I Found a Cool Blog Give away!!

I was browsing through some blogs last night (a thing I enjoy greatly!), and came upon this awesome giveaway from Dog Dazzle! It's for an absolutely awesome dog collar from her shop! And let me tell you, she makes amazing collars! Check these out!

Wanna know how to enter? Of course you do!!!! First, go to her Etsy Shop and browse through her collars to find your favorite. Then visit her blog and leave a comment about what your favorite collar is! Simple enough!

Good luck!!

Wildlife!

I live in Falcon, Colorado. Just a little east of Colorado Springs (about 60 miles south of Denver). Falcon is a little rural. Jeremy (my hubby) and I have 1/2 an acre of land. Not a ton, but definitely a whole heck of a lot more than if we had stayed in the Springs (where I swear you can touch your neighbor's house just by lifting your arm). We're also surrounded by fields. Vast open fields. I didn't like it at first (I'm a mountain girl), but I've grown to love it. The grasslands have a beauty all their own (and it helps that the Rocky Mountains are less than an hour away!). It's also very cool to have pronghorn antelope practically in your own backyard!

Now, these guys are on the outside of our back fence. Before we had the fence up, they would come into our yard and up on our porch. And I gotta tell ya, pronghorn make a sound very similar to the velociraptor 'cough' sound in Jurassic Park. Seriously. Kinda creepy.

Running off after Zan wnet barking after them:

We also have fox, coyote, ground squirrels, rabbits, tons of birds, hawks and mice. Here's a gorgeous fox that watched us for a while. I love his eyes!

And yes, this is right by our house. The fox walk along the top of our back fence. And they're fun to watch, pouncing on mice! I love where I live!

My Icky Sculpture!

You didn't think I'd forget to show off my AWESOME sculpture of my dog, did you? TheMidnightOrange did such a fabulous job!!! Seriously, her sculpture looks just like my icky Zan! I can't wait until I get it! These pics are the ones that she took - I'll take my own pics and post them when I get my mini Zan.

She's got her huge bat ears, her skunk stripe, and she's even eating a blanket! Which is just fantastic! See, Zan is an eater of all things. (thankfully only her things) We give her old shirts for bedding and she finds nothing more satisfying than eating them. Not just chewing them - she eats them. I'm surprised she hasn't had a bowel obstruction!

Here's some pics of her in all her icky glory!

I love my icky dog, and I love my sculpture of my icky dog! TheMidnightOrange did such a wonderful job! Stop by her shop and show her some love!

A Pseudo-tutorial

So here's my first attempt ata tutorial. I'm calling it a pseudo-tutorial because I'm not going through everything step-by-step, and I'm not giving away my pattern (yet - I may in the future). But I thought I'd give it a go!

The background story: I'm doing a trade with TheMidnightOrange. I did a plush chinchilla for her, and she's doing a sculpture of my icky dog Zan! My tute is my chinchilla.

I have never done a chinchilla and of course didn't have a pattern. So I set to work on drawing one up! I looked up pics of chins and made a rough sketch/pattern:

Then I cut out pattern pieces in my cheap fabric I use for making prototypes.

I started by sewing the front part of the head (before the ear gap) and then the back (after the ear gap)

Then I placed the ears in the gap and pinned in place:

Here's how the ears look sewn in place:

Then I sewed the gusset (belly). Here's the chin without stuffing:

And stuffed!

My first gusset was way too wide - making the chin crazy fat! I re-did the gusset for my finished chin and it looks much better! And here's the finished chinchilla!

I think he came out darn cute!!! And I'll post pics of my sculpture as well! I'm so excited to get it! And just so you know, please don't copy my pattern. It's pretty simple, but it's mine :)

HPC Week 7: suenosdejmi

The final week in this round of the HPC is all about suenosdejmi! Jaime is the fearless leader of the Etsy Owls Street Team (of which I'm a proud member!) and makes tho most wonderful crocheted scarves, hats, and fingerless gloves! But she also has some delightful amigurumi up her sleeves too! (her fingerless sleeves!). I have a gorgeous scarf from her and an adorable amigurumi bull! He's awesome but he eats all my icecream. I'm looking forward to seeing her cow-butt-transformed-finished-cow. Don't ask. Just watch the video! Oh, and visit her shop!

Amazing, Wonderful, Craziness!

