The summer weather finally seems to be over, broken by longer spells of bearable, even beautiful weather. It was such a dry one this year that we have had some unexpected visitors. For one thing, our front yard has been aerated quite thoroughly by an armadillo. Our neighbors have seen them in the woods pretty often, but I guess they've had to come looking for moist soil. Well, they found it. The husband is pretty irritated, but they eat grubs, which to me are just about the grossest bugs in the world.
Ha! We almost caught a 'dillo last week; somehow Scooter spotted one outside our back fence. He was barking and going crazy, and the poor critter must have backed into a bush and gotten stuck. We tried to catch it in a garbage can, but it got away, running across the pasture--if you've never seen an armadillo run, well, it's pretty funny...
Also in the front, we've been seeing some giant mounds of dirt mysteriously appearing in the planting bed! A Texan's first thought is always, "Dang, fire ants!", but no ants in these piles...hmmmm. It's a GOPHER! I'd let him hang around, but apparently the tunnels can do some real damage, and he may be munching on tree roots, so he'll have to be evicted. I don't want to kill him, so I'll try and trap him...heh, I took Scooter out on the leash yesterday thinking he'd have a field day with the gopher mounds, but we ended up sniffing all over the place for about 45 minutes, every place but the gopher mounds. Some Dingo he is. Maybe dingos don't care about gophers...
On the plus side, the rampant passionvines in the front bed have given us a bounty of butterflies! It seems they are the favorite food of Gulf Frittilary caterpillars. The other day, I walked up the sidewalk and had to do a double take, as our concrete cocker appeared to have come to life and commenced slobbering:



but no, can you see it?



It's a chrysalis! Soon to be another butterfly! I'm keeping an eye on the progress, there's another one on the wall just above it. Hopefully we can catch the big day on camera. You can be sure of an awesome blog that day!
In the meantime, I'll be negotiating a surrender with the gopher...

Okay, since I promised, here's a picture of the coconut bra hula monkey...although I'm not as happy with her as I'd hoped. Something needs to be tweaked before I do another...



Maybe less, uh, 'shoulder'...more detail, like flowers on her skirt maybe. It doesn't show in the pic, but she does have a belly button .
These dolls are pretty challenging, not just the difficulty of making the beads, but finding just the right level of detail...too much and they don't look right, not enough and something's missing. I've been working on dog heads for them and started out of course wanting to do specific breeds, but somehow the fine detail gets lost in translation. Now I'm trying to pare down the design so that it has expression and personality while staying simple and clean...somehow that's harder for me than just going for accuracy...I think expression is what the monkey head is missing. Maybe she needs flowers in her hair, or just a hibiscus behind one ear...I'll keep working, and blogging!

I think it's been like a week since I posted a dog picture, so here's one I took of Coco over the weekend. This is the kind of image that runs through my mind when people say to me, "Oh, you have cockers? They're so HYPER!" You have got to be kidding me. I refer to them as throw-pillow dogs. Coco took it upon herself to illustrate:



They have their moments it's true, but this is a far more typical scene around here...
Yes, she is inside the TV cabinet.

I was soooo tempted to go ahead and put the monkey together with an 'interim' pair of shoes, but no, I can't do that to her, I wouldn't want to be seen in the wrong shoes, and neither does she. Her flipflops are on the way, though, so you'll see her soon. Of course, it's just possible that I'm the only one that cares...sometimes I feel like I'm talking to myself!

Instead of the monkey luau, you are invited to a slumber party in Outer Space! This little gal has on her cutest PJ's and bunny slippers, and she's just waiting for her guests to arrive. Whose bra will be put in the freezer? Whose hand will be stuck in a bowl of warm water? Does that trick ever work?



Kids can be so cruel...

When I realized that a torso would work with Penny's arms (see Joan's mermaids), I knew the coconut bra hula monkey was next on my list--okay, I did her but she's not just perfect, so you'll have to wait for that one. However, I did manage to get the proportions right on this super hot sexy witch!



She is STACKED!
And ready for the Monster Mash, the Ghoultown Ball, and all those other big events coming up for her favorite holiday.

I'm really happy with her, and her glam attitude reminds me of Endora, my favorite character from Bewitched --Agnes Moorehead was so FAbulous! I think Endora's style must have been based on her own. Check out some items from her personal wardrobe at The Frock. If you're shopping for me, I'll take the black Mr. Blackwell number from the '50s...but wow that flaming pumpkin gown is pretty amazing, too. I'm going to have to work hard if my witches are going to live up to that standard!

Well, the 'Horns lost Saturday, as I'm sure about half the free world knows right now. I'm sure Penny the Buckeye had a fun time watching the game...

I think it would have been just too good to be true for Texas to beat the No.1 ranked team with our little first-year QB, and if the win streak had to end, I'm glad it was a fair game to a good team, and not some crummy fluke loss to Tech or something...so I'm disappointed, but not disgusted.

Lots to get to today; I ran out of propane right in the middle of a bead last week, so I have some things to finish up. The monkey's grass skirt looks cute, but I fear it's stuck to the mandrel and will have to be removed via hammer...better luck next time .

Well, I can't believe that I have done doll pendants with bunnies, cows, pigs, cats, and even a one-eyed monster girl before thinking to do a monkey! I LOVE monkeys! Thank you Wayne (and of course Jeeves) for the inspiration:



I'm afraid this head is a bit too small for one of our pendants, but so cute! Heh, it fits easily inside the circumference of a penny. I'll definitely be making more of these. If I'm not careful, I'll get carried away and make a very grand skirt that looks like a bunch of bananas!

Got home from Austin Sunday night, and I meant to blog yesterday but spent the day recovering instead. I don't know how the real show-pros do it.

I don't think it helps that I don't get out much anyway, and in that environment not only of people but BEAD people, I tend to go a bit nuts. Heh, I come home thinking, oh geez, everybody must think I am the most crazy person they ever met! I don't think it helps that I practically have a caffeine IV in my arm to keep me going--so Kirsten, Ken, Alicia, Judie, Wayne: thanks for putting up with me!

The show was fun, did great Saturday, but Sunday was quite slow--there must have been a dozen other things going on in Austin that weekend...when I saw an ad that the City-Wide Garage Sale was happening, I was thankful that my husband hadn't come with...Lord knows what he would have come back with!

I, on the other hand, came home with some treasures. One is a present for Penny, so it won't be blogged until she's gotten it. I haven't decided if it's for Christmas or just for fun, so she'll just have to wait and find out. The other is one of Wayne's amazing monkey heads! He hasn't told me his name yet, and I'm still debating how to create his body. At first I thought I'd do PMC like the frog, but now I'm leaning toward doing something felted. Huggable! We shall see. In the meantime, say hi:



Pretty awesome, huh?
The dog hair adds a nice touch...

I have some orders to fill from the show and that seems like a solid excuse for not tackling the incredible mess that is currently my home.

**UPDATE**
The monkey has let me know that his name is Jeeves.