Rattle Them Bones Dance Project

At the end of August, Tory heard about a pretty cool challenge from the band Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. They were releasing a new album, and were putting out a call for swing dancers to record themselves dancing to a song from the cd. Henry and Tory ran with the idea, and created some really fun choreography to base their September and November Brew City Hops classes on. They used the choreography to teach basic charleston moves, covering solo, hand to hand, and tandem. The students did a great job, for some of them, it's their first foray into charleston. I recorded during classes on my phone, and a group of dancers went out on the town in November to get some iconic "Milwaukee" shots. I took all of this footage and put it together in iMovie. Its the first time since high school that I've taken on a significant video editing project, iMovie has changed a lot since then! It took me a while to find work-arounds to get the clips to land just on the beat, and it's by no means perfect, but I'm proud of how it turned out. And I'm even more proud of how we can use this to show-off how great the Milwaukee dancers are. What a talented and fun-loving group of people, huh?

Shelves for Sheldon

 Well, we finally managed to pull it off, and I think we did rather well! Buying cat furniture is pretty ridiculous, these cat wall shelves cost over $200!! We made ours for just over $30. (2 48" shelf boards for $3.00 a piece, 6 10" 'over/under shelf brackets for $2.30 a piece, screws, and a 12' x 2' piece of indoor/outdoor carpet for $12.45)

Here is the wall to be donated to Sheldon's jungle gym. I've had a quilt my Oma made me hanging here, but the cats were always trying to sharpen their claws on it, and I am glad they won't be damaging it anymore. 

Once we cut the boards to length (2 2@32", 1 @12"), we wrapped them in carpet. To make our lives easier, we hot-glued the carpet to hold it in place, and then tacked it more securely with staples. 

Once we got the first shelf up, we thought we should give it a test. It passed, although this picture doesn't quite show the enthusiasm on his face... 

It works! Its amazing how quickly he figured it out, and then proceeded to sleep on the high shelf the rest of the afternoon. I guess some cats just need to be up high!

Crazy Cat Lady

My dad once told me, I hope you don’t make the same excuses for your children that you do for your cat. Sheldon is… a handful. If he’s in the mood, he’ll pee on anything soft left on the floor (shoes, bags, boxes, blankets), and gets anxious when we have company over. Instead of leaving the room, he stands his ground, and confronts the invaders. Unfortunately, this means that most of our friends are scared of him. The thing is, Sheldon is such a smart and sweet cat. He’s the best snuggler, and you can see his wheels turning as he tries to work out the solution to a problem. I’ve taught him to sit on command, he can open drawers, and loves to climb. I strongly feel his biggest issue is just that he needs more territory than the small apartment. He loves to explore the basement, and would love to go outside, I just can’t let him do those things when he wants to… that little problem of neighbors. Since giving him up just isn’t an option, he’s too much a beloved member of the family, we are trying to get creative with solutions to enrich his environment. The more entertained he is, the less he drives us crazy. We are in the process of installing “cat shelves” on one wall of our living room. The limiting reagent is free carpet, but once we track some down, I’m excited to see how it works!

Woodland Gnomes Box

Inspired vaguely by Moomin Valley, gnomes, and the arrival of fall, my latest creation is a trinket box covered with flowers and vines.

Sorry Sheldon...

I've only tortured him once with this sweater. 

Game Changers: Plants that Changed History

When I still had some weekday time off I volunteered on the Education Committee at the Mitchell Park Domes. Our big project was creating a display in the tropical dome that taught visitors about how tropical plants affect our lives and where in the world tropical rain forests are. My schedule and then job changed, so I lost touch with the project, and hadn't realized that after more than 2 years of planning, the display was actually installed, and turned out better than I could have imagined. While the lighted display blew me away, and was a total surprise, the basic design concept was largely based on my ideas! 

Sheldon the Helper Cat

I'm working on a new box inspired by gnomes, Moomin Valley, and fun polymer plants. Sheldon decided that my desk needed a mascot. :)

Sonic the Hedgehog Knit Hat

Every year Bryan's baseball team has a costume game, and he wanted to go as Sonic. He had the outfit planned, but needed a hat to rock the look, so he asked me! I've never made up my own pattern before, but I think the Sonic hat knit up pretty well! I started with a basic beanie, added ear flaps, and then modified pieces from various other patterns to create the shapes for the rest of the hat.

Why do I love you?

Farmor made this for my Farfar when they were first together over 50 years ago. She wrote the poem and painted the water color love birds. 

A Prayer Stone for Farmor

My middle name is Charlotte, and I am very proud to be named after my grandmother. My Farmor, my father and I are all cut from the same mold, so the name fits me so well. When I found out she was seriously ill, I wanted to find a way that she could know that I was loving and supporting her, even if I was a state and six hours away. 

When we were kids, my grandfather (Farfar) taught us about worry stones, a pebble with an indentation that fits your thumb. As you hold the stone, your thumb rubs in a circle, and the stone takes up your troubles. 

I made this a prayer stone out of polymer for my Farmor to hold onto in this difficult time. The stone fits naturally in the hand if a couple different orientations so that it is easy to use. The body is covered with a granny square patterned cane. Her wedding present to Henry and me was a granny square afghan with yarn left over from sweaters she had made for family members over the years. This was my way to give back from that gift. The yellow flowers are to look like Gullvivan (Primula veris), the swedish flower that Farmor's Vasa childrens dance group was named after. The blue flowers are Forget Me Nots (Myosotis) which adds to the blå och gul theme of the stone. 

A Masque Ball

This summer since our birthday's are so close together, Char and I decided to throw a party together. We came up with the idea of a Masque Ball, everyone had to have some sort of facial covering (this was liberally interpreted).  I did an experiment, and made mine and Henry's masks out of polymer. To get the form right, I started with paper maches casts of our faces (Henry's I made to fit over his glasses).  It was a very warm night, so in this picture, we are little droopy with the humidity, but it was a good night, and the masks were a fun touch. 

Push pins done the fun way

I needed to make myself some pushpins to dress up my new office at work. I have wanted to try copying some of my favorite artists' work and used this as an opportunity to try to emulate some of their styles. I didn't come close to doing them justice, but it was a fun try. I really want to be as creative as joojoo and create such simple beauty as Eva Thissen. The peacock turned out the best, and was based on this tutorial. 

Happy things.

Kittens in boxes,

and kittens on couches.

Surprises of flowers

and the boy that gave them.

My vanilla vine,

my teddy,

and a nice glass of wine.

I've been thinking a lot lately about what makes me happy. Also a fair amount about follow-through, so I decided to do a quick exercise tonight to practice both of these things. I took a few minutes, and photographed a few of my favorite things, things that bring a smile to my face.