Crafty giving (and bad puns - the result of hanging out with my family)

So, another year of celebrating the birth of our lord and savior with compulsory gift giving has come and gone. I was down at my grandma's house in California for the holiday and, as my grandma constantly reminded everyone, "We don't celebrate Christmas because we don't believe in all that Christian stuff. We celebrate a gift giving, family loving holiday." Then she promptly sacrificed two goats and a human baby. Sigh, if only.

There was a lot of talk of death as my grandpa is 96 and within the last year has really slipped away from us mentally. He's still stubborn and kinda snarky, but now he can't do anything for himself except mess with his electric recliner (which, if you don't watch him, he will tip himself out of). It's hard watching my grandpa, who was once one of the smartest people I knew, just sit in his chair all day and sleep for the most part (he can't even read anymore, which was pretty much his life). The trip wasn't really depressing though. I helped go through some of grandpa's old books and papers. Among other things I found some hilarious scientology literature (apparently scientology kinda started in my grandparents' back shed where a lot of the old school science fiction fans used to meet and put together fanzines).

I made gifts for everyone (using 'made' in the loosest sense of the word because some of the gifts are yet to be made). Making gifts isn't as cheap as it used to be when I was five and could glue a shitload of glitter to a piece of paper and call it good.

Below are a sample of the gifts that took some effort and most of a week to complete.

Mom's concertina




Aunt and Uncle's concertinas


I love the concertina binding because it only takes about a half hour (not counting drying time) to make each book. The two above took a little longer because I made my own book cloth for the covers.

Grandma's Pamphlet



And Zay's portfolio


Unfortunately I never took a picture of the finished portfolio, but it turned out as well as I expected (especially considering I did it guerrilla style - that's right, I didn't need no stinking pattern)(not that there is really any comparison between being a guerrilla and making irregularly formed gifts for people).

I made my grampa some small pillows that I have no pictures of as I finished them on Christmas Eve.

I still have two gifts to complete: a cloth book and a trinket/coin box. Yay! Fabric, baubles and Enviro Tech polymer!

Is it really almost New Year's again? Huh, I have no clue what I'm going to do for New Year's Eve - and thinking about New Year's resolutions makes my head hurt.

Snow Maddness

Here's the quaint story of how I went innertubing and found out that someone I know is a psycho killer.

The day started out fine, I was so excited to be going innertubing.


Tom was dubious.


He was walking funny that day.


There were signs

but we ignored them.

We inner-tubed our little hearts out for an hour or two, frollicking and discovering the wonders of nature (like snowmen with pine cone penises). All seemed to be going well.

Then Tom snapped.
It might have been something the inner-tube said about him behind his back

Or purely how annoying I was being


Anyway, he lost it and chased us out into the woods like a maniac with angry honey bees in his pants.


One friend got away, but two of us were not so lucky.

We were loaded onto a stolen inner-tube and dragged away.






Our bodies were never found.



FIN