Christmas Crafting!!!

Sheet Music Wreath for my MIL and K's Piano Teacher.

String bass ties for K's Bass teacher and AP World History Teacher and her conductor and Uncle R and Mr. Man

Christmas tree earrings for Grammie and me and K's Language arts teacher and her Geometry teacher!

And tiny (5 inch) Nutcrackers in their Marching Band uniform with tiny mellophones for Mello buddies and a drummer one for her boyfriend.

Merry Christmas to all!

I am so going to wear this to school!!!!

For Halloween, K wanted to be a pirate.  A steampunk pirate to be exact.  She needed some kind of bodice, so we decided on a leather(ish) laced waist cincher.  It took a couple of days, mostly because I had made a basket the day before and my hands were torn up: cuts, scrapes, raw all over.  I wasn't being careful and I mangled my hands.  Good thing it was black, the blood stains don't show.

36 eyelets.  K LOVED it!

This was the full costume

 The baby kitties loved it.  All swishy and ribbons galore.  She exchanged the Fez for a black cap and Quiddich goggles.  It was very cool.

For Trick or Treating, she just kept the pirate bits.

Fun was had.

Oh dear. What a bother.

I accidentally deleted loads of photos from my flickr account.  I was updating my mac to mountain lion and moving photo libraries, of which there are three, to an external drive and iphoto asked me a question and I made the wrong choice.

Bugger.

Any who,  I will be spending the next few... months uploading the photos, which were not lost, back onto my blog.  Please forgive the broken link mess.

Not really all that upset actually.  Should have done this long ago.  And the trip down memory lane is rather fun.  Lookie what I found

I made this scarf for a friend of K's, years ago.  We haven't seen them in years, but we've heard she has worn it to school, to church, and once used it to as the garland on a christmas tree.  She's an amazing young lady.  And her brother is really cool too.

Fall is in the air!

I've put a few little autumn bits and bobs in my etsy shop.







This way if you're interested.

More to come.  Maybe even a plushy blue box!

Fan Girl + Sock Hop = Awesome!

     We have started swing dancing.  Let me rephrase that.  K has started swing dancing, and Mr. Man and I go along to chaperone.  We dance a few, but we just aren't in shape, yet.  K on the other hand, dances the all night.  Well, till about 9:30.  She's a beginner, but she's getting the hang of it.  And all her friends are beginners too, so they have a great time.

     So, the weekend before school started, the local swing dance society held a back to school Sock Hop.  With a costume contest(!!!!!) K wanted a retro 50's dress(!!!!!), we looked at patterns, and even though we started a week ahead, we just didn't have the time.  So, she settled on a poodle skirt.

     Now, K is a fan girl and not a girly girl at all, so though she wanted to wear a poodle skirt, she was not interested in some fluffy pink poodle on a pearl leash.  Oh no.  It had to be something fan related.  Her first thought was a dalek skirt, with big yarn pom poms in lines all round and felt strips for the bars.  Fabulous idea, too funny, but she decided that would be too obvious.  She wanted it to be subtle.

    She just wasn't sure what she wanted, so we picked a burgundy felt for the skirt, a wide black elastic for the waist, some shear black to make a scarf, and she picked out a bunch of felt rectangles, in a variety of colors for the decoration.  My job was to make the skirt, which was the easy peasy part.  Her job was the decoration.

     Her first thought was...

Exterminate!  It looked great on the burgundy.  Done!  That was easy!

     But, the next morning she got up and said, "Mom, it has to be K-9 poodle skirt!!!!"  Yup, has to be.  So she set to work.

   Cute!  And the leash is ball chain!!!!  I love that part!

   She loved it, it was a big hit, and she had a wonderful time.  One of the older dancers told her at first, he just thought it was another poodle skirt, but then he looked close, and it was the coolest poodle skirt EVER!  We left before the costume contest, but we didn't care.

Good times had.

Wild and crazy fur babies!!!!

