Giving Thanks to the Humane

Thanksgiving, being the annual day of thanks, I can't help but think of all the lives that go un-thanked... like the turkeys and other animals who didn't make it, and many times, the un-thankful way of raising them.  As a way to thank those people and companies that care to treat their animals humanely, I'd like to link to a few sites that might be of interest for those hoping to make a change or just see some of what's out there.

Humane Treatment of Farmed Animals

The Animal Welfare Approved seal, from the Animal Welfare Institute, is used on meat, poultry, dairy and eggs that the nonprofit group has determined met their high standards for the humane treatment of farm animals. http://awionline.org/

The Certified Humane Raised & Handled label certifies that producers and processors have met certain standards set by Humane Farm Animal Care, an independent, non-profit organization. http://www.certifiedhumane.org/

Free Farmed Certified means that the farm from which the product comes has been inspected by the American Humane Association. http://www.americanhumane.org/

This website suggests the best way to support products from animals raised humanely is to know more about the supplier. Talk with your grocer about the products being sold. Buy from small family farmers who have proven that they have met specific guidelines. Check labels and look for Animal Welfare Approved, Certified Humane, or Free-Farm Certified products. Finally, make your preferences known to your local, state and federal representatives.

www.ncga.coop/newsroom/animal-treatment

Happy Humane Holidays!

Inspirational Comic Relief

So I've been inspired.  Wren Schutz has been creating comics on his blog for some years now, and I just happen to have made two for his collection (which I will share below).  They have been hand-drawn, then had a bit of sprucing or coloring (via computer) from Wren.  His comics are all computer drawn (though others have submitted to his collection as well using various forms of creation), so I decided to give that method a try.

Being my first time, this took me about two and a half hours.  I brainstormed this morning about puns, and liked the idea of heart beat as my theme.  I did some research on Wikipedia for inspiration and had a handful of ideas.  This is the idea that stuck.  To help with the overly-cleverness of this, here is some wiki info on the heart... the heart is self-exciting (it works by it's own cells making it happen, vs. muscles in your leg that need conscious or reflex-driven stimuli to work)... action potential is what is created from nodes and contractions that create and regulate ones heartbeat... therefore, this cartoon heart has to get moving, or "beat feet" (beat being what a heart does) to make itself work... Morgan has the word Organ in it, and Chambers because of the 4 chambers of the heart.  One caption was "Morgan decided to take up jogging after his mom said he wasn't reaching his action potential" and we all want to reach our potential, right?! So anyway, I've been having a great time using an learning Photoshop, so this was another creative opportunity for that.  And now, here are my two previous comics...

Wren added the background and color to this... on his blog he rates it like this... which I think is hilarious!

CAUTION! This week's comic is pretty tasteless. Or sacrilegious. Or in poor humor. Or all of the above. If you are the type of person who doesn't like hearing jokes that fit into any or all of the categories, you shouldn't read this week's comic.

The second comic I created was this one which I thought was definitely not in need of a warning, but simply  pretty darn cute.  Again, Wren added the color and background awesomeness.

So there you have it.  Maybe not enough for a book yet (which Wren has... do I sound like I'm in competition or what!?), or great enough to be begged into art school, but enough fun to continue at my leisure. So three cheers for comic relief, inspiration, team-work, and fun! Hip hip hooray!

Proud Employee of the Colophon Cafe

So working at the Colophon is awesome... Great boss (Dave), awesome staff, flexibility of schedule, and extraordinary guests. I've been serving there on and off for the past 6+ years! Recently Dave has asked me to create some advertising material and graphics for the Colophon... so here's a few of them.

 Our Dessert and Ice Cream menu... it goes on the table with other small ads about us and our neighbors (Village Books).  No one was interested in being the model, so it ended up being me (just in case you can't tell with my notorious disguise)!

This ad was running every other week in the Weekly for a few months.

Here's one of my favorites of the table tent inserts!  I just love the little graphic buddies (can't remember where I found them)! Did some color adding/changing and touching up on their sharpness to make it work.

This one was for the 2012 Fall edition of the Chuckanut Reader!  And I must say, for all of it's spiciness, African peanut soup is really quite relaxing..

This was a special occasion gift certificate that two lucky contestants won in a raffle at the Banunky Fun Force Show last year!  This is evidence of an awesome and good-humored boss.

