Lee Does Stuff

Giveaway x2! Plus some last minute gift ideas…

Oh my how quickly this month is flying by! Crafty Wonderland on Sunday went super well – it was great to meet a bunch of you, thanks for saying hi!! The new stitch sets were well received, I got some neato gifts from other crafters, met some new people, good day!

I’m making some holiday cards for the Scrap sale on Saturday, and since I won’t be selling them online I wanted to have some way to spread them outside Portland a little, so how about a last minute holiday giveaway?! Yeah! I don’t have any pictures of the cards right now – they are holiday/winter themed connect-the-dots pictures, sealed onto recycled blank cards. Since the cards are recycled, they don’t come with envelopes, but they’re great for attaching to a gift or giving to someone in person…

So, the giveaway will go through the weekend and I’ll mail the cards to the winners on Monday – I’ll pick 3 winners to get 2 cards each. (Unfortunately, there’s no guarantee you’ll get them by Christmas, but hopefully you will! If not, they could be used as New Year’s cards…)

To enter, comment on this post before Sunday 7pm (west coast time) with an idea for a picture or a theme you’d love to see in connect-the-dots form! (Could be a stitch set idea – something there could be 5 of – or just a stand-alone image, or anything else.) I’ll email the winners around 7:30, then get back to me with your address by Monday at noon-ish so I can get them mailed out; US only because of shipping, I think that’s all the details…

Remember my Haka hat pattern? I decided it needed to be rephotographed, so Pete and I took my favorite version of it with us to Twisted the other day and did a quick photoshoot in front of their sock yarn wall.

Haka is a fantastic last minute gift knit! Using bulky yarn (texturey handspun like this one works fabulously) and big needles, you can knit it up during a movie or two (maybe three if you’re slow like me) and have several done in the next week!

Haka is also a super fun hat to wear in the wintertime, as it can be worn 4 different ways! Buttoned under your chin for maximum warmth, as in the top 2 pictures, hanging loose as you see above, or fastened behind your head to keep the strap out of the way – along the bottom of the hat so the earflaps still cover your ears and keep you warm:

Or fastened up behind your head, holding the earflaps up:

The Haka: strappy flappy eared hat pattern is only $2 on my site or on ravelry, since it’s such a quick and easy knit! Because I’d love for there to be more projects pictured on ravelry, I’m offering another giveaway deal! If you knit a Haka hat and post it (with pictures!) as a ravelry project anytime throughout the winter (how about through February to be specific), I’ll send you a free pdf of your choice, out of either: Double Scoops, Ten 10 yard cuffs, Ninja Mitts, or Bad Movie Bingo! To claim your free pdf, send me a ravelry message once your project is up letting me know which pdf you’d like. Yay!

As for other last-minute gift ideas… well, if you’re looking to knit, there are my quick knits patterns (all using less than 15 yards of yarn) and my huge quick knits links list, with tons of patterns by other designers using less than 20 yards. My 10 yard cuffs would make great gifts, and then I have several free patterns that are quick – gradient mitts, big bulky bucket hat, mary jane style booties, or a 35mm film strip cuff could all be done in less than a week, easy!

Ok and this isn’t just about self-promotion, I promise! If you need to find a great gift for someone who wants to learn to knit – maybe your mom/sister/brother/friend tried to teach themselves and couldn’t grasp it – Diane wrote a fantastic review of Blonde Chicken’s new Learn to Knit Kits. It sounds like the perfect substitute for a super patient one-on-one teacher, and you can learn on your own time with the kit instead of sticking to a class schedule. Go read Diane’s review to learn more, as she goes into detail and has actually used the kit to learn!

As for a knitting-related gift for a loved one who’s already deep into the craft… Twisted’s Single Skein Club is still taking members for 2010! This is the club that I contributed the Ocean Breezes hat to this year, and next year is sure to have some amazing patterns! The club will ship to you (US only I think, but I could be wrong) so it’s not just for locals – it’s pricey since it’s a whole year of awesome yarn and patterns, but it could be a great gift for a family to go in on together!

And how about some good last-minute non-knit handmade gift ideas? I’ve done tons of tutorials in the past for quick projects, like those 2-bead earrings (super quick and fun!) – so you can browse through all of those on my tutorials page. The newly redesigned Craft: site has lots of great tutorials, including some superdelicious looking food posts lately (like Chocolate Chestnut Mousse Trifle!) if baked gifts are your specialty! And their Quick Crafts section is a good place to browse for last-minute gifts to make!

