I thought this was pretty cool. A very nice person bought one of my Luchador mask necklaces and asked if I could do a purple one.
I came across quite nice one, white with purple edging, belonging to Mil Mascara during the 1960s (he wore quite a variety of masks) and made the necklace as a a custom item.
I originally toyed with the idea of making them into magnets but I thought a single layer probably wasn’t strong enough to deal with the day to day realities of being on a fridge. I didn’t want to just get rid of them because they’re quite nicely done. What to do.
I can’t think why it took me so long to remember Lauren’s suggestion that I make necklaces with one single mask. Here they are! A single mask on a ball chain necklace. They’re very attractive and tough at the same time. Apparently I’m not the only one who thinks so because I sold Blue Demon last night! I’m sort of hoping Aztec Skull doesn’t sell because I want to keep that one, but etsy is all about clearing your toy collection so you can make more toys!
Since all of them besides Blue Demon and Santo are original designs, I had to make up names for them (hence “Aztec Skull”). I decided not to go Spanish with the names for two excellent reasons: I know roughly 10 words in Spanish (half of them involve counting to 5) and I figure the majority of the etsy audience is in the same boat. Maybe 20 years from now my little Aztec Skull will be repeatedly bootlegged and I’ll see a real one in the ring. Heck, they did it with UltraMan.
Up for
We had two big secrets.
Iron Maiden Eddie Cupcakes
These chocolate blue frosted cupcakes are topped with jaunty little picks each featuring a different picture of Eddie from Iron Maiden album covers. Eli is a huge Iron Maiden fan and he loved these.
I can’t believe I found 24 different Eddie photos without having to use fan art.
I used Google Image Search to find Eddie pics and then I cropped them down so they just
featured Eddie’s face.
Using Photoshop, I put the images onto a letter sized file. I was able to fit 12 Eddies to a sheet.
I then printed them onto to printer friendly Shrinky Dink plastic, cut them out, and shrunk them in the oven. The printer plastic is opaque, so they had a finished Eddie side and a plain white side.
I sealed the little images (Apparently nail varnish is the thing. They even recommend certain brands!) and superglued the backs to little plastic toothpicks. I added a little pirate sticker to the back for extra support (pirates being the most metal stickers I could find).
The images translated remarkably well! Especially the Killers album and the Wicker Man.
I’m glad I read the instructions, because you have to lighten the images by at least 50% (which is easy on Photoshop. You just use the brightness/contrast levels). Some of them were a little dark even so. They also have only one side that is printable and you tell by licking your finger and seeing to which side it sticks (very scientific).
I gave them to Lauren ahead of time and she couldn’t resist showing them to Eli early. He was able to name the album each Eddie was from, including live and exports! I know he’s a member of the Iron Maiden fan club, but he probably ought to be the president. They went very well with his Iron Maiden themed birthday cake.
Pictures from the big event are soon to follow.
Ahhh… Mondays. I have quite a number of things I’d rather do today:
Make a new charm bracelet for Etsy. I’m thinking of skulls and ice cream cones. Tough but sweet!
Feed ducks. I can’t explain this but I’ve have this inexplicable urge to feed ducks lately. Maybe not inexplicable. I love ducks.
Wash the dog. He’s getting distinctly gray.
Work on onesies. Must do!
Make Knut a couple of amusing new polo shirts. I take weirdo things like 1960s Norwegian sardine wrapper designs and put them as a logo on polo shirts so he can wear them to work.
Try out that professional grade sculpey.
Test out my shiny new watercolor kit. I could paint the ducks I’m not feeding.
Put out more bird seed. A cute little red headed finch comes to the window sill. I saw a funny little raptor on the window sill a few months ago too!
Watch creepy Channel 4 documentaries about the sex lives of less than averagely attractive English couples. It’s amazing how many of those there are (on both counts!).
Get around to wikipedia-ing Metalocalypse or however it’s spelled. I can’t figure out what’s going on. Is the brown haired guy Scandinavian or Canadian?
Do some hot (350 degrees) Shrinky Dink action.
Make polymer clay pie magnets. I love pie. Pi is okay too. Check out Dev’s fractal pecan pie!
Wear a nightie.
Walk the doggie. I live in a cute neighborhood. I’d like to see it in the daylight a little more.
Work on a top secret project for a person who shall remain nameless who frequently reads this blog. Keep out, person of unconfirmed gender!
Daydream about what my brother may send me from
Go to the library and get a book on
Force my lazy self to the hardware store to buy those dog tag chains for single luchador mask necklaces. May try this with hex signs too.
Find out when Kjelli and his girlfriend will be coming up to visit. Yay!
Take my time and enjoy cooking dinner. Tonight: faux-jitas!
Remove the pockets from those pants that would be very flattering—if they didn’t have pockets!
Plan a weekend excursion to Starved Rock.
Sew the buttons on my red coat (got awesome magenta sliced nut buttons) and on Knut’s bunad. Norwegian Independence Day is right around the corner!
Help Miss Eloina Montesinos celebrate her 2nd birthday! While I’m daydreaming, let’s go to
I’m making a luchador necklace for Eli (with big manly links. It’ll be tough!), but I lost the original sketch of the masks. No problem, I could recreate those, but I couldn’t remember how big the shrinky dinks were before I shrunk them in the oven. So I got out a ruler and applied my mathematic skills. It turns out I have no mathematic skills.
I now have five beautiful 3 inch long luchador masks. Okay, they will make very nice fridge magnets (although I think they should be backed with another layer of plastic for stability), but they're way too large for a necklace.
Clearly I needed some kind of tool.
I made one.
Now I don’t claim to be the only one to have thought of this, but it was an original idea for me. After all, bats and birds both developed flying abilities wholly separate from one another.
I took a scrap piece of Shrinkydink and laid a measuring tape next to it.
I then marked off all of the measurements on the plastic.
Then I baked it in the oven, shrinking it down. All shrinky dinks of the same brand should shrink to the same proportion.
Now I can tell how big a shrinkydink was before I baked it!
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
At the end, everyone posed for photos! Yeah!
