Pizza By The Slice » Christmas

Ukulele “Old West” Holiday iPad & iPhone Wallpapers

Buz — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 01:47:25 +0000

Mele Kalikimaka! Joyeux Noël! メリークリスマス Froehliche Weihnachten! Maligayang Pasko!

I enjoy noodling with the oh-so-sexy uke’s shape, ’tis quite pleasing to draw. And within the ukulele family nothing tops the “pocket” ukulele’s exaggerated, peanut perfect proportions, besting even its more popular big brother, the soprano, for pure ukie-ness. Anyway, with the holidays upon us it’s time to post more uke love.

Choose between iPhone or iPad versions, as well as a 5 x 7 inch size suitable for printing as your Holiday card (so please put away that soggy Santa hat your dog’s been teething on for the past year and tell the neighbor you won’t need to borrow his chocolate Labrador this afternoon for your Christmas card photo). All formats available in Hawaiian, English, French, German, Tagalog and Japanese.

Languages

Choose your preferred language English, Hawaiian, French, German, Japanese, Tagalog or blank (for all you Scrooges out there)

“Happy Holidays” Ukulele

“Mele Kalikimaka” Ukulele

And, of course, for our Hawaiian pals, Mele Kalikimaka:

“Joyeux Noël” Ukulele

Lest you French Canadians be disappointed, here’s… something in French:

“メリークリスマス” Japanese Ukulele Christmas Card

I’m super lucky to have some pals at my office who also love the uke — we sometimes play over lunch. One just recently moved here to the states from Japan, where he’d lived for 14 years since leaving China. Here’s our conversation today:

Me: How do you say “Merry Christmas” in Japanese?
Him: mmmnnn… “Merry Christmas”. What? We borrow.

“Froehliche Weihnachten!” (German) Ukulele

Printable Card “Old West” German Ukulele (5 x 7 inch)

“Maligayang Pasko!!” (Tagalog/Filipino) Ukulele

Printable Card “Old West” Tagalog Ukulele (5 x 7 inch)

“Plain” Ukulele

If you’d prefer a “clean” version of this uke (sans red bow and text), well, here ya go.

Other Versions ‘n Shop

I also have a hi-res versions on Flickr in my Ukulele Mania set.

Too lazy to print this at work? Fine. Cards available on Zazzle & CafePress (more stuff on Zazzle).

Want to use these images?

Part of a ukulele club and y’all want to use one of these for a songbook, invite, etc? Fantastic. Do it. Really. This is posted under a Creative Commons license so you’re welcome to use it for non-commercial purposes. If you do wind up using this, and are so inclined, drop me a line — I always enjoying hearing how this stuff gets used (it’s a vanity thing).

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Colophon

Mockups made with free iPhone & iPad templates from intridea (iPad Wallpaper Template) and pixeden (iPhone 4G Mockups).

The font is Fatboy Husky from Wood Type Revival.

Zombie Snowflake Papercraft Pattern

Buz — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 00:18:54 +0000

A few weeks ago Ludlow suggested several Zombie Christmas items (for Ben’s novel, Rise Again), this Zombie Snowflake being among them. My first attempt mistakenly began by folding the paper in successive halves – yielding an 8-pointed Zombie Hawai’ian quilt pattern — lovely, but a fairly unconvincing snowflake. So, it sat fallow, until last weekend when I did this 6-pointed version. (BTW, if you do make a zombie Hawai’ian quilt, please let me know — it’d be awesome!)

Download Zombie Snowflake Papercraft Pattern (87KB PDF)

Instructions below. Also available as an image here Zombie Snowflake Pattern/Template (Flickr set).

Trim your tree with Ben’s Zombie Christmas Ornaments and be sure to try his Zombie Nativity Set. Here’s a few shoots using one of the programmable LED lights (available from ThinkGeek).

Instructions

From printed sheet to final flake. Print on light, but rigid paper — though I had fairly good success with heavy bond. Sharp scissors are, however, crucial.

Start by folding in half. Followed by that first 60-degree bend. Make your folds crisp!!

Properly folding the paper is key, lo, the second 60-degree fold:

Now get to cutting!

Unfolding…

Tah-dah!

Ukulele Holiday Gift Tags

Buz — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 00:11:13 +0000

Recently, while Ben Tripp (also a ukulele player) and I were adding zombie holiday gift tags to his book’s website (where, incidentally, you can download tons of other great zombie-inspired freebies, RiseAgainTheNovel.com) we realized, in a moment of complete dimwitted obviousness, that the world desperately needs more free uke goodies. So here ya go, a set of twelve DIY gift tags. Enjoy!

Download Ukulele “DIY” Holiday Gift Tags (205KB PDF)

Also available from my Flickr stream:

Oh, the notorious “Zombie Papercraft Nativity Set” is not longer available on his site (long story, apparently), but someone has kindly reposted it on ZombieChristmas.org.

Roller Skating Cows, Bunnies… & Yams?

Buz — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 19:23:13 +0000

Having begun the year the way I suspect many of you did — watching the Rose Parade — afterward I, too, found my attention drifting during the parade’s namesake bowl game (bless their hearts, they tried, oh, how they tried). Not being a USC football fan, well, I lap-topped my laptop, grabbed my trusty mechanical pencil in hand and… doodled — not just any doodle, but doodled my first coloring page of 2009, one that fittingly celebrates one of ’08′s highlights: Charles’ Moonlight Rollerway Holiday Jubilee! (exclamation marks are compulsory following “jubilee”, right?).

