October 29, 2007

Happy Halloween

I have to say I have felt a bit 'bah humbug' about Halloween. I think it is because it has become all about money wherever you go (maybe I am just a bit sensitive to this) but don't get me wrong I love celebrating all the holidays and give me an excuse to have a party and wouldn't miss it. But everything these days just seems lost in commercialisation and it drives me a bit nuts. Like Christmas, people round my parts have to have their house decorated full-on about 3 weeks before the actual event. The shops have all gone halloween stir crazy and I'm a bad mom for not buying scary skeletons that hang from the ceiling and make a goulish noise when you touch them.

That being said Emily and I did make Halloween biscuits today and iced them in this holidays colour of black with yummy jelly beans and we did carve out a pumpkin yesterday too. Good old traditional things to do! I also have apples waiting to be made into a pie but we will just have to see if that happens.

On a more exciting note I made these two masks the other night in preparation for the masked Halloween Ball I am going to Belfast tomorrow night. I can't wait and its full on glitzy glam. I have my black party frock complete with gold sequin shrug, fur stole and long black gloves! There is always a swing band that plays followed by a DJ and last time we went there were can can girls! Its all based in the Spiegaltent, which is a fancy marquee, in Custom House Square, Belfast. I made the gold mask for me and the silver one for a friend who is coming too. I am so chuffed with these and here is my little princess modelling them!

Oh and look at my gorgeous cuties. Emily is on the left making pretend beans on toast for Daddy's tea - a sponge cut into triangles and painted brown for the toast, with orange tissue paper beans and orange pva for sauce (as inspired by Mister Maker - how great is that show?!). Of course Daddy's boy wouldn't be complete without his Hammers shirt! He just looks so grown up.

Sorry to go on but on a completely different note I wanted to say thank you to everyone who posted and left such encouraging comments on my last post, I am a bit rubbish with replying at the moment but I appreciate all the kind words and support. I have now taken a job with good old Marks & Spencer and will be working 3 nights till midnight in the week and a Saturday night. Its a much better compromise than the original 5 mights they were offering me. I now feel that I can at least get a little bit of money in without it totally compromising my relationship or my creativity. Its only short term and certainly not what I want to be doing forever, but for now I think its the right thing to do.

And on another note I went to see Jose Gonzalez last night and he was just fantastic, a nice mellow and relaxing night out (apart from my annoying sore throat and cough - boo hoo! But hey thats another story)... :)

Posted by Maxine at 09:22 PM | Comments (2)

More Tea Vicar?

It seems a while since I posted about my tea exploits and these are some experiments I did a few weeks back. I decided to apply a subtle palette to the above canvas and also experiment with gold leafing, which I have never done before. It really is an easy process and very enjoyable when you get going.

I also decided to try a couple of experiments with texture and printing on just a couple of pages of acrylic paper. The one on the left is about A5 and the right hand side one is A2. I quite like how the printing turned out and it certainly is something to think about as a way of applying pattern in the future.

Over the past few weeks I have been working on a big canvas but I keep forgetting to take my camera to my friends house, where she is kindly storing it for me, so hopefully there will be photos of that to see soon.

Posted by Maxine at 09:10 PM | Comments (0)

October 24, 2007

Procrastinating

Isn't it such a wonderful word? Well it totally sums me up thats for sure. So much of my life has been spent in this state, which results in lots of ideas and positive thought and no action. I have to try and break out of this, pull my socks up, get my act together and try very hard to do something. Something that I enjoy but enables me to get some kind of income.

I know this past year has been hard with Harrison coming into our lives but I feel like I need to draw a line in the sand and get on with my life now. I have fallen into the trap of completely vegging in front of the TV at night and not getting anything done or anywhere in my life. I think just this week it has come to light more than ever as due to a complete lack of funds I have been applying for part time/evening jobs. These are obviously minimum wage no brainer jobs, but I really need the money.

Anyway to cut a long story short, my name was put down for (but not yet confirmed) an 8 to midnight shift five days a week, Mon-Fri. After feeling positive about this at first I am now starting to get really frustrated and thinking 'What the hell am I doing?'. There are so many things that I could potentially do from home yet I am not utilising my skills at all. I think part of the reason is that I hold my hands up and say, yes, I do need a big kick up the bum and I definitely work better with other people, especially in a creative situation - which is why my painting has been coming along nicely. If I took this job it would be an end to my regular painting evenings, I would y really see Warren properly on the weekend and I would be bloody knackered which I am sure wouldn't be very conducive to being creative.

I really do have to try and overcome this night time hibernation thing that I have got into and just focus on other ideas. Maybe I won't be financially rewarded immediately but long term surely this is the way to go. Its so hard to get going it really is.

Posted by Maxine at 10:11 AM | Comments (6)

October 03, 2007

I've Won!

But not the lottery as Warren pointed out! But I am so pleased to be the winner of one of Esther's (London Mummy) giveaways. I never win anything so I am especially excited. I will soon be the owner of two Rosie Flo Nightime colouring books, which look great (more for me than Emily I reckon hehe). Thanks so much Esther, you have made my day!

Posted by Maxine at 08:32 PM | Comments (1)

Monster Birthday!

Half a week later, after the bedlam of a monster party (16 children and at least 20 adults squeezed into our little home) I am finally posting pictures of my little monsters! I don't know what it is about birthdays, I always start off small with the odd bit of embellishment and bit by bit I just seem to lose control. I probably invited too many people, baked far too many buns (including 24 for all the kids in pre-school!) and spent too much time deliberating over party bags and what should go in them. I really have to try and learn to rein myself in - if its all possible...which it probably isn't!

But everyone had a great time and there were some really fab monsters. It was great that the kids got into the spirit of it and dressed up! Not that they needed to dress up to become monsters! Finally here is a picture of my monster cake that I made. I was so unbelievably chuffed with this! I have only baked cupcakes before so I was slightly nervous about attempting a proper cake, but all in all it turned out really well and tasted yummy which is the most important thing of course.

I used one sandwhich tin for the base and baked the top monster bit in a pudding bowl (it took a bit longer than expected, probably about 45 minutes in the oven in total). I then cut the cake in half to add buttercream and jam and finally just covered it with roll out icing. The spots are white chocolate buttons. It was a lot easier than I anticipated and I will now vow never to by a shop cake again!

Posted by Maxine at 08:19 PM | Comments (6)