Also a reminder in case you missed this bit of info – my connect-the-dots stitch sets are available as pdfs too, which means you could buy the pdf and print the set onto fabric to give as gifts for as many people as you want! (A stitch set, plus an embroidery hoop, floss, and a needle would make a great kit gift!) The pdfs include a how-to for printing on fabric; or you could print the designs on paper to make a little mini-zine of connect-the-dot puzzles for the game-lover on your gift list.

I’m feeling guilty about not having time to do any new gift tutorials like I’d planned to do throughout the month, so hopefully I gave you a few ideas here, even if they’re not newly written for you… Maybe I’ll have a chance to write up a quick one I’ve been thinking about on Sunday, we’ll see… Anyway, happy gift crafting, and don’t hurt yourself knitting too much this week! (that advice is for myself as much as it’s for you!)

Connect-the-Dots Stitch Sets!!

Here it is! My new project I’ve been devoting my time to for the last couple of weeks instead of making any new hats or anything else for holiday shows, and I’m so happy I did!! I once again combined my loves of crafting and puzzles/games, as I’ve done many times before, yay!!

It’s connect-the-dots stitch sets, which you embroider from number to number to reveal the mystery pictures! Each set includes 5 images with a common theme, 1 of which is shown as an example (unicorn for the Cryptozoology set, pincushion for the Craft Tools set), the other 4 remaining a secret until you stitch them up! (I try to choose the image which is most obvious in dot form to be the example, so the others are maximum mysteries.)

There is a spoilers page where you can read the secret image identities (by clicking spoil it on each set) – useful if you might want a set as a gift and want to check what it includes, or if you just hate surprises!

Sets come with stitching instructions (3 different methods, or you can do your own thing) and the photo example; regular sets are printed on 8×10 inch pieces of fabric (assorted colors) as you see above, and matted sets are printed on 4×6 inch fabric pieces, then sewn onto matching patterned 8×10 pieces (below). All fabric (and photo paper and packaging) is 100% recycled!

update 01/22/10: the format has changed a bit, see the update post for details.

Sets are packaged in recycled envelopes with windows to show the colors and set theme (thanks to Scrap for recycled envelopes and label paper, yay!):

So then once you stitch between the numbers and have your picture, you can add your own stitching decoration to make it your own! I added some french knots as pin tops to this pincushion:

My good buddies Caitlin and Star came over for a movie night last week and were awesome to do some stitching while watching; then they both took home their pieces and kept on stitching up fabulous decorations!! Caitlin’s unicorn alone, and with beautiful french knot roses (photos by Caitlin):

And Star’s unicorn, walking on rainbows!! Yeah! To show how you can personalize your stitching, I’m adding the example images stitched by different people to the stitch sets page – if you have an example picture I can add, you can either email it to me, or put it up on the leethal flickr group!

For a better idea of how it works… here is the piece of fabric you start with:

Then you can stitch it in one of a few different ways – this one below is an unfinished version of the way my unicorn and pincushion at the top were stitched, as well as Caitlin’s unicorn. After making these long stitches, you go back over them and tack them down. (Note: the numbers will never be printed on patterned fabric like this in the sets for sale, only solid colors.)

Or you can make smaller backstitches like this one below, which was also the way Star’s unicorn was stitched up. (The instructions that come with the sets go into more how-to detail.)

So that’s how it works! Other important things… there are just the Craft Tools and Cryptozoology [aka imaginary animals] sets at the moment, but making the images is my favorite part, so I already have about eight more sets planned for the future, and will probably just keep releasing new ones every few weeks or so!

PDFs of each set are available as well! With the PDF, you can print out the connect-the-dots images onto fabric or paper as many times as you want (so, you could fill up your wall with different colored stitched unicorns, or make a mini-connect-the-dots booklet to give a friend, for example) – do whatever you want with the designs for yourself and for gifts, as long as you don’t use them for commercial purposes. The files come with the stitching instructions like the sets do, as well as how to print onto fabric with an inkjet printer.

