Proud Mama!

The second Henry came out the door from school today he grabbed my hand and told me, with his serious face, that I had to sign his report card. I didn't even know they had report cards in Kindergarten. I guess they give them the first semester off to get acclimated to school and then start with the report cards second semester. He insisted that I waited until we got home and then solemnly pulled the official looking manila envelope out of his Spiderman backpack. I suspected that he did just fine, but he did perfect! He got the highest grade possible in every category and had nice notes written by the teacher. AND, he got a STAR Student sticker yesterday when a teacher saw him helping another boy sound out a word he was stuck on. I'm so proud of that kid. He's the awesomest. We are going to go out to dinner tonight and whoop it up. WaaaaHoo!

I also got some pretty awesome customer pictures in over the last couple of weeks.

Cameron, in true Cranky style, chillin' on the coffee table:


And check out Valentino's "Arrrrgh!":


I love it!

Well, Hey There!

Wow, I haven't been very good and bloggy lately, have I?

I've been experiencing something that hasn't happened in a while. A lull. I have been super hard at work knitting shtuff, but it is all for future stockings, so I don't want to ruin the surprise by posting pictures. Maybe I'll put some super duper sneaky peeks up on the Facebook group later today. Next Thursday (the 5th) is a Venus Vanguard stocking showcasing one of my favorite things: chocolate. All things chocolate will be in full effect, and I will be stocking 3, count 'em THREE in stock items. WooHoO! I am also going to try to get my stuff together to do a little Valentine's Day.

What are you guys doing for Valentines? Last year I found these super cute, hand printed Valentines for Henry's class. This year he has twice the kids and we don't know them as well, so I was tempted to just do the regular store bought thing. Then I found these! I'm going to make you click the link and go to the Etsy shop, Three Wheel Designs, to see them because I love them so much and want you to buy them! They are printable pdfs that you buy and print as many as you want at home. Genius. Idea. They are too cute. I am going to tape a cherry fruit leather to the back and call it good. I'm not sure what I'm going to do for staff yet. Any great ideas?

I also wanted to say thanks to Karen over at the new kids' review blog s.i.m.p.l.e for the sweet review of the Crankypants Boo Boo Beasties. I wish I had posted in time for you guys to get in on the give away but I totally dropped the ball.


I'll make it up to you, pinky swear.

I am off to start knitting up this amazing hand spun I got from Sweet Knits. It has been hanging around in the stash for a while just waiting for a tiny little project to come along, so when Robin from tush asked me to knit a little cuff for a school fund raiser she is putting together I grabbed it immediately. I can't wait.

Hey Bud!

Check out my orchid! It's budding, it's budding! Pretty exciting. Paired up with the gorgeous 60 something degree day we're having it almost feels like Spring around here!

Crankypants + Sapo Verde= Monster-y Goodness!

Going live at 1pm today over at Sapo Verde!

Holy Camoli!

I think that this morning's stocking had to be the clumsiest in Crankypants history. First HC kept crashing (for me, anyway) and then multiple items oversold. Yikes! I think that all has been cleared up at this point, and everything is in the mail an off to new homes. I had no idea the rainbow of Jolly Rogers would be so popular! I am going to work up a few more pairs in the next week or so. I also had the idea to send a few pairs out to some of my favorite dye-mamas and have a sort of "artist series" of Jollys. It might be fun! I got a tip to help the overselling issue, too, so hopefull we'll run a little smoother next time 'round.

In the meantime, here are some customs for Natacsha:






And I am off to make some black bean soup. Yum-O.

Happy Inauguration Day!

It's party time here at Crankypants HQ! We're eating brownies for breakfast and partying our way into the new administration.

To include everyone in the party, we're having a special Inauguration Day stocking over at HC. You can find a rainbow of Classic Jolly Roger longies here.


They will go live at 10EST starting with Cherry, and a new flavor will go live every 10 minutes until they're all gone!

I've also stocked a bunch of sale an second items here.


I also wanted to say thanks for all the well wishes. Thankfully, the tummy bug left as quickly as it came and I am back to the land of the living. How I know I have the best husband ever? He went out and found me Vernor's Ginger Ale. In North Carolina. Detroit does Ginger Ale better than anyone else and it's all I want when I'm sick. Thanks, hon!

Good News/Bad News

The good news is that I had a whole day of good health when I got over my cold this week.

The bad news is that I am currently being decimated by some sort of evil Alien-esque stomach attack. I have juuuust enough energy to drag myself from the couch to the bathroom to boot every hour or so and the rest of the hour is spent recovering from the 20 yard journey. I'm hoping that this thing will go away as quickly as it hit but until then I have a feeling we're going to have some radio silence. I'll get to emails ad whatnot as soon as I can. Right now I am getting the shakes because my typing fingers are out from under the blanket and in open air. Thank jeebus Ms. Kate is willing to pick up and bring Henry home from school because there is no way I could drag myself the few block and back in the freezing cold. Remind me to buy Kate some serious chocolate when I can move without crying again.

