Merry Craft-mas, the Final Chapter: my loot!

Dear Shayne,

I'm sorry in advance -- this is going to be an annoyingly loooong post because I want to wrap up Christmas and ring in the new year. Ready for it? Okay... here 'tis. "All the craftiness I got for Christmas this year" (by Kelly).

My darling Bill really hit it out of the park with his crafty gifts. I could bombard you with pictures, but I'll just use links. For my birthday, he got me... [I need a dramatic pause here cause I am so totally stoked about this]... a PRINT GOCCO! I can hardly believe it! He got the PG-11 (you can read about its specifications at this site, although Bill bought mine here). I'm super excited about it but I'm also stalled -- the possibilitiess are so overwhelming that I just don't know where to start. I think I'm going to make birthday cards but... what am I going to put on them?! What? What?! Ack! Oh, I'll think about it later.

For Christmas, I got wire cutters. Yay! Why is that exciting? Because it means I don't have to traipse down to the basement workshop every time I need to cut wire. I have my own and they will live upstairs! Whee!

To improve the quality of photos of my crafts (in theory), he got me a "photo studio in a box" (that’s the actual product name), which I am really not worthy of. Yet. It's already way better than what I was using before (the under cabinet lights in the kitchen), but I'm still experimenting with getting really good results from this thing.

AND (that's right... I'm not done) he got me this postal scale! So I can mail stuff straight from home without going to the post office! YEAH! I can also weigh other stuff (up to 55 lbs!) if I am so inclined.

AND (oh, yeah... there's more) I had asked him to buy me something from The Black Apple because I like her work and read her blog and she just seems like the sweetest thing. I only specified the artist, but asked him to pick out the print. He did a great job of picking one that is just my style, with both the kitty ears and the Ghost World reference. You can see it here. Me-ow! (Next crafty project for me: framing and hanging it!)

Whew! That's just my Crafty Goodness from Bill! There's more!

I got some great supplies from my friend Micki from her recent trip to Japan. First, some lovely silk kimono scraps...I'm not yet sure what I am going to do with them. In the meantime, I will spend quality time fondling:


She also got me some fabulous Japanese papers and cute little lucky cat stickers:


Those papers were far more artfully packaged when I got them (the Japanese have such a knack for that), but I couldn't resist tearing right in and making a ton of buttons. (Okay, I really do need to start selling these things.)


(Note the difference between this photo of the buttons and my last photo of buttons... already, the light box is helping this neanderthal photographer.)

I got some crafted gifts as well. From Dawn, I got the most kick-ass towel you have EVER seen. Seriously... this thing rocks so hard, I can't even stand it:


(That's a crappy picture, but the skull applique totally rocks -- take my word for it!)

And from YOU, I got a great triptych entitled Robot Goes to Europe, but I cannot for the life of me get a good picture of it. I only remember to take photos of it at night and it doesn’t fit into my “photo studio”... sooo... can you post photos? Please?

It's going up in the office, probably this weekend! (Although I am a terrible procrastinator, so maybe not. But soon. Or sometime. Well, it will go up, I assure you.)

I also got a load of good stuff from Bonnie, including this sweet little ornament that she knit:


And these amazing earrings from a seller on etsy (they're incredibly well crafted -- that's thread wrapped around there... the technique is really incredible and my photos don't do them justice):


Plus... these fantastic tomato letterpress cards that I had wisted, then forgot all about, from Paper Stories (another etsy seller). What a surprise to say, "Oh, yeah! I totally wanted these!" Hee hee.


And, for the [still not finished -- how's yours going?] bathroom, this great soap dispenser that she hand-painted herself (this is not a very good photo of it -- see my earlier comments about my crappy photography skillz):


Nice work, Bonnie! (You spoiled me!)

Whew! I feel like I'm forgetting something, but there's the wrap up. Now that Christmas is done, what else am I working on? Oh, yeah, some ATCs and this traveling art journal thing -- you'll see photos soon enough. And some knitted projects for me! Yes, me! Oh, and those Gocco cards... just as soon as I think of a design. Right. Design. Any ideas?

And what are you working on these days, Miss Shayne?

love,
kelly