If you want to order a set for a Christmas gift, do so right away, as I’m heading out of town on Tuesday so I can’t ship anything last minute. Not that shipping Monday guarantees arrival by xmas, but if you order it today, I can ship it tomorrow, so that should arrive in time. I’ll also have some sets at the Scrap Bazaar on Saturday if you’re a local and want one!

Ok so now that you know everything you need to know about this new project, a couple more things…. I have to tell you how this concept came into being! About a year and a half ago, Rachel (average jane crafter) was in Portland and I got to spend a day of crafty fun with her and Diane, hopping around town to places like Kinokuniya and Twisted. All the craftiness immersion got us into some kind of silly brainstorming mode, and I don’t remember the details of the conversation, but Rachel and I threw out this concept of embroidered connect-the-dots. I’d played around with making up connect-the-dots designs before, in my zine, and loved it, so I was way into the idea and wanted to do it, just didn’t know how. I even tried it once way back then by tracing the numbers onto fabric with a fine-tipped Sharpie – it worked, but took forever! So then several months ago I read a how-to for printing onto fabric with a normal inkjet printer and it clicked! I could do that! I brought the idea back up to the surface, but didn’t have time to fit it into my project schedule till just a couple of weeks ago. It totally worked, and now it’s gone from this amazing brainstorm idea forever ago to a reality! Hooray!!!! And I am forever grateful to Rachel for coming up with the concept with me! Woooo!

And now that you’ve made it through to the end of this post, I want to offer you a free connect-the-dots design! It’s a bit of a weird one (I like experimenting) so it’s not great for stitching, but it looks cool on paper – the numbers create a kind of scribble design around the image. I’ve put this puzzle on the back of my new business cards too! You can click over to the full size image file to print it out, or if you prefer, you could load it into a photo editing program and connect the numbers with the line tool. Have fun!! (oh, and if you do enjoy this, let me know in the comments here or on the flickr page and I’ll know to keep offering more free designs if you like them!)

Assorted stuff all related to the holiday season…

Busy busy week! Thankfully, I’m pretty much healthy (though this cough won’t leave me!) but I’m frantically trying to get all this stuff ready for Crafty Wonderland on Sunday, so no time for blogging. Except to share a few things with you real quick now! I had this idea way back when we first heard Knittn’ Kitten was having a rough time, but then we started that project series and I put this idea on hold, till now….

For the holiday craft show season (and in the future too), for Portland crafters who use materials from The Kitten in your items – I made a sheet of tags that say:

handmade with materials from The Knittn’ Kitten!
Portland’s craft thrift store
located at NE Glisan + 76th
http://www.knittnkitten.com!

Print out the sheet (from the full size jpg here or the pdf here) on cardstock or photo paper, cut up the tags, punch holes in the corners, and tie them onto your items! Or you could print them onto label paper and stick them onto items. Let your customers know about our favorite local shop of awesome!

Here’s a random holiday-gifting-related thing… Anyone who is buying a copy of Game Knitting as a gift – if you burn the ebook onto a disc to gift it, you can print out this CD cover (full size, which is 5×5 inches) to slip into the case:

Other ideas: you could print out the table of contents to put in the back cover; print out the first couple of pages to fold up and put in the case…

I’m so super duper ultra mega excited about this new project I’ve been working on the last few days; it’s not ready to release online quite yet, but I will be revealing it for the first time ever at Crafty Wonderland!! I’ll give you a few hints… it’s embroidery-related! it’s game/puzzle-related! it’s cheap (under $10) and great as a gift for crafters! I’m hoping to reveal it online and release it for sale to all around the beginning of next week.

If any locals are interested in what else I’ll have at Wonderland, pretty much everything that’s in my online shop, plus a bunch of new printed shirts, sweatshirts, and a couple of printed recycled tote bags, lots of photographs (trios of 4×6’s, and 8×6’s in 8×10 mats), plus that one new scarflet pictured above, and possibly some new mitts if I magically have time. (by the way locals, Trillium has some of my scarflets in their shop!) I’ll have custom ice cream earmuff/headband kits too – meaning, all the flavor scoops in a bowl for you to put together a custom kit with you choice of flavors! Still tons of work to do before then, but I’m really excited about it!!

update 12/10: I forgot, I’ll also have a bunch of hat and ninja mitt knit kits that aren’t in my online shop yet!

