Screature Day!

For months, Lil' Kay has been saving up his money to buy Screature, a battery-operated dinosaur with motion sensor technology that makes him snap, growl, purr, laugh and even shoot water depending on the situation. Everytime we went to Walmart, we would visit Screature and play with him, but at $35 I wasn't going to give in and just buy it for him. Instead, we encouraged him to save. My son spent all summer searching, asking, bribing and pandering to gather enough funds. Okay, we tried to encourage him to EARN the money and he did a little, but he's a little lazy. "If you'll clean up this area, I'll give you a dollar for your Screature box." HUGE SIGH, "I wish I had a metal detector so I could go look for money."


Anyway, Saturday night we discovered that he was only $5 away from having enough to buy Screature. So, after a fairly well-behaved morning in church where I had instituted some new behavior rules suitable for a first grader, I agreed to make up the difference so he could go buy his new pet.

Without a doubt, it was the "best day of his life"! (Granted, this is coming from a kid who has been known to have the best and worst day of his life within the same 24 hour period, but he was pretty happy.) In no time flat, Screature had his own bed with a pillow and blanket, and Mr Kay and I were being told to turn down the t.v. so we wouldn't wake him. Screature has been terrorizing the cats, and I swear, if that thing snaps at my nose one more time, I'm removing his batteries.

Sunglasses

Sunglasses, originally uploaded by BeckyKay Designs.

"Do I look hot? And sweet"

Seriously. Where does he come up with this stuff? I love this kid!

Winner!

That is a picture of the second prize winner in the "other" category at the 2009 Old Settlers Pet Show! Well, I guess, it was actually the hermit crabs that won second prize, not Lil' Kay, but he was pretty darn excited! Okay, there were only three entries in his category, but he lost to a fainting goat, so that's pretty good. I mean, it's hard to beat a fainting goat!

Hot off the sewing machine!

My fruity patchwork pillow line is coming along quite nicely. This strawberry is probably my most favorite yet. I'm particularly fond of strawberries, anyway, and this just makes me happy! It's going to be hard to part with, so I'll probably have to make another right away.

I'm a little tempted to embroider a cute little face on this and make it a bit more kawaii. What do you think?

Dotee Dolls

Shortly after joining Swap-Bot, I started hearing about Dotee Dolls, and of course, had to know what the fuss was about. Turns out, they are are cute little handmade dolls made for swapping and gifting. No selling them! The dolls generally measure about 4-6 inches and have a hanger and a tail. The rest is totally up to the artist! I love the folk art feel of these dolls and am anxious to make more.

The original creator of the Dotee Doll is Dot Christian, an Australian doll designer. She even has a shop on Etsy where you can purchase Dotee kits to help you get started. Or you can do a search and find all sorts of instructions and variations.

After doing a search for Dotee on flickr, I was totally blown away by the variety and uniqueness of each of these dolls. There are simple Dotees, extravagant Dotees and everything in between.

I decided to try my hand at making a Dotee and found a swap for color themed Dotees. The theme for this swap was black. I gathered some supplies and went to work this afternoon. I was so excited with how it turned out. I just kept adding to it as ideas came. You can see my final version on the left and the back view on the right. The "wings" were a last minute addition. I also added a bit of blush to her cheeks after I'd already taken her photo. (She seemed a little pale.) I hope that my swap partner will be as pleased as I am!