All we can say is “Mitch Rocks!” And you know what? Ms. Keane thinks so too!

(uh, if you like powerpuff girls, you’ll know what we mean!)

Huddled outside in the pouring rain we waited. And waited. And waited. Our contact was late, as usual and we were getting impatient, but leaving was not an option. The legendary gang of three had finally been released and we had taken on the role of safe keeping the villainous trio.

Meet Lucretia, mistress of evil, with an ear piercing scream that has been known to shatter even bullet proof glass. Then there’s middle man Mike, the lookout. He’s perfect since his large blue antennae provide the necessary distraction to those who may stand in his way. And last, but certainly not least is Stevie. Although he looks harmless, he is in fact the most dangerous of the three. The brains behind every operation, and cunning in his calculations-he’s not to be underestimated.

At last, our contact arrived, with our three new house guests in tow. We were not disappointed-they were every bit as monstrous as we had been led to believe. As the driver pulled away, we were faced with the unnerving reality that we were responsible for them now. What had we gotten ourselves into?

As we headed for home, I could see Stevie planning-plotting something in that rotten head of his. Mike began giggling and Lucretia nodded in agreement.

Agreement of what? I fear for our safety. That is why we are reaching out for help. We cannot in good conscience keep these three stinkers together. Separation is the only alternative! Are you strong willed? Can you be diligent in training and learn to sleep with one eye open? If you feel you may be up to the task, please contact us immediately-I think I hear one coming now!!

You can see them on our Etsy shop.

It arrived today. Wrapped in plastic. The one, the only Computer Arts Projects-all the way from jolly old England. Not just any issue, but THE Character and Toy Design Issue. The issue that features none other than….DOLLS FOR FRIENDS!!!

I am telling the truth, by the way. Some of our little guys were featured in the November issue of CAP! And it’s such a pretty magazine too. Glossy pages, fancy colors, and really cool artists-people much cooler than us! We are truly honored and blown away to have been a part of this awesome publication. It’s funny because we really stress if our sales are down, second guess our work, and are always critical of everything we make. Not that this changes anything, but it’s really nice to think that somebody likes us!

We truly love what we’re doing, you never know how things are going to turn out, and we have plenty of plush orphans lying around to prove it! But in the end if you get to make something that makes you happy, and makes someone else happy too-it doesn’t get any better.

A huge thank you to everyone that continues to support and befriend us! Especially Kate Evans at CAP for including us in such an awesome publication!

Cheers!

Erin’s take on the CAP interview can be seen on his website, webclique.net.

We generally tend to fill up our sketchbooks at a fairly rapid pace. We spend a lot of time doodling on napkins, old envelopes, in sketchbooks and generally any type of paper product that we’re be able to lay our grubby little mitts on. Yet, for the most part, the end results of our collective imaginations tend to end up in boxes, on shelves or in a variety of books scattered about our studios.

Some of the drawings are slated for future projects which may (or may not) see the light of day, but a lot of them are kept for our own enjoyment and reference. In large part this is due to not really feeling like we’ve ever had a platform to showcase many of the rough (and some are VERY rough) sketches and drawings that we are incessantly putting on paper. Enter Doodle on the Carpet.

We recently started a tumblr log called Doodle on the Carpet where we could begin to showcase some of the work we’ve accumulated (past and present). It’s primary purpose is to provide a fast, easy platform for us to post rough sketches (the rough stuff folks), doodles and completed illustrations that might not fit into some of our other spaces around the interbew.

At this point the site only contains a couple of doodles, but most great things start small, right? We have wavered back and forth on whether we want to place a commenting system in the weblog, so we’re holding off on it for right now as we want to keep this process as uncomplicated as possible at this point.

So pull up a square of carpet and join us as we do a little sharin’ Dolls for Friends style.

This is little Nizumi. She has been living in my sketchbook for a mighty long time, and now she’s here! Yay! Our goal these days is to grow, and widen out in our creations. And little Nizumi is a prototype, an experiment in a way. But once I made her, I loved her, and couldn’t bear to part with her. She is now a permanent part of our personal collection, keeping guard on my bedside table, perched atop of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.

