Mini assistant

Cupcake likes to help when we visit Ryan's parents.

Come on out!!!

Tonight and tomorrow afternoon! Come see myself and many other excellent Toledo artists selling our goods on St Clair St in downtown Toledo! I will be at Sur St Clair along with Stephanie Elton, Michelle Albright, Danielle Herrera, and several other artists. Shop local this holiday season!

Last minutes

Aside from cleaning up my best friend's dog's pee, I've been doing a lot of last minute Crafts Gone Wild stuff. Don't worry, not at the same time.

You can ignore the messy couch, thanks.

Ooooh!

Who's the feature today over at Crafts Gone Wild? This lady! Go check me out!

Knee deep.

Worst blogger ever.

Can we just say I'm up to my ears in half finished pelts, three bags of stuffing, 14 packages of safety eyes, and a bag of chocolate cinnamon m-n-ms, frantically trying to pull my shit together before Crafts Gone Wild next Saturday?

And yes, I did say chocolate cinnamon. I got them at Target today and they're fairly amazing.

We're watching the Lions lose and it's more than likely my cat's fault. Any time he's over here visiting from my parents, they totally tank. Therefore Lions fans, I apologize.

Has anyone else checked out the kids Harajuki Mini clothes at Target?? DYING!!!!!

All hands on deck.

Gotta love how everyone helps out around here, aka Loki being adament about sleeping in my knitting needle bag at every opportunity.

Scarlet and grey

Just a little sneak preview of a verrrry awesome OSU themed monster set I'm working on. Never fear, still a U of M girl hardcore..I'm just no dummy when it comes to doing a show in the middle of Columbus, you know??

I should really do a post about all the absolutely ridiculous brain melting TV we watch. Lets just say this-Toddlers and Tiaras. Probably 8 episodes in the last three days. Little Miss, Tiny Miss, Glitzy Tiny Miss. Can't get enough.

I haven't been totally sucking the last few days. I did pull out the more Halloween-y theme toys out of the glass cabinet and make a cute little vignette on top of the TV!

So cutey. I have so many toys cluttered up in the cabinet I like to be able to get different ones out every now and again to highlight.

Somebodys got a case of the Mondays

Despite feeling like I'm getting the black lung, I'm going to try to have a good day today:

*my ipod is full of all new music!

*I have yumyum leftovers for lunch

*holidays creamers are outttt! We chipped in for a Keurig in my department, this is my saving grace a lot of days.

Why does my car smell like chocolate?

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Yarn makes the best pillows.

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Tids and Bits

Officially accepted to Crafts Gone Wild! Yaaaaay!

Ordered yarn to, going against everything I believe in, knit OSU monsters. Got it today. Much thicker than I expected. BOO. Thumbs down boo. Clearly a sign that OSU monsters are a bad idea, obvs.

The house is freezing. Still not turning on the heat.

As usual, feel behind on knitting for the show.

I made a new blog header! It still looks like I don't know what I'm doing!

We made the most yummy potato pancakes out of all things, instant mashed flakes. They were deeeelish.

Do not buy the Almond Joy creamer that there are a million commercials for that looks amazing. It is expensive and a giant letdown.

Any couponers out there? Ryan and I are so gung ho about this after watching Extreme Couponers on TLC, but he's been looking and all the coupons out there suck!! Obviously its possible if these women are doing it, we even saw a vegan couponer last night...but how are they gettting good stuff and Ryan is finding coupons for a dollar off four tubs of Crisco?!

The ugly truth.

Just in case some poor confused soul out there ever started to think I was cool...I feel the need to disclose...
Here's what Ryan and I did last month.

We went to WWE Smackdown!!!! Third row ringside. It was spectacular and worth every penny.

And yes, we made signs. Oh, did we make signs.

We were on TV like crazy. This sign looks really grainy in the photo, but it's my best friend's baby's name. Thea love!!!

Yep, I'm 34 and went to wrestling. And held out and Stub-Hubbed so we could get killer tickets. No shame!

Missoni love!

So Target can piss off, and take their totally over hyped Missoni collection and shove it. Here's what I've been working on in my non-monster knitting time. Inspired by the Missoni throw pattern on Ravelry, I'm knitting only one repeat of it to make a scarf. We'll see how it turns out. I'm using Caron Simply Soft for the first try....if I love it I'm going to modify the pattern to get a few more zigs and zags, and use a nicer yarn.

The colors: (this took forevvvvvvver to pick since I was trying to match the original pattern as closely as possible)

Here's how far I am. I was really cruising on it, but then I entered a craft show in Columbus, so it's put to the side for the time being!

