My friend just passed away. Very sad. My other friend's mom passed away, too, when I originally posted this. Cheers to "S" - watch over the kitties...

Made me want to post the songs I want to hear when I'm exiting the world. "My Life's Been Grand" by George Strait   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-QQk6WC2p4

The other song is sung by Jason Mraz. It's the sweet song "Rainbow Connection" (Jim Henson's). I just love the beauty of his voice singing sweet, simple, and introspective lyrics while playing just his guitar.   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggdoi0rgSjI&feature=related

Apples and crows and skulls - oh my! And Olive.

Easy Halloween Decorating with Chandeliers, Webbing and Crows

Quick Halloween Idea - Spray paint dead trees

Sorry for the dark crummy picture (no flash). 

Most of us have, at some point, spray painted branches or bought them pre-painted to use for centerpieces. A cool thing I did the other day was spray paint a dead tree that I was going to throw away. (I have a limited green thumb.)

I sprayed it with silver spray paint including the dirt and cheap plastic pot. I hung metal words from it that read "spooky", "boo", "trick or treat", etc... and put one green apple in the dirt with a crow. 

There are so many things you could do to this - group several together for greater impact, add spider webbing, crows in the branches, black bows, hand from the ground, tombstone, etc... or nothing at all for simple eerieness. 

interior spaceLIFT - An oil painting I found in Paris, FR - a gift from me to me on my 40TH BIRTHDAY! An everyday reminder of a FABULOUSLY *FUN* trip!

interior spaceLIFT - AFTER Teak Flooring

Theater Props for Opera Vista - Prop Designing for the Silent Prince at the Hobby Center - I turned a pedicab into a chariot!

Opera Vista Prop - I couldn't spray paint the actual pedicab body, so I covered it with kraft paper then painted it.

Theater Props for Opera Vista - I'm designing a chariot for our Hobby Center performance of the Silent Prince

Silent Prince - Chronicle Review and Pics

http://www.chron.com/commons/persona.html?newspaperUserId=buzzbell&plckPersonaPage=BlogViewPost&plckUserId=buzzbell&plckPostId=Blog:buzzbellPost:6caa3ec6-6bdb-4b03-9b10-174257524865&plckController=PersonaBlog&plckScript=personaScript&plckElementId=personaDest

interior spaceLIFT - Removed old carpet on stairs & replaced it w/ a rich, hand scraped, black walnut floor & added custom paneling w/ painted insets.

Main Street Theater's Breakfast At Eight - Opened tonight! Congrats to Andrew and cast/crew. Superb! Tom Hagemann, atty, wrote a wonderful play.

Celebrating our success at Nino's tomorrow night. Yay! Go see the show! Andrew's direction, the acting....touching, funny, intense, suspenseful... So worth the ticket. It's an intimate stage, and you will feel like you are peering into the private happenings of loved ones.... I was so proud to be a part of a great production. Congrats MST!

http://blogs.chron.com/houstonlegal/2010/10/exprosecutorturnedplayright_debuts_next_weekend.html

Memorable Opera Vista post production party quotes

Fun time celebrating our (Opera Vista's) success with the Silent Prince at our director's lovely home. The 2 am conversation was the highlight. Some interesting quotes that had us laughing for a lonnnng time:

"If I'm going to stay with you, I need to know if you have a special skin cleanser at your house." - Viswa's ex-girlfriend

"If I'm going to stay with you, I need to know if you have blue M&M's [in a crystal bowl] at your house." Kirthi making fun of his friend's ex-girlfriend's comment and my insertion into his comment was the crystal bowl part. The delivery was so much better in person. So many funny lines... can't remember them all!

The Silent Prince World Premier last night - Huge Success!

Just completed the world premier of the Silent Prince last night. It was fantastic! Beautiful beautiful music! Sold so many tickets that the upper level balcony was the only available seating... sparse at that. We were all so proud of our combined efforts. I worked with one of the best teams...loved every minute of it! Joe, Viswa, Alex, Debs, Tom, JP, Russell, Manny, CW, David, Ryan - sweetest prince everrrr, Kirthi, Mahesh, Timothy, Gregory, Jordan....so many wonderful team members that I can't name everyone. And the post soiree was the best ever. Much much laughing... and champagne with reeeally great Indian food! I miss you guys already... but we're Bangkok bound! PS~ The chariot I created out of a pedicab was fantastic! The crew told me they heard lots of oooing and ahhhhing when it rolled out on stage. I blinged it out and was happy with it. If you need a chariot on a budget, I can give you some pointers on what I did to turn the pedicab into a chariot. L & L Cruizers - (Lisa and Pete) - are the owners of the pedicab business I discovered. They are wonderful to work with, so call them. Will try to post a pic of it later. Cheers to my new Opera Vista family!

Theatre Props - Hobby Center, Opera Vista's "Silent Prince" at the Hobby Center Oct. 15th - Passionately beautiful music! (Western Eastern fusion)

An amazing production. I enjoyed designing for this one and Opera Vista. What a wonderful group! The composer's bio (Sumtow Sucharitkul)... an interesting man. http://www.somtow.com/bio.html  http://operavista.org/     (OV image credit)