Homage to Miranda

Who is this, anyway?

Is it Carmen Miranda, risen miraculously from the dead?

I wish! Sorry to disappoint, but it's only...

little ol' me.

I am, however, honoured to be in very good company indeed respecting my tribute to Ms Miranda - including Angie Pontani, who inspired this creation with her article in Craft Mag Vol. 4. I will admit that Angie looks far better in her version than I.

(If you are too young to remember Carmen Miranda (as, technically, am I - but in some respects I am an old fart trapped in a not quite middle aged woman's body!), you may well recall some other tributes to her: including Bugs Bunny and Chiquita Banana)

But actually I don't think I look half bad! At any rate, I look happy.

And, speaking of fancy dress - isn't this a great outfit? The dress is called is the Rhumba. I acquired some years back at Price Roman (which sells absolutely fabulous clothes) to wear to a wedding. I don't want to admit how much it cost... suffice it to say it was roughly equivalent to 20 Value Village sojourns or 50 dollar store runs.

The headdress, on the other hand, cost only $30... er, $42. $20.00 for this stuff:
... and $10.00 for this:
(Except that, ahem... the glue gun pictured perished last evening at my cruel and impatient hands. And if you've been reading this blog for any length of time, you have probably already surmised that there will be a future post on this topic alone. I'm fairly predictable in my lunacy. A basket also perished but it was ugly anyway so I really don't care.)

I should note that JJ gave creative input to this project (he is a big fan of Carmen Miranda, having seen this flick when a young lad. And, by the way, it is highly recommended viewing for all ages. I loved it!). Most specifically, he proposed that I weave the orange flowers in with the purple - which worked perfectly.

I made a couple of modifications from what Angie suggested:

• mixed in some vegetables with the fruits and flowers

• added two scarves, one to wrap the basket and one to drape over the spandex tie
• omitted the sparklies and fake pearls, for now, anyway
  

(I did locate these...
... in the bedroom drawer - together with some other stuff which will be the subject of yet another post, I'm sure you'll be glad to know. Again I digress... I did try stringing these onto the headpiece but they didn't quite work. I'm sure they'll do for something else, though... stay tuned!)

However, I think that mine is taller than hers (hell, it's taller than I am!). heh heh. I had to duck coming through the doors to make my grand entrance, which kind of detracted from the grand aspect of the entrance. (The headpiece is 30" long from tip to bottom and about 10" wide.)

Oh well. The fruit look tasty anyway, don't they?

I will confess that I was not able to tie it properly to stay on my head unaided (I could have asked JJ to help, but wanted to surprise him). I could walk when holding it and even did a little samba for JJ (for at least 20 seconds!).

If I make another one (and I don't see why not) for actual wear, I think I'd try to go with some styrofoam fruit.

But, all in all, I'm very happy with this creation and it will make a great table decoration to match the Liquorice Allsorts.
In parting, here is a photo that I think represents the spirit of Carmen.
I do hope that she is resting in peace... either that, or having a ton of fun wherever she is now.

And, for the living, I wish you a happy St. Michael's Day. If you know any Greeks called Michael, try to crash the party. It will be a good one.

...and baby makes three!

I know two posts a day might be considered excessive (especially if one bothers to have a look at the actual content!) - but I had to share the good news!

A couple of weeks back, I came home from work to the following scene:

I guess I forgot to give the little speech about the facts of life (which, in my public school days was "Abstinence is the only 100% effective method of birth control, so I don't know how much good it would have done anyway) because today when I returned from the dollar shop, lo and behold:

Bubbles Duck! (Baby Duck = "bubbly" = well, you get the picture)

Oh, I should mention that Bubbles has already been baptised as in the Greek culture it is considered bad luck to reveal the baby's name before the baptism. (Plus, the godparent actually gets veto power over the name. No wonder I didn't have kids!!) I did not wait the requisite 40 days after birth... I do hope that's OK.

From the left: candle, Father Yanni, Panayia and Christ, candle, the proud nouna (godmother) Spiroula, and Quack.
Where is Daisy, you might well ask. The answer: standing at the back of the church. This is where the proud mother gets to hang out for the whole baptism ceremony. Nice, eh? Especially when the ceremony involves stinky incense and dunking the kid in a huge tub three times. I've never seen a video of a Greek baptism where you could actually hear anything but the baby screaming!

But where did I find a priest at such short notice?

Look familiar? This is Sir John A. MacDonald, Canada's first prime minister. My mother gave me this "action figure" a few years back. He had lived in Kingston, my hometown and so everything in Kingston is called "Sir John A" this and "Sir John A" that.

It should be noted that to my understanding the action figure is not accurate as Sir John A (or, on second thought, was that Sir John, Eh?... I'm such a hosehead!) is not holding a whisky bottle and chugging from it. According to popular legend this was about the only "action" he got up to on a regular basis. This is not surprising, as he came from Glasgow, JJs hometown.

The Scots are everywhere! Do I hear bagpipes?!?

But I digress. Here is a photo of the full family:


Funny how much bigger Bubbles is than his parents already. Rather similar to all of these 5 foot tall Greek parents with 6 foot 5 Greek Canadian sons (man, I wish I had benefitted from that diasporic height gene!!).

This is my present to the new arrival:

Hir first Greek schlock art piece (I say "hir" because I'm not clear on what gender s/he is. And really, it doesn't matter!).

Please don't mind me - I'm just giddy from my huge success in my shopping expedition earlier today. It was a lovely day for a walk, meaning I spent far more money than I had intended. Nothing changes.

On my way out, I spotted a full length mirror someone had scrapped at the first building south of mine. I debated taking it back to my place right away, then decided that I was was intended by the fates to have this mirror, it would still be there when I got back.

My first shop stop: Zia Mosaics. I had not been at this shop in a long while and so I got to meet the new owner, Patrizia, a lovely woman. I had intended to spend no money at all due to a still rather large stash of glass and tile, and with the best of intentions wandered in to look at her pieces on display (which were great).

Then I made the mistake of looking at her selection of books and tiles. So, of course I left the shop with all of this:

A CD with 746 mosaics on it!!! Wow!! And I was so impressed that she sells pieces of broken china... I've not seen that at other shops I have frequented in past:


(I must say that "Good Kristina" was conspicuously absent today in my travels. She must still have been hungover from all of the Keith's that Evil Kristina chugged at the tenant advocates' pub night last evening. Given the typical futility of her presence at all, I feel rather relieved.)

Patrizia then advised that she will be getting in smalti starting in January. There go the January, February and March 2008 paycheques, by which point I should be well into the process of getting evicted for non-payment of rent.

Before I started looking around any more, I hightailed it out of there. Next stop: my favourite neighbourhood dollar store, Bargain Home (located very conveniently next to the No Frills and a stone's throw from the LCBO. Here is part of the haul:
The above plus this:


(from the Pro hardware on the way back to my building - another favourite local hangout) will hopefully equal a Carmen Miranda headdress very, very soon.

After popping into the Shoppers to stock up on Diet Coke, I headed back with all due haste to see if the mirror was still there:


YAY!! A real score... I had thought it was scratched but it turned out to be mud only. Treasure from Trash!!!

So, lots of exciting crafts to work on - and I must also get back to my knitting design project (after, of course, I do my monthly excavation... er, cleaning. Where is Heracles when you need him, anyway? Sheesh).

Cheers,

Kristina

PS. Were you wondering what is up with Bubbles' little metal attachment? No? Well, I'll tell you anyway. It is an interesting genetic mutation clearly passed down to hir by hir yarn-loving parents. Viz.: