Tiny Showcase

I'm a huge fan of the website Tiny Showcase (http://www.tinyshowcase.com/). Each week they release a new small print, in runs of 50 or 100. Plus, they're each only 20 dollars. Since I'm a grad student, I can't usually justify larger or more expensive prints, so these are perfect for me. Best of all, they donate part of the proceeds to a charity of the artist's choice. I own three:
Then there are two that I love but that I missed. The first one came out before I discovered Tiny Showcase, and for the second one I wasn't on the mailing list yet (so I missed the release and it was sold out when I finally checked the site).

The artists are: Deth Sun, Andrea Offerman, Jen Corace, Jill Tamaki, and Wilson Swain.

I made this bag for the cousin I stayed with in Boston--she loves flamingos and this fabric was all flamingo-ed out. I have only used my sewing machine a few times, but practice makes perfect right? Lining and all. Then I put stuff in it for the kids. Good times.

RIP AJ

Sadly, AJ Moye the frog died while I was away in Boston. Stephan very kindly went out and bought two new guys to greet me home. We named them Rik Smits and Vern Fleming, after two (TWO Thomas!) beloved Pacers veterans. Here they are.

Models, more models, and food to feed them

So tonight, as many of you know, was the PR finale and ANTM premiere. I've been looking forward to this for weeks. ANTM started pretty well; my favorite moment of the night was when Leslie told Miss J that her parents wouldn't mind him because they liked black women. How great was that? Great. I still miss Janice a lot and join the collective ANTM community in demanding that Tyra bring her back.
The final collections of Project Runway were in the end a little disappointing. None of the collections were nearly as amazing as those of Jay or Kara Saun last year. But that's that. I will say that when I was first watching the collections, I liked Santino's best. I loved his last dress, I loved the little red capelet, and I loved the outfit with the jacket. But after Chloe won, I went back and counted the number of her pieces I loved, and there were more of hers that I loved (7) than of Daniel's(4) and Santino's(4). I think I was distracted because I was more turned off by the pieces of Chloe's I didn't like than I was by Daniel or Santino's. It also really bums me out that Santino hasn't seen his mom in so long.

And my cousin sent me a very awesome email pyramid scheme: it basically involves chain letter recipes. I've received two odd, awesome recipes already. I love this idea. I hope my friends don't narc out on it because I want more odd awesome recipes.

Cross Stitch Link

This is a Link I cross-stitched on a waffle Prison Break style shirt for Stephan. I got the pattern from craftster, where someone had posted it as a knitting pattern.

The best Russian-Japanese monkey

Our friends Whitney and Kirby (of Fugi fame) brought us back the best Russian-Japanese monkey ever from NY. Isn't he awesome? He's a bank. He likes oranges. His box was in both Russian and Japanese.

Childhood books

I have more things I need to take pictures of, but Stephan is currently on a whack schedule so I have little access to the camera. At least when I'm not too lazy to get off the couch before I stumble into bed.

Anyway, Sara at the Small Object mentioned Rabbit Hill in a post today, which suddenly brought back all my favorite late childhood/pre Jane Eyre books roaring back to me. This is funny because my friend J and I were talking about books the other day, and all I could think of were picture books. Anyway, here's some:

Rabbit Hill
Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles
The Shades
What the Witch Left
Alas Babylon
Bridge to Teribithia
Danny the Champion of the World
The BFG
Where the Red Fern Grows
Hatchet
All of the Wrinkle in Time series
I also really liked Lois Lowry, Betty Wright, and Judy Blume.

and of course Little House on the Prairie series. Which I'm still obsessed with. My favorite episode from when I was a kid was on TV Land yesterday--Stone Soup. Awesome. Speaking of LHOTP, there used to be a segment of the Real World recaps on TWOP called The Most Awesome Thing I Saw on TV Last Week, and the Little House ones were always the best. Check them out.