Christmas Means "Forced Crafting" (& Of Course There's a Dog)

If you're a long-time reader of Pooch Smooches, you'll know that in my family, we often do what we call "forced crafting" (you WILL participate; you WILL enjoy it) - especially around the holidays. In the past, we've done block prints, Scrabble tile ornaments and necklace charms, button ornaments, and needle felting.

This year we decided to make ornaments out of felt. Of course, the first thing I made was a dog.

Shepherds Keeping Watch

Since we have our own little shepherd (mix), I wanted to do a shepherd-themed card this year, and this is what I came up with:

Shepherds Keeping Watch...

Easy Xmas Craft: Scrabble Tile Ornaments

If you've been a blog reader for a while, you know my sisters and I get together every now and then for what we call "forced crafting." (It's like a forced march - you will participate. And you will enjoy it, dammit.)

You might also remember the last time we did a Scrabble tile craft, it involved dogs (we made pendants for necklaces and earrings):

Remember these guys?

Getting Crafty Again - Of Course It Involves Dogs!

My sisters and I recently had another of our once-in-a-while forced crafting get-togethers. (We call it forced crafting because it's like a forced march. You will participate. And you will enjoy it, dammit.)

This time we made necklace pendants out of old Scrabble tiles. And of course mine were mostly of dogs!

Click to bigify

Dog-Inspired Xmas Windows and Forced Xmas Crafting

If you've followed the blog for a while, you know that every Christmas my sisters and I get together to paint my one sister's windows. It's always a dog theme, featuring her pup Indy. (Last year was Fleas Navidad. If you'd like to see a retrospective of some of my faves, check out the guest post I did at Peggy's The Writer's Dog blog 2 years ago.)

This year, we also did a bit of "forced crafting." That's what my family calls it when someone gets the idea to do a little crafting project, and the rest of us are forced to join in. (It's like a forced march, but more fun. And you end up with cute things to bring home.) I'll share pics and how-to instructions from our craft at the end of the post for those who like to get crafty!

Now, back to the windows. This year the theme was Muttly Kalikimaka, so of course we have Indy on a sandy beach wearing a lei, with the ocean behind her. 

Feeling Even Craftier

A couple of weeks ago, I posted that some of my sisters and I had been feeling crafty and had gotten together to Forced Craft and "felt" some bunnies (and a bunny-turned-rat). Well, we have attempted it two more times since and, after some moderate success crafting a Bailey beagle - as evidenced below - I was ready to tackle a tripawd. [BTW, I do not know why it is called "felting" since you use a type of wool called roving. Seems like it should be called "wooling."]

Angel Bailey

The Gang of Four that my sisters & I made

The good news about felting a tripawd is that the legs are quite hard to get right when you make a dog, so I only had to make three! Whoohoo! The bad news is, it's a little harder to get the animal to stand up on only three legs, but if you tripod them it all works out. I took a ton of pictures, excerpted below. I think Ab looks quite cute with her little doppelganger. Now that I have crafted versions of her in "paint" and wool, I'm not sure what I'll try next. Maybe clay. Or marzipan. [BTW... the Tripawds folks are having a caption contest for that painting I did of Ab, so if you have any suggestions, email me or leave a comment. So far I like: "I'm too sexy for my leg." Or "With a body like this, you don't need four legs." Hopefully my drawing will soon be gracing Tripawds T-shirts and other merch!]

Ab's not thrilled with this pose...

"See Ab, isn't she cute?"

"Don't eat it!"

SO cute together! (If I do say so myself...)

In other non-felting news, I'm upping her artemisinin dosage, since I realized there are MANY different dosage levels recommended and we were at the extreme low end of the recommendations. Upping it slowly and so far she is doing fine on it. In theory, it should act to cut off the blood supply to Boris and Natasha. [Speaking of the Badenovs, someone on the Bone Cancer Dogs listserv reminded me that Boris & Natasha were never very good at carrying out their evil plans to foil "Moose and Squirrel" - said in my worst Russian accent - so hopefully our Boris and Natasha will be the same inept baddies.]

That's about all the news for now. Don't forget you can still VOTE for ABBY here up until the 28th. [The vote totals aren't showing on her page anymore, but you can see them by clicking on "View Gallery" and searching for "tripawd". You can also vote from that page that comes up, but it is a two-step process from there.] Will let y'all know how she does in the contest. She just better make it into the paper, because I have Abby's Army voting for her!

Another Good Check Up & Feeling Crafty

Abby had a quick check up at the Vet Cancer Group today just to check her blood and make sure she is doing OK taking the Cytoxan every day now. All went well and Dr. V. said her blood looked great - in fact, it was the best it's been. We go back again in two weeks for x-rays. Of course we are hoping the Lone Met will still be a loner, and once we have confirmed that he is, we will have the "Rename the Lone Met" contest. Don't want to have it now, just in case... So fingers and paws are crossed for good news in two weeks. 

We still haven't started Abby on the artemisinin (which I blogged about here) as she's had a wee bit of tummy issues. I'm certain it's from stealing green peaches off another of our peach trees which is not producing much yet. (We've caught her munching on the pits a couple of times...) She is almost back to being a "solid citizen" so we'll be starting the "arte" soon.

As for feeling crafty, I've been playing with my "Brushes" app on my iPad a bit more and did this e-painting of Abby. This is the pose you will most often find her in as she very much enjoys a bit of belly rubbing. She pretty much lays around like that, in the hopes that a hand will come by. (I hope you see this as "art" and not "puppy porn." Mike wanted me to incorporate a fig leaf, just in case anyone might be offended, but I know you guys don't offend easily!)

Slut Puppy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Three Bunnies & A Rat

In other craftiness, my sisters and I get together every once in a great while for what we like to call "Forced Crafting." You must participate, no matter how much you suck at the particular craft we are working on. In the past we have done Christmas wreaths, beaded bracelets, little stuffed Easter chickies and bunnies made of felt, etc. etc. This time we tried "felting wool," in which you basically just get this special wool (called "roving"), form it into a shape, and stab it repeatedly (and yourself occasionally) with a special needle until it magically retains said shape. We made bunnies. (Well, they all started out as bunnies, but one ended up becoming a rat... And a darn handsome rat he is!)

After we made the bunnies/rat, I had to go, but my sisters made a very fine replica of corgi Lou, remember him from this previous post?, and a neighbor's dog, Marley. Too cute, eh? We are going to try again this week. I'm going to start slow and attempt a quadpawd first. Actually, I can't decide if a tripawd will be harder (tough to get it to stand/sit without falling over...) or easier (one less leg to make!). You can be sure that if they come out cute I'll be posting pics all over the place - the blog, Facebook, Twitter, maybe even a YouTube video! (And if they come out ugly, I will only post the pics here.)

Applying the Tail to the Rat

Lou!

Marley, next to his photo

Finally, I just want to say there have been some very sad posts on the BoneCancerDogs listserv and on the Tripawds' site the last few days about sweet pooches who lost their battle with this oh-so-shitty disease. We are thinking of you guys and hoping you are taking some comfort in the fact that your furry family members are now running pain free. Hang in there.