MERRY CHRISTMAS

& HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

XMAS APRON

I decided to make a holiday apron this year. I haven't made an apron in a while so it was a nice change of pace. With having a daughter now I've been trying to come up with new traditions that we can do year to year. I like to bake a lot of cookies this time of year so I decided that this apron is from Mrs. Clause and it is magic. I thought this might be fun when my daughter gets older and we can have fun making cookies every year. I'll probably embelish the story a bit when the time comes to tell her. Anyway I used Simplicity pattern 4282.

TIS THE SEASON

We drove through Christmas in the Park at Longview Lake and I got these shots on the SLR by slowing down the shutter speed and of course no flash. If you look really close you can kind of make out some of the shapes of a snowman and teddy bear in one of the photos. They turned out really cool!

BROWN BIRD

I've been working on a few birds again. This guy was a commissioned piece for a friend. At some point I'd like to make a really big bird with a stand that will stand on the floor. My only concern is that his head might be to heavy. It would be pretty cool though.

TIME OUT MAGAZINE

Just found out from the guys at Luv-able & Hug-able that my birdie Sweetie made it into Time Out NewYork magazine and online.

LUV-ABLE & HUG-ABLE PRE-SALE

The Luv-able & Hug-able show opens this Friday at Gallery Hanahou in New York. There are tons of awesome people participating. There is a pre-sale from Dec 1-4. You can see all the work that is available. Everything looks amazing!!

PLUSH-IT!

Opens tonight down under. Love that they used my illustration after all!

PLUSH YOU! DOUBLE PUNCH

With all the Halloween excitement I forgot to post pics of my plushies I sent to Plush You! Double Punch in San Francisco. The opening was this past friday. I decided to go a little simpler this time and thought my robots would be a great fit for this show.

I haven't been working on a ton of plush right now because I'm working on some christmas gifts. I'd show some pics of what I'm working on but then my gifts wouldn't be a surprise anymore. I don't have any shows coming up right now so I'll be working on a few commission pieces to keep me busy. I'll be posting that stuff.

HALLOWEEN VIDEO

Here's a quick video I took friday night. It's kind of hard to see because it's so dark but at least you can hear the sound effects in the background. We used the program Garage Band to add all our music and sounds together.

HALLOWEEN 08

Here's how everything looked once it got dark and the lights and fog machine were turned on. All the kids really got a kick out of the display. A lot of parents used our set up as a backdrop for taking pictures of their kids. We had a few scared little ones but most kids just thought it was cool and gave us advise on what we should add. Pretty funny. The weather was great and we had a huge turn out. We had a steady stream of kids from 6:30 to 9:00, and went through 4 big bags of candy. The most we've ever gone through. Everyone's comment 'Can't wait to see what you do next year', guess we'll have to keep adding on. Only 364 days till next year.

SETTING UP

All we've got left to do is stretch some spider webs. It'll all look great at tonight when it's lit up.

TRICK-OR-TREAT

LAST OF THE PROPS

I finally finished everything up this evening. The scythe blade is made out of 1/4" plywood and the handle is made from a large wooden dowel rod. It's actually a rod you'd use in a closet to hang clothes. It's been cut at angles and glued and screwed back together. I tied twine around the handle where you hold it and then tied on some bones (made from sculpy).

My husbands been working on light up crows. We bought a bunch of crows at Michaels, poked their eyes out, cut open the belly and added red LED lights. This only works if the bird is hollow. That way you can tuck all the wiring and battery inside the body. You can see below what that looks like. I wanted to show how to do all the wiring but just didn't have time to document it. We've got five light up crows and three non light up crows that will be perched on the scarecrow.

GRIM REAPER

I just finished two grim reaper cloaks this evening. I used Simplicity pattern 9887. Very easy pattern. I would have loved to have made them out of wool or a distressed velvet but each one is a little over nine yards of material. Not only would that have been really expensive, it also would have been really heavy and hard to manage while sewing. I already felt like I was wrestling with just nine yards of cotton. I've got one more prop to finish. My husband was nice enough to make me a scythe out of some scrap lumber while I finished up the cloaks. All I need to do is finish painting it. I've got just 3 more days to finish everything up. Cutting it a little close this year!

GRAVE SLAB / COFFIN

Two years ago I made a bunch of headstones out of insulation foam. This year I decided to make a grave slab which turned out to tall and is now a coffin. Anyway I used pretty much the same technique with this as I did the headstones. Only difference is the headstones did not need a wood frame.

Here you can see the wood frame made out of 1x2's. Each side can be taken apart to store flat.

Then I covered the wood frame with the foam. Wood glue and a few pressure clamps is all that is needed. I could have used Liquid Nails but didn't have any. Then the fun part. I used a hot knife, looks like an exacto knife you plug in, and start to add the detailing. This knife can be found at any hardware store. I advise cutting this foam with this knife outdoors. The fumes are horrible so wear a mask. The top is not attached at all. If I want it can slide to the side to look partially opened.

I also used white caulk to fill in any and smooth out any gaps I had. this also helps hold it all together as well as the glue. Caulk also works well for adding texture.

Then I primed it with a grey primer.

Once the primer was dry I just painted it to look old. It doesn't need to look perfect. There's a lot of splattering and dripping of paint to get the look I wanted. I also ragged on some paint.

And I'm done. Any imperfections in it won't be noticeable in the dark so I'm not going to worry about them.

SCARECROW

I thought I'd show some pics of the progress of the scarecrow I've been working on this week. Please ignore the messy garage in the background. He'll stand about 7ft tall. I started just used to scrap wood left over from our deck project this past summer. The PVC tubes will hold the arms. They'll just slide inside.