I love how tidy it is!

So I saw one of those uber-popular pins on Pinterest going around with a dotty manicure and that's all I've been rocking lately. You'll forgive the raggy cuticles, tip wear, and Blackberry pics. The last shot is Tigers away uniform colors in honor of post season. CLEARLY NOT HELPING.

Always a lady

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Popsicle fingers

I can not wait until I can do all the artwork I WANT to do again. I have again knitted myself into a corner, and have a July holiday weekend commitment that I must knit knit knit for. I reeeeeally want to paint though. I have an embarassingly large stack of canvases in the hall closet. You know, as opposed to my other embarassingly large piles of art supplies. It goes a little like this. Buy it, come home, deposit in art room. See again at art store-"did I buy this? I should probably buy it in case I didn't so that way I have it." or-"Oh, this is on sale. I should probably buy it because it is such a good price and I will surely use it!" Come home, deposit in art room. Do you see where this is headed? Yes, a future episode of Hoarders.

The worst part of it is I have literally about 50 finished pieces that can be sold...I just really detest writing Etsy listings. :o

Mothers day haul

No big secret, I love nail polish....I haven't been to Ulta in a couple months, and I'm on a self imposed yarn diet...so something was bound to give.

I'm in looooove with that dusty green. And I caved on the crackle polish craze!

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Beary huge.

As usual, Costco is total overachievers and made a stuffed bear that's almost as tall as me!! Shockingly affordable at 29.99.

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Bye bye monster!

Another baby finds a home!! This went to a darling little girl who contacted me after Artomatic was over for a bday present for her boyfriend. She picked it up today and had the cutest hairstyle and adorable outfit!! I was at my parents so of course Lucy had to march her furry little butt in and be sociable. I was happy to see him go to a good home, my mom was bummed because it was her favorite and she thought she was going to steal it! Funny thing is, this yarn was such a fluke. It was HIDEOUS in the skein, but I had a feeling it might turn out alright once knitted up. It's referred to in the house as "clown puke yarn." It really has a lot going on.

I'm on a yarn diet, aside from two balls I have to buy for a project for my best friend. I was tidying up a bit today and filled up an entire big Rubbermaid with all the yarn that wouldn't fit in my actual yarn organizer. I'm not even going to count how many balls I have because that just sounds scary.

Oh, did I mention I was hand dying yarn today...and after I de-smurfed myself from the blue dye leaking out of the jar....later I was trying to rearrange the very complicated system I had going on, and spilled an ENTIRE bowl of purple dye all over the kitchen floor?!?!?! I'm not even going to get into how it happened, but it actually could have been way worse than it was. Nothing got stained, my ETID hoodie went unscathed, and there was the teeniest bit of dye left in the bowl that I can still finish the yarn...which I think might turn out ugly anyways. Still, not the way I wanted to spend a day off, mopping up purple dye water.

A smashing success.

Artomatic is all done for the year! Its always a little bittersweet, you feel like you're leaving summer camp or something because you meet all these new people and then (at least in my socially awkward case) you have no idea when you'll see them again! I did AMAZING though, so much better than I ever could have anticipated. I adopted out 31 monsters!!! I definitely would not have done as well had I not had Ryan and my mumma to help me build/watch the booth.
You think I'd be all knitted out, at least for awhile, but I've already cast on a new project for a Ravelry swap and I have one more little thing to make for my best friend before I can take a break...but I really can't ever take a break because then it's time to work on stuff for S Type Creative and Red White and Kaboom!

Oh well. There are far worst things in life than nonstop artsing and crafting :)

The agency is open

Look at all these adopted monsters!!! That's not even all of them, I still have pictures to get printed from the one that were getting bought literally as I was making them. So so so happy these went well. It was a gamble a) knitting and b) doing all monsters, but it has so paid off!!

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Love itttttt

So excited to get this shirt. Its my little gift to myself for doing awesome at Artomatic. Ryan's treat for me was the third issue of "Dirty Found" which is *awesome.* He also got Davy Rothbart's book and I got a cd. Little Found groupies :p

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Fully aware we're losers.

This was us last night, gearing up to watch Wrestlemania.

Not pictured: GIANT bowl of buffalo chicken dip, two different kinds of chips to dip in it, and the Christmas stocking directly above us that is still hanging up for some reason.

I won't bore you all with talk about Wrestlemania, except to say that the ending sucked. And yes, we are fully aware its not real. We refer to it as our "stories."

