Excelsior!

I've finally shown Motif 1/2 of my pet bed who's boss.  Motif 5/6...still having some problems.  And does my cat really deserve six different types of squares?  No, she's a cat.  She's just going to refuse to sleep on it, and maybe I'll end up giving it to Daisy.

I might change the colors around for the designs I can actually do.

I've also finished AUDREY bears and mailed it out on Friday.  I don't think it really shows up in the pictures, but I used some of my new Light Effects floss for the eyes.  It's a dark blue that I think has some stupid name like Blueberry Blast or something.  It's also a pain in the ass to work with, especially for two quick little backstitches where you only do a very small area before you have to cut it off and move it somewhere else.

Venus Love Me Chain

Last year Kendra and I had a joint Sailor Moon birthday party because we're ten year olds from 1996.  I've been snagging stuff from Manga Style and Lycentia's SM Graphics to use for scrapbooking, and then I realized something: these little drawings would probably fit on my totally radical artist sketch cards.

Step one to being an awesome manga sketch card artist when you can't draw: Print shit off the internet

Step two: Glue it to your manga sketch cards

I don't know if my handwriting+gold pen is at all legible, but Venus is reminding you that she's not just another pretty blonde.

I'm definitely sure that Venus is Kendra's favorite.  Some of the others...

Kristen gets Mini Moon because Kristen likes pink.  Basically, if Kristen had ever designed her own Sailor senshi, it would've basically turned out like Sailor Mini Moon only taller and less annoying.  And possibly with another shade of pink instead of red.

I really hope the letters on Saturn look better in real life than they do in this picture.

I went for this extremely topical and not at all likely to be dated by the time Jamel gets this in the mail reference since Saturn's in the anime so rarely that she doesn't even get a transformation sequence.  I could probably have looked up her attacks and maybe come up with something, but I'm lazy.  And it's not like this is Harry Potter where Jamel would demand that I step up (and obscurity be damned!).

I thought Pluto was Bridget's favorite, but apparently I was wrong. Or Pluto's her favorite Outer and Venus is her favorite Inner.  The point is, I didn't see her comment on Facebook until after I'd sealed the envelope.

I also considered "Drop Dead Gorgeous" and some Dead Scream based joke that never really worked out, but, like Communism, was totally awesome in theory.

I don't care what the haters (like Kristen) say: Jupiter is awesome.

This caption took forever.  I am very disappointed in the English language for lacking potentially amusing phrases about thunder, lightning, and electricity.  Especially ones that make sense and/or fit on bargain bin comic and manga trading cards.

Which, other than my inherent awesomeness (something else I share with Sailor Jupiter), is why I combined My Fair Lady with Sailor Moon.  I am dreaming the impossible moon cosmic dream action, people.

All of the backgrounds are from Sailor Moon SNES video games. The pink lacy one is the same picture, printed out at different sizes. I still desperately miss my old, pre-Vista/7 image software that would let me adjust the size of pictures to anything I wanted instead of giving me options in normal people photo sizes.  My printer doesn't understand that I have evolved past printing out photos, and now need to do super important things like print out pictures of cartoon characters and painstakingly cut them out with embroidery scissors.

Circle takes the square

Today's project: making cross stitch patterns and making Etsy listings for said cross stitch patterns.  If you know someone who enjoys cross stitch and Pokemon, perhaps they would enjoy stitching a Bulbasaur?  And if it's me, I like Squirtle.

Meanwhile, I've been scrapbooking pretty hard, but I assume nobody wants to see pictures of what I'm doing with pictures?  Even if I make it into a Pimp My Ride style macro?

I'm also getting my ass handed to me by a dog bed pattern.  And not just because I'm making it for a cat (and maybe a dog who is willing to buy her own yarn).  I think I've managed to screw up Motif 1 (on cat) at least three times.  The only reason there are only two failure squares is because there's been a lot of unraveling.

Scissors beat paper

Good news, everyone: I figured out that I can use my comic and manga trading cards for things other than sending obscene stick figure drawings to Kendra!

For example, I can use them to giggle moronically at how "clever" I am.  See, because they're both princesses?  Who beat the hell out of people?

Also, tonight's project has reminded me of Kitana's epic side-boob.  But the important thing is that's it's not as enragingly stupid as Catwoman's MK costume.  Or the fact that they gave Catwoman Fatalities.  Basically, MK vs DC was lazy and manipulative.

