CRAFTINESS: Valentine's Craft Party of Love

In February we had the first Craft Class of the year! Some great friends came and we had crafts and snacks, fun and loot bags too :)

The ice in the "punch drunk love" punch is red & pink hearts. The love potion #9 is pink cream soda and it's written on the back of the plastic label. There are chocolate and marble cupcakes, and the marble ones are chocolate cake and white cake that has been made pink!

First we all got some loving face paint on! ribbons and hearts and sparkles! While that was going on the kids did some colouring of the valentine themes printouts I made up! I thought that would be fun, but I had no idea it would keep them so occupied! Maybe there should be a colouring party! : )

Then on with the crafts!

Also prepared ahead of time were some salt dough shapes. This is a fun craft for the kids to make the dough and use the cookie cutters, but it takes 2 hours to bake, so having them ready to paint was so much easier! Once again, this was a big hit! Some kids painter 3 or 4 shapes to give to their family and friends! we used lots of colours, glued some together, and even attached broach backs or ribbon to them! We could have done this for hours too!

Next we got some foam hearts and cut an opening to make them into picture frames. We attached a rectangle of foam to the back to hold the picture in and then decorated the heart with other foam mini hearts, shapes, paint, and conversation-sweethearts. We added pretty ribbons to most of these as well, to be hung on walls.

The next craft involved some steps. First we had purple and white plasticine which we kneaded and then pressed into small plastic cups. Into that we stuck a green pipecleaner. On the pipecleaner were 2 green hearts, impaled through the point to look like leaves. At the top of the "stem" was glued a fuzzy heart with a pink tiny clothes pin on the back to turn the whole thing into a photo holder! (I used mine to hold my business card)

One last craft for those who stayed extra late... Similar to the heart leaves, 4 red hearts made of construction paper. A lolli-pop is stuck through a small hole in the point of each heart and they are fanned out to form a yummy flower. 

At the end, everyone got a loot bag full of treats, a valentine pencil and big heart eraser and then everyone picked out a pin broach that I had made.



CRAFTINESS: Light Shade

The light in my kitchen has no cover. It is one of those bulbs that would normally be covered by a glass globe of some sort, but I suspect the painters may have smashed it before I moved in and it was never replaced... So I saw a similar idea to this and loved it so much I had to try it! I used a balloon and wall paper paste and did this paper mache style. I first dyed the paper doilies using a spray bottle and purple watery dye (see the tissue paper dying in another entry for more info) and when they were dry I covered the balloon, making sure to overlap every one in a pleasing way. This makes it look nice, have different shades of colour, and also keep it all together! after the whole thing dried on the balloon (about 24 hours) I popped it and the form was left. I then slipped it over the existing fixture holding the bulb and it made a nice muted light :) SUCCESS! Hope you like it! feel free to comment or ask questions!

CRAFTINESS: Premier Entry

If you like the crafts on here and want more, or want an easier way to look and share them, go to the Facebook page that my friend Devin & I run... It's called D & R's Craft Estate... a fun place to live and create :) http://www.facebook.com/#!/home.php?sk=group_173231356046916&ap=1
You and everyone can share, converse and upload ideas there about what you're making or things you have found! I am also putting some on here and some may not be on there! So follow both! YAAAAAY! silliness abounds!

Film Review: MirrorMask (2005)

    MirrorMask is a great film written by Dave McKean & Niel Gaiman based on his drawings and filmed in England. Starring Stephanie Leonidas, Jason Barry, Rob Brydon & Gina McKee.

    A small family runs a strange night circus. Helena is a 15 yr old daughter who loves to draw and adds her pictures to her wall which looks like a universe of dark and light. Helena's mother gets sick and everything is in jeopardy! Everyone might have to shut down their whole way of life. Following some fellow performers,  Helena suddenly finds herself in a kind of fantasy world! A world where everyone wears a mask. But she gets mistaken for someone else! Someone who is wanted by the kingdom and persued by eveyone. There are strange people to meet and even stranger creatures! Rules to follow and lessons to be learned; mainly, "remember what your mother told you"! Helena finds herself on a quest to discover the MirrorMask which will save the Queen and determine the battle between light and dark. But there are twists and turns as Helena's real life seems to be turning upside down with her not being able do do anything about it!

   

     It is quite an adventure to go along with! I already said it's great! I love this movie and have seen it a few times. It has interesting characters and strange techniques of film and costume to discribe aspects that you normally wouldn't see! It's a little bit steampunk, a little bit comicbook, and a lot dreamlike! I would like to recommend this movie to everyone, however I can think of a lot of people who would be very confused by this film! There is quite a bit of nonsense and some silly things... But that's what makes it fun!

