Battlestar Galactica series finale party

I made Eye of Jupiter dip. Sour cream in a circle of guacamole (with blue food coloring ... didn't look too bad in person) in a circle of salsa in a circle of yellow chips. Mmmm-mmm. Fracking delicious.

And Cylon Raider rolls. They're crescent rolls filled with spaghetti sauce and mozzarella. The eye is a strip of pepperoni.

Bride and Groom

I made my friend Denisse jealous when I made my friend Tom the crocheted Jabba the Hutt and Sculpey Boushh/Princess Leia set. My friend Melanie gave me "Creepy & Cute Crochet" and I'd been looking forward to making something out of it. Aha!

Denisse's upcoming wedding didn't really call for creepy, though. Just cute. So I skipped the creepy skeleton ribcage embroidery and just stuck with cute toulle.

Robot Day!

The boys and I taped together cardboard boxes and cut out arm and face holes. I mentioned this to our buddy Melanie (the art teacher who lives down the block). She said, "Bring them over tomorrow!" The next day our next door neighbor asked if her son could come over for a while so she could run errands. Absolutely! Plenty of boxes to go around. So we threw together a box combination for him, too.

An hour or so of kid-led painting and construction-paper-ing later:

Even more T-shirt stencils!

Fun Christmas gifts for the boys' friends for only $2! Gotta love the sales at Michael's.

For Silas next door:

For Silas' sister Bird:

For cousin Hadley (a real-life Texan cowboy, according to the boys)

Doll dress

My sister very compassionately suggested a $5 limit on gifts for nieces and nephews this Christmas. It's really hard to find something that doesn't suck for $5.

Aha! My niece is two, and she has a doll she loves! Sweeeet! This stashbuster cost me nothing.


I didn't have a pattern -- or the doll. (It's in New York and I'm in Minneapolis.) My mom in South Dakota, though, has the same kind of doll at her house, so she sent me the measurements and I made a cardboard dressform. I sent the dress down for my mom to try on her doll, and it fit! Now if only my nephews played with dolls ...

Ewok village

PVC pipe for tree trunks, Sculpey for the hut door frames, craft foam for leaves, a sheet of platic Corroplast for the platform, and lots and lots of primer and paint.


I got some hunter-y sweatshirt-type fabric to use as a mat to simulate a forest floor.

There's also an elevator, but it doesn't work very well yet.

Happy Halloween. So tasteless

I was invited to a party where I KNEW everyone would have an incredible costume. Boy howdy. One guy arrived as one of the Dick in a Box guys. Unbelievable. "Well, if you can't be incredible," I told myself, "just be mean."

I present Mount Lushmore.

Lindsay Lohan, (my son standing in for me), Gary Busey, and Amy Winehouse.