"You do me wrong to take me out o'th' grave:
Thou art a soul in bliss; but I am boundUpon a wheel of fire, that mine own tearsDo scald like molten lead."-William Shakespeare,
King Lear, IV, vii, 46-48
Earlier this month, I mentioned being hard at work on my anniversary gift to Niki. Well, I'm happy to say it's finally complete . . . and just in time!
A little over a year ago, we were lucky enough to pick up a slightly damaged floor-model table
at
The Brick for $25
(regular price: $499). It was pretty dinged up in places and missing a few assembly screws, but we already had four chairs and the price was definitely right.
More importantly, it was the perfect shape and size for me to begin working on an idea I'd had for some time: add a wooden Lazy Susan from
IKEA and paint it all to look like the original 45 rpm record of our wedding song,
Ring Of Fire by Johnny Cash.
Earlier this year I painted the chairs black, but once I'd done that it quickly became apparent (so many bumped arms . . .) that we needed something light underneath to contrast against them. After seeing how spiffy King Bill Compton's looked under his table in the last season of
True Blood, we grabbed a faux-fur zebra print rug from
JYSK to do the job.
It complemented the black chairs, but something was still missing, so once I'd painted the table to match and replaced the missing screws, I added seat cushions to the chairs with some red velvet fabric. Then, to take it a step beyond and bring it all together, I painted an actual "ring of fire" around the side of the table to complete the effect.
The greatest challenge was the Lazy Susan. The size and placement of both the lettering and the centre hole had to be just right or the "label" would look lop-sided while spinning, or worse, just plain bad even when sitting still. I painted a "spindle adapter" in the enlarged centre hole to complete the illusion of a playing record and
voilà!The original 45 rpm record label:
The finished Lazy Susan:
But what's a ring, even a ring of
fire, without a box to present it in? A little paint on an old cardboard box, some leftover foam cushioning, fabric and vinyl and it all came together perfectly!
And of course, it wouldn't be Halloween without a good scare . . .
from beyond the grave!
Happy Halloween everyone! And a very Happy 4th Anniversary to my wife, my love, my muse. I love you, Niki!
-DE
The cover art is a little sketchy (I'm pretty sure the back cover is a "house ad" for another of my storytelling masterpieces), proudly Made In Canada with obviously absolutely no planning put into the placement of that title.
When you're 7 going on 8 years old, Etheridge is a very difficult name to spell, even when it's your own. So I opted to write under the pseudonym Darryl E. Why is there a Blue Fairy hovering around the cauldron? No idea.
Dedicated to my Mum. That's right, because every great author dedicates their first work to their mother.
More blue fairies, a bad Broom Hilda knock-off and a rhyme-scheme torn directly from William Shakespeare's Macbeth.
Apparently, I got stumped when it came to illustrating a monster turning into a human so I just stuck with not-Broom Hilda mixing up the strange brew. I'm assuming her wig fell in the cauldron.
A little better. Hair's back and at least I've got a man turning into a beast, that or some naked guy peeling off a Godzilla costume.
And we wrap it all up with the critics' praise for the author!
