Maybe It Skips a Generation?

I’ve never really looked like anybody. I could never borrow someone else’s ID in high school or college (so I could rent a floor buffer and similar) because no one very looked vaguely enough like me that a bouncer, sorry, Home Depot rental representative, would ever accept the ID. I also don’t particularly look like any celebrities (which is a mixed blessing. I certainly don’t want to be a dead ringer for Tommy Lee).

There’s even been a fair argument about which side of the family I look like. Then last week, my mom whips out this photo.

Apparently I’m my own grandma.

I know how Fry feels in Roswell That Ends Well.

That’s me on the right if you couldn’t tell by the non-marcelled hair. The woman on the left is my grandmother, Annette Cameron nee Larson. Here I was looking Norwegian the whole time and I never realized it.
Man, they took awesome photos back then. Look at the painted background! Look at that gorgeous cowl neck.

*sigh*

I took mine myself in the bathroom.

Illustration Friday "Homage" Top Hat Bunny

This is a piece that my husband, Knut Sjurseth, and I both worked on. I think I drew the original outline, he polished it, I objected that she looked too tarty, I redrew the face, he fixed something else, and then I colored it in Photoshop. The objective? To make amusing t-shirts!

We were imagining a world where the bunny gets to be more than just a prop. An assistant! In a sparkly costume!

This sexy bunny girl is definitely a homage to the pin up girls of the 40s and 50s. My husband and are crazy about those illustrations (for a jaw achingly good time visit James Lilek's Art Frahm site. He specialized in ladies, with celery and small dogs, who have undie malfunctions). There's something about the cheer and fun in the girls' faces that really separates them from the calendar girls of today.

Anyone who happens on this blog by chance, please do visit the Illustration Friday site. Too much good stuff to miss!

Lucha Libre Continued

Most of my creative energy this week has gone into my Illustration Friday submission (although there was some glow bowling and gin and tonics in there too), but I did have time yesterday to make some Lucha Libre masks for a necklace for my friend Eli.

I made them too big! Now I have Luchador fridge magnets. Crisitunity! Hopefully I'll have some tiem during the weekend to create some new things. My Etsy shop could use dome new items.

I’ve stumbled on the big secret when it come to this luchador necklace thing: Lucha Libre Fans Like Them. Shocking, I know. I guess I was thinking more about the Archie McPhee bacon shower curtain hipster crowd, instead of good honest fans. I do feel a little intimidated of those cute indie rock people with their square glasses who enjoy Labyrinth from an ironic perspective. I enjoy it because it’s awesome!

Since many people don’t have the chance to visit a Lucha Libre match, I think I should describe my experience. Photos are courtesy of Lauren and Eli. We pretty much had no idea what it was going to be like driving down. It was in a neighborhood we don’t go into much. It was at a little sports hall, staffed by what looked like family members. Everyone was nice. They sold good pizza by the slice and bags of popcorn for $1. The beer was $5 right out of the keg and the lady selling it filled them right up to the top. They sold masks for $10 or $20. And the woman selling the masks loved my luchador necklace! Yay! We bought a tiny mask keychain, a Blue Demon mask, and another that resembles Swamp Thing. I’m not sure whose mask it is, but it was too good to resist.

There were plenty of families with little kids. At some point before everything started, the ring was full of little kids in masks posing for photos.
The wrestling itself is all spectacle. Good guys, bad guys, colorful costumes, flying leaps, choreographed moves. It reminds me a lot of ballroom dancing or Cirque du Soliel. I imagine they work out some thing ahead of time since many leaps and flips require the participation of two or more parties, but a lot was hilarious posing. Besides the headliners brought up from Mexico, the clear stars were Gringo Loco (who threw tortillas at the audience and swore he was half Puerto Rican) and Resistencia (who gave up in disgust a few times and sat down in the audience). Really charismatic and super fun to watch.

At the end, everyone posed for photos! Yeah!

Pranks! An Etsy Blog Carnival

New at my etsy shop!

April Fools! Just Kidding!

I would never assault innocent lamps with puffy paint and flower decals. The honor goes to a friend’s step mother, who specializes in adorning glassware. The flower decals are also present on her washing machine, dishwasher, shower, and cabinets. They must have come by the yard.

I’ve never done a huge amount of pranking myself, although when I do, my 6 foot high stuffed werewolf from Six Flags Great America is usually my conspirator.

