go ducks!

so the oregon ducks is really the one sports team that brandon cares about. well, i should say he cares about their sports teams, plural. anyway, i had experimented the other day and came up with a knitted reusable coffee sleeve, in order to stop using a new paper/cardboard one every day. how green of me, right? it stemmed from me collecting the sleeves on my desk and realizing just how many i go through.

anyway, i asked brandon if he'd use one, and he said if it was a ducks one, he would--thus the challenge was on. here's what i came up with, and i'm pretty happy with the result, if i do say so myself. the hunt for the "perfect" yarn colors was NOT easy, and it took a couple tries but it was worth it in the end.

expansion

i'm excited to share that we are expanding our line at adelie and the orca! we now are sporting some baby blankets and burp clothes. well, really these have been the plan for the start, but my sister took charge and photographed her creations so now they're starting to pop up on etsy! thanks jen, the seamstress. so far we've only listed one, but look for more in the coming days! i like to call this one "you're buggin' me"

adelie and the orca giveaway on moderncat

image courtesy of moderncat

toys, clockwise from top left: parisian mouse from 4 paws, knit fish cat toy from adelie and the orca, binkie sweetie toy from osha, catnip donut from catzilla crafts, woodland friends organic hemp cat toys from the modern pet, and mink catnip body pillow from kitty of mine.

so this week is toy giveaway week on moderncat, and there have been tons of amazing giveaways! i offered up a knit catnip toy (via adélie and the orca), and today you can have a chance to win! check out the posts from the week--some amazing etsy shops to discover, and tons of giveaways! if you have a feline friend who could use some spoiling, head on over and enter to win! thanks, again, moderncat for 1. being an amazing website and 2. featuring my kitty toy (and stu's tooshie)

ben and stuart break

well, i feel like it has been a little while since i've put up some kitties. i'm guessing it's been more like 3 days or something :::::checking archives:::::: wow! no! it's been almost two weeks! time for some ben and stu indeed...

this morning i was attempting to take a picture of my newest kitty toy for etsy...the cats were helping

and here are the kids, waiting for me to put the toy back down (yeah right i'm going to put it down)

the boys eating...this was the cute moment, before stuart threw up because he gorged himself on the food.

first sale!

yay! made my first sale on etsy! thank you to LoveErica for the purchase of a catnip kitty toy for her three kitty cats...

erica is a budding photographer, making her way through college currently. this is my favorite print in her shop at the moment...

modern ben and stu

moderncat.net, one of my favorite blogs, was kind enough to show off my new duds featuring ben and stu! head over to check it out!

new shirts

so i finally screen-printed some shirts for my etsy site, adelieandtheorca.etsy.com

the benjamin buttons:

and the stuart louis:

congratulations

congratulations to chris! chris, via my random selection at random.org, is the winner of my lucky cat giveaway.

giveaway/belated birthday

well, it has come to my attention that i have missed my blog's birthday. whoopsies! anyway, i realize that this is a perfect opportunity to have a giveaway! when i screen printed that shirt for brandon the other day, i had to test the printing first, and did so on a piece of grey fabric. after the print came out well, i thought hmph...this is too cute to just throw away! i decided to mount it on a canvas, and here is the result!

you, my blog followers, help me stay motivated to keep on making, so i've decided to give this little guy away as a thank you, if anyone is interested. he is on an 8x10 canvas which is 1 3/8" deep. there is a cut in the canvas (it came that way--boo!) so there is one small air-bubble looking thing, but it's very minor.

please email me at: minimarsh6@gmail.com if you would like this very first screen print to be yours! shipping is on me. if there is more than one person interested, i will use random.org to randomly choose a name. i will choose a recipient by monday evening (feb. 16). to clarify, don't feel bad if you know me--this isn't necessarily intended for internet strangers (although i'm certainly not going to rule any out). i'll let you in on a little secret--most of my blog readers are family and friends (and it's a small community) so most of the people who see this are friends with me in real life as well. thanks for sticking with me through this year, and thanks for your comments! i love comments, so feel free to leave them often.

