Last night was very eventful for me. Not only was it my graduation from my fantastic 10-week business course at the Women's Initiative, but I also bid farewell to Squishy Squirrel.

 

  As you can see above, Squishy enjoyed his stay here at NifNaks—this is a picture that I caught of him frolicking in my backyard on day. I was terribly happy every day we spent together, but it was time for Squishy Squirrel to move on to greener places.

 

A fellow Women's Initiative graduate, Masha of Music Together, asked me a few weeks ago to find the perfect companion for her squirrel-loving friend, Sam. My first commission!

In the following weeks, I spent many days sitting under the shade of an oak tree, playing with acorns and my soft wool. One day Squishy Squirrel entered my life and I squealed with delight when I looked into his itty-bitty eyes. To my surprise, Squishy squeaked back, and it was at that moment that I knew that I had found the perfect friend for Masha's friend, Sam.

 

 

Here is Sam, the happy adoptive parent posing with Squishy and his friend/my fellow graduate, Masha.

Goodbye, Squishy Squirrel. Thank you for filling NifNak Studios with shrill squeaks of joy and the sound of happy prancing

With the many perks/blessings that come with moving into a larger home, some are sometimes so sweet and simple that I never would have expected how happy they could make me....

Reason #247 of why I love living at my new home: the opportunity to fill our living room with a ridiculously huge tree. Reason #248? Getting to hand-craft an original felted wool tree-topper for that tree, in the shape of everyone's favorite starchy faux-deity, the FSM!

There couldn't be a more appropriate Christmas Tree topper for our Anarcho-Buddist-Atheist-Judeo-Christian-Humanist-Pastafarian-Smart-Ass household to have, other than the one-and-only Flying Spaghetti Monster.

To make him (her? it?) I used a combination of methods, including wet felting (the noodles) and needle felting (the meatballs). I'm particularly happy with how the eyestalks came out, as they are poseable. To complete the theme, we even made a garland of vegetable dyed pasta!

All hail His Noodly

After a few weeks of studying mycology and all that is cute within the realm of fungi, NifNaks has finally harvested our first ShroomMates. It was a tricky finding the cutest spores around, but all our hard work paid off, and there are a few little dancing little mushrooms wreaking havoc at NifNaks Studios. I still have a few more weeks of collecting and planting the bubbly & mirthful little spores, but soon I will release the whole collective into the world. Until then, let me present to you Shorty Shitake. Shorty is one of the silliest of the bunch. His impish antics often catch me off guard, and soon I find myself chucking at the latest place he has sprung up in my studio. Thankfully, I have a few more weeks to spend with Shorty, so I will savor every delicious moment with him until his departure.

It's official! I finally moved into a much larger place—actually a huge HOME. I now have real studio and office space for NifNaks. It will take a bit of time to get organized and set up officially, but I know once I do get everything settled, the critter factory will pop out those fuzzy-wuzzies non-stop.

Pictures will be posted shortly!

So last Thursday I parted ways with my first critter -- my baby (bay-bee?) -- of NifNaks.com.

Buzzy the Bee gave me many squeals of happiness as I stabbed him repeatedly with felting needles to form his fuzzy little body.

Last Thursday evening, he was won -- a-hem, I mean adopted, by two lovely lexiconists at the Buzzed Bee. I know that they will make good parents to my little brood and tell him all about the birds and the bees.

Of course, as it often occurs with little ones, I also know that Buzzy will teach the new Apis parents some life lessons too. Like how fun it is to view life with a light heart, by happily bumbling through the difficulties. Or perhaps they will be surprised by all the silly situations that Buzzy gets himself stuck in.

Good-bye, my dear bumbling friend. May your new home fill you with much warmth, happiness, and stickily-sweet

About a month ago on my way back from Burning Man, I was speaking to an acquaintance about NifNaks, and she told me about a business management course for women to receive training to start and grow their business. A mutual friend of ours had taken a 10-week course at the _blank">Women's Initiative, and apparently couldn't speak enough wonderful things about the program. In it, our friend developed strategies for everything in her business, including marketing, pricing, record keeping, cash flow, and time/stress management.

I'm excited because just enrolled in it last week -- I begin classes on this coming Monday. I just know this will be the most important investment I will make in NifNaks yet!

 

I'm back from Burning Man. Since my return I have been bubbling with ideas, inspired by the beauty and the rich creative environment.

I initially intended to stay home this year, but I received a last minute and rare opportunity to work on a magnificent project, the Neverwas Haul. In the middle of the Black Rock desert, Nevada, I helped create this 3-storey, self-propelled Victorian house.

 

 

 

Many photos were taken. We were even featured both in Make Magazine & Wired Magazine's coverage of the event. I'm famous... again. :)

Now, how 'bout them

 

 

Yay! I'm really happy how my wool dreads worked out! While I was crafting them, I struggled to get the color balanced just right between the green, blue, and yellow accents. I think the stripes are a nice touch—just the right amount to add depth, but not so many that it becomes overwhelmingly Dr. Suessian.

I gotta say being able to dye the wool offers so much more color variety than working with synthetics. Plus, the ability to felt on additional wool for stripes really makes it fun.

Anyway, I gotta run and get headed to the big dusty campout. Once I return I should have better pictures of me and my hair dressed in something more fantastically elaborate than an orange hoodie.

 

I've been pretty busy after launching the NifNaks site and advertising my wool dreads. Several people here in the bay area have contacted me to get dreads installed before Burning Man and I've gotten a few orders from around the country. And of course, I've needed to work on creating my own dreads and get myself ready for the playa. I'm already packed and ready to go, my dreads are made, and I'm in the process of installing them now. I'll post photos as soon as it's done. After I come back from the playa, I have a few more dread orders to take care of but I hope to have some time to start work on my ideas for NifNaks Critters and the other fun wearables designs that are scampering around in my head demanding to be released. I will be chronicling my explorations into felted wool and other crafty things here on this journal.