My husband won him for me in a shooting game and I did goofy things like sit him next to me in the little cars, poke kids in line, seat him next to us at the picnic tables, etc. People loved him.

He’s also incredibly scary if you happen upon him by accident. I had him sitting on a desk chair at my parent’s home and they made me remove him for fear of heart attacks. Little kids wouldn’t come up to the house on Halloween because he was sitting in a lawn chair by the front door. They thought he would jump up and come after them.

My favorite pranks (okay, I am juvenile) are when people rearrange the letters on signs. They’re usually pretty filthy, so I won’t show any here, but many fine examples can be found on http://www.ilovebacon.com/home/index.shtml

I also like amusing graffiti. I remember someone telling me about a Mormon temple that always was lit up at night with green lights. Someone wrote on the overpass, “Surrender Dorothy!”

How great is that?

Pet Peeves-- Illustration Friday

This is my first ever illustration for IllustrationFriday.com Please view full size.

The theme this week is "Pet Peeves," which was just too good to resist. I started thinking about all the minor silly things that annoy me (and pretty much everyone else, probably) and these hideous little children just sort of materialized like deformed Charlie Browns. They are kind of cute, though. Maybe I should give droolers, spitters, and nose pickers another chance :)

Enjoy! And please check out the other artists. Lots of amazing work!

De Motivation

The office I work in has a really motley collection of “art.” There are some nice Ansel Adams prints, some prints of historical Chicagoan scenes, some gigantic pictures of horses, and random framed maps. I have no idea who chose them all, but it’s generally pretty dismal.

And, of course, there are the dreaded Motivational Posters. I HATE THOSE! They make me homicidal. There’s just nothing worse that having a frustrating day and looking up and seeing a big poster of zebras with the legend “Cooperation—Coming Together is a Beginning. Keeping Together is Progress. Working Together is Success.” Cooperation is making sure lions only kill the sick or feeble.
I do not feel inspired by looking at overly saturated photos of sky divers without context and a pithy little saying. Couldn’t we have a little more intellectual inspiration? Fractals to remind us of the amazing unending and coincidentally beautiful patterns of the world around us? A print of Frederick Douglas to show that greatness can come from anywhere? Those professional sand castles to prove it’s worth creating something fantastic even it only survives a day?
Of course, if we strove for greatness we’d probably not be able to handle our day to day dullnesses. Maybe bland and inoffensive is the way to go in the modern office, although no one would dare use “We strive for pretty goodness!” in their corporate literature.
As a result of my outbursts, one of my colleagues printed out some Demotivational posters available from despair.com
I have a lovely one of “Motivation—If a Pretty Poster and a Cute Saying Are All It Takes to Motivate You, You Probably Have a Very Easy Job. The Kind Robots Will Be Doing Soon” and my absolute favorite “Worth—Just Because You’re Necessary Doesn’t Mean You’re Important.”
Oddly, they cheer me up.
I guess I find cleverness, honesty, and irony to be very motivational.

Adventures in Easter Themed Baking Part 5

Taaaa Daaaa!!

The finished product. Covered in tasty frosting and yummy coconut, it's hard to tell I had to piece it together.

The inside of the ears are tinted marzipan dusted with sugar. The eyes are marzipan and chocolate chip pupils. The nose is a teeny grapefruit Jelly Belly.

I rather pleased considering it as my first try at this thing.

If I make it again, I think I'll bake it in two halves and stick them together with jam.

My hope is to get Knut's mother's deilig (Norwegian for delicious) lemon bundt recipe and make a lemon rabbit for less seasonal occasions :)

One of the problems with this kind of cake is that no one wants to eat the face. Had my brother Jamie been present at Easter dinner, I'd have cut off the head and served it on a plate for him.

I think he'd like that.

Happy Easter, everybody!!

Adventures in Easter Themed Baking Part 4

Okay, here is the evidence that I should always trust Great Aunt Edna. Any woman who can keep a sweater from 1967 looking as fresh as one bought today clearly deserves respect. Buckets of it.

The instructions said to wait for the mold to cool totally before opening it. Thank goodness I'm impatient! There was a delicious looking outer shell and a gooey uncooked center.

Fab in a Cadbury Cream Egg, but not what I was looking for in a cake.

It also hadn't risen enough to meet the top of the mold.

Crap.

