December.

I can't believe it is here already!

I have decided that after a crazy stressful month I am all but taking December off to catch up on customs, rectify and reconfigure the Peru situation and spend some serious time with my family. Henry has 2 weeks off of school and I want to be able to enjoy them with him. We'll also be traveling to CT and VT to see my extended family and meet my brand new nephew. I don't want to be thinking about anything but enjoying their company while I'm there.

So. I will be taking just one wee little custom via email lottery tomorrow. I'll also be doing one auction on Hyena Cart, but the shop is in the midst of a revamp so I'm not sure if it will be able to go up tomorrow or not. I will definitely keep you updated. I'll also be checking in with Peru in the morning so hopefully I'll have some good news to relay on that front as well.

I am glad to have the boys back to school tomorrow (barring a snow day-please no snow day!). Henry is tired of being cooped up with us (it is truly gross outside) and is a total spazmatron. He has been bouncing off the walls all day. I think we even have a field trip this week! We did manage to get out and see Bolt this weekend. It was fabulous, I would definitely recommend it. I laughed out loud more than once and was happy to see they can still pull off a movie that entertain kids and adults without throwing in a bunch of poop humor or thinly veiled sexual innuendo. That stuff drives me nuts. It was. the. awesooomeeeeest!

Alright, off to bed with me. Sleep tight.

SuperDuper Models!

I stocked the Etsy store with all of the new lounge sets, Monster Bibs, Boo Boo Beasties and a handful of Sock Monsters this weekend.





Do I know cute kids, or what???

I can't believe it is almost the end of Thanksgiving break already. I am torn between wanting my days and routine back and wanting to laze around with Henry for a few more days. Tomorrow begins the Christmas countdown. If anyone out there has amazing handmade gift ideas, let me have 'em! I have 2 nephews (2yrs and newborn), my brother and sister in law,

Goodmama + Crankypants = Monkey Mania!

I almost forgot! Today Suzanne put up the Crankypants/ Goodmama collaboration in the Goodmama Shop. We've had this in the works for what feels like forever, so I'm happy to see it come to fruition.

Baa Baa Black Friday!

Ally loved the "Beautiful Day" longies and the sheepie longies, so I mushed them together and her customs are ready to go in the mail:





I spent the early part of the day stocking some new items and old favorites in the Etsy Shop.







Last but definitely not least- for those of your who are looking for a modern twist on baby and kids' gift giving this year, my friend Jess over at Quilt Baby is having a huge holiday sale to make room for some new stock.

Happy Turkey (or Tofurkey) Day!

I know I've been kind of MIA for the past few days and I will have a proper update tomorrow, but I wanted to say that I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving! We will be going to some friends' house as soon as the pie comes out of the oven. The kids will play, the menfolk will be glued to the TV and I will sit in the kitchen with the ladies knitting and giving moral support to the cooks. They know better than to ask me to help. Kyle was asked to be the pie man and they asked me to pick up bread from the bakery. That tells you something...

Anyway.

The K and F Shops birthday celebration starts tonight at 8pm and will continue with random stockings through the weekend. I have a couple of things going up, but I don't know when so you'll have to keep checking back.

Venus Vanguard is also having a Black Friday full of random stockings all day tomorrow. Who knows, you might see some monsters making an appearance here and there throughout the day.

First Annual Vance Holiday Craft Explosion!!!

The Vance Holiday Craft Explosion will be held Sunday, November 23rd from noon-5pm in the gym at Vance Elementary. The event will be right off the lower parking lot on Clinton Avenue, but there will be plenty of parking all around.

There will be a great collection of vendors including:
Crankypants Knits
Quilt Baby
Cozy Blue
Faerie Made Soap
Roly Poly Crafts
Slaphappy!
Dogwood Digs
Spotted Dog Farm
Amy Tepper
Jeribella

and more!

There will also be a yummilicious bake sale and silent auction.

Get a jump on your holiday shopping and support Vance Elementary and local artists at the same time! What could be finer?

Nose? Meet Grindstone.

Alright. Fun's over, back to work. Okay, maybe there's a leeeeeetle fun left.

