Click the pic to see some photos of the plushes. If you are in Seattle, this show is a must see!

Plush You!
Schmancy, Fancy, and Nancy
Starting October 10
1932 Second Avenue Seattle WA

Here is a kitty that I made for my crafty pal Becky. Becky is traveling the USA for six months with her suitor Aitor on a mighty crafty fair and performing tour. They stopped by to visit us as they were passing through the state. It’s always fun to see those guys. I love to hear stories of their travels. Now I’ve done some traveling in my life, but I am generally a homebody, so I don’t really get out much. I must say I am a tad jealous of her huge craft fair adventure! You can read all about it on Becky’s blog. She wrote about their visit with us too. Actually, she wrote about it two months ago like a very good and prompt blogger. I just caught up on some blog reading and was happy to see some cute pics of my kiddies over there. Awww.

Here is a picture of Aitor when they visited us a few years ago when we lived in Ohio and they were in town for Craftin’ Outlaws.

Well despite my hermit tendencies, I went out and partied this weekend! Here is my party outfit.

My friend from my old days in animation had a birthday party. She is now a shoe designer and I am a plush designer. Isn’t it interesting how life unfolds? The party invitation stipulated that guests come dressed as the universe. Do you think I look like the universe? Not Miss Universe, just the universe. That would have been fun if somebody came dressed as Miss Universe. Or Mister. Well nobody else dressed up. Seems like the story of my life - me being the only one to dress weird. Gotta love it. I was voted “most unusually dressed” in my high school yearbook. It was foretold! Life unfolds!

Here is the birthday present I put together for my pal. I thought it was a fun idea worth sharing, so here you go.

The original concept was to gather all the ingredients to make some fancy mixed beverages. Well I forgot a few things and added rosemary. I don’t think rosemary has any place in a drink, but it makes a nice smelling mini bouquet. I should have added sweetened condensed milk for the thai tea and some seltzer for the mojitos. I remembered everything else though. I like to save cute jars and bottles for projects such as this. It wouldn’t make much sense to rebottle seltzer anyway, and a can of milk is not so pretty. Or so I justify. I used a sharpie on some blank sticker paper to make the labels. The pot has mint roots in it so there will be more mint later.

All together now:

I might have made the final presentation more exciting, but I think the garden fresh herbs helped me pull it off with simplicity. It’s nice that I still have usable herbs growing out in the yard in October. I should probably make a final harvest soon, though. Death to plants is coming soon.

As if I didn’t have enough tummyache for one week, all this political poppycock and bailout bulldunky is making this me quite queasy. So I’ve gone and plastered web banners for my favorite pick all over my website, MySpace, and Facebook. Hopefully it will get a few extra people to remember to register. If you haven’t registered yet, do it now. Time is running out! I mean now, like right now. Don’t even keep reading this! If you wanna spread some web graphic Obama love around too, you can get your banners here:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/downloads

My favorite coat:

I just voted! Can you guess who my favorite Crafty Bastard in the running is? Some hints: She makes awesome plush, is a mother of two, and is the wife of a tattoo artist. No, it’s definitely not me, it’s Heidi of My Paper Crane! It’s a heated race with Heidi and one other nominee running neck and neck for first place. Every vote counts! I, on the other hand, am nominating myself for the UNcraftiest Bastard. I am at home today with a tornado in my tummy. I should be hanging out at the fabulous Crafty Bastards Craft Fair with my creatures and saying hi to all my crafty friends. UNfair. But I must not dwell. I have two huge bags of plush and all sorts of other schtuffs that now must be photographed and added to the Pomly shop instead. But for now, it’s some more Pepto Bismol and a nap for me, the Uncraftiest Bastard, J.H.

I just joined Twitter. I didn’t think I would, but then I caved. Total peer pressure! Seems like it could be fun. I’m pomly. Are you a twitterer? Let’s be twittering pals!

I must go finish for packing up for Crafty Bastards now. I will shove off in to the deep dark night and head south at 3am! I’ll leave you with some randoms…

Here are some pics of the guys I sent to Plush You! this year.

Mommy Swami getting hugged by my big boy. (I did not send big boy to Plush You!)

Mommy Swami imploding.
I made the turning hole too small and so it took a while to turn her inside out. Little by little, nudge nudge, poke poke. I have destroyed many a creature by making the very same fatal mistake - hole too small. Luckily, Mommy Swami escaped with her life this time.

Just Mommy Swami, a proper portrait. She insisted.

Noir Neige. Do you know the translation?
N. N. seems to have a little navy in his appendages. Hmmm, He appeared to be 100% noir indoors. Well I’m not going to rename him now.

I am glad I got a nice pic of the orange mums in the picture above with Noir Neige because this is what they looked like after this morning’s rain. I hope they will perk back up! I may have to intervene with sticks and string.

Babraham Blincoln

Now I am working on gathering up everything I need for Crafty Bastards on Sunday. I’ll be there all by my lonesome. Well, I will be the only human permanently stationed in the J. H. tent anyway. Please do stop by and say hello to me and the fuzzy critters! Right now I’ve got a tickle in my throat and the forecast is 50% rain, so I’ll be gargling with baking soda and doing the sunshine dance from now until Sunday.

After a long summer of not much baking, I went oven crazy and made cupcakes four times in the past two weeks. First it was not my unbirthday and so you know there was no way I was not going to have cupcakes. I made vanilla with chocolate frosting. I used the Magnolia Bakery recipe. I’d heard so many raves about it being THE perfect cupcake recipe. Well it was delicious but not ultra heavenly or anything. Maybe I did something wrong. Everyone gobbled them up anyway. Maybe I should venture east and try one made by Magnolia proper so I can compare.

