Tis the season to be skully, FAH LAH LAH LAH LAH LAH LAH LAH LAAAHHH!

Last night was a festive little "Art Club" me and Rene got our Christmas on, by creating some party favours for our friends. I have been getting a little too festive recently; planning Christmas outfits, ways to make our own bad Christmas jumpers, to wear out to the pub and to Faux Chrimbo (a rehearsal Christmas dinner, which usually ends in drunken debauchery or out and out warfare over board games!). I really can't wait to put on the Dean Martin, crack open the mulled wine and put the tree up. So during the journey to work, my little brain is working over time and planning little designs... and so the idea for Skolly was born. The design was hastily drawn on an opened envelope and thrust at a bleary eyed Rene. And here they are....

These cheeky little chaps have since multiplied, as I was Art-unfaithful to Rene this morning and made some more to go on the Big Cartel site (when they are painted up).
As before Rene has used her killer writing skills to document the evening, so I will leave you with her words. :) She is a clever ol' stick!

"God bless Tim Burton. I mean, yes, he shamelessly casts Helena Bonham Carter as the female lead in every movie he makes (I bet he sits at night, crying over the fact that he can’t turn back time and remake Beetlejuice without that bastard Winona Ryder) but he did, with the help of this dapper gentleman, justify a very skully (whisper it) Christmas.  

Faux Chrimbo has become a tradition over the last four or five years. A group of 10 or so friends get together and enjoy a turkey/veggie-alternative roast dinner at mine. It used to be my gay husband and I but now that we’re divorced, it turns out that I got custody of Faux Chrimbo.

I love Faux Chrimbo because it brings with it all the excitement of Christmas without pestiferous present-buying or pesky parents, with their tantrums and impromptu moonlight flits to the coast. This is just the ‘kids’ playing grown up by cooking a dinner and having a very jolly piss up when the table’s been cleared. It is the best thing about winter, I reckon.

This year, there shall be dodgy jumpers worn and the act of cooking has been thrown wide. I will be cooking the meat but the other jobs (even the roast potatoes) have been out-sourced, so that each guest will bring a component of the dinner. This excites me for several reasons. 1) I envisage a far less sweaty day than past years as I will not be running around doing last minute jobs. 2) Less washing up - I even bought disposable roasting trays, skank that I am. 3) we all cook differently, so it’ll be a fusion of styles and preferences and, although it’s all roast dinner, I think it’ll be all the better for everyone’s personal little flourishes.

It will be a relief to learn that I didn’t just segue from Jack Skellington to Christmas dinner without good cause. The reason he’s relevant is that last night, Fro and I got together to ‘make’. I had just come from an exhausting day at work. I had been in an excellent mood all day and had been dead motivated to do EVERYTHING but that meant working until 6pm (for a teacher, on a Friday, this is sacriledge) and using an arseload of energy on laughing, smiling and happily getting on with stuff. So when I finally got to Fro’s, via terrible traffic and the kebab shop for our dinner, I was incapable of coherent speech, much less creative thinking.

Fro had previously suggested making party favours for the Faux Chrimbo guests and had excitedly mocked up a little idea in her head, which she showed me. It involved holly leaves and skull berries… I was sold.

So we became a two-person production line. Fro made a prototype holly leaf (I seriously needed the guidance - my holly leaves always end up looking like remedial footwear) and we cut out 26 of those, then stuck them together in pairs. At this point, we realised that we could have made them as a pair to begin with, which would have saved us a job and made the pieces stronger (insert spaz lip here) but the end result was the same. Once we’d got the leaves how we wanted them, we rolled little balls of clay and Fro made them into little smiley skull faces, while I stuck them down.

We ended up with these little guys. I think they bear a passing resemblance to a certain Mr Skellington.

Fro plans to fire them, then paint the leaves green and the skulls red, so that they are all christmassy with a twist.

I think that they are very cute and very jolly-looking. In fact, I would go so far as to say that Burton himself wouldn’t sniff at having these bad boys on his christmas table.

Since it is christmas and all, if you would like to own your very own skullyberry christmas ornament, or if you know some morbid or latin soul who might appreciate a piece of original (custom-made if you so desire) artwork, TheFro sells her wares here.(http://madamemunkisskullemporium.bigcartel.com/)"

I shall post up images of the finished beasties once they are fired and painted, until then I shall be continuing to obsess about more ways to shoe-horn skulls into Christmas...Jingle Skulls? Mistleskulls? It's a bit sad really...  

http://madamemunkisskullemporium.bigcartel.com/