Jacks are Wild

The men in my life known as the husband and the boy are both named Jack. This meant stitching Waxing Moons Designs’ Jacks are Wild was inevitable. I began this project with big, speedy plans. I would finish stitching before Halloween. Stop laughing! OK, laugh. I know you share my delusions. I’ll enjoy laughing at you when it’s your turn.

I had fun with this project. I used DMC Glow-in-the-Dark for the lightning bolts, DMC Rayon (I think they call it Satin now) for the sunglasses and DMC Memory Thread for the spirals. I figured if the Jacks were wild, the stitching should be, too. 😀

Vitals:
Jacks are Wild by Waxing Moon Designs
Stitched 2 over 2 on 32-ct Silkweaver Superstition Reflections
Stitched with the following substitutions: instead of GAST Black Crow, I used Raven, and DMC Satin for the sunglasses; instead of GASS Butternut Squash, I used DMC memory thread for the spirals; and instead of GASS Picket Fence, I used DMC glow-in-the-dark.

I took of this picture of the project in the dark to test the glow-in-the-dark threads. They glow, with varying results. I don’t know if you can tell, but if you look at the center Jack’s teeth, some stitches are brighter than others. The brighter stitches are glowing. I used a photo editor to brighten the photo, so it doesn’t appear to have been shot in the dark, but it was. The lightning bolt on the bottom right doesn’t stand out in regular light, because that part of the fabric is white, too. It is detectable in the dark, though, just like in this photo.

Silly fun.

My birthday was yesterday. In addition to stitchy goodness, I also received a lovely drawing from the husband. I don’t know which is more moving: the sentiment or the drawing.

 

Happy Stitching! 🙂

Isaac Clarke

It’s been a long time since the boy has asked me to share a picture on my blog. How could I possibly resist?

Meet Isaac Clarke:

From the Dead Space Wiki: Isaac Clarke is a systems engineer working for the Concordance Extraction Corporation and the main protagonist in the {Dead Space} games . Oh, how the boy wants this game!

He whipped this off so quickly, I can’t tell you. It’s a God-given talent that he doesn’t get from his mother, at lease not directly.

Happy Birthday to me!

Today is my birthday!  The boy and I  took a very early flight to San Diego today.  It was a day of firsts for traveling today.   We had a theme-park experience at the Detroit airport.  I usually fly Northwest, but today we took Delta.  The walk to the Delta concourse was very entertaining.   Coming down the escalator, we saw a huge blue circle on the floor.  Then we could hear electronic music.  It was evocative of space and underwater exploration.  The walls resembled water, but there were bright colors that changed in time with the music.  It was like getting out of the heat in a long theme park ride line and entering the building to begin the attraction experience.  Who knew an airport could be so exciting?  We took a very small plane to Cincinatti, where we walked down stairs to get off the plane instead of using a jetway.  Very retro.  The boy was impressed.  For the flight to San Diego, we were assigned the last row, which turned out to be a bonus.  The flight wasn’t completely full, and the boy and I each had three seats to ourselves.  BONUS!  We squandered the room by napping.  “Mom, it was a day of firsts!”  Indeed.  Everything that could have gone wrong, didn’t go wrong.  Happy Birthday to me. :o)  I suppose the worst part  is that the husband had to go to work, but meh.  We’re together.

This is my birthday card from the boy.  I was going to upload a photo of my gift, but I can’t find the husband’s USB cord.  *sigh*  I purposely didn’t bring any of my extra USB cords, b/c my sweetheart had one at his apartment.  grr.  Maybe he’ll find it, and I can upload pics tomorrow.  Or I’ll get him his own USB cord.   

This is my birthday present to me, bought on clearance from ABC Stitch Therapy.  I’ve admired her for a long time, but she was too rich for my blood.  Now she’s mine.  I have plans for her, which knowing my track record, should only take a few years to finish.

Now, everyone celebrate!

Let the Christmas decorating begin!

This is the boy’s first foray into coloring with Photoshop.  To see the original, click the picture.  It will take you to a blog about his comics, with this colored version and the original drawing. 