I will however, say that Artomatic was a huge success!!! I sold waaaay more monsters than I had anticipated, which puts me in a knitting frenzy this week, but I can't complain. Davy Rothbart from Found magazine spoke and was even better than the first time I saw him.

If you couldn't make it to Artomatic, you still have the 9th and the 16th to check it out!

Ready Set Go!

Tomorrow is the big day!!!

Things that still need to be done today, aka thank god I took the day off work.

*Tag all items
*Photograph all items
*Figure out what the hell we're sitting on for 11 hours.
*DO NOT FORGET VENDORS LICENSE!!!
*OR BUSINESS CARDS!
*Get change from the bank.
*Dye hair
*Go crazy.

Holy cute.

Just one of the few odds and ends I'm working on for my display. Gotta make it extra sugary!

Some light reading.

Oh by the way....Cat featured me in a great article she wrote about Artomatic!

Click here to read it on Toledosnightout.com!

Half a sigh of relief.

I have the best boyfriend in the world. He's put up with the past week of me freaking out, second guessing everything I'm doing for Artomatic, and basically being a tiny tyrant-aka "MORE TO THE LEFT!!!!!" Without him, my display would have been a halfassed table and not the awesome tree we built. I'm so excited for next Saturday now! He's been my biggest cheerleader and put up with 3 months of "No we can't go out, I have to knit." So excited for our year and a half anniversary next month-we have a big date of Olive Garden and going to see Arthur planned.

Today was the best day ever. Woke up, laid on the futon together and watched Napoleon Dynamite, (even thought everyone knows Gentlemen Broncos is FAR superior. Then again, people obviously DON'T know, since that movie went nowhere.) Got up and showered, got our stuff together, and finished the installation with zero mishaps. To celebrate our accident and divorce free weekend, we ordered a ridiculously huge amount of White Castle (I didn't even know it was possible to spend $18 there,) came home and watched The True Story of Wrestlemania which I have been dyyyyyyyying to get. So far only the first of three discs is on Netflix, but it was SO GOOD. I know I'm probably totally losing people here with my utter nerdiness, but sorry. I love WWE wrestling. Ryan and I call it our stories :P After that was done we started watching another documentary about the 50 greatest WWE stars of all time.

I should really do a post about Netflix recommendations. I watch some pretty oddball stuff.

The display is almost done!

Just a sneak peek-all these monsters still need finishing touches, and there will definitely be more monsters added!

Motley Crue

So after the first part of the day went well enough, we actually had to build the display.  I go to get the now infamous sketch out of my bag....and dig...and realize it must be wrapped up in the paint filled tarp we left downtown.  You know, just the one piece of paper that has all the measurements we need on it.  Excellent.  We go over to my parents so I can take my dad's truck.  The trailer is still attached to the truck, so Ryan and my mother assure me that the back of the Hummer is big enough to bring home the wood.  I am skeptical-just putting that one on the record.  So we go to Menards....wood comes in 4' or 8'  Four is too small, the Hummer probably tops out at six feet wide.  Menards only cuts 2x4s, not actual wood.  Do we see an issue here?  Ryan suggests tying it down to the top of the car.  I suggest me having a resulting anxiety attack.  We go home and un-trailer the truck (aka Ryan takes the trailer off, I stand there and hold a wheel) all while in cold yucky rain.  Go back to Menards, get the wood, get in line...and realize we forgot the Astroturf.  Finally get out of Menards.  I freak out the entire way home because its a short bed truck and two feet of wood are hanging out the back and "wiggling" and I'm convinced its going to blow away/snap in half.  Once we pull in the driveway I realize Ryan was right and we should have left the tailgate down.  Oops.
We cut, and cut, and cut, and cut.  No one loses a finger.  Considering a hand jigsaw was involved, I consider this a big win.  Not #winning.  Why not?  Because I'm over people thinking severe mental illness/psychotic breaks are funny and publicity worth.
In the midst of this, I devise an all new project.  Poor Ryan.
I use lots of spraypaint.  Despite the bandanna over my face I'm still blowing out green snot two days later.  Healthy!
You would think this all sounds like its going well enough, at least post-wood buying.  Except for when I look at the display and say to Ryan, "There's no way this is going to stand on its own." He says, "I've. been. trying. to. tell. you. that. all. day."  Me: "Well.  You know that sometimes you just need to be firm with me!"  We think we have it figured out...we think.

