Let's Go Hoodie Shopping

Inspired by yesterday's post about be-hoodied monsters, I thought I'd run around and see what the interwebs have to offer us humans.
My picks are all biased by the fact that I'm a.) short and b.) going to wear the living daylights out of this thing, but mostly indoors while slinging fuzz & paint around.
In other words, I'm looking for something possibly flattering, but not so dear that I'd be afraid to thrash it.

This Plush Team hoodie has been on my "to buy" list forever:


Although not as snuggly, this knitted yellow one from Mod Cloth is darling:

The only thing: good grief, look at the length of those arms! I'd have to fold those things over twice to get it to fit me. (Or, you know, hem them.)

This one by DearPony has really cute details:


This Dust Bunnies hoodie over at Shanalogic is super cute:


Stick to coffee & alcohol may be my favorite Engrish of all time. And look, I could wear it every day!


Do you know of any super cute hoodies? Post the link below! I want to see more!

Here be monsters

I've been a little obsessed with making these be-hoodied monsters lately. Heck, I've been more than a little obsessed with hoodies in general lately. Maybe it's because I only have the one at home, and it's software swag, and my bunny chewed a hole in the arm, and I wear it all the time, and it is ugly, and I want a new, cute hoodie.
*ahem*
Here's a monster in chick's clothing:

What? I'm a chicken. See the fluffy yellow all over me? Check out these wings. I'm a chicken! Behold my beak, the better to peck you with.

Little *red* riding chick?
This girl, Josephine, looks like she needs a hug:



And of course, the South Bay guy:

Aw, yeah. South bay, baby. San Jose? Sunnyvale? Santa Clara? Campbell Cupertino Gilroy - holla! Los Altos Milpitas Los Gatos - high five! This monster is for you.

I really love how he looks from the back:


That's it for today. Go hug a hoodie, everyone. Or a monster. :)

Introducing the Blythe Snuggie

As I may or may not have whined about on the blog already, I have been sick with a cold for awhile. Which means lots of laying around in sweatshirts, swaddling oneself in giant unbecoming blankets, and daytime tv.
So I guess it shouldn't be too much of a surprise that after a few days my Blythes started looking like this, too.

The first thing I felt up to making all week was a hoodie:

Which was pretty meh.
After stumbling around all week in a fleece blanket, it occurred to me to make a Blythe Snuggie. Behold!

Enh!

Arms up!

But I'm not just keeping the ultimate in ugly fleecewear to myself, no. They are, of course, available in the shop, should you feel the need.
Up next: Chickenpants Snuggies.

Inspiration Friday - Stuck At Home Sick Edition

I find myself sick for the second Friday in a row. My real life, non-couch life, has dwindled to...something. (I can't finish a sentence lately. That is one of the... this cold.)
But! The good news is that I have been spending a crazy amount of time couch & laptop bound, cruising around the internet with the goal of...there's been shopping.
Here are some of my finds.

Katydiddy's made a cute little form for you to download & write down things you find online. Helpful! I'm still looking for a digital way to do this that would be as efficient...and I'm coming up short.
Check it out!


I am obsessed with photos of Detroit. Detroit! The city that totally fell apart! Why do we ever talk about anything else? What used to be a major US city just fell off the map. Here's a short article with amazing photos of some of the houses that have, well, gone feral: Detroit! Detroit!
(photo above by James Griffioen)

But, perhaps the most amazing and inspiring thing I've come across all week is this:

Liar...
Originally uploaded by LadyJedi78

What is this? Just a photo of a Chickenpants holding a snowball? No, no. It's a whole STORY of Chickenpants in the snow, and it is awesome. A certain super friend & Etsyian put it together, and you can check it all out here.


I managed to catch a showing of The Fantastic Mr. Fox early last week. (Last week? ish?) It was, of course, fantastic. If you are not extremely ill, you really need to go see this movie. It was a kid's movie, sure, but smart and clever enough to pass as a Wes Anderson film. Go. See it.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

We have a winner!

And it's...Commenter #1. Gypsyeye, you are it! Congratulations!
Now, I'm off to go post a similar post over on The Needle.
That's it for me today, this cold has pretty much zapped all my brain power. I've spent over an hour dithering over whether to buy a pair of Blythe pajamas or not. Seriously.

Snowed in!

Hey, what's with the insanely long gap between posts? What, do you have the swine flu or something?*
No, better than that: WE GOT SNOWED IN!
Let me explain to you why this is amazing. 1. We don't get snow very often, let alone snow that sticks. So over a foot of snow is, well, amazing. 2. We live in the mountains, so any amount of snow equals pretty much a disaster, as none of us are equipped for it, and our crazy windy up & down roads on the sides of ravines generally do not have guard rails. 3. I love snow, and it turns me into an indiscriminate photo taking machine:
This is our house. Notice that mountain of snow to the side? That's our driveway.

Thank goodness we have all those Chickenpants hats & scarves around!

Here's the back porch:

Over a foot of snow, people!
Here's the view from my studio:

It's incredible to me just how perfect everything looks in the snow. Our neighborhood looks like it was meant to have snow all over it year round.

