Peet came to us not so long ago. Discovered wandering around the local farmer’s market, happily pocketing items into his pouch. Once apprehended, Peet’s pocket was found to contain the following items: 2 small bananas, 1 green pepper, 2 red tomatoes, 1 small terrier (owner unknown), 1 knitted scarf, 3 hazelnuts, and 2 medium sized eggplants.

When asked his plans for the unusual assortment of items, he simply shrugged, smiled and said, “lasagna”. Now, far be it from us to question a budding chef, but really, a terrier? Anyways, Peet is hard at work in the kitchen as we speak, humming and stinking up the whole place. He is throwing a party for all of the neighborhood cats. He claims to have a new recipe in mind. Oh dear. Well, if you have a small animal at home, perhaps Peet is not the guy for you, but please keep him in mind if you have an adventurous side-especially in the kitchen!

Not to use too many (or two many) quotes, but… “I love it when a plan comes together!”

This being our first ever Dolls for Friends giveaway (and something that we have wanted to do for quite awhile), we were not quite sure how to proceed, what piece to make and how best to reach our peeps with this special little giftie. But, about 3o seconds after signing up for Twitter, I think we knew the vehicle. Twitter is an amazing tool (as I’ve shouted from my soapbox in other posts), and we are so happy to do a giveaway for the people who find us important enough to include in their daily lives. So without further adieu, here is our new (or perhaps your new) friend, Lucias.

Lucias is our newest friend, and let’s just say he has a way of “seeing” past the issues and into the heart of a matter. This “eye”deal quality has made him a valuable assett to dozens of fortune 500 companies over the past two decades. He is a whiz of wall street and has been called by Young Entrepreneur magazine, “…a cash machine”. Although, never confirmed, it has been said that Lucias is so good at his job that he is number two on Alan Greenspan’s speed dial (again, this has never been confirmed). What we do know about our new friend Lucias is that he is a wealth of information and is quite a bit of fun to play Monopoly with (because money is at the center of the game, I imagine). There really is nothing bad to report on little Lucias, with the exception that he goes through quite a bit of disposable contact lenses, which he kind of leaves all over the place. At any rate, he is sure to be the “apple of your eye.”

Now, here is a quick rundown on how to get your hands on this little loverly:

1. Be an existing follower, or follow us on Twitter by Friday (@dollsforfriends)
2. Tweet about the doll or express your interest in participating this coming friday (June 19).
3. Make sure your tweet uses the special hash mark (#dffgive1). This will let us know that you are participating.

On Friday at 3 p.m. (PST), we will randomly draw one winner from the list and announce and DM the winner to get addy information for shipping the piece out. This will become a regular event for us, so if you don’t win, don’t worry, there will be plenty more chances to get in on this sweet, sweet candy (thank you Mr. Zap Brannigan). Thank you again for letting our weird little lives entertain you.

Three new friends: Opal, Gladys and Elliott. You can see the photos and read their stories on our Flickr page, and you can check them out on our Etsy shop.

Our new little friend Pico came to us from just south of the border. He made his way North after he was downsized from the entourage of the feared, mythic creature- El Chupacabra.

It seems that with all of the stress and strain on the global economy of late, people are not spending quite as much time in leisure activities and pursuits. This decline means that it’s become fairly lean, income wise, for creatures like El Chupacabra, Bigfoot, The Strawman and UFOs as more and more people are focused on dollar retention. And sadly, less vacations translates to less sightings-translates to less income-translates to Pico being on the streets.

So, what is a 6″ out of work monster to do? Well apparently, Pico caught one of our TV ads at 2:00am advertising our placement services and decided to see if we could help. After hiring a coyote to get him across the border, riding several box-car trains and hitchhiking his way through the West Coast, he ended up on our door step looking fairly disheveled.

It has been a couple weeks now, and we are happy to say he has his wonderful orange glow back. He has started working on his memoirs, “Mi Chupacabra es su Chupacabra”, and is looking for a safe, quite environment to add the last chapters to his seminal work.

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!!!

So… the phone rings at 10:40 on Friday morning. Me, in pajamas sewing leisurely preparing for the much awaited Buckman Art Show & Sell. Answer phone calmly, only to be thrown into terrifying panic mode because we are supposed to be in Portland setting up our table for the show! What?! Of course, I’ve misread the instructions and gotten the setup times mixed up, the doors are closing in 20 minutes, and we live not in Portland, but across the bridge in Vancouver! Needless to say, several unladylike words later, and sweating like a banshee, we were in the car and Dolls for Friends arrives at the Buckman Show! TA-DA! Thank goodness Erin was calm, and he was driving, so we arrived safely.

Fast forward several hours, and we return showered, and ready to roll! Immediately, the talent is VERY apparent, and I was really excited that we were getting to be a part of this cool event.  So, everyone we met that was involved with this show, were just fantastic. I can only imagine the countless hours they put into planning this exceptional venue. For instance, Mary Bradshaw who coordinated the silent auction, and gift bags for the musicians was so wonderful, and I really enjoyed getting to meet her. And our neighbor at the show, Peri of Perisponchos, was super. We swapped a doll for her daughter, and she is going to donate fabric scraps (garbage bag full at a time, mind you) for our plushies. How cool is that? And of course, one of my favorites, and who is quickly becoming a good friend and ally, Shannon of Mayabella was there with all of her sweet owls, horses, and octopi! And a shout out to Chris Haberman, a fantastic artist- we were lucky enough to snag one of his paintings over the weekend. And the list goes on and on, I think we had a great time, can you tell?

If you’ve never been to Portland, consider this a formal invitation! You should come visit, it will be an experience you won’t forget, the scenery is gorgeous, the people smart and friendly, and the depth of talent will blow you away!  And  don’t forget us Washingtonians, Portland’s friends across the river, we’re cool too!

We were to thrilled to receive our half of a trade we recently initiated with Dawn Ramerman of Look What I Can Do. Jill contacted her on the off chance that she might be willing to share one of her wonderful creations with us in exchange for one of our pieces. Thankfully, she was up for the trade. Patty the owl came to us a few days ago in the mail, and we just love her. The craftsmanship (craftswomanship) of the piece is top notch and her choice of fabric was wonderful.

The art of the trade is something that is essential to the DIY/craft experience. There is so much wonderful and talented work out there that if two artists are in mutual admiration of each other’s work, it’s wonderful when a trade can be arranged between the two to foster that mutual appreciation.

If you are interested in seeing the piece we sent Dawn, you can check out her post on the Hanetori we sent her and all about here work on her weblog. Better yet, after you’re done with that check out her Etsy store to see what she has available for sale. Her pieces would surely be a welcome addition to any home.

Thanks again Dawn!

Here are a few of the pieces we’ve put together for the upcoming 2nd Sunday Sustainability Fair being held in Portland on February 10. All the pieces we are bringing with us will either be made from mostly recycled and/or reclaimed materials.

Jill and I have learned quite a bit about the extent to which we can push certain types of reclaimed materials while getting ready for this show.

There were several designs that we made it quite far into the process with, only to be abandoned because of limitations and flaws that surfaced due to the types of reclaimed materials we were trying to use. It’s also allowed us to take some mental notes on our processes and eliminate certain types of reclaimed materials because they are simply too hard to work with.