Tiny Little Beasties

I really like tiny things. I several shelves with miniature critters, like this one:

Eggshell Mozaic Shelf

I like to make miniature books. Like this one:

Miniature Book Made From an Old Record with Music Note Pages

And this one:

Rock Paper Scissors Book With Rock Covers

So, it only makes sense that I'm drawn to crocheting tiny little beasties. Like this little rabbit:

Leapfrog!

Posing with a favorite snack!

Hangin' with friends

 
Quack!

Wait! What? Who Switched My Dyes?

One of the things I have the most fun with when I'm working on my eggshell mozaics is coloring the shells. You can pick out the colors you want to make, but it's always a surprise to see what you actually get. I've learned through lots and lots and lots of trials that the shells absorb the red dyes the easiest. Even the tiniest drop of red dye can make a big difference in the results. So, I have a lot of reds, pinks, purples and oranges, but very few true blues and deep greens. Brown is suprisingly difficult to make.

I can't tell you how many times I've poured out my deep green dye only to reveal strangely purple shells. Sometimes I think someone is playing a trick on me because the color of the shells beneath the dyed water is completely wrong.

Here's one example - these nice purple shells came out of a deep turquoise dye. Very odd.

How did those purple shells get in that turquoise dye?

Definately purple

And to make things more interesting, my black dye has a lot of red in it. So if I try to make anything darker with the black dye, it invariably comes out reddish.

I've used mostly the McCormick liquid food dyes, but I've also used some of the Wilton gel colors. I've really gotten some incredible turquoise, hot pink and purples with those. And of course I've experimented with coffee, Hawaiian Punch, other red fruit juices and various other pantry staples, but the food dyes give me the best colors.

These were supposed to be forest green, but came out a funny gray.

Lots and lots and lots and lots of shells.

Sunny yellow.

Oh, so much fun!!

Quack!

Slowchet

  Sometimes in the evening when I'm sitting on the couch watching TV with the family, Sweet Pea and I will pull out some yarn and the crochet hooks. Most recently we've been focused on little critters - some photos of them are below. But as we go, you may here this conversation:

Me: OK, the next step is to do 12 single crochet, then a decrease, then 12 more
Sweet Pea: OK
Me: 1
Sweet Pea: 2
Me: 2 already?
[pause]
Me:6
Sweet Pea: 12
[pause]
Me: 8
Sweet Pea: 16

That's us counting our stitches. You can see that Sweet Pea crochets about twice as fast as I do. No matter how hard I try to go faster it just doesn't work. I end up dropping a stitch, then have to fix it which slows me down, or I get all tangled up and have to disentangle. We've decided that while Sweet Pea is doing crochet, I'm doing slowchet.

Hey, it works for me. What's the hurry anyway?
 

Quack!

I Must Be Nuts!

So, I've been doing a lot of egg shell mozaic-ing lately and having a lot of fun with it. I'll work on it in the evenings in front of the TV and whenever I can squeeze a moment in my crafty corner.

But I have to say, as I carefully place each tiny bit of eggshell fragment, I can't help but think I must be nuts!

Here's a few of the things I've done recently:

 

Quack!

You Have Arrived!

So, I was taking Sweet Pea to a trumpet lesson. It was the first lesson with a new instructor and I wasn't entirely sure where I was going. After driving around in a dark, rainy neighborhood with winding streets for several minutes I finally pulled over and turned on my phone and brought up my GPS. It took several minutes to load and connect. Then it took several minutes to enter my destination. Finally, everything was ready and this is what I hear:

"You have arrived!"

What?!?! My GPS guide sounded very confident and pleased with herself but I was pretty sure I wasn't there yet. It turned out I was about 3 houses away. Close, but not quite there. What tipped us off to the correct house was the person leaving the house and walking down the driveway with a trumpet in their hands. Thank god their lesson ended when it did! You have arrived indeed!

Quack!

The Faceless Man

So I was watching the Super Bowl and there was a shot of the audience and there was this man with sunglasses on, sitting in the bleachers. I did a double take. The man had no face! Below the sunglasses was just blank flesh - no nose, no mouth. It was very disconcerting - like something from a bad horror movie. I was terrified.

But then he raised his head and I saw that he did indeed have features - eyes, a  nose, a mouth. It was all there in the right places. The only thing missing was the hair. He was bald, and had pushed his sunglasses on top of his head, then had looked down at something. So the overall effect was surreal.

I had the hubby rewind it several times and we all agreed that he looked faceless. Ah, good times!

Quack!