And finally, this is a draft of what the Colophon Cafe's new website will look like!  I designed it (with Dave's input and main vision) and Wren will build it!  It's quite whimsical, with wiggling moustaches and all!  It was super fun, I drew the spoon (inspired by the artist who made the graphic buddies above), and the moustache in photoshop and Wren made them come alive!  I definitely love working in photoshop, and thanks to Dave, I've done it as a paying job!  Hooray for that, and hooray for the Colophon!

Sewing Quarters... and costumes!

Sew, I'm not really sewing quarters, but I have been living out at the Quarry for about two months now, and sewing projects are on my hit-list.  Since my previous living space was my van, the sewing machine set up is a bit challenging. Sew, here's the set up in the clown pod, it's under the bed!

If you look at the bottom left of the photo, you can see the zebra chaps I made (and posted about recently) in my costume pile.  Sew the next project was a request from my friend Vanessa, who is a hula hooper and lasso performer.  She wanted a red dress with fringe with a splash of pink (to match her pink lasso). Sew we found a dress of mine she liked that I would pattern one after for her... plus the frills of course.

FInding the right fabric and making a pattern are two of the hardest things for me, but thankfully I found this great four-way stretchy dance fabric and the pattern came out just great. Sew, after the pattern was made I stiched some front and backs together and then wanted it to be just right, so I went to a professional... my friend Amanda (Under Current Clothing/Tailor and Design).

She helped me with the surging and the perfecting... and the funning! And now, here is the final product!

Fringy, shimmery, ruffley and bouncy all in one dress! We may add more "western" looks to it if she wants more, but for now, it's a dress I can say I'm quite proud of to send off to my friend Vanessa Vortex, sew-eet!

Dad sh'hangs at the Sh'Bang!

So Sh'Bang this year was awesome. Not only were there amazing things going on (I'll share about that soon), there were so many amazing people! Like my dad! He came up Friday and stayed until Sunday.  He brought giant loaf of zucchini bread made from mom (thanks Mom!), and all the comforts of home... or maybe home comfort foods... here's him cookn' up some yummy pancakes and sausage!

He took a few volunteer shifts (in the kitchen, at the gates, helped with random wood-finding and thing-moving activities), helped man our lemonade booth (which was a last minute effort to have family-friendly beverages available for people, which proved mostly unsuccessful [through no fault of his own] but definitely inspired ideas for next year), brought some of his own chopped wood as a donation to the quarry, and also partook in the Sh'Bang wood chopping workshop!

Another super awesome part of the Sh'Bang this year was the newly installed fiberglass water slide! With the cooperative efforts of Miles, Dave, Stefan, Wren, Aaron, Max and a slew of volunteer slidees... it was found, purchased, installed and tested! Last years was a bit of carpet, wood and visqueen with a 10 ft drop... it worked, but somehow this one felt a bit, um, safer. That's Wren pouring the bucket of water down before dad makes his big splash!

I must say, I sure love my dad (and mom too!).  And how lucky I feel when he comes out to celebrate with me at the events and places that I also love so much! Thanks Dad!

So you wanna be a stripper...

OK, so the title might be misleading... this week Wren and I stripped a log for his ever-closer-to-being-done cobblestone castle, or stone mansion, or rubble ridge (the name is also still in the making). It was a beautiful quarry day and super fun do be completing projects, hooray!

Our other stripping project was this coat rack we named "Meathooks". Cut it, strip it, sand it, then screw it in place and tada! Meathooks for the clownpod! (Note: there was no actual meat used in said rack).

Other fun additions we've made for said homes is the ladder Wren built (then I helped on the rubber ends).

This weekend it was time to label my chairs (I bought a bunch so we could use them every month for Vaudevillingham!). It turned out to be another great project at the awesomely spacious quarry... Where else could I lay out 50 chairs for moustache spray-painting?

Yup, stripped off all the stickers and gum and random stuff on the underside and slapped on some golden 'staches! Added some red paint to make 'em pop... will add some black outline and my name once they're dry. I love summer for outdoor projects and strippin' down for a dip in the quarry!

What a beautiful place! (Photo by bootstrapjuicebox)

Moustaches are Faux Real!

So as my pseudonym suggests... I've gotta thing for moustaches. One of the things about them that I find so charming is their amazing ability to change ones face. Donning a moustache not only changes your face, but can potentially change your personality and the actions of those around you. They are the perfect portable disguise, and I have had many a good time with the little buggers. Here is a most recent good time.