Wonder Woman's background is something that came up in a GIS for "Greek column".  I used MK stages for Kitana and Sindel, but possibly not MK3/UMK3 stages because the nerd-line had to be drawn somewhere.  Especially after the time I spent carefully cutting out a wallet-sized print out of a Darwyn Cooke Wonder Woman drawing.

Picnic food without end

I should really stop looking at This Is Why You're Fat for recipe ideas, but deviled eggs on top of deviled eggs.  And since I'm pretty sure that eggs come in more than two sizes, that means I could create some sort of infinite chain of deviled eggs to stuff in my craw (I'm better at shoving deviled eggs in my mouth with reckless abandon than I am at math).

***

This weekend I went to craft stores instead of watching my sister graduate from law school.  I got another bottle of Wilton Brownie Drizzle on clearance, so I think I might make brownies with peanut butter icing for Lucy's Weekend (or Turtle Mix Sprinkles?).  If anyone's allergic to peanuts, that just means they're one of God's lesser creatures.

I also got the DMC Light Effects Tropical Glow thread pack.  Which is more than I should probably spend on yet more embroidery floss, especially yet more embroidery floss I don't actually need for a project.  But I love the colors, and I'll probably think of something.

Apparently I haven't been able to find any more yellow wool yarn because it's all in North Carolina.  I'm waiting for my mother to be appalled by the fact that it's by Stitch 'n Bitch Nation.

Also, I'm not sure what normal people would use an oval shaped embroidery hoop for, but I'm totally making the Batman logo.  It's the same brand/plastic as the hoop I used to frame my Vaporeon (did I ever show that to you?), except it's the perfect shape for the Batman logo.

***

The Starter Pokemon were posted on Geek Crafts on Monday, so the theoretical internet dollars should start rolling in soon.

Devil's advocate

Here's one of Kristen's non-fermented graduation presents.  (I'm not entirely sure how/where to post Kristen and the Pomeranian Ranch.  And I think everybody's read it.)

I think I've finally figured out this "right side out" thing for crocheting in the round.

This is the Creepy Cute Crochet devil in blue and with safety eyes instead of...some sort of clay thing.

I really like the amigurumis in Creepy Cute, but I'm still having a hard time with the patterns.  The body's all right, but the head...well, let's just say this particular devil landed on his head after the Fall.  I ended up doing basically what I did last time--using Amigurumi World when necessary.

It's the goatee that really makes him demonic.  Like Vader's felt details, I skipped painstaking, dedicated needlework and went straight to hot glue gun.

The collar is crocheted using the Creepy Cute pattern, but the rest is felt.  I'm still not entirely sure I've figured out the "tr, sl st in first two loops of tr".

Here he is with an officially licensed Duke Blue Devil.  The difference is the official Duke mascot is, I shit you not, a man dressed as a devil, while mine is an actual devil who is blue and enjoys Duke basketball.

Also, here is the framed Space BFFs ♥ .

I really think Kristen could've gone with a gayer frame, but apparently this one was a wedding gift.

This caused Kristen's mother-in-law to ask if I knew where the term "slash" came from, and I said I did, and attempted to explain the sad reasoning behind Space BFFs ♥ .  Which caused my mother to ask what we were talking about.  General consensus was that my mother is better off not knowing about 40+ years of erotic Star Trek fan fiction.  I don't even know where to begin to explain Star Trek slash to my mother, and Kirk/Spock is basically canon.  And by "basically canon", I mean William Shatner totally ships it, and he should know, right?

There'll be peace when you are done keeping 'em flying

Tonight's project: Awesomizing propaganda.

I should've spaced this better on the fabric since now I've got an awkwardly skinny strip.  On the plus side, I did sign up for a Glee swap and red, black, and white are the Cheerios colors.

And if that doesn't work out, there's always Kendra.

These are cupcakes dressed as devils, not devil cupcakes.

I got Hello, Cupcake! out of the library, and Kristen's graduating this weekend, so you can probably see where this is going.


I'm using the Chocolate Mint Recipe:


1 box of devil's food cake mix
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
4 large eggs
3/4 cup chopped Andes Crème de Menthe Thins (this seems to be about 20 chocolates)

Make as directed, folding the chopped mint chocolates into the batter.




