My friend Holly and I had craft night the other night, and this time the assignment was puppets! I brought a stash of sweaters and other goodies I had over, and we set to creating. No pattern, no plans, these are a great way to have fun and get creative. And when we were done, the boys had some fun monster puppets to play with.

This would be a great project to do with friends for your own craft night, or to make with kids.

This tutorial is less ’step by step’ than…

So I forced myself to get out the watercolors today… I missed IF last week, and so you get *TWO*! pictures for today. This first one is what popped into my head based on this week’s theme of “Impossibility”. Well, not much of a stretch, as much of my odd world fits in that category.

“At Least Highly Improbable” -

c nancy dorsner 2009 , Watercolor on paper

I sketched this next on, after doing the original sketch for the Improbability above, and then did a very quick watercolor job on it. I like the looseness… it’s a good exercise I think. So, what…

The first place winner of the Dabbled Halloween Contest (check out the winners, cool stuff!) chose an original graphic as her prize, and requested monsters in the bathroom for her son. So that’s my IF for this week! Which yes, is REALLY late, but I have Halloween to blame for that, honest!

Oh, and if you missed it:
-Earlier today I posted the Dabbled Interview with Jenifer Nakatsu Arntson – Really cool vinyl goods!
-Halloween Food Wrapup with how-to’s
-My Halloween Party costume pics!

Sorry, the shower is definitely NOT vacant!

And thanks to Diana for reminding me about Museumr
Here’s last week’s IF, framed in a gallery! Too Cool

Twitter…

Previously I wrote up a tutorial on creating a monster wreath. Here’s another version, that is REALLY quick and easy, no sewing involved, just a lot of hot glue. You may want to reference the previous for more details, but this should give you the jist. (See, I even wrote this one in pencil, that’s how quick and dirty it is!)

By the way, a reader pointed out there are a lot of wreaths and a nice tutorial which I notice uses this quick hot glue method as well (I like her method of gluing the balls in from the back), on Craftster,…

For the boy’s school auction this week, I’m giving away a custom graphic for a party invitation. So I pulled together some sample images to show what was possible. I like what I did for the samples, so I figured I’d stick them in my (never before used) etsy store (cheap!). So if you’d like a customized version of any of these (change the text to match your party details), you can get it there–it will be delivered via email. I’m only doing a few of each this cheap, so consider it limited edition . [oh, if your next party's a…

I’ve been promising more Halloween tutorials, so here’s another one for you! We made this halloween monster wreath for halloween in 2005… It’s pretty easy to make, and is a perennial favorite decoration, so I’ve written up a tutorial on it–since I didn’t have any pictures of the making of it, you get my fabulous hand drawings..sorry!

Click through to flickr to see bigger or download.

Related: A Dabbled Halloween – All this month! and Halloween Contest
… and if you like tutorials like this, check out Henri the Octopuppet!

*note: I don’t remember where I got the idea from, but the idea of a monster…

Don’t eat too many sugary treats at your monster party!

Oh, and I took last week’s IF (the Robots on Vacation) and entered it as a t-shirt on threadless! If I get enough high scores the shirt will be printed and sold from the site and I will win some prizes. Take a look at it and if you like it, sign up and give it a score. URL: http://www.threadless.com/submission/180823/All_Packed_Up
Thanks!
P.S. I’m sure Threadless would be happy if you bought a tee too!

Be sure to check out A Dabbled Halloween –all month long– while your here!

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A request to my dear readers — do you think any of these are portfolio worthy? I have such a blind spot for my own work. Any honest advice appreciated!

This is a quick coloring job of a concept sketch i did for a new project. The line work is rough, but I think they are cute anyway . Check out the new Dabbled contest – summer doldrums!
These guys try very hard to be fierce!

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