Dr Mom to the rescue

Last night, this sweet little foster puppy of ours...

did the unthinkable. Or maybe it's only unthinkable if you have a small child. But either way, she did something that brought instant tears and sadness to our home.

She attacked my son's favorite elephant. The one I gave him for his 7th birthday, that he said made him brave and strong. The one he can't sleep without.

Doesn't look so bad, huh?

Elefanty would kindly disagree.

After I calmed down my son & evaluated the damges injury, I headed out to the dreaded Wally-world for a sewing needle because in the event of an emergency, we all know it's impossible to find a sewing needle.*

After I got back, I reassured my son again that all hope was not lost, and set to work.

Gauge wanted to photograph me performing "surgery". This is what a Cody past her bedtime with a headcold looks like.

After five minutes of intense surgery, Elefanty went into recovery. He was a little loopy at first, but was able to sit on his own.

 Besides some soggy material and a little bunching by his eye, Elefanty was as good as new and ready to be reunited with his boy!

Elefanty left my studio the hospital exhausted and ready for bed.

 Have you ever had to mend your child's favorite lovey? Do you have an epic tale of saving the day for your child? Share in the comments!

*Let it be noted when I set down to write this blog post, I scooted stuff across my table to make room for my tissue box and jabbed my hand with my lost sewing needle.

Six year olds and sewing machines

They always have such sweet results. :)

My son decided he wanted to sew today, so he cut out and sewed (with a bit of foot pedal assistance) a sleeping bag and pillow for his monster friend. :) 

De Blob!

If you have a Wii or xBox360 and are looking for a cute, fun game for your kidlets (or you!) go buy "de Blob". Right now.

I am officially addicted to this game. It is so cute, colorful and fun! And perfect for kids. My six year old loves it (when I give him a chance to play it)! I mean, a blob of color and cuteness rolling around in a boring, grey world liberating the citizens from their dull and colorless lives by spreading music and color to everything it touches? Does this game sound like it was meant for me, or what?! Here is the "story" from the official site of de Blob:


de Blob's origins are mysterious, but he rolled up at the right place and the right time to be the hero that the Color Underground was looking for. Music surrounds him and color energy flows through him; with his touch Blob can literally make the world a better place.

Blob represents individuality and determination. Blob is good hearted but lazy. He is often late, but he always comes through.

 Basically, you are "de Blob" - kind of a ball of water. You collect paint by rolling over cute little "paint bots", and using your "paint points" to paint buildings in a world that has been sapped of all color and fun. When you paint an entire block of buildings, the citizens who are trapped inside doing mundane tasks like taxes and stock trading are released into the streets, and you can roll over them to give them their original colors back that the bad guys sucked out of them!

That's a really short hand synopsis of the game (I haven't finished it yet, since I am a completion-ist and have to paint every.single.thing in each world before I move on to the next) but you get the idea. Blank city canvas, bright colors, cute characters, thus, addictive! Just play it, you'll see what I mean!

Father's Day 2012

I hope all the dads and families out there had a fantastic Father's Day! ♥ Ours was very low-key. The kidlet and I gave Trace his present, a handmade Kindle Fire case by It's Sew Chelle - I had it custom made with QPR blue and white stripes. He loved it!

Sleepy-head daddy opening his gifts!

After coffee and gifts, we mostly bummed around the house. Trace and the kidlet played video games, and watched Minecraft videos on the Kindle.

Then we went to dinner with my fiance's mom, siblings and grandparents. The perfect end to a mellow, lovely day. ♥

I don't think I even sat down at a computer once yesterday, and kept the mobile browsing to a minimum. It's nice to unplug some days and just recenter yourself! ♥ I am feeling more energized today, and I am going to clean up the studio and spend the day working on some Mon-stors. I have been in a bit of a funk since Daft Crafts closed, so I need to just sit down and create and take my mind off of it. I miss that place so much. ♥ With our move impending, my cousin flying in from Colorado Thursday, and a huge mountain of laundry, I have plenty of things to keep me busy this week, and in the weeks to come. I hope I am able to squeeze in monster making between packing, house shopping online, repainting and all that jazz, but just in case, I am going to take today to get some Mon-stors started and let my creativity flow! Happy Monday!

