Yoki the Dragon

If you know someone who is into plushies (either making or receiving them) or you yourself enjoys making stuffed animals, there are many cute and cuddly patterns available online for you to give (or to buy, make and give). This winter solstice season, why not give Yoki to someone you care about, created by DIY Fluffies. I just love this little guy – I’ve made him three times already in a bounty of colours, and have changed bits of the pattern each and every time.

Not bad for my first pattern! Still have to work out some kinks.

Dana

The dragonfly’s a timid thing,
He’s very pretty, too;
His lacy wings are clear as glass
And delicate as dew.
I don’t know why the dragonfly
Has such a fearful name.
I never saw a dragon
That was nearly half as tame.

Geoff

My nephew is going to be born. any. second. now. Give or take a few days. And we’ll be ready for him (with a cute and cuddly giraffe). I had some leftover material from Mitch so I made Geoff (or ‘Raff the Giraffe, from the adorable Funky Friends Factory).

Bite Me! as Performed by Potatoes

A good thing about having a recovering right wrist is I have a lot of reading (sigh, yes, and TV) time. One of the books/graphic novels I have been enjoying as of late is Bite Me! by Dylan Meconis. It’s a funny vampire tale of epic proportions and chickens and I just got my printed copy in the mail last week. You can read it online or buy the printed version; it has a very nice shiny cover, real pages and it gets rid of the complications that are involved in reading a webcomic. Instead of clicking a button, you turn a page! No need to worry about your Internet connection if you do it old school.

As for the image above…well…there was a contest for Bite Me! that I just had to enter. A friend introduced me to the comic long ago and I felt that spending a weekend dressed-up* with painted potatoes and eggs was the best way to show my respects for it…as can be seen here. I must add that later the potatoes were made into mashed garlic taters. (The scene is from this page by the way)

*is it really dressing up if the clothes are from your everyday wardrobe? sigh.

Babies! I just can’t get enough of ‘em!

Zoey, Mitch and Edwin

One (three?) of the babies gifts from my husband and I were these cute and cuddly creatures that I made (and James gave the thumbs-up to) from the very fantastic and wonderful Funky Friends Factory. I had such fun making these guys, and everyone really liked them.

Oh so cuddly.

There is a baby shower this weekend for my sister-in-law; I’ll be decorating cookies and decorating and icing a cake (hopefully). My hand should be ‘fine’ by then! Its a jungle-themed shower (to go with their baby room) and it’s been a ‘cute’ journey of getting things for the shower, making pictures for the baby room, making shower gifts, and making The Lamp.

In the Jungle...

The lamp was a great group project, starting with me and my mother-in-law going off and getting a plain lamp, which is harder than it sounds. We needed one with a flat base, and a rod that we could enclose in bamboo. Now that I think of it, it probably would have saved us time if we just made the entire thing from scratch. The shade on the lamp was awful, so we got a separate shade. Back home, my mother-in-law covered the lamp shade with new material and glued cork to the base, while the mom-to-be and I sculpted the animals and leaves out of sculpey. We had my father-in-law drill some bamboo (its not completely hollow!) and remove the lighting switch while the sculpey figures were painted.

I think it’s cute. I think the baby probably won’t care (BUT in the years to come, will look back on a photo of it and go ‘gawwww!’).  (I made/painted the monkey and the lion.)

Holiday Ornaments

Cute little miniature sculpey ornaments, painted with acrylics. From the top left box moving clockwise, there’s Father and Mother Christmas, Grandfather and Grandmother Frost (she is holding Kolach), Simon the cat and Jersey the dog, and a cute little bunny couple. These were fun to make, but took me a long time. Probably because I am not very good at sculpting.

2009 has already started for most of the world, but right now for me it’s still 2008. It was a hard year, it was a good year, it was a sad year and it was a ’suddenly Canada is smothered in snow at the very end of the’ year. 2009 can only get better or worse, 50/50. For now I can show you some holidays gifts I made for family in ‘08, now that the year is wrapping up.

I (nervously) asked the very funny and very talented Kate Beaton if I could put one of her comics onto a cookie jar. This comic to be exact. My dad is a big history-fan of Napoleon. And he likes cookies. I imagined he would like her comics too, so as an xmas gift I painted a little cookie jar.

Napoleon Cookie Jar

Poor Napoleon, how salty his cookies must taste from his sad, sad tears. I filled the jar with cookies (and English Mints and licorice) and sent it along with other Napoleon-related gift items (that I shall post in the future).

(The new section added to gallery is called ‘Craftyness’ with the idea that all things ‘crafty’ go there; so it’s not a showcase of projects that were a result of my ‘craftiness’.) …and…is that music and meowing that I hear? What are those crazy cats up to this New Years?