Stained Glass Octopus.

I'm sure everyone has gotten the memo: I LOVE Octopodae. (Octopi if you MUST, although it's from the Greek so really it should be Octopodae)

My mom got the memo. Look!

I don't know the name of the artist who made this, but God Bless them! It never occured to me to dream of a stained glass octopus. I wanted to hang it in a window, but it simply didn't work out on any of mine, it would be hidden behind blinds, or curtains, or it would hit right there the latch is, making me fear for its life all the time. So I tried it agains the paint in my bathroom and loved it. And now it hangs there.

And I love it.

I got a rediculous amount of stuff for Christmas. I cannot even try to list it all. I'm almost ashamed! I will share one cool thing, My mom found a vintage turquoise (love turquoise) sewing box. Like a tackle box, only made for sewing stuff. Anyhow it's pretty large and I totally needed one, I had all my notions in a cookie tin and they didn't fit. But that's not all, it was STUFFED with all sorts of fun stuff, trims, ribbon, binding, zippers, snaps and so on! WOOHOO. And my mom's good friend Patricia found me a lovely cordinating silk scarf and tied it on for maximum cuteness. Oh I also got Amy Butler's In Stitches. EVERYONE is getting pajama pants next year. HAHA.

PS CHARLANE (sp?) I can't find your email! Brian LOVES the Kinder Suprise Eggs. He was TOTALLY suprised and he's only done one because he's making them last. The one he did was a puzzle inside, which he told me is one of the stinkier prizes, but he's so happy to have them he doesn't really care. Thank you a million times. I was so pleased to see him so suprised.

Hello Wonderful.

I got lovely new stamps from Pink Poison. They are Alice In Wonderland. And oh so kawaii.
I made this fun card. The paper is by K. And Company. I colored with copic markers and copic specia glitter pens.
This next pic actually shows the colors the best. I'm still learning the new camera.
And you can see the glitter in this one. Everything has glitter though, from her eyes to her hair to the white dress. It's hard to take a photo of glitter.

So there we have it, my new Alice in Wonderland stamps! I love them to pieces.

In other news:

I have a cold. I am sick for EVERY holiday. It's crap. My friend Tracey has a theory that it's because on some level holidays stress me out and that gets me sick. She's probably right because I've been sick the past 3 holiday seasons. I didn't even exercise today. :(

Stephen got up before 6am today. Unacceptable. He's rambling on right now about how orange is his sidekick color but yellow is his sidekick color too. He's pretty weird. Today I take him back to the allergist for his one year checkup. He's deathly allergic to peanuts. There is an outside chance he will grow out of it though, so here's to hoping. (I'm not terribly hopeful)

If I don't post again,

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Kim's Disappearing Nine Patch

Well Kim and I opened Christmas presents on the phone today. I'll show you what I got tomorrow. But now I can finally show you what I've been working on for Kim.

I did an orange/tan/brown quilt. I used Disappearing Nine Patch for the pattern.
You start with a standard nine patch like this: Then you slice it in quarters like this:

Rearrange and sew back together like this:

Repeat a bunch so you have a whole quilt's worth. Then lay them out to see how you like them best like this:
And sew them together. You will see that I didn't end up staying with my original layout. Very close, but I made soem changes.
Then quilt. Sorry I don't have better pictures. I did a free motion random pattern.

This pic sort of shows the quilting better. I backed with this off white color. I did bind it with the dark brown. I guess I forgot to take a photo of that though. The finished quilt is 60x60 inches. Kim said it goes well on her couch, the colors are right and all. So she's using it to cuddle in to watch TV. It's good because apparently they had a HIGH of -2 today and that's just sick! You NEED a TV quilt with that kind of weather.

So this type of free motion quilting is my new favorite, I plan to free motion quilt everything now! No more pain in the butt stitching in the ditch for me.

I blame YOU.

Yes YOU. Over there, with the computer, and stamps, or maybe a sewing machine.

I am a diehard library girl. I pretty much don't buy books unless they have patterns in them ie, craft books. This isn't because I don't love books. I LOVE books. I check out about 20 library books a week. And yes, I read them all. Well unless they suck.

But everyone went on and on about the Twilight books. Oh they are so good, Oh they suck you in, Oh on and on. I'm a HUGE vampire fan. I wondered if these would be too light for me. I like my vampires sexy, dark and dangerous. Stephanie Meyer is Mormon, which is cool, I'm Mormon too. But I don't want Mormon vampires ya know? Vampires are my total dark indulgence.

But you kept going on and on about the stinking books. So I requested them from the library. My library system has like 60 copies of Twilight but it never sent one to me. I don't know what's up with that, maybe I'm on a huge list. Finally I got sick of waiting and bought the first book at Costco. (I *heart* Costco)

Well dang you all! It's really good. I mean not super dark and stuff, but really good. Mom said I will like the next one even more. I can't wait another who knows how long for the stinking library to get it.

So I ordered all three of the ones I don't have just now on Amazon. It was only $29 including shipping for all of them, so that's cool. Two are in hardcover, maybe they are not in paperback yet? I have this thing where I actually prefer paperback. I know it's weird. But whatever.

I guess it's ok, I mean it's been ages sense I purchased a book. Why not buy four all at once and just a week before Christmas?

I don't have any photos. Just me rambling about Twilight, just like I read everyone else doing a few weeks back.

