Happy Pantry: Ice Cream for I Scream...

Wait...that should be reversed.  Actually - while it sounds clever...it really isn't.  Nobody really screams for ice cream.  Unless it's on the ground.  Then you're screaming for another helping.

It's a sad waste of ice cream.

But that's not dignified.  And anyway, you should be more careful!  There's no excuse to lose your ice cream scoop to the floor.  You're smarter than the ground, aren't you?

Let's hope the answer is yes.  Otherwise, you get in there and fight for your ice cream...take it back from the floor!  5 second rule!  And who cares about a little dirt and hair.  It all gets mixed up and cleansed in your mouth.

Now this is ice cream what IS ice cream!

One of my favorite flavors is Mint Chocolate Chip.  It's only the best.

Tracey likes Strawberry Ice Cream.  So we created one of those as well...

BFF Friday! Happy Pantry best friends...milk and cookies

While I'm not the biggest fan of saying "BFF" - it has it's place.  When talking about how much cookies and milk like each other, then it's a natural and appropriate description.  Sure you can eat cookies, but if you dip it in milk first?  It's the best!  And the nicest thing to do next is take a swig of said milk.

I actually don't like eating cookies without milk.  And if it's a cookie type (like a girl scout cookie thin mint) that doesn't dip well, then it's not as much fun to drink.  I'll still eat 'em, and I'll have them with milk - but it's not as much fun as being able to mix these two besties together before mashing them in my teeth on the way to stomach town.

Jason Bourne or Jason reborn...

I've done a couple of versions of Jason Voorhees from Friday the 13th.  The first time was back in 2009 for a gallery show and the second was earlier this month to celebrate the second month in a row that had a Friday the 13th in it.

And I thought I got it out of my system when I suddenly thought, "Jason Born."  I thought it was interesting enough that I wanted to draw it.

This might just be the cutest of all Jasons.

C3PU

I think a lot of artists, when seeing that the new Star Wars movie was coming out, suddenly  needed to draw their versions of their favorite characters.

C3PO, sadly, was one of the more annoying things to come out of the original series - overshadowed in annoyance by Jar Jar - and while he was beloved by many fans, he was broken apart for scraps and thrown away.  That's why I thought it would be funny to draw my version of the character - C3PU.  The old stinky protocol droid where he belongs...in the garbage can.  Maybe he can say hi to Oscar the Grouch for us...

Happy Pantry: Bff's

We're going to do a series of BFF's for Happy Pantry.  We posted the first one, Peanut Butter and Jelly, earlier this week, and here are a few more:

 Nothing goes together better than Milk and Cookies.  But then all of these Bff's believe themselves to be the best that goes together...

 Nothing goes together better than salt and pepper...wait, milk and cookies already took that.  Pepper makes you sneeze and too much salt makes you die (and strangely, no salt also makes you die).  They go together so well because they pretend to like people, but really they're just messing with everyone.

Could you imagine eating salmon without wasabi?  If you can, then you shouldn't be allowed anywhere near them.  It's one of the only times one should ingest raw fish.

Happy Pantry - Peanut Butter and Jelly BFF's

We have a couple of series at Happy Pantry.

The one we're currently into is the Bffs.  Even though it's kind of annoying to say bff and the person who refers to their best friend as such should be evaluated by professions (especially if they're an adult)...but these days the string of letters is so prevalent that those of us who feel this way are in the minority.

And thus - we're okay with using it ourselves.

And nothing goes together like Peanut Butter and Jelly!

We have bottle cap necklaces with this illustration on them in glorious 1 inch form - www.happy-pantry.com

Friday the 13th, starring Lil' Jason Voorhees

Does it happen often that there's two Friday the 13ths in consecutive months?  I haven't heard of it.  I also don't usually care about it...or pay attention.

Usually I might register a "don't step on a crack," but even that I don't think very seriously.  It's a bogus day with no meaning - not unlike Valentines Day.  Only nobody feels like they need to buy anyone a gift.  Sometimes it might be worth seeing a Friday the 13th movie...but even that feels more like a Halloween thing.

