Update!

Well, AN update, there's more to come. Today - Plush Class session 2 with me at Blue Rooster in Los Angeles has been moved and will now take place on 8/28 - 9/18, saturdays 11-2. Sign up here.
And now - back to the sewing machine. Plush You! LA is in two weeks time. Eeek!
See you soon for more exciting updates.
Ciao!
Michal

Look What Mama Got!

Now, on to mastering the beast. Any tips are welcome!

Awesome, Possum, Orange Blossom

So, exactly how awesome has my birthday been? Very!
After a "celebrating the last hours of my twenties with me" party Saturday night, Ant and I went on a little adventure. Where to? The Wildlife Learning Center in Sylmar! And we had a private tour. Our guide Jen was super charming, and answered a lot of questions (see, I was trying to be a smart-a** and come up with good ones. That didn't always work). We also got to hang out, hold and pet some of the animals, which was totally nuts. And no, these guys are not trained, don't do tricks or anything like that. Most of them friendly/tolerated us because they were either used to people or are just very social animals. Here are our favorites:

The porcupine family were the most friendly, laid back gang. What do they really need to worry about anyway?


We got to hold a Tawny Owl, they're more feathers than bird, actually! Super light and fluffy.


The sloth was super funny. Every time she yawned she stuck her (long) tongue out, we just didn't catch it on film. And she yawned a lot.


Yes, I can hear you going "awwww!" all the way over here! I got to hold him too, but Ant's photos were better.


One of my all time faves - the Armadillo! These are not scales, BTW, it's hardened skin.


Kitty paws (on a seventy-five-pound Lynx)... And we got to touch them. Carefully.


I can't remember the scientific name of this guy, but it's a super cool dragon like monitor (that should be it's name, though)


Cool, ha? More pictures here.
But the coolness doesn't end here! Oh no. Check out what I unwrapped when we came home!

A pile of presents from my family and friends. Including a Shinzi Katoh teapot set, books galore, Ice-Bat, cute mushroom salt and pepper shakers, bath goodies... My friends and family are the best.

And then...

I got to bite into this red velvet raspberry cakewich from Cakemonkey. Yum!


There's one more thing I got for my birthday that I need to show you, but I need to take a picture first.
Find it on my Flickr stream in the next few days (let's see if you paid attention). Let's see if you can tell what it is. Special prize for the correct guess!

Plush, Plush and More Plush!

My latest plush endeavor:



Welcome to the world my new-sewns - the twenty five girls of my Schmancy Exclusive series "Not Like Everybody Else". There are eight red, yellow and pink girls (all names starting with 'M') - and one little blue Elizabeth.





They'll be available from Schmancy in store and here online on Wednesday, Dec. 2^nd. Hooray!

Thank you!

Thank you so much for the kind words about my grandfather. It means a lot to my family and me. Thank you so so much.

And a second thank you goes out to the Whipup crew for writing about my little studio! I'm incredibly flattered. Our camera is dead, so no new photos (besides - it's a mess. Again) with Helga (my new sewing machine. What? That sounds perfectly Viking, right?), but here's one, some more details and the whipup link (yeah, I'm just a smidge proud of myself).
Thanks for visiting!

And the winners are...

I asked Suki to pick randomly pick two numbers, and that was her response:
(we call this the WTF face, and I've been told I pull it off sometimes too)

So I had to resort to Random.org - the random number generator:


And the winners are^*...


Congratulations to Melissa of popdogpress.com and Jessica of funkyfinds.us! I'm even more excited and flattered that two such creative ladies (seriously, check them out!) like my work. Thanks, girls!

And yes, I was so happy abut the response to my giveaway that I decided to give away two ornament sets instead of one.
Talking about the holiday spirit.



* Since the contest specified you could comment on any post on my blog, and a couple of people posted twice, by accident, I had to number my posts myself, by order of submission. No preferential treatment here - promise!

Yep, it's really almost Christmas!

