Be a Movie Star Jan-April

Fun times at work 2013

Well, long ago, there used to be monthly birthday celebrations at my office.  It was a whole different crowd of folks at that time, and we were in the old "scary" building.  I call it scary because getting to work at 4-5 am, in that neighborhood was sometimes scary.  We are now a mile away in a beautiful office complex.  Boy i couldn't wait to get outta Taft.  In fact when the new office suite was ready for occupancy I immediately went over there every day even though the rest of the office wasn't moved in yet! It was sooo much nicer, and I love new things, so...  Well, anyway, somewhere along the way the celebrations got lost in the sauce, and I'm often trying to think of things for morale around the office.  Things that everyone can participate in.  Two years ago, maybe three now, I organized an outing to a nearby Laser Tag center and about 18 of us met up on a Saturday to play Laser Tag... that was fun!  I'm not the office manager or admin or anything, I'm a project accountant, reporting to a whole different functional area, but these guys are my work family.... I organize and put together the holiday party every year, and make gifts for everyone, This last year's gifts were personalized mouse pads with company logos and contract specific titling, with their names embroidered on them.  I had designed the artwork for the mouse pad in Photoshop and had them printed up at Discount Mugs then embroidered them.  Here's a pic:

Anyway...... So I asked management at the office for approval to start Pot-Luck Birthday celebrations each month... Approved. They would even reimburse the cake.  All else Pot-Luck... So far so good - this is April and next week is our April Party... 

So I started a tradition that everyone gets to be a movie star for the month.  I did it in January and they all got a kick out of it so it's a tradition now.  So I'm going to blog the before and after pix.  So here are the first 4 months.

January - Liz and Garth

Liz Original

Movie Original Cover

Liz's Movie Cover

Garth original Photo

Original Movie Cover

Garth's Movie Cover

FEBRUARY

Alphonse Original Photo

Original Movie Cover

Alphonse's Movie Cover

MARCH

David & Jamie's Original Photos... I had photo shoots with these 2 guys because i picked the movie out and their characters...

Original Movie Cover

Jamie & David Movie Cover

APRIL

Marlene Original Picture - I had a photo shoot with Marlene, too...  She had fun trying to give me that "hard tough girl" look.  We took a series of them and I got the exact look I wanted.  I used to be a professional photographer doing weddings and portraits, and I remembered what i had loved about it.  I was always able to coax the looks out of my clients...  They always ended up having fun also...they use to remark that they always had dreaded their picture taken but that I made it fun for them... This is the shot I used for the movie cover....

Here is Tomb Raider...

And Here is Marlene...

I think she'll get a kick out of it...

Here we go with Tom's Original Picture - I Grabbed this one from a previous gathering...  He works at the second location, so this will be a total surprise to him.. This photo worked out great for the movie cover...

Tom's Original Movie...

Tom's Movie Cover...

And wouldn't you know April is my birth month, too, so I had to find a movie for myself too!  I searched High and Low, it took a while and then had my own self photo shoot... I am using this original....

For this movie...

Here I am...

So That's it for now, Jan through April... I will make a post for next month - It's Amber's Birthday - I have a movie i think I'm going to use picked out...

Oh yeah - and I put the movie photos on each cake that we make for the parties.  Here are the cakes so far.  Brittany from Weis makes them for me.  I'll never forget the first cake I ordered from there.  I went there because they make some real nice and fancy cakes, and I figured I'd get a WOW! cake, so I placed the order with Brittany, and then when I picked it up, OMG it was so horrible I couldn't believe it.  Do you know those cakes that are sitting in the case pre-done with a Happy Birthday on them?  Well it was worse than those.  With my photos on it.  I was horrified!  I couldn't imagine showing up to our first party with that cake!  I wish I had taken a picture of it, but I didn't.  I talked it over with Brittany who knew I was disappointed, and she offered to redo the top for me. (She didn't make the one I picked up another person did it that day...)  I was able to wait for 1/2 hour while she re-did it and what a difference it was like night and day.  The first cake was so drab it didn't even look like a birthday cake - the Happy birthday writing was the only thing that even hinted at it.  This new design definitely was celebratory... Now mind you the cakes have been improving every month as we go on, we are now into the spray painting and such, but the WOW! effect is there, more than a plain white cake with Happy Birthday written on it, and some sprinkles.  Here are the cakes...

January

February

March

Hope you enjoyed my Movie Covers so Far, and Brittany's cakes.  They are delicous...

Cheers!

JDol