My My My

Happy 2009 Y'all!
Just one more day until we swear in our President-Elect, Barack Obama. I am busy printing out free posters and obamicon-ing myself on Facebook.

What else have I been up to? Hmmm. The winter holidays have long since passed, although, ahem, I have a few things to send out. Yea, I'm bad. However, I did make a few presents this year, and they were all sorts of fun to do.
vanilla was simple fun AND useful and if you are closely related to me and haven't received yours, well, consider yourself un-surprised now. oops. I am not sure why putting something in a box and taping it closed takes the energy akin to sawing through a redwood tree, but there you have it. I am blocked. No real excuses.
The other handmade items involved some Etsy inspiration (of which there is loads - checkout my favorites there and you'll see what I mean). Goosegrease kindly had for sale wooden peg doll blanks, and I patiently added up how many I would need. Lessee . . . 3 adult girl bodies, 3 adult boy bodies, 5 girl bodies, 2 large boy bodies, one small boy body. Did I leave anyone out? Her work is perfect and charming, and patiently reflects people she doesn't even know. I thought it was worth a try to render my sister's families on wood with tiny pots of bright acrylics.

I am having some knockdown drag out fight with iPhoto right now, so I can't actually share the finished product with you at the moment.

Moving on.
The next Holdiday is Valentine's Day. Another opportunity to craft! or not. Last year, the girls and I assembled at Elsie's house and cut, pasted, stamped and doodled to our hearts content. I suspect something similar is in order for this year. Although, I still have a stash of Fiendish Valentines and could mark another person off my list with a lottery win over at belladia's crafty crow blog. I actually Know My Vintage Valentine IRL, when we were much much (much) younger, mere shadows of our current fabulous selves. Her etsy store(s) are chock full of vintage finds and the Valentines are mighty tempting. It's hard to pick a favorite, as the contest requires, and throwing darts blindly at the computer screen is frowned upon, so I listened to my sappy vintage heart and went with the turtle.

My youngest boy's name starts with T, so turtles have been linked to him since birth. I even fashioned his moses basket lining from turtles fabric. So there you go, I made a decision and I am sticking with it. I also like this particular card because it's a "HI" Valentine, no faux sentimental request to Be Mine or declaring You're Sweet, just a hey, howareya, it's February 14th and well, Hi.

In case you are wondering, the runner up was the teacher valentine (I could definitely see the boy bestowing that on his current teacher) with the declaration of "like" valentine in a close third.

so pickmepickmepickme! I mean randomly, of course.