I know…it’s been foreverz since we updated ye old blog. But we had a super busy year and we also took some time to chill out a bit. It was a strange combo of super busy and relaxifying. Now, we’re almost ready to wrap it up and head off into the year 2010 but not without posting these awesome treats and wishing all the peeps who venture into the empire’s blog now and again a Happee Holidaze.
Salute!
A~
Got the painting all finished last night, thought I’d get it up here for a little comparision looking. It came out fine…kinda dreamy, like I like ‘em.
We’ve been quite busy in the button world. We via our smooching buttons, were featured in the etsy gift guides a few times and in the etsy blog as well. Tis the season for smooching!
We’re keeping up the winter running and doing pretty well at it. I’d like to add some clicks to get up to a 10 k run on Sundays but we’re kind of busy on Sundays so I need to do some planning to get it done. Well see…if I can get lunch ready early I think we can manage it…time will tell.
Ummm…I’ll try to check in later this week with some new cards and a rant about the freakazoids at Riso and how they’re discontinuing Gocco supplies.
But we’ll save the insane muttering for a later date.
It will be insane, be sure to check back.
Happy Thursday Dear Reader.
A~
It’s hard to believe that January 2009 is almost behind us. It’s been a busy month that has been peppered with blah days of uber dullness.
I did not know that the term Blue Monday referred to the 3rd Monday of every January for the sad feelings one may suffer from at this time of year. I admit, I was feeling like a honeybee trapped in maramalade for most of the week, but I’m shaking off the cobwebs and getting on with It. It includes donating some cool schwag to an MS fundraiser, making some new and exciting new buttons, running 5 km in -20 degree weather ( seriously…it’s true…and, until one gets warmed up, it’s fairly brisk!) and sketching out the painting you see above. There have already been some changes to her forehead ( It’s enormous here right? Well, not any more thanks to a bit of black paint and a few spare minutes.) I’m hoping to get this one done in a week or so, before the next step of Get Off The Grid Life 2009 gets into full swing.
What’s that you say.
Get off the grid?
Yep, we’d like to be living as much as possible off the sun before we swing into next winter’s blahs.
But time will tell.
The work looms ahead of me, but in a good way.
I think.
Heh heh.
And with that, I bid the world a good evening and we’ll catch you all later, mon gators.
A~
Well, if you’re reading this blog, congrats, you made it!
Holy Buddha in A Magic Handcart, was that a waste of 8 years or what?
I thought I’d pull up an old picture, taken before I had the button photographing down pat, of a classic original buttonempire button.
For those of you desperate to forget 2005, Bush and Co. kinda changed the WMD record midway through the show. They stopped trying to make America poop it’s pants with the WMD bull cocky and started up with the “Saddam Hussein was a bad man who destabilized the region and we had to take him out, that’s the real reason why we invaded Iraq” song and dance.
Oh.
Yeah.
The region is sooooooo much more stable since Saddam went to that big psychopathic palace in the sky. *sarcasm, you sustain me in my darkest hours*
Anyhoo…where was I?
Oh yeah, this button was a rarely punched, limited edition treat done up in the “I Remember Pearl Harbour” style for those peeps who were still having to inform ignoramousii that there were no WMD’s in Iraq. For a while there, if memory serves, almost 50% of Americans asked thought they had found WMD’s. It was a crazy time, a time when a 1 inch Tecre buttonmaker was this girls BFF.
And so, let us all lower the curtain on those stupid, wasted, expensive, depressing and deadly 8 years and move onward with just a fraction of Hope for something more thoughtful. Maybe a little foreplay, maybe the occasional love note, maybe an unfolded but thoroughly read newspaper left carelessly on the couch in the living room of the little house of Hope that I keep in my heart.
Hold on.
Talk Amongst yourselves.
I’m getting verklempt.
On that note…Best Wishes, Dear Reader for a peaceful, smart, and happy 2009.
A~
Sometimes, in my never ending hunt for cool vintage materials with which to make cool schwag I come upon something that makes my heart beat a little faster. That happened this afternoon when, at a site I can not disclose for purposes of hoarding and greediness, I found an magazine from 1968 in which there was a cherry red and like new ad for the Capitol Record Club. In less than an hour I had cut and buttoned and photographed these very sweet magents into being.
I know these will sell. The last ones (made almost a year ago…these ads are SUPER rare!) sold really quickly…I still miss them. I’ll miss these too…but they’ll go to someone who adores them I’m sure. Why? Because, they are so freakin’ cool.
It was a weird, overcast day here today so we rented a schwack of foriegn/indie/documentry films today. We enjoyed “Fido”, a colour saturated zombie story with a difference and “King of Kong” a really interesting documentry about the Donkey Kong world record and the politics and shenanigans and odd bravery surrounding it’s rightful owner. I loved that film. If you can find it I’m giving you the ok to rent it. It’s worth the time out of your life.
On that note, we’ll check in soonish with other stuff to say and show.
G’Night World,
A~
New Palin Pin
Travel Broadens the Mind…And Sarah Palin may be living proof of that notion.
If you catch my drift.
Look.
I get how Palin has what I think of as “The Ear”.
Having “The Ear” means you innately pick up on verbal tone, structure, colloquialisms et all. People with “The Ear” do well in their High School Drama class without trying. They draw crowds at parties. They do a nice job of reading their kids bed time stories. In Palins’ case I wouldn’t be surprised if night time at her house includes her dropping the g’s and adding some Heck ya’s to Revelations as she lulls her little one’s to sleep with stories of the Armageddon .
