Happy Holidays from Team Awesome.

Maybe it was just late last night, but I was in tears laughing at this after Ron put it together. Check out our little family (aka "Team Awesome") doing a holiday dance.

Bucket O' Animals

To honor Ashleigh's request, I'm posting the current bucket o'animals that is sitting in my studio. I really need to post them up on etsy, but I've been a bit disorganized lately. Honestly though I think that they do make me pretty happy sitting there altogether. That said, if there's someone that you're interested in purchasing, please let me know.

Lynette's BunBun

A couple of months ago I got a request from my friend Lynette for a bunny to bring to a baby shower. I finished him several weeks ago but only delivered him this week. Figured that I'd post a picture of the little guy just to show what I've been up to.

Meow Mush

This is one reason why I like the cold weather.

Christmas Tree O Christmas Tree

Sunday after the in-laws left we decided to put up a Christmas tree. A little early, but it was really fun. We had to try three stores to get the right kind of tree stand and ended up at Wal-Mart which I try my best to avoid. In any case, we made up for it by spending a little extra to buy a tree from the Lion's Club since they donate all proceeds to charity. Plus they let us take all the free extra greenery cuttings we wanted.

You can tell that we really amped up the childhood memories with this tree. Big colored lights, garland, big glass balls. We listened to Christmas carols, drank eggnog and at one point Ron had to run out for more garland. Definitely reminded me of growing up. It's pretty awesome to sit by it at night with all the lights off. Now if we can just make sure the cats don't play with it too much, it should be alright.

Abigail Sanchez Mock-up

This weekend I finished up a new sample pattern for another stuffed animal. This time I'm attempting to create a stuffed version of a particular dog. This girl is based off of our friend Abigail Sanchez who lives with Ashleigh (see A.S.S. link in Friends links). Since this is just the first attempt to really get a french bulldog down I can see some changes that I need to make. The head needs to be a little bit wider and the nose needs to be bigger. And the ears were sewn on unevenly. But otherwise I think that it's pretty close. If you can think of other upgrades, please let me know since I'm going to try to get another one done soon.

Vandalism Tribute?

My friend Jen took this photo after noticing the "Fafa" spray painted on the sidewalk. The strange thing is that it's literally just feet away from where I used to live in the Mission Hill neighborhood of Boston. Second house in the photo is where I lived for about 6 years. FaFa is painted right in front of the old entrance to the vacant lot that we used to cut through to shorten our walk to the subway. And it definitely wasn't there when I lived there 3.5 years ago. Not too many people still use my old nickname and most of them that do no longer live in Boston. Is there somebody who just couldn't bear to walk through my old 'hood without paying me a tribute?

Weekend Update

I have all sorts of things happening that I know I should be blogging about, but somehow every evening gets away from me and I don't write anything. Yesterday I took some pictures and will try to post them in the next couple of days. This weekend was a good balance of low-key and eventful.

Thursday night I checked out the art opening for our friends Ricky and Vessela who have work hanging at the Sentient Bean coffee shop. The work is focused on eastern orthodox iconography and is really beautiful. Friday night had my regularly scheduled date with Ashleigh including dinner and coffee. Saturday I worked at the Historical Society library and then spent a fantastic night at home by myself (it feels like ages since I've had a night in alone.) Sunday was a great day - up in the morning to go to the Mutation Craft Fair with the girls and then lunch together and some great conversation to keep me motivated about my own work. Dinner with friends who were down from Atlanta for the craft fair and then home to help Ron organize his studio and get ready for the in-laws visit for Thanksgiving later this week.