We have fur babies!!!!  Momo, the little brown tabby is a boy, and completely insane, and Appa the white one with a grey mark on the top of her head is a girl, and completely insane.  Sense a trend?

There were about 20 kittens to choose from, total kitten overload.  After an hour and a half, we finally decided on the two that were healthy, happy, not too crazy, and crawled on us and purred.  There were others that were absolutely wild, not taking those.  We thought we were so smart.

Well, they sure fooled us, cause these two are nuts!!!!  Climbing, wrestling, chewing, scampering, scratching, fur covered balls of crazy!!!

Susan is not happy with them.  Hisses every time she walks past their door.  She has been our almost silent cat.   Yeah, not now.  She is constantly telling us what idiots we were to bring those two home.

But they are so sweet, when they are asleep, and so much fun, the drapes look better with those little pulls anyway, right?

We will never sleep again.

Our cats own us. We're OK with that.

We promised K that when Miss. Kitty passed, we would get two new kittens/cats/fur babies.  And, since life is short, it is kitten season, and we always follow the butterflies, we have already started the search.

We went last Saturday and met some darling fur babies at Pet Smart and fell in love with at least a half dozen of them. They are being fostered by A New Leash on Life, the lovely people that our lovely vet recommended we contact.  We filled out an application, they contacted our vet, who said we were good cat parents, and we have been invited to an open house tonight.  Kelly told us to bring carriers.  We plan to sit down in the midst of all the kittens and take home whichever two fur babies love us best.  Two.  Just two.  TWO.   O.o

Part of the adoption process at A New Leash on Life, is a home visit.  So I thought, why not share.  These are our fur babies.  Miss. Kitty *sniff* is standing, and Susan is reclining in the Advent Wreath that they fought over all through the Christmas Season.  Right after this picture was taken, Miss. Kitty smacked Susan on the head and chased her off.  She loved that Advent wreath.  *sigh*

Miss. Kitty was our first fur baby.  Loved sleeping on the couch in her pile of leaves.

Was very helpful with homework.  Kept those books firmly pinned to the table.

And she was always an avid bird watcher.

Miss her.  *sniff*

Miss. Susan has lived with us for 2 1/2 years.

She is a full time sleeper.  And Mandrake it turns out.

Loves "Helping" with the Laundry.

And everything else.

Caution:  Very sweet and cuddly at times.  At others, like a fur covered sack o' razor blades.  Pointy on 5 out of 6 ends!

Where do our fur babies sleep?  Anywhere they want of course.  Beds, tables, couches, pillows, floor, fireplace step, mandrake pots,...

Wait a minute, are those the expensive orthopedic pillows I bought for my neck?  Yup.

The view from the front window is great!  The back isn't too bad either.

What do cats do for fun in our house?  Well, how about two scratching posts, a paper bag, and about 5,236 cat toys.  Miss Kitty used to mine the house with those little crowns at night. Take one of those to the instep and you remember for life!  Susan prefers those tiny jingle mice, the ones with the real fur.  Yeah, if she ever got outside, nothing would survive.  No outdoor cats, EVER!!!!

And of course, two litter boxes.  May make that three, we'll have to see how it goes.

The new little fur babies will spend the first week or so in their own private accommodations.  They will have their own litter box, scratch hidey hole, and some sheepskins to cuddle in.  And toys, a nice, little, safe selection, including one tied under the door to another on the other side of the door, very short string.  Great way to safely get to know your new friends.

Needless to say, We can't wait!!!!

Goodbye my sweet fur baby.

We had to let Miss. Kitty go last week.  Our sweet fur baby had polycystic kidney disease, not a good thing, not at all.   She was never a well kitty, never weighted over 8 pounds, lost weight her whole life.  She was only 8 years old, but it was time.  She knew she was loved, to the end, purred the whole time. We miss her so.  Goodbye my sweet fur baby.

Nail polish and a handmade feltie Chihuahua. Cool! And Cute!

