Inspiration Friday

This is the time of year we're hearing holiday songs nonstop in all the stores. Whenever that one from Charlie Brown comes on, this is all I can think:


I am really digging Listorious lately. You know how the internet loves self-referential things. http://listorious.com/
Listorious is a directory of interesting Twitter lists. (Something I have yet to really delve into on my own twitter account.)

My cousins were visiting me last weekend, and introduced me to the work of Andy Sandberg:

Hee.

Enjoying this comic by James Kochalka about the creative process.

This post about "Ideals" is probably my favorite thing that's ever been posted on Regretsy.

To borrow a phrase from a popular news-ish show:

And now, your moment of zen.

Bunny in a sunbeam.

Craft Leftovers Zine Giveaway!

What's this? Another giveaway? Why yes! I have an interview in this month's Craft Leftovers, and the lovely Ms. Craft Leftovers herself has given me a few copies to give away on my blogs.
Let me tell you: you need this zine.
Blythers will love the mini knit sweater tutorial.
My fellow artists will adore the Zen Habits- Get Off Your Butt article.
Everyone will love the spa goodies tutorial by artvscraft.net.

That's just a tiny bit of what this issue is packed with. Check out the full description on the official Craft Leftovers site.
(and psst! she also has an awesome blog full of great things to make!

Interested? All you have to do is comment below. (Make sure I have your email addy so I can contact you if you win! Don't worry, I won't add you to any mailing lists. That's not how I roll.)
A winner will be chosen with Random.org next Thursday, Dec. 10th.

Want to earn extra entries?
Tweet about the contest! (mention @absolutelysmall & the blog addy and you are golden!)
or
Blog about it!
Then come back here and comment AGAIN for each time you did this.

OH AND I DID MENTION I HAD MORE THAN ONE TO GIVE AWAY. Yes. The other one is being given away over on http://theneedle.org. Same sort of contest! Feel free to enter both.

The Bathroom of Natural History

Like many homes built in the early 90's, we have a tiny, dark windowless hole in our house known as a hall bathroom.
Here's how it looked when we bought it, ugly shower curtain and all:

Yeaaah. That had to change. But...to what?
I remember it clearly: I was driving home one evening, and thinking about the new house. It suddenly struck me that our tiny dark hall bath could be transformed into a natural history museum in miniature. The details all fell into place quickly. Even more exciting, we kept finding things the old lady had left behind that could be used as exhibits.
So, without any further ado, let me take you on a tour of The Bathroom of Natural History.
Every museum needs a sign. We have one, too:

Come on in!

On the vanity, we have a live exhibit. Fancy goldfish! Sciency.



Scroll your eyes upward, and behold one of the many things left behind: a real deer antler.
Dead! Real! Bugs!

A display shelf with various fancy polished rocks, and the world's largest (?) dandelion.

Open the medicine cabinet for more exhibits...


There's still so much I want to do with this room. But first, I am going to need a lot more exhibits. And labels. Lots and lots of labels.

Happy Monday! Er...Tuesday?

Well, that was a semi-unexpected blog break. Since everyone had the extended weekend off, we invited my whole family to our new house for FOUR WHOLE DAYS. OF FUN. (It actually was really fun.)
Now I find myself trying to wiggle back into a normalish routine of work.
My thoughts are very scattered, especially as I am at that most rare of situations: NO PENDING DEADLINES. No deadlines? No work that has to be somewhere a week ago? Really? Now what??
So, here for your perusal are the bullet points in my mind that can't be strung into a coherent blog post.

* Too much garbage. The weekend's garbage wouldn't all fit in one can, so now we have a very ripe hefty bag in the garage. It smells like something big died in there.

* Oh my gosh THE LAUNDRY!

* Side note: where are all these flies coming from?

* My cousins and I made some videos this weekend which I am not allowed to show you. But one of them had this song as the background music. It was AWESOME.

* Gin & tonics are so wonderfully refreshing. Why don't we drink these all the time?

* I have had that song from that episode of Firefly where Jayne is a folk hero stuck in my head ALL DAY. I mentioned it on Twitter once, and it's not letting me forget.

* Hey! I can relate to this comic.

* I started reading The Secret to see what the deal was. Apparently, I created the universe. Sorry about that, Middle East! My bad.

And the winner is...

Commenter #13, 8 Skeins of Danger!
There were so many amazing comments! Thank you everyone!

And, just a quick announcement:
Absolutely Small is having a sale!
FREE SHIPPING on almost everything* in the shop.
HEAVILY DISCOUNTED international shipping.
BUY ONE, GET ONE FREE Poppets & Wee Goats!

Sale starts Thursday night, and ends Monday night. (26th-30th)

*the wee print on that is: free shipping in the US & Canada on everything except the poppets & wee goats, and those random few things which are both cheap and heavy (i.e. vintage paper goods).

Chickenpants in Wonderland

I was invited to participate in the Go Ask Alice plush art show in Santa Barbara. I had really grand plans of making a whole cast of characters...but, um, life kind of got in the way.
Anyway, here's what I did make.
Of course, I had to make an Alice:


All that time spent making Blythe clothes has not been a waste! Turns out, it's very useful to know how to make tiny dresses after all.
In the Disney version, the Queen of Hearts always freaked me out. She was so angry! I was inspired by the John Tenniel illustrations of the Queen for my version.