OH, for my local peeps- Asheville Brewing Company is having a special showing of Wall-E tomorrow morning at 10:30 to benefit Vance. There is a suggested $2 donation and we get 10% of food sales. It is a great movie in a super kid friendly place for a great cause. And it is going to be freezing cold-perfect movie weather. Go. I won't be there. I'll be over here in my comfy little fetal ball on the couch. I love my couch.

Back to sleep now.

Heh.

Once More with CSPIA

Voting at change.org to present the CSPIA issue to Obama after the inauguration ends today at 5EST. If you haven't done so yet, please vote! VOTE HERE!

If you are unfamiliar with the issue, here is a C&P of a little blurb I wrote about it on my friends' blog, Scrutiny Hooligans:

In August 2008 Congress passed a new law called the Consumer Safety Protection Improvement Act (CSPIA). This law was drafted and passed in reaction to the high levels of lead found in some plastic toys imported from China and was intended to stop such a thing from happening again. It lowers the amount of lead allowable in kids’ items and requires all items intended for use by children under the age of 12 to be tested for lead and phalates (an additive that increases flexibility in plastics and vinyl).

At first glance, this sounds like a good thing. Unfortunately, the broad an sweeping nature of this law and prohibitive testings costs will make it impossible for small businesses to comply and ultimately force them to shut down. Goods need to be tested by “SKU” which means that every color and size of an item need to be tested separately, even if they are all made from the same materials. These tests need to be re-done with every ‘batch’ made. This is fine for large corporations who make batches of a million, but for the hand crafter making batches of 10 at a time compliance is impossible and one of a kind items will cease to exist. The law does not allow businesses to test materials that may be used to make multiple items, one of each finished item must be tested. Testing can run from $100-4,000 per item, so just one pair of pants coming in 4 different sizes could cost anywhere from $400-16,000 to test, double that if you want to offer the same pair of pants in a second color. The law does not take the type of materials being used into consideration, so toys and clothing made in the US from 100% organic natural materials and have no risk of containing lead or phalates will have to be tested right alongside cheap plastic toys being imported from China.

The law includes every single item made for children under 12: every title of every kids’ book, every article of clothing, every toy, bedding, art supplies, everything. February 10, all kids’ items that don’t comply will be considered contraband and people who continue to sell them risk being prosecuted for trafficking in hazardous substances. Organizations like Project Linus and charities who knit hats for preemies will have to shut down or operate illegally. Knitting a sweater or sewing a stuffed bunny for your nieces and nephews will be against the law. As a consumer you will no longer have the option of buying handmade indie gear for your kids, you will only be able to choose between large toy companies that can afford the testing. The few mid-level toy companies who continue to sell in the US (think Haba, Plan Toys, Playmobile) will have to raise prices to cover testing costs.

There is a large grassroots movement among toy makers and hand crafters to get this law repealed. In response, the CSPA has issued a few amendments to the act. Resellers (such as Goodwill and consignment shops) will not have to test goods before they are sold, but they will be held responsible if something they sell an item that does not meet the lowered lead standard. They are considering exempting goods made with some natural substances in their natural form: some gemstones, undyed wool and unprinted fabric among them. If you add thread, buttons, string or anything with color to any of these, however, they are no longer considered to be in their natural form so it is a useless amendment.

There are many things you can do to keep pressure on Congress to repeal the law:

You can vote at change.org to have the CSPIA issue presented to Obama after the inauguration later this month: http://www.change.org/ideas/view/save_handmade_toys_from_the_cpsia

You can sign the petition to save handmade from the CSPIA: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/handmadetoys/

You can write and/or call your Congresspeople and Reps: http://www.handmadetoyalliance.org/how-you-can-help

Whatnot.

I was excited to wake up this morning and see the ants had another busy night. Yes, I get excited about ants. I know.



The ants aren't the only busy ones around here, though. Despite an unintended day off yesterday due to a snow day (I should have taken a picture of the pitiful amount of snow they called school for) I managed to get a bit of colorful work done this week. I'm not sure when these are going to go up. I want to do something special for the inauguration day so I might put them up then. Stay tuned.



I also got this great action shot from Dayna of her little man, Mariano, lounging around in his sage skully lounge set. Too cute.


As an aside, all but the 4/5 size of these sets are sold out and I just got word that this super comfy flannel print is no longer available. The few 4/5 sets we have left are available here.

Ants!

The ants have been super busy since I last updated about the farm. Every morning we wake up to find they have been digging and building their little any hearts out.





We've also been looking up all sorts of new ant information and we found this:

It's a plaster cast of a Harvester Ant (the kind we have) in Florida. How crazy is that? I imagine out ants are going to be pretty peeved when they hit the bottom of our tiny little farm. If you want to have a poke around at the site I found that photo at you can find it here.