Psssst... Monica! Lookie, lookie!




They're going out today.

I am a guest vendor at K and F's 4th birthday celebration stocking on Thanksgiving, and here's a peek at what will be going up:




In less fun news, I spoke to my Peruvian contact earlier and it looks like the next box won't get out until the 25th (though it is looking good for all of the missing orders to be included). The holiday air cargo space is starting to get snatched up by the big guys and we've been pushed back. Again. Once again, I apologize to all of you who are getting stuck in this madness. This will be the last shipment under the old pre-order system and things are being reorganized and changed so that it doesn't happen again. I'll be posting about the new wait list system as soon as all the details are hammered out.

So we don't leave each other on a downer note, I want to drop a little hint about an upcoming collaboration I think you might be interested in. If you are on Facebook you might already know. If not, I'll just say that all the mamas who love good stuff will be happy at the chance to grab it for their little monkey...

Disney!

We just got home from Florida and I wanted to post a few pictures from our Disney adventure. The 9 hour car ride on my birthday wasn't fun, but the weekend was amazing. Henry had a blast, wearing the ears (I can't believe he wore the ears!) and sticking his hands in the air on the roller coasters. WooHoo!

Henry and the triceratops:

The ears!:

Rockin' out with the African band at Animal Kingdom:

Riding on Dad's shoulders:

My father in law fell asleep on a bench when he was supposed to be watching my backpack. I snuck into it and Kyle snapped this picture before we put it back and pretended nothing happened. Henry woke him up 20 minutes later and he had no idea until he looked at the pictures that night. Good times...

Donald + Henry:

Donald didn't like the Mickey ears. He pulled them off and threw them on the ground before posing for the picture above.

More music making:

Pluto!

Brain freeze from frozen lemonade:

Mickey:

A family of dorks:

A Goofy hug:

Henry eclipsing the Epcot ball:


Tomorrow....back to work!

It's a Small World After All...

In about 10 minutes we are heading down to Disney for the weekend with the in laws. Henry has no idea. He doesn't even know we're going anywhere. He's in there playing on the computer and in 10 minutes we're going to Disney and he doesn't know. How mean are we?

I'm bringing lots of yarn in case we have down time and the laptop to check mail from the hotel. WooHoo!

See you on the other side of Space Mountain!

Harvest Performance or Psychokiller Camp- You Decide...

Preemie Project

Hey all!

My friend Sara in the middle of doing this awesome Preemie Project for local parents (local to her in IL) who need to leave their brand spankin' new preemie babies in the hospital over the holidays. It is a project that is very close to her heart, as her second son, Henry, (awesome name, no?) was born early and had to spend an excruciating 3 weeks in the NICU. Click that link up there to read more about the project.

If you are a knitter with time to whip up a few hats or have a few extra bucks to donate to the project, please shoot me an email and I will make sure you get in touch with her.

Sneaky Peeks and Padawan Training

I've had a few comments asking how you can buy the things I'm sneak peeking before they go up. If you want to get your hands on Sock Monsters, Undies, or the new Lounge Sets before they go up on the site, email me at crankypantsknits[at]gmail.com and I can shoot you an invoice.

Henry can tell you all the steps you have to take to become a Jedi, from birth to Yoda. I think he would agree that The Force is strong with young Jack, Padawan in training.

Facebook, Anyone?

I just started a Facebook group for Crankypants. I made it open to everyone and left all of the features open so anyone can post pictures, start threads or write on the wall. Feel free to come on over and join up!

I :heart: Crankypants!

Today is going to be a crazy mad scramble day since Henry has tomorrow off school and then we go out of town on Thursday.

I am going to try to: redo the beading on Nicole's monsters, get some work in on Bear's monsters, finalize and invoice new customs, list 2 pairs of Jolly Rogers at Venus Vanguard's mid-month Black and White stocking, list a pair of longies at the K&F Birthday Celebration, ship a batch of Classics, order shirts, broker a new deal with a seamstress, deal with quarterlies and take some photographs.

3-2-1...go!

Lounge Sets- Sneaky Peek!

