  Wait for someone to comment, first person who does gets it.  Easy no?  So go see what you have to swap.

I found some stuff.

Like yarn,

stamps,

scrap-booking embellishments,

oil cloth,

tiny hangers,

fat quarters,

and sheer fabric.

How about you?  Have anything you aren't using?  De-stash, it feels good.  Then trade it for something you can actually put to good use!

Snapshot Friday

Ok, so the end pages will be a later post... Senor Camera is nowhere to be found at the moment.

Isn't this photo amazing?

  

It's Dillon's great grandparents on their wedding day.  I think it was in 1898.  Wow, I just love everything about it.  The background, their clothes, their expressions.  Everything.  Such a drastic difference compared to the weddings photos of today.

A big thank you to his Mom for sending it to me!

Science Stitches.

For the "Embroidery in Yellow" Swap on Swap-bot, I made three little patches.  My partner is a science teacher so I went with that.  I figured she could use them as applique on a lab coat or a tote she uses to haul her school stuff around.

I used some patterns from the Sublime Stitching Craft Pad.

Sorry about the poor photo quality, I was blinded by science.  I guess that's what I get for only taking one!

Oh, hey- remember this?  After stitching these I got it stuck in my head.

Hope everyone is having a lovely day!  I'm off to run some errands.  I'll be back later to give you guys a little peak at the inside of these awesome journals I'm giving away.  See ya soon.

September? Seriously?

So, I know that we're already a week into it, but I really must say something about this.  It's crazy that it's already September!  Next thing you know, it'll be Halloween... Acckkk!

Just a few of the things I'm planning this month.

I've taken to illustrating some of my lists.  It's a little habit that I picked up from completing Janel's 30 Day Journal Challenge.  Oh, hey!  That reminds me, I never did show you the rest of my finished pages.

Try it- it makes To-do lists much more fun!
What are your big plans for September?

Sauced.

The boy and I spent part of our holiday weekend getting sauced.

With fresh tomatoes from our garden! 

We had Roma, Cherry, Brandywine and Early Girl Tomatoes piling up so we decided to heat things up in the kitchen.

When it comes to sauce, I'm not much of a recipe gal.  I'm more like Clemenza.  I just start adding stuff.  Stuff like fresh Garlic, Onions, Peppers, and Mushrooms.

  Even some of the Green Peppers came from my humble garden.  

 Look!  I grew the smallest Green Pepper ever!  I loved that little guy, so tiny.

After lots and lots of fresh Basil, Oregano and Rosemary, the house was smelling soooo good.  Added a bit of wine, a bit of spicy Italian sausage and then we let it simmer for a good 3.5 - 4 hours.  It was too tempting not to go in there and test it...several times.  

It did manage to make the house a bazillion degrees (it was 90 F outside when we started), however, it was worth it.  After the hugest plates of Spaghetti, we gladly froze a ton of sauce to enjoy later.  We're hoping that our plants give us enough to do another batch before the season is over.  Too full to do anything else, we settled in for an evening of strange movies on Sundance.

Well, that was my holiday.  How was yours?  Do anything fun?  I certainly hope so.

p.s.  Have you entered the giveaway?  Hurry, it ends this Friday.

Snapshot Friday!

Ah, September.  I love this time of year.  Along with Autumn, September brings with it good ol' Back-to-School time.  Here in CA, we don't have much of a Fall compared to where I grew up.  However, it's my favorite season, so I'll take what I can get.

When I was a kid I loved Back-to School shopping.  Not so much for the clothes, but for the school supplies.  You know that part in You've Got Mail (yeah, I'm showing a cheesy side of me right now) when she's talking about bouquets of freshly sharpened pencils?  Yeah, that's totally me.  Just thinking about it makes me smile.

School conjures up memories of learning new things, 

(Click for a larger view)

studying hard,

having fun with friends,

and Pep Rallies.

Wait a minute....what the....

Hey, that's a beer can!  Definitely not the kind of Pep Rally our school had....I wish.

 Ahhhh, the good ol' days.

All of today's photos came from the 1968 Spectator.

Thanks for looking.  Have a creative night.

p.s.  Have you entered the giveaway??

A Giveaway!!

Alright, kiddos, today's the day!  As promised, a giveaway for all of you lovely readers out there.

I fell in love with the journals from Ex Libris Anonymous the second I saw them.  It was a few years ago at Renegade Craft Fair in San Francisco.  We had just walked through the doors and already I wanted to hand over all of my money.  I thought to myself, this can't be good.

I am totally willing to admit that I am a paper loving freak.  Or as stitchy pal Lisa likes to put it, a member of the NBA...Notebook Buyer's Anonymous.  I am also a bibliophile.  Combine these two things with my love for up-cycling and handmade.  Presto- you've got an Ex Libris Anonymous book journal!

So when Jacob announced that he was willing to sponsor a giveaway, I gladly took him up on his generous offer.  Not only did he send one for me (how did he know of my addiction?)  but he sent 3 for me to giveaway.  What a great guy.  

 

Check out these handmade beauties.

Each journal is one of a kind and contains about 75 pages of acid free paper.  There are also original pages from the book, such as text or illustrations.

Want one?  Yep, that's what I thought.

The rules are pretty simple. 

1.  Please be a follower of this blog.  (If you aren't one already, sign-up!)

2.  Please comment on this post about your favorite journal in Jacob's shop.  He also has an etsy, if that's your thing.  That would work too.

That's it.  Easy-peasy, right?  This giveaway is open to everyone, including international readers.  I'll pick a winner on Friday, September 10th.  Go check out Jacob's shop and his etsy.  Then, scurry back here and tell me what you like.  Good Luck!

Thanks for stopping by, I'll be back a little bit later with this week's edition of Snapshot Friday.