Artsy

PROJECTING: Busy week last week. We were up to our elbows in fondant, buttercream, Perler beads and spray paint. 

After checking out the Birthday Dreams' list of request for cakes for homeless kids, CJ found a child who wanted a Super Mario Bros.-themed cake. We *had* to take that on. (As you may recall, in our last place, CJ's entire bedroom was painted in a Super Mario Bros. mural.)

Annabelle was busy on another project (more on that later), so CJ and I had to do most of the heavy lifting on this cake. 

We made mushrooms and Goombas (pictured at the top of the post). We had to call Annabelle in for Mario's head and body, however. 

The cake was three layers of chocolate brownie cake with vanilla and mini chocolate chip filling, covered in marshmallow fondant. 

We put the birthday child's name on top of the cake in a Mario Bros. font. The name is rather clumsily obscured in these photos, for privacy purposes, but it looked really cool! :)

Meanwhile, Annabelle was busy with another 'little' project. About three weeks back I'd sent her notice about The Museum of Flight's Space Art juried art show/contest. She ignored that  info, but last Wednesday morning, I asked her, "Are you really not going to do anything to try to get into the art show?" Well, she had a change of heart and then spent hours and hours and hours the next two days creating.

It had to be a 2D/on the flat entry, so she decided to do a melted Perler bead creation on canvas. She settled on an astronaut's helmet, with a starry scene in the visor.

The toughest part was getting it to scale and getting it outlined properly.

 Filling in the middle was more fun.

After the beads were on the boards, it was all carefully taped off and pulled off the boards and then melted together via an iron.

She spray painted a canvas (using techniques she'd learned by air brushing cakes!), and then glued the astronaut on it.

It turned out great, and she found out that the work was one of 18 that will be featured in the museum's art show this coming weekend. How about that!?

SATIRE-DAY:  Friday night, we made our way to the Paramount Theater for a show (our second of the week). This time it was Weird Al as the main attraction. 

Billed as his "Strings Attached" tour, Al was playing with a 40+ piece orchestra. 

In fact, the opening act was the orchestra, which played a stirring selection of John Williams' movie themes. I would have gone to the theater just to hear that!

Afterward, there was a short intermission, and then it was on with the show. Annabelle will tell you more about it. ...

On August 17th, my family and I attended a concert at the Paramount Theater featuring “Weird Al” Yankovic and a full symphony orchestra; many would think this is quite the odd combination, but it definitely works in its own ridiculous way. During this show, Weird Al played many of his more popular parody songs, including “White & Nerdy,” “Amish Paradise,” and my personal favorite, “Word Crimes.”

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He also sang a few original songs, such as “Jackson Park Express” and the 26-second long “Harvey the Wonder Hamster”.

The showmanship of the concert was astounding, and every single part of it was punctual and well executed. The opening act with the orchestra’s warm up sounded very good, and the acoustics of the Paramount worked well with the nature of the instruments. The only improvement I could think of was that the singers’ microphones sometimes felt a bit too quiet in comparison to the orchestra and instruments, making it difficult to hear certain lyrics. Aside from that, the show was amazing! More information on the tour and future stops can be found at weirdal.com/tour/.

Al ended with a couple of Star Wars songs: "The Saga Begins" and  "Yoda" (sang to the tune of The Kinks' "Lola."

We enjoyed our 'cheap' seats in the first row of the third (and last) mezzanine. Whoever filmed this had a *much* better view.
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