So, I hate carrying change. It's so heavy. It jingles. It weighs me down and burdens me.

. . . . . .untill now. Why the change? (no pun intended, btw) Because I got a kickass change pouch!!! With Zombie pandas! OMG! ZOMBIE PANDAS!

Come on. This is freaking awesome! And the seller, kukubee, has a TON of other cool stuff!

Check out their Etsy shop!

And their website!

Brraaaaaaaiiiiiinnnnssss! . . . . . and bamboo . . .

The Raggy Rat

I thought that it would be nice to showcase one of my favorite plush creators, and one of my inspirations - The Raggy Rat. I found her quite by accident. I had uploaded some pics of my plush rats to flickr and did a search to see if they would come up. Mine were there, but so were these fabulous critters:

Are these not the cutest little ratties you've ever seen? Her talent astounds me. Seriously. I spent an hour drooling over her flickr account. Well, probably longer. To say I love her work is an understatement.

She doesn't make only rats though. Oh no. I think she could make anything under the sun!

I mean, look at this fish! Holy crap!

I wish she had one in her Etsy shop - I would totally buy it!


And this badger? I swoon everytime I see him!




Please, check out her flickr page!
And her Etsy shop!
Show some love on her blog!
Perhaps I wax poetic, but I hope to be as skilled as she is one day.

A Scary Little Wolf

People probably think that I'm demented. I'm okay with that. Because I am. (if you started reading Stephen King at the age of 10, you'd be a little off as well!) My newest creation is a wolf. Eating a bunny. This wolf had been sitting in my shop for over a month. Nobody wanted him. He got angry. He went crazy. And now he eats bunnies. He's so darn cute though!

See how cute he is with his severed bunny head? I just wanna squish him!

HPC Week 6: squarejane

Week 6 is all about squarejane! This very talented artist from Canada makes anything you can imagine! Bags, wallets, plush monsters, clothes, paintings . . . she dabbles in everything! And she's crazy like me! (we're going to take over the world one day, with an army of the undead stuffies . . .) Her shop is fantastic. I highly encourage you to check it out!
Now watch the damn video!

HPC Week 5: Lucky 21

Allow me to present Lucky 21! This is a very talented husband and wife team!! (although their soon-to-be-2 daughter is getting her hands in the biz too!) Gorgeous abstract paintings, highly realistic ink drawings, there's a little something for everyone! I love the variety in this shop. The paintings pop with color and are so unique! The ink drawings - whether birds, lighthouses, or people - are beautifully done!
Enrich your life. Bring home some awesome art. Watch the video below and visit Lucky 21!

Joey the Bat

Wandering through the Etsy alchemy pages a few weeks ago, I stumbled upon a request for Joey the bat. A gentleman by the name of Chris Daly has a plush bat named Joey. He tells of his adventures and travels with Joey and has taken thousands of pictures of the little grey bat. Two of Chris's current projects are a Joey the Bat childrens adventure book and a collection of Joey inspired artwork to hang in a gallery in New York. Why does this matter, you ask? Well, I put in a bid and was accepted to make a piece of artwork for the gallery! (whick is rather awesome, I might add).

The medium of choice for this endevour was watch parts. I gave the choice of painting, plush, or watch sculpture, and watch sculpture was Chris's choice. I thought I'd share my little version of Joey!

Here's some of my watch bits and the work in progress.

Yes, it is very labor intensive putting these sculptures together. I started by digging through my thousands of watch pieces to find inspiration and pieces that I thought would work. The wings had to be light so I used the coiled springs (I uncoiled them and cut them smaller). Gears and cogs make up the detail pieces.

Here's my son helping me pic out pieces. Such a good helper!

The body of my bat is a watch body (with the face and top gears removed). His face is a watch face, cut and folded on itself to form a slight cone. Gears and cogs for eyes and tiny gears around the body completes it!

All I have left to do is mount it in a shadow box and send it off!! I'm excited to hear what Chris says!!

HPC Week 4: Love, Alisa

For week 4 I'm showcasing Love, Alisa. Her shop is filled with so many beautiful things it's not even funny. Seriously. Her jewelry is divine, her onsies adorable, and her clutches to die for! And for all you brides to be, she'll do custom clutches to match your weeding colors! Is there a better bridesmaid gift? I think not! So be sure to play the video below, and, more importantly, visit her shop.