Miscellaneous Crafting on a Rainy Day. :)

This weekend has been chilly and rainy - perfect for crafting! :) I have been sewing Mon-stors to restock my online store, and doing some random crafting with/for the fam, too! I made this Mon-stor yesterday, using remnant bin fleece and a thrift store pillow case for the lining fabric.

Link to buy

Link to buy

I have had that monster pillow case for over a year and have been waiting for the perfect moment of inspiration to cut into it! I LOVE this monster fabric! From the scraps, I took whatever discernible monster bits and turned them into coasters today. I told you, I loved that fabric. Each one of these took like 30 seconds so ignore the crooked stitching, I was just using up the last of the thread in my bobbin so I wouldn't run out during a big project.

Squished Monster!!

Hahaha, I love this monster, he cracks me up!

And while I was pausing to change songs on Pandora, I arranged my pins on my magnet into a little pin-forest.

I also ventured out in the rain to the fabric store today for felt and thread for eyes, and while I was there I grabbed some fabrics on sale and this bird house for my son. It's one of those pre-made ones, he just had to paint it! I think he did a fab job and I am in love with his color choices. You can tell he's my kid. ;) Once the rain stops we are going to screw in a hook and hang it from our patio to see if we can get some new birdie friends to move in. :)

Also today, this Mon-stor was born! I love her!!! :D

Link to buy

Link to buy

Now I am going to have dinner with the fam (spaghetti, yum!), unload/reload the dishwasher, then start on Mt. Laundry. :P I'm going to pull a late night tackling our huge laundry pile so I can have all day tomorrow to sew! I have two more big Mon-stors lined up plus working on a super special Mon-stor for you all that will be revealed on May 1st - as a prize for one lucky fan! Yes, a PRIZE MON-STOR!! Be sure to check back on May 1st for more info on that! :D

New type of posts...

Latest Monster In The Shop!

Hey guys! Sorry I have been kinda MIA lately. I think in my last post, I promised I would post more? Yeah, total fail on that!

I have been sick, off and on. First a really nasty stomach bug, got over that. Then my son was sick with a really nasty cough, that kept us all up all hours of the night. By day I was too exhausted to consider sewing, unless anyone wants a hand sewn into their monsters. Then I got the nasty headcold, cough, sore body thing my son had. Still recovering from that. Ugh!

Then, there was also the mechanical failures. Bernie, my Bernina sewing machine, decided to start choking on thread. Every inch or so it would go bargblargityblargblarrrrrrrrrrrrh and when I pulled out the fabric, there would be a huge WAD of thread on the bottom. D: Set him aside and started saving for a trip to the repair shop. My friend loaned me an old Brother Pacesetter and it worked for a few monsters, but then it decided it didn't like me. :'( The thread got to a point where I couldn't remove my product from the machine without breaking the thread or jacking up the stitching in my monsters. I'm pretty this is 100% user error on my part somehow, though I didn't mess with the tension at all! Oh well. So, packed him up, teared up a bit. :'( Then my fiancè insisted upon taking me to buy a back up machine so I could continue to work, since it would be a week before I could even take Bernie in, and two weeks for the repair. So, we went out, and picked up the Brother Project Runway machine. It ain't half bad, but I can't tell it won't be able to handle the workload I push through Bernie regularly so I'm anxiously awaiting dropping Bernie off for repairs and then his  arrival back to me in shining, minty condition.

