Before it gets too far past Christmas I need to post about some hand made gifts. These are the only thing I managed to get made this year. After seeing Amy’s Aunt Sarah Dolls I’ve had this idea in my head and finally got it out this year.

They are hilarious. I drew the bodies, then had the kids color their own. I just used our printer to copy them onto the injet iron on stuff I found at Hobby Lobby. Simple enough. It did take me quite awhile to get them done, though. I made 4 sets, so that was printing, ironing on, cutting, sewing, stuffing (my mom was visiting, so she actually did that part),and closing up– times 16. Anyway, I don’t think about things that way when I embark on a project, so things always take me longer than I think they will.

I kept a set. It is pretty funny to see Ian chewing on himself!

On Mondays from 12:30 to 4:00 or so I have a babysitter to watch the kids so I can hide in my art room. Here’s what I did today:

I’ve filled up all the journals I didn’t sell last year (last year?! that long ago? yikes!), so I need a new one. I drew up a design on graph paper and used my little gocco printing press and stamp kit to print my big sheets of paper.

I’ve been thinking and thinking about how to get patterns to repeat right, how exactly I’d go about stamping designs without smearing ink, what kind of jig I’d need to get things lined up right for a long, long, time.  I have printed this paper a gazillion times in my head.  I used mat board strips with marks that had corresponding marks on my stamp screen, then held everything in place with pretty blue masking tape.  It worked like a charm!  I just barely mis-marked everything for the vertical repeats, but oh well.  It’ll all be totally perfect next time I try it.  And it looks hand made, right?  That’s my mantra.  Perfectionism is out the window.

Not bad for a days work! This certainly makes for a happy mama.

Here’s a project I’ve FINALLY finished. I’ll have to post more details about it later…

I was hoping that I would be posting amazing photos of my bed adorned with a new Denyse Schmidt quilt beneath a wall of freshly framed Karl Blossfeldt photogravures, but alas… my quilt is backordered. Which is okay, but I wish they had told me that fact when I ordered it and not over a week later when I was expecting it to be here. What a let down!

and now the wait…

My Little Mochi has organized her second post card swap, and I got in on it this time. I’ve had ideas swimming around in my head about making art experimenting with transparency and layers and sewing and torn edges, but I have a hard time getting myslef to do it unless I have an assignment.

So, the assignment is:
10 postcards
saying Happy New Year
with a dog somewhere (for the Chinese year of the dog)

I get to send them to Sweden, Ireland, Australia, Hawaii, to name a few.

I’ve got a few more to finish, which I’ll do in my hotel room in peace and quiet as I travel to Denyse’s workshop this weekend.

See ya when I get back!

I’m actually working on something! Actually two things.

Here’s the beginnings of “One Tote Fits All.”

And I decided I needed a bag based on “Big Zig.” I’m very excited about the fabrics. Brown corduroy, pink cotton, and an Amy Butler lining!

Since I just haven’t been able to fit in a big quilting project, though I really want to, I can do these bags in between hexapi

Well, school today was “watch mom cut.” I put my new tools from Margie to work and made some stamps. We’ve had little wrens in the japanese maple right out of our dining room window. They are so cute with their tails straight up. I love having a yard with trees. I love my dining room window. I love the wrens and cardinals and chickadess and gold finches and other feathered visitors just as we sit at our kitchen table. Oh, yeah, stamps– that’s what this is about. I made some wrens, and of course, some bunnies. It’s fun to be a printmaker again, even if it is just stamps and not anything glorious and artsy. I need more ink colors. As much as I love brown, it’s just not doing it for me here.

So, back tack II has come full circle for me. I made a bag and craft kit, I received a bag and craft tools, I sent a bag, and I used my tools. What a fun game to play!

I’ve had the bag done for quite a while, but collecting and crafting the goodies inside concluded Monday, and today I was able to steal some time with good lighting to take pictures.

The bag is pretty simple in its construction. It’s made of some thrifted wool fabric that I felted (the technical term for “washed it in hot water so it would shrink”) and lined with Amy Butler Charm fabrics. There’s also a little pouch made to match the lining, and both have rug flower pins to add some fun.

Table of Contents:
* “Hook Tiny: tips for rug hooking on a very small scale” — a little card with, yes, a rug flower

* a little rug hooked pincushion, which is a little wonky and imperfect, so I hope she likes it

* a pocket journal that fits right into the color scheme

* linen rug backing

* a little book of how to hook

* an emroidery hoop

* a rug hook

* glue for finishing little projects

* and some of that wool I dyed all cut up and ready for rugs

I hope my partner likes it. It has been really fun making this bag and filling it with stuff. It’s got me thinking about Christmas gifts. Hmmm…

I’m getting the finishing touches done on my back-tack project. I’m putting together a little rug-hooking kit, so I’m decorating my bag with little rug-hooked flowers using this fabric.

These are so fun and fast. I think I’ll make some for myself to salvage my clogs.

And here’s some real flower inspiration. My crowning flower gardening acheivement this summer were these prolific blanket flowers (ghalardia)– because they are drought resistent and handle complete neglect.

Dish towel aprons–I just couldn’t resist. My kids needed some art aprons, I needed something to keep dinner off my pants (even though my shirt is usually covered in baby snot), and Martha dish towels were on super clearance at K-mart, so the price was right. Aprons for all! (Well, 3 aprons and a bib.)

Amy has a monthly party at her blog dedicated to aprons

and this month’s assignment was so easy I had to join.

It has been a busy week. Well, it has seemed busy, I guess, but come to think of it, there wasn’t anything out of the ordinary to do. I just felt busy. I think because I was sick. I had a fever on Wednesday, felt yucky all day yesterday and had to go grocery shopping anyway, didn’t sleep a wink until about 4:00 this morning, and I’m trying to wean Logan–once a day would be good. That’s why I didn’t sleep last night. My teeth hurt, my nose was stuffy (so I had to breath with my mouth open which made the metal/ rubberband contraptions in my mouth that much more uncomfortable), my throat hurt, my ears ached, I had horrible menstrual cramps, AND I hadn’t nursed a baby since nap time early that afternoon and consequently couldn’t lay on either side or move my arms. Blissful? 800 mg of ibuprofen helped once I reached the point of desperation.

Funny things:

We had a “Girl’s Night Out” craft night at church last night–just bring something to do and sit and gab. I got home a little after ten and as I was heaping my load onto the counter I looked in Ellie’s food bowl right there under the counter. It was FULL of rabbit food. Was there a reason for this? I went and nudge Barry to ask about it and he just grunted. I was grinning so hard that I just broke out laughing. Silly, silly.

Barry did the obstacle course with his group yesterday for PT–you know, climbing walls, jumping logs, balance beams and ropes. Well, he was very proud of his monkey bar performance. I guess he was the only one to make it all the way across–and he even did a “skin the cat” to get off at the end. Now, you know who’s been practicing at the playground!

I’ve been working on my Back Tack II project. My buddy has expressed some interest in rug hooking, so I’m making her a bag of rug hooking goodies. I went to buy some wool fabric so that I could hook a little rug-patch to decorate the outside of her bag, but fabric is just way too expensive! I decided I’d buy some unwashed, undyed wool and give kool-aid dying it a try. After all, it works great on my handspun yarn and handmade felt.

And it worked great here too! I wanted a good pink to match some of the flowers on the lining of the bag (to be unveiled as soon as my little rug decoration is done), so a mix of strawberry, orange, and a little graped did the job beautifully! I also overdyed some green wool to give it a little more depth and it turned out great too.

Kool-aid is great for penny pinchers like me!