Back To The Drawing Board

In honor of Disneyland's 59th birthday the other day, I'm totally going to one up their sense of celebrating with a brief look back at the way things used to be... Aww. Wasn't that nice? Unfortunately, just like the real celebration, there's no free cake or commemorative buttons involved, but here's to hoping that birthday number 60 will at least warrant the reappearance of one David Hasselhoff in a certain talking car.

Because every princess should have a brocade nightgown...it's not enough that a princess should wear such formal fabric in the daytime. She should sleep in it, too. Not sure how long that's going to last, but she does bear a strong resemblance to Linet in the 1989 musical version of Red Riding Hood.

My girl wanted a new dress to wear to her recital, and she'd been dying for a dress like Mary wears in "The Secret Garden." She picked out some fabric at Jo-ann, and I went to work. Unfortunately, she grew while this was in production, so I had to add a placket to the back so that it would button.

A look back at some of my old work with colored (and uncolored!) pencils.  I made this back in high school. The features, hair and dress I made up, but I looked at myself in the mirror for a reference. I remember how surprised people were at school that I could do something so amazing as drawing from a mirror. But those were simpler times.  I drew a bunch of these and hung them up in my room. I particularly liked copying pictures of less popular characters, and I will say this: the more "classic" and old school you go, the harder they are to draw correctly. Ah, my first foray into the world of the mechanical pencil. It was all I had to draw with, and the tip broke off. But that was lucky for me, because I discovered that you can get crazy small details that are harder to get with a regular pencil. Unless you have a really good pencil sharpener, which I definitely didn't at that time. The actual size of this picture is quite small.  A pretend...

 One of my favorite views of one of my favorite places. I've got nothing much to say about this one. I like the colors though. And I always loved that old car in the corner.  "The Washerwoman", done in the style of Berthe Morisot No, this is not Oprah or Donna Summer. It's just some girl from a Body Shop ad a long time ago, but everyone always thinks it's someone famous.

Talk about a quick job! I did this one in just under two days, using only materials I had on hand. My daughter volunteered to be part of a fashion show for the Derby Days here in town. She would be wearing a Victorian-style dress and carrying her doll. Dolly was supposed to wear something yellow, so that she would kind of match, but where's the fun in that? I decided to make a replica of the outfit my daughter would be wearing. I didn't have any yellow fabric, but I had some yellowish-orange chiffon, and some white muslin, so I layered them together and the effect was that of yellow fabric. Lace, ribbon, and a flower rosette I found in my stash completed the outfit. And while it's not an exact replica, it's pretty close, and it looked well with my girl's dress.

Chicken with Awesomesauce. Served with garlic-ginger zucchini and steamed broccoli w/cultured butter I didn't name this, my family did. It's quick, easy, and tastes wonderful.  Basically it's chicken in a sort of sauce or gravy that tastes really great poured on top of things. First, a few notes about ingredients. We use tamari sauce in our house, because unlike most regular types of soy sauce, it doesn't contain wheat. The onions can be any kind that you have on hand, from leeks or scallions to green onions or the real deal. I mostly use the dried minced onion that comes in a bottle, because it's fast and I don't have to chop onions. Usually I serve this with veggies, most often broccoli and green beans, that have been steamed and tossed with cultured butter. It's definitely a household favorite. Oh, and the amount of chicken here works well for my family of four because not all of us are adults and because the chicken I buy at Costco tends to be lar...