More Shameless Plugs (for ridiculously talented friends)

Once again, I am showcasing the work of friends who have been more productive than I have.

GlintGear is home to a collection of stunning bags made by my dear friend Celena.  She uses a variety of fabrics including eye-catching vinyls and hand-painted canvas, styled with a touch of classic deco and a whole lot of play.  If I had the funds, I’d just buy out her whole stock, but since I can’t, I’ll just encourage you, dear reader, to go check out her beautiful stuff.

Eleven Three Designs is the outlet for my friend and creating mentor Jason.  His primary focus has been really badass resin fantasy masks, but lately he’s stumbled into the customized unicorn Christmas tree topper business.  Yeah, you read that right.  They’re funky and unexpected and just the thing your home needs for the holidays.  Lucky for you, they’re also available at his Etsy shop.

FrenchAnna is your source for elegant, well-crafted jewelry with a little genuine French flair.  Filigrees, chandeliers, felted, gold, silver, brass, stones, crystals, pearls…  Anna’s work is gorgeous and varied – so varied, in fact, that her unique fiber jewelry has its own home at Magical Whimsical.

The name is absolutely appropriate – I’ve never seen anything quite like the earrings she makes with these felted beads.  They’re big and bold, and weigh next to nothing on your ears.  Eccentric yet practical, just like their designer!

Get to shoppin’!

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Oh yeah? That’s what you think!

There was some vague mention of a Halloween costume contest at work last week, and I’ve been itching to do a little paper mache recently, so come Monday night, I decided to make a new mask.

But what to make?

I thought about it a while, then after brief consultations with my usual co-conspirators, inspiration finally struck:

And thus, late last night, it was finished:

Ladies and gents, I give you…

Sally Brown!

I was really pleased with face part of the mask. I was a little worried about how lumpy it started out, but then I realized that it would perfectly fit with Charles Schulz’s shaky line.

(I should say now, I am not by any stretch the world’s greatest Peanuts geek, but I pretty well idolize Schulz and remember hearing about his retirement and death the same way my parents remember when Kennedy was shot.  Peanuts was just a given in my day-to-day existence growing up, and was a major contributor to my early drive to cartooning.)

The hair piece would have benefited from an extra week of work time, so I could make it fit correctly.  The shirt is actually left over from a production of You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown that I directed and acted in my senior year of high school.

Today I was one of the winners of the aforementioned costume contest (along with the Box of Tissues/Sick Person pairing), and was generally met with choruses of “You made that?  No way!” all day.

Sometimes I forget that everyone in the world doesn’t compulsively make things just because things are there to be made.