Birthday Week!

It's birthday season here at Skull Mansion.  Last weekend we celebrated Felix's 10th birthday.  I can hardly believe that my shorty is in the double digits, but it's true.



He wanted a unicorn cake, and I had little confidence in my abilities to draw one with frosting.  Luckily I remembered that some of the fabric I recently bought had pretty purple unicorns on it, and purple is his current favorite color!  I made this buttermilk cake, which turned out delicious.  I'm not a huge buttermilk user, so I bought the powdered stuff from the baking aisle, and it worked great!  The cake itself tasted like a sweeter buttermilk biscuit, and I loved it.  My hips do not love it, but this has been my last week of being in my twenties, so cake every day was an excellent way to send off my precious youth!



He got a sweet new bike with gears!



And tickets to his first ever real concert!



I've gotten Gogol Bordello concert tickets for my birthday in the past, and there's no better party than a GB party.  We got there early to snag seats in the front of the balcony as those shows get a bit moshy and Felix wanted to be able to see the band, not the back of people in front of us.  The old lady in me loved being able to sit down (or stand up, whatever I wanted!), and I was glad to not be smashed around down below in the waves of bodies.

And I know all the dog pictures have been flowing like wine around here lately, but we picked up another foster puppy.



We're fostering to adopt on this guy.  So when he's old enough to be adopted, he's officially ours!



He is the cutest and sweetest (when he's not being a Bitey McBiterson).



We're calling him BMO (pronounced Bee Moe) after BMO on Adventure Time.

Alright, I'm off to get in a 30th birthday state of mind.  I'm a little displeased that I have to share my 30th birthday with Easter, but oh well, at least there's good candy!  Everybody have a great weekend!

The blood!

Before you start to worry, no, I did not cut more parts of my body off in the recent past.  In fact, I've got some nice new skin growing in on my finger where I relieved it of its precious skin a couple weeks ago.  I can even use it again!  Woohoo!

This post contains no injuries!

Felix was the grim reaper for Halloween, and we made him a fun new bag to put souls and candy in at various Halloween events.



The most fun part about the tote bag was the dripping blood, which I appliqued on with wunder under and then stitched with my machine.  It was a bit tedious but super fun.

So I decided to use this method to make some fun pouches for the ladies to house their unfun period supplies.  Here's an in progress shot:







They mostly just sat in my shop for a while, but a few weeks ago I got a bunch of traffic on the "NOT TAMPONS" pouch.  I did some research and discovered that it was featured in a buzzfeed article.  I got a lot of likes and one sale, and it was really fun to hear my phone's etsy app making its "like" noises all day.

Then it happened again a couple weeks ago!  I've been selling "Lady Stuff" pouches almost as fast as I can sew them.  After the original bunch sold out, I made them available for pre-order.  The next batch sold out before I was able to take the listing off pre-order status.  I spent the weekend making more, and I think I can finally catch my bloody breath, just as soon as I get the last bunch of orders shipped this morning.  Perhaps I'll find the time to get my new "Shark Week" pouches listed as well!

It's the start of birthday times here at our house.  Felix is turning 10 on Sunday!  We're having a pizza party on Saturday for lunch and then taking him to his first ever legit concert to see Gogol Bordello in Boulder!  He has also requested a unicorn cake because he obviously has unrealistic expectations when it comes to my artistic prowess, especially when it comes to things that you can't erase and start over (like frosting).

We are a little obsessed with Snap Chat's face swapping feature.  I will leave you with these disturbing images.

I'm canceling this week.

I am having a hard week over here at Skull Mansion.  It all started Sunday morning.  I called my mom while walking the dog, and a few minutes after I got home I heard a loud thunk, and smoke started pouring out of our new coffee pot we got from her for Christmas.  I told her I had to go.  Luckily it happened then and not while I was out walking.  Joshua was still asleep, and who knows how bad it could have gotten if I hadn't unplugged it right away.  Our house smelled so bad for hours.

Sunday night I was trying to cut some carrots smaller for roasting when I accidentally cut the very tip off my left index finger.  It was literally just a small piece of skin, but it bled like a mofo and didn't feel very good either.

We got a new foster dog on Sunday afternoon.  He is a sweet guy, but he has no idea how to be a family dog.  He was terrified of people and not exactly house trained.  He has gotten so much better over the week, but Monday morning he left me a present in the kitchen.  I didn't realize it until several minutes later after I had stepped in it and spread it around part of the house.  I thought Felix must have spilled something sticky, but it turned out to be much,  much worse.

After he realized that he was allowed to chew on toys, he started hoarding them in his bed!



Here's the little guy all tuckered out.



He will eventually be available for adoption through Bruno the Companion, the awesome rescue that saved our Chunk from certain death.

In other horrible Monday news...

We have a little creek that goes through our neighborhood.  I walk Chunk by it every day and have come to love seeing my muskrat friends doing their muskrat business in the creek.  While walking the dog, I saw a crow eating one of them!  The horror!

