Eggsactly

Two days ago I was attacked by a VICIOUS EGG. I was. It came out of nowhere and sliced a bit of my thumb before whispering "This better learn you" and then peeling away in a waiting Jag.

OK maybe not the last part, but I sliced my paw on pretty much the roundest, fragilest thing in the world. And I made the mistake of telling this guy:  

His response?

"Oh no! That must have been eggstremely painful"   

Guess how many ways there are to put egg into a word? A million. And two days later he's still at it. It's gone beyond a yolk.

There, I Fixed That For You

What's small, blonde and has the destructive power of 10 angry tigers armed with chainsaws?
Here's a clue:

whud'up?

And here's what this guy does for shiggles when I'm busy making a new slip cover for the couch (and therefor totally neglecting him)

 There, I fixed that for you

That too.

And here's a bit more of a sneek peek at the reason for the radio silence and the child neglect. New couch covers. Dude. It's a LOT of work. but I love them so much. Actually I like the original crazy floral too, and this couch has a good story too, maybe for some other time.

So Damn Dapper

You guys! you guys!
It's that time again!
The most suave day of the year! It's DAPPER HAT DAY! Wooo!
For those of you who aren't my ma or my sweetie (pretty much the only people who read my blog this time last year) then let me explain/recap.
Dapper Hat Day is a Holiday I made up last year. And it's super fun times. Here's the skinny from last year...

"This (Friday) 15th of October I declare to be Dapper Hat Day. The day where you wear a dapper hat and maybe go for an ice cream.

So you're probably thinking "riiight?".
but see, Dapper Hat Day makes perfect sense, and here's why:

Winter is coming and winter is lousy BUT it does give you the opportunity to wear hats. Celebrating Dapper Hat Day is, I purport, a nice way to look winter in it's steely-Grey eyes and say
"Yeh, whatever Winter. Check out my HAT"

AND this time of year wearing hats is still kinda novel and awesome and you don't have to concern yourself with earflaps or practicality or nuthing. Just the DAPPERNESS.

And how are we defining dapper?
Well that, my chums, is up to you. Any hat that you might look at and think "Man alive! This hat is dapper - as hell/all day long" Well then BINGO!
for example:

A toque*? Meh.
A toque with a FEATHER on it? GRACIOUS yes!

A 20 year old, sweat stained, Adidas baseball cap that I swear to God, SWEAR TO GOD I am going to "lose" mister? Nope.
A lovely trilby? You betcha!

AND we shall be celebrating Dapper Hat Day with a spot of ice cream. Because nothing says "In your eye Winter!" like seasonally inappropriate ice cream. If you'd like to join us well then you SHOULD! You totally totally SHOULD. We'll be parading our fancy Chapeau to The Baskin Robbins on Church at 7.00 and you could meet us there lovely (possibly imaginary) internet peoples!

Or you could stay where you are, pop a dapper hat on, choke back a little ice cream and take pictures to send me so I have a super happy. If you happen to be in say, Ireland or England, (HI Mama and Sarah!) you make the whole affair international and thus loads, loads better.

*Toque is Canadian for beanie. Also, lookit ma! I speaks Canadian!

So that's the deal and we're doing it all over again.
HATS! ICE CREAM! DAPPERNESS! Got the general idea? You are OF COURSE completely welcome to join us in spirit of in real life at 7.00pm right here (we'll be the folks in the hats, looking dapper.)

Grumpy. Old. Men.

A while back I dropped a teaser for the Grumpy Old Man party that I threw for my sweetie's birthday. Now I'm finally getting 'round to the rest of it. Firstly of all I wanted to site my sources, I totally stole was completely inspired by this idea here.

This is the invitation I threw together (but in the interests of full disclosure I should say that nobody actually got these, everybody knew the plan before I could so much as turn my printer on, and the guest list kept growing, which was awesome) BUT, If you do your own grumpy old man party and you want to use these just shout.
The plan was to print these on cardstock and line basic dollar store envelopes with newspaper print paper ( real newspaper is a bit grubby).

The inside text read:

Wear your pants THIS HIGH
Order the prunes
Say "whippersnapper" and mean it
But most of all come and celebrate (My Sweetie's) 39th Birthday like a

Grumpy Old Man

The Plan was for everybody to dress up as grumpy old men then meet up at the local 24hour, all-you-can-eat Breakfast Buffet for brunch and hijinx, then go on to play a spot of mini golf (in deference to the bear and my lousiness at actual golf!)
Our brilliant chums outdid themselves on the dressing up front, here's some of the gang

The transformations were pretty incredible, this gent is actually my very pretty friend Sarah

Mr. And Mrs. Turd Ferguson gave the performance of the day.
And it turns out that my brother is actually probably going to look pretty good as an older man.