Then, there was also all this beautiful March weather! I don't think it will last, I keep expecting to wake up to a blizzard, but while it's here, we are trying to enjoy it as much as possible when we aren't hacking and sickly! We have been hiking, visiting parks in the evenings, and yesterday, we hit up the zoo! Here's my favorite pic from that.♥

And that explains the very limited amount of monsters you have seen recently! ;)

But now all the beautiful Spring-y colors, flowers, prints, patterns, and birds are inspiring my creativity and I am so stoked to start making new monsters! I am still not officially taking custom orders at this time, so I can focus on stocking my online store to max capacity. My time is so divided right now - 11-6 three days a week at Daft Crafts, and 11-9 two days a week at Daft Crafts. That leaves me a few hours here and there on those days to sew, and then two days off. Sundays are family days, but I squeeze in some sewing when the boys are doing their boy things, and Mondays are full tilt coffee and monster days! :) But, as you can see, with the limited time slots to commit to sewing, I can't really take on custom orders at this time. :[ I miss them!!! But  I have started training volunteers at Daft Crafts so I can have more time off from the shop to handle the business side of things (taxes and such, ugh) and more time to ♥sew♥. So things are in motion, I just have to remind myself to be patient and calm... :)

In the mean time, I have decided to start adding new types of posts to this blog! Some artist showcases, featuring items from my favorite (handmade) online shops, artist interviews, and possibly hosting giveaways for some of them! I can put my two favorite things together - handmade art and my monster biz! ♥ What a great mix. I hope you will all enjoy it as much as I do! First post will be either later today, possibly tomorrow. :) Leave me comments on the posts or click the amount of hearts you think it deserves so I know what content you are enjoying the most! :)

20 Things I'm Thankful For.

I categorized. :)

Family:
 
1. My adorable, brilliant, hilarious son. He can always makes me laugh. Just moments after he makes me want to scream.
2. My fiancè. I moved half-way across the country on a whim to be with him after being good friends for about 9 years, and it was the best decision I ever made.

3. My family. They're all crazy, but I love 'em anyway!

4. My future in-laws are all very epically awesome and I love them dearly. I really lucked up. ;)

5. Denise, my future mother-in-law. She taught me the basics of sewing and loaned me her machine to go on a monster making frenzy with. Plus she's an amazing writer and gives me new copies of her books to read. Eep!

Friends:

6. They're all awesome, and put up with my crazy ideas and off-color sense of humor. ^_^ Friends make the world go round. ♥

7. A special little thankful section here for Jessica, Chris, Barrek, and Sharolyn. You guys totally just rock my socks and I am so appreciative of all the help and support you have given me this year. ♥

8. My bestie Rob. Been around for years, always puts a smile on my face. ^_^ Love you dude!

Business:

9. I am so thankful for Bernie, my sewing machine. He always gets me through the monster-making day, he's very low maintenance, and he is always ready when I get a creative burst of energy.

10. Every single customer and fan of Lu & Ed. You guys fire my creativity and empower me to live a creative lifestyle.

11. Modern technology, which enables more people to provide for themselves as entrepreneurs in today's world.

12. Storenvy.com - being a free e-commerce site that is easy to use, looks great, and makes it possible for indie artists to have a great starting pointing for their business.

13. I'm so thankful that my dream of owning a real, brick and mortar store, became a reality this year, and that the launch of Daft Crafts has went so smoothly.

14. I'm thankful for all the customers and fans of Daft Crafts and the indie artists and crafters who make the shop possible!

Misc. Things

15. My garbage disposal. Seriously. Until three years ago, never used one. These things are amazing.

16. Central heat and air. I grew up in a house with no heat. I am beyond thankful for living in a home that is warm.

17. Shoes. I have five pairs, when so many have none.

18. Food, clothing, shelter and transportation. I wish everyone in the world had these.

19. Art. It inspires, it can make people smile, it can give people an outlet.

20. My kitties. If it weren't for my fiance, I would totally end up being a crazy cat lady. ;)

And there you have it, 20 things Cody is thankful for. Hope you enjoyed!


Happy Thanksgiving!