So I am needlefelting like crazy right now. I really want a decent display of critters for the Craftacular and it’s less than 2 weeks away………waaaaaa. I hope that if you are near Madison you come out to the High Noon on February 9th and say hi to me and the critters.

Anyway in critter news here is another new guy for you to say hello to

His name is Cyrano and I of course will be adding him to the shop

In other news it’s frickin’ freezin’ here in Illinois………..can’t it be Spring yet? Please? I hate being cold and I am so bored with snow I can’t even tell you.

Another new critter to add to the menagerie……..meet Poppy

I love how she turned out she’s so tactile.  She has one of those faces that when you pick her up you just want to hold her for a while…….or at least I do……..I know, I know I am a loon.

I think I had the idea for a pacman mobile when I first made a Mario………and that’s a long time ago. I just never was really sure how to construct it. Anyway I figuered I’d quit procrastinating over it and get on with it and here is my first prototype   

So the idea is that pacman is gobbling up the white balls trying to get to the power cherries but Pinky and Blinky are fast on his trail. I’m going to add it to the shop and see what the response is. I like mobiles so I’ll probably come up with some other new ones before the Craftacular.

In other news I’m an Etsy find for today……….yaaaaay they like Claude the stinky lil’ skunk………….how exciting. Thanks to Karencrafts for letting me know and forwarding me the email with Claude featured.

Yup, tons going on over here in stabby land. First of let me introduce you to Chester

Yup a brand new critter to add to the shop, which is brilliant because the good news is I have been selected to take part in the Valentine Craftacular at the High noon saloon in Madison on the 9th of February…………yaaaaaaaaaaaay I’m going to be very busy for the next couple of weeks waaaaaaaaaaaaaaa….

My other news is the very sad news that the Glitter Workshop in Madison is closing…. Sad day, but the good news is that Naomi is expecting an ickle baby so it makes sense that she can no longer expend all the energy it must take to run such a fabulous store, congrats on the bubba Naomi and Jerome I just wish I had discovered you sooner.

I’ve gone on a bit of a sewing kick…….I’m thinking of lovely Valentine’s day goodies for the shop.     

Individual hearts or heart mobiles.  I’m thinking of making love bugs and other needle felted luvvies to go with the theme,  so we will see what else I come up with.

I got my EKRA cat rug this weekend and I absolutely love it.  This is how it should look

But this is pretty much how I get to see it

So I guess it gets Lewis’s the Himalayans stamp of approval.   It’s ironic that originally I wanted EKRA to make the rug with a Himalayan cat on it good job I didn’t cos’ now I have both.

So here it is ….the first blog post of 2008.  I was trying to say something clever  and that would tie up the New Year sentiments perfectly…….but all I could come up with was……….errrr……….Happy New Year!!!!!

Well heck if you want depth go read Deepak Chopra…….

Anyway New Year must mean new critter …and here he is

His name is Claude the Stinky and he is the best friend of the one and only (though he smells like many) Pepe Le pew.

Although Claude and Pepe are best buds they are as alike as chalk and cheese……….

So my new year’s resolution is to try and be more productive this year……….we will see how long that lasts

I hope everyone had a fabulous holiday and got all the goodies you wanted. I certainly did and I thought I’d share a few of my favourite pressies with you.

First of my friend Matt (who we went to visit at his parents house in St. Louis for a few days before Christmas thanks Matt and family for putting up with us) got me these 2 critters

The cat is made by Protopye and I love her creations I already own a plutotian a mold monster and a bunny rabbid made by her so the scratchy cat will certainly not be lonely here. The little guy is called Skippy and he is a happy beastlie made by Beastlies and he is utterly fantastic, and probably is the first of many more.

So thanks Matt I have wanted these guys for a while so I was thrilled to get them.

From my hubby I got the following –

These little guys were made by Bubbletime and they are so cute and the perfect recreations of my favourite little troublemakers Kirzstie, Floyd and Lewis.

This is Crookshanks made by MissBeahavin from papier mache and then all hand painted. I love him so much, she is so talented…. I love everything in her etsy store and so I am having to show great restraint right now as I want to buy a couple more………gaaaaah.

