Happy New Year!

Here is a collage forest.

Mixed Media Collage, 13"x 13"

HAVE A HAPPY AND SAFE NEW YEAR EVERYBODY! Because if you don't I'll find you. 

Merry EPIC Christmas

I love Christmas.

I love the carol of the bells.

I love this.

Whellp, I made Christmas in my apartment last weekend. AND IT LOOKS AWESOME. I love the whole Christmas season with giving presents, the shitty music (AND ALSO CAROL OF THE BELLS), the lights outside, and the general feeling of goodwill towards men.

Also this tree. 

We, however, have a little baby fake tree with itty bitty ornaments and all kinds of random snowmen and Santa's and a menorah.  I. Am. Ready. Bring it on holidays. Now all I need is for it to 1) get below 48° for more than a day 2) snow 3) still be able to pay off all of my student loans after buying presents and having friend shenanigans. Because, for anyone who doesn't know me: I love giving presents. Love it. I, like Santa, make a list throughout the year - but unlike Santa, it's not of who's naughty or nice, but rather what I think good gifts for people would be. Some people are better gift getters than others...

... for example my sister.

She can be damn near impossible. She is a world-saver that Christine is (and therefore a lot of the time likes for gifts to be practical), so for part of her Christmas present I'm donating/trying to get people to donate to Oxfam of America! It's a charitable organization which means that you could even claim it on your taxes after helping others. WIN WIN!! SO HELP ME HELP HER HELP THE WORLD. Any amount helps those in need... and it'll only make Santa like you more.

Feel free to let me know if you do and I'll draw you something as thanks... maybe a tiger or a unicorn. Or a mermaid. But for now you can look at pictures of my apartment looking XMAS 
SWAAAAAAAAANKY. 

Happy National Cupcake Day!

Sooooo, this is an exciting time! Today is National Cupcake Day! 

This cute little blurb above from punchbowl is also exciting because its all teal... and a teal cupcake is 562% more awesome than a regular cupcake. Teal in general makes things 562% more awesome. 

In an coincidental turn of events, yesterday I bought myself a little Kidrobot blind-box from the tokidokoi UnicornO series while out Christmas shopping for others... and it was a cupcake one! HUZZAH! A few of my favorite things all mashed together: unicorns, tokidoki, cake, and awesomeness. 

So cute.                                          So fun. 

I want to god damn catch them all.

...because I really wanted the blue haired cow one... 

Children: Making the Impossibly Terrifying/Annoying Possible, One Toy at a Time

By now it should be no mystery to anyone that children can (or think that they can) do just about anything if they put their pleasantly moldable little minds to it. Sometimes, however, they do things best when they're not trying to - and had they tried it probably would have been impossible.

Take this Rapunzel hair styling bust for example: 

Her hair is long and flowing, little pieces of glitter added in, giving it a sheen as it blows in an imaginary wind... or at least that's how it looks ten minutes out of the box. The reality is a little more like this: 

POW. 

Give a bust of princess Rapunzel to a three year old and you end up with... a bust of princess Rapunzel with dreads. HARDCORE DREADS. Legit. I tried to comb them out, I really did, but something about that goddamn tinsel sparkly business makes it pretty much impossible without ripping all the hair from her head. Which defeats the purpose of the hair styling part. In the end, all all I could do was braid it... but instead the child decided that she wanted it up in three ponytails. Meh.

Or there is the case of the My Little Ponies:

"Oh hey there purple pony, I'm just gonna play with this other pin-"

"GAAAAAAAAAAH!"

It's almost like the child's version of 'The Godfather'. You reach into the toy bin to play with your favorite pink pony, ONLY TO DISCOVER ITS HEAD. And only its head. I have no idea where the body was. I looked. Were I to find it, I would have tried to put it back together, but instead I just stuck the head back into the toy bin for the next unsuspecting child to come along. I'm a good person like that.

THEY HAVE TO LEARN SOMEHOW. It takes effort to rip off the head of a toy. IT TAKES A MANIACAL CHOICE.

Somewhere, I know, there are teams and designers and they work hard to make toys that are pretty and fun to play with, but I can't help but think that they never really give them to real children to play with ahead of time. Otherwise they would see these things coming.

I can't not see it...

...in the Art Nouveau Tarot Deck that I mentioned before there are some really lovely illustrations full of leaves and flowers and flowing fabric. The deck itself is 90% pretty ladies but every now and again there is a dude thrown in there, and that dude is King Triton. 

Not really. 

But pretty much.

See?

Under da sea. 

He's a hell of a lot less fatherly, but that up there is King Triton. I mean, he's got everything from the white beard and crown to the scepter and tail-like fabric. He's an angrier, more mythic King Triton which is an accomplishment since King Triton is already pretty good at both of those things. 

"I am about to make your life miserable."

I have never looked at so many pictures of him in my LIFE as I just did to find that. I also never realized quite how cut he is... LOOK AT HIS SIX PACK AND MASSIVE ARMS. I hope that he never intends to take those decorative man cuffs off, because there is no way that they're getting off of his huge, meaty hands.

OH HAY LOOK. I ended up talking about mermaids again. Who'da thunk it. At least it was a man... maid this time. 

Dragon Tamer

"Yo."

This is a picture of a princess interacting with a dragon.

It is currently nothing more than that and is based on absolutely nothing in particular.

I drew it on printer paper with a No.2 pencil.

I honestly have no idea what made me draw this... maybe I had just watched "How to Train Your Dragon" which I periodically do because, in my humble opinion, IT IS MAD CUTE AND I LOVE IT. Plus I like to draw princesses. A + B = Dragon

This much I do know: I drew it at work while the children accomplished homework and it is the first effort that I ever made at any sort of a dragon. OH! I think that part of the reason that I made this was that Brooke was studying China at the time... possibly. Hmm.

I seem to like giving those squiggly claws to dragony things... I've done it in a couple of different pieces...

Popular

(As you read this you should probably listen to this song. It helps.)

So, one of the things that I do when I am mindlessly on the computer/my blog is constantly check my stats page. It gives me intense satisfaction to walk into my living room and announce to no one in particular, "Yesterday I was only SIXTEEN popular, but today I'm already thirty-six." Which is typically followed by a fist pump. Unless the number is less than the day before, in which case I am sulky.

It looks like this. 

The most popular that I have ever been in one day thus far was ninety-nine... but that still made me annoyed because I hadn't made it to one hundred. Come on. Just... come on. ONE MORE VIEW AND IT WOULD HAVE BEEN EPIC.

OptimusPrim gets the most play of any of my posts, but I ALSO show up first when you type laura kelly mermaids into google. SUCCESSSSSSSSS. I. Am. (sort of) Internet. Popular.

SO DO ME A FAVOR AND TELL PEOPLE ABOUT THIS BLOG AND MAKE THEM LOOK AT IT SO THAT I CAN SEE MY POPULARITY. Here is a picture of some weird stripy lady that I made on construction paper with a marker as thanks.

You're welcome.

p.s. I was 65 popular yesterday. Keep it up.

EDIT: SOMEONE LOOK AT OPTIMUSPRIM SO THAT IT REACHES 300 VIEWS. SLKDFLSDKGSLKG. It kills me when that happens... I like for things to be in groups of 5. My only weird OCD thing.