banquet

tattoo envelopes

number one priority around here the last few days has been valentines, and the 49 cards that need to be made for the kids' classmates.

of course we were using our amazing valentine's tattoos (snake hearts!), but in the spirit of the day they needed a special kind of packaging. we cut hearts from some appropriately festive paper (24 tattoo sized hearts fit perfectly in one sheet of gift wrap), and made envelopes* fastened with a fluoro sticker from the dollar store.

• postion your tattoo in the centre of your upside down heart
• fold up the shoulders of the heart
• fold the sides of the heart towards the centre, tucking one side in the other.
• fold down the top point, just like a real envelope, and seal!

whether you have a sweet heart or not, have a beautiful valentine's day!

bats

still playing with the black paper, this time making bat crowns, as the four (!) and the six are totally obsessed with the upcoming night of fright...

egyptology

love love love these painted banners hanging at the school...

new tattoos!

new tattoos in the shop today -
totally different this time around. we played with scale and colour and the results are vibrant and fairly spectacular. i know for a fact that folks of all sizes have been having fun with these ones.
my three in particular has been wearing the dove non-stop, paired with her brightest swimsuit, polka-dot tights, and sneakers.

kind of awesome.

buy them here!

glow in the dark bowling

awesome.

potato chips never looked so good.

except maybe here.

mask making

rainy day + two three year olds + cardboard + felts + old magazines + gluestick + scissors + string =

one bad guy villain mask

and one butterfly princess mask

the lumberjack zebra cake

tammy made some cake wizardry happen this weekend: 

a lumberjack zebra cake had been requested,

and she totally pulled it off.

Burrowing Animals

of all the work i do for banquet, the thing i love most are creating these science and nature themed prints.

i love the drawing part, and trying to reduce something like a mole to a simple silhouette without losing any of it's "moleness," but also the research part, which actually thrills me a little bit too much.

like that moles have toxins in their saliva that they use to stun and store worms. massive worm "larders" have been found with upwards of a 1,000 worms stored for eating.

or that the burrowing owl festoons the doorway of its hole with cow dung. scientists aren't sure why, but their best assumption is to attract insects for an easy snack.

so let me introduce the "burrowing animals," up now in the shop. chocolate brown on white paper, especially dotty with pebbles, beetles, and worms. but be forewarned: not for the faint of heart!

meeru & vikram

maybe because it's SO DARK OUT,* but what i mostly want to eat is indian food, specifically from these two books.**

last night we took our leftovers and rolled them burrito style in a whole wheat tortilla (with a generous helping of an improvised mint and cilantro chutney). so good!***

 

*did i mention it's SO DARK OUT? and you can tell from the weird light in this picture

**unlike some restaurant cookbooks, every recipe i've made from these books has tasted exactly like it does in vij's or rangoli

***look! my three-year old is eating curry! with weird green sauce!

notebooks and back to school

 

big week for us here; the five starts kindergarten, and the two-fer preschool, never mind notebooks up in the shop... woo hoo!