a month of softies: what's orange and black and white all over?

Meet my most recent late-night visitor, Aggie Bea Bixler (which is short for Agatha Beatrice Bixler). She arrived last night around ten o'clock a little tired, a little hungry and a little upset too.

You see, Miss Aggie Bea was on her way to a Halloween tea party when she happened upon a wicked old witch in a particularly foul mood. The nasty old witch couldn't stand Aggie Bea's delight and anticipation concerning said tea party so she just zapped the little girl dead instead. Obviously, Aggie Bea was completely taken aback by the witch's actions! Of course you will never meet another five year old with more impeccable manners than Aggie Bea and of course Aggie most certainly would have invited the witch to come along for tea as well...if only she'd been given the chance!

Last night Aggie was terribly woebegone about the whole situation. Here she was all decked out in her fancy new tea party dress (made from fabric her mother had designed herself plus there were black and white polka dot bloomers with glow-in-the-dark rick rack!), SO looking forward to a delightful tea party with all her closest friends when, of all days, she had to cross paths with an irascible old witch! Darn the luck! She really was looking forward to that tea party.

Once she'd finished telling her tale of woe I let her know that we were having our own Halloween party of sorts this weekend. Well she perked right up! "What sort of Halloween party will it be," she asked. I told her it was actually for Caleb's third birthday. That cinched it. She KNEW there was a reason she chose to visit our house. She'd found her party after all and she was certain she would have a lovely time. So I guess for now, we have an additional house guest to look after.

P. S. I found out this afternoon that Aggie is first cousins with Spooky Brooster. Small world, eh?

freebie...

It's a small little line drawing that makes a great little embroidered patch! I will post my finished piece tomorrow after we pick up Logan from school.

Click here to download the .pdf file.

unexpected visitor...

man...

I was a diligent little sorter last night. I divvied up all the ATCs I had on hand for the swap, labeled all the envelopes, packaged all the treats, and wrote all my thank you notes for the sweet gifties people sent along with their cards. When the last two sets of cards arrived in this morning's mail I divvied those up and now everyone's envelopes are one their way! They may even make it by this Friday!! In the end it all worked out well.


recycling a picture here because the post feels naked without one...

There will of course be a Christmas ATC swap and an ornament swap too. I used to participate in ornament swaps with a group of primitive/folk art designers and almost always loved what was sent to me. I didn't do any ornament swaps last year or the year before due to travel schedules and other obligations. I am already feeling the itch to jump into at least one this year so why not host it as well? Details on both to come November 1st! Coming later this evening: a teeny-tiny freebie stitchery pattern.

a haunted atc swap...

interested in the process? click here.

wondering what she looks like without her mask? click here.

I had originally planned to ship our swaps out today, but you know how it goes...everyday life steps in and our best laid plans are trampled while we deal with sick kids, practicing fire drills because it's on the homework list, juggling out of town guests, etcetera. I just finished my own cards last night and the envelopes this morning! I have about half of the sets here and expect the rest to show up by Wednesday or Thursday at the latest, so for now the plan is to ship on Friday. I'm going to try to get the overseas participants out in tomorrow's mail so that maybe they'll arrive on or before Halloween. I'm not holding my breath, but I suppose it could work out!

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I'm not sure what was going on with Blogger yesterday but it started out by publishing this entry twice. I went in an deleted one of them so it was gone in my post list but still doubled up on the blog page. Well it finally went away this morning...along with your lovely comments! I can still see them on Haloscan, but I can't figure out how to move them to this post.

illustration friday: ghost

to view with mask down click here.

I carved this little ghost to use for ATCs for the A Haunted ATC Swap I'm hosting. The idea stemmed from a softie I designed (and am still working on) for the October theme for A Month of Softies.

