Oooohh it’s getting close and I’m all excited.   I’ve been needlefelting like a demon since October and now I get to show off my work or let’s face it just show off  hahaha.

If you are in the Madison area this weekend I highly recommend that you check out this show,  not just for me  as there are some awesome crafters in attendance and the first 50 shoppers through the doors on Saturday get a goody bag comprising work from everyone at the show including yours truly.

So stop by and say hi I’d love to meet you

Mine is going absolutly brilliantly.

Besides needlefelting like a crazy person to get ready for the craftacular in Madison on the 24th and 25th, I got a brilliant commission job this week. The rather fabulous raisinlike asked me to recreate in wool her Little Nick. Raisinlike whose real name is Sharona makes absolutely wonderful puppets and flutterbutt mobiles that I love and I am so incredibly flattered that she trusted me with this projected….
How cool is he?

I couldn’t wait to get started on him so of course I thought I’d share my progress with you……..

So don’t be distressed as he has no legs yet……but they are coming along nicely. The “real” Nick wears little teddy bear slippers that will be fun when they are completed.

In other news Santa didn’t win the softies central holiday competition, but he was incredibly honoured to have been nominated and he would like to thank all those that voted for him.

Please if you haven’t done so already vote for Santa at softies central.  He’s muttering about needing lots of coal this year for all the naughty voters.

Aaaaargh I’m so excited and I just can’t hide it…………..I’m one of the five finalists in the Softies Central Holiday Softy Awards…..

Eeeeek I can’t breathe it’s such an honour to be nominated  as there were so many cool entrants  but my santa made the cut…..yaaaaay

But here is where I beg for your help……….please can you vote for me?  pretty please with sugar on top……or chocolate if that helps.   My Santa is in the deck the halls category which is about the 5th category in the questionaire and you will get to see some amazing softies……..so please,  can you?  Here’s the link  just click on the voting site link when you get there.

I am so excited, my santa ornament is featured on softies central. I love this website so much, they always feature really cool handmade toys………and now they’ve featured my ornament. Yaaaaaay what a lovely way to start the day.

So I am back from the fantastic Las Vegas………..Viva indeed. I love that place, there is always something going on there and the atmosphere the place exudes is fantastic, the gamblin’ and the drinkin’ are of course added bonuses. Don’t let the piccie fool you though, I really wanted a cool piccie of the chips so I think I had that amount for about 20 mins in total before it went right back to the casino.
We went to the Grand Canyon for a night too, after spending just 5 minutes there it’s not hard to understand why the Indians believed in spirits of the air and earth etc……the place just takes your breath away

They have been reintroducing condors to the canyon for the last 10 years or so and to see these beautiful birds soaring high over the canyon is truly awesome…….in every sense of the word. The pic however shows a raven basking on a precipice the condors were to quick for me and my incredibly slow camera.

We went pony trekking through the forest and were lucky enough to see coyote…..cowboy saddles are rough on the knees though and I was glad to get off my horse Shotgun after the 2 hour trek.

So I am very sad to be back, although one more night of buffet could have finished me off for good so it’s probably for the best.

In crafting news I’m craftacular……….yaaaaaay. I was incredibly lucky to be selected for the Craftacular fair in Madison. I am thrilled about this but incredibly nervous, I always feel unworthy when placed with crafty types, I can’t explain it properly but I start to question everything I do……like I have no packaging and proper sales stuff, oh and my business cards suck so I feel inferior…………sigh I guess I have to get over it. Anyway I’m going to be busy, busy, busy as I want to make loads of stuff for the 2 day event.

I finished a new critter…….

It’s Odie………Garfield was just looking to content here without his annoying buddy.

This weekend was brilliant, we went to the Renegade Craft fair in Chicago and it was awesome……..and yes I do mean awesome for everything that that word encompasses. Over 200 craft vendors were proudly displaying their wares along Division Street, and I went into a buying frenzy so I thought I would share my crafty goodies with you.

One of the first things I bought was from Craft Paca…..…

I’ve wanted a little bear stuffie for ages so it was great to see them in person and the little owl is a cutie too.