adélie and the orca

remember my resolution at the new year? overall it was to stop being lazy, but included in that was beginning an etsy account and i'm proud to say we're finally up and running! from the title of the post, i'm sure you can guess our shop name--it's adélie and the orca, which comes from my sister's and my favorite animals. we only have a few things up in the shop, but feel free to stop by and check us out! stop by often as we slowly update...

in addition to this, i've finally done my first screen print test! prep and cleanup are about 90% of the process, but i know i'm going to have a ton of fun. brandon has wanted this graphic on a t-shirt, so we decided to use this as our first test print (we will not sell this design because it is not our image, but we have just created this one shirt for our own use)

the graphic looks a little blurry in this photo, but that's actually because of my picture-taking, and not the design. the edges of the design are actually quite crisp! slightly shaky because i did this using the screen-filler method (which is hand-painted, as opposed to the photo emulsion method), but crisp edges.
and now here is brandon posing in the shirt--he thought he should pose with the cats, to make it look "even cuter."


here's my favorite--the double head-tilt

crafting sunday

with the latest holiday vacation, my cats really took us being home as an opportunity to put their best (and by best i mean worst) foot forward. i decided that perhaps i could help them out with some "environmental enrichment" so i googled around an found this article here. from reading this article, i realized my kitties do not have a cozy "private area." yes, they can go under the bed, and yes they are the most social cats i have ever encountered, but i'm sure they'd still like a cozy place to snuggle up and be left alone.

at first i wanted to cut a hole in a box we have from ikea that sits in our expedit bookshelf, but brandon convinced me that the edges would look bad, and even if i tried to edge it in something, it still might end up looking icky so i had to rethink my strategy. i decided instead to clear out a cubby, put a cozy blanket in there, and then make a little curtain for the kitties to give them some privacy. here's how it turned out:



so far the cats, especially stuart, really seem to enjoy the nook. i'm going to see if there's a very small curtain spring rod somewhere, because currently i just have a basswood stick wedged in there and it keeps coming out. hopefully we are on our way to an environmentally enriched home for the kitty cats (meaning they will be better behaved).

brandon's diy weekend

so, our apartment building has developed an unfortunate habit--instead of walking the extra 10' out the front door, when someone has a small, unwanted piece of furniture they just leave it in our lobby. about a week or so ago, someone left yet another piece of furniture--but this one had some potential. it was a small metal table with a drawer. at first brandon and i were venting about the furniture pile-up in our lobby, but then we had a second thought--wait a minute, we sort of like this semi-junky piece of furniture. it had nice lines, and since it was metal it would be MUCH easier to paint (no wood to sand). brandon decided to tackle at least phase 1, and so here are the results so far.

the before:



and the after, so far

i say "so far" because we originally wanted to put a decal on the dresser, but unfortunately it wouldn't stick to the painted metal. my new idea is to make a fun design using contact paper sort of as a decal...updates to come. thanks to brandon for taking this on!

christmas kitty creations

the holidays are a perfect excuse to make more cat toys, so i decided to give a holiday-themed toy a try. here's what i came up with:



two cute little treats! my cats were already attempting to run off with these two toys...i hope they will get some kitty enjoyment!

experimentation

on my flickr home page today i saw a little banner for the flickr blog titled "tis the season for...bokeh" with a catchy image. i clicked on the link which led me to another link--a diy for creating a really cool effect with your camera lens and light. i couldn't resist, so i decided to give it a try. while i have some perfecting to do, on my first attempt it a complete failure. here are some examples of my experimentation:

election day/scarf

well, i feel semi-frivolous posting about a scarf on this monumental election day, but i didn't get around to it last night and i had time to take some pictures while watching the returns. anyway, i wanted to finish this scarf in time for new york and am happy with the results. the pattern was found here. i started, and then saw the middle part, which called for ribbing (you can't really tell from the picture on the pattern page). i was a little hesitant at first, wondering how it would look, but i went with it and completed the scarf according to the pattern. upon finishing i was still unsure how i felt about the ribbing until...i put it on. at that moment i realized the genius of the ribbing. in the yarn i used perhaps especially (a soft, 100% cotton worsted weight yarn), the ribbing is very soft on your neck, while the rest of the pattern does not feel quite as soft. it significantly increases the cozy factor of this scarf.
it was difficult to take pictures because stuart (who is currently making it difficult to type) was very interested in the scarf on his personal pedestal.

