Diagon Alley, could there be a better place on earth?

photo taken from here

Even if you're not a huge Harry Potter fan, you might recognize this place.  Maybe not for it's content but for the name itself.  "Diagon Alley" is literally a magical place within the world of Harry Potter where wizards go to buy all things magical.  Be it wands, spellbooks, potion ingredients, owls, quills, parchment paper, school robes etc.  Every young wizard visits Diagon Alley to gather their things together for a year at Hogwarts, the Wizarding school.

My cousin is a huge fan of Harry Potter and normally, for Christmas or birthdays, we'd exchange something that had to do with owls, I'm not sure how we got started on owls specifically haha but we've found some pretty good gifts between the two of us.  Anyway, this Christmas I discovered a similar gift as the one I'm about to show you and I died when I realized I could replicate for her BUT BETTER!

I made her an actual street sign of DIAGON ALLEY!

This is an in-progress shot with blue tape around the border to keep myself from smudging it.  I apparently got so excited to wrap it up that I didn't take a final finished shot *facepalm*

I had a real street sign sans letters from a previous freelance job and it was just sitting in my room. It was fate!  First I spray painted the whole side a flat matte white and then I used sharpie and acrylic black paint for the lettering. (Next time if I do this, I'm using decal sticker letters.  It would just be so much easier)

It was a completely white sign with black typography and a black border around the edges

She couldn't believe it when she opened it. It was unexpected and completely epic. I'm actually kind of jealous.


Hope you guys have a fantastic rest of your week!!

Superheroes, Kangaroos, & Toms

Helllloooooo my friends!


Long time no talk! (or blog/read... whatever...) I have survived the month of December, which is a feat in itself. So busy and barely enough time to feed myself much less be able to do Christmas presents. I had to be pretty picky on who I was going to try to do homemade gifts for, I would so much rather make something for everyone but alas it just takes up soooo much time. And I definitely didn't have it this year in 2011. Here's to Dec 2012 being a homemade year! *thumbs up*
On a side note, I wish blogger had the same little icons my iPhone has - which by the way I'm blogging from!! Isn't that cool?!

Anyway, this is not the topic of this post! Come on, Annie, focus ...

I am so excited to show you this present which was a joint effort between me and one of my good friends. My friend has a sister who's in NY right now for graduate school and she wanted to do something for her for Christmas that was extra special. Little backstory: a few years ago we were all super bored and decided to recreate ourselves as intertwining alter egos. Both citizen and superhero. Who wouldn't want to be a super hero, amiright?? So, for this present my friend bought her sister a pair of white Toms and had them shipped to my house. I, in turn, created her alter ego and drew them on the shoes. They turned out sooooo fun!

she had a pet kangaroo lol

I wrote superhero sound effects all over the front

 I have to admit, I was a little nervous about doing these because I have never done anything in a comic style before. It not only had to resemble her but it also had to be in a genre I'm not completely familiar with.  However, I think they turned out super cute and she loved them!

all finished!

her alto ego is "Bindy Max"

I hope that you all had a wonderful holiday season! I'll be posting up another present I did for my cousin that's a quite a bit different but still just as nerdy haha! so stay tuned!! If you have any questions about the shoes or anything else just leave me a comment.

Thanks!!