I put it back in the oven and it cooked through, but I still had half a rabbit. Fortunately! I had baked those little cupcakes. I could patch the problem and cover it all in 7 minute frosting, which is basically stirred meringue. Powerful as gorilla glue and tastes like marshmallow. Side A and Side B.

Adventures in Easter Themed Baking Part 3

Sorry! I meant to update more Saturday, but there were a few unforeseen problems followed by foreseenly awesome Lucha Libre! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

I made the batter on Saturday, according to the recipe. I checked the instructions and they said to fill it only with 3 cups of batter.

Edna's recipe was at least 2 cups more than that so I figured I'd err on the side of the recipe and use only three cups.

I filled up two ramekins to make cupcakes in addition.

I filled the mold, tied it together with string, and baked it per the instructions.

Let this be a lesson to me and to others.

Don't ever mistrust German housewives.

They know their baking.

Adventures in Easter Themed Baking Part 2

Okay, I've eaten the ugliest Easter egg for Easter Power! Yeah!

(We had my parents and our awesome friends Lauren and Eli over to dye eggs. Highlight of the night was definitely Knut's Iron Maiden Eddie egg.)

I've taken out the mold and looked at the directions. The mold came with recipes too. Last year, someone brought in a lamb cake to the office that was sticky, dense, and dry and heavily flavored with almond extract. Having looked at those recipes, it's obvious how that amazing combination of adjectives was achieved. Yuck.

Fortunately, I have the angels on my side in the form of Great Aunt Edna's recipe. Mom got it over the phone so this should be interesting. Mom has pretty but virtually unreadable handwriting. I looked it over at lunch yesterday and said to her "A little suet?!"

"That's salt" she said.

Interesting, indeed.

I've started my shopping list and I just can't decide. Cream Cheese or 7 Minute Frosting? I think Cream Cheese is traditional, but I looooove 7 Minute. It also has the advantage of being super stable once it sets, which is a definite plus since it has to be transported and probably be a centerpiece.

Okay, clearly I've made a decision without realizing it.

Adventures in Easter Themed Baking Part 1

My great aunt, who is now in her nineties, used to bake lamb cakes every Easter when she was a young and spry (like in her 70s). Lovely ones filled with spice cake, cream cheese frosting, coconut fleece, and currant eyes. I think she sometimes even put a ribbon around it's neck. Beautiful and delicious.

Two years ago for my birthday, Mom got me a cast iron rabbit cake mold. We couldn't find it last year for Easter, but now I've got it. I'm going to make one!

I'm petrified.

More updates throughout the day!

PS. This lamb cake is from here:http://annhetzelgunkel.com/easter/lambcake.html

Not Aunt Edna's actual lamb cake. Maybe Mom has a photo somewhere...

The Perils of Google Searches

Something that’s interesting about the internet is the sheer horrible stuff you find by accident. I looked up “stalking cat” on google image search to get a picture for a piece of jewelry I’m hoping to make.

Waaaaaay before I found a good photo of a house cat ready to pounce suitable for a cute pendant, I came across a photo of a giant skinned cat head with taxidermy eyes inserted. It really looked like a Hellraiser special effect shot. Since I have enough curiosity to end up skinned with taxidermy eyes myself, I followed the link.

It led to a page where Australians listed giant cat sightings. Some of these claimed to be panthers, etc, but a lot were feral house cats grown to huge size.

A couple of people sent in photos of their skins. And dead calves savaged by “something.”

You’re probably all going to look now, aren’t you?

If you end up skinned with taxidermy eyes, don’t say I didn’t warn you! I barely got away myself.

Everything I Know about Photography I Learned from my Dog

Meet my muse, Colin. He’s a 3 year old Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. My husband and never took so many photos before we got this dog.

As soon as we were married, I moved to Norway and I desperately wanted a dog. Since we only have a one bedroom; a small dog. We read the want ads for a year. We called the local shelter. Everything. No doggy for us. All they ever had were German Shepherd mixes or border collies, neither of which would have been very happy in our tiny home. Not a tiny dog who needed a home in the whole county.

I got to the point where we’d go into a pet store and I’d feel the little collars. I can begin to understand women who are desperate to have children but can’t.

Eventually after a year, we decided to buy one. My parents gave me $200 for my birthday as a dog payment. Knut called various breeders and nothing seemed quite right until one evening when a woman called. She said she remembered talking to him several months earlier and her dog was due to have puppies. Did we want one? Yes! We could have the pick of the litter.

