New Nubbin Sneak Peeks

Turquoise has become my new favorite color recently. And I have a thing for combining orange with turquoise lately. But it makes sense...check the color wheel...they're complementary colors. Well, orange and blue are complementary...and I consider turquoise a form of blue.

And I realize St. Patty's Day is coming up on us soon. So I've been making some green "Lucky Nubbins".

This shamrock took a lot more work than the typical heart (I cut out three little hearts and a stem). I wanted to do a four-leaf clover...but it looked crowded and funky when I was laying it out.

Tonight's Open House Event

I went to an Open House/Silent Auction fundraiser event tonight for Eating Disorder Awareness Week. It was sponsored by the woman who comissioned the Emoti-Nubbins. Here is the whole set..including the purple Silly Nubbin.

One of her friends fell in love with Ellowilla and bought her...

Another one of her friends, who is originally from India, was doing henna. So I had her do a design on my palm...

This is what it looked like when I crumbled the dried henna paste off when I got home (ideally, the paste needs to stay on for 2-3 hours so the paste has a chance to dye the skin)

I haven't had henna done in so long! I used to do it all the time on myself, but then when I was working at the school, I couldn't have it on my hand, which is my favorite place to have it, besides my feet... (below is the design I had on my feet on my wedding day)...

I think the lady was kind of impressed I knew so much about henna/mehndi. I was explaining about it to the other ladies' and answering their questions about what it is, how long it lasts, etc. I was the first person of the night to have it done, and we drew quite the crowd while she was putting the design on my hand. And so a lot of the other ladies ended up getting designs too!

I have a sudden desire to visit India someday...

KiraArts News & Upcoming Events

So here comes another string of shows/events for KiraArts. (Which means I'll be sewing like a madwoman again for the next few days!)

• Tomorrow (7pm to 9pm) I have an open house event I was invited to attend by the woman who comissioned the Emoti-Nubbins. She loves the Nubbins and thinks they could be used to promote self-esteem. The Open House and Silent Auction in honor of Eating Disorder Awareness Week, which is February 22 - 28 (Someone close to her used to struggle with an eating disorder). She has some other local small business owners/artists coming as well.


• Moonflower emailed me today and said they're down to one Nubbin! So I need to stop by to replentish their Nubbin population!


• It's the last weekend of the month, which means the Spot Art Show is this weekend (and next weekend). I'll be there on Saturday this weekend (5pm-10pm) and Friday next weekend (same times).

Mid Week to Mid Week...

A life update...

• Mom came for a quick visit last Wednesday (to bring me my birch beer I left in her car from our trip to Rome) and she brought King! Luna was thrilled! King has never come over to our house before!

• Then on Saturday, we took Luna to the vet for the first time for her initial visit for her shots and stuff. They have bunnies in their waiting room. Luna decided to investigate.





• Yesterday, I helped watch Rachel's boys while she laid down for awhile and we played Twister.


• And today I watched the kids for awhile again and did a craft project with them. I got the idea from Scrumdilly-Do. It's called "Shake & Make".Then the kids helped me glue on some paper scraps to my paper scrap box. I was sick of looking at the frozen pizza box

Commissioned Nubbins

Here's a look at some comissioned nubbins I've done as a result of my exposure at the Spot art shows... This one was inspired by the "CPSIA Nubbin" I did to promote an awareness of the Consumer Safety Improvement Act's impact on handmade toys. A woman saw my sad, crying Nubbin and was inspired to ask me to do a series of emotion Nubbins. She works with children (Kindergarten I think) and thought is would be good to use the Nubbins in order to teach small children about feelings. She requested Happy (orange), Sad (blue), Angry (red), and Scared/Worried (grey). I tried my best to use colors associated with particular emotion. The scared Nubbin was the hardest. My husband suggested yellow (yellow being associated with fear...like as in "yellow-bellied"), but the woman ordering them suggested a darker color like grey. I made a fifth Nubbin...a Silly Nubbin that is purple. I haven't taken any pictures of him yet, but I will try to before I hand them over. She also told me that if it went over well in her classroom that she would give my card to all the other teachers too so they could request some Emoti-Nubbins of their own!

I did this other Nubbin for a fellow artist at the Spot art show who does pottery. She requested a purple Nubbin with her sorority letters on it in this pink/fuchsia felt she picked out from my felt stash. She's planning on giving it as a gift to one of her sorority sisters.

She also requested a little heart on its butt!

Oh!...I had to go out to buy some more thread colors for these projects to use with my sewing machine...and I thought it was funny that the thread I bought just happened to coordinate with my set of bright-colored buttons I have. I didn't plan on buying the thread to match the buttons, I was just buying the colors of thread I needed...

