Merry Chris Mouse

Well that's what I'm calling him anyway. These are what I gave to my co-workers for Christmas. They are chocolate covered cherries with a Hershey kiss stuck to them. They are super easy. I found the directions here and added my own little twist by putting them on a plastic spoon, and tying a note to them which read "Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse". They were a bit hit.

embracing the sweetgum tree

We have this tree in our front yard. It is an annoying tree. It is annoying because it's limbs are somewhat brittle and break easily and it also drops nasty little spiney balls all over the yard. It is a Sweet Gum tree.

For several years it has been a pain and I have grumbled and complained about it. But this year it was part of my list of goals to revise my attitude toward the sweetgum tree. So I took it upon myself to learn a bit more about it.
Did you know sweetgum balls have the same stuff in them used to make the vaccine against the bird flu?
Well it does.
Did you know crafters really like those little spiney boogers? I didn't.
And that people in certain parts of the country have no idea what a sweetgum ball is?

Well anyway, after discovering that they are good for crafting, I made a new goal of finding a few crafts to use them for. This spider is my first. Next up a holiday wreath!

The Dragon*Con hat

This is my hat for Dragon*Con, the big sci-fi/fantasy convention I'm going to with my DH and friends over Labor Day weekend. A big part of the whole experience is costuming. I'm not so much going to participate as to watch, but I thought I would at least like to have something interesting to wear while I'm there. The area I'm most interested in down there is the Youth Literature tracts, so after long consideration of various characters I decided to go as "Tiffany Aching" from Terry Pratchet's Discworld series The Wee Free Men and Hat Full of Sky

Here is what I patterned my hat after


Here is my hat with our messy "little" room behind it.


And here is what it looked like wearing it in the dusty mirror.


The little guy on the top kind of swings around while you walk.
I made the hat by copying the characters from the book cover, then creating backs for them so they'd work in 3 demensions and then had them laminated for sturdiness and sewed them on to the old witch's hat (which btw, I think I wore for halloween when I was 12 and my mother kept and used as decoration on our porch for years) with gold thread.

It will pale in comparison to most costumes down there, but if nothing else I hope it becomes a conversation piece.

A new card. I have been trying to master the art of the pop up. This is the first card that I have managed that actually comes up and creates negative space behind it without any help from me. I do need to use different glue though.
Here is the front of the birthday card:


And here is the card when opened.

Bears!

After numerous sitings of bears in our area recently and one really funny news story : http://www.johnsoncitypress.com/Detail.php?Cat=HOMEPAGE&ID=57095 (copy and paste I can't figure out how to make it a link) regarding them I made this illustration.. I call it "Bear with us in East Tennessee"



No reason for drawing it really, just for the heck of it. I'm on a roll recently. Thank you nudge nudge, for nudging me to do stuff :)

In Honor of Father's Day

A new illustration. I call it "Waiting Up For Daddy"

Bunny!

It hasn't really become anything yet. For now it is just an illustration. One day I will give it a purpose for existance. For now it is just because I was in the mood to draw and color a bunny.

If You Give A Mom A Mop

This is a collaborative effort between Farmwife and Zannli. Farmwife wrote this incredibly cute piece of work and zannli drew the pictures.
We hope you find it enjoyable.


IF YOU GIVE A MOM A MOP

If you give a mom a mop,
She'll ask you for a vacuum.

















But first She'll want to dust,
so she'll ask you for a dust rag.

















Then she'll notice the rag drawer is empty,
so she'll want to do the wash

















When you take her to the laundry room
she'll have to walk past the kitchen sink.
She'll see all the dirty dishes
and want to load the dishwasher.
















When she gets out the dish soap
she'll want to organize the cleaners.



















While she's organizing the cleaners,
Grandma will call.
They will talk for an hour
while Mom alphabetizes her Rolodex.


















Once she gets off the phone
she'll want to check her e-mail.
















While she's online, she'll read about a new brand of linoleum.
Then she'll look at the floors,
















And ask you for a mop.

Funny Farm

I have lacked motivation/inspiration recently until Farmwife posted in her blog about needing a new flag that said "Welcome to the Funny Farm". The term conjured images of animals in classic comedy gags for me and the thought made me giggle so I put it to paper. And thus this image came about. I haven't been working on anything real crafty recently but the illustration of the mental image was a wonderful creative outlet.