Lucy gave birth to an amazing nine puppies, all of whom survived. Lucy did have a major calcium defficiency from nursing all those babies. I suspect Colin as a major culprit since he was the biggest and fattest of all the babies.

Knut picked him out at 3 weeks when they were barely the size of large hamsters and we regularly visited him until 10 weeks, when we got to take him home. It was just great to see him grow up.

Colin has posed for more photos than anyone else I know. He’s the one who taught us directional lighting. He showed us how to take fast motion shots. He encouraged us to take films. I know hardly anything about photography that hasn’t involved him.

Sepia Tattoo Necklace

I love tattoos.

Love them!

That said, I don’t have any. It’s not any kind of moral issue or anything. I’m just totally incapable of deciding what I would want for more than ten minutes at a time. In fact, I would love to be a tattooist, except that I would have no street cred.

It’s a shame because I usually make tattooists fingers itch. I am of the glow-in-the-dark complexion, so pretty much all shading and colors would show up well on me.

Others are far more brave. My lovely friend Katy Rabbit recently unveiled a gorgeous sepia tinted tattoo. It reminds me a bit of a Norwegian tattooist’s work. She specialized in sepia almost pointillist style images. Like having an exceptionally beautiful birthmark.

Sooo elegant…

So flushed with jealously, I sought to recreate and made a necklace inspired by it. Behold the Sepia Flower Necklace. I really wanted to recreate the look of Katy’s tattoo in a piece that is a little less permadent.

It’s up on etsy, if you’d like a closer look: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=10370660

A Crafty Horror Story

Since I’ve got things coming along with the (surprisingly popular) Cthulhu necklace, I decided to have a little horror segment. This is a true story that will shiver the bones and curdle the blood of any crafty type.

When I was a lass in the 1980s, during the final era where kids went home for lunch, walked to school in big packs, and moms made 7 layer Jello for class Pizza Day; my mother made Raggedy Anne and Andy dolls for the church Christmas Bazaar.

They were beautiful dolls. The faces were all hand embroidered. The stripes matched up perfectly on the seams. A tiny wooden heart was inserted under the fabric of the chest so you could feel it when you hugged the dolls. The yarn hair was pieced in by hand and Anne’s dress and pantalets were edged in pretty lace. I never had one myself (something along the lines of “shoemaker’s children go barefoot”), but they were much admired.

Mom brought them to the bazaar and settled down to man the payment table. Before long, a disheveled woman came up carrying the dolls and set them down in front of her. Mom had a closer look and noticed that the price tags had been changed. She has set the price at $20 for the pair (a steal if you ask me, but she is a modest creature) and the price tag now read $3 for each.

She looked up at the woman and said “I’m sorry but the price isn’t right on these.”

The woman looked innocent and explained that she was going to buy them for her senile mother who liked to pick things apart!!

Needless to say Mom didn’t let that sale go through.

Ugh, that story makes me feel so icky even though I’m the one telling it. As frustrating as the thought of someone changing a price tag on your piece, there just isn’t anything worse than someone who doesn’t appreciate your hard work and dedication to making something. How lovingly you choose the fabric, how carefully you matched the seams, how many stitches you picked out because you wanted the face to be perfect.

That’s one of the nice things about etsy. You wouldn’t be there if you weren’t appreciative of the handmade.

Magnum PI sonnet

So I was joking around a while ago that I would write a Magnum PI sonnet, after my Lucha Libre haiku series. Even I thought I was kidding. Then I did it. Wow, I am lame :)
Here goes!

Sonnet 8pm CBS

O Magnum, I require only your PI
To measure the circumference of my heart,
Which at 8 pm breathes a gentle sigh
When your tropical adventures now start.
Hawaiian shirts lush with fruits and flowers;
The short shorts shorter than receding tide
The chest hair has rum’s alluring powers,
Mustache like coconut husk cast aside.
There are those, fair Magnum, who doubt your claim.
Who is Robin to grant you all these rights?
What’s with fey Higgins and his flirty game?
Homoerotic themes can plague the nights.
In the Ferrari, all my qualms withdrew,
The bar, a babe, a beer—hijinks ensue!



This is now up at The Foghorn!

http://www.thefoghornmagazine.com/fiction-spindler-2.php

Mini Mouse!

Ugh. Mondays.

I am not a morning person.

Especially Monday mornings so soon after Daylight Savings Time. I fact I hate DST. Gah!

