sue's new bag!

my friend sue requested a new bag from me.  i made her a bag years ago and she wore that thing into the ground.  i really should have taken a picture of the old bag...it was pretty impressive.

she requested that the new bag be the same design, but just a little bit bigger.  with a flap. and she just wanted a brownish colored fabric.

i've been sitting on the outside fabric for a while now and was super excited to use it.  and i'm totally a fan of the plaid i used on the inside.  i was a little apprehensive to just make her a bag without her seeing the fabric first, but i just jumped right in.  and made a bag that i LOVE!!

if she didn't like it, i was more than willing to take it back and make her a different one because i could have used this one for quite some time!

she loved it.  apparently she was wearing it around pcc while she was working and showing it off.  that's great!  i'm so happy that she liked it so much!!

now on to erin's and noelle's bags!!

yellow kitteh!

it was my friend nikki's baby shower at work today.  last weekend i made this cuuuuuute yellow kitteh for her.  i can't get over how cute it is!

her two year old daughter liked it, so i'm feeling pretty good that the new baby will too!

happy halloween!!!

halloween at my work is a big BIG deal.  i was in a different department last year and my current department won our company competition last year, so this year it was a real challenge to win again.

we had meetings about halloween months in advance and still managed to not start really getting anything together until late august.  

we have 10 people in our department, so it was kind of hard to come up with something where everyone would have a good part.  the solution:  Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.  the roles?  all 7 dwarfs, snow white, the prince and the evil queen.  our director, who never participates in halloween and always takes the day off was the mirror.

the dwarf costumes were a pain in the butt because they all needed to be the same, but to buy a whole set of costumes was expensive!!  so marnie and i got together, found a pattern, went to joanne's and made all 7 tunics.  then we all just had to wear brown pants and brown shoes.  steve found just the masks pretty cheap so i think the dwarf costumes came out great.

i also volunteered to make cute little forest animals for our department decorations.  i borrowed a projector from work and with some help from maya drew the outlines, painted them and then glued them on cardboard.

the cardboard was a way bigger pain in the ass to cut through than i had anticipated so everyone at work had to help out and cut out a couple because i thought my fingers were going to break.

our department came out looking pretty good though:

steve had gotten his daughter a little cardboard playhouse that we confiscated and re-painted to look like the dwarfs cottage.  people liked to go inside:

we also had an interactive website that steve put together.  we all wrote bio's for the dwarf match and some of us put together the "boots wow", "bunnies united" and "witch apples" commercials for the website.  you should look around the site and see all the stuff that we put together!!  here are some of the pics that i put together for the bunnies united commercial:

we also had a skit that we practiced on for weeks and jodeena totally choreographed it.  the different departments that want to participate get a skit together and then the whole company gathers in our lobby on halloween to watch them.  watch the video...it's pretty funny!

lots of people and departments dress up and compete and it's a lot of fun!!

it was a lot of fun and a lot of work.  i'm already wondering what we're going to do next year!!  and next year we're going to have to up our game even more because WE WON!!!!!  2nd year in a row!!  that big ass trophy will be sitting in our department for another year.

and i'm just going to leave you with my favorite shot from snow white this halloween.  i always wondered how those lips were so pretty!!

foodie pen pals!

september was my first month in participating in foodie pen pals!  it was super fun and i'm really excited to taste my treats this month.

the girl who got me is jessie from hawaii!  i was so excited when she emailed me and asked what my food preferences were and said that i was getting treats from hawaii.  someday i will make it to hawaii!

here's what i received!:

chocolate coconut macadamia pancake mix, dark hawaiian coffee, nummy looking popcorn topping, granola, hawaiin bbq, chocolate macadamia treats and three cute pouches of different kinds of roasted macadamias.

i'm really looking forward to the weekend and breaking into the coffee and pancake mix.

thanks so much jessie for your super foodie package!!!  it was great to come home and have your package waiting for me!  i hope that your first month was as good as mine!

let's see what october will bring!!

backyard barter!