K is going to a birthday party for a friend tonight.  She wanted to give her friend something cool and something cute.  She chose Magnetic nail polish, which is too cool, and a Chihuahua feltie from "Felties:  How to make 18 cute and fuzzy friends" by Nelly Pailloux, which is too cute and also very cool.





She even has a little bone!







I helped her finish the feltie last night.  She cut it out and put it together, I only got to sew a couple boring seams.  But we talked while we sewed and that is the whole reason I taught K to sew.  And so she could have the awesome power to make her own stuff.  But mostly the mom daughter time.

My Child of the Library.

    I took K to the local library before she could focus.  Before she could stand, I would carry her in and sit her on the floor next to the book bins and she would spent hours flipping through the pages of the picture books.  She asked for her first library card before she was two, as soon as she could form the sentence. She was the teeny tiny girl at the story times that would answer questions, and then ask questions, and then want to check out the book afterwards.  The wonderful children's librarian, the beautiful and brilliant, Ms. P, who still asks about her every time I see her, always talked to K for as long as K wanted to talk.  The library was where she wanted to go the day before school started, and after school everyday she could, and on the day school let out and all summer long.

      Her love of all things Harry Potter started at a party at the library, when she wore her Mandrake costume to her first Harry Potter Party.  She hadn't even read the first book or seen the movies, but all the little Harry's and Hermione's were so excited over her costume they just had to pull her out of her pot and make her scream with glee.  Books, and cookies, and punch, and crafts, and librarians who loved it all.  She was hooked for life.  Since then she has been Ginny, and Anna Beth, and Hermione, and Luna, and Sarah Jane, and a fairy and Katniss, for parties and dances and story times.  My favorite is still the mandrake, all grown up now, in her t shirt and jeans

A few years ago, she saw older kids volunteering, and asked if she could join them.  Ms. J, who had known K for years, looked at her and whispered "How old are you?"  When she heard the answer, which was a few years shy of the 14 minimum, she said "This will be our little secret."  We've spent the last few summers in the library, she volunteering, me playing with sticks and string, keeping an eye.  Good times.

This year, K has been selected to apply for an internship.  You have to be 15 or in 10th to 12th grade, but she has been grandfathered in, due to the librarians at two branches wanting her.  The librarian at one branch said, she would love to have her, but understands the other branch is closer, and gas is not cheap.  The librarian at the closer branch said "She's Mine!"

Tuesday was K's last day of school.  She was home by 12:30 and at the library at 5:50 for volunteer orientation.  At 7pm she started volunteering.  They dove right in to remodeling the teen room, clearing shelves till 8pm and then she was back the next morning at 7am to start painting.  I picked her up at 11am, covered in primer and monster mash green paint and forced her to go to the orthodontist and a piano lesson.  She's back again this morning, reloading shelves and assembling new furniture.

She was assigned a project before school even finished.  The library has created an outdoor reading garden.  There is a bridge and a counting path and a little house and an outdoor story time area and... it is just wonderful.  They are also making a paver hopscotch game.   K was assigned to paint the first block

As soon as she finished she yelled "Run!  Run!  It's the Clergy!!!!"

As we were driving home yesterday, after she had stopped whinging that she had to leave, she said "Mom, I think I want to be a librarian.  Of course they make even less than musicians."  I told her to do what makes her happy.  She smiled.  "Librarian musician!"

Yup, she'll be happy.

Origami = Peace + Tranquility + SQUEEEEEEE!!!!!!

Seriously, origami is the best cure for the blues I have ever found.  Why?  Because it is frustrating and maddening and incomprehensibly confusing, until that point where you figure out you valleyed instead of mountaining, and then it all comes out perfect and adorable, and it is so cute you just can't help being happy.  Kinda like my average day, condensed into 30 minutes, with pretty colored paper.

I made these Bunny Boxes for Easter.







Bad Kitty!

Cute and easy to store.  Just fold them up and slip them in an envelope.  Instructions to make your own origami bunny box can be found here.