It’s truly been a great week in stabby land,  first of a whole load of hanging goodies are heading off to a new store in Connecticut.  The request was brilliant as it was for some things I hadn’t even considered making into ornaments like the lovies and the donuts look brilliant,  so I want to make some more for the shop. anyway here is everything for you to see before it gets boxed up

And what else is totally great you ask?   well Craft likes me look………….I feel like Sally Field when she won her oscar……………you like me….you really like me ……..snifffffff

well they like Jon and Nermal at least.

Seeing the craft blog love was the perfect end to my perfect Labor day weekend.  We had gone to Chicago for the holiday and stayed in a fancy schmancy hotel we got on a brilliant deal on hotwire.  (how I love hotwire)  we had a brilliant time in Chi-town,  the weather was glorious and the cultural center was having an exhibition of Marilyn Monroe artwork and Photographs………..cold it be any more perfect I ask you?

Yaaaaaay it’s here

Oh I hope I can work it…….I mean it looks simple enough (famous last words right?) it did come with a reasonably thick manual which I am going to force myself to read, not an easy task for me as I hate instructions. I am one of those people that only looks for the instructions after I’ve already snapped something whilst trying to work it out for myself first……..yup manuals are for losers that’s my motto. Oh I just really want to go and play with it……………no must resist and at least glance at manual first.

And in other great news they are Back

and still hot. God I have to get the album and go to the shows and buy the posters oooooh it’s just like being 14 again but with less spots……..well maybe not less spots but you know what I mean.

Oh and don’t forget (look in the basket)

My needle felting demo this Saturaday at 1.00pm at  Anthology, 218 State Street in Madison WI. at 1.00pm so if you are in the area I’d love for you to stop by and watch the stabby stabby in action.

well no not you …..and actually not Bogart either, he’s actually a really clean little guy (for a rat) here he is  

Bogart is obsessed with old movies particularly ones with his main man Humphrey Bogart, this is due to the fact that Bogart was raised in an old midnight movie theatre. He believes that all sad moments can be alieviated with a “here’s looking at you kid” quip.

So if you are looking for a buddy to share your love of classic movies and popcorn…….Bogart’s your guy he’s already listed in the shop
I also got the greatest ever Etsy purchase ever (so far ; )  A custom made stamp from terbearco.

It’s absolutely brilliant……you just give them what you want made into a stamp and they make it exactly.  I have been stamping everything…….it sure beats having to write it out everytime.  I’m getting another one made as we speak and I want like 40 others made as well.

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

Yipppppeeee I made the front page of etsy yesterday……….what do you mean you don’t believe me look for yourself,

How cool is that? The funniest thing is I didn’t sell any of the ball ornaments, but the orders for Marios and Yoshis were coming in thick and fast…. it was awesome, many thanks to Humblebee for selecting me for her front page treasury.

I can’t wait for Christmas. I bought a fantastic papier mache sculpture from MissBeahavin yesterday. I just couldn’t wait for Mark to order it (I am so scared that all my favourite etsy things will be gone in the mad Christmas rush) but of course he is going to make me wait for Christmas till I open it………waaaaaa

But at least it encouraged him to get on with ordering stuff for me……..He went through all my faves on etsy and bought me a selection……..I’ll show you what he chose after Christmas, as I don’t know (he opened his very own etsy account)

In other news Nick (raisinlikes baby) finally headed to his mummy this week. I thought I’d share his completed look with you

I was very pleased with how he turned out…….he was much triksier than I had anticipated so he was a brilliant challenge hopefully Sharona is impressed.

Remember and shop local this holiday season and buy handmade…….and if you are in the Madison area then I hope to see you at the Glitterworkshop 920 E. Jonnson street at 2.00

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

Well I have been known to be a procrastinator…….but sometimes it’s not entirely my fault. Sometimes I’m afraid to start something I can’t finish, sometimes I’m intimidated by the fact I’ve had gorgeous wool roving custom blended for the project (thanks Jen from Hanks in the Hood……again) and so therefore just stare at it afraid of making a start and depleting it with no gain. Well anyway I guess I should just start at the start of this story…..a few months ago the lovely Roberta asked me to make a custom stabby for her, she wanted her golden retriever immortalised in wool. And here he is…

I include the pics I used to create the doggie, I wanted to try and capture his pose and eyes as much as possible and I’m very pleased with how he turned out…..I hope Roberta is too.

It snuck up on me quite unexpectedly……..there I was making little snowmen and santas, when an overwhelming urge to make Snoopy overcame me. Why does that make me mad? Well it doesn’t, except that instead of the little Snoopy I had in mind he grew and grew into this guy. He is huge. I think I may have been rebelling against making the little guys for so long. But anyway I guess it means I have to order more wool as he really decimated my white wool supply.

OOOOooooh order more wool….I think I may have had ulterior motives the whole time. Yummy, yummy new wool.

In other news the lovely Ekra recently had a blog contest to win a goodie for posting on her blog…..and I won!!!!! yaaaaaaay.

              
I love my goodies, and the card is well cool she is so creative, I would never think of using a map as a card I guess that’s why she is a crafting superstar. Anyway thanks again Emily. It got me thinking blog contests are cool……..so stay tuned while I consider this possibility……..ooooh aren’t I a tease?

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.

A couple of weeks ago I was contacted by a lovely woman to make her a pink panther……..yaaaaaay I thought….. but it was not that simple. You see the pink panther she wanted me to make had to be compatible with this bed spread

Hmmmmmm…………..now this was slightly tricksy as my pink wool roving is very pink and my original pink panther (the one she saw and fell in love with) would clash horribly with this duvet………what to do, what to do……..hmmmmmm

Well at first I thought it can’t be done……….then I though hang on, how dumb am I? (don’t answer that) That’s what etsy is for and after a couple of days of trawling through listings for pink roving I found the perfect hand dyed pink roving from Hanks in the hood.

So it has a lot more fuschia and magenta tones than my bubblegum pink roving and anyway long story short here he is the pink panther Alison’s pink panther……

So what do you think? good match for the bedding or what? It brought back my old working days of Skynear and Co where I had to help customers pick the colour schemes of sofas and wall paints (and everything else in their home). Anyway it was fun to have the additional challenge and I’m glad he worked out so well.