I made this for someone and then decided that he was so very cool that I had to keep him for myself a while longer.  There are other birthday presents to be had!  lol  *shame*  Without any further adieu, here is Magellan!



I love the expression I gave him.  Kinda hard to see with the wand in his mouth though.


The WINGS!  not my favorite part but still pretty cool if I do say so myself.


Metal plating.  The screws are polymer clay with mica powder.  Don't they look real?


The "peaking over the shoulder" pose.  Aren't I cute?


I'm thinking he needs friends.  Considering Columbus, Sacagawea, Ponce de Leon, and Cousteau.  Not sure why I picked explorers.  But I think its going to be fun!

Questions and comments welcome!   

My fiancee asked me several years ago to make stockings for each of us for his apartment....  He'll be moving out of his apartment in January so...  you know...  time to get them done!    His is the more traditional of the two.  He is also the self-proclaimed boring one between the two of us.  

I don't much care for the cuff on my stocking because I ended up making the cuff too big or the main stocking too small.  Either way.  I still think it works.  

Ok - maybe not a ga-jillion.  264 to be precise.  However, I finally finished this afghan today.  It has sat in piles of hexagons, sat waiting to be put together, sat half put together and half in piles, sat waiting on a border and I've just kind of ignored it from time to time.  But now it is done!  And I'm very proud of it being done!






These are some of my favorite hexagons!





Questions and comments welcome! 

And here's the pattern I used!
http://attic24.typepad.com/weblog/2008/11/hexagon-crochet.html

I made this for UntouchableFace in the most recent IYP swap!  And she just received so I can post this!



And a few close-ups.



Its kind of hard to see because I used a pale blue but there are "sparkles" around the tree. 


Feel free to comment or question!

Every summer I take some sort of class to enhance my teaching.  This year, I re-took World Music Drumming because my county was paying for it!  woot!  One of our instructors came in with these maracas one day and I LOVED them!  Her's were filled with lead shot (like you'd pack in a shotgun shell) but that's really REALLY expensive.  So I have little metal BBs.  It makes a little deeper rattle but it still works! 

So - basically we have wooden toy truck wheels, 3/8" dowel rods each a foot long, 2 painted ping pong balls and BBs.



We bought enough materials to make 6 of them.  They come out to about $3.00 each to make depending on the dowel rods, the ping pong balls and whether you have a coupon at Michael's for the wooden toy wheels.



The FUN PART!  This was the mess we made making these fantastic instruments for my students! 

Questions and comments welcome!

Back in October my best friend told me that he and girlfriend were going to get married.  When we were in college I made him an afghan and they both love it so when I explained that they weren't receiving a store bought gift from me they said that they wanted another afghan.  And his fiancee said that she wanted sunset colors.  So, this is what I came up with after putzing around for 3 months looking through books and ravelry patterns.  Here's hoping they like it.

Pretty shot draped over the swinging bench at the local park.


The laid flat shot so you can see all the blocks.


Questions and comments welcome!

Its summer.  School is out.  Its time for parrot-heads, margaritas, and fins!  Changes in lattitudes, changes in attitudes!  Anyone up for the possibility of a Jimmy Buffett swap?!

A Henna inspired wall plaque.  I'm not really as happy with this one.  It looked a lot more awesome in my head.  



Life is Good!  I wanted this one to have a kind of tropical beachy feel. 



Comments, thoughts, questions welcome.    

I made these for Noooitaremybirthday in Round 20 of the IYP Swap.



Here are the pictures that Nooo took when she received her package!
http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=404491.220

This is an Urban Threads pattern that was supposed to be kind of retro with just one color thread on a solid background.  But when I saw them, my brain automatically went to Day of the Dead. 

Thanks for looking!

I made this for Knickertwist for the IYP Round 20 swap.  And I was sooooo very tempted to keep it for myself!  I love it!

The finished product!


The very beginning.  I started with the doors and built from there.


Building up and adding windows.


Vines growing around our little gnome home.   


I really had a blast working on this project and I may have to make myself another one!