Weekend Geekery - Quidditch Match!

Ever since I saw this CBS report on college's Muggle Quidditch teams, I'd been freakin' thrilled and hoping that I'd get to go to a game.

Fortunately, it turns out that several of the local colleges have teams, and I found out from my most Potterverse of friends, the Vaughns, that there was a match coming up.


Nick and I Ravenclaw'd up and went to check it out with a couple of our friends, and it definitely delivered on entertainment. The NCSU and ASU players both seemed in good condition, but NCSU had the homefield advantage and a bit more experience on their side as they won all three matches.


I'm not entirely sure how to find a Quidditch team in your area - in fact, the way I discovered the NCSU team was an article about them - Quidditch Catches on Triangle Like Magic - but I definitely recommend going to a game, possibly in costume. As for me, I'm going to try and keep tabs on the local teams to hit a couple of a matches, since the weather is turning spectacular!

And the friends that helped me find the local match? They're none other than a Wizard Rock Band, the Blibbering Humdingers! Scott and Kirsten even performed a half-time show at the match! It was like a mini-Harry Potter convention in an afternoon.
Here's a link to the Blibbering Humdingers facebook page, you should definitely check them out (even if Scott is a Slytherin).

Catch ya later, Muggles!

Booksale Book Covers - A Goldmine of "What?!"

One of my favorite things about the Wake County Library Booksale (outside of the fact that it is a booksale of 450,000 books!) is the amazing book covers you encounter while going through the children's section. And, of course, making up ridiculous stories to go with them.

Here are a couple of my favorites. Feel free to make up your own explanations!

Here is how the game works: You are trapped in Death Cave with a fatty and several ham sacks. When the ham sacks run out, you and fatty must have an epic battle to see who will survive Death Cave!


The Justin Bieber dating show! Starring Justin Bieber as "Hal"! Watch each week as we attempt to uncover the gender of Hal during mixup dates and hilarious situations!

Here's a link to all of the book covers I've collected. There are plenty more weird book covers, including a few terrifying sci-fi ones. Feel free to judge a book entirely by its cover and make up your own story.

Friday Finds: Possums! Possums are cute.

Sometimes there are things that you want to be IN so hard, but can't really explain why. For me, that is possums. I'm not into them the way I was apparently into cats when I was younger (so no, I'm not interested in a possum bedspread, possum pillows, possum paintings and/or storage boxes).

I just appreciate when they pop up places, because I think they're under-appreciated for their cuteness possibilities.
I mean, look at this:


First we have an adorable Possum Family Print from acageybee on etsy:


Then! A scarf called the Persy the Opossum Scarf from SillyHill:


And yet another adorable mini print Berry Nice Poss from possandwom:


And in fashion, here is some new jewelry I got from H&M featuring possums:


(some people think they resemble foxes, but they're totally possums)

And I'm not just relying on strangers to help turn around the possum's cuteness status - Here's my little stuffed "Possumfoolery", my contribution to the battle of possum cuteness.


Hopefully, I've touched all you non-believers and you realize the adorable potential of the humble possum.

Baba Yaga Hut - Completed!

Yay! It even sort of stands on its own. I'm really excited to finish it. I've learned a few things in the process:
- Embroidering stuff is still super-fun
- Making legs out of pipe cleaners is very hard, and if you had a brain, you would have bought all pipe cleaners of the same color ( they didn't have them when I started the project, but I should have gone back! Now the toes are different colors, which I think is kind of neat)
- You can use hot glue to stabilize pipe cleaners on the inside of thick felt
- Having a deadline is very useful for me to get things done

I've been working on this for several months, and giving myself a deadline of having it done this week made things focus a lot better for me. I'm not sure where it's going to live, but it's definitely going to be hanging out around the place.

Again, this was inspired by Melissa Sue's Baba Yaga hut that I saw in Stuffed magazine. I loved hers so much, but I couldn't buy one, so I made one for myself.

(Secret: the door actually works, so you can look inside, but there's probably nothing interesting to see. Probably.)

Drawing Portraits

I'm still working on the Baba Yaga hut - in fact, the chicken legs made of pipe cleaners are what is holding me up. Balance you dang chicken legs!

In the meantime, I've been working on my drawing and portraiture skills. I have some really basic colored pencils that I like to use so I worked on two drawings. One is a self-portrait:



I'm not scared of drawing myself, because I can take any sort of liberties with myself I want and if I make one of my eyes bigger than the other, then it's okay! But I stress out a lot about drawing other people. All I can see is the various places I screwed up. Here's the drawing I did of Michelle:

It's not bad, but I feel like I could have done much better. I'll try not to berate myself too much and at least say that I did a good job on the roses.

There are so many other random things I've been working on - I'll post when I get to a photogenic point!

Friday Finds: Wishing for Summer

I think all of us are a bit tired of Winter. I'm ready for flowers and sunshine and all of that summer stuff! Here are some ways of surrounding yourself with summer even during the dreariest times.

johnwgolden's lovely print of "Enlightened Fireflies" reminds me so much of chasing around fireflies as a kid.

Summer is a time of cute and comfortable skirts for me, and I absolutely love all the ones from Made with Love by Hannah - here's her sunniest skirt, the April Showers skirt.

I was never a Girl Scout, but I had a few badges from Girls in Action (a church-related group). I always wanted more, and now I can have them, thanks to leemeszaros I can try to add "being a sweetie pie" to my merit sash. (I may never earn this one).

Last, but not least, I love the custom decals available on etsy. Here are some cheery summer trees to brighten your wall (from artwallproject) so you can ignore the real weather.

Knowing me, I'll post wishing for snow in summer. For the moment, take a few, get warm, and let an imaginary summer whisk you away.

Current Project: Baba Yaga Hut

Ever since I saw Melissa Sue's felt Baba Yaga huts in Stuffed magazine, I wanted to make one of my own. I've been working on this one off and on for several months, and I've decided I'm going to finish it this week (or at least by next week).

Here's the awesome inspiration photo from Melissa Sue:

Here's my progress so far:


I need to add legs and the rest of the roof and the back. The door opens and I'm not sure how I feel about it. For the legs I'm going to try and wrap pipe cleaners and see how that works out. Hopefully it will be proudly stalking around on chicken legs for you next week!