Alpaca Birthday Love

Ever since we met these handsome fellows on a trip out to Idaho...

... there have been many attempts to convince my mom she needs alpacas of her own.  She really wants alpacas of her own, which makes it all the more fun to try to get her to commit to the adventure, especially when everyone has had a few rounds of vodka tonics.  Seeing that there could still be years of cocktail induced cajoling left on our part, I decided to knit her an alpaca, and maybe he could help convince her she needs the real thing. 

(I mean, when you see this face, don't you want a real alpaca?)

This is my third Rebecca Danger pattern, Zeke the Aloof Alpaca, and every time I knit one of her patterns I am delighted with the outcome. 

Zeke actually became Stewart after being presented to my mom at a recent birthday dinner.  I can't say I was sad to see him go, he has QUITE the sweet tooth and he and I almost came to blows over the samoas on more than one occasion.

Chalkboard Paint Valentines

I'm sure that the obsession with chalkboard paint will subside eventually, but my desire to put it on EVERYTHING definitely influenced our Valentine's day craft this year.  I think this simple idea turned out great even though I'm a little scared of what phrases will show up on the one residing on our fridge (there's a lot of twisted humor that goes on around here).

I set out for Michael's looking for the same wooden hearts that we used last year, but they didn't have enough of that size this time (we have to make 50 to cover both classes) so I went a little larger, which probably was for the best because it is really hard to write legibly in chalk really small.  My main advice for painting the wooden hearts with chalkboard paint is use primer, I didn't and it took several coats to get them black enough because the paint soaks into the wood.  We added button magnets to the back, then the girls signed them all in chalk for their classmates.  The signed hearts went into little cellophane baggies with candy and a piece of chalk.  I was worried about the baggies rubbing the chalk off, but the cellophane was actually stiff enough that it didn't rub against the hearts at all.

The first post I ever did on this blog was on our first handmade class valentines, so happy blogiversary to me!

2008 Valentines

2009 Valentines

2010 Valentines