margaritas make everything better

a few weeks ago, one of my school mom homies invited me to join her and a bunch of other moms to do one of those "wine & paint night" things at a local restaurant.  she even had a promo code that took the ticket price down to half, and so i roped the old lady into going with me.  we weren't really anticipating doing a bunch of drinking, but just to be safe we hit up uber for a ride.

when we got there, the group was already a couple of margaritas and some nachos down.  we hadn't been able to get there any earlier, so we just kind of hung out and chatted with everyone as we waited for the event to start.  we found seats at a table near the back and looked over the supplies that were already set up for us.

so while i can do a halfway decent job with a cookie and a bag of frosting, i'm not really a very good artist.  i leave that to the bean, most times.  but whatever, i'm always game for trying something fun and new.  and the first step was easy enough - draw a horizontal line somewhere on the bottom half of the canvas.

and then fill in the top half with red paint, still using horizontal strokes with the large brush.

and then my margarita arrived...

we were starving, so we also ordered some grub.  a couple of shrimp enchiladas hit the spot.

apparently i was really into what i was doing here:

the staffer who was roaming around taking photos got this one for us:

and then we photobombed our friends on the other side of the table.

when we were done, we took a group photo with our masterpieces.

let's just say that the one hanging up in the house ISN'T the one i did.  heh.  but would i do it again?  yeah, probably.  it was a lot of fun, and i'm always down for an evening out with the girls.  anybody wanna go?  anyone?  anyone??

mysfits indeed

a couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine who works at a toy company asked me if i'd be interested in doing some cookies to help them promote a couple of new doll lines.  i hadn't really done any cookies in quite some time, so i was all over it.

although i gotta say, once i looked at the graphics for the dolls, i got super nervous.  these were super stylized designs, and i'm really not an artist.  i'm just good at copying stuff!  so a couple of days before, i decided i'd put together royal icing transfers that would harden overnight and i could just plop them onto a freshly frosted cookie.

it's a good thing i got a nice, early start - i needed a shitload of colors in both thick and thin consistencies.  this is really my least favorite part of cookie-ing, so i was relieved to get it done.

crazy, right?  and although i had a LOT of transfers to make, i tackled them little by little until i was finally done.

for the other line of dolls, i tried and tried to duplicate the faces.  but there was just no way i could take on something like this:

actually, had i been able to pull that off, i'd have been really proud of myself.  alas, it was not to be.  and after a bit of back-and-forth via e-mail, i managed to wiggle myself out of those designs and instead settle on taking a couple of simple elements from the characters.  the final products:

that thing is supposed to be a crown.  but when the teen sat down at the table across from me, she took one look and asked me why i was making vagina cookies.  and viewed upside down, i can see what she meant:

ugh.

i was so relieved when we finally delivered all seven dozen, and i think they were a nice addition to their display.

plus, we managed to score a free doll (which we have yet to crack open, it's been so busy around here).  i'll be curious to see who plays with it more, the teen or the bean.

i'll report later.