The Tuesday Night Girls

Mom sent me some pictures she scanned of the "Golden Girls"/"Tuesday Girls". But she beat me to the punch in posting them! (yeah!...my mother, the supposed non-blogger!) So I'll just post my favorite. Grandma is the dark-haired one with the big hat in the center of the front row. I think we saw this wedding on the DVD...I remember that hat and dress. And I don't know if I'm a little biased because she's my grandma, but I think she stands out the most out of everyone in this picture. Probably because everyone else is wearing light-colored dresses except her!

She looks so like my mom!...or probably more accurately, Mom looks like her!

At least Mom typed up all the interesting info so I don't have to! Go check out her blog post to read it. Well, plus has more firsthand knowledge than I do and she has the whole newspaper article at home...she only sent me scans, so I don't have the whole thing. But I found this snippet about my Grandma in one of the scans...(This article was published in the Rome Observer in 1996)

Yup! That's my grandma! :)

Fun at Grandma's House (Part 2)

On Tuesday, Mom, Grandma and I went to Grandma's prayer shawl meeting at her church. Prayer shawl is where the ladies meet and knit (what else?) prayer shawls for different people who've had a loss in their family. While we were there, we got to talking about buttons for some reason and one of Grandma's friends told us that they had tons of buttons in the church basement in the "Crafty Ladies" supply stash and that I was welcome to take as many as I wanted. So Mom and I went downstairs and had lots of fun sorting through buttons. I think I'm going to make a monster and send it to the Crafty Ladies as a thank you.

Aaaahhhhhh! Oh no! It's my other mother! (sorry..."Coraline" reference!)

I could have taken more, but I didn't want to be greedy (because I would have taken almost all of them!), so I just took the ones that I thought were cool. They had lots of big black ones that were very "Coraline" that looking back, I kind of wish I'd taken too.

After we were finished raiding the buttons, Grandma went to pick up her friends for lunch while Mom and I went to the resturant to get a table. Grandma and her friends are the "Tuesday Girls", friends who have been meeting for lunch/dinner on Tuesdays since they were in junior high! My mom wrote an entry on her blog that has some memories of the Tuesday Night Girls.

There used to be 10...now there are only 3 left...Betty, Beverly, and Betty (there are LOTS of Bettys in Grandma's circle of friends). And let me tell you, they are a trip! Mom and I had such fun hanging out with them! I love that I'm at the point in my life where I can really appreciate hanging out with older women.

I love my Grandma. I wish I lived closer to so I could visit her more often.

Fun at Grandma's House (Part 1)

I was at at my grandma's house in Rome, NY Monday and Tuesday. My mother has off from work this week (February break...isn't working for a school great?) and told me she was going to visit Grandma this week. I haven't seen Grandma in awhile, so I asked if I could got with her. Luna had to come too, since CJ is at work and we don't like to leave her alone in the house for more than 4 hours. But it was the perfect opportunity for Luna to meet her "great-grandma" (or "Grandmama"). This is only Luna's second overnight trip, and it's her first without "Daddy" (CJ). But she did pretty well.

And Grandma has a computer! A computer with INTERNET too! She's joined the 21st cetury!

It's been a cross between entertaining and challenging for mom and I to try to teach this sweet, 83-year-old woman about email and websites and other computer stuff. It's weird when younger knows more about something han the older. Mom knows more about computers than Grandma...but I know more about computers than Mom. But I've been trying to sit back and let mother and daughter fight it out...and I laugh and think of when my mother is in her 80's and I'm in my 50's and wonder what we'll bicker about. :) I tried to jump in only when I was asked.

We also watched Grandma's old home movies...so they're OLD home movies. Like late 1940's and 1950's kind of old....my uncles and mother as babies kind of old...my grandma and grandpa's wedding kind of old. Our friend Tim (who is our computer/video geek) has been transferring the old home movies from a film projector and made a DVD of the raw footage and gave it to Mom. Mom left the DVD with Grandma. I want to get a copy of the DVD and try to pull some still pictures off of it, since there's some great shots of Grandma and Grandpa when they were young. And Grandma was so pretty! And she had such gorgeous dark hair! I guess we know where me and my mom get it now! I'd love to post some old photos of her so you all could see just how pretty she was, but I need to obtain some first and scan them in.

My Valentine Gifts

This is what I discovered when I woke up yesterday morning...

This is what was in the bag...

It's a computer game I'd mentioned offhandedly to CJ that I wanted. It was an unexpected surprise. I really wasn't expecting anything...although I know he was going to do something. Some women are happy with diamond jewelry or perfume or chocolate for Valentine's Day...I'm happy with a computer game. And roses are a treat too. Fresh flowers are especially special when CJ gets them for me, since he has allergies and usually hates fresh flowers in the house. But he knows I like them sometimes, so he gets them anyway. So they mean a lot to me when he gets them.

Valentine's Day Give-Away Winner

All of you that commented and entered the Give-Away had such great sounding captcha monster names (that I will definitely be logging away for future use). So it was so hard to pick the best one! But after difficult deliberation, I decided that the captcha "Zogra" was the best sounding monster name and that means...

