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Our
recent trip to Cuba gave us a lovely week of relaxation, with a
wonderful day-trip into Havana with a private guide and driver - and a
really cool car
(a gorgeous '56 Ford Fairlane, in case you're curious - see below).
We loved seeing the sights, and also learning a bit about these 2 guys
that show Canadians around their country for a living. Ricardo loves
pretty pop stars, and shared his fave Inna videos with us. We'd never
heard of her, but she's this massive international star! So we're
sending him buckles of sexy Inna and sweet Taylor Swift as an extra personal tip for the great day we had. 
Out came the
mini-collection "Herald and Mod": 3 designs on large glass ovals. The
latin titles on each roughly translate to "salty sweet", "night life",
and "smart ass", and are available as pendants, cocktail rings and new
scarf clips. 
Show info:
January: A special project for the Gladstone Hotel's 5th anniversary of their reopening - a 6' glitter cake for the fabulous Miss Fluffy Souffle to jump out of. 
You bet it was a good party!
February: Photoshoot with Alias Dance Project to promote their upcoming show; we used Sleeveface as inspiration. We were all a bit annoyed that a local radio station released a huge ad campaign with the same concept the same week as Alias' postcards were printed, but it didn't really matter.
March: One of our fave clients Julia got us to paint Nosferatu in glitter on a velvet vest. We made glass buttons for the front that had the original vampire in shadow - a still from the 1922 film that is still plenty creepy.
April: Alias Dance Project had us create an lounge environment for The First LP, their first full length production. 
We also celebrated Robin's 40th in Vegas with a group of good friends; all that glamour and glitz make us very happy. Yeah, we took a limo to dinner.
May: Trixie & Beever (our performance alter-egos) posed for portraits that would be part of 10X10, a project that had 10 queer
photographers take 10 portraits of people who had contributed to the arts community. Paul Buen took amazing photos, and we were thrilled the glam and goofy ones of us sold.
June: One of our fave custom projects is the zookeeper buckles (they have no glass bead due to animal safety). This year we did the elephants for a staffer that worked with them. (We're sorry to see you leave your home, guys.) We also headed back to Art in the Park Windsor, with much better results than last year!
July: We were once again lucky enough to travel to Cape Cod for summer vacation, and our mostly-annual "Cape Cod's Got Talent" performance
night with all our super talented friends and family was one of many highlights.
September: Our first Cirque du Soleil show - finally. Now we are super-excited as our friend Natalie-Claude is going to be a lead clown in this year's touring production!
October: Dressing up is so important in our lives and when we can attach it to charity even better. SOY takes care of our queer youth and is one of our charities that we are thrilled to support. Especially when we get to bowl as the "disco prom from hell" team and freak out people on the bus.
November: Beever's Roast. I turned 40 and my friends roasted me good - burn baby burn. We created a "Beever Lodge" set and the guests were invited to dress in lumberjack chic; you've never seen so much plaid and glitter in the same room.
December: Craftshow time with One Of A Kind (year 11!) and holiday studio sale and with that lots of interesting custom work. Custom work highlights: Morrissey, Megadeath and Warren Buffet Christmas tree ornaments.
It's our annual holiday studio sale: 
Thursday, November 24 to Sunday, December 4, 2011
Weekdays & Saturdays 10am-9pm, Sundays 10am-6pm
One Night Only! Late Night Shopping
Thursday, December 1, 2011 10am-11pm
Click here for more info!
Tonight we'll celebrate the launch of Liisa
Ladouceur's Encyclopedia Gothica at the Gladstone Ballroom in Toronto. (London Ontario, you get a chance October 13 at Nite Owl. See Liisa's site for details.)
Last month we took our first trip to the Shangri-La of luck: Las Vegas. As an extended celebration of my 40th birthday, we traveled with a pack of 12 friends for 4 dizzy days of fun. We're not really gamblers, but when in Vegas.... I won a bit at slots, and was pretty pleased with myself. The redheaded darling in our group eclipsed my win by turning $1 into $115, and her hilarious, infectious frenzy provided one of the trip highlights. Somewhere around 5am after some late-night pie, 4 of us sat down to play blackjack in the classic downtown Golden Gate casino. I barely knew what I was doing, but won 3 blackjacks! Again, a low bet, but the big payoff was going to bed feeling like a winner in a place where many people lose. 
basic show info:
Wednesday, March 30 to Sunday, April 3, 2011
Wednesday to Saturday 10am-9pm, Sunday 10am-6pm
The end of 2010 brought us the most exciting order we have ever received: the opportunity to create a custom collection of jewellery and gift items for the Tim Burton exhibition at the shiny new TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto. Working with the awesome retail curator Shelley Town, we began the process of creating samples based on some of Burton's artwork in March. It was too fabulous to keep to ourselves, so we talked about the project, but were always a bit scared it might fall through. Then we heard that the samples were enthusiastically approved by the MoMA people (the exhibition was originally curated by MoMA), then the Burton people, then finally... "Mr. Burton saw the samples and loved them." SQUEAL! There were more mockups, and then some waiting, and more mockups and waiting. Then we got the order! Magnets, rings, fancy brooches, cufflinks, charm bracelets and bookmarks. And part of the deal was that Mr. Burton was to receive 25 of each piece. Pretty cool, right? We produced that order in 2 weeks, and delivered it the same day we set up our booth for One Of A Kind - whew!
So yesterday we delivered reorder #5 (!) and checked out the stunning Lightbox building. First stop was the TIFFshop of course, and a chat with manager Elsie. Everything looks great; our collection is prominently displayed, and there are lots of tempting film books and Tim Burton toys and merch. Elsie tells us that Burton's team wants more of the magnets to give to his agents. OK, great! 
Onto the exhibit. Of course no photos are allowed past the lobby. I desperately want to take a few, but respect the rules and try to cram my eyes and brain with all the amazing images from the artist's teen cartoons up to his latest Hollywood project. The exhibition is organized roughly in chronological order with Burton's film projects providing the framework. There's a lot of circling back to work on earlier ideas throughout the exhibit. Frankenweenie (1984), one of TB's earliest short films, is represented with original storyboard art and new maquettes created for the upcoming feature film. (I first saw Frankenweenie when writing a paper for my only, but beloved, film course in university; Tim Burton had only made 3 features by that time, but I proved he was very much an auteur and got an A!) 
A highlight for me was a collection of dozens of images and a few models from a project called Trick Or Treat from 1980. The film is was imagined as never materialized, but the story of alienated suburban children discovering a wonderfully grotesque house of monsters - many made of candy! - contained themes that occur over and over in his film projects. 
The last several weeks have been a whirlwind of Tim Burton custom production, One of A Kind and more Glamourizing Crime. Thanks to the friends and fans that braved the crowds to see us at OOAK, and take in all the show has to offer.
We were especially happy with the response to our "Glamourizing Crime" series of art plaques. By the end of Saturday, 12 of 14 had been sold, and Paul Reubens found a home Sunday afternoon. Poor Zsa Zsa was the last one standing, so we brought her home with us. 
All the glamour, all the stars, all the films. The Toronto International Film Festival begins September 9th and runs till the 19th. BBJ is excited to share our official TIFF merchandise with y'all. Magnets, buckles, bookmarks and more are available at the Bell Lightbox, the new home for the festival located at 350 King Street West. 
Speaking of films, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World which was filmed in Toronto last year, was our fave flick of the summer (yep, I'm talking to you Inception). We love that our city gets to star as itself in a Hollywood production. And we also love that Knives Chau sports a cherries BBJ buckle on the big screen!