This is River. He has quite the handsome moustache as you might agree. In this photo he is making a chocolate chip donut... for me! He recently started a curly-fry business... called Kurlys (Kurlyskart.com)!

Yes, he also makes donuts and other yummy deep-fried treats in the mobile cart he made. Ok, so River and I have been in cahoots making his moustaces into Faux-Real moustaches (I just made that up)! We've made a few together... he even gave me one for my birthday... my own personal River-grown stache... who's a luck girl!?! Ok, here's what we do...

First River grows a sweeeet stache... (great job River!)

Then we snip the stache, hot glue it to some mesh fabric,

then tidy it up with a little black color.

 

River cleans up the parts we snipped...

And viola! River has a teeny partial-faux-stache that he can add or subtract from his face! We did this in a jiffy right before the renegade show after Circus Campout so he could surprise people during his act... it was awesome.

So thanks River! And hip-hip hair-ay faux moustaches... they're faux real! 

Summer Sewing

So I'm moving into a Clown Pod at the Quarry! I'm super stoked because of many reasons. One of those reasons is sewing... I guess I love it.  And though living in a van has been an amazing and liberating adventure, it is not the most conducive for sewing machine desires. Ok, I will share more info about the quarry and my new residency soon, but for now... here are photos of my first project in the  Pod... Chaps!

First I cut up a pair of old torn Carharts (thanks Liam!) for a pattern. I had the darndest time trying to see how to make chaps online, so decided just cuttin' up a some pants would be the best idea.

Then picked the fabric from one of my (too) many fabric bins, cut out enough for two pair, drew a fun design for the sides (the black fabric), and decided on elastic for the back. This is just the preliminary phase... soon I will fringe, trim and bedazzle the heck out of these!

Here is a photo of them in action... Wren and I have a rope act we've been working on. He found this super awesome song (Egyptian Regge by Johnathan Richman & Modern Lovers) that had us thinking cowboys, so that was the motivation for this project, and we had an amazing place to perform... on a flatbed truck at the annual summer potluck at the Happy Little Farm in Conway (awesome folks, food and best vegetarian gravy in the morning!).

Here we are as Yippee and Ki-yay (with the just-sewn chaps, vests and buckles), two of the Happy Little Circus crew (Justincredible, Miles, Zach, Tasche, Kai, Clay, Jules, Chipps and Jasper)...

and we were just part of the ongoing entertainment of the day/night, as Lucas called some square-dancing, there was a paper-rock-scissors tournament, Smoke Wagon played some rockin set into the night, and there was midnight naked slip-and-sliding! What!?! Hooray for summertime, circus and sewing!

Makin' Goodies!

So my mom gave me a dehydrator a few years back, and boy has it been awesome (thanks mom!)! We bought cherries (cheap!) and have been cutting and dehydrating them like mad!  Since dehydrating has been such a fun and essentially easy way to make treats, we decided to put a little more work and research into making goodies, so...

We decided to make blueberry jam.  To do so, we asked the expert... Wren's Mom.  She offered her expertise and some essential elements (cookware, some jars and priceless experience and knowledge).  Here's the visual story... first we picked...

Then we cleaned, cooked and canned them...

The process is hot, sticky, and delicious.  Cook down the bloobs with sugar (we did 8 cups fresh bloobs and 3-4 cups sugar and 1/4 cup lemon juice), bringing to a rolling boil... keep it there and keep stirring! Sterilize the jars and lids by boiling. To know when the fruit becomes jam, pre-freeze a plate and put some of the hot bloob sauce on it... run your finger through the sauce and if it stays separated, it's jam!  Woot! And hooray for moms!

My first blog post!

My first post on my first blog! I love how fun and easy this was to start... I'm hoping to use this as a scrapbook journal type thingy to help me remember all the fun and beautiful things that happen in my life! To start, I will share a photo showing last months adventure (New Old Time Chautauqua - The group photo, Wren and I, and Chloe my favorite poop song dueter!)

And last weeks adventure at Oregon Country Fair! I was in two shows... Dream Science Circus and Stage Left... did my first trapeze routine (what?!) and performed for the first time on the Main Stage Midnight show (the chair dance! Thanks Tom Noddy!) with one of my favorite peeps, Sam Williams!

On the way home we stayed at Bobland where we got juggle to accordion played by and eat homemade bread made by Robin Schultz!  Then saw my folks and my dad's new hats he's knitted for the Jefferson County Fair! Hooray for fun, family and electronic memories!