royalty and poetry

So, this is what I've been doing with my paws just recently, 

It's for my sis (don't look Sarah!) and it's only half finished. The pattern is from Claire at the Crochet Spot  (love those guys!), and it's way easier than it looks and SUPER instant gratificationy (my favourite.) I'll be overdying it, maybe yellow, maybe tourquise; something springy at any rate.

The other thing of note (well, to me) is that my bear has discovered rhyming. When left to his own devices he will roll words around on his tongue, making up rhymes or finding them and making himself laugh out loud, 

"tree, snee, PEE".

Which, you guys, makes me ridiculously happy. See, I am a person who likes poetry. A LOT. 

I like to write it (don't worry I won't inflict it on you). I like to read it. I like to memorize it and the say it out loud to myself when I'm in the shower (what? that's a thing!). If I have a particularly strong feeling I like to read poetry that resonates with it. I don't have a favourite poet and I don't even have a favourite era but if it's meaning condensed into the succinctest form then I'm all over it like a bad smell. 

I particularly like an anthologie, because, you know, eclectic = awesome; and it's like being allowed a peek into its editors head. (if you're similarly inclined then two of my favorites are the Staying Alive and Being Alive by Neil Astley (this isn't one of those buy-it-and-I-get-cash things, I just loves them)).

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.

What Mama Scored

How did it get to be Wednesday already? I could have sworn it was just the weekend seconds ago. Was there time travel? I suspect time travel. Or maybe aliens.

Anyway. Did all the (non- European) mama types have a lovely mothers day? Mine was pretty awesome, stinky weather notwithstanding.

Sunday I got presents delivered to me in bed.
"MUMmeeeeeeee parcel mum-mee ope parcel mum-mee. MUMMMMMeeeeeee parcels!"
And the bear was gracious enough to let me open them myself. I knew what I was getting as I had helped choose it, but it was my sweetie's idea so that totally counts.
I got a hat. Just like Teddy's. See:


And a little red watch. Both inexpensive little presents that my sweetie thought about. I LOVE them.
Then we had a spot of breakfast, English bacon sammiches, made by my sweetie.
Then we went back to TCAF, the Toronto Comics Art Festival, (it's fairly indie so think Ghost World or Jellaby as opposed to superhero-giant-boobs-guys-in-tiny-pants).
I wandered around, talked to some folks and had a really nice moment with Joey Comeau (AND I totally managed to not choke and say something creepy. So yay for me.)
My sweetie took Teddy home when it was his nap time and left me with a crisp shiny $20 bill. Which was a brilliant present.

Does that sound stupid? It wasn't, it was AWESOME. In a couple of ways. Firstly, who doesn't love a shiny new bill, all ready to be spent on nothing but silliness; not boring old stuff that you need or even something useful-but-fun like lunch, but just plain old life gravy (you know, the extra stuff that goes on top and makes life more delicious?).
And also $20 is just enough to get something nice but not enough to feel guilty about.
That's not just me right?
Anyway. Here's what my $20 of gravy money bought me:


The two big ones are Rice Boy posters. Rice Boy is a blisteringly brilliant online comic that is by turns funny, achingly sweet and heart-scaldingly tragic. You can read the whole thing here; in one sitting, while your bottom gets completely numb and 3 or 4 cups of coffee go cold if you like.

And the frogs! See the frogs? Frogs are a bit special for me. And these ones are a letter-pressed, limited edition card by David Huyck. He does really great stuff, and I think you should check it out (but only if you have eyeballs and are into awesomeness!).

So that was the weekend. It was super. The week has been little suckier on account of rain and politics and grumpiness but this weekend is looking like a trip to the zoo. SQUEE!

Luxury

You know those "what if we won the lottery" talks? My sweetie and I were having one of those a few weeks ago (prompted by a HUGE jackpot). The conversation went something like this:

My Sweetie: So what car would you want to buy first? I think we'd need a Ferrari something something Astin Martin blah blah Lamborghini yadda yadda. And Teddy and I could go down to Barrett-Jackson . So. What would you want?

Me: A Volkswagen Golf.

My sweetie: A golf? But we've got $41 million to spend. We could have a Golf NOW. Think LUXURY.

Me: OK. A Golf with a leather interior?

My Sweetie: But.. I... You're not allowed to play anymore.

But I've been giving it some more thought. See, I don't drive, but I am HELL ON WHEELS on a Scooter. So I've have one of THESE.

But in pistachio green with a cream leather seat. And a matching helmet.
Isn't it pretty?
Sure it might be less than 5 grand BUT it would mean all kinds of OTHER luxurious things.

