Classic Craft: cartoon likeness

made in 4th grade!!

Hilarious!

My cartooning technique hasn’t changed much since childhood (the eeeeeeeeeeyes!), but I have gotten a little more refined if I do say so myself.

I went cabinet-diving into the past one early morn in California and found loooooooads of fun memories placed deep in my old shelves… including these drawings, printed inside a photocopier made yearbook.

I’m thinking my favorite actress choice was based solely on my love for Sister Act 2.

Bette Midler was probably a close second because of Beaches.

Classic Craft: el camino

made for Indian Princesses (mostly by dad) à la age 7? maybe?

Actually .

I definitely just conceptualized this baby.

And picked the color.

Growing up (and now) our dad has always had a love of cars and his 1971 El Camino was always his working project and great car pride. All the cool cars go to California and his helps prove it.

It’s loud, shiny and just plain pretty.

On Wednesday nights throughout elementary school we were regulars at the Wienerschnitzel car show. My brother and I spent the hours running around shined silver rims and bright-colored classics while  dad schmoozed with his Meano’s hood up.

Before turning into our driveway, we’d pedal (to the metal) through the neighborhood to the tunes of the Eagles’ Hell Freezes Over, never complete until we heard the song “Get Over It” and burned rubber on the side-street next to our house.

Surely, mom knew we were home, then.

NOW – when the El Camino gets pulled out of the garage it will more likely be by MY BROTHER  since dad passed it on to him (as promised) after his college graduation.

(Now the note in the first picture makes sense 😉 )

Way to go Dad and Bro for being the owners of a rad ride.

Picture: puzzle until my puzzler is sore

made one on top of the other

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As it turns out, this craft spawned a dream-come-true and is highly thanks to my mom for having two pristine jigsaw puzzles to work with back home in California.

HANZZmade Doodle: more baby!

made at the baby shower

This onesie is the beginning of something epic.

While in California I got to go to my cousin’s baby shower – the first out of five I’ve been able to attend! Anyway, my Aunt Teri is one smart hostess who knows how to keep her hair-brained family in check: with food, drinks, and of course (most notably), crafts!

Decorating onsies and bibs is a great way to pass the time at a baby shower in between ooos, awes and pampers.

Pictures: ship spectres

made aboard the legendary Queen Mary

There are many sites to see in Southern California and in my childhood the Queen Mary ship was never one I frequented. In my mind I had linked rumors of its haunted decks with slumber party fears of Bloody Mary to equal a firm decision in not wanting to go.

But that was then, this is now, of course, and as it stands, I’d pretty much love to be a Ghostbuster these days.

Conveniently, a Ghosts and Legends tour is provided that is not suitable for children under the age of 15. Though my own understandings of the paranormal lead me to believe that ghosts don’t haunt in 25 minute intervals, my brother did put it nicely: “more believable than Disney.”

Weirdly (or maybe not) the biggest chill I felt while aboard the ship was when I got a load of one of the gigantic propellers, lighted just below the surface of the water. I even had to walk out for a second and then return to fully view the scene.

Believing the ship was haunted after our tour was something I still wasn’t sure on – though events that occurred afterwards on my SoCal voyage would point me towards affirmative.

This picture helps too – I may have only captured white sunlight streaming in the windows, but it could also be spectres, phantom images of passengers or troops tied as tightly to the decks of the Queen Mary as she is the docks at Long Beach.


HANZZmade Banner: cali cali california

 

made for August

 

Aaaaand also to pay homage 🙂

I digidrew and posted this before I travelled West.

I got back today from a two-week retreat to Southern California, revisiting family, personal relics and a bit of hometown history. In between revelations (and parties) I still found lots of time to CaliCraft – which I will surely be sharing this week and, possibly, beyond!!!

 

As for the Cali-Banner: It will headline HANZZmade.org for the remainder of the month and be replaced on September 1st with a BRAND NEW THEME!!!

 

 

 

 

 

Don’t be surprised if it’s back-to-school themed.

 

Remembering Hogwarts

made a scene from Prisoner of Azkaban

Can you believe it?
This third scene in my Remembering Hogwarts Series is really more than one!

(Don’t you just love trick endings?)

I spent A LOT of time on set and prop design for this vid, building an entire car of the Hogwarts Express, the end of Platform 9 3/4 AND an unattended snack trolly. The “location” offered tons of opportunity to play up details and background animation. I’m pretty proud of the  scenery as it moves with the train out of London, through city and forest, towards Hogwarts Castle. I used receipt paper for the effect… Talk about an obsolete item- I had to buy a 12 pack to get the 3-feet of slim, rolled paper I needed for this project… And that was a success only had after traveling to four different stores.

At least they have teacher discounts at Office Max.

Too bad the same kind of discounts aren’t offered on Harry Potter action figures…

I might have purchased Draco on Amazon just for this scene.

HANZZmade for SALE

Alright, alright, alright –

 

So I’ve had an Etsy account since 2009 (apparently) and have not made use of its selling features at all… until now.

 

Check out my newly opened shop on Etsy and please return to it as I intend on listing more and more as my makes come out.

 

 

You can even subscribe to it via an RSS feed – Google Reader anyone?