The little hippo is one of my Renegade holiday craft fair goodies. He is so cute and has very cool belly fabric that I wasn’t smart enough to take a piccie of dur!!! anyway he is made by qylaar and he is fab.

My bunny ear hat by boho butterfly I so can’t wait to wear this out and about.

I’ve wanted this New York subway token pendant by aminyitray since I first started on Etsy and Yaaaaay it’s finally mine.  It’s even cooler in person too.  You should check out her etsy store as she has the coolest and oddest stuff,  definitely  unique.

I love Kid Robot and have amassed quite a cool little collection of them and now I have some more thanks to these

The donuts are so cool and I am rather addicted to them, they bring my collection of kid robot donuts to 6 now. The best thing about them is that they are made by Heidi Kenney of My Paper Crane fame. And if you have never heard of her I highly recommend you slap yourself silly for about an hour……..nah I’m just kidding (kind of) but she has really rather fab stuffed toys and they can be found in places like Renegade Handmade.

The green smoking bunny is a snorklin and the nuckle duster and pink grenade are zipper pulls…….how awesome are they? best stocking stuffers ever!!!

And last my 2 goodies from the Christkindlmarket that we went to in Chicago before Christmas. The little hedgehog is so cute and the blue guy is a moomin. I was so excited when I saw him I used to love the moomins as a kid but I had never seen merchandise for them before……dontcha just love hand made goodies.

So I wont bore you with all my other fabulous presents involving of course the Harry Potter and the order of the Phoenix dvd, and black books and the crow road dvd’s and lots and lots of yummy chocolatey goodies……………

Have a great New Year

4 days to Christmas can you believe it?  It’s pretty quiet and calm over here in stabby land (most unusual)….. All of my Christmas orders are mailed out in time for Santa to dispense with them,  and  the only stabby I created was for my hubby who has been whinning about wanting a christmas Snoopy for ages

I think he was a great idea……even though it wasn’t mine.  And he looks great as part of my Christmas decorations.

So really I have been taking it easy and enjoying lots of crappy Christmas movies in the afternoon and drinking a ton of yummy hot chocolate and staring at all my pressies under the tree and resisting the urge to rip them open.

Merry Christmas everyone and a fantastic New Year to all.

So I finally got Tramp finished…………..phew. Not that I doubted I would (cough, cough, ahem) but he has been my trickiest critter to date. Here is the best piccie of what i had to work with

and here is my homage in wool

The open mouth picture I found a real challenge, but I think I captured Tramp fairly well…….I just hope Kristal thinks so too.

If you are in the Madison area this weekend I will be at The Glitterworkshop from 2.00pm demo-ing needlefelting and making Christmas ornaments……..or anything else if there is a demand….. and no snow

Chicago is…….especially at Christmas time, despite the sub zero temperatures……….brrrrrrrr.

I love the holiday windows, and grumpy shoppers on crowded streets I find the atmosphere essential for me to get ” Christmassy”

and speaking of holiday windows check out the Apple store on Michigan Avenues

How cool is that? The apple store was great (hardly surprising) I played with the i-phones (drool) for ages and put stabbies.com on every free monitor………teehee.

Then we went to look at the Christmas tree at Daley Plaza and of course the Christkindlmarket was open. If you have never heard of this market let me fill you in a little. It’s a little open air German-style market with handmade ornaments, accessories, clothing all very much in the folk art style. I got the cutest little hedgehog made from individualy hand carved twigs and a moomin troll that walks………..I’d love to share these with you but we all get to wait till after Christmas for that as my hubby has them all wrapped under our tree………….boooooo. Anyway here is the tree at Daley Plaza

We also attended the Renegade holiday Craft fair and I got lots of goodies (again already wrapped under the tree) Let’s just say that this year I certainly have held up my pledge of buying handmade this holiday season. The place was packed, the Renegade folk certainly know how to promote a show.

And I just had to show you these pictures Raisinlike sent me of her babies together…………

I think they look like brothers. It’s nice to see one of my critters in their new home, and I know Nick much prefers Israel to the Mid West, he was far too cold here in his little shorts.