finished! :)

i think i will also include a seed packet or two as an added bonus. i'm actually struggling with one of the things that should have been the simplest in this project. we're supposed to line a little box with velvet/velour and pin our creations onto this background. i chose the perfect box but it is teeny and the whole 'display case' look will be completely lost. i think the reaction will be more of a 'wow, how did you fit all of that into such a tiny box?' hmmm...

anyway, i decided to copy a sketch from the brilliant chris appelhans who contributed to the art for coraline for the journal and then stitched Cat onto a tote bag and painted him in with fabric paint. now i just need to find a box and make it into something coraline-esque...

one of the requirements of the swap is to include two black buttons. i looked through my stash and realized, a.) i don't have much of a stash at all, and b.) i only have one measly tiny black button.

so i had to make some.

which wasn't such a bad thing.

(emma and i making magical cookies at christmastime...note her two-handed stirring)

this little girl is turning 3 today.

we talked on the phone this morning. she told me she was having cupcakes and that they were brown (chocolate). i said she should have one for me and she asked, 'auntie jennie is coming over? mommy, auntie jennie is coming over for cupcakes!' this led into a lot of back peddling--'oh, auntie jennie lives far away next to cinderella's house', etc. etc.

happy birthday, emmalou. you are loved.

quite a while ago i participated in a postcard swap with my little mochi. that was a fun way to stretch creatively...and now from the very same place comes another opportunity. of course, i had to sign up.

this is where i live. i was looking at the absentee ballot form for our local elections a couple of days ago and had to take a picture. there were so many languages.

for some reason, this made me happy.

(image by jon klassen)

if you're not coralined out already, here are a few sites of the incredible artists who worked on this project...)

http://burstofbeaden.com/coraline.html

http://shaneprigmore.blogspot.com/

http://dankrall.blogspot.com/

http://shannontindle.blogspot.com/

also, http://photos.latimes.com/backlot/gallery/coraline

apparently, the magical people from laika sent out handmade boxes of coraline treasures to bloggers who had been following coraline and/or who were chroniclers/lovers of animation. pretty amazing: http://www.animationarchive.org/2008/11/more-on-our-coraline-suitcase.html. i like these people. :)

coraline is just wonderful. the new website is a lot of fun too. go to the well or downstairs to the theatre to see mini-films of the project. beautiful.

http://www.coraline.com/?#/?page=theatre&subPage=2

before the rains started coming down (in the last couple of weeks) i went over to griffith park and hiked to the tippy-top of the mountain. a week before i had seen little specks of people from the observatory and was jealous. i wanted to be up there! but i had an appointment to hang out with a friend (which was well worth the sacrifice, haha) so i put it off until the next week. we were having such unseasonably warm weather during this particular day. i wore jeans and a sweater and was a pretty sight by the time i got to the top, but it was so worth it! the views were breath-taking, griffith observatory was a tiny white globe below, the hollywood sign was even slightly below us. there in the distance, was the ocean, twinkly and blue. it was a beautiful day.
afterwards, i went over to the trails cafe and treated myself to a spinach/cashew pie--absolutely delicious. (at the top of the bridal trail...it really is called that. or maybe it was bridle. hmmm)

(at one particularly steep part, i was slowly making my way up when i heard a crow cawing his ominous cry. he was sitting in the middle of this burned tree--kind of amusing. now if some vultures started to circle me, i would have been concerned. come on, give me a break! ;))

(this was the ridge i was trying to reach...unfortunately, the green of the grass didn't really show up in this shot. it was so lush...really, it was!)

(i love you, lalaland...)

(gorgeous, gorgeous views!)

santa barbara was magical.