More Halloween Craft

I found this door on Pinterest. I tried to find the link the image is from but had no luck. Anyway, I thought it was awesome so I wanted to recreate it.
 

Here's our version

We used an end roll of newsprint ( you can use brown wrapping paper ) and wrapped the door. Then we used a piece of poster board cut the idea size to fit three eyeballs, and then used double sided tape to make it stay. The poster board also made the teeth. 

The same night Hayden and I made bats. 14 of them to go behind our television. 

You'll also notice the ghost garland we made a few years ago. It was made out of ribbon and an old T-shirt we cut into shreds and drew faces on. 

As you can tell, we're definitely ready for some trick or treats. 

Celebrate good times-Top 10 moments of our Disney Vacation!

Ten years ago we said "I do." Fourteen years ago I said "Sure" when Brian asked if I wanted to date and we followed that up with our first date to see Fight Club on opening night. To celebrate this momentous occasion we went to Disneyland.

It was our first trip as a family and Hayden's first time ever. It was beyond magical and amazing. We'd been waiting to go until Hayden was old enough to enjoy and remember all of it for the rest of his life. I'm definitely glad we waited cause he will for sure remember the experience. 

 I'm also super glad we went during our favorite time of year Halloween!!! The park was decked out with pumpkins, bats and lots of Jack Skellington.
Here's our Top 10 moments of the Disneyland Trip:

10- Star Tours - As soon as we walked through the magical gates we headed to Tomorrowland. The first ride we jumped on was Star Tours. We all LOVED it. Hayden got to build his own light saber in the store after the ride and held on to it all day with so much pride. Tomorrowland was full of so much Star Wars goodness it was the place we spent the most time.

9- Adventures Galore - It felt as if Brian and I were kids again being there with our son who was experiencing this all for the first time. We headed to Pirates of The Caribbean and Haunted Mansion. Both rides were so awesome and way better than I remember from my trips as a kid. The Haunted Mansion was decked out for Nightmare Before Christmas. We were nervous about how Hayden would handle riding these type of things for the first time, but he did great. We also went over to Tom Sawyer's island to explore and enjoy the beautiful weather.

8- California Adventure/ Friends - Day 2 we spent at California Adventure. We ran into our old friend/tattoo artist Jackson and his family right as we entered Radiator Springs. We saw Lightning McQueen, rode the amazing Cars ride and walked around in awe.

7- Saving a bug - After Hayden got drenched on the Grizzly Mountain water ride we were strolling around when Brian found a praying mantis that had been stepped on and injured. He picked it up to save it from further damage and the little guy would not let go of his hand. We hung out with him for a bit until he decided it was time to say goodbye and jumped into the plants.

6- My Ears - So many people walk around the park with their ears. The pair I found that I fell in love with were some poisoned apple ears with the deadly skull on them. Not only were they perfectly spooky for me but they glow in the dark, so on every ride my apples would glow eerily.

5- So many fun times together- We wondered the parks together and had such a great time finding new things and absorbing the awesomeness. Every corner held something magical. We walked for what seemed like forever but we didn't get too tired as it was all so exciting.

4- Everyone Else-  We ran into so many people that were wrapped up in the Disney Magic as well. People were so nice and most of them were dressed up in Halloween costumes. A lot of adults talked with Hayden about his first trip and gave us advice on where to head next. I don't do well in crowds but Friday wasn't too crowded. We only had to use fast passes on Sunday for a couple rides.

3- World of Color-  Brian's co-worker showed him videos of the World of Color, but I had not been corrupted by teasers. I knew it was a light and water show but that was it. We waited among hundreds of others for almost and hour before the show was set to begin. Hayden fell asleep on my lap on the concrete and we were exhausted from the nine plus hours of walking and standing in lines all day. A nice woman in front of us let Hayden move up closer for a better view once the show was set to start. It was fifteen minutes of a breathtaking beauty. Words can't describe the amazement. Hayden instantly woke up and was blown away.

(photo from Disney)

2- Characters Characters-  Hayden got super shy around all the characters and we pretty much had to force him to take pictures, but he did and they will look great in his scrap book to show his therapist later.

1- Jedi Training Academy-  We had heard about it but weren't really sure what it was. I found a schedule of events and we for sure knew the Jedi Traning Academy was a must. The first day we sat and waited along dozens of other kids excited to experience the Force. When it was time Hayden jumped up and down hoping to be picked to learn some light saber moves from a Jedi Master. He was picked and he learned some great moves with twenty four other padawans. To their surprise they were joined by Storm Troopers, Darth Vader and Darth Maul whom they got to battle with their newly learned skills.