Are you wondering about the birthday boy? Well, the day's theme was surprise for him, and while he WILL dress up under duress (because he's the best ever) I didn't make him this time. So he and his bestie (who had to come from his nightshift) looked like adorable whippersnappers!


If you've got a powerful curious about the rest of the pictures you can see my facebook album here.

Still Alive... And PLOTTING!

I am I am!

I've been... slacking. And lounging. And playing out. And ignoring housework. And sipping martinis in our courtyard with my girl chums. and stomping to the parks. and sewing summer dresses (because I don't have enough of those nope nope nope). and watching my bear play with his new water table. And sitting in the sunshine with my brother. And eating icecream with my sweetheart (who is turning swoon-inducingly blond in the sun). And spotting new awesome street art projects to see with Teddy. and and and...*
It's sunshiny, see.
And cleaning the bathroom when it's sunshiny outside is like honking a spit in Mother Nature's eye.
That's my theory and I'm sticking with it.

Anyway. I have good intentions and there's rain in the forecast, so here's what's coming up chez my blooge over the next little while:


June is Sew What month with two of my favorite bloggers. Melissa of Until Wednesday Calls and the Cynthia (The Sewing Dork herself!) are running a challenge where you pick one type of fabric (linen, denim, whathaveyou) and stick with it for each project. I'm going with knits (because they scare me and I want to practice). You guys should join in, s'going to be heaps o' fun!

They other thing I'm doing is this



Which is just what it says. It's a creative kick in the pants. Only without the kicking (or the... pants?)
It's free, there's no obligation to share if your don't want and a bunch of pretty awesome folks are on board. I'm going to be using my camera. And I SUPER excited about it. (and also maybe a bit nervous? but in a good way).
There's still time if you want to play along with either of these. And hey maybe we could compare notes?

*Wow. Reading that list back is funny. I don't mean to sound smug (Do I sound smug? Maybe? Little bit? Sorry if I do...) it's just that I feel like my life is pretty charmed and writing down what's good is a nice way of reminding myself.

Le Boutique Dollaire Couture

You know when you get struck by an idea and it pesters you until you do something about it?
Well yesterday I was doing a bit of spring cleaning. OK fine. "Cleaning" is a bit of a stretch, I was poking around in my stash and daydreaming. I noticed a package jammed down the side of Big Brown Box (the big brown box where some of my fabric lives), I fished it out and closer examination revealed a $2 Dollar Store tablecloth, bought a while ago with the intention of making it into a cape for the bear.
I opened the package and discovered that there was far more material than I had imagined. And that it didn't actually feel too horrible to the touch.
Huh. I thought.

I wonder if a person could make a passable cocktail/evening dress from a dollar store tablecloth?

It turns out that the answer is yah? kind of?



Like lot's of things this looks better on the hanger than it does on me (also, the skirt is kind of puffier than it looks here).
I'd like to think if I was ACTUALLY going somewhere that required a cocktail dress I might put a little makeup on or maybe get all crazy and run a brush through my hair... but in all honesty... who knows, it's been a while, and I don't get invited to a lot of formal dos.

Anyhoo, I drafted the pattern myself (for "drafted" read "eyeballed, cut, swore, cut then eyeballed some more") and I don't think that the straight top loves me back. The scalloped edges went all the way around the tablecloth and I though it was too cute not to include, so I did.
I was kind of (and I mean SUPER loosely here people) inspired by this Jim Hjelm bridesmaid's dress (jh5804).


And of course the devil is in the details. It would require some ridiculously high strappy shoes, a bit of costume bling and a floaty goodwill flamenco scarf.

Et, Voila. Cocktail dress.
Now. I'll have a Dirty Martini, frogs in the pond, just scare it with the vermouth.
x

Perfect Happiness

My dog. Perfectly happy. With mud.

Teddy thinks she's HI-larious.

Regal. Super Super Regal.

I'm slowly making the bear a knight costume to go with Castle Awesome. I'm hacking together toddler friendly versions of all the accoutrements that a good knight might require. Though to be honest I suspect this might be more my thing than his. Still, I'm hoping to brainwash him encourage his interest.
Here's what I've got so far:

A crown,

SURE it looks like it might be too big for a 2 year old but JUST THE RIGHT size for a grown woman... but it's.... not? OK FINE, I made this one for me.

BY THE POWER OF GREYSKULL!

But I made one for him too. The trouble is he HATES it. He doesn't even like me wearing mine. I guess he has moral and political objections to the monarchy? and hats? At any rate I wasn't able to get a picture of Teddy in his but it looks like this:

Here's what you'll need to make your own crown,

• Craft foam
• Scrap booking brads
• scissors

It just so happened that our dollar store has pre-cut crown-shaped craft foam (I suspect they've been reading my mind again) which is awesome.
But if you can't find pre-cut crown shapes then you could cut out a crown shape from standard rectangular craft foam, either freehand or using this PDF that I threw together.

