I am the ULTIMATE party animal...

My make-up is done, my hair is all fixed up, I'm wearing a dress and heels and heading out the door to party the night away and welcome the new year.

And if you believe that one, I've got a leaky rowboat to sell ya...

I'm one of those boring run-of-the-mill people who don't really run around like a chicken with my head cut off on New Year's Eve. I just hang out and do my own thing and enjoy a low key quiet evening that does not involve people barfing from alcohol poisoning or loosing my hearing from defeaning music. I'm boring that way.

In keeping with my pledge to make lots of art this vacation, I made all this today:

The prints are from a linocut I did a little while ago of the Hanged Man tarot card. (And lest you think I am a sadistic chick who enjoys making 13 prints of a man dangling form his feet, go read what the card means. I'm not all weird.) The paper art group that I am in does chunky book exchanges and in January we are trading pages with a tarot theme. He was a lot of fun to do and I'm pretty pleased with how the prints came out.

And see those things there to the right? See those Leann? Those there are ATCs for the January trade. Yup, I made 'em. That's me and my brother from when I was a baby. I'm the one on the right that looks slightly drunk and needs to be propped up. My personal goal concerning the paper art group I'm in is to make ATCs for trade each month. There...I've said it in public, there's no going back now...

So after feeling triumphant about getting all those done for the January trades, I've turned my attention to my little crocheted devil friend (the pattern I bought last night). Despite the fact that my sinuses are once again being incredibly cruel to me and turning me into a walking human booger, I ventured out to Joann's hoping to find the yarn that the pattern called for. Nope, no luck. So I bought some regular Red Heart brand stuff (it was on sale) and decided that Dotty (that's the devil's name) would still be cute even if he turns out supersized.

So I've been working on him and this is what I have so far:


My version is clearly going to be Godzilla sized. I may need to track down some smaller yarn as the intention of these things are to be tiny and cute. It will still be cute but its size will now have the potential to frighten small children. Not exactly the effect I was going for. Ah well, I'm going to do the whole thing in this size, maybe I'll take him to work with me to ward off evil engineers.

I was excited when the mail came today because my most recent etsy plunder arrived:




Its a crochet hook case that rolls up. Its from this seller. Its extremely well made and I was attracted to this one because it holds thirty hooks. Plus she even put in larger spaces for the monster size hooks. You know, the ones that look like they could be used as weapons? Even those have a home in this holder. She makes knitting needle rolls too, very nice lady, speedy shipping and excellent quality. Can't beat that.

And these are the crochet hooks that were a Christmas gift from Mary. They are ChiaoGoo Bamboo needles and not only are they pretty to look at and use, they're smart too. Here, take a look:

There's a word stamped on each one. Its little details like this that really make things charming. I'm diggin' them.

So I plan to just kick back, watch one of the new movies I bought and work on Dotty. Oh, and little man is snoring next to me.

Happy New Year's guys, from Dooley and I.