It has been interesting to watch the first wave of Crankified babies get older and grow out of their longies. Henry is growing up, too, and so my interest has turned to designing some new things for kids who are too big for their britches. I enlisted the help of the most fabulous Amy from Angelwraps and am happy to unveil the first in a new line of Crankypants lounge sets! Amy made Henry some lounge pants a while back and he loves them so much I knew other wee beasties would, too. I paired her lounge pants (made with 100% cotton Michael Miller flannel) with super soft American Apparel thermal tees embellished with a bit of the same flannel.

This first design is the "gender neutral" one. The lounge pants are a soft sage and can be paired with either a black or pink tee, which is comfy enough to lounge around the house in and cool enough to wear to school if you want to. They come in sizes 2-4-6 and the 2s have plenty of room for a cloth diapered bum.






There are more in the works, so keep your eyeballs peeled!

Happy Fun Time

After all of the bad news I've had to spread around on this this over the past couple of days, I'm happy to bring some happy fun time back to Crankypants World HQ!

I fiiiiiiiiinaly finished up Christia's 'lectric guitar longies and I think they are pretty rockin'.





I also snapped some quickie pictures of the Monster Gang. If anyone wants to jump on them before the officially go up, shoot me an email. They are $35 plus shipping and you must promise to take very good care of them!






I also have these little straglers-my Crime Fighting Monkey that I am giving up now that Henry has his very own, and a Pentapus Monster I found in the bunch.

Weekend Update

OKAY!

So here's what happened. Way back in early September I placed the order that I was supposed to be filling now (or, actually, last week). A few weeks later, I went to Charlotte and my contact said that it would be okay to place another order at that time, to come in mid-late November. In MY mind, the first order would come in first and the second order would come in second, all orders would be filled how they came in and we would all jump for joy. I THEIR mind, since they aren't familiar with the pre-order system I set up, an order is an order and as long as they get here eventually, we're fine. So they shmooshed both orders together and shipped half, they just split it differently than I did, so the sequence is all wonky. I just got off the phone with my contact and he said there should be another shipment leaving Lima on the 15th. I will get another box then. I am crossing my fingers and hoping it will contain the remainder of everything I ordered with BOTH pre-orders, but I can't know for sure. He is going to try to call today and send me a list of what he thinks will be included. I'll keep updating here when I get news. I know it is a leeeeeetle bit easier to wait when you are at least in the loop.

Today's Motto

Thanks to everyone who is showing patience and flexibility as I try to sort this mess out. The most frustrating part of this for me is knowing that it is frustrating for you. Hopefully we'll be able to straighten it out soon.

In happier news, with this weird shipment of Classic Crankys came a huge bag of the Sock Monsters that everyone loved and sold out in about 5 minutes. I have 28 of them and will try to find a way to make them available soon. Other projects (that don't effect the Classic Cranky production) are also coming along, so cuteness is on its way!

Peru and Snafu-They Rhyme!

Alright, my patient little pre-order peeps. I got the box from Peru today. It's kind of a disaster. I don't know what the heck happened on the other end, but something got royally messed up. They have been working to fix it, but apparently something got lost in the shuffle because the order I got bears little resemblance to the order I placed. This is no good for you or me. The major problem is that they sent no Jolly Rogers at all. They also sent no small Sock Monkeys. I think I can fill everything else, first and second choices. I am assuming there must be a "Part II" to this shipment somewhere, but I can't get a hold of my Peruvian contact and I don't want to wait any longer on getting to what I did get in. I am going to go ahead and invoice for what I have. I'll update on the other stuff as soon as I get more information. I'll eat the shipping on anything that needs to be delayed further. I'll also still be willing to refund deposits for those who chose to go that route.

After these pre-orders are through we'll be moving to a new system to make sure this doesn't happen again. I know it's frustrating and I'm doing everything I can. Pinky swear.

MONSTER BABY ATTACKS CITY!

You might remember the amazing pictures of Kimya and Panda in her Crankypants that I posted a couple of months ago. Rebecca from Catchlights NW is at it again with these amaaaaaaazing photos of Bear putting the smack down on Block City in a Crankypants Monster Bib. These photos made me giggle out loud and do a little happy dance. So. Cute.