It was the best experience ever for our little Jedi. And he got to do it twice, the final time was our last day at Disneyland and he almost didn't get to but thanks to a merciful Jedi Master he was able to fight Darth Maul again. 

Overall my words can't do the experience justice but I wanted to share with everyone how amazing it was. We planned and budgeted the trip perfectly. We were able to celebrate our family with an unimaginable experience and we came home closer and happier than we had left. 

Halloween Crafty

I found some awesome Pins on Pinterest for Halloween decor on Friday. So I headed to the dollar store and bought up some materials. Saturday morning Hayden and I made some of these awesome things.

1. A Creature Wreath. The pin I saw was a snake wreath from this site, I couldn't find enough snakes so I opted for a creepy creature wreath. I took plastic spiders, snakes, bugs, and a bat and spray painted what wasn't already black, a glossy black. I bought a large hay wreath and spray painted that black as well. After the paint dried Hayden and I glued the creatures on. The lighter snakes are glow in the dark.

2. Chalkboard sign. I found chalkboard paint for $1.24 at the craft store and a cute little wood sign for $0.79. Hayden decided we would write something new on it every day till Halloween. 

We have some more to do, but this week is full up of preparation for a special trip to Disneyland. Our first as a family and a celebration of our 10 year wedding anniversary.

Here are some more of what I found on Pinterest:

Back at the Huntridge

Most of my teenage years I lived in and out of boxes. Moving from one house to another, one town to another and never really feeling like I had a "home" of my own. So many different rooms, so many different walls of plaster and paint. But the one set of walls that had the biggest influence on who I am were the walls that made up the Huntridge theater.
 I walked into it's doors for the first time when I was sixteen only a few months after moving to Las Vegas. I can't remember what bands played that show but I do remember they were punk rock. A girl I met on the school bus named Mia held my hand and walked me through it's doors for the first time. Little did either of us know how much that stroll through it's threshold would effect my life.
 I saw countless bands there. I looked up at that stage with fandom in my eyes and saw musicians living their dreams, sweating under it's heavy lights, breaking guitar strings and utterly enjoyed it.

Once I was in a band I dreamed of being on that stage that I had looked up at so many times. When we moved to Las Vegas in 2008 it had been closed for four years. My heart broke when I drove by for the first time in so long and it looked liked a sad shell of what it used to be. 

In June of this year an Indie Go Go Campaign to Save The Huntridge was started. I donated to show my support.

 On Saturday I drug my family to an event called BYOB. That's Bring Your Own Brush. It was a volunteer event for the community to help paint the Huntridge. There was a great turnout and we got to paint, share memories and  be apart of something awesome.

I'm excited to watch the progress of the renovation and I hope to help out more. I also hope my band will get to play there one day soon.

School of Hard Knocks: Treat it like a business run it like a BOSS

Being in a band and not promoting it is like having a business and wanting to keep it secret. You will not succeed and no one will know about your band unless you promote it... and my advice is to promote it like a business and run it like a boss.

BOOKERS/PROMOTERS

It's not a booker's job to get people in the door to see YOUR BAND. It's their job to book a solid show with good bands that promote themselves, work out the ticket prices, make sure the security and sound are locked in and advertise the show by using the venues advertising budget or their own to do so. No one cares about your band as much as you do, therefore no one will kill for your band but YOU. Unless you're paying said promoter to promote just your band its their job to promote the club/venue. So don't sit around bitching about promoters/bookers not doing their "job" promoting your band when that's your job.

If you feel a booker/promoter isn't doing good enough, then do it yourself. Go direct to the venue owner/manager and try booking your own show.

It's not always as easy as you think.

MERCH

Merch is key to making money. DUH. You have to sell shit to make money.

You should have shirts, cd's, shot glasses or whatever to sell at every show. If you make unique flyers for your shows (like we do) print out larger size versions and sell them for $2-$5. We made poster sized flyers had them mounted on foam core and made anywhere between $15-$40 on them.

This helps when you get stiffed by the venue or booker/promoter for payment or when you play a free show.

Set up a Paypal account for the band and get a credit card swipper so you can accept cards where ever you are.

You also need free stuff like stickers, picks, etc for the broke people.

OUT OF THE BOX THINKING:

Being an advertising professional I have to think of out of the box solutions for clients who are looking to stand out in their field. It's the same thing we need to do as bands. If there are 3 or 4 other shows the same weekend we're playing a show we have to come up with a unique theme or incentive to get people to our show, like a car dealer during a holiday weekend.