halloween pumpkins/punkins

earlier this week while searching for some inspiration, i came across a pattern on martha stewart's website for these adorable felt booties. while i didn't have any fancy, nice wool felt on hand, i did have some orange scraps from my cat-proof(ish) cord charger. this got me thinking...the plan was to spend halloween with claire, and what could be more perfect than some little orange booties? the best part about the pattern is that you make the bootie to fit the foot exactly--you measure the baby's foot and scale the pattern accordingly. josh must have loved that phonecall.

me: "hey josh...can you measure your daughter's foot?"
josh: "uh....okay..."
me: "i'm making something"
josh: "okay, hold on...[in the background i hear josh saying that he needs to measure claire's foot]
"it's 3-3/16" from heel to big toe"
me: "thanks! see you tomorrow"
after that i scaled the pattern according to the directions, did a bit of hand sewing and ended up with these:

little jack-o-lantern shoes (shown next to my cell phone for scale)! they are so teeny and cute, and they fit claire. it was SO adorable. unfortunately (well, sort of) i was busy holding her so i didn't snap any pictures of the shoes ON her feet, but other people got some so i will be sure to post that when i can.

tonight was spent at jen and josh's, where my parents met us and my mom cooked dinner for everyone. it was very nice and low-key. claire had been fussy but we did make a discovery--she stopped fussing when we were putting the shoes on her and taking pictures. she is a shoe girl already.

not the best picture, but i wanted to show her little jumper, which said "my first halloween, don't scare me!"

our low-key night did not continue onto our bart ride--it was rowdy with the halloween crowd. it was funny to see people's reactions to some of the costume, especially the man who had fallen asleep and woke up to a girl dressed like a peacock looming over him--he was quite surprised. nothing else really exciting for brandon and i...we just stayed in with the cats. we're hoping that we'll get more rest than last night--ben decided to treat the bedroom like a racetrack and take laps around the room--laps which included running across our heads...literally...on our heads...and after the laps were over the boys decided to play "attack the pictures on the wall." awesome.

happy anniversary [to us]

how quickly a year goes! one year ago today this was taking place

and

*wedding photos courtesy of edyta szyszlo photography*

honestly, thank you to everyone who has been involved in our lives and supported us through our relationship and helped out with the wedding. it truly has been an amazing (and fast) year for us--we have grown so much individually and as a couple and we have had a wonderful time in the process.

because we are going to new york, we decided to do a more low-key anniversary celebration. instead of a fancy dinner out, we opted for a drink at the top of the mark, which is a place where we have celebrated multiple occasions, including our engagement. the sunset was beautiful with the fog rolling in...

brandon sipped a glass of red wine while i enjoyed a french 75

i gave brandon a card and an unfinished surprise at home (i'll get to that in a moment) and brandon re-wrote/renewed his vows to me, this time going for a little bit of playful/fun/silly-but-sweet verse (yes, i cried for those who are wondering). here is an excerpt of his gift

my gift-in-progress is a collage of sorts. i tend to collect tickets from events/concerts/shows/sports events/movies, etc. and stash them in an album. i decided to actually do something with them by collaging them on a canvas and then white-washing over to make it a little more abstract/neutral. next i plan to transfer some quotes from songs that have special meaning to us (we love exchanging song lyrics). here are some pictures of the collage in it's current state

on the collage? i'm actually sort of proud--it really is packed with sentimental value...including a ticket to the concert we went to the night before we got engaged, a phone card used to call him when i was in france, and the ticket stub from the movie we went to in paris. i'll keep you posted on its progress...for now, i'm off the computer to spend time with the husband!