So with that said, I illustrated a Jason as part of a gallery show I did back in 2009:

Adorable lil' Jason Voorhees

And today, to celebrate Friday, March 13th, 2015 - I drew this Jason:

 

 He turned out a little more sinister than I originally planned.  But that's the difference between my 2009 and 2015 style.  I still like cleaning up most of my drawings in Adobe Illustrator, but sometimes (like in this recent Jason piece) I'll just do the cleanup with a proprietary brush in Photoshop.

Happy Friday the 13th.  Don't step on a crack.

Happy Pantry: The Perfect Pear

This was one of our first illustrations for Happy Pantry.  We were originally doing some very simple and clean illustrator images, but also wanted to paint a little bit, so that's where this came from.  The lines are done in Illustrator and then painted in Photoshop.

And that's how you make the perfect pear.

LA Cookie Con 2015 - Happy Pantry

At the end of January, we were a part of LA Cookie Con.  It was the first annual one, and it was so successful it was demanded they do another!  There wasn't a question about it.

We were thrilled to participate and overwhelmed with the response of positivity (as well as purchases) we received!

photo courtesy: JanMLoves.blogspot.com

It was crazy how many people were there.  Thirteen Apples offered candied apples and had a line that got so long they had to open a secure door whereupon the line went down and wrapped around the block.  It was about 45 minutes to make one's own custom candy apple, but it was worth it!  They were so good!

 photo courtesy: Nina Z on Yelp

We debuted our Ms Cupcake Plush at LA Cookie con and promptly sold out.  It was horrible turning people away - one lady said her daughter was going to kill her because they had decided to check out the rest of the convention before coming back...and it was too late. Rest in Peace lady....whom, I believe was being figurative.

  photo courtesy:UmamiHoliday.com

We had a special giveaway for certain VIP's who attended the event.  Kris from Umami Holiday was one such VIP - she has a great food blog - don't go there on an empty stomach - and she was nice enough to take a picture of our little swag bag.

Several people took pictures of our booth:

 

photo courtesy: www.myapelmanis.com

photo courtesy: www.umamiholiday.com

photo courtesy: www.laweekly.com by Broc James and Emily Rojas

We were in LA Weekly!  We had a lot of eyeballs on our brand.  And speaking of celebrities, which we weren't...

 photo courtesy: Nikki Hahn

Nikki Hahn, an actress who's starred on American Horror Story, Nickelodeon and Disney shows as well as guest appearances on a bunch of other things and she's a fan of our Ms Cupcake!

photo courtesy: Olivia Sanabia and Aubrey K. Miller

Olivia and Aubrey are starring in an Amazon Prime show called Just Add Magic.  They are incredibly nice and very well spoken young ladies! Their show was developed by our friends Joanna Lewis and Kristine Songco (who I worked at Nickelodeon on Fairly Odd Parents and Tuff Puppy with).  We took three pictures with them, and they decided to post the only one where I'm posing like a jerk.

 photo courtesy: www.umamiholiday.com

These are our Happy Pantry bottle cap necklaces.  They're adorable.  But that's what we do with Happy Pantry...make things so adorable that your eyes want to break into a smile.

 photo courtesy: Kristin at www.meringuebakeshop.com

Ominous cupcake!

 photo courtesy: www.JayEats.com

photo courtesy: JanMLoves.blogspot.com

We had a lot of nice reaction to our "No coffee, no talky!" print.  It's something a lot of people could relate to.  Tracey was the inspiration for the coffee face...

 photo courtesy: www.hollydayz.com

photo courtesy: www.realmomofsfv.com

photo courtesy: Jenn Ho

Some people, like Jenn Ho, were nice enough to include pictures of our merchandise in their instagram feeds!

There are a lot more photos floating around the internet...but that's all for now from LA Cookie Con.  We can't wait for the next one!

If so inclined, you can buy our Happy Pantry stuff on our website: www.happy-pantry.com

Happy Pantry: A mostly alliterative alphabet book

 We're in the middle of making an alphabet book with our happy pantry characters.  We've called it mostly alliterative so we can reserve the right to do whatever we want.  But, for the most part, it'll be alliterative.

We have several versions of the cover...and even that could change when we're finished.  We've only drawn characters up through the letter R and only have finished illustrations through the letter L.  It's a work in progress that we hope to finish in 2015 (preferably by summer).

This version is a little more action packed...but we have plenty of time to figure it all out....