A Softer World

These amuse me, from A Softer World

(you can click on them to make them bigger, unles you have magnification eyeballs, in which case you won't be needing to now will you? No, I didn't think so.)

Made for Lisa

Our friend Lisa needed some love, so I sent her Bijou.

And it looks like she made it to Arizona dandily! And she matches... that's so lucky!

Here is her story: "Bijou has a habit of collecting smooth, happy river rocks. When she wanders off she always returns with her pockets heavy with little grey treasures. What exactly it is that she does with these rocks once they’ve been collect is a mystery. Her eyes get a little glossy when you ask her and she simply replies “Ohhhhh this and that, more that than this, but never too much of that.” This dreamy bunny wants to waft around your house behind you, quietly humming and ready to snuggle. All she really wants is to curl up in the crook of your arm while you go about your day and rest her fuzzy head on your shoulder at night."

Dusty Dirt Bunny

Monty was outside for the first time in a while today. Dad's scraped away some of the construction bits from the front yard, leaving a swath of dirt for Monty to root around in and grunt like a happy pig. And he did.

Oh boy, sooo happy! And so muddy...

Pin me Up and Shake me Down

Lisa Kellner made this wonderful piece called Oil Spill. It's composed of 60,000 bright yellow quilting pins.

"Oil Spill"

She also makes these amazing sculptures out of silk.

"The Emperor Has No Clothes"

"Inner Sanctum"

via: craftmagazine.

New (Fake) Bunny

Jo! Now in the shop.

Monster Silliness (I Don't Get the Appeal of the Real Thing)

Dad told me about this video made from tilt-shift photography. This guy went to a monster truck rally and set up a camera to take pictures at short intervals but the cool thing is that the tilt-shift effect makes everything look so tiny (and therefore really silly).

Metal Heart from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

New Bun Buns

I finally went to the feed store down the road to get Monty some hay. I used to go to this feed store with mummy when I was little to get hay, look at all the baby chicks in the backroom and even MORE specifically to coo over the bunnies in the very back room. Now, I love bunnies I really do. But there are so few times when I actually see any, other than Mr. Monty-pants, and when I can find them in groups of more than ten I get absolutely giddy. Burns feed store is one of those places. I'd more or less assumed that Burns had stopped carrying rabbits. Not from any sort of proof or anything, I'd just used my child-logic that once I stopped going there, the bunnies wouldn't be there either. After all, bunnies are only there to be cute for me, right? When I stopped in yesterday I slowly walked back there and opened both sets of doors, dreading the idea that there would be no bunnies and all those cages would be empty and lonely. Instead there were about ten bunnies of different sizes and friendliness. I'm still a little dreamy-eyed about that. I picked a couple out and held them for a while. Most of them were Rex bunnies which means they were obscenely soft, they made Monty feel like a bristle brush.

I got a little misty, took some deep breaths and went back to the front to buy my hay. Now I know where I can get my fix and when those sad days happen to pop up, I know where I can fix them!

Speaking of bunnies and cute things, here are some of my own.

Lorna-Lu

And Jacco are now in the etsy shop!

Go and see their stories as well as the other little goodies hiding in there lately.

Don't Let it Unravel!

"Knitted World" by Sarah Cox.

Via: Craftmagazine

"An animated short that was shown at the Encounters Short Film Festival."

I'd Get that, I'd get 200 mpg per/voodoo too!

Nataliedee's drawing today.

"Get Walkin Yall"

Mommy Loves to Photograph Monty

Whenever Monty needs to come upstairs for his medicine Mom dissolves into "Ohhhhh.... Let me get my cammera!" Which means her phone. Monty's a pretty good sport and he always looks pretty darn cute.

Oh NO, You Naughty Thing You!

Soooo it turns out that that Downy fabric softener crouching in the cupboard above our washing machine is made out of animal fats. Via Treehugger: "A derivative of rendered fat from cattle, sheep and horses. Just boil it down and mix with ammonium. After a series of chemical pit stops, it comes out a quaternary ammonium compound, or quat... quats effectively coat your clothing with lipids, (fats) making the fibers soft to the touch."

Oh SNAP that's gross. Seventh Generation, however, is a vegan product. For now, I'm going to be shunning that blue plastic bottle.

Felty McFelty-Pants

My hands are sort of pink these days. I've been felting rocks to try to sell at Twelve Mile and all that hot water and dish soap is making my hands grumpy. I thought I'd share before I take them in tomorrow.

These Flocks

These Flocks is a site that sells all sorts of unusual knitted things ranging from huge knitted rugs,

(and yes, this was knitted on enormous needles)

To mittens which, when you order them, have a tag that corresponds to the animal whose fur it was knit from. So cool!

And lastly, they are selling this book by Christien Meindertsma who spent the last three years researching all the products made from a single pig. Amongst some of the more unexpected results were: Ammunition, medicine, photo paper, heart valves, brakes, chewing gum, porcelain, cosmetics, cigarettes, conditioner and even bio diesel. Nice.

I Laughed Until I Sort of Snorted

A little e-mail exchange between person A who owes person B a bit of money. You can click on each of the pictures to enlarge them. Via: LOTD.

Things of that Nature

These are some of the things I've been busy making with my skinny, cold fingers the last week or so.

These little octopiddles are pretty tiny, about the size of a palm.

These sewed bunny people have been springing up everywhere in the afternoons these days. They're a little over a foot tall and really easy/fun to make. I think my favorite part has been sorting through my button tin. Ahhhh the eyes I could make with novelty buttons.

Minnow, who doesn't photograph nearly as well as she looks in person.
Doodles.