So the current result is....I'm still way behind.  I still need to make the shelves and we have to figure out how they're getting attached/how this whole thing is getting stuck to the wall.  I still need to cut things out of styrofoam and paint things.  All those monsters in the above photo still need mouths.  I have a whole herd of monsters that still need stuck together/random limbs knitted.  All by April 2.  Aaagh!

Refer to the sketch

Re: post title-Otherwise known as "A comedy of errors."

So this is how Artomatic 419 prep Day 1 went.

Load car-ladder, paint, roll of paper, tarp, screwdriver, chalk, paintbrushes, etc.  We are ready to GO!

Get to space, drag very heavy things up three very long flights of steps.  Realize we can not possibly listen to any more "sexy sax man" jazz coming from the other side of the building and load up Pandora on my blackberry.  Commence listening to "Pussy Money Weed."  Upgrade?  Not really.  Ryan at some point takes over the station and turns on High on Fire.  Luckily we had no one else working on our side of the floor, I doubt they would have been pleased with either selection.

Manage to tape off the space without divorce resulting.  Get geared up to paint....only to realize MY MOTHER (ahem) had not tamped the can lids down firmly and one of the gallons had dumped over in the plastic tub.  Not a lot, but still enough to get all over the plastic bags and box of chalk, etc.  Throw on one coat of paint, mercifully it covers!  (We were prepared to paint...and paint...and paint...to cover that sacred heart.  Have you ever tried to repaint a red room?  Yeah, now you see why I was so nervous.  We probably could have even got away with just one coat.)

Drama.  Oh the painting drama.  I wish I could have recorded all the horrification that ensued over us painting over that mural you see above.  Mind you, the painting is totally 'legal.'  You're allowed to paint over whatever was in the space.  I had this exact coversation.

Older couple sees us taping off the wall:  You're going to paint over that?!
Me: Mmhmm.
OC: Really?!?!?!?!? *dissapointed faces*
Me: Yep.  In about 5 minutes actually.
OC:  There's no way you can work with it?????
Me: No. No.

Seriously.  What about a sacred heart, cherries, and dice says "Yay!!!  Cartoony land of monsters!!!!!"?  That's right, nothing.  Gleeful painting followed.

Take a break to let the first coat dry, try to walk to Jed's, Jed's is closed, we go to Frickers.  I go to the bathroom to wash the paint off my hands...and get stared down by every table.  Perhaps it was my Tupac-style bandanna I was wearing to keep the paint out of my hair and my Bayside CULT hoodie?  I don't know.

Go back to the space, paint, realize we need to leave the tarp there to dry because there is paint everrrrrrrywhere.  Have the weirdest most awkward encounter with our space neighbor that we're still talking about ("How do you think BILL is going to feel about this?", manage to carry a ladder down three flights of stairs without injury, pack up the car, and leave.

Throughout this whole day, every day Ryan asks a question,  I inform him to "refer to the sketch!" which is a a folded up piece of notebook paper I've been carrying around that I drew up in 30 seconds to try to explain what the hell I mean when everyone asks me "You're knitting monsters?  I don't understand."  My lovely carpenter/painter threatens to walk out if I bring up the sketch one more time.

We get home, unpack everything.  So far so good, right?  

She keeps a corpse under her bed.

Ryan referes to this as "the tomb.". Its the container that all the monster body parts get put in, then we slide it under the futon.

Not after today!

La la la

So my $1200 camera got stolen last week, and no I don't want to talk about it.  Except to say that the police report has been filed, we know who did it, and I hope he gets caught on a warrant and rots in jail.  Asshole.

Today will be spent making up all the monsters who poor empty pelts are in a pile.  Expect a photo post for every single one, because I'm an asshole like that.  Also expect them to be terrible Blackberry pics, because oh right.  My camera got stolen.  And I can't afford a new hard drive still, so I can't hook up my point and shoot.

Someone bring me lunch, the monster sweatshop is open.

Oh I juss helpin.

Lucy looooooves to "help" when I'm working. This is her new thing this week, flashing her nakey belly...she got fixed a couple months ago, but for some reason hasn't managed to grow that square of fur back haha.
Still no money for a new hard drive, so Blackberry blogging it shall be!

The Daily 2.20

I apologize for my lack of blathering. My hard drive has decided to evaporate itself and therefore, all blogging has to be done from la magical blackberry until I get to Best Buy to get a new one.
Therefore, please enjoy this photo from last week. This is how happy I look when my boyfriend is making his delicious homemade chicken fettucine alfredo, and I get to sit and knit. My contribution to the meal was rosemary rolls using Pioneer Woman's recipe. I HIGHLY recommend it. Bread with tons of butter, fresh rosemary, and sea salt baked in a cast iron skillet? How can you go wrong!
It was the perfect finish to a perfect day spent at the cat show. And I will diiiiiiie if I don't get a brush coat Peterbald kitten.

