Happy Birthday Ali!

My friend Ali only has a birthday once every four years, poor guy! But seeing as how yesterday (February 29) was his 9th (!) birthday, we decided to host a little surprise dinner party for him. In addition to really delicious food from Buffalo's Aladdin Cafe and cake from Sweet Tooth, we surprised Ali with some fun presents. John and I gave him this mosaic table for his new(ish) house. I found the table (and plates that I broke up to make mosaic pieces) at the Amvets Thrift Store in Buffalo.

Lone Wolf and Cub Table

A few years ago, I drafted my then-boyfriend/now-husband into a whole weekend of crafting! Drawing on his love of comics, I enticed him into a decoupage project. We first found old issues of a comic he loves, Lone Wolf and Cub (Japanese manga first published in the 1970s) and cut out zillions of pictures. We used a table we got from Goodwill, and spent two days with mod podge, adhering cool the cut-out comics all over it. After it dried, we put on a couple of coats of varnish for protection. It's gotten a little yellowed over time, but I plan to varnish it again this summer and hopefully that will even out the discoloration.

Our cats like it too (as well they should, since the one on the left has the middle name of Kogi Kaishakunin):



We made another table with my sisters-in-law, featuring Ranma 1/2 comics, but I don't have any pictures of it.