Lulu, who photographs exactly as cute as she really is.
Ahi, similarly afflicted with a lack of photogenic attributes.

And lastly, Dom with his fuzzy face.

The grand plan (and I'm trying really hard not to get my hopes up) is to sell these little guys, and a few other things, at the Twelve Mile Market in Gresham. I'm going in tomorrow to start my volunteering-ness. I got my food handler's license today in preparation and this last weekend I'm officially Red Cross CPR etc. certified. That last bit has nothing to do with volunteering, I just felt like sharing. Anyway, I went in and scheduled a time to get trained at Twelve Mile Market and David Shonk, the owner, said that I might be able to sell some of my things in the store! I'm pretty giddy about that.

Oh Holy Pancakes Batman!

These are super crazy. Like "drug-me-and-put-me-in-a-padded-room" crazy.

Earrings made from dead squirrel hands, via Craftzine and Craftastrophe.

Oh mUsic Videos

You make me giggle...

Pharcycle: Drop

Daft Punk: Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger (fan made)

And just about any Bjork video EVER made. Those are gorgeous. Unfortunately, our Internet connection has a limit on the amount we can use, so random youtube browsing or extended anything is off limits. You'll have to find those yourself. However, the ones here today are some that I've seen before and loved, brought to you this time by Smashing Magazine's 60 Beautiful Music Videos

I Love

Piggies kissing at Christmas!

From Linda & Harriet

Oh Vice, You are so Funny

Vice magazine posted Save the Stupid with this video:

Apparently about 70 sheep wandered onto some ledge that was impossible to get off of and then were being harassed by wolves. People of course, seeing how helpless they were, decided to save them by tying them up in bunches to a zip line and sending them off the mountain. Way to Save the Stupid and by-pass natural selection again people. That's how we end up with retarded chihuahuas and those ridiculously adorable short-legged munchkin cats.

Bunnies

Monty's abscess has gone Vesuvius on me which is yucky, but apparently ok. So that's different. I've also been making things all weekend, here's one, there's a little in the shop and a lot in a pile in my room!

Meet Nola May in the etsy shop!

Today

So I See

1984

Mom: age 27 with Daphne the terror-bunny.

2008

Me: age 20 with Monty the abscess bunny.

Mommy, How Are Gummy Bears Made?

Jason Freeny does these great prints of the inner workings of man-made fun things like gummy bears, balloon animals and lego men. My favorite part are the gestations of each that he's illustrated along the bottom. Ooohhh it's so good!

"Immaculate Confection"

"Pneumatic Anatomica"

Oh Monty

So, until tonight his fur had been hiding the worst of it. He had been dribbling carrot on his abscess so I decided to take a wash cloth and clean him up. Unfortunately that exercise showed just how bad his face has gotten. He has a puffy face to begin with so it hides it, a little. Until now, that is.

These are some sad days.

Especially when you're the one with an abscess 1/8th the size of your face.

Garfield minus Garfield

"Garfield Minus Garfield is a site dedicated to removing Garfield from the Garfield comic strips in order to reveal the existential angst of a certain young Mr. Jon Arbuckle. It is a journey deep into the mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness and depression in a quiet American suburb."

Oct. 9
Oct. 8

My Little Invalid

Monty, once again, has an abscess. This is sad because he's sleepy, ouchie and grumpy. And it requires one of two available treatments. The problem is that this one is the second abscess. Apparently bunnies are prone to these nasty infections which act like cancer and have to be treated like tumors. They. Are. NASTY. And painful.

Monty feeling sad and needy.

1.) Get an x-ray of his head for $500 to see if it's his tooth (which I think it highly likely) and if so give him a $850 bit of surgery to remove the abscess and possibly the tooth (in all likelihood it doesn't even include tooth removal because the vet said they don't have the technology there to do it). Total foreseeable cost: $1,350 with the possibility that it won't work and that he won't be able to eat correctly.

2.) Shoot him full of antibiotics for a month and hope that against all expectations they actually do something. The vet said that she's gotten it to shrink bunny abscesses a few times before, but no one actually recommends doing it. Total cost: $100 and a months worth of time with Monty and, in the off chance it cures him, a happy time until the next one. Oh, and this means that I have to shove a needle under his skin but above his muscle and inject him with refrigerated antibiotics every three days on top of giving him oral doses every morning for a month. I am not good with the injection part, really not good. I try so hard but he has skin like a rhino... the cutest rhino you've ever seen. Damn rhino skin.

I chose the second one. The antibiotics should at least shrink the abscess and make it easier to deal with if I choose to go that route and they might even make it go away. Which would be nice. Right now Monty has been super cuddly, I think it's the drugs but I keep telling myself that he always loves to be held for hours and falls asleep on me all the time. He doesn't, but it makes me feel a little better. He's been getting some bananas and raisins and carrot tops as treats which make him happier than a piggie in fermented corn.

Pumpkeenies!

Star and Ben carved their pumpkins today! Yes, it is the 1st and yes, it is the day after Halloween but putting faces in vegetables should really be a thing for all seasons. Don't try to label me mister, I see you! Tryin' to put me down... with your ways.

So this is what murder looks like!

Ben, carving his pumpkin using saliva. I've heard mother's spit can work miracles, just imagine what a 20 year-old male's mouth secretions can solve. The possibilities are boundless.

Star's pumpkin fini.

And the sweet glowing emanations coming from it, the reason: a mystery.
I liked her glowing star-top.

Ben pumpkin: face #1.

Who? Who carved this pumpkin? Oh... that guy.

Ben pumpkin: face #2, giving me the googlie eyes.

Googlie-ooglie-doo...ooooo.