The Daily <3 Valentine!!

Lovely Thea Sweet <3

The Daily 2.14

So much pink for work!

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The Daily 2.11

Valentines nails.

Workin 9 to 5

I think Coralene over at Fawn and Flower and I should start a jewelry biznass. We can have a clambake, then in the spirit of upcycling P can paint the shells. We'll drill holes and string them on the ever ubiquitous leather cord.
Magical.

This etsy shop gonna make a milly.
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The Daily 2.10 Bonus Version

As opposed to the dry kind, I guess. Is that what you ask for at fancy restaurants? "Waiter, I'll have a glass of your finest dry water. "

I personally prefer mine wet.

The Daily 2.10

Finally got this book from the library! So stoked on it!!!

*edit.  Not as cool as I'd hoped now that I got to read it.  Bumzo! :(

Open for business

Large bottle of water, inifinite yarn supply, netflix queue stocked, space heater on, off work till monday?
The Artomatic monster sweatshop is open for business ladies and gentlemen!

CAT SHOW!!!

Me: What would her talent be in a cat pageant?
Ryan: Being an asshole.

He's a good parent people, I swear.

Mr Pickles

Finished knitting this little man this weekend. Named him Mr Pickles.
I'd love to share with y'all how we decided to name the rest of the kids, but seriously its one of the most amazing ideas Ryan and I have ever had, so it needs to stay top secret until Artomatic. Let's just say it involves one Netflix and one of my most faaaavorite things.
My mom thinks Pickles needs a heart. Y/N?

The daily 1/19

Coffee, one of my favorite christmas tree ornaments that hangs on the kitchen chalkboard wall year round, and one of my favorite bible memory verses I keep in constant view, the same one that's stamped on the silver cuff I made in metals class.
Look at that chipped nail polish. Quel horror!!

At least I can make a shank out of Jolly Ranchers

Seriously, if anyone saw my Netflix queue, I would probably be institutionalized.  Or at least have my mental state questioned.  Here's the genres that I watch:

Prison shows.  A lot lot LOT of prison shows.  Lockup, Lockdown, do the hokey pokey and turn yourself around.  I have no idea when I became so obsessed with prison shows.  I also have ones queued up about Gitmo, being in solitary, etc etc.  Along with watching entirely too much Law and Order and now feeling that I can catch any perp, I am clearly now supremely qualified to be a corrections officer...which I actually really want to be, but Ryan is categorically opposed to.  BIG TIME.

Fame (not the movie, for all you people to young to remember...in the early 80s, there really was an actually television show for it.  AND I LOVE IT.  Coco, Martelli, Lydie....love them all!!!!) 

A large mess of terrible reality shows.  TERRIBLE. 
Ruby -I know, I have no idea why I love her.  Maybe because even though she's up against so much she's always so "hacky."
Toddlers and Tiaras-I just like to scream at the TV about how effed up these parents are and how their three year olds look like they're 40
Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders Making the Team-I love cheerleading stuff.  I'll even watch those competitions on ESPN

Religious/Paranormal/Spiritual programming-I love Vatican, Judaica (thats my new big one), anything dealing with Santeria, posession, faith based miracles, etc

Transgender/Gay/Drag Queen documentaries (I LOVE documentaries in general-thats 85% of my queue, but somehow I managed to add like five transgender documentaries last week haha)

Mentally disabled/autism documentaries ESPECIALLY if they deal with mental instituations from the 50s-80s.  I know, I have problems. 

Oh yeah.  Somewhere in there I watch normal stuff like oh, MOVIES.  I did watch White Oleander last week.  I thought it absolutely sucked compared to the book.  They took a beautiful meaty book thats like a 3" paperback and shrank it to a weak watered down movie.  Skip the movie, read the book.

And stay out of my netflix queue.  It'll warp your mind. ;)

No one in the family is normal.

This was Lucy's favorite place to sleep during Christmas.  She's a good 3.5' off the ground.

Best thing ever.

Theadosia Sweet Dabilis. My not-niece. Best baby in my life. Future bank balance ruiner. Subject of many photo shoots. Recipient of Chanel nail polish on her fifth birthday. I can not wait for all the fun I am going to have with this little girl. <3