I guess it’s not going to come as a surprise to you guys when I say I love pop culture,  and so when I got a request for a Blinky the 3 eyed fish from The Simpson’s I was very excited to get started on him.   So excited I got carried away………

I just loved how he turned out and I hope the requester does too ( thanks for the request Sher).    I am hoping to have at least a few of them for  the upcoming shows but of course I’ll list them in the shop too.

I’m loving the Bazaar Bizarre poster and oooooh look at the craftacular poster

With posters like that I can’t wait for the shows.

Oh how I love schtuff………

yup my new couch arrived from Ikea and I love it!!!!  I had to get the kidrobot/Heidi Kenney donut pillows to go on it,  aren’t they just fantastic?  It breaks my heart when my hubby actually gasp,  shock,  horror………uses them.   I tell ya one of these days straight to the moon………

Other new schtuff is I got the most brilliant request for a piranha plant flower.  Nikki wanted to get a flower for her boyfriend’s VW bug flower holder……..and how perfect is that as an idea?  I swear it makes me want to trade in my beloved mini for a bug……anyway I hope she likes it.  I have the thought of a Mario hanging from the rear view mirror and the plant waiting to gobble him up below.

Occasionally (as you guys well know) I really want the schtuff I’ve made,  and the little piranha flower has just been added to my list of my stabby must haves…….although I really want a whole vase of them……..sweeeeeeeeeeet

had asked me if it’s hot enough for me I swear I was going to scream!!!! I don’t think there was one day when the thermometer didn’t hit a hundred and when you don’t have air conditioning I can’t even begin to tell you how that feels……well mostly sticky.

I was doing anything to try and think cool thoughts,  which is how this little guy came about….

I think he has helped the temperature as since he has arrived there has definately been a break in the weather (thank god).

In unrelated stabby news I am loving the new  mythical creature stamps by the royal mail,  in particular the cornish pixie one… it  is just brilliant….

It makes me want to receive lots of letters from the UK……hmmmm perhaps I should get a penfriend.  I am also extremely excited about the new Tim Burton movie Alice in Wonderland (are you surprised)  there have been some pictures online of Johnny depp and Helena Bonham Carter as the Mad Hatter and the Red Queen respectively and I get quite giddy at the thought of how brilliant it’s going to be…….I’ve even started reading Alice in Wonderland to get myself more in touch with Wonderland…I was lucky enough to snag a vintage book on ebay and I adore looking at it as much as reading it as it has the original Tenniel drawings,  even the cover’ s absolutely brilliant….which just proves that you can judge some books by their cover

and the pages make reading a pleasure

I love the mousey page….

I’ve been trying to come up with new critters for the critter boxes,  when it struck me…….

The ultimate low maintanance pet………goldfish.  They’re kinda fun to make with the big eyes and lips.

This weekend is going to be great,  we are going to Madison to stay for the weekend.  Staying at the fancy schmancy  Madison Concourse Hotel and Governor’s Club to boot.  We decided to stay as The Detroit Cobra’s are playing the High Noon late Friday night,  and there is nothing worse than driving the hour drive back to Rockford when all you want to do is sleep.   Plus it will be great to just  get up and walk to the farmer’s market (our first one of this year…..kinda shocking).

So eek I can’t wait roll on Friday………yippppppeeeeee

This weekend we drove to Indianapolis to attend the North American Handmade Bike show (which means I win the wife of the year award).  Mark was in heaven and spent the 3 plus hours walking around with a huge nerd grin on his face,  I mostly walked around remarking that bike guys certainly know how to cultivate the funkiest of bodily odors (pooooooo)

It was kinda fun for me to see the similarities between a bike show and a craft show though… I suppose it just depends on what you are into,  chrome bags and handmade bikes or screen printed tee shirts and handmade 2d toys.

This week was mostly spent on making  Easter Bun Buns…..

I love Easter,  it’s the promise of Spring and warmer weather and budding flowers and more importantly it is the holiday that has the best chocolate………..mmmmmmm cadbury’s creme eggs.  I guess we got a while to wait for Easter but fortunatly the choccies have already started appearing in the shops (and in my refridgerator)  yaaaaaaaaay.