I stamped onto vellum and then colored the backside of the image (a method picked up from Heather, the queen of hand colored block prints) with watercolor markers (for a more ghostly appearance). After everything was dry I mounted the ghostie girls to white cardstock printed with excerpts from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. As luck would have it, the little pumpkin head I carved for my stamped fat quarters was the perfect size to use as a mask for the ghost. Hooray for not having to carve a second pumpkin head a la one pissy, headless Hessian soldier! The mask is stamped on some heavy duty handmade paper. I used some cabling wire for the handle and sandwiched it between the mask and another piece of handmade paper. For the life of me, at one o'clock in the morning, I could not figure out any other way besides using a hot glue gun (gasp) to attach the mask to the ghost's hand. Although, in the end the hot glue gun actually ended up adding the benefit of a slight weight to the hand so the mask floats just above the face and not at a 45 degree angle like my mock-up did.

calavera notecards...

When I first designed this guy for Emily's postcard swap I was worried it was too simple (especially after I saw Theresa's. Her's are FANTASTIC!!) or too plain. But after I received so many lovely compliments from you guys and several email inquiries about swapping or purchasing some postcards or cards I felt MUCH better about it. Thank you!!



I made some notecard sets and put them up for sale in my "paper department." I am planning to make a handful of postcards to put up too, maybe over the weekend (although Lynn's parents will be here and we tend to go-go-go when they're up for a visit).

Next up on my paper to-do list is Christmas cards. I hope to have at least two designs available by the 27th. Oh, and I haven't forgotten about my treat for the embroidery fanatics out there either...it's on it's way...maybe tonight, but probably tomorrow.

seriously tardy...

but finished! Finally finished and on their way to their new homes.



These girls kicked my ass, but I am so happy with the way they turned out in the end. Originally I was going to stitch their faces directly onto the doll bodies (like the girl in the middle) but I found it to be extremely rough on my fingers trying to manipulate the heavy duty needle the way I needed to so the wool felt faces became the second option. Once the faces were stitched and attached I sewed and needle felted their hair onto their heads.

Once the dolls were finished I'd planned to needle felt the initials to the torsos of the dolls. After I had cut out a couple of the initials and pinned them to the torsos I decided to nix the idea...it seemed to dumb down the overall look. My next thought was to make little collages sandwiched in glass but I knew I couldn't use the solder I had on hand (lead exposure is a no-no for us pregnant folk) so then I moved onto my next idea which was to cluster different charms and letters together for a pendant and WOW, between the busy prints and the busy cluster of charms it was NOT good. Back to my original idea...I really didn't want to go to the craft store for lead-free solder so with latex gloves on I dug through my drawer of glass working supplies in hopes that I had randomly purchased some lead-free solder at some point in time. Lucky me, I had!



I have to say the lead-free solder is MUCH nicer to work with; plus, I guess if you wanted to, you could lick it and not go crazy from the lead poisoning. I do not recommend licking the charms though because I used a patina to turn the solder copper and it probably has its own brand of crazy causing chemicals in it. Anyway, the charms turned out super cute and really pop in front of all my busy polka dots.

I hope all the recipients will love their initial dolls and feel like it was worth the wait. There's nothing worse than receiving a long overdue swap and then being totally disappointed with its contents to boot. Fingers are crossed!

week twelve begins...

Now, not that I am complaining or anything, but why is that as the clock stikes twelve on the first day of the twelfth week of pregnancy I feel pretty much back to normal? Maybe even a little bit better? Along that same vein, why is that I just sucked it up and suffered through the fatigue before I figured out I was pregnant, but the second I was sure there was a bun in the oven, my body was absolutely overcome and no matter how hard I tried to keep up I just couldn't? I am still baffled by this even working on number three.



Anyway, with the nausea ramping down and the fatigue wrapping up I have worked feverishly on my initials (which are almost done! and will ship on Monday!!), painted swatches on the walls of my living room (love the color) and the downstairs guest room (um, hoping it dries darker but if it doesn't we'll be living with it because I already bought two gallons of the color...) and made my postcards for Emily's Day of the Dead postcard swap.



