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.

So we got our Christmas tree this weekend and I finally got to decorate it yesterday.  Of course I didn’t have to do this alone as always I had my helper

Christmas trees,  hanging ornaments and kittens are not the best combination.

But somehow I managed it

I love having a really big real tree.  It smells fantastic and makes me feel really festive……..and you know decorating it is one of my favourite things about Christmas.  I remember where I got every single ornament (no small feat as I have a ton) and I like to remember each one as I hang it up.  I thought I’d share some of my new ones with you.

  First is the little yellow light bulb from poor lost bread.  This is the ornament I bought from the Madison                         Craftacular….and I love him to bits.

  The little blue glass polar bear I got from the Winter Art festival in Madison,  it’s by Craig Bacon Studio.  It   was  a tough decision on what to get from him as he had lots of beautiful hand made glass ornaments but I couldn’t              resist little Knut (as I call him).  Of course in blatant self promotion you can also see my little green and red retro ball in the top of the picture and I made a larger Santa Claus just for myself….

  I realise this isn’t the best piccie but hopefully you can make out the polymer clay pickle and mushroom ornaments from stars dreams and jewels I also got her chilli ornament,  and I think they are wacky and fantastic on the tree.

I also thought I’d share a creative idea I came up with for my ugly dining room light (hey I rent so I can’t rip it out……dammit)

The felt trees, reindeers and snowflakes I bought from Michaels last year.  Believe it or not they came in a pack of 3 for $1.00 so of course I bought a ton of ’em.  I got the idea for linking them together and I was going to create a hanging screen of them but with cats it just wasn’t very practical……….so I invented this festivy chandalier and I love how it looks.

The felting demo at Glitterworkshop last weekend got cancelled due to the snow…….so hopefully we will reschedule soon and I’ll keep you all posted………this weekend is the renegade craft fair holiday show in Chicago  so we will be heading to that and of course I’ll show you my purchases………what?  oh yes there will be purchases ; P

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

If you are in Madison on Saturday please stop by The Glitter Workshop 920 E. Johnson Street to see little ole me demonstrating the needle felting technique.  I was thinking of making Christmas ornaments while you wait but really I could make things to order,  if there was a demand for it…….

The Glitter Workshop is also going to be having crazy sales and goodies and other holiday festivities going on all day so you should check it out for all your holiday shopping needs……….gaaaaaah holiday shopping….. gulp!!!!!  I haven’t even started yet………..waaaaaaaaa

Wow what a great weekend,  I had such a fantastic time at the craftacular and can I just say what a well organised put together organised show it was.  Big round of applause for Naomi of Glitterworkshop and Emily of EKRA they really couldn’t have done a better job…….they even got the show on the  Madison morning news,  which ensured a lot of people and when I say a lot I really mean a LOT of people and fantastically nice,  warm people at that.

I had a brilliant location beside another fantastic vendor Kittygrrlz.  Her handspun yarn made me wish I could knit and she spun yarn (when she wasn’t busy) and it was truly mesmerising to watch.  I bought a really cute Christmas ornament from Poor Lost Bread I loved her croissants with berets but the ornament was just too cute to not be mine.

But it truly was a great show and all the vendors were fantastic and the booths were all lovely to behold.

In other news some of my critters are featured over on Qdpatooties blog.  Lisa (of Qdpatooties) did a fantastic job over the Thanksgiving holiday of doing a parade of toys by wonderful toy makers and it was a real honour to be included in it.  If you have a moment to vote for me I would sure appreciate it.

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