Erin and I love what we do because we have a lot of freedom which allows us to create whatever we feel like! But what I love the most, and hope we never lose sight of, is creating pieces for ourselves and our family. We own many pieces that will never be duplicated, copied or mass produced simply because they went from sketchbook to sewing machine to us. And that is just so awesome! Personal projects are the lifeblood of any creative endeavor, and we are indulging ourselves this summer!

And in the end, we are hoping to emerge even craftier, plushier, and far more interesting than ever. Until then…

Craft Flickr Pool Weekly Roundup (June 14, 2008)

National Hot Fudge Sundae Day (via nowpublic.com) – We were asked to contribute a photo of a recent trade (between us and the fab Love and a Sandwich) to a story on National Hot Fudge Sundae Day.

Meet Sam and Pete (We made their “Plush Goodness” section)

Tinymeat (Friends are good to have)

Pop’s Book Shop

Thanks again to everyone for your support.

And then reality sets in… how long has it been since we touched our sewing machines? The spools are gathering dust, the spiders are setting up shop in the fabric, and the scissors are  beginning to slowly rust. But there is a tiny glimmer, a slight tug that pulls us back to the studio to measure, cut and stuff little creatures and then offer them to you, for a small fee, of course.

We have made the decision to take a small respite from shows for the next few months, in order to concentrate on building our skillsets. Erin and I both have the desire to grow as toy makers, and hope to devote this time to developing some new designs and creations that will reflect what has been brewing in our imaginations for a while now.

For example, what do you know about the marshmallow people of cavity county? Or the kitty children…or perhaps the goats in bikinis?  Well, we are hoping to find out ourselves and then show you when we are finished. Here’s to growing onward and upwards in the squishy world of plush development-viva la plushie!!!

We were so excited when we found out that one of our illustrations had been chosen to be made into a wallet by the awesome Portland, Oregon accessory company, Tinymeat. Our excitement was compounded four-fold when we learned that we were going to do three more wallets to complete a themed series on the “elements.”

Our first wallet and element, fire, was released today. All we’ve see so far are the photos, but the man himself, Merch Mikey, said that they turned out great. I’ll be heading into Portland tomorrow to pick up a few of them that we get to keep and then it’s time to set in on finishing the other three elements. The next one to be released should be water and then Earth and wind. Collect all four, make sure they face East, and they should bring you added value on the value menu… of life. Hawr hawr.

They can be seen here at the Tinymeat store.

The article also contained a sidebar, which talked about us and some other wonderful, local creators. The highlight was seeing that we were compared to carnage, Frankenstein and Ugly Dolls (the latter being a bitter-sweet reference that comes up quite often lately) all in one paragraph.

The exact wording went a little like this:

If the Ugly Dolls had a rager that ended in carnage, and the splattered remains of the cloth creatures were miraculously reassembled, Frankenstein-style, you would have Dolls for Friends. Strangely, they’re pretty damn adorable and even appropriate for the preschool set.

All-in-all the press was wonderful and very unexpected (which is always a good thing when you stumble upon these types of things.) A special thanks to Eye Pop Art who posted the WW article and included the information about us. And another special thanks to our daughter Mariana who went scouring the net for press recently on us and came across the article.

After spending some time talking it over, Jill and I decided that we would like to work with them on the piece. Our reasons were simple; beyond the obvious press benefits we would receive by being featured in this wonderful publication (we did some research on them before committing, and visually, they rawk!), we want to support and contribute to the amazing arts dialogue that takes places every year through the myriad of electronic and printed media around the world.

Overall the piece was wonderfully easy to put together in terms of answering the questions from the interviewer. What proved to be a tad more difficult was the collection of pictures they were looking for to accompany the piece. We had to assemble nearly a dozen high resolution photos of our studio space, the work and ourselves. Some of the photos we had, while others we had to setup and shoot on the fly. We were in a mad rush because we only had a total of three days to put the entire piece together in order to hit the editorial deadline. Yet, somehow we managed to coalesce our work schedules to get everything done in time.

We are not sure when the issue is supposed to come out, but we have been promised that a copy will be sent to us from our new friends at City Pictorial. So, now we wait with baited breath for the arrival of the publication and hope that our answers translated well into a language that is fundamentally more complex, intricate and beautiful than our own. Sadly, though, we might never know unless we can find someone to help us with the translation. Hmmm. Any takers?