I was a little nervous to make a Mad Hatter, namely because of the hat. How does one make a plush hat?

I'm glad I did it anyway, though. Turns out it is really not that difficult. Yay! Perhaps I'll be making more Chickenpants hats in the future...
(and yes, that is a Re-Ment cup in his hand. Turns out collecting Re-Ment is useful, too.)

So, that's that. If you're in the area, please stop by! I hear they're having a tea party to celebrate the show opening. It's on December 5th, and you can find all the details on their site.



*also: psst! i'm picking the winner for the chickenpants baby contest this evening! i think there's still room for a few more comments...*

Bring it? Oh, it's been brought.

Things are heating up on the Chickenpants Baby contest. Photos are being posted. Links are being tweeted. Chickens are being photoshopped:

And this is just ONE of the photos. Check it out! Well done, 8 Skeins of Danger, well done.
Shana Astrachan is bringing it, too with awesome handmade CP costumes:

The contest ends tomorrow, but there's still time to enter! Go to the original post to do it.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go paint stars on the BATHROOM OF NATURAL HISTORY's ceiling. And also change some stuff around in the shop. Let's just say there will be some nigh-impossible to resist incentives coming soon. Stay tuned...I'll hopefully be sharing that news and photos of the BATHROOM OF NATURAL HISTORY soon!

Inspiration Friday

I'm typiingthis with a pug who insists on resting his chin either on my hand or my keyboard. SO in other words, HTML just got really hard. If there are broken links, you can just yell "BUSTER!!!1" because that's what I do.
Annnd onto the awesome:
Loving this week:

archibald
Originally uploaded by timssally

♡ Really cute paintings from Timsally on Flickr.

♣ Here's a cool tutorial on how to make landscape photos look like train sets:
http://recedinghairline.co.uk/tutorials/fakemodel/
SO cool!

♤ Loving Angry Chicken lately. It is not alas, about angry chickens.
http://angrychicken.typepad.com/angry_chicken/2009/10/penmanship.html
Very cool article with a link for making those cursive writing practice sheets. Remember those, from school? Turns out you could choose to have fun with them.


♠ Hats for Ruby! Ruby is a very sweet pug with a very expensive eye condition. Her human is making these awesome Blythe hats to help defray the cost. Hop on over there! Get an awesome hat, support an awesome pug.
http://cruelsound.blogspot.com/
(photo by Cruelsound, of course!)

♦ Little Brass Bird is an animated internet tv series that features handmade plushies. So cute!

♥ The lovely Beeper Bebe has downloadable vintage french paper dolls.

Two very funny posts over on Fussy:
♧ One about her tortoise, Peanut
and
♠ and one about bunnies!

(and don't forget to enter the chickenpants baby contest!)

New Absolutely Small Goodies

I've got a few new things to share with you this week. For starters, I've got a new blog address: http://chickenpants.net
(the old one still works, of course! but isn't this shorter one spiffier?)
Second, I am very happy to have a bunch of new hats & scarves for Chickenpants in the shop!
Oh, the cuteness.



And third, another thing I am quite excited about: Absolutely Small Gift Certificates.
Give the gift of Small! These are brand new for me. They're available in any amount from $5-$100. And you can choose to have one mailed to you, or to print it out yourself. (Talk about last minute gifts!)


(and don't forget to enter the contest!)

250 Chickenpants is a lot of Chickenpants (plus, there's a contest!)

On July 9th, 2007 I made a creature that cracked me up. I had no idea he'd crack so many of you up, too. Not to mention become my own personal creative obsession.

A little over two years later, I find that I've made 250 Chickenpants. 250? 250! 250.
This is a really big deal for me. I never thought I would make so many of anything. When I first started making plush, I was also painting. Mostly foxes. I'd never been able to stick with any one subject matter long enough to make a series. I had done literally every art/craft from writing to glass fusing and back again. Nothing stuck, and I thought nothing ever would. Then suddenly, Chickenpants took over my life.
So, without any further ado, let me present to you Herb Chickenpants, Number 250:



(You can say hello to him in the shop, if you're so inclined. ^-^)
So how are we going to celebrate this? The only way the internet knows how...with a contest!
Here's the scoop. Up for the winning is one super cute Chickenpants Baby.

Here's how to do the winning:
1. Comment below! (Make sure I have your email so I can contact you.)

And then, here are some optional ways to secure your place at the top:
2. Twitter about the contest! Link back to the blog...and then comment AGAIN so it counts!
3. Blog about the contest!
4. Join the CP fanpage!
5. Sign up for the mailing list! (top middle of the blog)
6. Post about the contest on Facebook
7. Surprise me!
And for each thing that you do, come back and comment AGAIN so I can tally these up right. The main thing is to link back to the blog, and to let me know that you did it. Creativity will be rewarded! Let's crash some servers, people!

A winner will be chosen next Tuesday, Nov. 24th, and announced here on the blog.


There's so much else I want to share with you. New blog address. New gift certificates. New tiny hats. But this blog post has dragged on long enough.
See you tomorrow!
Remember to follow those insane creative hares...you never know where they might lead!