greetingarts

missed my calling

In June, after the kids got out of school and before our annual passes were blocked out for the summer, we spent a lot of time at the Happiest Place on Earth, and California Adventure, the smaller park located across from the main one.  One of my favorite things to do there is to attend Animation Academy and learn how to draw a Disney character while sitting in their comfortable, air-conditioned, art studio theatre.

The kids like it too, of course, but I could sit there in the studio all. day. long.  The Imagineer demonstrates how to draw a different character every half hour, and you get paper, clipboard and a pencil without eraser, then sketch along with him.  We've done Mickey, Daisy, Tigger and Pooh.  Three in one day, because I kept wanting to go back. 

Can you guess which Mickey was drawn by which family member?

There's also a book that has the same steps the Imagineers use to show the audience how to draw (over there in my left sidebar under "playing").  We checked it out from the library and are having fun with it at home, too.

So did you guess which one is mine?  Do you think I missed my calling?  I think my husband did, for sure! 

a crafter's library

Today marks the beginning of the end of my 30's.  I think I'm pretty ok with it, but to take the focus off the past and onto the future, I'm starting a new project (like I don't have enough to keep me busy, but... whatever).

Finally, the blog I've been developing in my mind for over a year, documenting all the craft books and magazines I own and the projects I've created from them.  It's called A Crafter's Library, and is still an evolving blog.  I'm not exactly sure how I'll proceed, and am open to any and all suggestions.  I definitely took some cues from Crafting Japanese, but for now I'm just linking to my own projects that I've made and have written a few lines about each book.  Sort of mini-reviews, I guess.  In the future, I might link to other crafters' projects, but right now I think that's a lot more work than I'm ready to tackle!

Anyway, please go take a look, and if you like it you can sign up to follow or subscribe over in the right sidebar, towards the top.  Thanks, see you over there, and feel free to spread the word!

applique adoration

I'm obsessed.  I can't stop thinking about this quilt.   I mean, I love all of Kellie's designs, but... gosh!  I need to make that quilt (the monsters one, too, and then the worry dolls, and the alphabet and...).  My nephew needs one, and my girls are totally into the Punch Buggy game, so they want one, too!

Anyway, I'm making a plea to anyone who has a copy of this issue (the Red Issue, June 2010, Australian Homespun 11.6) and would be willing to part with it (yeah, I know, crazy, right?), or anyone who can purchase it for me, would you like to trade for it?  If you don't know how to knit or crochet, I can make something for you, or we can trade for fabric, or for other magazines that are more readily available in the US, whatever.  Please let me know, you can email me with the link up there in the top right sidebar (right under the Search Box).  Thank you, I've got my fingers crossed!

I blame Harry Potter

This is what happens when I try to read and knit at the same time.  Dang it!  It was an easy pattern, too... or so I thought.  Why didn't I wait to start this book after Christmas was over?  And, can I just say, if ever there was a book that needed to be put in Kindle format, it's this one!

getting over SSS

Sounds like a bad cold or something, doesn't it?  But actually, for you non-knitters out there (and maybe for you knitters who haven't been bitten by the sock bug yet), SSS stands for Second Sock Syndrome.  The affliction that sets in after you've bound off your last stitch for a sock, and then you realize that the moment of elation you have from finishing a project is short-lived and undeserved.  Because *one* sock really isn't that much of an accomplishment, is it?  You've got to have a pair.

That's where I am now.  Forcing myself to work a few rows on the mate to this sock every once in a while, when I really just want to be reading Harry Potter Book #4 and nursing this stupid hacking cough I've had for a week.  I finished this stocking for Rebecca's Halloween costume two weekends ago but didn't cast on for the other one until late last night.  Need to have it done by Saturday.  I'll get there.  Maybe I'll ask Rebecca to hide the book and then I'll be okay.

best husband in the world

Am I a lucky lucky girl or what?

It's a Kindle DX!  So awesome, I can't believe it.

moose and a giraffe... and have a nice day, too

Ali and I have been exchanging magazines for months and months now, and last week I received the latest Charlie & Lola, along with a little note from Ali.  I promptly squirreled away the magazine, but left the postcard on the table, thinking my girls would love the cats on the back and use it as a bookmark or something.  Rebecca picked it up and read it, then asked me who Ali was.  I explained she was my bloggy friend from England.  Now, for the past few nights we've been reading Judy Moody Declares Independence, where the main character meets a gal from England and various cultural references come up and work their way into Judy's vocabulary.  She says barmy instead of crazy, gobsmacked instead of amazed.  Stuff like that.  So anyway, Rebecca reads Ali's card again, then looks at me and says, "So is 'moose and a giraffe' the way people in England say 'Hi, how are you doing?'"

So, moose and a giraffe, and have a great weekend.

read this book

Seriously, read this book.  Grab a few Kleenex, find a very comfortable spot, and read it.  By yourself, out loud to your kids, all in one sitting, or one chapter at a time.  Though I defy you not to rush on ahead at certain points in the story.  Just read it.  You won't be sorry.  Five stars doesn't even begin to describe it.  I borrowed this from the library, but I'll be buying my own copy to keep, to take down from the shelf every so often, to pass on.  It means even more to me because Rebecca and I discovered this treasure together.  The Tale of Despereaux was great, but this.  This!  Will be a classic for sure.

I'm off to go find a china rabbit with furry ears now.

i totally deserve this

Because today I rode with two first grade classes (which translates into 40 very excited six and seven year olds) on a bouncing yellow school bus for a twenty mile drive.  Both ways.

Because after getting to our destination, we realized that at least two other school districts were also having their field trip excursions on the same day, at the same time.

Because I spent five hours (was it only five?!) counting to 20 over and over to make sure we had all our kids. 

Because we picnicked on wet grass, and I had to take five girls to the restroom at the park where there were no doors on the stalls and only one working faucet.

Because we made a very disturbing, disgusting discovery consisting of bodily fluids and rubber (if you get my drift) in the middle of our lunch area.

             

So tonight I'm grabbing some chocolate covered macadamias and curling up with my two latest additions, Crobots and Sewing Green, and enjoying some Me Time. 

By the way, I'm pretty much just kidding about all of the above being an ordeal (except the last thing, which really was just too disgusting for words).  I feel so lucky to have been a chaperone for the field trip today.  I was responsible for my daughter and some of the most well-behaved girls in the class, and as I was looking around, I realized we had one of the best classes in the whole place.  Two of our kids even fell asleep in the bus on the way home.  So sweet.  It was a crazy, hectic, fun-filled, sunny, warm-but-not-hot, very active, wonderful day.

But I still totally deserve the books.

i need more pillowcases

I love hearing the thwack! of a package hitting my screen door, seconds before the doorbell rings.

Sometimes it's fabric, usually it's books.  Sometimes, if I'm lucky, it's a book about fabric.

The full title is Craft Challenge: Dozens of Ways to Repurpose a Pillowcase.  And in case the title and the under-$14 price tag wasn't enough to entice you to buy it, let me show you the projects in it from a few of my favorite blog friends.

They might be too modest or shy to toot their own horns,

but I'm most certainly not!

These three women are among the most generous, caring and talented people I know, always quick to provide tutorials, help and friendship.  I am beyond pleased that I have a book with all of them together.  The only way it could be more perfect is if they could step right out of the pages and  into my living room.  Congratulations, ladies.  Now I'm waiting to see three separate volumes, each filled with your own projects, side by side on my bookshelf.