"The best color in the whole world, is the one that looks good on you!" -Coco Chanel

Hmmm...I wonder if the same goes for ingesting the best color in the whole world? I love the color red. I also have a very weak spot for red velvet cake. With Thanksgiving tomorrow and a gathering at a friends house, I decided it's the perfect excuse to whip up one of these confectionery delights. But how do you get that really RED (not that weak strawberry colored cake) batter for red velvet cake?

Growing up, my Mom baked cakes professionally for years. I always remember these little jars of pigment that she would add to cakes and icings. The color was always extremely vibrant and unachievable with your every-day store bought food coloring. She was using Wilton icing dyes. These little jars literally perform magic when making sweets with color. If you haven't tried them and use dyes in baking often, prepare to be blown away.

This stuff in red velvet batter=amazing. Go with the color "Red,Red" as opposed to "Christmas Red", it's not as severe when baked (the red deepens as it's baked in) and looks a lot more appealing with cream cheese frosting.

Good night my little cake. I love you now. But tomorrow night when my dress size goes up after dessert, you will be a sworn enemy.

Freshly Baked

Here's a few little studies done today from my sketchbook. I got really inspired to start a new project of my own and wanted to get ideas on paper asap. Who knew the Williams Sonoma catalog would not only empty my wallet, but provide me with endless reference!

Tag, You're It!

Alright, so I'm a sucker for the holidays. I love it. Plus, it's the only time of the year when my Grandma makes her world famous rolled pizza. This year we really wanted to do a little something extra for our friends and family. We have an amazing group of friends and family who were absolutely amazing (and patient!) to us when we got married this past September. So, the plan is to make a ton of treats to go along with our gift giving...but of course it wasn't that easy. I started to think about the packaging of these treats. After a lot playing around, I came up with these little gift tags...one kind of led to another and so on. A little collage, a little pant, some card stock, a really good exact-o knife and voila! I have a ways to go, but here are my favorites so far.

All work and no play makes us cranky (see above). I've decided to expand upon my blog more to make things a bit more interesting. Expect more posts about fun finds, a few rants, projects involving things other then paint (collage, sewing...) and a recipe here and there!

When asked to paint a short holiday comic for Marvel recently ("Werewolf By Eve" written by Ben Morse), I approached the project with shouts of joy! Not only do I love the holidays and comics...but werewolves were involved!!! How could I refuse?!? Above is a little sneak peak panel. The Marvel digital holiday special debuts December 17th! Check out the article on Wired!.

Another breather. Here's a fun Illustration made for the Genuine Artikle custom toy show. The finish is all painted up and almost ready to be turned into pretty promo posters.

So I've made an attempt to venture into the world of custom toy painting. When asked to be in a custom toy show for December, I agreed...not knowing anything about painting these little guys. I picked up my toy (a teddy trooper) and just kinda stared at it for awhile, completely intimidated thinking "where do I start?". I have no experience with acrylics or enamels... but acrylics seem a little more forgiving. Medium chosen. Now what.

I started thinking about the toys that make me tick. I love old Suzy homemaker toys and easy bake oven type stuff. They always had this great toothpaste color to them. I also love the idea of taking a toy and transforming parts of it into another type of toy. So it turns out, the helmet of this bear will make a fine oven. Some little wooden pieces for oven dials. This bear obviously needs some fine baked goods too. So I started sculpting little cookies from sculpty, then baking and painting em up. Cookie tray? No problem. Back to the sculpty.

Everything seemed to be going alright...bear painted, oven sprayed up nice, cookies baked...oven mitts painted. Then...the mitts won't go back on?! Not cool. I wound up making a bit of a disaster out of the arms and had to re-do them. At this point I wanted to throw my little bear companion off the fire escape. Or worse...give her to the cat to decide her fate....


I felt bad and fixed her up. Her arms seem to be doing alright (a little bit of patchwork was needed with some brown paint) and hopefully she'll make some friends at the opening. I'll be sure to post some pictures of the finished product, completed oven and all.