Film Review: When Night is Falling (1995)

    Canadian lesbian cult-classic from 1995.... This movie stars Pascale Bussieres as Camille Baker & Rachael Crawford as Petra Soft. Camille is a professor at a catholic university along with her fiance Martin (played by Henry Czerny; This role made me see him as evil no matter what he plays as! He is usually the bad guy like as Kittridge in Mission: Impossible) While Martin is away she has a chance meeting with the charismatic Petra, a performer it the alternative Sirkus of Sorts run by Timothy (Canadian director Don McKellar) and his wife Tory (Canadian actress Tracy Wright 1959-2010)... It's a bit like Cirque du Soleil!

     Petra makes a pass at Camille but she says she just wants to be friends! However, once the idea is in Camille's head she starts to fantasize about being intimate with Petra. When Petra comes a'courting, Camille gives in and kisses her! They eventually do have a friendly outing together, but Petra wants more. This causes too much tension and they have a bit of an argument. When Camille goes to the carnival to apologize the two woman end up engaging in one of the most romantic and graphic love scenes the CBC has ever aired! LOL

    Of course all this creates turmoil for the religious school teacher's life and Petra is then in limbo of what will happen! Well I won't tell you the end, but suffice it to say it's a great movie! This is one of my favorite gay romance movies (along with Heavenly Creatures and Lilies) of all times! The music is great, composed by Lesley Barber, former partner of the director, Patricia Rozema.
Interesting Facts: Barber also composed the music for the TV cartoon Little Bear, drawn by Maurice Sendak!.... Rozema also wrote this film!.... Rachael Crawford started her acting career in 1988 in the Canadian high school drama "9B", which I loved!!!!.... Pascale Bussieres has been in 40 films, most of which are french since she was born in Montreal, Quebec!....

Film Review: The Centurion (2010)

     The Centurion stars Michael Fassbender (Inglorious Basterds, 300, Jonah Hex), Olga Kurylenko (Max Payne, Quantum of Solace, Hitman), Dominic West (300, Chicago, Star Wars I, Mona Lisa Smile), Andreas Wisniewski (Die Hard, Mission Impossible, Hush), Dave Legeno (Snatch, Harry Potter & Half Blood Prince; & Deathly Hallows), Axelle Carolyn (Doomsday, Blood + Roses, Psychosis), Imogen Poots (V for Vendetta, 28 Weeks Later, Jane Eyre {2011})

    A great story (not sure how accurate it can be) about how the Romans tried to conquer the top part of the British Isles. That part is true! (It takes place in 117 A.D.) They went north little by little fighting with the savage natives and forcing them into submission. There was a wall built to mark the border of the Roman Empire. Then they went further north and conquered some more. When they got to a point where they decided the natives were hopelessly untamable, they stopped and built the wall at that border. That was Hadrian's Wall! (I went there!) So in this film the legendary Ninth Legion are north and the natives are brutal and very clever! The large group gets ambushed and the survivors must brave the harsh weather and terrain of the Pict territory to get back to the empire, all with the super human Pict trackers on their tails!

    It was a great movie! Lots of action and bloodshed, but also some history, romance and mystery!

Interesting Facts: The legend of the Ninth Legion is that 3,000 men marched from York to Scotland and disappeared!.... Olga was born on my birthday, November 14th, but in 1979! I'm 2 years OLDER than her!.... Dominic West is best known as Detective Jimmy McNulty in "The Wire" tv series!....

Film Review: Jonah Hex (2010)

     Jonah Hex stars Josh Brolin (big brother in The Goonies, No Country for Old Men, Planet Terror, Milk, and played the president himself in W.) as a no-rules bounty hunter. His nemesis is played by John Malkovich (Dangerous Liaisons, Con-Air, Being John Malkovich, Man in the Iron Mask), his devoted whore girlfriend is played by Megan Fox (Transformers, How to Lose Friends & Alienate People,  Jennifer's Body) and the bad guys right hand man is Michael Fassbender (a TV actor in many things until being in 300, Inglorious Basterds, Centurion & will be in the next X-Men film this year as the young Magneto)

      In the story Jonah Hex has been horribly scarred across his face; a scar that originated by enemy, Quinton Turnbull (Malkovich). As a bounty hunter Hex sets out to kill Turnbull and they make a history of going after each other as all enemy pairs do! But Hex gets some help from unlikely characters: the dead! When finally their paths cross it seems the whole country is at risk!
     I really liked this movie! It's based on the comic by the same name, which I have never read! But that does mean there is much more to the story! They could have made this movie longer or concentrated on different things, but it works. It's a new kind of western with a bit of supernatural thrown in. This doesn't really adhere to historical accuracy, but it does have some civil war references, and it defo has some Americana concerning the president of the time and the creating of the capital, etc....
     Interesting Facts: There is also a DC animated short film based on the comic!.... The first Jonah Hex comic is from 1977!.... President Grant is played by Aiden Quinn, but he doesn't have a large role at all!....