Impaled Strangled Jaundiced Under-nourished Mutant Duck-Snowmen With Spotty Skin

Above: Will Write For Chocolate has been updated.

There was a time in my life when I was actually semi-competent at handcrafts. I made little Fimo characters, felt ornaments, handmade paper, wreaths braided from herbs and other plants I had grown and harvested myself. When Jeff and I got engaged, I created our wedding invitations and programs myself, using watercolour paints and calligraphy.

Earlier this year, I volunteered to organize a Christmas Ornament Exchange on LJ. I thought I could make some more of my cute little Fimo characters. Except I had underestimated the toll that tendinitis had taken on my Fimo-manipulating tendons...I ended up making my snowmen ornaments much smaller than I intended, and the paperclip hangers look way too big in comparison. The Fimo carrot noses I put on looked like duck bills instead. The Fimo cracked a bit in places when I baked it because I hadn't kneaded the dough enough. And then the glaze I put on turned yellow in patches.

Ugh. :-(

So I've christened these horrific creations my Impaled Strangled Jaundiced Under-nourished Mutant Duck-Snowmen With Spotty Skin. Hopefully the catchy name will help make up for the lack of innate cuteness and craftmanship:



I was amused by my friend Craig, who posted the following on the Flickr page with the above photo: "These are cuter than anything! I'd cover a ton of trees in these! Seriously! Can I order some? Can you make more?"

Nope. Never. These will remain one-of-a-kind. The world will be a better place for not having more Impaled Strangled Jaundiced Under-nourished Mutant Duck-Snowmen With Spotty Skin, believe me. I'm sending them to 11 people plus one for the Interfilk auction at OVFF next year (thanks to Melissa Glasser for volunteering to collect these Interfilk ornaments).


As for other crafts: well, I've always been terrible at needlecraft, mostly from lack of patience. The only thing I ever successfully crocheted in my life was a small baby blanket for my niece Sara, using granny squares, and that ended up being more of a large knotty handkerchief than an actual blanket. But I proudly sewed on a cloth label that said "Made With Love From Your Aunt."

I was going to post about the wonderful ornaments I've received so far from the Christmas Ornament Exchange Group in this Blathering, but it's been agreed that it would be better to keep them a surprise for now while people are still receiving them in the mail. Please do check the Ornamentalia LJ group closer to Christmas, when I'm sure photos will start appearing.

Instead, I'm going to highlight the skill of a few needlecraft-savvy friends.

Like Beckett, who sewed this Jedi Knight outfit for one of her sons for Halloween this year. And if you haven't visited her Flickr sketchbook, please do!

Like Allison's cross-stitch pieces. Check out her Woodland Santa and Tapestry pieces, for example, and the cross-stitch she made for me (photo above and to the right).

Like Margaret, Quilter Extraordinaire, who organizes the creation of the GAfilk Quilt each year. She quilted me this ornament to hang from my office tree:



Like Julie, who knit these cool hand-warmers.

Like Judith, whose beading prowess has progressed exponentially since a beading workshop with Kathleen Sloan. Here's a cool Minas Tirith beading piece she did a while back.

Like Bev (my friend Craig's mom), who does AMAZING quilting art pieces. Check out the detail on her Killarney Lighthouse piece.

Fun links

These ones are from Jeff...

This Amateur Gourmet post is lots of fun, combining food and comics and storytelling. I might use Comic Life to try this in Blatherings sometime.

Incredible Little Mech Sculpture: Holy cow. This little mechanical guy was created by Netherlands artist, Mark Ho. It's constructed of 920 homemade parts (101 of these parts are in each hand), made from bronze and stainless steel. You can find more info about Mark here.



And then if you really want to be distracted from work, check out these mesmerizing videos:

Video 1 (could someone please translate that sung Japanese phrase for me? I can't get it out of my head...)
Video 2
Video 3
Video 4