Hanna Stamps

Ok I resized the pics this time. Hope it helps.

I was just playing with coloring today and made these.

The yellow one is colored with watercolor pencisl and blended with dove blender pen. This is my favorite coloring technique.

And red is colored with copic markers.

well I'm off to bake a ton of cookies.

Little notebook/pencil holder thingie

Ok first do I need to resize all my photos now? I got a new camera (still figuring it out) and it's 10mp from my old 3mp so if that makes the blog take forever to load tell me and I'll resize everything. Kim says she does have to. I don't wanna, but I will.

Ok. So Kim and I were chatting it up and we decided we need holders for art supplies. She because she's a real artist, me because I'm a poser! haha. Anyhow I decided to whip this up. What do you think? *it's for me*I should have done this inside stitching before putting the outtermost fabric on so you'd not see the brown thread across the outtermost front. Or bought turquoise thread. Anyhow. My sketch pad is super fat, so I had to put tiny pleats in the pocket for it. I think for normal sketch pads I'd not have to do that. And no I don't normally sketch with a pink marker, Although I do love pink.

Well feedback welcome. :)

Warning to Moms. *maybe Dads too*

No matter how much you love your kids. And how much you love being funny with them.

Do NOT take a bite out of the play doh sandwich they make you to give them giggles. You may think you can take a bite then just spit it out. NOPE. Play doh sticks to teeth something awful. Also it tastes HORRIBLE. Like almost instant "rejection" horrible. And even after you brush your teeth your mouth still tastes funny.

It DOES make your kids giggle though, so at least we have that silver lining.

Christmas cards

I got a brand new camera today. It has all these manual settings. None of the pre programed ones are "taking photos of cards at night for posting on your blog" so I had to play around. I'm not sure I'm thrilled with this quality. But I'm sure I will get the hang of it.

So anyhow here is one Christmas package tag and some Christmas cards.

This one isn't hazy. It was one of my earlier photos. I should have redone it. And "tis the season" for baby pigs I guess? I eat ham at Christmas, so maybe it really "tis the season"

This stamping of the snowman really is super light in real life.

Most of these stamps came from a package of stamps I picked up at Costco. The Alice in Wonderland is by Red Eowyn And I tell you I LOVE these stamps.

Speaking of Alice in Wonderland I found a new-to-me stamp company. Pink Poison's Splended little Stamp Company. It's a mouthful, but right there on the main page they have the most Kawaii Alice in Wonderland set EVER. Thanks to Kim and Thanh for getting the info to me. I ordered those puppies first thing this morning.

Doll Quilt Swap 5 Received

I can't get a good enough pic of this for you to know what it's like. I received this in the Doll Quilt Swap 5 swap. I'm FLOORED. It's from Kellie of Don't Look Now! She has better pics of it over there.

I'm floored. The whole quilt is lovely at a glance, but the detailing on this is AMAZING. I'm a HUGE fan of lots and lots of really tight quilting and believe me this has it! I'm truly gobsmacked to think that this was made for me. Serously this is the type of crafsmanship you see at a quilt show and there are 30 ladies trying to look at it all at once and you want to weep because you can't touch it. But I CAN touch it, I can touch it all I want because it's MINE!!!

I love the kid's art smocks too and now I have a pattern! :)

Alice in Wonderland Christmas

I made a few Christmas cards last night. I used my Alice in Wonderland stamps on them. It's so icky out that this pic is the best I can do.

That scribble you just see a corner of is my newest obsession. Basicly I'm drawing patterns that I might later like to quilt. I'm talking about the actual free motion quilting. That one is just actually what I automatically do I think. But I'm trying to force myself to do some other patterns.

In other news: I am published in the current issue of Just Cards magazine. It's volume 12. I have six cards in there. TONS of my Stamp Shack friends have stuff in there too! How fun. I'm such a twit I see the magazines come out and think, "oh THAT'S what I did with that card!" like I forgot I sent it out.

I took the boys on my power walk today. In the stroller. It worked totally different muscles for some reason and I'm sore. POOP. But at least I'm sticking with it so that's happy.

Well back to cleaning. I'm trying to do lots of that today. I don't love cleaning but I love a clean house. I need a cleaning service... No just need to be less lazy.

Glasses or Contacts

I know this is mostly crafts here but I need some help from my friends with an eye for what LOOKS good.

It's time to update my glasses perscription. I'm considering going back to contacts. I could keep my current glasses for when I don't feel like contacts. I have no problems with contacts, I switched to glasses just for style's stake. So here goes.

Glasses

No Glasses

In case you are wondering yes, I have lost weight. About 5lbs. Also this is the best hair and makeup I ever wear. So this is pretty much me at my very cutest.

Crafty Secrets

Well I have all this stuff I've made. But it's all secret! Can you believe that?

I made a really cool mini quilt for a swap. A really cool totally secret project for Kim. A really cool shopping spree for a Secret Santa swap with a group that swaps quilts. OH wait!!

I made these:

Couple of Super Hero capes. The "E" one really is that wonky. I do'nt mind, Ethan doesn't mind either. Oh and Stephen refuses to wear pants. It's not like I can force him. Well I could but I'll save force for more important issues.

I'm stalking UPS today. My purse from Macy's is out on delivery. I wish my driver all saftey and Godspeed. But he needs to get here RIGHT NOW. I'm going out tonight and I'd LIKE to use my purse. Every car that goes by I jump up!