Like that I was going someplace on my own (or with my sweetie) for a few hours. And it wouldn't be anyplace sensible, it would just be for roaring around, killing time and looking at things. I'd have bugs in my teeth and the wind whipping around my vintage-inspired skirt (because that's how I'd dress on my scooter).
Which seems like the total pinnacle of luxury to me right now.

Image

A Dilemna

Sunshiny sunshiny sunshininess! Squee.
You know what this means?
NEW SANDALS!
Well at any rate, it means browser window shopping for new sandals. Only I have conflict. Very real conflict.
And here's why:

Yup. They're... ridiculous. But they're what my inner six year old wants. Observe if you will,

Me: OOOU! They have Pink on them! and they're REALLY high! And now we're grown ups we can wear REALLY high shoes. And they have pink! PLEEEASE?

Me: No Erin. We can't. They're... look I'm gone be honest... they're kind of ridiculous. And maybe a bit whorey? Tiny bit?

Me: NOOOO! No they're not. They're LUVERLY. We LOVES them.

Me: Not so much. and 'sides. We'd fall on our ass. A'ly we can't walk in heels and B'ly. What? We'd wear them to take the dog out would we? To the Gym? The playground? Really?

Me: We could LEARN to walk in them. We could we could. OH HEY! Is that a giant duck? *tap tap tap*

Me: Did you just add them to our shopping bag?

Me: Noooo.

Me: Uh Huh. I'm sitting right here. Listen, what about these? They're cute and sensible right?
Me: But.... but... I... I hate you.

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.

Some Very Weird Things

Remember the gifties I mentioned? The ones I made whilst taking a mental health break from sewing Castle Awesome? Well, now they are safely in the paws of their (bemused, slightly disturbed?) recipients, I can show you what they were.

For my chum Ali (of zombie walk fame), who is a horror movie aficionado I made this happy couple

It's ALIVE! it's ALIIIIIVE!

They're actually not finished in this picture, I popped them both on a key ring fixing, back to back. They're made of felt and have innards made of scraps of flexible chopping board plastic leftover from castle awesome.
I like that Doc Frank's Monster is rather punching out of his weight class, girlfriend-wise.

And for our chum James, a hand sewn leather mustache keyring. Of course!


I made a few of them for my favorite chaps, from a spot of recycled leather; but I didn't take pictures of any of them before giving them away, so here is James using his as a cunning disguise.

You Guys! The 'Lympics!

I love the Olympics. Love love love them. Even the winter ones. Even the politically contentious ones. And they're going to be in Canada (again) and REALLY soon!
Which meant that the Olympic Torch came to the T.O.!
One of the super awesome things about living in the heart of the city is that things happen RIGHT HERE. So, they're easy to get to (or even look out of the window at).

The Torch relay route was right down Yonge st, not 100 meters from us and would be culminating a few blocks away in Nathan Phillips Sq. So when our chums Tracy and Andrew asked if we wanted to go see it with them I was all "HELLS YES!"
Lovely, kind and generous Tracy knocked on the door this afternoon with gifties. She had hunted down pairs of the official Olympics mittens for my sweetie, Teddy and me. They are red and toasty and they have a maple leaf on them and they are LOVELY. And did I mention red? I like red.

Teddy yelled "MITT" and jammed his daddy's pair on. They come up to his armpits; he strutted around patting things with his giant and hilarious man-hands."mittmittmitt".

There's a chance I have too much time and too much crazy on my hands.
Watching my bear telling T-bone "mitt mitt miiiiiiitt" made me think
"Hey you know who has hands? And who also, I bet, totally loves the 'lypmics? T-BONE that's WHO."
So I made t-bone some red mittens out of some of the felt I compulsively bought yesterday (see I knew there was a reason I needed it).

And lookit, here's those two waiting for the torch.

and here's ANOTHER one of them:

and here's a close up of T-bone's mittens:
So, we waited at the end of our street, watching the lights getting closer, Teddy waved to folks like he was running for office and pointed "PLANE" at the helicopters.
Then UP the road came a bunch of protesters. Chanting "No ol-ym-pics on stolennativelands!"
Bless their little cotton socks. They held up the Torch for an hour and made me nostalgic as hell for when I was a rock-throwing protester myself (le sigh, it's been a while). They were very well behaved and the police were light-handed and relaxed. We weren't sure if the flame was being diverted so decided to trot down to Nathan Phillips sq and wait there. So off we went, chatting to a bemused Texan tourist.
We cut through the Eaton center to warm our toesies up (it was minus 11 out there) and as we came out of the queen street exit there it was! Rounding the corner, chap running with Torch. I went "EEEEEI!" and whipped Teddy out of his cart. We watched as it whistled past and it was... kind of magic.
It's so shiny. Pretty in reality and as an idea. I felt surprisingly moved, and our timing was serendipitous ( I love when that happens). As we got to the square the chap who had carried the Torch was leaving still holding his torch (though it wasn't on fire anymore) and I snapped a quick shot of him.
Doesn't he look like he's had a good night? We definitely did and now I CAN'T WAIT for the games to begin. Bring on the giant crazy ski jumping and the pretty twirly ice dancing. T-Bone and Teddy and I have our mittens ALL READY!