I'M BACK!  didn't realize how long it's been since i put up a post.  *cringy face*

but yesterday i went to my first backyard barter at the NW solar fest in shoreline.  what a super awesome idea and fun thing to do.  you bring handmade stuff; canned items, baked items, homebrew, stuff from the garden, crafts, whatever; and you barter for other people's items.  so fantastic!  

there were about 4 rows of tables set up for people to display the items they wanted to barter.

this wonderful woman brought kimchi and handmade bowls and cups.  i bartered two jars of my marinated veggies for the cup by itself in the 2nd row there.  this was my favorite thing bartered for!!

here's everything i traded for.  i had lots of marinated veggies and plum butter from last year to trade with:

1. worm tea (i'm gonna use it on my houseplants)
2. tart aronia jam
3. dilled green beans
4. rhubarb vanilla early grey jam
5. peach rosemary sauce
6. green chili salsa
7. oatmeal lavendar soap
8. cottonwood salve
9. a bunch of lavendar
10. matchboxes
11. a delicious brownie
12. the most awesome handmade cup

and the NW solar fest was pretty cool.  i didn't look around at it much, but i did see this sweet bus:

and GOATS!  i petted some goats!

the next backyard barter is august 22 or 23 maybe up on beacon hill.  i hope to rope a couple of people i know into doing this also.  i think both of them will love it.  yes, i'm talking about you, GRACE!  i also signed up to volunteer so i hope sarah calls me to help  out!!

i got my bead on...

when my mom was here recently, we went to shipwreck beads out in lacey.  this place was friggin huge!  mom said it was like a big warehouse of beads and she was not joking.  it. was. awesome.

i haven't done much beading in years.  after the ridiculousness of my last year of college and the bead projects i did, i was a little burnt out.  i've been working on a single loomwork piece for over 10 years now and have yet to even get halfway done.  i will finish that thing before i die though.

so, blowing some money (thanks mom and debbie!!) at the bead store for some new necklaces and earrings was a nice change of pace.  i came home and pulled out some supplies and started in.

(this is not the extent of my boxes of beads by a loooong shot)

here's what i have done so far.  some easy necklaces and earrings.

there are matching earrings for the flower necklace and the bracelet and earrings under it are also a set.

i really liked these black and gold beads.  so pretty!

 quite a while ago i put some cork board in a picture frame i had so i could easily hang up my earrings and be able to see them as well.  i've also given some of these to friends as gifts.

i finally found a long frame i liked so i could hang my necklaces.  there's all sorts of room for more necklaces!!

now i just have to get the rest of the items made from my trip to the bead store!  YAY!  

SMASHPUTT!!

last sunday was smashputt time again.  this year i went with nicole, nicole's bff cindy, dawn, grace and her man jeremiah.  it was located in south seattle in a total industrial area.  smashputt is a traveling putt putt golf/art performance piece.  it is a lot of fun!  nothing quite says fun like putt putt golf and hard alcohol.  

they had all the same holes as last year, just in a different venue and set up differently.  last year it was in the old immigration building and each room had it's own put put hole.  some rooms were larger and had 3-4 holes.  this year it was in a much bigger industrial space, so it was all in two large rooms.

the entry way was full of fake christmas trees.  some lit, some not.  it was inviting and somewhat creepy.

this hole had absolutely no use for the putter.  you dropped your ball in the top of this maze and rotated it to get your ball through.

this one was good!  there were holes in the green for your ball to fall into and then your score was whatever point was designated to that hole.  pure chance.

*giggling*

this was my favorite one, from last year and this year.  both the record players were rotating and you had to try to shoot across them.

there was a sweet couch to sit and drink yer drinks.  so we did.

this one you had to stick your ball in the catapult, align it how you wanted it to throw and stomp on the pedal to make it throw.  mine was way off.  dawn's was a hole in one.  because she's awesome.  that is just how she rolls.

disturbing kermit frogger!

there was a separate room that was just a decorated room.  i liked all the photos.

and another room set up as a room.

poops!

also from last year....i covet this peacock.  you can't tell from my digital pics, but there was only red light in this area and it was really sweet, but the flash made it look all white.  rude.

this hole was superfantastic.  it was set up like a living room and the shag carpet had a little path of green through it that you shot through and the hole was on the other side of the living room.

i felt a little bloated :)

this lamp was friggin sweet!

i loved this one!  you shot your ball into a meshed off area and it just drilled a hole in your ball and spit it out.  see?  it's drilling a hole in a ball!!

the woodwork on this one was awful purdy.

for this one, you shot into one of 3 holes and your ball went into an area where it got sliced (literally) by a power saw.

see?  that's a yellow ball on the far left!  gettin sliced!

and then there was the shooting range.  3 people got to sit at a time and shoot golf balls at items hanging in a cage.  it was loud and everyone who did it was super excited.  i took pictures.

you could mess with people on this one.  there were only two holes, one on each and and you could push a button to close one hole or the other.

yay!  another good year of  smashputt!  see you next years!!