Meet Stu the bunny,  Stu is a rather manic little critter he’s an ex magician’s assistant and I think he has been affected by the many hours spent hiding in the lining of a very dark top hat…….poor Stu.

He’s very happy to be retired now and is determined to enjoy his free time………in fact only yesterday his friend  was talking about personally training him in the ways of the kitchen he just needs to bring his own pot………..Glen has always been a good friend to Stu.

So did you all have a nice weekend?   have a romantic valentine’s day?  We were pretty low key about it (as usual) I did make my valentine’s present for Mark and I think he appreciated it (at least he’s not stoopid enough to say he didn’t).

Excited……..yup I am so excited and I just can’t hide it,  no not because I know, I know, I know, I know, I know I want you (sorry couldn’t help myself)  but because of these guys

I wanted to make these guys for ages but couldn’t quite work out how to make ’em then finally the penny dropped.   I painted and varnished my little terracotta pots and used pipe cleaners to support them so it also means you can kinda play with them too……..eeeek I love ’em I might have to keep one for a pincushion for myself.  In case you aren’t quite as much as a computer game geek as myself,  they are piranah plants from Mario’s world…….you know the plants that chomp poor little Mario’s head of if he gets to close.

I am also excited about tommorow at the empty bottle……….

Stop on by and say hi to me and the critters if you are in the area we’d love to meet you.

Not that this is a surprise to you (or me for that matter)  but yesterday I definately took the loony of all loony crowns.  You see yesterday I spent the whole day knitting little scarves for my snowmen ornaments……and I’m not really a knitter but still I love how the wee guys look with real scarves so I reckoned it had to be done.  I finally got finished with this endevour at around 8 o’ clock just in time for project runway yaaaaaaaay.  Oh and incidently what the hell was up with getting rid of Jerell?   How mad was that?  I think he was the best consistantly throughout the entire season and while I wasn’t keen on his wedding dress his bridesmaid’s dress was a trillion times better than Kenley’s monstrosity……..I reckon getting rid of him just makes it easier for them to award Leanne the winner…..but hey that’s just my opinion.

Ok so back to me,  after a whole day of knitting and other tedious household chores (ironing, yuck)  I figuered I was done crafting for the day………..but then I got an idea for a mobile,   well I’ve had it before but it started nigling at me to make it so at 10 o’clock I started making this…

I mean I love how it turned out (although I do want to make a needle felt version too) but we all know I can’t leave a project half done which meant I was still sewing well into the wee hours of the morning………sigh I’m sleepy today……yawn

Still I really wanted to make the mobile to bring it to the  Handmade Market at the Empty bottle in Chicago this weekend although I will also add it to the shop too.

It’s toad

Making Bub and Bob got me thinking about all my other favourite cute computer game characters which of course inevitably meant I absolutely had to make toad from Mario fame.

Wahooooo is his catchphrase,  it’s also mine as I am full of nervous energy or maybe it’s anticipation for the craft fair tommorrow in Chicago.  I’m pretty much organised as in everything is packed up and ready to go but I keep feeling the need to recheck the boxes…….eeeeek do I have everything?  oh shoot did I remember to put the (insert essential of your choice) in?    I am so freaking out which definately means I need to get much more craft show experience……..oh well at least I am working on remedying the situation right?

So if you are in the Chicago area please stop on by and say hi

Fall Handcrafted Market!!

Saturday, October 4^th 10-4p.m.

The New Friendly Towers

920 West Wilson Ave., Chicago

eeeek I am so excited…….

Holy cow batman……..to the Batmobile!!!!

Ok, ok I know it’s a mobile and it was a terrible joke but I just couldn’t help myself.   I felt the urge to make the little vampire bats…..too much Christmas crafting I think,  although I am happy to think I’ve got a good selection of new Christmas goodies and I can take a little break from Christmas……..yaaaaaaay she shouts rather smugly.  Anyway I can’t wait to add these guys to the shop it feels a little neglected right now.

Remember I told you something wonderful might be happening with my acorns?   Well it is indeed,  they are going to be in Mary Engelbreit’s home companion magazine for fall…….although it’s fall ’09 so we will all have a bit of a wait to see ’em………I’m still really excited about it now though,  imagine how hyperactive I’m going to be this time next year………YIKES!!!!