Dia de los Muertos Collage (and Virtual Make-Up)

While I don't celebrate Dia de los Muertos, I love the meaning and the beauty of the holiday. In my never-ending quest to better understand others' traditions, I've been doing more research into Dia de los Muertos and its rich history. I learned there are seven main colors: 

• black, a symbol of death
• white, representing hope and purity, and the belief that each soul gets a clean slate after death
• yellow, representing the light that guides the departed
• orange, representing the sun, the source of light
• pink, a color of joy and celebration
• purple, the color of suffering and mourning
• red, the color of Jesus' blood

I used those seven colors to make a collage, using construction paper, scissors, and punches.  

I started by cutting a basic skull, vertebrae, and clavicles from white construction paper, then cut the eye sockets, nose, mouth, and hair from black paper. I punched out a bunch of circles and flowers in different sizes, and cut a few other shapes by hand. Then I just started layering and gluing until I was happy with the end result. It was really fun to just let myself play. 

Speaking of playing, PicMonkey has a neat feature that lets you apply virtual make-up to yourself for Dia de los Muertos, so I gave it a try. I'm not a fan of real make-up, but it was fun applying it digitally. 

I also recently learned about Pan de Muerto (Bread of the Dead) and plan to make some on November 2. Having never tasted it before, I'm not sure what recipe to follow, so if you celebrate Dia de los Muertos and can steer me in the right direction, I'd appreciate it. Otherwise, I'm just going to pick a recipe that looks promising and hope for the best!

Art History and Trevor's Memento Mori

Trevor is taking a college Art History class this semester (along with five high school classes). It's a 3-unit class that "explores the history of Western Art through a critical analysis of Renaissance art through Post-Modern Art. Students ... examine the connection between art and culture, and evaluate the historic, religious, and political influences on the artistic choices of diverse men and women of art history from the 15th century to today."

I love art (obviously), but have never taken an art history class. With Trevor doing distance learning, I realized it would be really easy for me to sit in on the lectures and learn the material. With Trevor's blessing, I am doing just that. The professor is outstanding and we both absolutely love the class.

I'm not enrolled in the class, so I am not doing the written assignments. Trevor has not showed me his work, nor will he let me see what his classmates have submitted (everyone posts their art analyses to a common message board). Once we finish listening to the lectures, he waits until I leave the room to do the homework. 

The one exception to that was for his most recent assignment, which was creating and photographing a memento mori. A memento mori is a still life intended to remind the viewer of the fragility of life and of their own mortality (the name from Latin meaning "remember you must die."). They often feature symbols like skulls, clocks, fresh fruit (that will soon rot), and extinguished candles. 

For this assignment, Trevor needed my help. Not only did he want to use my black dropcloth and some of my stuff, but he would need my help actually taking the photo (as it's impossible to hold up a black reflector to the side, extinguish a candle in the back, and push a shutter button at the front at the same time).

This is Trevor's memento mori. See if you can spot the symbols he included.

Obviously, there are extinguished candles. He chose to keep two lit to show that a little life remains. He included fresh fruit (all we had on hand was a banana because our produce box pickup was the following day), as well as the pumpkin and the dried corn. Those represent fall, the last season until we head into winter (a symbol of death). The chess game is almost over, another sign that death is near. All the dice are oriented with the 4 facing up (in some Asian cultures, the word for four sounds similar to the word for death). The foreign coins are a reminder that 'you can't take it with you;'' above them, a stopped watch.

I am dying (ha!) to see what his classmates' photos look like and to find out how they responded to Trevor's. Hopefully once the grading is done, he'll let me see. In the meantime, I'll continue to enjoy the lectures... and everything else, as life is fleeting and I want to learn, do, try, and share as much as I can in this life. 

Candy Melt Witches

After making my peanut butter graham cracker owls, I was playing around with the leftover candy eyes and candy corn and realized they'd make awesome witches. My witches are green, because I was born after 1939. Fun fact: People who grew up before 1939 grew up seeing witches portrayed with red or orange skin. Affiliate links below. 

Candy Melt Witches

Materials: 

• parchment paper
• green Candy Melts
• candy corn
• large candy eyeballs*
• black jimmies
• black sugar pearls

Steps: 

Put a sheet of parchment paper onto your work surface. Prepare the Candy Melts according to the package directions, then spoon a blob of melted candy onto the parchment. Drag the spoon through it to create a chin. 

Place a piece of candy corn in the middle of the face for the witch's nose. Drizzle additional melted candy over the top. Put the eyes in place, then choose two black jimmies as eyebrows. Push additional jimmies up against the edges of the still-melted candy for hair. Finally, add a sugar pearl wart on the witch's nose. 

Let the candy set for approximately 15 minutes, then peel it from the parchment paper. Every witch is going to turn out a bit different, which is half the fun!

I'd intended these for Halloween, but they would also be fun for a Wizard of Oz themed party. Turn the finished witches upside down, put a lollipop stick on each, then 'glue' the sticks in place with more melted candy for a super fun Witch-on-a-Stick treat. Wouldn't they look cute alongside this famous quintet? (Answer: Yes.)

*Same problem as with the owls. It appears the Wilton candy eyeballs printed with the eyelashes are discontinued. Make your own by drawing eyelashes onto the candy eyeballs I've linked above using a black edible marker. 

The Last Day of 8th Grade

Nobody likes Dolores Umbridge, but the Umbridge Rules Sketch Challenge was one of my very favorites from the Yer a Wizard Online Virtual Crop. I always love a good sketch challenge! Here's what I made:

Last Day of 8th Grade (affiliate link)

And here is the sketch:

As you can see, I did some flipping and rotating, but all the elements are there. I'm particularly happy with the circles. I dug out some ancient vellum and it gave me just the look I wanted. I'm going to hang onto this sketch, as I can totally see using it again. 

Same Height? Not Quite! - Scrapbook Crop with Victoria Marie

This layout isn't quite the usual Cindy page. After all, there are 4 different patterned papers, die cuts, a punched border, and (gasp!) enamel dots. Only a single photo. And no journaling!

Same height? Not quite! (affiliate link)

I participated in the Yer a Wizard Online Virtual Crop with Victoria Marie Designs and made this page for one of the many challenges. I'll get to that in a second, but first some details about the crop. The theme was Harry Potter / Halloween and it was a blast! There were five live 2+ hour Zoom events over the course of the weekend (a Friday night welcome party, two on Saturday, and two on Sunday), each with plenty of scrapping and chatting. We were encouraged to wear our Harry Potter stuff on Friday and one of the Saturday events was a costume party. There was tons of inspiration and plenty of enabling (for those who don't speak Scrapbook, enabling is when one crafter tells another about a fabulous product that is a must-have). There were 11 challenges with prizes and 4 giveaways. All this for $7.99 - quite a bargain! Victoria Marie online crops occur monthly, so I'll definitely be joining another. Not monthly, because that is more of a time commitment than I want to make, but a few times a year for sure. 

Anyway, I made this layout for the Potions Class Ingredient Challenge. We were challenged to use the following ingredients to create a layout: 3 patterned papers, die cuts, chipboard, enamel dots, and a dimensional element. We were allowed to substitute as necessary. I used a border punch instead of an additional dimensional element, since the chipboard and the enamel dots already had enough dimension to make me twitchy.

I was exceptionally prolific during the crop, which is a great feeling. I'll be sharing all the other layouts I made over the next few weeks, intermixed with other projects I want to share.