The Bathroom Hallway and other TJ's Projects of Fall 2011

The subject of this post is the major projects I was doing at work all by myself around the same time as Halloween. You can see how things were crazy. First pictured is the mega project: THE BATHROOM HALLWAY. I had painted the plain beige bathroom doors to look like wooden doors on an old ship, portholes and all, a year or so before. This project was to transform the plain pale blue walls of the bathroom hallway to match the old sailing ship feel of the doors. I did a layered faux-weathered paint job with some seaworthy accents for the walls and made or found all of the artwork and decorations myself. The Kraken tentacle is painted directly onto the wall.



For instance, the jackalope I found on Ebay but I found/painted the wooden mount for him myself. The curio cabinet I made entirely out of foamcore, laminated cardstock cutouts of objects that stick inside with velcro, and acetate that I misted with spray paint for that dusty fogged antique glass illusion. Some of the items inside are actual Trader Joe's products that have more mysterious sounding names, others are inspired by mythology or simply pulled out of my imagination/ass.



Here are a couple more detail shots of all the crap on the wall. I was going for the busy, cluttered early museum of natural history aesthetic.


In case you didn't know, lame jokes are a staple of the Trader Joe's branding. Also awkward black and white artwork from Victorian times. The group portrait at the bottom is a "photograph" I made in graphite of our store art team in Victorian times.


Here's an even closer shot of that portrait. I'm the one with the badass parasol.


This "Culinary Inventions" board has crew or customer recipes we find nifty for a time, then we wipe it clean for the next one.


Next is the Trader Joe's Halloween Fearless Flyer, the theme of which was thought up by my friend Eeon and myself. We were going for a spooky Grimm's fairy tale haunted woods sort of look, with particular emphasis on Little Red Riding Hood. I made a five foot-something tall big bad wolf standup for the entrance, using photos of both wolves and drag queens as my reference. It was the big bad granny tranny wolf. On the right is the scavenger hunt I made featuring the same character. The red flyers are meant to be missing signs drawn up by the wolf, who tragically seems to have lost "her" granddaughter Red Riding Hood. To help/participate you are meant to look for Red Riding Hood's footprints throughout the store and write down the products that are next to where they were found. My manager asked me if the wolf was just wearing lipstick or if it was blood. I didn't really have an answer for that.

Here's a close up of the drag makeup, the scavenger hunt sign and the bunny slippers.


The demo station was decorated like the Grandmother's cottage in the woods. I can't find a picture of the whole thing right now but here's the big piece I made as the backdrop, somewhat inspired by Disney's Snow White, Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow and Bram Stoker's Dracula (the one with Gary Oldman.)


That's it for the work stuff. Next I'll post the personal projects I was working on.

Halloween 2011

Life has been crazy so I'm pretty behind in posting. A nasty case of bronchitis has finally given me that minute of rest I needed to remedy this. Let me start making a couple of quick catch-up posts that are short and sweet. First we have the rest of Halloween. Here is my jack o'lantern for 2011: "The Brain Sucker."



Next is my Chupacabra costume, complete with stuffed dead goat that actually "bled" wine or sangria out of his neck, depending what I decided to stash in him that night. It was a great way to sneak alcohol into public and not rake up such an expensive bar tab.


Next we have the Little Red Riding Hood Werewolf outfit. I had picked up this beautiful vintage velvet cloak from an estate sale in Savannah earlier that year and I just couldn't let it go to waste. I also won $25 worth of drinks from the yacht club with this costume.


The last ensemble is what Martyn and I wore to the annual Halloween masquerade ball at the Fernbank. The theme this year was "80's prom gone wrong" and they were showing "Carrie" on the Imax, which was pretty neat to see. Unfortunately I spent a little too long on my makeup and we ended up missing the costume contest. Bummer too because the general reaction people gave us when we arrived indicated that we might have won. Ah well, maybe next time.



So I guess that pretty much sums up Halloween. Next year is going to kick even more ass, but I will elaborate on that in the posts to come.

Werewolf Parts

Yep, it's that time of the year again.

Also note the Punkin Ale above. These custom werewolf noses and ears have been selling pretty well lately in my Etsy shop.

Putting the fur and dog bone cartilage earrings on the ears...

And last but not least, pairing them up into matching sets to mail out...

I wish I was going where some of these ear and nose sets were going. Apparently there are all these werewolf parties going on across the United States that I'm not being invited to. Ah well, such is life.

Honeydew Bubble Tea Fairy

I didn't take as many in progress pictures as I usually do since I was really determined to finish her, but this is what I got:






Then she was finished and Paige came over to take the pro pictures.







Honeydew is now for sale in my Etsy shop and tomorrow The Junkman's Daughter in Little Five Points with the rest of the Glam Fairies! Here's the description I wrote for her.

GLAM FAIRY #9: HONEYDEW

I was attempting to slurp the dregs of a highly delicious honeydew bubble tea when I noticed this thing crawling up the straw. I nearly choked to death on a tapioca pearl.

“Honeydew” is doll number nine in my Glam Fairies series. She's about four inches or so tall in her bubble tea cup (somewhat counting her hair.) She is sculpted from a mix of Sculpey III and Studio Sculpey over a strong metal armature. Her pale green skin has been lightly blushed with Pebeo heat set ceramic paints then detailed in acrylics. Her hair is hot pink Tibetan lamb’s wool and her dark mauve eyes are made of glass. Honeydew's dress and lacy pink knickers are made from recycled fabric scraps, her iridescent wings from "Purple Flash" Angelina Fusible film and jeweler's wire. On the nape of her neck underneath her hair is signature red kiss of Quarley, which identifies her as a one-of-a-kind edition to the Glam Fairies line. Honeydew comes inside of her colorful plastic "crazy bubble tea" cup, complete with faux honeydew bubble tea with Sculpey tapioca pearls and a balled up napkin stuck to the side of the cup. She can be taken out of the cup to look at but she refuses to let go of the straw. Perhaps Honeydew was formed from the bubble tea itself, or perhaps she is merely guarding the tapioca pearls. Either way I am not going to bother her.

New Glam Fairy In The Works

I haven't made a glam fairy in forever, and since someone has recently requested for me to start selling them at the Junkman's daughter I figure it's about time. I just started on a honeydew bubble tea fairy tonight. I now have every Prismacolor marker ever created so designing her in color was totally fun and easy. Also, ever since I bought a bubble tea from the now closed down Sweet Lime Asian restaurant on the corner, I saw that so happy bubble tea cup and knew I had to save it and make a fairy with it someday. So far I've built her an armature with wire and that smelly two-part epoxy compound:



Oh, and since I'm so stoked about the markers, here's a shot just for them. Aren't they magnificent?

More Doodle Bags

"Pee-Wee's Big Adventure"

"Demonology II"

"Harold and The Purple Crayon"

"Origin of Love Hedwig and the Angry Inch"

"Scary Stories Stephen Gammell"

"Custom Wizard Of Oz Bag II"

"Back To The Future"

"Shel Silverstein"


"Legend"

"Aubrey Beardsley"


"Demonology"

Custom Wizard Of Oz Doodle Bag

I am now down to three of my original doodle bags left and I'm starting to get custom orders for purses. Below is a custom made Wizard of Oz bag, complete with real glitter. The green was very different to work with but I love the way it turned out.