Greetings from Halloween Town!!!

As I sit here in my office listening to the Nightmare Before Christmas soundtrack, on this chilly, Southern Oregon Halloween day....

...I am truly into the moment.

Before coming in this morning, Phillip and I stopped at the "new" location to take a peek at my "new" office...Alan has begun his magic....

OOOOH...can you feel my excitement????

This is the main focal wall that will be behind my desk. Clearly still a work in progress, but, OH WHAT FUN!!!

....a bit blurry...I think my little iphone was shaking from excitement....

I LOVE the BLACK graphic elements against the drippy, grungy background..

In the transparency above, I had Alan replace the winged Gargoyle-like cat with this little screeeecher!!! Can't you just hear him yowling into the night?

I almost like the rickety stairway leading up to nowhere, but, alas, Jack's little house will be perched atop that hill.....

I'll keep posting MORE, MORE, MORE photos as this, my dream NIGHTMARE office comes together!!!

I'm SO exicted, I could almost CRY or SCREAM or WAIL with delight.....

Happy Halloween!!!!!

Reflect.

photo credit: Kyra...A.J.'s girlfriend

Horsepower and Hot Rods.

Are these NOT the cutest little wooden rocking horses you've ever seen?

Sure, they were rescues from the vacant house across the street from Janice, and are well aged...

I can't imagine a little kiddo riding them, but oh, they make me smile every time I go to her house. She has these little ponies in her front yard. I bet they'll look really cute in the snow...Not rushing Winter, just sayin...

Phillip giving Janice a spin in the hot rod on Saturday.

This little pony, for real horsepower, is Phillip's 1965 Chevy Impala.

I call it his, because it's the BIG car and I've only driven it a couple of times. I feel SO small inside that big 'ol hunk of steel. BUT, when I see HIM driving it, well, I get all gooshy inside, just like when I was 15 in 1983. My heart flutters just a bit!!!

Back in 1993 when he was working away from home, he called me and said he'd found a "really clean Impala...the proverbial little old lady from Pasadena car". It was owned by a woman whose husband was strictly a FORD man. She had bought it off the lot from Hansen Chevrolet in Los Angeles. When she drove it home, her husband refused to EVER drive it because he was strictly a FORD man and this was a CHEVROLET.

Weird, I know, but that was good for us. You see, when the dear woman passed away, she left it to her son. He parked it next to his house. Phillip spotted it and true to our hobby of days gone by, he knocked on the door to see if he would be interested in selling it.

Needing a new roof on his house, he said he'd take $1000 for it. SOLD!!!

Phillip charged up the battery and drove it home (well, to his home-away-from-home anyway).

It had the original head lamps!!! The interior was original. There was NO rust - only a little oxidation on the roof and some body panels. SCORE!!!

Once we decided to make it a hot rod and restify it, we chose to paint it 1995 Kia Sportage Whisper Green, after many drive throughs on car lots. I love the color. Depending on the light, it's green, blue, grey-green, almost black. The black interior with custom carbon fiber dash and accent panels (designed and fabricated by the man himself) is a nice, simple design.

When we met in high school, Phillip was driving a 1966 Impala that was about 8 different primer colors with ratty interior, but he stole my heart with the hot rod. It was cool then and it's even cooler now!

Yay for HORSEPOWER and HOT RODS!!!

Rusty Monkey...

Un-packing and moving in and setting up and moving it around again and scheming and planning and...
well, you get the idea...

It's certainly a process.

Good thing we aren't under any pressure for an opening date!!!

There's a lot to do. A lot of sorting. Setting up. Planning. Doing...and the holidays are looming. YAY! (did you hear the sarcasm coming out of the end of my fingers?) I cannot believe it's the end of October already. CAN YOU???

****

Any hoo...on with the tour...my apologies if some when some of the photos are blurry. I took them yesterday as we were leaving..."I haven't taken any in-progress photos in a while!" - end quote. I was tired!

An adorable vintage stand I found at the Jacksonville All-City yard sale a few weeks back.

I like that the adjustable baskets are gridded so smallish items won't fall through AND how could I pass up that cute enamel metal sign on top that reads "BUY NOW". 

LOVE it!!!

Those shoes are for my mantel at home...witches shoes AND darn it if I didn't forget them there last night! Oh well. Monday will be here soon enough.

Janice's card rack. "Hi, Janice. Ginger is testing out the rack with our cards....You better get busy, or you'll need to find a new place to put your cards..." Alas, I jest....this rack hold SO many cards!!!

My infamous, folding baker's rack. This thing has some miles on it! It's been in my kitchen, my craft room, our bedroom...it held dress-up items at our 25th anniversary party, it was at our booth, and now it's here! I like it!!! I'll like it better with shelf toppers, so merchandise doesn't fall through!

STUFF! LOTS OF STUFF!!!

Another view of STUFF!!!

After the unloading the second of TWO 15' box truck loads of STUFF - calling it "stuff", "crap" and "shit", we decided on a kinder, gentler description...