Then I got this brilliant sewing kit and card from WonderlandQ

This is so cute, it has a little bunny flying a kite on the front and has 4 fantastic little patches inside.

This mega cute lion feltie hair band and postcard from Mahar Drygoods

And these 3 cards from mamarobot

I love the cat card (surprise surprise)

And one of the pepito surprise boxes from boxwonder you could get either a fish, a cat, a dog, and a few others I scored Sadie the retriever mix

I also got 2 brilliant ceramic magnets from circa ceramics that have pride of place on our fridge.

So all in all it was a brilliant weekend and I spent loads of money……….yaaaaaay

Tommorrow I’m off to Vegas…….. wish me luck I recoup my losses

So I’ve read on numerous sites from EKRA to Softies central that the whole forest friends, owls and gnomes etc. is out. Yup over (personally I was never in with them in the first place) While I find this hard to believe it really is so,  I decided to think of what could possibly take their place in crafty folks hearts and decided to put forth the Koala bear.

This is Madison.  Named because I bought the wool roving from the Madison farmers market from a quirky woman who I forgot to ask what kind of wool it was…………dammit.   While I personally would love to see Kangaroo, Koalas and wallabees being the next big thing I doubt it will happen.

In other news I got tagged……..I’ve never been tagged before but Connie of clothmatters got me (I really should run faster next time ; )   So I have to come up with a word that reflects me from the letters of my name……..Hmmmmm I’m really not good at this sort of thing but here goes.

L     –  Lazy  (oh I’m so lazy I will put stuff of forever in order to sit around on my arse all day)

I      –  incoherent  (I’m Scottish I think very few people ever really understand a word I am saying)

S     –  silly   (speaks for itself really)

A    –  apathetic  ( about most things)

There so now you know a little bit more about me……..but maybe not my best qaulities,  maybe I will share those some other time.  Thanks Connie for tagging me.

I finished with my new Art-0-Mat project……..yaaaaay!!!

I love doing stuff for the Art-o-Mat and it’s really funny to think where my little critters will wind up and with whom they will reside, but after making about 30 of them I start to wish I could be done now. (I like to try and send at least 50)

Anyway I made different series of critters from the last ones which were the mouse, cat and frog. This time I went with a Monkey, a Snake and a Lion. I am really pleased with how they turned out I just hope people like them.

I had the strangest weekend last weekend. My husband entered the Dairyland Dare in Wisconsin. He is a crazy single speed nut and wrote about his experience here if you are into that kind of thing……..I am not. I am not being mean (well maybe a lttle) but I really hate bikes and everything about them, and getting up at 3 am on Saturday morning to drive Markie to Wisconsin for the 5 am race start didn’t help to endear myself to them any either. It also meant that I had the joy of getting to Madison at just before 7am to wander zombie like around the farmers market.

I did snag some fantastic bargains in urban outfitters though (I love their half off all sale item sales)

I got this for $10.00

It’s really, really cool and I have wanted it for a while but it’s normally $30.00.   I love all the kid robot stuff and it features them and other cool vinyl collectibles

and this for $4.00

It certainly lives up to it’s name. I can’t wait to make the bunnies.

I also hit up The glitterworkshop and finally bought the T-shirt I have coveted since the first time I went in there…….

How can you not love a tee that features devil kitty bum?

Anyway that was my weekend…….How was yours?

and I am a knitters little helper addict. Has any one else ever used this stuff? I admit I bought it because I was suckered in by the cute little tin….

But the wool roving does really dry out my hands, and this stuff does not affect the wool at all……how great is that? and it smells fantastic too. I have been rubbing it on every 10 mins or so…….it’s fantastic.

Saturday in Chicago was fantastic, the Renegade Handmade store was absolutely gorgeous. Beautiful inside and out, their displays were fantastic and they had tons of my paper crane…….it was very hard to resist buying everything, although my hubby makes this easier by saying you should make it yourself everytime I ooooed and aaahhhhed at something……….I am sure this makes us popular in most stores.

I am still in the process of making critters for the art – o – mat. 15 done 35 + to go. I’ll share them as soon as I am done I promise.  I’m loving the lions maybe I’ll make a larger one when I am done…….