Facebook invites aren't the only way to promote shows. There are thousands of internet radio stations that cater to unsigned bands as well as blogs. Get those people involved too. Give away a spot on your guest list as an incentive or host a raffle where a winner can get a bundle of merch from all the bands on the show that night.

Most bars have alcohol vendors that would be willing to help pass out flyers if you throw their logo on it.

These are just a few tips from my experiences. Get out there and find your own unique out of the box ideas.

Look at what small businesses are doing to draw customers.

Other people's children

I had a conversation with a friend of mine yesterday about other people's kids.
Her son is 9 and in Boy Scouts. She told me about a certain boy coming over for a sleep over and how the boy stole money for a fundraiser and when she brought it up to the mom, the mom pretty much denied it and blew it off. I would have marched my ass to that lady's house with a baseball bat and a friend dressed up like a cop to get that shit back. With intimidation of course, not violence.
Luckily I don't have to deal with other people's children as much. My son hasn't made any outside of school friends that aren't our friends' kids. Mostly our friends raise their kids similarly to us so we don't have huge issues.

We did have this one couple who brought their kids to our house for a barbecue and the kids proceeded to rip Hayden's room to shreds while the parents didn't check on them once.  They took lego creations apart that I had carefully put together for him and tossed the pieces in the air like they were dollar bills at a strip club. It's been a couple years and we still haven't been able to find all the pieces to one of the sets.

The worse experiences we had with other people's kids were with our old roommates kids. He would sleep until 2pm and his kids would run around the house all weekend unless I got up and watched them. They destroyed some of my candles, some of Hayden's toys, and ate most of our Halloween candy one year tossing the wrappers in random places all over the house ie: behind the toilet, under beds, in between books on the bookcase, etc. We tried to get our roommate to take responsibility and discipline them, but he was a lazy jerk and didn't have any respect for us.
I also witness a lot of rude kids at the parks. There are kids in our neighborhood who play at the park every day until dark and never do I see their parents around. I've had to tell kids to watch their mouth around my son who were the same age or just a couple years older. This one ten year old girl drops more F'bombs  than most musicians I know. Another kid walked into our garage and stole our skateboard. We didn't know till a neighbor saw him riding around on it and it had a bipolar sticker on the bottom.

I know my son is not perfect. He battles with being a picky eater and won't eat new foods at other people's houses. We try to work on that every day.

Like Louis CK, I'm amazed at the lack of responsibility people take for their children's behavior these days. I believe a lot of parents are too wrapped up in their own shit to care for how their children behave around other kids and other adults.
Take the damn time to teach your kids manners, and PAY ATTENTION to what their doing. It's not other people's responsibility to teach them manners.
Also, kids learn from example, if you're a jerk and lazy your kid is going to be a lazy jerk. If you sit on your ass yelling at them all day, they're going to be unhappy and will probably act out at school or with other kids. If you don't teach them respect for other people's things they'll throw legos around my house like a jackass.

Here's 25 Manners Every Kid Should know by the time they are 9

Dr Sears' 7 ways to teach children manners.

Happy Friday the 13th

I can't breathe. Well I can but my nose is stuffy and my throat is scratchy. I caught some kind of illness that had inflicted my husband, my son and my coworkers. I have been attacking it back with a vengeance or rather with cold medicine and sinus soother tea.

But with the sickness comes the FALL!!! I love the fall, LOVE IT. 

Right now the stores are filling their shelves with Halloween decor and with my obsession of skulls this is the best time to buy my year round decor.

One of my favorite blogs Beautiful Mess has a great post of 20 ideas for Fall . I am all about the food for sure. 

Tonight we play a show at the Dive Bar. It is exactly as it sounds a DIVE BAR. But we love it and haven't played there since they relocated.

Another great FALL kickoff was our band photo shoot on Monday. We got to sneak peek the upcoming Fright Dome and pose next to the blood and guts. The shoot was done by Radiant Inc. We wanted to get some new photos to show off the new lineup and prepare for all the great things coming up.

Here's one of my favorites. You can see the rest on our facebook. 

Our new guitar player Brian is second from left. He's been a great addition to the band and helped rekindle the creative fire in all of us. 

We have some great things in the works and have brought back some of our older songs to pay tribute to our 10 year anniversary.

Hope everyone has a great Friday the 13th and if you're in Vegas come down to The Dive Bar around 9pm.