Man, I'm always a bit surprised by holidays and birthdays (I have the worst sense of time), but this year Christmas really jumped me! How did this happen? Jee-wiz Louise...
So we've decided to be crafty this year, and our lucky best friends all got/will get a box full of goodies: Oreo truffles (from this recipe) and one of these ornaments:


It's made using this pattern. It was meant to have embroidered eyes, but I spend three days sick this week, and figured people won't want my germs for Christmas too. That's why Ant made the Oreo truffles too. He did so well, BTW. They came out very delicious. We only exchanged the candy bark with white chocolate chips. It made the coating less even and more lumpy, but I thought it was much tastier.


So we got a real tree (we're really on that bourgeois binge this year, especially now that we're officially middle class) from Delancy Street trees in Silverlake, which I didn't know was something special, but now that I do - it makes me even happier. Charity means so much more these days.
We (finally) decorated it, and the cats are pretty ecstatic. Emmet figured out that if he picks off the ornaments from the back of the tree, it'll take us longer to find out = more time for him to play with them. And we thought he was just such a dummy little cat...


And how's your holiday crafting going?

Giveaway! Oh Yay!

So I totally missed the week of giveaways, which is sucky but typical of me lately. But giving late is better than never giving, right?

Welcome to Michal's fun! Joyful! Merry Giveaway!! so here's the Q&A:
"What will I win?"
A set of my handmade, screen printed ornaments in reindeer or raccoon. There are three ornaments per set and they're not only hand made and original designs, they're also pretty darn cute.
"What do I need to do to win?"
Simple, just comment anywhere in the blog between tonight and friday 12/19/2008 12AM PST. Please use your email address in the comment or I'll have a hard time getting in touch with you and sending you your prize. Not fun. The winner will be chosen at random, by luck of the draw. No, the cats won't be picking the random winner. They're too easy to bribe.
"How long can you live without chocolate?"
If I don't need my sanity I guess I can live a normal life span. No Chocolate and maintaining sanity? I don't know, but I'm about to find out. Keep your fingers crossed for me, please.

Adoption day

Why did I disappear and what was I doing?
I was fostering these three babies:

Toby

Princess Lulu

Mr. Muffin

Yes, raising baby monsters is no easy feat. Just figuring out what each of them will eat was complicated. And then there was the feeding schedule, and baths, and playtime, and sibling fights, and fleas, and vaccination, and teething... Sheesh! Now they're big enough to fend for themselves, and they're making their way to Seattle, to Plush You. Hopefully, all three will find a loving monster-parent who'll be ready to give them a good home. How can you resist this lovely face?


(More pictures here)

Kristen already outed me, but here's the official announcement - we're going to the show this year! We're going for a four day three night vacation in Seattle. Except for the main attraction on the 10th, any other fun events to look out for? Anyone else coming? What do people do in the Starbucks State?

A million different things

Yeah, a lot is going on chez nous lately, a lot of the "I need to think about it" kind of things. I really can't seem to be able to wrap my head around one thought and come to a solid conclusion. I can't seem to even agree on, start, work on and finish one single project. So I guess it's going to be yet another random post, eh?

- Thanks for the kind words about Max. I was crying for a whole week, and still choke up about him being gone every once in a while. It's strange how, considering what a zoo we're running, this quite (well, after he was fed his snacks) little guy is so badly missed, and what a huge hole his death tore in my heart. Poor little guy...

- On a more cheerful note, my little garden is doing super well (shocking, I know). One of my tomato plants is in full bloom, and if the pests let us, we'll have some tomatoes this summer! Yum. Since I wrote about it last, I had to rip out my entire lettuce box and the radishes box because the buggers started munching on them already. They seem to have forgotten about them this time around (knock on wood). Maybe the heat is as bad to them as it is to us. Either way, I have enviro-human friendly extermination plans. I'll try them out and let you know how it goes.

