projects

I'm all tuckered out (holiday busyness and a bad case of the 24-hour stomach flu will do that!) so I won't write much, but I did want to share some photos of holiday projects... so here's our holiday card and some ornaments we made to give as gifts. By "we" I mean Jeff and I - he drew the elf for the ornament, and I used my gocco to print it onto fabric, which I then cut, sewed, & stuffed. Marvy. They were a big hit.

The cards were a completely joint effort - Jeff drew the elf and the tree, I drew the weird animal dude and the ornaments, Jeff inked the whole thing, and I printed them. I LOVE these cards, I'm thinking of sending them every year. We used the gocco for those, too, and Strathmore Creative Cards (fluorescent white with deckle edge).

I love gocco. Someone please save gocco! We couldn't have done these projects without it, or without a lot more work.

More holiday pics on flickr. Check out my very nifty photo of our Christmas tree lights! That one cracked me up.

I hope you all enjoyed whichever holidays you celebrated this month, if any. And happy new year!

auction

Hi there - this will be my last post for a while, I'll be focusing on traditional holiday celebrations over the next week or so.

Here's a robot I knitted - my first in a really long time - for the Kim Family Benefit Auction, organized by sisters Lisa Congdon and Stephanie Barnes and their mom Gerrie Congdon. Here's the direct link to the post about my dude. He'll be put up for auction along with a whole lot of other amazing stuff on January 3, 2007.

Whoa, 2007? Aren't we supposed to be living on the moon by now?

Anyway, happiest of holidaze to you all, and to all a good night.

holidaze

Ha, you see what I did there? It's like "holidays" but I stuck "daze" on the end because I'm kind of in the midst of holiday activity and insanity. Pretty clever!

Let's see. 2 weeks ago I swung by Shash's lovely apartment for an open house/art/craft sale. It was so great - I met Lisa S. for the first time, and got to hang out with Shash again. They are both as cool as, or perhaps even more cool than, they are on their blogs. If that's possible. I got the two items you see here, along with things I can't show because they're for other people. These are for me. A sweet toy by Shash and a robot iron-on patch by Lisa S. Lucky!

It's taken me this long to talk about Shash's party because, again, holidaze.

Right now I'm sewing some giftie ornaments for folks, screenprinted from a drawing by Jeff, and we're getting stuff together our homemade holiday cards. Gocco is certainly saving the day this year. I'll post images of the cards and ornaments after the holidaze are over, so as not to ruin the surprise for the recipients. Ha, "holidaze"!

modern cookies

It's been a cold and gray week, and it's been raining hard for a day or so... so I decided to bake some colorful cookies this morning. Aren't they so very colorful and modern? They look sort of inedible but I assure you they are quite buttery and tasty. I used the refrigerator cookie recipe from the beloved Betty Crocker's Cooky Book (my mom got my sis and I the reproduction editions that came out a few years ago). Then I just put a whole lot of food coloring in the dough. A whole, whole lot. I hope they aren't toxic.

I have been thinking a lot about the Kim family this week - my heart goes out to them. Lisa, Stephanie, and their mom are organizing a benefit art/craft auction, please visit Lisa's blog for more information (I will link to the auction site once it goes live).

tiny toys

I'm relaxing on a Sunday, and decided to take photos of the tiny fun toys Rain got me for my birthday. I like the way this one came out - it's wasn't until I got really close to the turtle's face with the camera that I realized how soulful it is. Don't you think?

Thanks Rain!

silky terrier

The piece you see here is for a dog show, of a sort. Jason Sturgill of the super great wurst gallery will be presenting the Wurstminster show next February, featuring the work of many artists, each doing a piece representing one of the dog breeds recognized by the American Kennel Club. He asked me to be involved, which pleased me greatly. I picked the Silky Terrier, a nice little fellow with long, shiny, tan and blue-gray hair.

It's a toy, of course, a depiction of the Silky giving a ride to one of my odd generic animal figures. I loved doing a more realistic animal, since my dudes tend to be slightly strange human/animal hybrids. Because that's just what I do. I can't wait to see the way other artists depicted their breeds!

Since I have your ear (eye?), and since I have the AKC website up, I thought I'd share my favorite dog breeds with you. I love mutts best of all, but pedigreed dogs are such little lovelies, aren't they? Anyway, here are my faves:

Schipperke - Rain introduced me to this breed, I think it's her favorite. I just love that they look like the weird wolf dogs in the movie Willow. Don't they? Just much smaller?

Papillon - I love them for their ears, and for their name. "Papillon" is a fun word to say with an exaggerated French accent.

Japanese Chin - Some friends of mine have one of these, and I almost started weeping when I first saw it. It's just such a heartbreakingly sweet little dog.

Boston Terrier - Probably my fave of all time. I just adore these guys. I think my love affair started when I saw one whose owner had left him (her?) in front of a convenience store, with his leash tied to a parking meter. As I walked by I said (respectfully) "hey little dude" and he just sat there staring forward, all vigilant and proud, waiting for his human companion. He didn't even look up at me. I was in love.

Oh, and Silky Terriers. After doing all the preparatory research and drawings of these little guys, I've become a big fan. All that silky hair!

Can you tell I watch the dog shows on Animal Planet? And that I fast forward to the Toy dogs? I do love the big guys but the little ones just kill me. I should also mention that I don't have a dog (Chuy is our only pet), I'm just a fan. So if you see a red-haired gal looking down at your Pomeranian with a goofy, love-struck look on her face - that would be me.