Stars and Stripes Monster

These longies are near and dear to me because they were made to be worn at this little one's Daddy's deployment ceremony.




I'll be thinking about you, Samantha, and hoping these can also be worn on the happy day when your husband makes his safe return to you!

Pants on Fire...

Flames abound here this month and Crankypants HQ, I snapped a quick picture of Jennifer's Badapple Flaming Skull longies this morning before they went into the mail but I still couldn't get great light. Maybe she'll send me a good action shot *nudgenudge*



Also into the mail this morning, Valerie's fire breathing dragon and beaded skully longies:


I also know that everyo




I also know that you guys have been waiting on the edge of your seats wondering what the ants are doing. It has been pretty exciting in Antopia. We have spent an embarassing amount of time watching them dig and build.


We have 3 entrances/exits, woohoo! We've also discovered that ants are neither nocturnal or diurnal. Some sleep and some work, then they switch on and off 24 hours a day.

If I could go back in time and tell my 21 year old self that I would some day be blogging about an ant farm I would have never believed you...

Ant Invasion!

Right before the holidays Henry and I started reading The Magic School Bus series. It is so awesome, we are 6 books in. The first one we read was about insects and, being the total dorks that we are, it inspired us to watch elapsed time videos of ant farms on You Tube. I know. Anyway, we asked Santa for our very own ant farm for Christmas. We have been waiting patiently for our ants to arrive since we got home so I was psyched to find an envelope with ALIVE! written in hot pink block letters on the side in my mailbox this morning. WooHoo!

Please excuse the homework mess on the table and the fact that Henry is wearing his parka inside for no apparent reason.


Our first tunnel! I accidentally shoved the sole dead on arrival ant down the tunnel when I was trying to get him out and we watched in amazement as the other ants dug out the little corpse and deposited him up on the surface so I could get him out of there. Pretty cool.


I'm sorry to say that you will probably have to sit through ant farm updates for a while. Sad, but true. To keep you coming back anyway, let's look at some Crankys, shall we?

The light is horrible on these, but I thought I'd post them anyway. Jennifer's badapple flaming skully longies:


Also, Jessica sent this action shot along to me this morning and it made me laugh out loud:


Also worth noting is that the Crankypants + Goodmama Sock Monkey collaboration is back up for grabs.


Check it out!

First Monster of 2009!

I also thought I'd post some beginning pictures of the log cabin blankie I'm making so you can see my progress as I inch along. One of the things I'd like to start doing this year is to make sure I work some knitting and crafting for my family in with the other stuff.

It's a humble little rectangle right now, but I'm hoping it grows into a big comfy blanket eventually.

OH- I also wanted to post these awesome action shots I got from Christy:




Hee. Years into this, the monster bootys are still always good for a giggle...

*sniff sniff*

The house is so empty! Henry and Kyle went back to school today and it is back to the daily grind. Usually by the end of a long break I am ready for them to go, but we had so much fun this break that I'm missing them! Henry was so cute this morning blowing me kisses when I dropped him off that I wanted to run over and grab him and tell him he could take the day off so we could gt back into our pjs and play LEGO and watch movies all day. *sigh*

In very exciting to me and very dull to you news, we bought a new couch yesterday! Our current couch is a half futon/half torture device sort of dealio that I picked out in desperation after weeks and weeks of looking and not finding anything in our price range. It is a horrid combination of a frame that tips over if you sit anywhere but the mathematical center of the thing, 4 unwieldy back pillows that are in constant need of rearranging and a robin's egg blue that is... no longer robin's egg blue. The new couch is 'cashew' colored microsuede and is very sturdy and comfy. Now I am anxious to finish the log cabin I started to accessorize! I'm lucky if I add an inch a month so it'll probably be a while, but still. Exciting.

I'll have a picture of the first custom Crankys of 2009 later, but for now I ahve to go about the business of taking down the Christmas tree and packing up all the holiday gear before Henry gets home from school. I'm hoping it will be less painful that way. We're going to miss the tree! I hope everyone had a great break!

Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had a safe and happy time ringing in the new year last night! We had plans to go to a little gathering at some friends' house last night, but immediately after dinner Henry proclaimed himself too tiiiiiiiiiiired and was down for the count by 7:30. While we were sad to miss the festivities, we managed to console ourselves by getting in our pjs, watching copious amounts of West Wing and eating the batch of peppermint bark I had made for the party. We were in bed by 12:04. WooHoo!

While more adventurous types were peeling themselves out of bed late this morning I got to play Candyland, Chutes and Ladders and put together dinosaur puzzles with the little man. And, of course, put together the first custom list of the New Year!

Congrats to :

Linsay C.
Samantha (b_sweets)
and
Natascha N.

There are also auctions running for the next 3 days and these little ditties in stock at Venus Vanguard at 8 tonight along witha ton of amazing things from my congo-mates.


Go take a peek!