Flow in the Funk

I drifted away from my Pink Cheeks last week. This usually happens about every 3 months, I am just starting to recognize this pattern in myself. My 3 month funk usually involves moving all the furniture around in my house or spray painting something that I look at every day. This cycle was furniture moving. I also sewed some friendly trees. I have been wanting to make plush scenes to photograph ever since I saw The Look Book by Chris Sickles who, amazingly enough, lives in Indianapolis (go Hoosiers!).

At first, I wanted to do elaborate scenes with handmade things and found objects, but that idea never developed any legs because it was too open ended. So, now I am limiting myself to all plush scenes and I started with friendly trees (below).


I look forward to sewing plenty of props as they come to me, and then arranging them with my Pink Cheeks. Next up are homes and apartment buildings and clothing lines.

Aloha

These guys will be heading to Hawaii soon. I want to seal myself in the box and go with them. Then, when we are all there, we will do the hula and split a coconut with each other.

Lydia the Tattooed Lady

I didn't watch a lot of tv when I was a little kid. Joseph did, so I am clueless when he and his friends or family discuss Thundercats and Snorks. I let little Walter watch a couple of Sesame Streets a day, but we have gotten to the point where we've seen the same ones countless times already (we watch them on Netflix), Elmo's cuteness is starting to grate on my nerves, and that red monster is pretty endearing so that is saying something. Yesterday we got our first disc of the Muppet Show in the mail, which I have never seen. It is a thing of pure beauty. My belly aches from laughing so much. Usually puppets on TV = Sewing time for me, but it's hard to walk away from such charm! This clip is one I think Mimi Kirchner (the woman behind these tattoo ladies) needs to see:

Gary

Gary has a motorcycle. He loves riding it and feeling the wind on his face and the sun on his back. Sometimes after a long ride in the summer he has to pick the bugs out of his beard. Gary enjoys singing show-tunes, but it doesn't match his persona, so he only sings them while going very, very fast down a remote highway. He can really belt it out, but is still embarrassed at the thought of being heard, so during the extra showy parts of the show-tunes, he revs up his engine. At gas stations, he snacks on beef jerky and follows it with Orange Crush.

It was a cloudy day today, so I had to use the flash on Gary, which is a big time no-no in the softie photography world. Maybe it's a no-no in all worlds.

Nothing very exciting going on here. I am really itching to see the prequel to Planet of the Apes. It has been so hot, and I have been craving a summer block buster full of action almost as much as I have been craving tropical popsicles. Joseph and I have been considering driving to the drive in (over an hour away) to see it. It is my theory that Walter will fall asleep on the ride up and we will enjoy the show under the stars peacefully as our toddler snoozes in the backseat. But, if he wakes up and glimpses mean, violent, genius-monkeys we could scar him forever. Then trips to the zoo would be terrifying instead of a hoot. A parent's dilemma.

Adventurer

Awhile ago, I received a fun request from a lovely lady who bought one of my La Luchadors and wanted me to make a Mary Poppins for her daughter who loved that English nanny. I had a lot of fun making her. And, even though I am off requests for awhile, I had to take her up on another one for her yet to be born baby, Seamus. This lady takes the cake on best baby name selector (though I hope my family will take a close second [once we make a few more little monkeys]). Seamus will have an Adventurer/Carnival nursery theme, and so he gets his own adventurer. Here he is! His name is Jack.




Jack is an adventurer. He travels the world on a hot air balloon looking for adventures. He is very courageous. If there is an adventure that involves searching through the depths of a murky, deep and dangerous sea, Jack dives right in, without a nose plug. When visiting distant lands, Jack takes to the culture straight away and does not turn up his nose at the local cuisine. He once drank beetle tea, and when he was done he made a satisfying "Mmmmm" noise. If there is a puddle, Jack jumps in it. If there is a cave, Jack explores it for bears and bats. If there is an enormous mountain, Jack climbs up it and then does somersaults all the way down it. On every adventure that Jack embarks on, he is sure to pick up a trinket or doodad, to bring back home to his best friend Seamus.

Wallace

Wallace means business. He leads a very serious life doing very serious things and he never has time to giggle or eat cake. His Doctor told him that he leading such a serious life will surely end his life prematurely, so he recommended that Wallace do something unserious every now and again. Wallace decided that he should take his Doctor's advice so from now on he skips every where he needs to go. It is still efficient because it gets him from point A to point B in a speedy manner, but something about the hopping makes him a bit jollier.

Wallace is spoken for by one of the coolest gals north of my border.

Freddy Fred

Freddy Fred loves a good road trip. He has boycotts super highways that bypass small towns because he thinks small towns are diamonds in the rough and should not be passed at high speeds. While on his many journeys, which usually involve destinations to enormous things (totem poles, candles, pencils, barbed wires), Freddy Fred frequently stops at Ma and Pa restaurants for pie and coffee. He is broke as a joke, so instead of tipping his waitresses, he carefully sketches their portraits on paper place-mats and gives them to them for free. He also calls them "doll-face".

Freddy Fred will be in my Etsy shop today! I will post the others this week.