Thanks for stopping by and getting excited about Christmas with Tiki and me!

Did you vote?

I did.  I was voter #446 for my precinct.  I always get excited by voting, including when I’ve known I was voting for a sure loser.  So, what’s a girl to do when she’s got all that nervous energy?  Celebrate by going to her LNS, of course!  I got some floss I needed and some stuff I don’t exactly need, but couldn’t bear to leave behind.  Good times.

I want to share a Tiki Fox comic with you today.  This was entirely the boy’s idea, and he asked his Social Studies teacher if he could make the comic for school.  She was glad for his idea, because she wanted to do something for Election Day, but didn’t have ideas. She was very excited to see what he turned in–he said she hopped up and down.  I loved it, too.  I meant to scan/copy it to post today, but I forgot, so I made him re-do it for my blog today.  “FINE!  But I’m making bigger panels, since I don’t have to leave room for the voting!”  Ooookay, dear one.

Comix day

Adventures with Tiki Fox (pronounced “ticky”), by the boy.

More Naruto pictures

I love this picture.  Sasori is a minor character, some kind of puppet.

Here he is with his puppet.

Rasengan Naruto. I love the face.

Half Kyubi/Half Naruto

A color picture?

Yep! Two, even!

DQM: Joker

A WIP photo from my son.  This will be the cover picture of one of his Nintendo DS games, DQM: Joker.

Kirby!

My son asked that I share this recent page of Kirby characters. 

I don’t play Kirby, so I don’t know these images.  I do know there’s no Kirby.  (!)

Inu Yasha

My son has found a new favorite manga series…Inu Yasha:

A surprise from my son

My son unexpectedly drew a Gaara (of Naruto) picture for me while I napped.  It was a lovely surprise. :o)

By Request

The boy doesn’t draw like he used to–as often, I mean.  I asked him was he ever going to draw again?  *shrug*  He doesn’t know.  A few days later he drew me this:

What a darling, eh?

But this–this remains my all-time favorite.  He drew it last year:

Framed!

Jo-Ann had a coupon for 60% off framing.  It’s been my experience that Michael’s framing prices are outrageous.  Jo-Ann proved to be more of the same.  We went through hell getting this framed.  They did a bad job with the dry mounting.  It’s all bubbly.  They waited three weeks to tell me a mistake was made with the framing order.  I hit the roof.  In the end, it wasn’t worth the BS, and I won’t go back to Jo-Ann, even though they did kiss my a** when I threw a fit.  The damage was already done–the shitty dry mounting, I mean. Bad work=no return business.  I say I shouldn’t have had to throw a fit in the first place.  Plus, when I picked it up, the clerk that gave it to me was confused about their even being a mistake in the first place.  GRRRRR.  I hope the boy likes it.  He’s not home from school yet.  He’s looking forward to hanging it in his room. 

I think he did a great job picking out moldings. 

Gaara, again II

Another Gaara of Naruto picture by the boy.  He’s currently working on American Dragon: Jake Long stuff, but nothing’s been scanned.  Oh, and like Naruto, he eats ramen constantly.  If it weren’t for sushi, I’d think he was born in the wrong culture. 😉

What a black belt looks like

My son passed his final test in Black Belt Camp yesterday.  He broke another board with a front kick–into THREE pieces, no less!  And on his first try. 🙂  The husband took the board to work last night to show off, and I haven’t scanned or photgraphed it yet.  One of the last camp assignments was to draw a picture of what you’ll look like when you get your black belt.  This is what my son drew:

The belt is red and black, b/c it’s tradition at his school for junior black belts to wear that color.  He receives his belt on May 12.

More drawings from the boy

Gaara of Naruto:

Gaara is ds’s favorite character from the TV and Manga series, “Naruto.”

Artistic endeavors

My 10 yo son is a big fan of the Zelda video games, and he loves drawing, too.  He asked that I share this picture with my blogging friends, and I’m happy to do so.  He’s proud of this drawing.  No, there is no tracing! he will have you know.  I’ll tell you that it’s unusual for him to have colored it.  He mostly goes for pencil drawings.