Holy eff, it's been awhile.

So yeah, it's been awhile eh? I've been keeping myself busy but I have admit that I haven't really done a lot of crafts in the past few months. I've done the odd project here and there but nothing substantial or even terribly interesting. I knit a few dish clothes and crocheted a couple of amigurumi pears, which I've done in the past a few times before. Fall is just around the corner though and that's usually when I bring out of my crafting guns. We shall see.

Although I haven't been crafting, I have kept myself busy this summer. I joined a dodgeball team with a league here in Halifax. We play every Monday night and it's a lot of fun. I forgot how much I enjoyed being on a sports team....and throwing balls at strangers. In July I went camping in PEI which ended my ten year streak of not being on a boat and a whooping 12 year no swimming streak. I went to my family reunion where a ridiculous amount of good food and alcohol was consumed. Got a couple of sunburns and doubled my freckle count. Took a road trip with two of my favourite friends to Montreal just to go to Ikea. Oh yes, it's been a good summer.

One thing I have been doing this summer is bake. Oh yes, I love to bake and lately I've made things that have even impressed myself. Last week I made pecan cinnamon buns. They were seriously one of the best tasting things I have ever made myself. They were that good. I have to hold back from making them everyday though.

Drool....


















And if those aren't enough, today I think I made the best chocolate chips cookies that I have ever created as well. I know it sounds like I'm full of myself and my baking skills but seriously, mad skillz, I suddenly have them.



Well hopefully this gets me posting again!

**** Come visit my new site at www.thecraftinista.com ****

And it's only Saturday!

Today was more productive then usual. Finished off Polo, which was a big hit and I got started on a new polymer clay cane! Last time I went to my parent's place, my mother suggested that I do a flower cane, so I did.

Started with my three main colours



Turned them into a skinner blend



Completed cane!



Completed bead!



And last but not least, the completed pendant.

I also had the chance to head out to a friend's birthday bbq this evening. I left with a stuffed belly, so it was successful in my books! Check out a few photos from the evening. Oh, and the lovely Ms. Baker gave me a Lite-Brite that she picked up at a garage sale. Those things are seriously awesome. Much thanks.

Hello Polo!

I finally got around with finishing the amigurumi project that I mentioned earlier in the month for my friends birthday. And I did it with only hours to spare! His name is Polo the Platypus! Click here, here and here to see him in his original, yet adorable form. I think he turned out pretty well. There are a few things I'd change, mostly his eyes; I would have liked to have put them slighty lower and I was out of solid black safety eyes which I wanted to originally use. But considering it was my first amigurumi project that I wrote 100% of the pattern, not bad. I tend to take bits and pieces of other patterns to make my own but this time I knew I had to start from stratch. I'm going to try and write up the pattern if anyone wants to give him a whirl.

My Dad also came into the city last night for supper and a bit of shopping. Shopping with my mother consists of clothes shopping, household stuff, that sort of thing. Shopping with my father consisted of a quick stop at Costco for a shelf, looked for an air compressor at Home Depot and he got me a rad storage container at Canadian Tire, that was perfect for all of my little findings - sew on snaps, earring posts and backs, felting needles, etc. Awesome! Now everything is at hands reach.

Sometimes you are just like TV.

So unfortunately I didn't get to work on anything this weekend. *Single tear runs down Jennifer's face.* On the other hand, I had a good weekend at my parents place in Greenwood. And that's including the accident that occurred during a game of catch with my Dad. The following facebook conversation between Lamb and I, will explain.

Jennifer - is watching Shaun of the Dead. Rad.

Lamb likes this.

Jennifer - Sadly it is now over.
PS. I got whacked in the head with a baseball today. The stitching on the baseball left an awesome mark on my head.

Lamb - Sometimes you are just like TV. ♥

Awesome, right? And it was in the same spot as my sledding accident earlier this year.



No, this isn't my sledding accident. It wasn't captured on film or video and I thank my lucky stars for that because the video/photo would have gone viral by now. Instead the picture is of Brady's awesome face plant after trying to snowboard down a toboggan on the same day (as my accident). Awesome.

Oh, and I totally came across some of the most awesome polymer clay pieces I have ever seen. Holy bananas. I had posted a couple of pictures on my flickr account earlier this evening and someone commented on one of them. I went to their site and was amaaaaazed by the work that they do. I only hope one day I can get half as good with polymer clay as they do. For real. Check them out. SRLSY.

