Malort is flavoured with a unique botanical

Last night, Dillon and I attended [for free!] an appearance/reading/performance by the illustrious David Rees and the writer erstwhile cheesemonger, minor television personality, John Hodgman. Despite living in Chicago for almost 4 years now, it was our first experience with the Second City. We had an enormously entertaining time; even now, the mention of the phrase "noodley biscuit" sends me into spasms of laughter.

Plus, we were introduced toMalört, which makes me feel like the world is a richer and more beautiful place than I could have ever imagined. I did not try any Malört at the performance- a wise decision because it turns out that Mr. Hodgman has space herpes. Not to worry though, the disease only activates in space. If you are so lucky to live in a city or town that Mr. Hodgman is visiting on his book tour, I heartily recommend you attend one of his readings.

This is Halloween

I love Halloween which is no surprise to anyone. Any excuse I can get to make a costume or buy stuff with a gothic bent to it, is completely fine with me. I try to keep an eye on the contests section of Instructables [a website featuring a bunch of DIY tutorials for all kinds of things] because they offer sweet prizes. Plus, I enjoy the instruction writing process. It makes me feel like Martha Stewart should hire me or that I could have my own show on PBS and it would be so much better than that horrible Katie Brown show. [She probably a nice person, but the projects that she and her workshop construct make my gorge rise. I present these as examples: vase covers and a party sign. Oh god.
But I digress...

I've made a couple of Instructables for their Halloween contest. For the more in depth one, I chose to show everyone how to make cute little treat bags. You could use the instructions for making any sort of gift bag, really. Then, as an add on, I explain how to make your own Halloween-style Easter grass.

Art House

A couple of months ago, I participated in the Collecting Objects project with Art House. The project was a lot of fun for me- it involved collecting things that represented myself and my life and putting them into an accordion folder which I then mailed off to the Art House gallery for exhibition. Being an enormous pack rat, I had no problem collecting and sorting all sorts of things for them.

A couple of weeks ago, the bigwigs of Art House sent me a nice email about a section of my submission. I had used some Evidence tags to identify pieces of my entry and they wanted to know where they could get their own. There was a little emailing back and forth, but it was decided that I should make some for them for the next collecting objects project: The Time Line Project . Now, people who sign up will receive 10 of my specimen tags to use. I'm loving everything that Art House does. Please come play with us!

Winter Craft Season

I survived Renegade Craft fair and came away from it only mildly water damaged. Fortunately, I wrap everything in plastic; so none of my goods were ruined. I have an application in for the Renegade Holiday Show in December as well. That show is indoors; barring any ceiling mishaps, I think it'll be okay. This is a picture of what my studio/kitchen looked like while I was preparing for Renegade. I didn't get it posted up here because I was.... that's right, preparing for Renegade. I am going to be at the wonderful DIY Trunkshow on the 22nd of November, right before I get on a plane that evening to head home for Thanksgiving. I'm always busy over here!