Polly & Me

During my visit to my grandma's house a few weeks ago, we were looking through this box of random photos, and I found these three pictures...

Yes, that blue-eyed baby is me! I had blue eyes for a long time when I was a baby, much to my mother's delight, who loves blue eyes and thought I would be dark haired with bright blue eyes. But then when I was two they changed to brown . Sorry Mom! I couldn't help it! I would have liked to have kept those lovely blue eyes too!

I have no idea how old I am in these (probably only a few months), but look who I'm hanging with! It's Polly Esther!

Even at such a young age, I loved my sock monkey!

I have a philosophy that every child needs a sock monkey. Until I started making my own plush toys, it was my go-to baby shower gift.

Happy 4 Year Anniversary KiraArts!

While looking through my photos of my early sock monsters a few weeks ago, I realized that November marks the 4 year anniversary that I've been making monsters! I wasn't calling myself KiraArts back then...I hadn't even thought of creating a business and selling my monsters back then...but that's when it all started.

The picture above shows the first 3 sock monsters I ever made (the rainbow one was the very first). The date it says this picture was taken is November 27th, 2006. I don't know if I made the monsters on that day, or if I just took the picture on that day. But since that's the date I have, I've decided that today marks the 4 year anniversary that I've been making sock monsters! Yaaaaaaaay!

My 25-year-old brother is the owner of the camo monster (which he still keeps in his truck...seen in the picture above). The blue stripey one resides with Evan, my friend's oldest son, who is now 13. But I can't remember who ended up with the rainbow one. How sad that I can't remember where my first monster ended up. I'm sure I gave it to one of the kids at church. That's where my monsters all ended up in those days.

After making those first 3 monsters, I just couldn't stop! And 3 days later those 3 monsters had multiplied into 10. And the rest is history. I always make sure I take a picture of every monster I make (Excluding Nubbins). One of these days I am going to have to go through my pictures and count how many individual monsters I've made.

Green-Tongued Sweater Monster

With sweater-weather comes sweater monsters!



The tongue is green courderoy. (I love making monsters with courderoy!)


This guy was made out of a sweater I used to wear in high school...back when I used to wear oversized sweaters bought from the men's section of Rue 21 (and thought it was a good style for me) because the clothes in the women's section were for skinny girls and didn't fit me.

Frump-girl fashion issues aside, this navy blue sweater with orange stripes was my favorite. It was comfy and I thought it made me look pretty good. (this is actually one of my favorite senior pictures) I don't know where the sweater is now. I most likely gave it to Goodwill years ago, before I started making sweater monsters. ~sigh~

Mother-Daughter Silhouettes Comparison

Mom in 1972.

Me in 1983

Mom (right) and me (left) in 2010.

"Un-Toys"

A post on Apartment Therapy's kid blog Ohdeedoh sparked the memory of my favorite "un-toys" (things that aren't really toys that kids like to play with...like the classic empty cardboard box). Two of my favorite things to play with as a child were these two ceramic mice my mother had painted for me...a little boy mouse in overalls and a little girl mouse in a pink dress.


They were meant to be only for decoration, but I would play with them like they were little toy figurines. That's probably why they have chipped ears and feet now.

Other "un-toys" I enjoyed were bolsters, pillows, and blankets, which my brother and I would always use to make forts. (every kid knows blanket forts are the BEST!)

Origins of Polly Esther the Sock Monkey

The other day at my parents' house, I was looking at family photo albums (that need some serious re-scrapbooking!...due to years of being in those sticky "magnetic" photo albums...but that's for another post). I found this picture of me when I was a year old, watching Saturday morning cartoons with Daddy... (well, Dad's watching cartoons, I don't know what I seem to be preoccupied with)...


...with my first sock monkey...Polly Esther!

And I found this Family Circus clipping in the album as well. THIS is where my Mom got the idea to name my sock monkey Polly Esther!

Terrible Yellow Eyes

I just discovered this delightful blog called Terrible Yellow Eyes. It has some wonderful artist interpretations of the childrens' classic "Where The Wild Things Are"...by various artists in various styles and mediums.

Can you believe, with my love of monsters, that I've never owned a copy of "Where The Wild Things Are"? It's been so long since I've read it... I should go to the library for a refresher. By the way, I absolutely can't wait for the movie to come out!

I'm feeling very inspired now to plan some "Wild Thing" Nubbins...one of Max and then one of the Wild Thing that is most recognizable...the one with the bulbous pink nose, horns, brown mane, round face and stripey body (most artists actually seem to favor this one).

The Necktie Dress

Ah HA! My mother had the picture I as looking for! She said she looked for an hour and a half for it! I knew someone had it! She says she wants me to come over to help her organize her pictures...

Anyway, the reason I was asking my mom for this picture was because I caught a cool post over at CraftyPod about crafting with old neckties, and I was reminded of a friend of mine who made things out of ties (back before it was cool!). She made purses and skirts and stuff, but her most impressive project was when she made herself an entire dress out of old ties (that my brother had brought her from Goodwill when he worked there) and wore it to a formal event.


Out of any of the necktie dresses I've seen, none ever compares to Christine's in my mind. I love the swirly flowy pattern she did with it! I wish I was half the creative seamstress she is! But I just make monsters. ;)

More PhotoBooth Love

I was searching through my pictures for something specific (a picture of a friend of mine in her homemade formal dress made out of neckties) and finally came across my other photobooth pictures. Two of them are the classic "strip" format, but the third looks like a polaroid...which reminds me that I have another of the polaroid-looking ones somewhere. The far-right is me and my brother when we were kids. Next to that is me and my old friend Jessica. The last "Polaroid" one is of me, my brother, our friend Alan, and my high school friend Lacey (and for some reason, a small stuffed gorilla).

I am so tempted one of these days to sneak Luna (my dog) into one of the malls with a photobooth and take pictures!

EVERYONE is on Facebook!

I caved in and joined Facebook yesterday. My initial excuse is that I did it in order to have more exposure for my Etsy site.

Holy crap...EVERYONE is on Facebook! Through cross referencing my friends' friends, I've seen names of people from way back in the day who I haven't seen or talked to in years. Super-duper-uber-nostalgia. And some of these people who, back in the day were young kids I knew, have grown up...and some of them are married and have kids. It's crazy!