Then my boy had a playground date with some kids from his old school so of course I had to bring cupcakes. This time I made lemon with cream cheese icing and yellow sugar crystals sprinkled on top. I was so excited to use these large sugar crystals I got at Whole Foods that were naturally colored. They looked so pretty and cheerful at first, but the heat of the day made the color seep out of the sugar and disappear into the icing. Oh well. Delicious again nonetheless! Fresh lemon zest is the best in the west.

Then we had a BDAYBBQ to celebrate my husband’s and mine combined. This time I went for chocolate because I figured it would be a real crowd pleaser. Yeah, they were the best cupcakes so far. And I made them big instead of my usual mini. Decadent! I used my rubbery square cupcake thingies and they garnered some oohs and aahs. Yay!

Finally, I made a fourth batch for no special occasion other than because I had a large amount of carrots that needed to be used up. We forgot to put out the crunchy veggies at the BDAYBBQ, whoops! I just used my standby banana bread recipe and swapped out the bananas for carrot mush. Mighty tasty. Now I am tempted to see what other veggies I can cram into cuppies. Sweet potato and pumpkin come to mind. Reminds me of The Sneaky Chef. Difference: I am totally willing to disclose all veggie usage. Thanks for reading my tale of many cupackes. Sorry no pics. None of them came out nearly as delicious as the cakes themselves. Now here is a movie that you can watch that has nothing to do with cupcakes.

This is the project I mentioned in my last blog entry that was way back in July. (July? Oh my! Where did August go?) It was so much fun making this movie with Margot and her family. But I am not an excellent blogger so I forgot to show off until now. Actually, I have been staying away from the computer for the past two months because my baby has learned how to get up on the computing chair and seriously mess things up. Thank bejeezus for our new wireless mouse that can be placed high and away. Well it’s her naptime now so if you’ll excuse me I am going to try and tackle Mt. Inbox and maybe read a few of the 9,114 articles that are waiting for me in my Bloglines. Hmmm… but maybe I’ll have a cupcake first. Oh yeah and Mark’s actual un-unbirthday is in two days, with possible celebration tomorrow, so I guess it’s time to start planning the next batch of you know whats. Flavor suggestions anyone?

This picture has nothing to do with our day on the farm, but I just wanted to share this picture of Spooky Rotten Apple Tree who lives with Spooky Daddy now.

The kids and I spent Sunday with the fabulous Margot on her little farm in the countryside where she lives with her lovely family that includes two pigs, sixteen chickens, a doggie and and a couple of people too. They all live in a 19th century schoolhouse that is loaded with charm and color and good vibes. Well the pigs and the chickens don’t live in the schoolhouse. The pigs actually have the cutest house ever of their very own. We went out there to work on a fun project together. Above is a picture of our kids hanging out with the Potter family’s rapidly expanding little gang of J.H. creatures. I think Lumpers, Moldy Cloud and Snowbird are rather enjoying hanging out with sock monkey under the fancy lamp, don’t you? It was so nice to be able to bring the kids with me on this little trip. Margot has an amazing studio. It’s huge and well organized and filled with so many beautiful fun colorful supplies. I am very inspired to get my own space in to better shape! After we finished our work and spent some time with the animals, the Potters served a delicious dinner and then we all watched Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium. Can you believe I hadn’t seen it yet? It was fun spotting my creatures on the big screen. Thanks so much for hosting us Margot, we had a wonderful time!

When we arrived home our hibiscus had opened it’s first bloom. It’s as big as the baby’s head!

Summer is strolling along quite nicely over here. How about there? Hope you are having a nice summer too!

I’ve gathered up all my unfinished monster parts. I’ve got about four years worth of stray parts here. Some are just pieces. Some are sewn up bodies. All have been abandoned before completion for some reason or another. I’ve finally brought them together to analyze them and try to keep them organized. I think this is all of them. I’d like to use these parts, somehow. Most likely they won’t end up being what they were originally planned for, but that’s probably a good thing. I spread them out in the crib because that’s one of the few flat surfaces that the baby can’t get to and is not interested in. Yesterday she mastered scaling the dining room table, so there goes my workspace! When my big boy was this age, I walked around a lot cutting out pieces and stitching as I walked. I wish I had a tall baby proof surface. A girl can dream. Don’t the bars of the crib look like rays of light? It’s as if when all these parts were combined, ENERGY was formed!

I think I finally have all my buttons organized in one place too. Not organized amongst themselves, but at least gathered together. Feels good. Been doing some buttony things, so this is very helpful!

We went to the Kyushu and Okinawa Food Festival at Mitsuwa yesterday. It was so crowded. People really like food. These sweet cream puff pastries with a custardy pudding medallion spliced in to the middle of them were the tastiest things ever! We brought them home because we were full after eating dinner at the market and then we ate them for breakfast this morning. I am considering going back for some more today. They were that good. The fair is still going on for a few more hours. If I could ever replicate this recipe at home that would be just amazing. Maybe dangerous. They also had green tea cake rolls with pudding in the middle which looked so very good on the poster but unfortunately they were sold out. I think they came from miles around for that one. I did try making something like that once but it didn’t turn out quite right.

On a healthier note, I’ve harvested some seeds from our spinach patch. Once I gather them all up, I’ll start a new patch. Eating food you’ve grown from seed is so satisfying. Food from seeds that come from seeds you’ve grown yourself is ultra gratification. Ah, the circle of life.