MERCHANDISE

More MERCHANDISE.

Two of my windows. Guess what? They will fit in the opening we created between the two rooms.

CUUUUUTE!

We'll still have natural light in the little back room, but with character!

...and for light after dark, there's this little five-legged gal...Can you visualize it creamy white with jars for shades? We can too!!!

Just some of the stuff   merchandise unpacked from totes...random order. Not staged, yet!

More unpacking.

Gingers dress form. She has a make-over in her future...Stay tuned...

A fun stand with three swinging baskets.

A perfect catch-all for my vintage wooden blocks.

The new stick-on floor tile. An inexpensive cover-all with the look of rusty steel. NICE!

 An old hutch top. Looking for a long, wide dresser to use as a base....Keeping our eyes peeled...

The nifty, thrifty electronic cash register I scored a few weeks ago at a barn sale....

FIVE, WHOLE, ONE-DOLLAR BILLS!!!!

A bit of rusty & cream garden fencing with the legs curled up....

... to serve as an accent topper over our indoor sign.

It won't be crooked or resting on a bright yellow/white paint bucket!

But, if we had a rusty ol' bucket? ..lol

and RUSTED WONKA? What does it mean?

We were goofing around with a stack of letters I bought a few years ago in a Ziploc bag and never opened. There weren't enough letters to spell RUSTY MONKEY, so RUSTED WONKA it was!!!

In honor of Wonka-Doggish, I guess....

Cheers and have a HAPPY Saturday.

Boys and Girls of EVERY age...

...wouldn't you like to see something strange?


Come with us and you will see.


This our town of


HALLOWEEN.....

one of my favorite t-shirts

Have I ever mentioned my LOVE of Nightmare Before Christmas? LOL

The movie was released back in 1993 and I had never seen it.

I guess I was pre-occupied with having a new baby - the 3rd.

Years later, when I saw it for the first time, I 

WAS. ABSOLUTELY. HOOKED!!!

I only regret NOT having seen it on the big screen. Oh well.

I love the animation. The music. The lyrics. The love story. The characters.

Since then, I have gathered, collected, been gifted quite the collection. 

I am however kind of a snob when it comes to the items I collect.

By that, I mean, I don't like just anything Nightmare. Like cheap knock-off crap that has been marketed just for the sake of making a quick buck.

I am very particular in the unique-ness, absolute likeness, and quality of the item(s).

Much like my snobishness (is that even a word?) of Disney art. There is so much stuff out there in the marketplace, just for the sake of making a quick buck, that is NOT up to Disney standards --- trust me, I know what their standards are -- that I can't imagine how some of the mass-manufacturers received a license. Especially the faces on some of the stuff. Likenesses are SO important. How can a Tink that looks like a man be sold as Tink?

O.k.  I'm off my box now...moving on...

 source this is my computer screensaver

As a likeness snob, I am being really particular about my new office.

I have the BEST, Disney-quality scenic artist on staff right now, and he is my go-to guy when it comes to creating my Nightmare environment.

After much deliberation, Photoshop edits and transparency/over-head projector placements, I have settled on a color scheme and element placement.

At first, I was leaning towards animated color realism...is that an oxymoron or what? But, the more I considered that approach, the more I decided against being THE human in a cartoon.

The final design will be more charcoal sketch-like, mono-chromatic and warm-toned black, tans, creams, and whites verses bright blues, purples, yellows, etc...

I cannot wait for the finished space....

Stay tuned.

The EYES have it!!!

Or at least the "eye" that sees through the lens of a camera has it.

Funny how the simple things in life look differently through a lens.

Here a simple cloud on a crisp FALL day becomes a WHALE with a little bit of imagination.

That reminds me...the whales will be migrating soon...in Hawaii....
yeah, Hawaii in the Winter...hmmmmmm...pause for a bit of daydreaming....

 A HUGE leaf in the midst of changing its colors. Beautiful!!!

Up in Lincoln City, at the Art Camp retreat...the trash can lockup of the house next door...Taken while walking to the car one night... Do you see what I see? GRRRRR!!!

A simple little moth inside the ART CAMP house. Bet he was enjoying being a moth-on-the-wall in house full of women/artists. Wonder the tales he could share??

Gorgeous Oregon Coast sunset view from the deck of the house...First Night at Art Camp.

Taking pictures is a fun past-time...even if all the above photos were only taken with my iphone.

I love the Nikon, but sometimes, the little phone camera does the job just fine!

12 more days until Halloween....

Are you Kidding ME???

Graphic Art Source

I can't believe it's already the middle of OCTOBER!!!

The FUNNEST month of the year...!

Where has the time gone? Why is it flying by so fast?

I grew up in a family, with mostly my mother at the helm, celebrating Halloween with much exuberance.

I have fond memories of my childhood dressed in the BEST homemade costumes; winning many a contest as a witch or a princess. Mom was always SO creative with the limited budget she had. We never could afford those printed plastic masks and "silky" costumes, like Wonder Woman - remember her?