Also one of my toes has been hurting, and it turns out I have an infection.  I have no idea where it came from as I have not injured my toe recently.  I'm assuming the universe is making my last month of being 29 a pain in the ass so I'll be really excited about turning 30 in a few weeks.  Shit's gotta get better soon.

I spent the week sewing up a new batch of phone wallets to round out my available stock to offer to shops that carry Hot Butter, and next week I'll be trading out wallets at Curating the Cool in Lafayette, CO.  I also went fabric shopping.  I got some pretty stuff at the new craft store in Lafayette, The Crafted Life.  And after I got my toe checked in Boulder, I limped my way over to Fabricate Boulder to pet their quilting cotton.  Their selection is awesome right now, for the record!





Oh my glob, those kitties!



So new wallets are coming!  It is also the last day to get 30% off in my shop with coupon code LEAP30.

Alright folks, please have an awesome weekend.  I'm not even aiming for awesome over here, just crossing my fingers for no more personal bodily harm or ailments.  And maybe not having to clean up too many dog accidents.

I'm back and I brought makeup bags!

It's only been almost a year since I last blogged, and much has happened since last March.  I recently read some of this old blog, and I really enjoyed seeing what we were up to and what I was making.  So I'm planning on making a serious effort to start it back up because I like going back to read it.  I'll most likely end up doing a catch up post or two chronicling our 2015 adventures (Mexico! Ireland!!!), but for now I'm just going to jump right in!



A couple weeks ago I cleaned and oiled my best old sewing gal so I could put her away to make room for my BRAND NEW (to me) SEWING MACHINE!!  Ahhh!



It's a lot more high tech than the old gal.  It took me a couple days of messing around with it while I read the manual, but I finally got it down.  It does magical things like fix your starting stitches for you so you don't have to backstitch, and it has an awesome cutting button that cuts your thread when you're finished.  I am pretty much in sewing love with it, and I'm really thankful to the nice lady who bought herself a new one and sold this one to me!



My very first finished products made with the new machine were these adorable lunar phase pouches, which I freezer paper stenciled and then painted the details by hand.  I am no professional moon artist, but I think they turned out great!



Then I moved on to making another vintage sheet ruffle tote.  I say another because I made one of these that I am 100% keeping for myself due to extreme loveliness.  I made a vintage sheet quilt last summer (that I will for sure be sharing on here soon!), and I had so much fun mooshing sheets together that this project was naturally on the books.



And I've spent the last week making these bad ass, kind of naughty in a sweet way make up bags!  They're modeled after one I made myself last year.  The outer fabric is thrifted and interfaced, and the lining was shored up with fusible fleece.  So they feel so nice and sturdy.





Anyway, these and other pouches are in my shop as of today, and (in case anybody is actually reading this) I'm having a 30% off sale in an effort to clear out some older wallet merchandise.  Use coupon code LEAP30 to enable all the sweetest of deals.

After a week of hardcore sewing and finally doing my taxes, I deserve some quality time on the couch with a book and maybe a drank.   I'll be back soon for realsies this time!

Guess what. I'm not dead.

In case you were worried, I am very much alive, although barricaded in an ice fortress.

There is so much to catch up on, but I'm going to start simple with old news:

WE MOVED!


Pro-tip:  Always pack your liquor cabinet last.  Unpack it first at your new house.

After eight years of living in our fairly small town home in Lafayette, we've moved on to the greener pastures of a much more spacious, built in the 70's with lots of mirrors, stand alone house in Westminster.



Our new house came with lots of sweet rose bushes I am slowly learning to take care of.  Hopefully I don't kill them off on my first year as sole rose bush tender.



Felix finally learned to ride his bike here on our new street.  Get a load of the foliage.  I can't wait for spring!



The new neighborhood comes complete with slithering amigos.  There are two that live under the birdbath in the backyard.  I've spent a lot of time learning about the local snakes since we've move here.  This one Felix caught on his hula hoop while out playing and brought home to share.  Thanks Felix.



There is a canal behind our house inhabited by a sweet flock of ducks.



We have access to two neighborhood pools, and my personal favorite part of our new house that I can't use right now due to weather:



My porch!

It has since been covered in glorious patio furniture, including my PORCH COUCH.  I spent so much time out there reading books and drinking beers and bloody mary's that it's not even funny.  It's super serious.

I was going to keep this post committed only to our new house, but I just can't resist the temptation of telling you about our awesome new fambly member, Chunk the Staffordshire Terrier.  Here's a fambly picture of the day we all met at a park.



He is a big silly fool, and we all love him to death.  Except the cats, but we're slowly working on building those friendships.  He wants their sweet kitty love, but they are still withholding because that is how cats do.



Alright, I'm going to try to get back on the blogging horse, if for nothing else than keeping a record of what's been going on.  Expect a couple of catch up posts featuring 2014 adventures, of which there were many.  It's been a glorious year!

