I told ya I liked chickens!

Phew! The presentation went great though in hindsight, my paper lacked a lot of important information. Erk. It was still a good paper but I could have thrown in a few more technical terms. I always forget that part. I made this t-shirt for the presentation. I'm getting to closer to what I want to make for the five things swap but I can't decide if I wanna go funky cute or serious chickens. Any preferneces?

Jazzing up simple t-shirts is an excellent way to accomplish something crafty in a short period of time. It is also a great way to use up your scraps or other items you have on hand. I used iron on backing and then zig-zagged around the applique because my shirt was super stretchy and everytime I tried to put it on over my head the strecthing would undo the adhesive! Yikes! I don't have a serger but the zig zag seemed to do the trick.

If you don't feel all that adventurous with appliques you can simply sew directly onto your shirt using the sewing machine and randomly stitch a little here and stitch a little there. Use different colored thread for a unique pattern and only do this if your shirt is 100% cotton. Any lycra at all will make it bunch up in bits over your curves. You can of course also embroider away.

If sewing isn't your thing and you have a gocco then gocco away. Heck, bake up a batch of shortbread, whip up a pitcher of minted lemonade (or mojitos!) and throw a gocco party! Of course there is always Freezer Paper stencils or even cardboard and spray paint stencils or you can get all old school punk rock and use a sharpie.

Summertime is coming so what better reason do you need to jazz up your wardrobe. Don'y buy anything new. Repurpose the old. Reccyle, reuse and hit the thrift store for cheap t's. The money you spend there goes to charity so you can shop guilt free!

If you're thinking been there done that about the appliques and stenciling, pick up a book or check out a blog or two and hack away to your hearts content!

The Week in Review: April 30-May6

Last week was all about school, school and more school. It was also about chickens and roosters and just a little bit about sweets like cupcakes and cookies. I have mostly finished my big school project. It is done but I can't help but think I am forgetting something. We'll find out when I do my presentation. I made a flannel board story for Chicken Little and it might even rock just a little.

This week I get to write oodles of papers. Papers for English and papers form my film class. School has 5 more weeks and then I am out until Fall.

Also, if yer in L.A, this saturday, Jenny & I will be crafting it up with available kidlets at Whole Foods on 3rd (across from Farmers Market) from noon-3pm. We're gonna be promoting Felt Club and we'll be making wholesome market ready crafts for Mother's Day like pasta necklaces and such. So bring yer kidlets down and do some shopping while you're at it! The Felt Club XL Summer is just around the corner in July.

Okay, I gotta skeedadlle and make sure I have everything I need! Wish me luck and if anyone wants a Chicken Mix Cd lemme know! (I've already got you covered Steph!)

Tomorrow is National Teacher's Day. What are YOU gonna do for your wee one's Teachers?

The sky is falling!

I'm working feverishly away on my big paper for my Children's Lit class and I am stuck stuck stuck! I'm not quite clear on the directions and I can;t find any of my contacts for the class so I am feeling major doom right now but I will go forth and do my best to present the best chicken anthology ever! I need to do a ten minute presentation on a collection of folktales within a theme. I picked chickens and roosters because, well ya know I've had chickens on the brain lately. I've got 7 stories, 2 of which are the same story just one of them is toned down and all PC for todays "sensitive kiddies" (snort!). I need to write my introduction still. I have been but it, well it sucks so I need to rewrite it and I need to annotate all the stories fancy like and then I need to arrange them in a "meaningful way" and I get ot transcribe them. Don't you wish you were me? Actually, it is fun, I'm just stressed because the assignment feels a bit vague. I had 16 chicken and rooster stories originally and I have finally narrowed it down to 7 with oodles of help from Mr.A-go-go who has a much better brain for thinking laterally and specifically. For my presentation I am going to do a flannel story of Chicken Little because really, I want to spend my Sunday making Foxey Loxey and Cocky Locky and Henny Penny, really, I do! I envision this awesome set of quilty flannel board fun! I hope it works. Sooo back to my paper, I needed a mini vent so that I can get it out. Mr.A-go-go will be back in a couple of hours and I need to have a good portion of it done otherwise I am in BIG TROUBLE! Soooo...check out the prettiness I sent to my person for the May Coloriffic Swaporama. I am super duper proud of these pictures. Thanks for looking!

Photobooth Friday: I know you are but what am I?

