Where are my Devo-tees at? This fearsome fivesome has been carefully replicated in wooden peg-people form with the classic yellow jumpsuit and red hat. You'll know Mark Mothersbaugh by his glasses. The rest, well it's up to you to pick a favorite.

Whip it!


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Interested in owning a piece like this? Check out my Etsy shopor email me for a custom order!. : * ~ * : . _ . : * ~ * : . _ . : * ~ * : .

Ariel the Little Mermaid dot painting

This was my first time painting Ariel and it came to me by special request. She was a lot of fun to make and she's now swimming her way to her new home! Thank you Tarra for your request!

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Interested in owning a piece like this? Check out my Etsy shopor email me for a custom order!. : * ~ * : . _ . : * ~ * : . _ . : * ~ * : .

Kittykill Interview!

I've been a huge fan of the Craftster community since... oh man, a long time now! And I've always loved the engagement of the moderators who seem to be genuinely thrilled at their jobs - look at crafts and chat with creators all day? C'mon! That's awesome!

Recently, I submitted a post for my Venture Brothers wooden pegs and the moderator was very friendly and complimented my work (*blush*) but her name - Kittykill - caught my eye, so I clicked through to her blog and crafts and was not disappointed! She makes some amazing things and over on her blog, she interviews some amazing people. So imagine my surprise when she wanted to interview me! I was blown away.

I hope I didn't come across too dorky! Read it, if you dare!

IT Crowd Cross Stitch Love

By now you probably already know how much I adore the IT Crowd (you can tell by the constant quoting) and I can't remember if I ever did a blog post about the IT Crowd-inspired Christmas gift that I made for Ryan.

Long story short: inspired by the IT Crowd cross stitch piece by Beth Garrison, I whipped up my own pattern (download it here) and then cross stitched Moss's head onto a cell phone case for Ryan.

Yesterday, I saw a note from Graham Linehan on Twitter


So I clicked the link, which went to his blog and in addition to being good news about where some of us US-based nerds can get their grubby paws on the season one commentary for the IT Crowd, there is a picture of my Moss cross-stitch. Which means, basically Graham Linehan saw my Flickr picture! Rejoice!

After doing a little Happy Dance of Happiness, I re-tweeted his message, adding in my 2 (non-biased) cents:


and THEN he tweeted back to me!


And then today, he sent the same message again, to make sure that everyone saw my art the important announcement and had apologized for duplicating the message, so I said



and HE said


So, basically, we are BFFs and as soon as I move to England or he moves to California, we're going to start hanging out all the time and probably go on rollercoasters and stuff. Ryan is now convinced that I have "Made It" so please form a line to the left for autographs. My fifteen minutes of fame is nearly up!

Stitchgasm on MrXStitch.com!

I am proud to say that my work was again featured on MrXStitch.com! It's an absolute honor to be recognized! This time, it was for my cross stitch of the Scooby Crew that I made for Kate's birthday. As an added bonus, this picture made it to Explore on Flickr!

I based the pattern on the MiniPops version of the Scooby Doo gang and then mapped it out myself using Excel (instead of graph paper). Once it was done, the background was too white and the gang lost some of the details, so I did a half-stitch in grey to define the background a bit more.

I didn't add Scooby himself, because our gang doesn't have a dog (we have 3 birds, 2 toads, and a cat between us) but we call ourselves the Scooby Crew and even dressed as them last Halloween!

Flight of the Conchords dot paintings

I just finished up two new dot paintings, which are posted for sale in my etsy shop http://giddygirlie.etsy.com/ Now you can stare at Jemaine and Bret and sing "Faux de Fafa" in the privacy of your own home!

Each painting is on a 5" x 5" canvas, primed in pool blue and then hand-dotted using my Not Patented, But Psychopathic 'dip, then dot' technique. The sale is for the set of two.

Happy Crafty Mothers Day!

Over at Craft Magazine this past week, people have been submitting stories of their "Crafty Mamas" to celebrate Mother's Day. So here's my crack at it:

In my earliest memory, I around 15 months old. I'm in my high chair at the kitchen table with my mom and my aunts, Sharon and Karen. It's almost Christmas and we're painting holiday ornaments. My mom and her sisters had been to the statuary shop and bought some bisque ceramic pieces to custom paint. This was one of their regular hobbies (my aunts favored those ceramic masks, which always kind of creeped me out) and I can clearly remember my aunts squabbling over who would get to paint the garden gnome. I had a small angel ornament that was mine to paint and I was painting it on the tray of my high chair. I wanted to use whatever color was unavailable to me, so I would whine until it was handed over. My angel ended up with several thick layers of colors and in my mind I wanted to outline the edges in black for a refined look. But when I wanted the black paint, Sharon was using it and taking too much time with it (in my opinion) so when I finally got the black, I threw my plan out the window and instead painted the entire angel in black - front and back. This made everyone laugh and at some point, it was dubbed the Angel of Death. It was frankly kind of creepy, but it was hung on our Christmas tree every year. [At some point years later, one of the wings broke off the angel and you could see the multi-color paint sedimentary layers.]

This was the start of my life as a crafter. I have a lot of memories crafting with my mom. We continued making Christmas ornaments out of flour and salt dough, which we'd then paint. We made shrinky dinks. She taught me to sew by hand and then later bought me a My Little Pony sewing machine (which really worked!). She taught me how to use the vintage treadle sewing machine and eventually an electric sewing machine. I made clothes for my dolls and even some things for myself. (Mom always made my Halloween costumes and I was the envy of all my friends. She had a penchant for using fabrics that were too fancy for kids, so my Cinderella ball gown was made from wedding satin. Awesome.)

She also taught me to paint and wallpaper, which came in handy both for fixing up my bedroom (made my own curtains!) and also for decorating my dollhouse. Together, we made beaded jewelry and beaded flowers. We crocheted small circles (coasters?) and she taught me the delicate art of puffy painting.

I can remember my first embroidery tutorial, too. She showed me how to stretch out the fabric tightly over the hoop and then to come up with a design that I liked. She helped sketch out some flower designs on the fabric as a pattern. I started with a basic chain stitch (which, incidentally, I still prefer today) and started making embroidered pieces for everyone.

My mom has inspired my crafting all my life and never more so than now. From her I've learned a lot of technical skills and also a sense of "I can make that" (which I sometimes take one step further and think "I can make that better." Because of her and the time we spent together, today I spend a lot of my free time crafting, which is fun and therapeutic and has turned into a nice little side business for me (and a great way to make friends!).

So, thank you mom. You've given me a lot, and inspired me a ton.

Happy Mother's Day!