Tasty Tardigrades

Ari just emailed these photos to me, and I just had to share the awesomeness! Lovely Ari and Greg went for dinner in a Thai restaurant, and behold, it appears they have some company.

Yes, it's a capsicum tardigrade in a plate of Thai noodles! Doesn't it look almost exactly like the little tardigrade brooches I made a while back?

It's so cute I'm almost inclined to cut all my veggies up into little tardis for my meals. We'll see how inclined I feel come dinner-time.

Antifrozen

This is how I feel right now:

Although, it's probably entirely my own fault. I sent in my application for a spot in the Antifreeze show up in Manchester last month, and then, assuming that I wouldn't get in as usual, didn't do any work for it at all.

And of course, I received an email from the organisers last week telling me that I have been selected to be in the show. Which meant I've only got all of two weeks to make stuff to fill a 5.5m by 2.4m space.

These guys are the only things I've got completed right now. But they're tiny! I should've just made them gigantic, so that they take up all the space which means I won't have to make anything else.

This is just a glimpse at the mess I've got on my 'work' table right now - dissected tardigrades, beads and stuffing everywhere, and blobs of yo-yos all around. I'm doing things to yo-yos that no one else should have to live through. I even have yo-yo dreams at night.

And I really should be looking for somewhere to stay for the weekend that I'll be in Manchester, instead of looking at pictures of coelacanths and mola molas.

And The Winner Is...

Ana!

Congratulations, your tardigrade brooch will be on it's way to you soon.

Thanks for all the entries for the tardigrade brooch giveaway. If you haven't won this time, don't cry, just keep an eye out for other giveaways I'll be holding in the future!

A Good Mail Day...And A Giveaway!

Some people have postie troubles. Me, I love my postie. Why? Because he looks like Tom Baker, and this morning, he knocked on the door and handed me three packages, all with my name on them! It's been an excellent mail day today.

These are what I found when I opened the packages. Moving clockwise from the bottom left corner - some beads I ordered, the lovely cross-stitch patterned brooch I won in Alice's blog giveaway, and lastly, a letter and a copy of The Great Unwashed zine from Googy.

The zine had to be done in black and white this time as Googy doesn't have access to an office colour-copier anymore, but she managed to 'borrow' some colourful paper before leaving her last job so it's still pretty colourful anyway. Office supply cupboards pretty much help us keep putting this zine out. We spent the last couple of months sending each other snailmail with drawings and stories to get it all together. Working on a zine isn't that easy when your partner-in-crime is thousands of miles away.


Anyway, to celebrate this awesome mail day, and because I'm feeling generous, I'm going to do a giveaway for one of my new tardigrade brooches, which I'm thinking of putting into the Etsy shop soon.

All you have to do to enter is leave me a comment telling me what your favourite bug or insect is, and also which colour tardigrade you'd like to have. I have them in 4 colours - red, white, blue and yellow. I'll do the draw on Sunday the 21st and get in touch with the winner.

Good luck, everyone!

The Giraffe and The Tardigrades

A couple of friends are getting married on Wednesday, and their invitation states that we're supposed to bring our 'own picnic and giraffe'. Where the hell am I supposed to get a giraffe from? It's not like you can walk into the Sainsbury's and get them on offer! Plus I don't have the space or money to take care of one! It's all fine and dandy to make a witty comment like 'bring a giraffe' but sometimes, some people take things way too literally! GAHHAGAH!

So I made one. A little green one. One that doesn't require any feeding because it has no mouth.


I'm still pretty tardigrade-obsessed so I've been making more tardis as well.


The new tardis were introduced to the new giraffe this morning, and they all seem to be getting along fine. I now have a herd of tardis and a very confused giraffe all lounging about on my windowsill. It's a nice place to be.

Tardigrades

Stephen Jay Gould's book of collected essays Dinosaur In A Haystack has been my requisite toilet reading for the last couple of months - which has led to me spending waaaayyyy longer than necessary on the porcelain throne.

This book is also the reason for my current tardigrade obsession. His essay Of Tongue Worms, Velvet Worms and Water Bears features a drawing of a tardigrade (or water bear) shedding it's egg-laden outer cuticle, and is also responisible for sparking my interest in these tiny eight-legged creatures.

So I decided I had to make one.

And one became two.

And two became three! (Very good to know I still retain my elementary grasp of maths.)

They're hanging out on my keyboard now, waiting for me to make more friends to join them. Oh, and if you're wondering why these ones have only 4 legs - it's supposed to be a side-on view, hence the other 4 are hidden.

Once I'm done with the felt ones, I'm off to make a couple of tardigrade softies. Complete with all eight legs.

I'm not too sure what to do with all these little felt tardis, but I might stick a safety pin behind and turn them into brooches so I can attempt to start a tardigrade trend. After all, they've only been waiting for their turn in the spotlight since the Cambrian period.