I seem to have Pee-Wee on my mind. Many years ago when I joined Nervousness.org I frantically tried acquiring Pee-Wee portraits for my wall. I had quite a few artists and swaps lined up but only one turned out to follow through and she created this wonderful big eyed Pee-Wee with a lobster claw and tail. Creepy and perfect for me. A few years before that I purchased a Pee-Wee portrait painted on an old film tin. And that was it until I started swapping thru flickr. The loverly Lilia created this bit of glittery goodness and the super duper nifty Barbara created cupcake toppers for me. Eeps! I lurve Pee-Wee! And Christine, creator of kitsch, painter of chickens & robots and wearer of squishy spikey caps created the fabulous fauxtobooth strip you see here. Sigh. I'm so feeling the lurve right now. So much so that I am now having the amazingly talented Christel who painted this for Mr.A-go-go's Christmas gift paint me a Pee-Wee. Yeah, you could say I have Pee-Wee on the brain.

I dreamt of super niftiness early this morning. The kind of niftiness that is so normal and yet really crazy and fabulous that when you do finally wake up you can't but help feel disappointed. It may not seem fabulous to you but I found myself in my teenage neighborhood and on my way to my present school when I found an old vintage poster of some sort of fabulous elephanty circus fun and when I went to pick it up I found a pile of oodles and bits and in that pile there were old photobooth strips of my family I never knew existed and an orange sweater vest with a knitted purple lobster all across the back and tchotchkes galore. Sure I was crawling around a filthy pile of junk and mud and who knows what but there were old photobooth strips and vintage clothes that FIT me and green mary janes and vintage children's books with clowns in them. When I was done searching I had to get everything into the car but first I had to take out the toilet paper that my brother picked up and the package was huger than huge like some sort of super duper size and I felt like a magician who pulls the never endng scarf out of his hat only I was tug, tug, tugging away at the largest bulk pack of toilet paper in the world! Then I thought to myself how I could use one of the strips I found for Photobooth Friday and then I realized that is was Friday and I didnt have class on Friday and then I woke up to the Witch-Baby's cold nose on my neck. The reality of reality sunk in and I felt like the seven year old me who dreamt about finding a Hello Kitty rack of goodness in the livingroom only to find a snoring sleeping brother on the floor when she woke up. Man, sometimes I have the best dreams.

Today I get to play at Tinker and I know you are all jealous. I'm also crave, crave, craving some sort of baked goodness but cannot decide if I shall do the baking or if I will attempt to hunt down something in a cake shop or not. Either way, I'll take pictures of course!

Happy Friday folks and Happy day before the BIG DAY to you Ms. Magpie! May it be as exciting as finding a purple and orange sweater vest on the side of the road. I wish you and the sweets a most fabulous of fabulousness. *mwah*

chickens and robots

I'm all discombobulated. I guess that is what happens when you go to bed three hours after your usual time and then sleep three extra hours to make up for it. If not for my guilt mehtinks I'd still be tucked under that new spiffy quilt dreaming freaky dreams of totem pole telephone poles and fireside musical rounds on streetcorners. Hmm. My head is spinning with chickens and roosters. I have a folktale presentation for my kid's lit class on Mnday and I'm still trying to figure how to put it all in writing. We have to pick a theme first and pick a minimum of six titles within that theme. We have to write a paper on the theme icluding our reasoning for picking it. We also have to annotate each story/book and we have to prepare some sort of visual aid. Yikes! I don't suppose simply liking chickens would work? Or maybe wearing my new chicken sweater from Susan would work for the visual aid? I as thinking of maybe putting together a cd of images and text or perhaps making a flickr album but we don't have internet access in the classroom itself. Oooh, maybe I could do a slide show! Can they turn digital into slides? Oooh, cupcakes! Yeah, I can bake chicken cupcakes and we can sing songs about chickens. Does anyone know any songs about chickens? Hey, we can all do the chicken dance! Yes, I've got it! The chicken dance! Whoo-hoo, I rock.

Happy Space Day folks, can you find the chicken in the robot? The picture up top was a gift from a coloriffic swap last May I think...from flickrite Turtblu. She is awesome!

I gotta go try and fully wake up now. Sheesh!

eye candy

I have too many papers to write this week so I am all tapped out. It doesn't help that I'm far from inspired. Grr. I want to be but I'm not. I'll blame the gloomy morning, how's that. The new coloriffic swap-o-rama is up. June's colors are black, white & yellow. I'm currently making a sock monkey for another swap which is due now but of course I kept trying to find the "perfect" pair of socks and couldn't. Double grr. If it is still gloomy when I get homefrom school I think I will bake something. Anything. I dont; know what but something. Maybe banana bread. I lost my favorite recipe and have not been able to duplicate it. Triple grr. SO, since I'm feeling all crankified and such, I will leave yo uwith this pretty picture pf paper lanterns. Paper lanterns are something that should make us all smile. Hope you have a good day!