Anyhoo…the point about Palin having “The Ear” is that she can charm some birds out of their trees. (If those Birds still can make the payments on their trees that is.) The peeps that she charms don’t necessarily need content or context, they most likely need a six pack ( Hey Joe!) and a gun or two. I don’t think those peeps give much thought to her foreign policy abilities (or any other abilities any one might need in order to lead our increasingly insane world) even though, thanks to the aforementioned peeps, she might end up in the White House answering the phone at 3pm.
Gosh darn it, I hope it’s not Eye-ran or Eye-raq callin’.
Anyhoo…I made this bitter little button when we were still out East and finally I have the high speed to make uploading it a cinch. Yay!
Ciao For Now Kids ( Ciao is an Eye-talian salutation Ms.Palin. Eye-taly doesn’t need you to nuke them, just so you know. They’re not in the Middle East.)
A~
We arrived safely a few weeks ago to our Little Cottage On The Prairie and got settled in pretty much the first evening. The fabulous former owner of our new SK abode, the lovely Stephanie, left us a nice bottle Of Naked Grape, some handsome wine glasses and a big old jug o’ water because the water here is not the nicest h20 in the world. What a sweetie that Steph is! You go girl!
Anyhoo…it’s easy to work here…the pace is slow, the town is quiet, the yard is pretty and the house has enough room to have a seperate studio. Our new home was turn key ready and I am in love with the uber nice appliances. I now own my very first microwave oven and it’s stainless steel front matches the other wunderbar stainless steel kitchen appliances. Yowza! Grown up appliances! Who knew how awesome they are!?
We tried to make the recent Parade, but sadly Bruno read the poster with the wrong date on it and so we missed the festivities. Boo!
But the darkest cloud so far was our failure to save a baby Brewers Blackbird who fell from a rather high nest on Thursday morning.
There is something so very heartwrenching about a baby bird out of the nest. It cried for it’s parents all day long, most of the time from a nice nest we made for it ala the advice we gleaned from several internet sites on how to handle a baby bird. It did great the first night and had parental visits, much to our relief. But yesterday it took a tumble again and hopped around crazily all day long. After we went for our run we came home to find it screaming to it’s parents in the middle of main street. And while the town is quiet, it’s not that quiet…the bird was very lucky not to have been hit by a car or truck, as it didn’t resemble more than a clump of dirt. The parents fed it late yesterday evening but I could tell it wasn’t feeling well as we tucked it into the nest and then under a box lid for the night. (There was a weather watch last night and we didn’t want to leave it in the nest we made jammed into the trees, we’ve had huge hail and several tornado watches since we got here, so it seemed to be the best thing to do.)
When I awoke this morning to silence I knew it hadn’t made it through the night. I got up at 5:00 am and went into the cool and dewy yard. When I uncovered the nest from the box, the bird’s frail and fragile body was turned in a sad and final way and tiny amber coloured ants were already on it’s tired little face. It’s had me reflecting all day, in the midst of life we are in death. We did everything right for the poor lost creature, but we still couldn’t help it to survive.
Failing to save it has made me feel quite blue and at a bit of a loss.
On a semi humourous note, Bruno buried the bird in our yard and smudged sage at my request, but when he did that, a passer by stopped to sniff at the air ( burning sage smells very marijuana-y ) and one could guess by the glance Bruno saw him make at our home, it has now most likely been assumed that we are “smoke in the yard potheads”.
Oh well, whatcha gonna do?
In our case, we’ll keep painting, make some buttons and keep running in the afternoon on a very pretty, very quiet country road…and in my case, I’ll keep sending the bird’s spiraling soul lot’s of white light and love, as it makes it’s much too early way into The Great Mystery…
Good Thoughts to All Blog readers, may we all be well, humans, baby birds, potheads et all…
A~
Think of all the trouble one could avoid if the asshats didn’t apply to be a part of your life.
That would be awesome!
This button was made in honour of some maroon who thinks that because he’s childless he can use more resources.
Uh, it doesn’t work that way, Mr.Dufushead.
Honestly.
Thanks heavens he’s not procreating, the last thing Big Mama needs is another selfish freakazoid sucking back potable water and leaving a carbon highway, nevermind a lil’ old carbon footprint.
This one’s for you, Loserboy!
And with that…I’ll next update the blog from Saskatchewan.
Neat…
Peace Out,
A~
Just a quick Hello World.
I’ve been awol, but it’s been in a good cause.
I’ve been sewing up a storm.
I just wanted to check in and post an old digital collage I made back in 2005.
It seems oh so timely in more ways than one.
I hope all is well in your neck o the woods.
Later,
A~
Like Wanda Jackson used to sing in her whiskey tough voice, let’s have a partee.
But letz do it with two e’s in a shout out to our beloved lolcats.
Or lolcatz.
Or whatever you want to call them.
Brand new in the shop are uber cute partee invites, hot off the gocco.
We had the idea for them 2 weeks ago but we used our last screen in an attempt to make the image and found that the sides didn’t burn.
Why do gocco screens do that?
It’s is *so* annoying.
Even these fresh screens didn’t burn all the way to the side, calling for some last minute editing.
We pulled it out of the fire though and bam! made these awesome cards *and* a super yummy lasagna for dinn dinns.
Am I the perfect wife and lolcat card maker?
It may well be.
Have a party down weekend, y’all.
A~
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