Saturday, March 12, 2016

Cookies, cookies, cookies a-baking!

If you're like me, when you bake you probably try to put away as many as you can - and not eat the entire batch. Not always an easy thing to do when you have a sweet tooth, right?  Mmmmm!

My ongoing love of vintage Halloween items (mainly black cats and Jack O'Lanterns, circa early 20th century) is revealed in this adorable ceramic kitty cat cookie jar, which I painted in bright autumn colors. 
Miss Kitty smiles festively with a most mischievous sparkle in her green eyes, which plays beautifully with the Halloween color scheme of orange, burgundy, cream, goldenrod, black, green and purple against her pretty black face.
I just love her mischievous grin!

Atop her head (which is the lid of the cookie jar) is a material cap, made of deep orange crushed velvet held on by a soft black & white terry cloth rim. The very tip-top of her cap is a twisted piece of dried straw with a few tendrils of sparkly glitter. The hem of her robe is lined with soft black faux fur, from which her tiny kitty feet peek out!

She holds a grinning pumpkin in her left paw that begs you to find out what the mischief is all about by opening the lid... hmmm, could there be any cookies in here, I wonder? Well, you'll just have to take a peek inside and see!

Miss Kitty is a hard-fired ceramic container, with food-safe glazed interior (safe for cookies, candies, but not good for foods or liquids of acidic nature).

She stands approximately 16 inches tall by 5 inches wide at her base, and weighs about 2 US pounds.

Her head/lid is secured to the jar with a steel collar on a flip-up release hinge. The inner rim is lined with a rubber gasket to keep a tight seal as well as prevent any chipping of the ceramic. 

You can find her on my Etsy page!

http://www.etsy.com/listing/285575341/miss-kittys-cookie-jar
   



Thursday, March 10, 2016

Spring is around the corner...

...which means that Halloween is a mere 7 months away. Time to get crackin'!

It might seem that it's a long way off, but it's really not. Before you know it, summer ends and the first cool breezy nights of early autumn signal its arrival. I have a lot of plans and a lot of art projects to get underway.

But first - sharing two new goodies. One is a revamping of an existing art piece that needed a little "oomph" (La Madame de la Morte) and the other is a colorful Day of the Dead keepsake box I worked on while I convalesced after my surgery in January.

Photos following are the keepsake box...

Polymer clay skull & bleeding hearts, with metal pins forming a halo



I worked with some really vivid, rich, bright primary colors - not my usual palette, but I had a blast doing it, as was painting a filigree background on which the skull was attached.


Now for La Madame -

She was created a couple of years ago, but I always felt like she was still unfinished, perhaps just a wee bit short of her true potential. So, I took her back into the shop and jazzed her up some more. Added an extra long braid in the back of her skull, held in place with another rose.
Because I love red roses and what they signify (eternal love) I gave La Madame a very lovely petit bud to hold in her skeletal hands.

A line of black satin roses adorns the hem of her dress at her feet, and a very pretty black velvet brocade lines the bottom of the wooden base she stands on. I loved her always but love her so much more now!

Boy oh boy, did it feel GREAT to be creative again. 

After several long difficult months of forced recuperation, during which time I lost my computer (just got a brand new Mac with a 27 inch monitor, amazing graphics card and one terabyte of storage), I'm rarin' to go here.
Yay! I'm baaaaaaack!


My latest offerings are listed here -
http://www.etsy.com/shop/MacabreWebs