The Doll in Lili Mieli's Window

 The shop Lili Meili and Beau currently has this rag doll in their window. 

Just three straight stitches intersecting make up each eye; a small piece of felt with one small stitch is the mouth. That one stitch keeps the mouth on and divides it into lips. 

So simple and so nice!

 The hair looks like layers of recycled pieces of knit with straight stitches here and there to keep it in place. I really like that.

When I got home today after taking these pictures,  I found this photo of some other dolls from the same maker.

The Licensing Show 2012...Or Who I Saw in Vegas

Who did I see in Las Vegas this week?

Not Celine. Not Donny or Marie. Not Criss Angel. 

Here is a small sampling of who I got to spend time with.

This is me and Ugly Doll Ox! 

Yes, I saw Dora!

Clifford? Hello, I saw him!

Things got smurfy

And they weren't the only blue creatures around either

Om-Nom from Cut the Ropes was there

I met three guys that looked like this. I don't know who they are but they were really fun to hang around with.

I saw this car and I'm thinking it might be just what I need to change my image.

Though this will do, too.

I saw this.

And I saw this.

I saw a lot of these, all at one time.

What happens in Vegas doesn't have to stay in Vegas at all!

2 guys trying to play 1 game for 54 hours

Before going to work today I stopped off at a pub on 33rd St. No, that's not one of my problems. Two guys from Minnesota are there, even now as I write, trying to beat the Guinness Book of World Records for longest time playing a board game non-stop. 

That's Brett Carow on the left and his friend Sam Hennemann on the right. You can read maybe too much about them and the whole thing here.

I got to Foley's Pub ("The Irish Bar with a Baseball Attitude")  around 8:15 and they were almost a full day into playing. Guinness allows 5 minutes break for every one hour of playing. By this morning they had only used up 15 minutes and were "banking" as much time as they could.

They are avid Strat-O-Matic players and 54 hours is enough time to play every MLB team.

I can't tell you how much sports memorabilia is at Foley's. TONS and TONS of things, floor to ceiling. They have an insane amount of baseballs...

Boxing gloves...

 They have stadium seats...

But what they do not have is ANYONE singing Danny Boy! This is from burpandslurp.com:

Another fun fact: See that anti-Danny Boy sign? Foley’s made news for banning that popular song for the entire month of March 2008. Foley’s lists several reasons for the Danny Boy outlaw: it’s depressing, it’s misused and overused on St. Patrick’s Day, and the lyrics were composed by an Englishman, for Hail Mary’s sake.

Outside of Foley's. It was a nice bite of an adventure. Good luck to Brett and Sam!

UPDATE: CONGRATULATIONS Brett and Sam for breaking the world record for continuous board game play!

4X6 Cushie Critter--Gloria

soon after participating in Craftster's second round of 4" X 6" Art Swap
( gallery here) i made this 4" X 6" she-monster which i just named gloria, after glory, after old glory.  i like how she turned out though  a follow-up that i made soon after wasn't that good. so i'm crafting some friends for her this morning and expect that one of them will be sent out as my 4" x 6" piece of art for round three. not her, though. i feel like i need to keep her around.

4" x 6" Art

This was the piece of art that I created for the 4" X 6" Art Swap over at Craftster. That was the only requirement--that the art created has those measurements. This was different than other swaps in that we didn't know who was going to be receiving our package--so we had no clue what they liked, what their interests were. We really were creating what we liked and sending it out into the world.

I found out yesterday that the swap organizer--alteredmommy--was the receiver of my piece, above.

It's called "How I Spell Craftster" because it's made with:
C--rubber stamped
R--ribbon
A--acrylic paint
F--fabric
T--twig
S--safety pins
T--twine
E--metal stamped
R--rubbing (pencil on paper over sisal rug)

Aurora's Junior Prom

Aurora and her prom date, Jilani. 

Ellie, Aurora, Faith and Amelia

Abby and Joe, center.

Amelia, Aurora, Jalani, Sammy

Amelia, Aurora and Moriah

Ellie and Lizzy

Congrats Toy Design 2012 Graduates!

I have been teaching Game Design at NY's Fashion Institute of Technology for about 20 years. There's only two universities in the U.S. where students can get a degree in Toy Design and FIT's is a very very rigorous program. This was a really wonderful class. It was an honor, really, to teach them.

Today was graduation day and the Toy Department had a breakfast for the graduates, their families and faculty.

Jordan, me and Karen.

Kei, Vince and Karen.

Jiyhe and Scooby!

The students embellished their caps with toys to distinguish themselves from the fashion and marketing and textile, etc.  graduates.

Kei had a pinwheel on his--in school colors.

Jordan created a very Lego cap.

Ashley balancing a pig from Angry Birds.

Alexa gets a hand from Ki. The doll on Alexa's cap looked just like her.

Keysha and Alexa

Jiyhe, BK and a friend of BK's.

Ashley, Karen, Jordan and Enrique. Enrique made his cap topper out of  perler beads.

Judy Ellis, the chairwoman of the Toy Design Department, with Scott.

A table in the toy lab where we teach. Family passing time before going to graduation which was at
the Javits Center this year.

Room with a view. Jason: producer and actor and critical part of the program.

Ashley, Jiyhe, Scott and Bobby.

Just a section of the fabric samples available for students to use in making their plush.