Adorableness ahead. Beware.

Told ya. Mad props to the other half of Team Trevor(s) for photochopin' this super cute guy up for me. Werd.

I'm out of creative juice!

For the time being, anyway. So instead I went and caught my friend Stan's band Saint Ray Satellite downtown. I'm generally a little weary about seeing a friend's band play only because what happens if I don't like them? I tend to show my dislike for things on my face pretty clearly so I wouldn't be able to lie if I didn't like them. Luckily for Stan, his band was actually quite solid. Yay! And seeing him again allowed me to remind him of the deal that we made a few years ago that if he ever put out an album (they are currently recording their first cd) that I got to play the kazoo on it. Oh yeah. He better not take that away from me. Check out his band at http://www.myspace.com/saintraysatellite. Back to the crafts tomorrow though. Ish is coming over after work for a little crafting session. Until then!

Anyone that knows me....

knows I love skulls. I just adore them. I have skull ornaments, skull socks, skull shirts, even a skull shower curtain. So when my friend Woz gave me the Skulls book from Skull-A-Day, I was super stoked. I loved the paint by number skull that was featured in the book and decided I wanted to give it a whirl. I printed it off at home and realised that it was going to be way too small. Then I remembered that we happen to have a 42 inch wide format printer at work. Problem solved. I had one of the boys print it off as large as they could. They used a heavyweight coated paper so that I could apply paint to it without worrying about the paper puckering. To paint it, I actually taped the whole thing down to my coffee table so that I could sit on the couch to work on it. It turned out to be all kinds of rad.

I unfortunately did not get the chance to drop by the yarn store today. I slept in until about 3:30 (I am not ashamed so there is no need to judge me) but unfortunately the province I live in, stores tend to close really early on Sundays so I knew I wouldn't be able to clean myself up and get downtown in time before the store closed. Alas, I'll have to try sometime this week.

Blue (felted) balls...oh and purple and magenta and orange and....

Finished up the felted beads project late last night. They may a nice quick project when you're looking for a little instant gratification of finishing a project.

Once the beads were felted and dry, I simply strung them on some bead thread with some seed beads and shell beads that I had from an upcycled necklace that wasn't really my style. In the end I think it turned out pretty cute. And I gotta say, I love the new roving that I got. The colours are super vibrant and it's super soft. Such better quality than the roving that I've found locally. Next I'm going to try needle felting.

Today Lamb and I went on a shopping and lunch date. We stopped by Michael's in hopes of finding a wooden bag handle for the bag that I'm making for my sister. Unfortunately the few they had, weren't going to work. They had a few wood ones but they looked like bamboo and it just wouldn't have matched the style of the bag. And there were a few plastic ones that I could have worked with but they weren't as wide as what I needed. Back to square one. I'm going to try and make a trip downtown tomorrow afternoon to check out the yarn store and see if they have anything that might work. If not I'm going to have to reconsider my design. Args.

Although the search for a handle failed, I did some across a few good books that I was interested in. I got Not Your Mamma's Felting and Beautiful Knitting. Beautiful Knitting looked helpful in improving my sub par knitting skills.Right now they only thing I can knit is scarves and scarf shaped items. Not terribly useful.

Tonight....you.

First off, I'd like to say that I had no part in the making of the cake you are about to see. It can all be contributed to B and B only. For Lamb's birthday this year he actually offered to make the cake. To be honest at first I was surprised. Genuinely surprised. And curious. In the four years that we've been friends, I've never seen him cook a thing. Wait, I think I once saw him stir something in a pot. Does that count? Anyway, I asked "Seriously, you know how to bake a cake?" "Yeah, I'm actually a pretty good cook" he tells me. "Then why the fuck am I always the one that cooks for everyone" I ask. His response? "I'm lazy." True enough.

This is what he came up with. Hand Banana. Seriously. If you don't know who Hand Banana is please click here. Please be warned, you may feel uncomfortable eating a banana for the next six months. Or being around dogs. Or gross hairy dudes. DON'T SAY I DIDN'T WARN YOU THOUGH!

And here is her reaction to the cake. Needless to say, she was impressed. Kudos to B!