Latest Happenings at Skull Mansion and Surrounding Metropolitan Areas

How is everyone doing this fine Halloween week?  We are doing pretty well here at Skull Mansion (for the record, there are a few skulls in our house, mostly belonging to Felix, and by mansion I obviously mean town house).  Aside from having a few events planned last week, I mostly didn't get dressed or leave the house.  What can I say?  It was just one of those weeks in which I chose to wear my pajamas and feel kind of sick and sorry for myself.  This week is way better!

Things have been transforming around here.  A couple weekends ago I transformed basic pantry goods into glorious sugar skull cookies!





I am super dooper proud of these, you guys.  Of course, I didn't just go for it and have these guys magically appear.  I may or may not have spent a couple days reading blogs of people who make fancy cookies and picking up tips like woah.  Tips like when making piping frosting, wrap your blob of frosting in plastic wrap, then put it in your piping bag.  When you're done, you just pull the plastic wrapped part out of the piping bag and have no piping bag mess to clean up.  Boom!  I didn't explain that well, but there are videos on the internets explaining this business.  Also, I spent a whole day making these.  I baked in the morning, spent at least an hour getting the frosting ready, and then it took probably 5 hours to decorate them.  Felix helped, and I think you can tell which ones are his.  Josh also helped with the last few, and he was a natural who did not spend days reading tips.  Of course.



Another tip was to store your piping bags in a mug with a wet paper towel at the bottom to keep them from crusting up when not in use.  It made for a pretty clean up!  Also all the food coloring makes for beautiful spit later when you brush your teeth, even if it's been several hours since you consumed a cookie.

We're having a Halloween party this Saturday, and that usually means our same group of friends come over and hang out only in costumes.  I've been pretty lame about decorating every year we've done it, but this year I wanted some spooky pizazz up in here.  I made a bunch of Martha Stewart bats, and they're hanging all over casting spooking shadows and driving my cats crazy.



Spooky!  I'll get pictures of the actual bats when I'm done cleaning up and spook pimping the place.



I'm also making good use of a package of spider webs.  Also note the mouse!  There are Martha Stewart mice scurrying all over.  Driving the cats crazy.







And this guy is hanging on the door again.



Felix transformed into a butt face, which we knew was bound to happen any day.



I transformed my dirty, dirty hair into this giant dirty hair mountain to go to a concert last Thursday.  I know I probably shouldn't make myself several inches taller when people need to see past me, but I have suffered so hard behind tall dudes at shows lately that I decided not to care if I was part of the problem.  All the tallest dudes are blocking views, and now so is my tall hair.  And lest you think I go to bed fabulous, this is what I looked like when I took it out later that night.



Not pictured is the 15 minutes I spent in the shower the next day combing knots out of my conditioner saturated fro.  Why do all the best hair do's later involve me crying in the shower?

Ok, that's enough transformations for the day.  Today's plan involves shipping wallets and further spookifying my residence.  What are you guys being for Halloween?  I'll be posting my reveal soon!

Pumpkin Patching

It's that time of year where we go to the pumpkin patch to pet goats again!



Before you ask, no, this goat is not possessed by the devil himself, but I did catch her at a very awkward moment.



My favorite thing about these goat shots is Chainsaw in the background.  He definitely suffers from Resting Bitch Face and usually looks like a grumpy Gus in pictures unless I tell him to smile OR ELSE.  But look how dang happy he is to be feasting his eyes upon this goat (and her kids!).  He did tell me that he would love to have a pet goat.  Awww.



I also petted some sheep!  Someone had their giant dog (I think it was a German Shepherd, if my memory serves), and it was having a great time sheep sniffing.  It was super cute, sticking its head in the fence, trying to get a good sniff.  I'm pretty sure it wanted to play with them so baaaaad (please read that in a sheep voice!).  And then some older guy was walking by with his family and said, "Baa ram ewe!"  So I had to complete it by saying, "to your fleece, your flock, be true!"  It was a beautiful moment, I tell you.



Gravity has been very hard on my boobies, ya'll.



And here is Jezebel Lincoln being spooky next to our beautiful little pumpkin from the patch.  I also bought a gigantor pumpkin from the grocery store because I can't afford to blow all my Halloween doubloons at the pumpkin patch.

I have not been feeling so good this week.  I slept until 11:15 the other morning after getting up at 6:30 and getting Felix off to school and then going back to bed.  Yesterday I took Felix to the doctor to get his gnarly cough checked out, Thursday we're going to a concert (after two nights out in the last week!), and Friday I have to take Jezebel back to the vet for more shots (so she's going to hate me again!).  And then next week is Halloween.  Also my oven broke again last night mid pizza baking and ruined my life.  I want to rent a cabin in the woods all by myself for a week where I can hide out and sew and draw pictures and take naps and baths.