I was up past sunrise making buttons from a couple of old comic books. They came out looking really good!
My buddies and went hiking along the coast at Wilder Ranch State Park this morning. While we were there we saw a vulture eating away at a dead seal thru it's eyehole. Pretty fucking metal! Afterwards we went to a brewery in Capitola for beers and lunch then off to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk for more beers, deep fried Oreos, a train ride, bumper cars, & arcade games. After coming home I didn't have much energy to do anything else besides draw a couple new button designs on the iPad. I drew six of them last night. The plan is to have new buttons available for the next First Friday Street Mrkt in September. Today on Instagram I uploaded pictures and video of the button display I built for my vendor booth. It was a last minute build. I made it the night before the Rose, White & Blue Parade event and I'm pretty happy how it came out. I bought a used frame from the Goodwill, yellow felt from Joann fabrics, hinge & back board from Home Depot, and I already had the scrap lumber & velcro at home. I'm going to leave it as-is for now, until it breaks or I come up with a better design, or solution, to display my buttons at events. I spent the day preparing for Sunday's Rose, White & Blue event. I pulled everything from my checklist of stuff, built a display for my buttons (pictured below) and framed all 5 FRANKIE MCFLY USA print colorways. Everything took longer than anticipated and I didn't do a full set up of my booth at home to see how it'll look. Hopefully there's no issues at the event tomorrow when I set up the new displays & merch for the first time. Either way it's gonna be fun and I can't wait to be out there.
I went and visited my friend, Arely, at an event she was vending at this afternoon. I surprised her with a few buttons I made of her artwork. She loved them. She uploaded a video on Instagram showing off her favorite. Around the same time, my other friend, Lulu, also uploaded a video showing off the custom roller skate button I designed for her. Later, when I got home, I pressed the buttons I designed for my buddy, Vic. It's based on a sketch I made in high school of his bands name, QMI. He ordered one of my San Jose t-shirts a few days ago and the buttons are a surprise. I finally went through all the drawings and sketches I've been hoarding over the years and organized them into piles. One pile is old drawings from middle school & high school, making them 20-25 years old. The other piles are of monsters, aliens, head things, shape things, graffiti, video games as well as a large stack to trash or repurpose. The reason I went through all of them today was to look for an old sketch I did in high school of my buddy Victor's band name, QMI. He ordered a t-shirt of mine yesterday so I wanted to surprise him with a custom button when I ship it to him so I redrew the artwork digitally and colored it in. The design might be a little too detailed for a 1.5" button but I'll find out tomorrow when I print it out.
My friend Lulu, who came out to help us paint our murals at Casitas De Guadalupe back in March, and had previously bought 2 t-shirts from me, bought a third shirt last week. She picked it up today and I surprised her with a couple of custom made buttons with a design inspired by her blue roller skates with pink wheels. As you can see from the screenshot below, she liked it.
Another slow day. I couldn't get myself to sit down and work on any one project. I pressed a single button in order to take video. I also added a couple red pieces to my Sticker Monster collage then realized I'm going to need a lot more red stickers than I have available. I made a sale yesterday! A heather gray shirt with the pink SAN JOSE print on the front. I packaged it today. I usually do a hand drawn Thank You card but this is for a friend and repeat customer so I did something a bit different as a surprise. I can't show you what I did till she receives her order and sees it first.
In other news I found that my bike's rear tire is rubbing against the frame when I ride. I was wondering what the strange sound was and I didn't know where it was coming from till today. I'll be taking it to Good Karma Bikes soon so they can fix it. I also made some new buttons. The colors still need a little tweaking on a couple but they're looking pretty cool I got my second vaccine shot this afternoon and got a nifty button! I didn’t experience any side effects either. I’m looking forward to hanging out with my fully vaxxed friends & family in a few weeks after the vaccine has taken full effect.
The tax prep is still dragging along nicely. I did a bit of work tonight. Mostly reworking the forms & spreadsheets I use to keep records. I do my best to log everything but I’m constantly trying to improve & streamline the whole bookkeeping & tax preparation process. Happy Star Wars Day! I pressed some new buttons tonight. I also removed the pins and glued magnets on a bunch of them. If you’re reading this and want custom 1.5” buttons of your own... send me a message for pricing info. I’m back on my bullshit! Today I left one of my 1-Up buttons at Lake Cunningham Park on a little sign near the Tully Road entrance. I hope someone finds it otherwise I’m taking it back, or moving it, the next time I’m there.
I went hiking again today at Alum Rock Park and went to see if the button a I left on the log 4 days ago was still there, and it was. It sat in the rain and got a little rusty and I took it back home with me. I decided, prior to taking back the button this afternoon, that I don’t want to do sticker or button drops (for people to find) at Alum Rock Park anymore. It was a lot of fun the couple times I did it but I also felt weird about leaving stuff behind at the park. It felt like borderline littering. I also don’t want to encourage others to leave stuff, in hopes someone else will pick it up, and I don’t want people to come to the park if it isn’t to hike or experience nature. I still want to do Finders Creepers drops in the future but not at a place like Alum Rock Park, out of respect. Friday afternoon I went on a hike at Alum Rock Park on some trails I hadn’t gone on before. This time I took a button with me and left it on a tagged up, fallen tree, on The North Woodland Trail near the #18 sign post. It started raining a couple hours later and I don’t know if it got claimed or sat in the rain and got wet. The button doesn’t have my Instagram handle, email or web address, just a pattern with my log on it, so it’s highly unlikely whoever finds it is gonna contact me. I wonder what they’ll think it is when they have zero reference to my logo or who I am.
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Frankie Mcfly's
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