Teddy Hearts Antiquities

My birthday giftie from my mama was membership to the R.O.M. The Royal Ontario Museum. I LOVE the place. In fact I am a big fan of pretty much all museums (even the tiny bizarro ones with someone's lint collection).
But the R.O.M is a p'ticly good museum. It's just had a massive revamp, and a new wing built. I feel weirdly proprietorial about the new wing, because I watched it being built. When we first arrived in Canada in October '06 the metal frame was going up and I watched it grow every day as I walked to and from work. I was unconvinced, it was an ugly baby, all pointy and awkward, but by the time it's shiny skin went on I was madly in love.

I watched it go from this:
To this:

Photo Credits Jcoop on flickr and Here

It turns out that The Bear loves the ROM as much as I do, we try and get there once a week, even if it's just for 20 minutes. I let him loose (with the priceless artifacts) and he is squeallingly enthusiastic about everything; he particularly loves the fishies and the bear and eagle ("BEAR! BURD!") in the foyer.
Here he is cooing over a pottery horsie:

NO mama, it's a HAN dynasty burial piece. Obviously. GAH!

and copping a squat by a pavilion:
and playing in the playroom:
My pictures are pretty lousy, but The Bear actually got paparazzi'd by a tourist that day. The chap asked and I didn't mind but it's brought up some interesting points of view amongst our chums.
Folks seem to be divided between "well he IS cute" and "dude, kind of creepy".
I am mostly in the first camp, but I think that it's not so much that he's cute (though I believe he is), it was more the completely rapt expression on his face. I don't think I have ever been as enthusiastic about anything as Teddy was about the little arctic fox that he was staring and woofing and cooing at when the tourist took the shot.

Felt? It'll Never Withstand the MIGHTY Trebuchet!*

You guys can keep a secret right?
Want a sneak preview of what I'm making my bear for Christmas? O do say yes! 'cause A'ly I'm dying to tell someone and two'ly if you have any super-clever ideas now would be the time to pony them up.

I'm making a felt castle. With a drawbridge and turrets! I snaffled the idea from here (isn't she clever? Yay for her!)

My version is a bit bigger, and instead of using cardboard I'll be using plastic, (because I hate the environment, though ironically, the felt is made of recycled plastic bottles).

I'm basing the basic shape on Bolton Castle, which I have renamed CASTLE AWESOME in my head. It's a late 14th century stone quadrangle fortress and it looks just like a castle should.
See:


So far mine looks like this:
Um, if you squint you can think of it as a post-siege castle. Heh.
But come back tomorrow, I'll be posting a picture a day as I go along. What I have made is THIS fellow:


He is Fred, the majestic charger. And he's MAJESTIC dammit and pose-able! He has a pipe cleaner skellington. Eventually he will also have tack. and eyeballs.
He's all my own design (could you tell, on accounta the bizarro?) and If you too have need of a majestic charger I'll be throwing together a tute over the next few days and if I'm feeling racy there will be a PDF.

*Such a nerd.

Super ! Awesome! Magic!

I have been making STUFF, after ages of not making ANYTHING.
Stuff like a ridiculous t-shirt for my bear.

Our Dollar Store had Lands End t-shirts for $2. They're all thick and lovely so I snaffled a couple with a view to doing some freezer pencil stenciling (heaven forbid my kid wear a plain t-shirt). But then I spotted some iron-on letter transfers. I was all "AH HA!" right there in the store, causing people to edge away from me slowly.

Wondering what his shirt says? It says:

SUPER
AWESOME
MAGIC

of course! Yes it's silly, but it cracks be up every time I see it. And dude, magic IS super awesome. Also it 's a nice time saver, when folks are all
"Hey guy! How you doing?"
Teddy can point to the applicable answer.

Wild Thing, You Make My Heart Sing...

Are we excited about the imminent release of Where The Wild Things Are?
Why yes, yes we are.
How excited?
This excited:



Dude, let the wild rumpus start!