Hi-larious birds!

Dear Kelly,

I came across this great Etsy seller, The Mincing Mockingbird. She paints birds and then gives them funny little captions. Here's my favorite:















Click through to see more. They really crack me up :)

Love,
Shayne

Gardening? O-kay...

Dear Shayne,

Even though I come from a long line of avid gardeners, I did not inherit the gene. I don't really like to touch dirt or plants, sooo... yeah. Gardening = not the craft for me.

Despite this, I decided to try my hand at planting some things this year. Mostly as a semi-privacy screen on our back deck. And also for a little bit of green back there. Green is nice, right?

Three weeks ago, I planted some lavender in planters. Within four (four!) days, I had already killed one plant. I have a very powerful black thumb. So I went back to the nursery and they helped me plant a new one, showed me how to care for them, and voila! I've kept these babies alive for 10 days now! Go, me!

Here is one of the boxes (photo taken from our back door -- these are hanging on our deck rail):


Here is kind of a crappy photo from the other side showing both boxes -- this is the side we can't see from the house, which is good because, um, can you see the sawed-off hockey stick I used as a shim in the planter to even out the pots? Yeah. We're creative problem solvers around here. It's not sexy, but it works.


Meanwhile, my other little gardening project was to grow catnip. From seeds. Hrm:

(I've given up on that one.)

Apparently, they sell catnip plants [already started] at Petco, so I may have to re-try with that. My black thumb is too strong for seeds.

love,
kelly

My Artistic Calling

Dear Kelly,

I've been crafting since I was a wee little girl and over the years I have tried all sorts of different crafts. Cross-stitching, altered books, crochet, lampwork beads, jewelry, bookbinding...some I've done well, some I was awful at and mostly I did adequately but never really enjoyed it in the end. As I'm nearing my 33rd (eep!) birthday, I think I've finally found my artistic calling - perler bead portraiture. Here is my first masterpiece:






















I am in love with my own work. Mr. T pities the fool. Yeah. He's big, too. Huge. A good two feet high, if not more. The best part is that I'm making patterns (using cross-stitch software) for more portraits. 70s Elvis is up next!

Love,
Shayne

Cute little coasters

Dear Shayne,

Today I went and poured resin with my friend Hollie. It's still curing, so I'll post photos when it's done -- I think it went okay, but we'll see.

Since Hollie kindly invited me to her home and had me over for lunch while we were working on resin, I thought I might take her a little hostess gift. This, happily, coincided with a post I saw at How About Orange yesterday that made me say, "Damn! I need to make that!" (I love it when a crafty idea and a crafty opportunity come together.)

The post showed some darling coasters using fabric and iron-on vinyl and included a terrific tutorial -- you can see it here.

Here's a shot of the ones I made (click on that pic to see them bigger -- that fabric is great):


And, of course, I wrapped them up with a sweet little ribbon:


Hollie seemed very pleased and we used them while I was there today. Yay!

love,
kelly

Crafty organization

Dear Shayne,

Inspired by this post at montague and this post at Posie gets Cozy, I organized my embroidery floss:


Compared to those two, I have a very small amount of floss (Alicia had over 400 bobbins! Wow!) But it's still nice to see it all lined up. Plus, I figured it would be better to organize them now, rather than wade through a bunch more at some later date -- I don't think I'd have the patience.

I don't know if you can tell from that photo, but I printed labels for all of the bobbins with the DMC number:

(Red embroidery floss got the shaft in the numbering system. Could it be... eeeevil?)

I only ever see DMC these days... when I was a kid, there was another big floss brand, but I can't remember what it was. Is that one gone or is this a regional monopoly? What floss brands are stocked at your local craft stores?

love,
kelly