Okay, more cheerful, huh?

I really love polymer clay, as you might have noticed. I always loved playing with clay but there were always drawbacks. 1. Need a kiln (regular clay) 2. Little bits of lint stick to it until it gets so gross you have no choice but to throw it away (modeling clay) 3. Mold (salt and flour clay).

Polymer clay neatly avoids those nuisances!

I also like the really fine detail you can get. This mouse is hardly more than a centimeter high, but he still has his own little nose, eyes, ears, tail, and feet. Shown next to a penny for scale.

I made four or five of these little guys and gave them to my mother in law for a Christmas bazaar, along with some insects and gnomes. They all sold very well, but 2 months after the fact she demanded I make her another one (why she didn’t take one of the ones for the bazaar is a mystery).

I was kind of moused-out by then and haven’t made more.

Dog Flowers

Quite a while ago, one of my co-workers forwarded me some really darling photos of an Asian woman holding a bouquet of flowers shaped like a little dog.

They were adorable!

So I figured I had a challenge.

I decided my mother had to have one for Valentine's day. I bought one bouquet of butter colored mums and one mixed bouquet from the supermarket and went home to experiment.

Okay, these are not easy to make! I needed to sort through all the mums to find ones that are not only the right shape, but lie correctly together. I ended up wiring them together with pipecleaners (which turned out to be a good choice. They didn't bruise the stems and allowed little spaces between them). The nose and mouth are bits of Fimo molded into shape and attached to 1" long wires, which were them stuck into the hearts of the flowers. I surrounded the mum dog with the mixed bouquet and tied a ribbon around the neck of the vase.

Mom loved it and kept referring to it as "Colin." Colin is my little spaniel.

Amazingly, the dog part outlived the rest of the flowers! This last photo is taken two weeks after Valentine's and he still looks good.

Spending $7 to make something that looked like it came from an

expensive florist is pretty nifty. :)

Cthulhu Dreams... about looking pretty!

I was goofing around thinking of all those rubber bracelets people wear and the novelty ones people have come up with as a result. I particularly liked a gray one with "Apathy" written on it.

Not because I necessarily disagree with the sentiments, but because I think your moral compass is a bit skewed if you need to look at your wrist to decide whether you should flip people off or punch puppies.

So I began to wonder... What Would Cthulhu Do? He wouldn't mind if you ate the last cookie. Heck, he wouldn't mind if you ate the souls of your enemies while you're at it.

Cthulhu is an ancient god who appears in H.P. Lovecraft's horror stories. He described as a hideous tentacled thing that oozes evil. He's a little more snuggly in my version.

Presenting the What Would Cthulhu Do? necklace!

Computer Generated Onesies

Wow, that sounds like some kind of cyber baby thing, doesn’t it?

Before I started on the animal puns onesies, I made these little animals on Photoshop. I like working with photoshop for these things because it’s so easy to go back and personalize things. For instance, I made a little dog with fluffy ears to represent my Cavalier, Colin. Then I changed the colors to honey blonde to represent my friend’s mixed breed (she’s golden retriever, dashund, and cocker spaniel. A craxy mix, but she looks like a teeny golden) dog, Bella, and added eyelashes and a pink heart around it. Then I took that image, darkened it and took away the eyelashes to represent my brother’s dog, Xialoum, and added the legend “Food Rival” underneath.

A tip for Photoshop users—the shape library includes a bunch of bananas. Turn ‘em sideways and they make terrific eyelashes.

Rosemary is modeling one of the little monkey onesies. For her, I added in “Property of Shing Mun Reservoir.” Shing Mun was a favorite spot of my brother’s and sister in law’s when they lived in Hong Kong. Shing Mun had lots of macaques and Jamie made up a little story about them.

Once when Jamie and Mina were in Shing Mun, they were stopped at the gates. They wouldn’t let Mina go home because they were convinced she was a monkey. Mina had to stay there with the rest of the monkeys, but Jamie and their daughter promised to visit once a week.

I have no idea if either of them actually remembers this story, but I certainly did! So when Rosemary was born, I figured she would need something like this.

This is the danger of telling me anything. It'll eventually end up on a t-shirt.