Rebecca also captured some sweet moments with a little cutie in one of the smaller infant sized Monster Bibs.




If you live in the Portland area and want some truly exceptional photographs of your kids, I can't recommend her more highly.

Beautiful Day in Action

Roberta and Sam sent me these pictures of Evie in her Beautiful Day longies.




Big brother Isaac seems to think it is a beautiful day, too-check out that smile!

NaBloPoMo

Wha?

According to my friend Liz over at Cozy Blue November is NaBloPoMo- National Blog Posting Month. I've decided to join her i trying to post every day this month, even if it is only a picture or tiny little something. 'm going to try to take the opportunity to answer some questions people sent in and post some of the photo contest entries.

Liz also tagged me in that "7 Random Things" thingie a while back, so I thought that might be a nice, fluffy post on such a nail biting day.

1. I love frozen candy. As soon as we realized how much candy we had left over from Halloween, I immediately picked out a handful of favorites and threw them in the freezer. Kyle thinks I'm a nutball, but it is so much better that way! The absolute best? Frozen Strawberry Charleston Chews. The only place I know to find Charleston Chews these days is Mast General downtown. Yum.

2. I have seen the movie Gleaming the Cube about 750 times.

3. I am addicted to Wurdle on my iPhone. I whip it out whenever I'm standing in line or waiting for Henry to get out of school. I can't sem to beat my current high score, though.

4. I have "hitchhikers thumb". I was going to post a picture of a hitchhikers thumb but all the ones I could find look gross. In reality, you wouldn't know about it until I threw you a thumbs up. Which I am very unlikely to do.

5. A newscaster just reported that Barack Obama has returned to "his home state of Chicago" and my eyes almost rolled out of my head.

6. My favorite non-profit organization is Kiva.org where you can give microloans to people trying to start and expand small businesses in developing nations. It is such an amazing program.

7. I am incapable of ignoring election day completely! If you email me a picture of yourself with an "I Voted" sticker and your address I will send you a super cool Crankypants sticker. GO VOTE!

Here's a picture Anita sent in of her wee little Hokie, Sylvia, hanging out at the Virginia Tech duck pond. My brother and sister in law are Tech alumni, so I'm sure they'll love this one!

Politics...

Walking home from school today...

Henry: Guess what? We got to vote in my class today!
Me: Cool! Who won?
Henry: Barack Obama got 11 votes and John McCain only got 3.
Me: Yeah? Who did you vote for?
Henry: Well, you could check Barack Obama or John McCain, but if you wanted someone different you could check 'Other'.
Me: Really? Did anyone write names in?
Henry: Well, I wanted 'other' to win. Guess who I want to win?
Me: Who?
Henry: YOU!
Me: Wow! That would be a really hard job.
Henry: Yeah. [pause] You have to just keep shaking everyone's hand.

AHHHHH!

Okay guys. I just got an update on the shipment from Peru. It was supposed to leave last week, but I guess there was a holiday and another delay at customs so it is now scheduled to leave TONIGHT. It usually takes 4 days to get to Charlotte, and if I have to I will drive to Charlotte to pick it up if it will cut out any further delay. I am hopehopehoping it will be here by the end of the week.

I am so sorry for the delay and inconvenience, especially since I know it is getting colder and longies season is upon us! As I said before, if anyone does not want to wait, please shoot me an email and I will refund your deposit asap.

We are working out a new system for the new year in hopes that these shipping snafus don't keep happening.

Thanks for your patience!!!

November Customs List

I had to do this right on time today because Kyle is chomping at the bit to get out on the parkway and do a little leaf peeping.

November folks are:

Jessica (teachingbradley@...)
Shelley H.
Monica S.

Congrats to you and thanks to everyone who entered!

I posted this earlier, but if anyone is interested in the auctions, they are starting here a bit later this month. There will be only 3 *12 hour* auction this month, one a day starting Monday and ending Wednesday.

I am running out the door for a few hours, but I will be back this afternoon to start working with my November peeps. WooHoo!