- After a long, grueling search, I finally bought me some new shoes:
It's a great pair of Naturalizer Ganache. I have an expensive taste, what can I say... The cool thing about them is that Ant spotted a tiny stain on them, hardly visible, and got me an extra 15% off (he's indeed a keeper, and can you believe he's actually gone shoe shopping with me? Wow... I hardly have patience for myself when I go shopping...). Not so cool? That I decided to wear them right away for another two and a half hours of cruising the Glendale Galleria and the Americana, on a hot day without any protective socks. Ouch...
Alas, this purchase will not tame my burning desire for these beauties. Did I ever mention I have an expensive taste?

- I've gone back to cooking, with a real vengeance. We've been trying to eat healthier these past couple of months, less processed, less "something out of a bag" (probably helped that Ant got rid of the microwave when we moved), as much organic as we can reasonable afford. My parents' last years' birthday present of some quick dishes cook books has been very useful (thanks, folks!), for recipes and inspiration. I even decided to give tofu a second chance (but not broccoli, that's never going to happen, mark my words). And when I discovered the Veganomicon (via Anna. Thanks Anna!), besides the geeky giggles, I knew I hit gold. Then Amazon did one of those tricks when it reads your mind and presto - The Joy of Vegan Baking and Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World somehow ended up in my shopping cart. How did Amazon know I've been searching for baking recipes egg-allergic people can eat? True magic.


Ant's never had a cupcake in his life (or a birthday cake, but that's a whole other tragedy), so he really wasn't getting my giddiness over the cupcake book. For my first attempt, I decided not to go all nuts, and made a basic chocolate cupcake with cream cheese frosting (except for dying half of it a orange and swirling it our toothpaste style). I swear he must have thought I was crazy, but after scarfing down his second, he summed it up like so: "Interesting... It's like a cake - but SMALLER". Yep, now he got it.

And by all accounts, he's totally hooked too, because he had no objections when I asked to go shopping for the above icing supplies, extracts, natural food dyes and colored sugar sprinkles. You're all over to the dark side now, babe. Mwha ha ha...

- Last weekend I made yet another attempt at putting the way ideas in my head on paper in some organized fashion, so I cut swatches from all my garment fabrics and put them in one of my many scribble notebooks, with some sketched and ideas as to what they will become (eventually, hopefully, one day). I'm pretty proud of myself. Now, If I can actually get some sewing done that will be nice...





The above stripy pink and red number is what I'm working on right now, but it's a whole other (horror) story for a whole other (lengthy) post.

- We're completely in love with our neighbors' dog Duncan. He's a Basset Hound, which we love anyway, but he's also the friendliest, drool-iest, floopy-est big footed puppster you've ever seen. He always come to greet us when we see him around the complex, and he's always up for a belly rub. If we were meaner people, we'd totally steal him. Totally.

- And since you haven't seen the cats in quite a while, here are some new feline photos for your viewing pleasure (courtesy of Ms. Pampered-Face Suki, who recently has been giving us the stink-eye every time we dare ask for her royal attention):


I'm actually bening sneaky with these pictures, as they also showcase our finally-finished bedroom (can you believe we've been living here for more than six months already?). The picture on the wall is this Matte Stephens piece. We also have this one hanging, but you can't see it in the photo.



Behold, a rare moment of feline domestic bliss:



See ya around!

I love...

... How a scribble...


... Turns to this...

... Which turns to this...

... and then to this...

... and finally to these:
Yorick

Stella

Igor

and Olaf

(more pictures here)
These are the monsters of "Monstrously Nice", my submission to Crammed Organisms.
I love how they came out, but I swear - never again will I commit to something I so blatantly have no time to do. I had a month to create a portfolio and these guys, and for someone with a day job, well... not quite possible I'm afraid. Don't get me wrong, I'm super excited, super thankful and happy to have been accepted to the show, but I really finally need to learn how much I can do at any given time. I seem to always think I can cram more work into the time I have, and the end result is usually a massive lack of sleep, a filthy house and a very neglected husband. You'd really think that in twenty eight years (yeah, I almost forgot - it was my birthday last week) I'd learn my time-space limits. I need a Tardis, I really do...
And how are you? how are your creative juices doing these days?