neat-o signs

<

i spotted these signs while staying in cherokee, NC.

Adventure Golf

During the summer Pumpkinbutt and i got the thrill of playing a round at Adventure Golf Pigeon Forge TN. It was full of wonderful kooky statues for neato photo ops!

pink castle! scary sharkey! wrecked pirate ship! water falls! yay!

pumpkinbutt exiting the pink castle. he is very embarrassed that someone would have the nerve to paint such a fine castle this horrid shade.

mom and i surviving a shark attack. note the "Caution" sign...i took some editing liberties...

my favorite critter there! once again, i got to play out my Ed Wood Bride of the Monster bit! if i was brave (and wanted to get the police involved to escort me out) i would have jumped into the water and thrashed around and screamed "hey! throw me that weeeskey!"

Below is my same act at the panama city goofy golf a few years and pounds less ago.


note to self: funyuns and soda for meals can have undesirable consequences in the ass and thigh regions.

bargain basement spirit board

a major super duper score i got at Big Lots! it is constructed of metal and the planchette with hands is on a spring that moves from side to side!!!!!!

we have tried our best to contact the netherworld with it but being it's a factory second we were only lucky enough to make contact with the likes of Jasper the-fair-weather-friend ghost and the inventor of fig newtons.

giving a rat's ass bday cake!

just had a birthday and felt it best to cover the cake in plastic rats

they were fun to pull off by the tails!
tried to get pumpkinbutt to lick the icing off them but he wasn't going for it....would have made a great picture!

34 rats instead of candles.

Peanut goodies YUM!

here is a very yummy and simple recipe from the Better Homes and Gardens Jr cookbook. this cookbook was reissued several years ago from the 1955 version. the neat thing is the pages have the old yellowed aged look to them but without the brittleness of an actual old book .

the recipe calls for just two ingredients, spanish peanuts and semi sweet chocolate, but i didn't have either on hand and i am damn straight not going to the store when i am sure i can find something to substitute.... instead i used salted peanuts and melted all the leftover easter chocolate candy along with the maimed buttless bunny. no, no, no. not from 5 month old rotten easter candy. we actually made these treats 2 years...and at that time with only 2 month old rotten easter candy. hey, it was refrigerated and that crap is chock full of preservative goodness!

see above, see below....pumpkinbutt posing as peanut goodie boy!

the treats really did turn out very tasty. hmmmm...now what could we do with the tons of upcoming leftover candy corn? something gift worthy for christmas i am sure!

for the "how-to" click on the recipe images above.

stuff from stuff

i am not hip to the terms...upcycle, maybe? reconstructed, yes, there we go. i took a pair of guys cargo shorts that had been worn far past the expiration date (they didn't have much more to them than what you see) and fashioned myself a snazzy hip pocket deal. no no boo boo, it's not a fanny pouch. it is on my hip.

cut off waist and a pocket...

stitch together....

hands free and no more purse burden weighing me down!

but wait, there's more!

also on these cargo shorts were some small pockets that i made into backpacks for pumpkinbutt's g.i. joe mans:

spaceboy

Recently pumpkinbutt's school had Space Day, where the kids could dress up as an alien (or space man)!!! we didn't have the least bit of interest in the astronaut look but something more like....

we decided to go with this attire...

Then using these fun facts about the film:
1.The trim on the aliens' costumes is made from masking tape, and their space boots are men's dress shoes covered by socks.

2.The filmmaker was on such a tight budget that the film's ultimate weapon, the "focusing disintegrator", was actually a Hubley's Atomic Disintegrator toy cap gun, bought for a dime, with a flashbulb added as a beam. (In some scenes the words "Hubley's" can clearly be seen embossed on the side of the gun.) Atomic Disintegrators can be bought today on eBay for upwards of $300.

I came up with this... .

The space suit is grey duct tape attached on a large black tee turned inside out and sleeves cut off.
The Focusing Disintegrator gun is a water gun from dollar tree spray painted black.
And the antennae... well, not an original idea from the film but super cute, are silver metallic pipe cleaners attached to a headband.

If i would have thought of it in time i would have found/made some kind of lobster...i mean Gargon, to further accessorized the assemble.


I must resume radiovision contact!

creepy pops

Recently Pumpkinbutt got to enjoy these creepy clown jolly pops at school. Yikes! I asked him if he wanted me to order the shirt and/or cap but he declined.

Day of the Dead Decor

For the Krewe of Hades Mardi Gras float this year the theme was Dia de Muerto rather than the ever standing Zombie theme of the years past. The craniums that generally flank the sides were given a skull-lift. Here is the one that I contributed. It was based on the design and idea of Phrenology.

Before:

After:

Each of the numbers corresponds to the original organs of Phrenology only with personal interpretations. For example 17. The sense of sounds; the gift of music = the band "The Dummies" (a band that pumkinbutt made up which is not quite music).
22.The sense of satire; the sense of witticism = MST3K.
6.Guile; acuteness; cleverness = Make Stuff! the cleverness part.

But at the end while they were decorating the float.. the bag-o-skulls got overlooked and forgotten! so now the skull just rests with the bar ware only dreaming of being in a parade.

easy peasy

very simple yet very cute. premade pot holders and oven mit embellished with some cute fabric (it's by michael miller) for my mommy!

madonna of the cookie

i recently found one of those Fred Flare Madonna toast stamps at a thrift store for 25 cents.Way cool yeah? think of allll the fun toast could become! this image directly below shows what it's suppose to turn out looking like...

Yet the below image is more along the lines of the real world... Not as cool. kinda sad, really. Probably why it ended up at the thrift.

so what to do?! use it as a cookie cutter! not too bad of an idea. especially if you strategically place it over a design resembling a radiating beam!

there must be more ways to use this thing....any ideas?

it wasn't a pretty picture...

crafting Social Distortion stuff. here are some picture frames deals i made some time ago for someone that referred to herself as mrs. ness. the dice exterior parts were clocks that did not work. i trashed all the tick tock stuff and then inserted images of mike ness in their place. the circle frame part can be pulled off revealing a secret hiding spot for...secret stuff like obsessive love letters to the man or possibly even small offerings and/or sacrifices.

cute tin toys

pumpkin butt and i recently went to see a collection of tin toys at our favorite museum of oddities in town. they have a small room that has rotating shows of interesting collections belonging to local people. hmmm... i am somewhat interesting.... i have several collections.... possibilities?

more tin toys

here are a few more shots.

the showing before this was of salt and pepper shakers. i really thought i had posted about it but can't locate it. (they weren't allll that great anyway.) this is the same museum that had the doll house exhibit.

xmas gifties

i made some containers/cookies as gifts this christmas. i searched for disgruntled holiday leer, added snark and stuck them to the front of cute glass cracker jars.

here is the final product:

the top layer consists of mexican wedding cookies (homemade) and the bottom layer is walnut brownies (box). the cookies tasted a bit salty to me so i drizzled melted chocolate over the tops. i would suggest omitting the salt or maybe find another recipe all together.

MEXICAN WEDDING COOKIES 1 c. butter 4 tbsp. powdered sugar 1 tsp. vanilla 2 c. flour 1/4 tsp. salt 1 c. chopped nuts (fine) Cream butter and sugar; add vanilla. Add flour and salt; mix well. Fold in finely chopped nuts and chill dough in refrigerator about an hour. Shape into balls about 1 inch in diameter. Bake in moderate oven (350 degrees) about 15 minutes or until light brown. Remove from pan and while still warm, roll in more powdered sugar.