Instead, mom would think outside-the-box. Creepy press-on fingernails were created using layers and layers of clear tape applied over our little nails, then cut into pointy shapes and coated in paint. The proverbial hairy cheek wart made from a rolled up piece of rubber cement with a cat hair inserted in it. Pasty wrinkled hands imagined from Elmer's white glue applied and left to dry and crackle and peel.

Or, the rolled up paper cone-shaped hat - 2 feet tall - coated in glitter and cheap string pearls from Ben Franklin. The flowing gowns she sewed from all sorts of left-overs from the thrift store. My costumes were one-of-a-kind. THANKS, Mom, for all the great memories and instilling a sense of repurposing. Who knew you were a trend setter 30+ years ago? Repurposing is really a HOT thing now!!! and you don't even have to be a struggling single mom...

*****

Fast forward to my own motherhood, as a young mom, with three little boys, and a fledgling business, money was always tight. My boys grew up with second-hand duds too! Halloween costumes were no different. Off to the thrifts we would go. Culling all sorts of bits and pieces to create werewolves, vampires, super heros, pirates, ghosts, etc...

I have never been the best seamstress in the world, but for a Halloween costume, worn in the dark, one day a year, I could muddle through. My trusty little $99 Brother sewing machine and I have sewn a number of delights.

I have many fond memories....sewing Kyle's first little Dopey costume. Complete with an old knitted ski hat sheathed in a lavender bed sheet, a clunky pair of shoes mocked up with yellow fabric to look like boots with felt buckles, and a green crushed velvet throw cut and sewn into a tunic over the stretchy light blue pajama bottoms.

Sewing Ty's Hunchback of Notre Dame costume into the wee hours of the night listening to a Loverboy Greatest Hits CD - over and over and over again, because I just couldn't bring myself to stopping to change it.

Driving all over town trying to find the ideal elements for his pirate costume - even GIRL'S clothes!!! Well, most pirates are a bit flamboyant, right? And he was just a skinny little guy so he looked good in the emerald green corduroy dress with GREAT brass buttons we used a a vest over the tight black velvet leggings. Who knew my boy would want to go jewelry shopping with mom? Lots of rings, necklaces and even a clip-on earring...

FUN TIMES, I tell you.

Halloween....One of my favorite holidays for so many reasons.....

ICE Resin Inspiration Monday...

As many of you know, I was at Terri Brush's Fall Art Camp in Lincoln City, Oregon last weekend, if you can call Thursday through Monday a weekend, with a fun bunch of women.

Me, Christina Lovisa, and Jenny Doh
Photo courtesy of Jenny's Facebook - Terri Brush Art Camp Album

While I was away playing, visiting, eating, and creating...and gone...I had the honor of posting on ICE Resin's Inspiration Monday...

Autumnal Rust

As many of you know, I love the color RUST.

The color.

The texture.

The age of it all.

Fun Stuff. Stuff with character. Stuff with history. Stuff to be collected, for sure.

A RARE glimpse within....

It's not often that we share what's going on behind the walls of E.B., but I thought it would be fun to show a glimpse of the crazy, creative, prankster, fun, hard-working, comical guys I work with everyday...


Just a handful of the team working a late night to meet a deadline.

Darrin, Ty, A.J., Erik, Phillip. They are VERY tired, but still smiling...


They are a fun bunch, to say the least. Even when things get a little hectic and hurried, we all still laugh and continue to play at work.

Our oldest son, Ty. He is almost 24 and quite the character. I think every picture I've ever taken of him has either his "thumbs up" pose or a quirky smile! Here he is with a project we did for Philharmagic Theater in a famous Japanese theme park...

 Every surface is a canvas for a group of artisans...even the dusty ol' pressure tank!

Some of the employees, even though they move and move-on, they are still part of the E.B. family. Graphic rendering by Royce Owen - Seattle

Graphic renderings help sell the client an idea prior to creation.

Robert always does a great job and takes it VERY seriously!!!

Here is Erik, reminding us where the NOSE belongs....That obviously made Ty burst out in a belly laugh!

ROAD TRIP!!!!

Robert making a pass, ESPN Zone-style...

Let's not forget one of our HARDEST working "employees", OTIS the forklift...

Darrin and Phillip...a bit distorted....


...and last, but not least, it's only fair that there's a glamorous picture of me...the ONLY female in the building....but I sign the paychecks, so they tolerate the spikes of estrogen from time to time....LOL

Hope you enjoyed the glimpse....

Tina

TWO more days...

...and I'll be road tripping to here with two of my friends.

FALL ART CAMP OR BUST!!!!

Lincoln City Beach House.

Food.

Creating.

Friends.

FUN!!!

I can't wait...

Now, I'm off to unload a 15' box truck full of Rusty Monkey treasures, scrub the floor, and lay the new floor tiles. (don't be envious or anything...my back still hurts from cleaning out the garage and loading the truck on Sunday!)

but....

we can park the Jeep and the Outlander in the garage again...

just in the nick of time, too, the rain has arrived....

Yay!