PigScape

Ahh… snow. I haven’t done too much this year since my cursed job interferes with most of the thing I’d like to be doing. But! When we lived in Norway we created a series of snow sculpture in the field behind out apartment. This was a particularly successful specimen. While we were building the snow sow, the background was dotted with rosy cheeked children on cross country skis.
We thought no one was paying too much attention to our antics (although Norwegians tend to regard adults who do silly things as peculiar decadent. Fun is intended only for those under 11) but when my husband attended a housing association meeting it turned out we were famous! It’s really nice when people compliment your snow pig.
Snow sow has charcoal eyes and nostrils, a twig tail, and humorous pinecone nipples. She was about 4 feet tall.

If you’re curious about living in Norway, I have a new essay up at http://www.thefoghornmagazine.com/ under the title The Whalebone Courtship.

Wedding Cake

So here’s the question you all haven’t been wondering about! What sort of wedding cake topper did I have?

Well, to begin, I got married in a red satin dress to a Norwegian guy in britches (actually he wore his bunad, which is a sort of folk costume popular in Norway. And very attractive!). Our wedding was in a 1920s cottage surround by woods. The idea was to have a relaxed affair that felt like an old fashioned wedding in someone’s home.

Our regular white wedding cake was topped with lily of the valley, but this little number topped the groom’s cake. Knut had a kranzekake which is a cake made from ground almonds that is layered in rings so that it forms a cone. We had gotten into the habit of depicting ourselves as a wolf and a bunny through letters and doodles, so I figured we might as well go all the way.

Necklace Pics

Being your own neck model is a weird experience...

Cuddlefish Model

Okay, I should have to pay for a model this beautiful. My niece Rosemary is modeling one of her favorite Cuddlefish onesies. I'm due to make her one in a 12 month size very soon!

Presenting the Nevermore Necklace!

I’m as gothy as a person obsessed with pink bunnies can possibly be.

This necklace has miniature portraits hung from a circular linked chain. Each portrait is an original illustration—these are not stamped or printed. I used photos of real ravens for accuracy. They were created by the medium of colored pencil on shrinking plastic and each miniature is sealed with satin glaze.

I’m really quite proud J

Ravens are quite interesting birds. Besides Edgar Allen Poe’s The Raven, they feature prominently in myths from all over the world. Odin, the granddaddy of the Norse gods had two: Hugin and Munin. One raven knew everything and the other saw everything. Definitely intelligent birds even if they feasted off the dead in battlefields.

I don’t know if you’ve ever met a real raven, but they are immensely intimidated. Once, on a girls only roadtrip through the Painted Desert, a raven alighted on a rock just outside my friend’s car and fixed us with a look of keen and alien interest. You’ve never seen two girls roll up the windows so fast!

This necklace will be up on Etsy very soon.

Pennsylvania Dutch Hex Sign Necklace

I owe so much to the Pennsylvania Dutch. Not because I’m desended from them (my German relatives came over later into Wisconsin), but because they invented pie. If there is any greater and more sublime invention in the history of man, I cannot name it.

Don’t give me that “wheel” or “internal combustion engine” crap.

They also developed a really beautiful and simple style of decoration frequently found on handwritten documents, samplers, and hope chests. These featured stylized birds, fruits, flowers, and stars. When these fine people grew prosperous, they painted beautiful symbols on barns known as hex signs.

Many people nowadays talk about the symbolism and possibly magic properties of these symbols. I don’t know about that. If they were anything like my stern religious German grandma, they were “just for pretty.”

In any case, this necklace showcases 5 minature hex signs. They are not printed or stamped, but individually drawn by me. I used historical photographs as a reference.

This item will appear on Etsy very soon

Luchador Mask Necklace

I LOVE LUCHA LIBRE!

I have, as previously mentioned, written poems about it.

In case you aren’t familiar, Lucha Libre is Mexican Wrestling. Many of the luchadors (wrestlers) wear colorful masks like the ones in the necklace. Probably the most famous luchador is Santo, who appeared in many movies and who always wore his mask in public and did his best never to reveal his identity. They are divided into the Rudos (bad guys) and Tecnicos (good guys) who all have elaborate, often comical, personas.

Lucha Libre is much cooler than, say, WWF wrestling because the moves are acrobatics. They perform amazing choreographed flying leaps, flips, and tumbling. Imagine Cirque du Soleil but affordable.

This necklace has miniature masks hung from a circular linked chain. Each portrait is an original illustration—these are not stamped or printed. I believe the one in the center resembles the Blue Demon, but the rest are my own creation.

This item will appear on Etsy very soon