Once I get my initials boxed and ready to mail I have to work on my ATCs for Kristen's bird ATC swap and get them in the mail on Monday too. After that I have to make ATCs for my own swap and then after that I think I might be caught up again...is that possible? I can't even imagine...

embroidered patch swap...

Faun is hosting an embroidered patch swap. Go visit her and sign up while you're there!

quick trip...

Logan was off from school on Monday so over the long weekend we took a quick trip to Colorado to visit Lynn's brother, sister-in-law and our niece.



We spent a good amount of time just enjoying the fresh air, cooler temperatures and fantastic views. The boys played very nicely with their cousin...she is eighteen months old and I was worried they might be too rough, but they were great. Logan was especially good the entire trip and Caleb was pretty good, although he certainly had his moments. I think he's trying to really pack a punch with these last few days of being a terrible two year old. I can only hope that three will not be as stinky. Do you hear me, Three? Please don't be as stinky as Two sometimes was. I'm begging you. I don't think Lynn can take it!



Rose found a local nursery that was hosting a pumpkin patch complete with hay maze, spook house and bounce house. We stopped by with the kids and they had a blast! I caught some great pictures of the kids in those painted vignettes where there's a hole for your face (do they have a name?) as well as them just roaming around the place.

We had a great visit, travel was uneventful and we made it home tired and safe. I don't think you can ask for anything better than that. Now it's back to the normal, hectic schedule we've been keeping lately and unpacking and washing/drying/folding loads of laundry. After my initials are finished I have a little treat in mind for those who enjoy a little embroidery project here and there. More on that later!

i'm getting there...

Okay, one over due swap finished and mailed! I just dropped my stamped fat quarters off at the post office - what a relief! The guilt is starting to lift :).



I sent these along with a few other goodies to my three swap partners. I hope they like everything.

Now, somehow, between the packing I need to be doing, the fixing of dinner, the getting boys ready for bed and the feeling blech, (Lynn is out on business tonight, btw, or I would only be packing and feeling blech) I still need to work on my initials! S T I L L ! I got a little too ambitious for a project that required five of something...live and learn.

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I finally posted something new to my website too! Until I'm further along in the pregnancy I am not silversmithing or lampworking (or anything that requires I handle chemicals, for that matter) so that pretty much leaves paper and fabric to play with for now! While making something for my FQ swap partners I decided to have prints made of the original artwork and have made stationery sets with the prints. Click here to check it out!

so...

I would love to report that I have been busy working my fingers to the bone on all things creative, but I can't. Well, not artsy creative anyway.

Remember back when Logan started school in the middle of August and I was whining about how tired I was and how being a Kindergartener mom was killing me? Well it wasn't the Kindergartener part, it was just the mom part. As it turns out we have a major work in progress here at the Lyons' Den and we're looking at a completion date of April 28th, 2007.



Yes, the Lyons' Den is expanding again by one. I figured it out as Caleb and I were driving around, running errands one afternoon and I was absolutely COMPELLED to stop at the grocery store for a cupcake. Only the bakery hadn't made any cupcakes yet! At that point I found myself on a mad hunt for something sweet to replace the cupcake craving and decided that we should probably stop off on the pregnancy test aisle too. As soon as we made it home I took one test. Passed almost instantly! That was September 5th and pretty much ever since I have been exhausted and nauseous. Being exhausted I can take, being nauseous all day long? Not so much. I was never nauseous with Logan and was only nauseous a couple random times with Caleb.

See, I told you I had a good excuse. With all this incubating going on, all my projects have fallen behind schedule so that means my initials and my stamped fat quarters are still being worked on. I had hoped to get them out in tomorrow's mail, but it's looking more like it will Thursday or Friday before they'll all go out. I apologize for the delay, but I promise it will be worth the wait!

Massive headache brewing right now so I'm going to wrap it up and hit the sack. Hopefully in a couple more weeks I'll be back to normal!