For my crown I went with kind of a She-Ra/Red Sonja circlet as opposed to the full-on crown, but the idea is the same.
You cut out the shapes,


then poke the brads through the foam and open them out to hold the crown together.


You could get all fancy and add some PRECIOUS PRECIOUS GEMS! Or not. Your call.
Stay tuned, next up is The Shield.

Mouse! Mice! Meese?

I've written before about how going to the ROM with Teddy is super fun times. We went this Thursday and it was no exception. Teddy conned his uncle Elliot into carting him around "UP? up? hug?" So that he could yodel animal names into his face more efficiently "BURD! BEAR! BURD! COWWWWW!".

We happened to be in the right place at the right time to take part in one of their animal Ambassador talks. And Who can resist the lure of a ringtailed lemur. I for sure can't.

So we sat in a darkened auditorium with about 20 other people. And waited quietly for them to bring out Cosmo the ringtailed Lemur.
As soon as Teddy spotted him he yelled"MOUSE! MOUSE! MOUSE!" breaking the silence and causing a ripple of giggles.
I whispered "Um, Teddy, that's a Lemur".
Teddy nodded in agreement "MOUSE".

So there we have it. Anything smaller than a dog is a mouse.
Including beavers.

This morning Teddy came racing into the kitchen yelling "Mouse 'n CAR". One blurry-eye pre-coffee "Huh?" later he showed me this:



It is, undeniably, a mouse in a car.

Breakfast, Hold the Tiffany's

When there is quiet and my Bear and pooch are hanging out in the same place there is almost always some kind of shenanigan going on.
Like this.
(Anybody with a healthy respect for hygiene might want to look away now or risk being traumatized.)

1. OK. It's too quiet over there.


2. Huh?


3.

Well of course. Of course you're eating cheerios off of the floor in the grubbiest spot in the house. And naturally you would completely lose your wiggles when I try to return the cheerios to the bowl.

4.

because leftover cheerios belong in mamma's boots.

Sammiches too.

Brrr Bear necklace

Colbert might be right about bears being "soulless, godless, rampaging killing machines" but awww, the cute!
So look, I made an effigy! To wear about my person!
And it's not just ANY bear, it's a Polar Bear; and dude, Polar Bears really will give you a righteous killing soon as look at you. What can I say. I like to live dangerously.

This bear is made of craft foam, scored from the dollar store today and whipped up this evening whilst pretending not to watch CSI Miami. Oh Horatio, why you got to be so orange and creepy?

The idea is from Christine at Jane Avion who, you guys, does SUPER AWESOME STUFF. That you should go look at. Really. All I'm saying is Cardboard Moose Head Trophy, but you'll see.

Monkey Magic, Robot Wars

Versus

Confucius, Aristotle, Nietzsche. Luminaries throughout the ages have all pondered the same immortal question...

"DUDE? Would you rather have a MONKEY or a ROBOT?"

Now that question is the theme for Teddy's second birthday party. And you guys are, of course, all invited.

I whipped up these fellows to grace the invitations, once again reminding myself why graphic designers go to university to learn that stuff. I'm still not completely happy with the monkey's eyes but I think that they look OK ish overall. For a rank amateur using free software. I mean, you can tell what they are right?

I had to restrain myself from giving the robot scorching laser eyeballs and pointy, ripping/crushing teeth. As you might have gathered, I'm on Team Monkey (simian 'til I die bro). My sweetie is a robot guy. I'm pushing hard for Teddy to be a monkey guy, but it's not looking promising. He says "'BOT", I don't really know where he picked it up from, and my sweetie swears blind he hasn't been coaching him.

Horsies Are A Go!

SO!
Here they are. Softies for the sinister horsie army.
No WAIT.
Softies to make the world more awesome. Yah that's better.
My sister and I shall be sewing up a batch of these fellows to sneakily give away to random strangers via The Toy Society.
If you don't know who they are you should race over and check them out. We'll wait here.
(The deal is, you make something squishy, then you leave it someplace it will be found with a label saying "TAKE ME HOME". You post your "drop" on The Toy Society flickr group and maybe, if you're lucky, the person who finds it lets you know that it has a good home.)
Which, really, what's not super lovely about that?
Want to join us? We'd love it if you would. You know, even if you happen to have a hankering for a sinister horsie army.

What you'll need is:

• A spot O' felt. wool, acrylic, recycled plastic bottle, homemade felted sweater all are good.
• Some embroidery floss (floss?) for details and a mane and tail. (I've used it for all the sewing on account of my lazy)
• Stuffing/wadding stuff.

