Birthday Cards

I had a good birthday. I got some solid gifts.

I got a chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting from Two Fat Cats Bakery. My dad noted admiringly, "It tastes like a giant Funny Bone." True. A giant, delicious, handmade Funny Bone. I didn't put it in the fridge like last time, either.

I had some delicious, low-carbonation craft beers with friends at Gritty's. I hate carbonation.

I avoided all the storms while biking.

And best of all, I got some awesome handmade cards. Here's the card my sister made me (don't forget to click images to embiggen them and read the fine print):
My mom made me Ninja Turtles cakes when I was young, but I never got a "totally rad birthday 'za." Probably for the best.

My sister said she deliberately hid the hands and feet here since those are the features that give her the most trouble. I pointed out that that's true of professional comics artists, as well. Either way, she did a nice, subtle job of hiding the deformed extremities. I rate this card Totally Tubular, dude.

For purposes of comparison, here's a card I made for Stasia's birthday last year:

Sorry if that made you spill your coffee or gave you nightmares. Hopefully it's large enough that you can read the text, since that's much better than the image. I like the card in general, but I don't know what I was thinking when I drew that crazy-eyed close-up. I'll have to redo it with my improved mspainting skills, so as not to pervert the minds of innocents.

And here's a simply incredible card Stasia drew by hand and held up to her webcam so I could see it:

Whale done. (If you don't get that joke, try saying it the way Stasia would now: with a British accent. {And if you don't like that joke, kiss my blowhole.})

Birthday Raptor

Is it wrong to make yourself a birthday card? It doesn't say my name on it, so it could technically be for anyone. Anyone delicious...

New business idea: Raptor Cakes. Cakes made by, for, and of raptors.

Roses and Birthdays

I'm still alive. Here's a post to prove it. Could I have done this from beyoooond the graaaave?

I mspainted this card for my grandmother last week. I printed the rose on one side of a piece of card stock paper, flipped the paper over, printed the text on the other side, then folded the paper so it looked like a real card, since it was being sent in the real mail. And that was on my third try. This real world stuff is terribly complicated.

Don't forget to click it to enlarge it. When you do, you'll notice a distinct lack of snark. This is because my grandmother appreciates sincere, aka sappy, emotion. When I sass her, she appreciates that, too, but often I have to explain my sass before she fully appreciates it, and that's hard to do in a greeting card. Oh, also, her birthday's not about me, it's about her, or something. (If she's reading this she might be disappointed in me until I explain the tongue-in-cheekness of that joke. Then she's going to be mad at me for implying she doesn't get my jokes. Good thing she mostly avoids the computer. No one print this out for her, she already got her card and pretended she loved it. Let's not mess with a good thing.)

Anyway, all I'm saying is Hallmark ain't so great. Takin' back the greeting card industry.

Birthday Girl

She's long since asleep and onto her second day of 23rdhood, but here it's technically still her birthday, and here, the US, is where she was born, so happy birthday again, Stasia. Naturally she's already seen these, since they were made for her, but for posterity and all that, a couple small tokens of my affection. Any images I post can be clicked to enlarge them -- I keep having to remind my mom of that, so maybe others don't know it, either.



You didn't think she was getting through a birthday without a Muppet picture, did you? Yes, I looked at reference photos for this. A girl's birthday was at stake!

The Count is sometimes pink and sometimes purple. Check google images if you don't believe me. That's why I hedged my bets and colored him pink and wrote in purple. Also, did you know he had a beard? I'm not sure I ever knew that. It blends in with his suit. And it's impossible to make Oscar the Grouch look angry without drawing eyes -- without them, his naturally angry uni-brow becomes an Asian happiness emoticon (^^). I was trying to make him happy, not ecstatic. Impossible. (Please prove me wrong if you can.)