Topanga usually loves the snow, but this year she just wasn't having it. Hence the lack of good "pugs in the snow" photos. Poo.
Of course, with the snow comes the lengthy power outages (only 12 hours for us...over 36 hours out for my brother who lives 10 mins away, and it's STILL out last I heard for others who are 20 mins away...), the people who can't get down the driveway and get to work, and, of course, the frozen pipes of doom.
Eh, whatever. I still love the snow.

PS: Only one more day to comment & win a copy of Craft Leftovers Monthly!
You can enter right here:
http://absolutelysmall.blogspot.com/2009/12/craft-leftovers-zine-giveaway.html
And/Or on The Needle:
http://theneedleblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/craft-leftovers-zine-giveaway.html


*Uh, maybe. I have some sort of crazy severe cold/flu going on right now, actually.

Inspiration Friday

This is the time of year we're hearing holiday songs nonstop in all the stores. Whenever that one from Charlie Brown comes on, this is all I can think:


I am really digging Listorious lately. You know how the internet loves self-referential things. http://listorious.com/
Listorious is a directory of interesting Twitter lists. (Something I have yet to really delve into on my own twitter account.)

My cousins were visiting me last weekend, and introduced me to the work of Andy Sandberg:

Hee.

Enjoying this comic by James Kochalka about the creative process.

This post about "Ideals" is probably my favorite thing that's ever been posted on Regretsy.

To borrow a phrase from a popular news-ish show:

And now, your moment of zen.

Bunny in a sunbeam.

Craft Leftovers Zine Giveaway!

What's this? Another giveaway? Why yes! I have an interview in this month's Craft Leftovers, and the lovely Ms. Craft Leftovers herself has given me a few copies to give away on my blogs.
Let me tell you: you need this zine.
Blythers will love the mini knit sweater tutorial.
My fellow artists will adore the Zen Habits- Get Off Your Butt article.
Everyone will love the spa goodies tutorial by artvscraft.net.

That's just a tiny bit of what this issue is packed with. Check out the full description on the official Craft Leftovers site.
(and psst! she also has an awesome blog full of great things to make!

Interested? All you have to do is comment below. (Make sure I have your email addy so I can contact you if you win! Don't worry, I won't add you to any mailing lists. That's not how I roll.)
A winner will be chosen with Random.org next Thursday, Dec. 10th.

Want to earn extra entries?
Tweet about the contest! (mention @absolutelysmall & the blog addy and you are golden!)
or
Blog about it!
Then come back here and comment AGAIN for each time you did this.

OH AND I DID MENTION I HAD MORE THAN ONE TO GIVE AWAY. Yes. The other one is being given away over on http://theneedle.org. Same sort of contest! Feel free to enter both.

The Bathroom of Natural History

Like many homes built in the early 90's, we have a tiny, dark windowless hole in our house known as a hall bathroom.
Here's how it looked when we bought it, ugly shower curtain and all:

Yeaaah. That had to change. But...to what?
I remember it clearly: I was driving home one evening, and thinking about the new house. It suddenly struck me that our tiny dark hall bath could be transformed into a natural history museum in miniature. The details all fell into place quickly. Even more exciting, we kept finding things the old lady had left behind that could be used as exhibits.
So, without any further ado, let me take you on a tour of The Bathroom of Natural History.
Every museum needs a sign. We have one, too:

Come on in!

On the vanity, we have a live exhibit. Fancy goldfish! Sciency.



Scroll your eyes upward, and behold one of the many things left behind: a real deer antler.
Dead! Real! Bugs!

A display shelf with various fancy polished rocks, and the world's largest (?) dandelion.

Open the medicine cabinet for more exhibits...


There's still so much I want to do with this room. But first, I am going to need a lot more exhibits. And labels. Lots and lots of labels.

Happy Monday! Er...Tuesday?

Well, that was a semi-unexpected blog break. Since everyone had the extended weekend off, we invited my whole family to our new house for FOUR WHOLE DAYS. OF FUN. (It actually was really fun.)
Now I find myself trying to wiggle back into a normalish routine of work.
My thoughts are very scattered, especially as I am at that most rare of situations: NO PENDING DEADLINES. No deadlines? No work that has to be somewhere a week ago? Really? Now what??
So, here for your perusal are the bullet points in my mind that can't be strung into a coherent blog post.

* Too much garbage. The weekend's garbage wouldn't all fit in one can, so now we have a very ripe hefty bag in the garage. It smells like something big died in there.

* Oh my gosh THE LAUNDRY!

* Side note: where are all these flies coming from?

* My cousins and I made some videos this weekend which I am not allowed to show you. But one of them had this song as the background music. It was AWESOME.

* Gin & tonics are so wonderfully refreshing. Why don't we drink these all the time?

* I have had that song from that episode of Firefly where Jayne is a folk hero stuck in my head ALL DAY. I mentioned it on Twitter once, and it's not letting me forget.

* Hey! I can relate to this comic.

* I started reading The Secret to see what the deal was. Apparently, I created the universe. Sorry about that, Middle East! My bad.