The first thing to do is print the pattern out. To make a horsie that's 3 and a half inches or so at the shoulder you need to open it with adobe (there's a button at the top leftish), then change the print setup to landscape, then when you hit print you need to select the page scaling option fit to printable area.
Ok, got your pattern?
Good.
Cut out your felt.
Now might be a good time to add embroidery details (like a super sinister face!) or an embroidery floss mane if that's what you're doing (details on that in a bit).

1. Sew the Leggies to the one side of the body "wrong" sides facing each other. Start dead center of the front leg panel and finish dead center of the back.



2. Use a blanket stitch. Or whatever you like really.


3. Once you have one side of the body done, flip down the "loose" leggies. Sew them onto the other side of the body in exactly the same way. You don't even have to change thread. This is what you're aiming for:

4. Next, continue to stitch up the neck and around the face. Stitch the ear panel into place the same way as the legs. Stop just behind the ears. It's stuffing time!

5. Poke stuffing down into the leggies. Use a pokey implement if you need too, as you're looking for quite a solid fill. Then poke stuffing into the face and head, but not the ears.
Sew and stuff from the neck down, through the body, poking and adjusting as you go; until you reach the horse's bottom.


6. If you're going with the embroidery floss tail then you need to cut your strands at twice the length you want your tail, then tie them tightly around the middle with a spot of thread like this:

then poke the folded, tied end into the horsie's uh, "tail area". Secure it with a few extra stitches as you're closing the hole. heh. "hole".

If your horse is looking a little splay legged then ad a few more stitched towards the feeties from the tops of the leggies at the bum and chest.

Now, about that mane. Here's my own "Mane-for-sinister-horsie-army stitch" But go crazy if you can think of another method. I think it's prolly easier to see than describe, so:


this is what it should look like:


you just repeat until you have the desired amount of equine hirsuteness. You could do double rows like for a puffier "do".

And there we have it. You guys, if this isn't clear enough then PLEASE do let me know. I'm hoping that my sister and I will coordinate our international Toy Society drop off dates, so if you'd like to get in on that too, then just give me a shout.

Equus EVILUS!

QUICK something not related to bodily fluids... well mostly.

So I've mentioned in the past that my embroidery skills have a touch of the maximum security wing about them, but it turns out they also have a bit of CREEPY VOODOO ZOMBIE POWER. POWAAAAH!

See this guy?


He is one of the prototype horsies that I am working on for Sarah and Erin's Intercontinental Horsie Sew-Along/Stitchnbitch (might need a new name for that). The pattern is working out OK. The problem is, well, I accidentally made him the most sinister creature ever.
Look at his malevolent grin. And his evilly portentous squinty eye (only one eye squints, the other roves). He's evil I tell you. Evil.
Here's how it went:

Me: There. Now you have a mouth. *thinks* Kind of a sinister mouth, but whatever.

Horsie: Oh hey, yah I do. With teeth in here!

Me: Teeth? I didn't put any....

Horsie: But you should know, I have like, little to NO urge to eat your brains while you sleep.

Me: WHAT?

Horsie: What? I'm trying to be reassuring. You and your delicious family are totally safe.

me: Yah, not that reassured here.

Horsie: Hey, you got any hot sauce? You know how everything tastes better with hot sauce...

Me: You my friend, are SO not getting legs.

Horsie : Awwwww What? Really?

So, there we have it. Come on back at some point (Saturday maybe?) and I'll have the tute/pdf ready to go. Or go HERE if you simply must have a head start on your sinister horsie army.

Dispatches from the Laundry Room...

Well hey.
We have barf.
Bear barf.
Apologies if you've just become a follower and are now thinking "What the noodles...?! Lady, I did not sign up for puke updates".

My bear is not a barfer; even when he was tiny he wasn't ever even a spit-uppy baby. In fact, in his whole 22 months of being a person he has thrown up maybe 10 times. 6 of those were yesterday. Once was today. The tele-nurse folks (and my ma) patiently sat through my hypochondriacal hyperventilating and kindly instructed me to get a grip. That it's not actually PARVO, because you guys, apparently that's a DOG disease.

So, fluids, rest. He's actually a lot better now, and it looks like the barfing today was down to some genius (me) giving him wholewheat toast with butter instead of white toast with nutthin.
GAH.
T-Bone is having yet another spa treatment. I've been "indulging" in a little laundry room Wu Wei and I think it has has given me what might be an idea.
I'll let you know, when there's less barf.

Until then, a gratuitous bear shot:

blow baby blow (updated!)

Ladies and Gentlemen!
For ONE night only The Messy Couch Cafe PREEEEEE-sents....

Teddy "SHORT PANTS" Filby-Thorne and his blues Harmonica styling!


I thanks you.
That was yesterday.
This was this morning:

.

Should I be calling the Julliard School or what?