Superlatives eagerly queue, each vying to describe just how great an entertainment mix this event was, but you’ll find out yourself when you go. OK, a quick taste: an Ektachrome romp through Californian holidays of yesteryear chaperoned by Charles. “The Worlds Greatest Roller Rink Organist” Dominic Cangilosi! Roller skating cows! For Pete’s sake, roller skating cows! Zombies roller skate-dancing to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”! A slice of pumpkin pie (with whipped topping cap) figure-eighting with a can of yams and you still ask for proof? Cows? On roller skates??!!

For now just download my coloring page (102KB PNG, but worth the millisecond download time as it features a rollerskating cow!) and, of course, check out my photos.

More event info: CharlesPhoenix.com or MoonlightRollerway.com (forgive them their Flash).

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with this event, nor its venue, nor did I accept any form of compensation from any bovine, buffalo, or cow, roller skating or not, in consideration for this doodle. Happy Mooooo Year!!

Fonts: MEgalopolis Extra, free from Jack Usine’s SMeltery font factory and, again, Desigers available (free also) on daFont.com.

Charles Phoenix’s Moonlight Rollerway Holiday Jubilee!

Buz — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 02:34:32 +0000

Funtastic evening over at Moonlight Rollerway Skating Rink — retro-holiday slideshow, ice cream (eaten from cups with wooden, flat spoons), then dozens of kids (& adults) put on a heckuva salute to all the year’s holidays (think “Holiday Inn” with Charles as Bing Crosby), finally it was “all skate” time!

The lights! The costumes! The pageantry! The rental skates! Those lights! Like a Crayola “basic dozen colors” box melted under black lights casting rapid fire shadows of every color across the glossy boards.

Amazingly those kids went through a dozen costume changes — from cows ‘n cowboys, to zombies (Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” brought down the house), appropriately red, white, & blue May pole outfist… to boxes of frozen vegetables in celebration of those (hopefully bygone) Thanksgivings of my very ’70′s youth.

Pleased overall with this batch of photos, with all but Ludlow’s portrait being sans flash. Standouts would have to be the “tracking shots”. Threw the camera into “Time Value” Priority mode (marked “Tv” priority for you Canon kids), slowed the shutter way down, to 1/25 of a second, f8 (typical street photography aperature, nice ‘n deep). The zoom lens was backed out to wide-ish 24mm. (the Canon 5d is full frame, so no digital pseudo-zoom, it was a “true” 24mm focal length). Then it was a matter of focusing and trying to pan with subjects as they skated past. It was a bit like trying to get a nice ice cream curl … all in the wrist.

Real Holiday Inn

Buz — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 02:54:17 +0000

This is lame, but there have been times when I’ve wanted to hang a “Good Neighbor” note on someone’s front door. Sometimes it’s just simple or conscientious landscaping, or a great concrete deer collection (big bonus points for an upside-down ceramic squirrel on the siding), and other times it’s for getting into the spirit of a thing. We’re not talking Martha Stewart fussiness, but fun-itude. With this in mind: there’s a house, just around the corner from the library and train station, that puts on an incredible show. It’s on our list of “musts” for Christmas and Halloween. Here’s a couple pictures.

This year they’ve topped their own Christmas lights record, surpassing the 60,000 mark. The yard and roof, ever few inches, are lined with bulbs.

The lights spill around the sides of the house.

Halloween you’ll find ghouls, fake loose boards hanging precariously, boarded-up windows — everything that puts neighbor into neighborhood.

Angelenic’s downtown Holiday lights meet-up & walking tour!

Buz — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 09:14:02 +0000

Had a fun time wandering around downtown LA with Angelenic enthusiasts, including fellow MySpacers Rob, Brandon, and Rowan. Met many great folks (howdy, Diana, Natalie, Claudia, Ramone, Sal, Jennifer, and Sue — golly, hope I didn’t make-up anyone’s name wrong). Rich did a fine job wrangling ~100 people, having expected about 50. Didn’t make it to LA Live in time for Britney Spears (oh, drat), but walk ’twas a pleasant one (route), taking in City Hall’s tree, the Music Center, and Pershing Square’s skating rink before hitting LA Live. Visit my Flickr set “Holiday Jingle Sing Along – Los Angeles Music Center“.

A Very “Bob Baker Marionettes” Christmas Coloring Page

Buz — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 22:20:00 +0000

Was recently talking with friends when the conversation lit upon the unrivaled Bob Baker Marionette Theater and its crazy-great Holiday shows, a true timewarp/throw-back granting anyone who wishes, if even just temporarily, to see Christmas through kid’s eyes. So I knocked out this coloring book page, cuz, that’s apparently what I do lately when I have a cold: fan art.

So, you owe yourself this trip; make the effort to see this Los Angeles treasure. (spoiler: they server cake and ice cream after the shows).

Not convinced? Amy Ambatielos produced a great 15 minute documentary for USC impact on Bob, Impact Show #24 — Bob Baker: Puppeteer

Right-click ‘n Save the above picture to download fullsized coloring page (1200px by 1553px, 153KB PNG). Here’s a wee-bit smaller 800px by 1035px (115KB PNG) version.

Sorry to say that the font, Desigers, doesn’t include any information about its designer.