Happy Pantry: Almost Alliterative Alphabet Book, Letter B

 We had a couple of options for our alliterative alphabet book when it came to the letter B.  The first was my favorite, until I put glasses on the strawberry, now I like Brainy Berry...

Happy Pantry - Happy Friday!

It's funny - no matter how many come to pass, it's always a happy friday when you're staring in the face of a couple of days off.

And then there's the three day weekend...and Friday at 6 can't come soon enough - because then it's so hard to imagine having to go back to work seeing as how it's Tuesday...you can't see Tuesday when you're walking out of the office door on Friday.

Every once in a while - and this doesn't always happen - there's a big stretch between ending work for the week and coming back - like the Christmas holiday.  Suddenly you have a week...sometimes two weeks...those Fridays might just be the best Fridays.

Oh - and I like fries.  Any day I'm eating fries (extra crispy, please!) is a happy day.

A tiny look at what I'm working on right now...

I'm working on a larger piece, but it's taking a while, so I thought I'd post a little snippet because I liked how it's going so far...

What could that be in reference to?  I wonder...

Happy Pantry: Almost Alliterative Alphabet Book, letter A

The only thing worse than finding a worm in your apple is finding the remains of half of one after you've bitten into it...

But they do have fun together...

Happy (Pantry) Easter!

We're up early today to go to Wondercon, so we definitely need our coffee...with bunny ears and a tail.

Go get your eggs!  It's Easter!  It's all marshmallow rabbits and chocolates for breakfast today!

Easter comes to the Happy Pantry

 Easter is the one day where everyone gets together to mess with eggs.

 Easter is also the one day a year when everyone decides that hard boiled eggs are tasty and eat them by the mouthful.  It's gross.  The only eggs one should consume should be laid by bunnies and filled with chocolate...or weird gooey sugary Cadbury goodness.

And Easter is also the one time a year when everyone feels the need to hide eggs all over the yard so kids can go nuts fighting over hard boiled eggs.  They're not even candy - they're the worst way to make an egg (especially if you're like me and your mom would dice them into steamed spinach and make you eat a heaping pile for dinner...it was a smell that permeated the house and a taste that tested your gag reflex).

I will say, it is fun to watch all the little weirdos running to and fro looking for eggs to put in the basket.  We grew up having our little Easter egg hunt, and there would always be one special plastic egg filled with cash.  That was the one we were really on the hunt for.

Happy Pantry: April Fools!

Nothing is worse than April Fools.  Everyone tries to deliver some news today and it's obviously ridiculous or fake.  Everyone tries a prank and it never seems to work out right - sometimes it's funny, but someone always gets mad...even though we all know what day it is.

Almost a decade ago I tried to tell everyone that Tracey had broken up with me.  It was a really lazy effort on my part.  I just sent out an e-mail to everyone I could think of.  For some reason people believed me and I kept getting condolences.  When I came clean that it was the lamest joke I've ever attempted, my brother didn't talk to me for a month.  But that might have been because of how lame the prank was and he was ashamed...

You know what would be a good prank?  Bugs in food.  It's the worst thing, and best of all, it's the bug that's doing the pranking.  Win win!  And everyone gets to laugh about it.  Except for the person who bit into the food and discovered a new friend wiggling out.

There's a worm in your apple....April Fools!

And I know, worms aren't bugs.  But they might as well be.  Wait - aren't they?  Ah nuts.  Ignore this paragraph.

So if you're a pranker and toss a bucket of water on a co-worker or saran wrap the toilet...or if you opt out of any lame bits of mirth...just remember to be careful today.  There's a lot of terribleness going around...just grin and bear it for a few more hours...and be thankful it's only once a year.

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....

Fairly Odd Parents: Poof!

Fairly Odd Parents, a show I worked on since 2002 finally called it quits in early 2014.  What's nice about the brand is that it doesn't ever seem to stay in retirement for too long.  FOP is coming back for another season!  That makes....10 seasons?  Something like that.

During season 9 we had a crew contest to design a t-shirt for the crew.  Above is my design.  I didn't win - in the 9th season they were introducing a new character, and mine featured Poof who was introduced a couple of seasons previously...not to mention the winning design was better...

Happy Pantry: Cupcake hair clips

 Cupcake hair clips!  How cute…eh?  EH?!?!  Look at the cutie buh-dootie!

This is what the hair clip looks like in our Happy Pantry packaging.  The cupcakes are embroidered and the hair clip itself is wrapped so it's not pokey and easy to stick on the head, not into the head!

They're only $5.99 for a pair of clips on our website - www.happy-pantry.com

Happy Pantry: Latte and Onion Tote Bags

 We had bags made of our three favorite characters.  Eventually we'd like to even make a kitchen towel and apron from the Onion, but for now...bags!

It's terrible that the words, "Totes Adorbs" are out there in the world...because now that I have that string of letters in my head AND have actually made totes - not to mention the fact that the tote bags are quite adorable...it's hard not to think totes adorbs.  But I don't feel good doing it.

They're available on our website - only $7.99!  www.happy-pantry.com