I then stapled (no sewing involved) burlap to the front and back on the shoulders, sinched it around the waste and then stuffed it with plastic bags.

Then I stapled some larger pieces of scrap black material over the burlap body and then hot glued strips of black material. I didn't even cut the strips. I just ripped the material into strips.

I used the rest of the burlap material to make the head. They head is also stuffed with plastic bags. I tied a rope around his neck, used some spray paint for the eyes and yarn for the stitching down the center. I found some dead tree limbs and used those as arms. Those are what are slid into the PVC pipes. They don't need to be glued or screwed into place. This allows me to take the scarecrow apart after Halloween.

I bought a package of mesh material in the Halloween section at Walmart, this stuff can be found just about anywhere, and wrapped it around his shoulders. We're also going to add five more crows with lit red eyes, to the branches.

This is kind of what it will look like when it will be lit at night. Our scarecrow will be the main focus of our big outdoor set up this year. I'll be posting those pics as well as some other projects I'm working on for our display.

PLUSH YOU PICS

I totally stole these from the Plush You flikr page.
It's nice that Kristen posted all those great pics from the show. Since I was unable to make it, it was nice to see my work on display as well as everybody elses. Isn't the Internets great! Take a look at the pics. There is some awesome stuff!!!

GOTTA BANANA!

Here's what I've been up to for the past couple of weeks, among other halloweeny type stuff. This is my daughters Halloween costume made from Simplicity pattern 3594. The pattern is actually for a toddler so I had to do some altering of the pattern to fit an infant. It is pretty much exactly as you see in the pattern picture. Of course after I finished it I saw a picture of one of the flying monkeys from the Wizard of Oz and wanted to kick myself for not having thought of making her a flying monkey. How awesome that would have been. DANG IT!!!! DANG IT!!! DANG IT!!! But she goes along with my circus obsession. To bad I can't put her on my shelf with my other circus toys.

1 NIGHT 2 BIG SHOWS

Two big shows open tonight. Plush You! in Seattle at Schmancy 1932 Second Ave. Opening is from 5:00 to 9:00pm. And Night of the Living Artist in Chicago at The Chicago Art Department 1837 South Halsted. Opening is from 7:00pm to 10:00pm. I can't make either : ( so if you're going, ENJOY!

LUV-ABLE & HUG-ABLE INFO

Here's the press release for the Luv-able & Hug-able show. There are some awesome people in this show!!

gallery hanahou presents an encore of last year's successful plush show!

Luv-able and Hug-able 2

December 4 - January 7
Opening party: December 4, 6-9 pm

gallery hanahou / 611 Broadway, Suite 730, NYC / galleryhanahou.com

For the second year in a row, gallery hanahou is pleased to present Luv-able and Hug-able, in infectiously affectionate plush show! The 2007 show had everyone from Time Out New York to Craft magazine buzzing with plush-mania. There will be even more to love in the 2008 show! This year, the gallery is adding luv-able plushes by many new artists, including eight specially introduced by Plush You (plushyou.blogspot.com), the annual plush show in Seattle hosted by Schmancy. Like last year, gallery hanahou is also presenting plushes by a selection of Japanese artists whose work is rarely seen outside of Japan. In addition, plushes by many of last year's participants are coming back: one-of-a-kind work by Christina Gordon of JamFancy, Heidi Kenney of My Paper Crane, Anna Chambers, Blythe Church, and many more! Plushes will be available for purchase and immediate take-home at the opening party on December 4, 6-9 pm. Come early to nab an armful, or order from galleryhanahou.com for your hug-able holiday gifts!

Participating artists

Anna Chambers + Anna Hrachovec + Betz White + Blythe Church + Christina Gordon + Corinne Dean + Doinky Doodles + Eloole + Girl Savage + Heide Murray + Heidi Kenney + Hello Brute + Katie Park + Kup Kup Land + Lexi Franks + Lizette Greco + Lynda Lye + Nicole Gastonguay + Weebco

From Japan!
Ayumi Sato/Junie Moon + The Ossu! Syugeibu + rei☆komurasaki + IMAI SAYAKA + SPOOKS by Kobayashi Mayu + Yuko Hara + Yuriko Sera

Plush You Recommendations!
Ariana Marienelli + Coco Howard + Flying Star Toys by Florence Forrest + Hansigurumi + Jenny Harada + Made By Moxie + Robyn Fabsits + SOWA

LUV-ABLE & HUG-ABLE

I've been feverishly trying to finish all my plushies for the upcoming fall shows. I recently finished these three birds for the Luv-able & Hug-able show coming up in NY at Gallery Hanahou Dec 4- Jan 7. I LOVE how these turned out and I'll be sorry to see them go. I'll just have to make myself a few. Because I'm crunched for time I was unable to take any pics of the birdies in progress. Maybe next time. The last pieces I need to make are for the plush show at Double Punch in San Fransisco. My goal is to have all my work done by the end of the month so that I can focus on Halloween. Halloween is our FAVORITE holiday. I can't stress FAVORITE enough. We put up a big display in our front yard, decorate the house, and make costumes. Every year we add a little more to our outside display so I'll be posting pics of what we're up to. Stay tuned for some Halloween goodness.

THEY FINALLY ARRIVED!

My custom shoes from Keds/Zazzle have finally arrived. I will say that if you're thinking about ordering custom shoes, it is taking much much longer than the 2 weeks the website says it gonna take to get them. It took a little over a month. However they did overnight them to me when they were complete. I have a feeling they are just swamped with the amount of orders coming in. But I was patient. I love'em!

FISHY #2

Here's the last fish. This guy only measures about 9" across. Again I used the same template for this as I did for the grey fish. Here are some pics of him in the process of being made.