Because I'm awesome and lazy, I've determined that "breaking into pieces with your hands" is pretty much like chopping.  And "putting in the mixer" is probably close enough to "folding".  Folding things into cakes just makes me think of the non-magic cake from Sleeping Beauty.


The recipe says it'll make 24 regular cupcakes, but I've got 24 regular cupcakes and 18 mini cupcakes.

I'm not using one of the designs in the book, although I really need to make the pumpkins once it's seasonally appropriate and the sharks once I get some Twinkies.  And people willing to eat frosted Twinkies on cupcakes.  (Also, aliens.  God obviously wants me to use make these alien cupcakes and use this Romulan ale recipe He hath guided me to.)


I considered turning the aliens into devils, but I'm already worried that the frosting isn't going to survive the travel and heat.  


Finding blue candy that can be turned into devil horns is more complicated than you would expect.  I have never so fervently wished for it to be the 90's again.  Oh, for those halcyon days when everything you could shove in your gob came in XTREME BLUE RAZZBERRY.

I settled on Kroger Sour Slices.  Two bags didn't give me enough blue pieces.


I assume that mint chocolate cupcakes do not go well with Sour Blue Raspberry, no matter how TO THE MAX that Blue Raspberry may be.  But that's not the real problem--the real problem is that these Sour Slices are Carolina Blue.


Making the horns used the super sophisticated technique of "cutting the slices in half".

I used Wilton Icing Color in Royal Blue.  Unlike Black, you have to be generous with Royal Blue to get it to the appropriate shade of Duke Blue (as opposed to the getting an ass kicking from your father shade of Pusilanimous Carolina Blue.)

The three in the left corner were dipped in sprinkles.  It looks really nice in the book and in real life, but it's kind of a pain to do, and I kept hearing the graduation girl complaining about how much sugar is involved.


For those of you playing along at home, this is devil's food (hurr hurr) adulterated with chocolate mints, vanilla frosting, gummi candies with some kind of sugar on them, chocolate chip eyes, and Sparkle Gel (which I assume is vampire high fructose corn syrup).

Since this is for Kristen, I had a solution to my lack of blue horns--pink.  And put pink sprinkles over Duke Blue to show school spirit, not because I can't plan ahead.


I think you should know that frosting sour gummis doesn't really work very well.

I blue myself several times while I was working on these.

The little devils are spending the night in the fridge before their big trip.




  

I wanna be the very best

Even though substitute teaching next week is definitely going to interfere with my frantic paper writing, it does give me plenty of cross stitching time.

Thanks to spending Friday in a middle school math classroom, I was able to get most of my third Pokemon done.

Tonight was ironing so they can go in the Etsy shop as soon as I can find the "Is _____ the Pokemon you want?" description dialogue.  Can you believe that nobody's put that on the internet?

For some reason, these kids today think there's something odd about cross stitching bulbasaur.  Fortunately, I will never be thirteen again, so I don't have to care if people think I'm cool.

I'm considering doing the starter Pokemon for other regions, but Soul Silver has reminded me that all the Johto starters are crappy. And I never played Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald, so I don't really care (although there is a rumor going around that you appreciate mudkips).   I'm probably more likely to do the Diamond/Pearl/Platinum starters.  I mean, if these kids today won't respect bulbasaur, they've got to respect something as awesome as piplup, right?  (Man, it's a good thing I don't care about being cool)

My Pokemons, let me show them to you

Underwater gardening is going well.  In fact, I'd say it's going better than surface world gardening since surface world gardening requires me to actually do stuff.

Some of my cheap, crappy Amazon sword plants from Petco/Pet Smart have come and gone, but one of them is starting to outgrow the tank.

(And the zoomed in pictures really let you see how badly I need to get out the old algae scrubber.

This is how much algae sucks: there is no tank light.  Ensign Ricky just uses the regular room lights, and there's still algae.)

Despite my incredibly stupid karate injury this week (don't punch people in the elbow), I'm still able to cross stitch, so I've been working on my Pokemons and my commission for Michelle.

I need to iron Squirtle and Charmander so I can take some nicer pictures and put them up in my Etsy shop.  I've just started Bulbasaur, but meh.  I mean, it's a scientific fact that the plant starter is always the worst one.

Because I am a mature and intelligent person, my new dream is to make a Pokemon cross stitch for "Gas, grass, or ass".  Currently "ass" has me stumped, but I'm sure I'll think of something wretchedly and shamefully inappropriate.