Catching Up

Hello all.  It has been quite a while since I wrote a serious post, and I am sorry for that.  I have been running around the last few weeks and it has been hard enough just crafting, without writing about it.  First off, I spent a weekend at my sister's for her baby shower.  The whole family is very excited for her son's arrival, so a lot of my crafting has been baby-centric for the last few months.  My mother came for a visit after that, and we played tourists for the week, visiting art museums in Balboa Park, the San Diego Zoo, and of course the beach.  Then came Thanksgiving which ate a week of my life so easily, and finally, John's parents came to visit at the beginning of December.  While all the visits and trips were exciting and fun, the near month of hosting or being away was exhausting, and I feel like like the ground is finally under my feet again and I have space to share what I've been up to.

I've completed two paintings, this abstract one, and one of the San Diego skyline at night.  I haven't been satisfied with the photos of the skyline paintings that I have been able to take, but I do have these two detail shots:

I am really happy with both paintings, and hope to list them both on my etsy shop when I can get some better photos.

I have also been enjoying making baby clothes.

This cute cardigan.

And this onesie.  The great thing about baby clothes is that they are so quick to make that I finish one and can move onto the next quickly.

I also make a paper mache box and painted it to look like a Super Mario cube.

I expect that we will be using this as our ring box for the wedding because the companion cube is too big to really put in a pocket.

Well, now you are pretty much caught up on my recent crafts.  What have you been up to since I last posted?  Any big Christmas crafts?

Hippo

When I was a little girl, I had a massive collection of stuffed animals.  And I mean massive.  I had two twin beds in my bedroom and one of them was pretty much covered with my collection.  Among the collection, I had two that were very special to me.
HugglySnuggly and Bunny

I slept with them pretty much my entire childhood.  My mother bought Bunny for me when we were visiting my grandparents the year I was born.  Somehow, I got the idea that my grandmother had gotten her for me.  She passed away the next year, so I always felt connected to her through Bunny.  My sister got HugglySnuggly for me the Christmas that I was five.  As you can tell, those animals mean a lot to me and the people who gave them to me are always with me when I have my animals. (I know, I'm a grown woman, and I don't sleep with them anymore, but you'll see where I am going with this.)
Recently, I took on the project of knitting a stuffed hippo for a baby who joined our family recently.

 I love to knit, and I will take any excuse, but even more then that, John and I are moving to California in September, and I don't know how much of a role I will have in this baby's life.  I might not be able to be there, if he loves this hippo, then I will be a part of his life.

I got the pattern from the book Itty Bitty Toys.