take me on ...

Dare 126 is up. Outlines. Interpret it as you will. Yes, I drew this and yes, I'm a little embarrassed that I drew this. It's hard to draw yourself. I loves my old MTV videos. I will have this song stuck in my head for the next four days. Check the other girls' outlines.

New challenge is up at Work Your Soul. This is my woven bag made from fabric scraps. Go see the whole thing here.

Sometimes I feel like ... somebody's watching me.

This is what our house looks like today. Yo Gabba Gabba birthday party prep in full force. The smiling 'party in my tummy' cups and water bottles are keeping me company. Brobee cake is in the works. And I came so close to getting Leslie and the LYs to make a guest appearance at L's party. It never hurts to ask... :)

the homecoming

(photos yanked from The Des Moines Register)
I have followed this band for ten years. Bo used to play guitar with Mick when they were in high school. My friend's brother is Joey (the fastest drummer in the universe.) Sid lives just down the road from us. Last night, you could feel the craziness in the crowd and Corey said it himself – it was their homecoming show; we are their friends and their family. They started out small here in Des Moines, won Grammys, played sold out shows all over the world and now they're home. It was heavy and oh so effing beautiful.

Des Moines, Iowa: your favorite sons are coming home

Tomorrow night!

look ma, i'm sewing

Just so you know, I am possibly the world's worst sewer. I'm impatient, inaccurate and messy. I don't like to pin, don't like to use the iron, and don't take time to measure. Plus I have an incurable hurry-up-and-get-it-over-with attitude. But my quilting class is forcing me to abandon my careless ways and now I'm making my first set of nice, neat quilt blocks. You must be kidding me.

I love my teacher, and I know I've mentioned her before. Her name is Mabeth. She says things like 'we don't make blankets, we make quilts' and 'we don't iron, we press.' She'll scold you if you don't retract your rotary blade after cutting. She's adorable. The pattern we're doing for class is very old school with traditional triangle and nine square blocks; it's not my favorite style but this is such a great learning experience and I now fear that I'll be reaching for my ruler and squaring up edges for the rest of my life.

A new challenge is up today at The Creative Type. Type gone retro. Erin and Trisha and I have been discussing travel destinations for this spring which made me think back to our Vegas trip last summer and what a blast we had. And how nice and warm it was. Actually, hot. Vegas is hot. Get me out of this Iowa snow. I'll go anywhere.

suspenders, por favor

Dare 125 = junk mail. Documenting my late nights.

Yarn addiction. Scored some sale yarn at Knitted Together this week to make my stash a little bit stashier. Guilty smile.

New kids' birthday t-shirts are going up in my Etsy shop today. More colors and numbers are available.

And we have big news at Work Your Soul. The addition of a super talented girl by the name of Kara. Her photography and fashion sense and creativeness are astounding. Love this girl, I do!

one week till Slipknot...

We can hardly wait for these boys to hit their hometown Des Moines crowd. We'll be there next Wednesday to see the hardest, heaviest, craziest show to hit the midwest. We never miss it.
(photos from the Slipknot website...Nic Bezzina and CC Photo Art.)

today is the best day

I couldn't help myself. Obamicon.me at Paste Magazine... go play.
In honor of today.

life looks like this.

It has been oh so cold. It's finally a tiny bit warmer now but the day I took this it was very, very cold. And I was a little bit sad because I thought I might be trading in my car that day. So I took this. To document me almost saying goodbye in case I had to.

And this is the car we were looking at. It's blue. And yes, I will admit that I hugely like this car because it's exactly the same as the Prius that Mary Louise Parker drives in one of my fave shows ever. But if we get this (or a Honda Insight, which we also have our eye on) it would make us a 100% hybrid family, which is very cool, too.

The above arsenal of lotions is what's getting me through this winter.


And since I'm still whining about the cold, Bo is preparing his Surly Karate Monkey for the annual Brrr Ride in February. Poor Ozzy is going to freeze his you-know-what's off. It's a 24 mile bike ride. In the snow. And ice. And wind. But friends are coming from out of town and costumes will be worn and good times will be had.

Still knitting. Almost every day.

I made this quick tube/twist scarf cowl thing.

I am calling it Rainbow Brite. And last night I attempted the beginnings of my first hat last night with Angie, Sarah and Amy. The girl talk is even better than the knitting lessons.

And yesterday, I went to my first quilting class. My grandma would be so proud. The instructor is so fun; an older grandma type who tells off-the-wall jokes and makes fun of women who buy fabric at chain stores. She says chain store fabric is 'so sketchy that you could throw a cat through it.' I like her. She's full of information and I filled up three pages of my notepad with her advice. By our fifth week, she says we will have completed our first quilt. If we finish our homework.

I've been busy doing some Yo Gabba Gabba birthday party prep work. I found this cute felt flower garland today and have been cutting out mini Foofas, Brobees, Munos and Toodees all morning.

And if you happen to be the parent of a YGG-loving child with a birthday coming up, I have made some customizable invites that you can download for free here. There currently aren't any YGG themed products in stores so you're mostly on your own for this type of stuff, but Gabba Friends has tons of cool ideas for DIY crafty birthday parties. Awwwweeeesome.

I cannot get over the cuteness of tiny Vans! We ordered these for Lo from Zappos and I could just hold them in my hands and stare at them all day. She's going to rock these for sure.

What else? I'm very excited for tomorrow.
(Photo from BilliKid on Flickr. Also check out the Obama Street Art group.)