John's Wizard Card

John's wizard card, put together by Trey when he gave us some home-made chocolate frogs

Front:

Back:

John's Self-Portrait

John did this self-portrait for an art class once. This is how it hangs in our office -

(His favorite color is green.)
John got his undergraduate minor in Art with an emphasis in Ceramics.

Zombies!

While browsing for Halloween decor on Amazon, I came across this cute little book and thought, "Eh. Felt." (I do not like the texture of felt.) Strangely, that same afternoon, a fellow blogger posted a picture of a zombie she had made that was inspired by this book. The next day, I read a review of this book on yet another blog. After seeing this picture for the third time I figured "what the hell" and ordered it online. And it. is. AWESOME.
The book has several different patterns for tiny felt zombie dolls. Why do you need a felt zombie doll? You don't. But they're cute. You can hang them from Halloween trees if you have them (I want one!) or you can do what we did and turn them into refrigerator magnets. Making the dolls is not a difficult task but it is absolutely, positively time-consuming.

We used tracing paper to trace the patterns in the book. Then we cut out the pieces and traced them again onto colored card stock. (If you buy this and plan on making several zombies, I recommend that you do this so that you have sturdy pieces to trace onto the felt in the future.) Our pieces are color-coded and each sheet of card stock is textured on one side. This allows us to find the right pattern easily (colors) and orient them the way they need to be oriented when tracing them on felt (texture) which is especially helpful if you have felt that is not the same color on both sides!

Here we have golden pieces for the zombie duck, pink pieces for the zombie baby, green pieces for the zombie bunny, and red pieces for the zombie thrilla.
There are a lot of materials required for these little projects, so just starting out can be expensive. We had an advantage because we already had a ton of different beads and we had a ton of embroidery floss. (I bought a HUGE plastic bag full of different colors of embroidery floss at a flea market a few years ago for 50 cents. Is that an awesome deal or what?!) The only materials we actually had to buy were a few more beads, some ceramic magnets, toy stuffing, and a bunch of felt. You can buy bulk packages of assorted colors of felt online for really cheap (usually there's not much color variety) or you can go to your local craft store and improvise with what they have to offer. (Ours doesn't offer much!)

Once you've got all of the pieces cut out, you sew on the details.

After the details have been attached, you sew the different pieces together. They all have a front and back that need to be sewn together. Before you've completely sewn them together you cram in some toy stuffing. If you're turning them into magnets, don't forget to stick the magnet in there! We used some craft glue to help keep our magnets in place. Be careful - the magnets will attract the needles you are sewing these up with!

John's Bunny Zombie -
The book has you fold the ears back so that they're hanging down. We like the ears sticking up.

Erica's Ducky Zombie -
(It's already holding up some papers on the fridge.)

John tracing a pattern onto felt with a sharpened pencil.
USE A PENCIL! Pens don't work and markers are messy.

John cutting the piece out of the felt -

John's Baby Zombie -
This one actually doesn't look at all creepy, does it?
(That's supposed to be green drool coming out of that mouth.)
Not-So-Helpful Hint: That pacifier was a bitch to make.

Thrilla Zombie-
Look at this picture and then look at the picture on the book cover.
Mine is better!
My brains look way more brainy and I used glittery red felt for the clothes. :-)

Another Bunny Zombie -

John's Idea of a Joke -
For a size comparison, those colored square magnets are 1 square inch.
These are fit-in-the-palm-of-your-hand tiny.

Seriously, making these is time-consuming. The first night we made these, we were cutting out patterns, tracing them, cutting out pieces, and then figuring out how to put them together. I'd say we spent at least four hours making them and each of us had only produced one that night. What we are doing now is cutting out patterns and felt pieces days ahead of time so that when we have the time to spend sewing them together we'll have all the pieces ready.

Some of the other patterns in the book include a zombie surfer, a pumpkin head zombie, a vampire zombie, and an undertaker zombie that looks a LOT like the thing that married Beetlejuice to Lydia -I've been thinking of some of my own zombie patterns and can't wait to try them out. What kind of felt zombie would you make? What are some of the things you plan to do for Halloween?

Puppy Love and Post Office Woes

Earlier this week Adolfo's dog, Bailey, came and stayed for a few days. She was in town to get spayed.

Bailey

When she left, Bowser was really sad. I think he was a little smitten.

***UPDATE***

John and I went to the post office to send this card priority mail because we were also sending Adolfo the blood pressure medicine he left in our bathroom. I waited and waited and waited for Adolfo to say something to me about the card or to thank me for sending him his medication. Nothing! But then almost two weeks later, the package was back on our porch. Non-deliverable due to Insufficient Address. WHAAAAT???!!! John called Adolfo and read the address from the package to him over the phone. Adolfo's response was "I don't understand - that's my address!" We made a complaint to the post office but they said they couldn't do anything for us without seeing the address we wrote on the package. By the time they got back to us with that totally unhelpful response, I had already sent the package with a friend who happened to be driving up to visit Adolfo that weekend. Adolfo called me when he opened the package - he totally loved the card. :-)

Some things have been bothering us lately regarding the receipt of our mail-
Our mail has been arriving later and later every day and things that I order using 2-day shipping have been arriving 3 or 4 days later. I remember I once ordered a DVD for a class using Next-Day Shipping. According to the tracking info, the package went from New York to Dallas the same day I ordered it. The next day it went from Dallas to Nacogdoches where it apparently sat for FOUR days before I got notification in my post office box that it had arrived. By then, I had already rented the movie and started the essay I was writing on it.

Is it me or is the Nac postal service just not cutting it?

(Interesting movie, by the way: Lucia, Lucia)

The Squid

Together, John and I have about a billion art supplies that will probably see the light of day only a handful of times each year. And that's sad. I'd like to change that.

John busted out one of his sketch books months ago to draw out plans for the Kitty Palace (stay tuned...) and it's been sitting on the dining table ever since. He pulled out markers last week to organize our chore chart (stay tuned...) and they have been sitting on the dining table ever since. We've been watching a lot of Planet Earth, Blue Planet, and the Life of Birds lately, thanks to Trey and the SFASU Steen Library. Sketch Book + Markers + Never-ending Cycle of Amazing Wildlife on Film =

The Squid

It's not much and it will probably be a while before I produce anything worthy of a frame, but I think it's a fun start. I've never done anything with markers before. I might do a whole marine series using just marker. We'll see.

Chris, maybe I'll finally get you that painting after all!