SquishyCuteStuff

has WON THE GIVEAWAY!

I can't wait to make a new monster and name it Zogra! I agree...definitely kind of scary, yet feminine...I'm visualizing either an Amazon or a monster/alien princess dictator. Hmmm..."Princess Zogra"...sounds good. "You will bow to Princess Zogra!" ...sorry, I got carried away for a second there!

Congratulations SquishyCuteStuff! And thanks again to everyone who entered. I kind of like the best-captcha-turned-monster-name terms of entering the give-away...it's at random, but still has an element of fun and creativity to it...better than a random number generator or picking names out of a hat. I'm definitely going to do this again, so if you didn't win, you'll have another chance another time!

Valentine's Day Give-Away!

So...I think we're due for another giveaway. I promised you one didn't I?

The prize?

...A Valentine's Day Edition Luv Nubbin. Please specify in your comment if you'd prefer a red one (with pink heart) or pink one (with red heart).

How to enter?

...Comment to this post and write the captcha (word verification) in your comment. Whoever has the captcha that makes the best monster name wins!

Entry will be open until midnight February 14th (tomorrow).

*UPDATE* Sorry, I forgot to mention that I can only ship to the US (sorry international peeps!)

Button Button, Who's Got the Button (Maker)?

I saw all these Etsy promotional buttons on Etsy (duh)...and now have the urge to make some buttons myself!

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=20228666

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=14985361

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=18687494

Where do I get a button making machine/kit? Hmmm...maybe Dan's Crafts & Things. There's an artist that was at the Spot art show that was selling buttons...maybe I could ask them where they got their materials.

The Spotted Galliwumpf

I made this monster last Saturday afternoon and finished her up while I was at the Spot art show. She's called the Spotted Galliwumpf (or Gally, as she prefers to be called). She's made from clean, recycled socks (I love her fuzzy belly!) She LOVES buttons!...she thinks they're delicious! If you're missing a button, Gally probably ate it. She'd better not find out that she has buttons for eyes...or she'll probably eat those too!

I'm putting Gally up for sale in my shop. But I think she's another one of my favorite monsters that's going tobe hard to part with!

Craft Show Update

So, I realize I owe my loyal readers an update on this past weekend's art/craft show.
The 5 hours at Spot flew by each night this weekend! Friday night was over before I knew it and I'd made a decent amount of sales...about 11 monsters. Saturday was quick-feeling too, but with much less sales...one sweater cat at the end of the night. This was my table set-up on Friday (I don't think I ever set up my table the same way twice!)

I sold another one of my favorite monsters! This green guy has been a favorite for a long time. I love how the huge button eye makes him look kind of crazy...and his big mischeivous smile! The lady who bought him offered to take a goodbye picture of him and me.

I need to start doing more of the toothy grins I used to do. I essentially have 3 types of monster-mouths...fuzzy lips, toothy grin, and pointy teeth. I've been doing a lot of pointy teeth lately. I need to go back to some classics.

The lady who bought the green guy asked if he had a name...I said that I never really gave him a name and then randomly off-the-top-of-my-head said he could be "Phil". Isn't that sad?...he was one of my favorites and I never even named him!

I want to be more diligent about naming my monsters. People really seem to like it when they have names...and personalities. I've recently come up with a way of coming up with funny-sounding monster names...I found that some of the word verifications (or captcha ) you see sometimes before you can comment on some blogs sometimes look like funny words. I thought then that they would make perfect monster names! Here's a list of some of them I've gathered:

• Hagnizi
• Ellowilla
• Joysi
• Bylserst
• Trali
• Cinti
• Berslymp
• Grack
• Calaspec
• Chipsin
• Matom
• Oustr
• Winguls
• Baskafel

I just need to assign the names to some monsters. Ellowilla and Joysi have already been assigned and are listed on my Etsy shop. Stay tunned...I may do another give-away soon (maybe Valentine's Day) and base the entry perameters on the captchas!

Sweater Monster Parade!

Here come the sweater monsters! It must be the winter weather making me want to make cuddley, huggable monsters out of old sweaters.

This huggable guy went home last week with Becky, a fellow artist/vendor at the Spot art show. She showed me tonight that she has a picture of her hugging him for her MySpace profile picture! How sweet! He was definitely one of my favorites and was hard to part with. But I'm glad he's making someone so happy!

This monster is from the arm of the sweater the previous monster was made of. I just made her today.

I made this zipper-mouthed monster yesterday. He's the first monster I've done this with! The zipper goes to a little pocket on his front.

These two lover monsters (Valeria & Viktor Valentine) are at Moonflower. I made them yesterday.

This monster came from the same sweater as the above two. (thanks for the contribution Mom!) I finished up this one today at the show.