Coming this afternoon… an update on the octopus project..

How to crochet with wire – a really nice tutorial from Craftypod

Onigiri rice bombs – Lunch In A Box has the most interesting and beautiful lunches, and I think these would be fun to make and The Boy would love them.

Via the always fabulous Craftzine.. some excellent HOW-TO’s :
– HOW TO – Firefly LED Stained Glass Pendant on Instructables
– How To – Make Rubber Stamps from Cut out and Keep
– HOW TO – Make Soda Can Stars on Craftster

And then, off topic:

Apparently, I’m the only person who hadn’t heard of Stuff White People Like.

The final robot is cut off in this, so click through to flickr for the full pic.

On to cooler stuff… A Finger Puppet Bus!

We got the boy a set of finger puppets from Ikea, which are cute, but of course small, so they would inevitably be lost. Plus, little hands sometimes have a problem with getting the puppets on their fingers to play with them. So we came up with the idea of a ‘schoolbus’ with wood dowels where the puppets could live! And hey, all made of wood, no icky chinese lead in this toy!

The Boy loves it. He can drag them around and take them to ‘school’. And Mom and Dad love it because they all get put back on their pegs when they get put away!
This was another case of I had the vision and Daddy implemented it – He actually made it where the wheels turn and all, but if you wanted to go even easier, but stationary, you could just glue/nail disks on the side for wheels.

Also, The headlights are painted in Glow-in-the-dark paint!

Update: HOW TO is here!

Create Fake Magazine Covers with your own picture at MagMyPic.com

This is silly, but why not?

In a quick 4 step process, Mag My Pic puts the picture of your choice on a magazine cover. I tried it with one of the few pics i had on this computer (our xmas card pic) and it probably would have looked cooler with a differently laid out photo, but OF COURSE The Boy is one of the 100 Most Beautiful People!

via the always fun Photojojo

A money pad as a gift. Oh So Crafty does a really pretty book, with ‘tear out’ dollar bills inside as a clever way to give money as a gift. (via Tip Junkie). She used hot glue to attach them, but I’ve seen other methods which seem like they’d work a little better, using the glue you can use to make any sort of notepad. My quick google-fu found this tutorial, on how to make notepads from money. Combined with the other idea, i think this makes a nifty gift for the hard to buy for!

I also just added Bitter Betty to my feedreader… nifty stuff!

Bleeding Heart Cupcakes at yumsugar. So perfectly AntiValentines! (via Craft)

Speaking of AntiValentines – this could be useful for next year! Stamp your own messages on Candy Hearts – Evil Mad Scientist

I love these simple little turtles on Craft Addiction.

And I need to make some mittens for The Boy. Maybe I should make a set of 6 so I can keep replacing the ones he loses. Cool tutorial at whip-up!

And thanks to Robyn at Craft & Found for her spotlight on Dabbled! She does some great links over there, so check it out :)

(Yes, I’m sick. Yes, I’m home and yes I napped. But I really can’t lay around not doing anything, and sketching is not strenuous. But I did cheat a little and make this a two-fer for Monday Artday’s Favorite Books challenge. Which is kinda dumb, because who can compete with Sendak? Oh well, back to resting…)