Crafts for The Knittn’ Kitten free ebook!

Making this quick because I’ve been sick all week and am no better today; hopefully my fluffy head won’t prevent this post from being readable. Need to put off as much work as possible to get myself healed up in time for Crafty Wonderland on the 13th, so don’t expect much from me for the next week either, sorry. Just posting this now because I’ve been getting some emails and promised I’d blog as soon as it was released…

Remember that Lined Zippered Knit Coin Pouch designed for Knittn’ Kitten, from a month ago? Well it’s now available to everyone, everywhere! Click here to get the free download through Craftypod, and check out all of Sister Diane’s other fabulous ebooks and tutorials while you’re there!! She was beyond awesome to put this Kitten ebook together for everyone to enjoy, so be sure to thank her if you like it!

You can find my pattern on ravelry here if you want to fave, queue, or save the ebook in your rav library; I’ll also be adding it as a quick knits pattern, since it can use less than 15 yards of yarn (depending on yarn choice/gauge). I’m proud to have taken the photos for the cover and the intro pages – my favorite is the thread shot below! Once my body stops attacking me with this cough from hell, I’ll be doing a little something else neat with the photos from that shoot!

Shortened excerpt from the ebook (by Diane):

In Portland, Oregon, where we all live, there’s a tiny shop called The Knittn’ Kitten. It’s a craft-supply thrift store, filled with vintage fabrics, sewing notions, yarns, beads, buttons, patterns, and lots of other treasures. …But, as much as we all love The Knittn’ Kitten, economic forces have us shopping less in general lately. And so, in early Fall 2009, we learned that our beloved Kitten was in some danger of closing for good. A group of us got together to see what we might do to help. …We took turns, offering up a new project each week and spreading the word on our blogs. …And since our blogs are read by people who live far from Portland, and can’t get to The Knittn’ Kitten, we thought we’d also share our project sheets in this ebook – it’s our gift to you.

All we ask in return is that you support your favorite local independent craft stores. They need you.

Yeah!!

And the projects you’ll find inside:

Bib-Style Statement Necklace, by Heather Mann
Crocheted Ribbon & Bead Necklace, by Heather Mann
Knit & Stitch Zipper Pouch, by me
Seed Bead Hairpins, by Teresa Sullivan
Dress Up A Dish Towel, by Diane Gilleland
Felt Halloween Bag, by Joelle Groendes
Cupcake Applique, by Christine Blystone
Jersey Doily Scarf, by Bridget Benton
Fabric & Button Pincushion, by Susan Beal

Enjoy!! Now back to rest with me!

New pattern and kits: Double Scoops!

It’s my new leethal pattern and kits!! Woooo! This one has been a seriously long time in the making, so I’m super exciting for it to be released for all to see!! Double Scoops is a dual-purpose pattern for either ice cream earmuffs or a headband – and for the custom kits you can choose from 16 different hand-dyed ice cream flavor yarns! (check out all the flavors on the kits page) The pattern pdf is available on its own for $4 (through my shop or ravelry), and kits range in price depending on the specifics – online kit orders include a copy of the pdf as well.

The earmuffs are made with two 2 scoop cones – mine are pistachio, vanilla covered in extreme sprinkles, black cherry chocolate cheesecake, and spumoni!

These ties are twisted, and the top piece is braided. And the lining is my handspun 100% alpaca! So warm and cozy!

The headband is two 3 scoop cones connected at the top – mine are orange cream, rainbow sherbet, vanilla with chocolate fudge, rocky road, neapolitan, and strawberry:

The ties here are braided, and the lining is the gray-blue 100% cotton:

So, you want some back story? Way back in I think early summer of 2008, my buddy Amber asked if I could custom knit her some ice cream cone earmuffs, to proclaim her love of ice cream to the world all winter long. What a genius idea – thanks so much to Amber for that original concept!! So it got me brainstorming about custom dyeing yarn for her cones, which then got me thinking about turning the whole concept into kits! Well I made her pair, which turned out ok, but not quite how I’d envisioned them… I tried putting cables in the tops to look like soft-serve swirls, but that was kind of a fail. And I used seed stitch for the cones, which did not look like waffle cone texture. And I crocheted the back lining on around the outside, making an outline and further distorting the ice cream shapes.

I put the project up on ravelry, and got almost no response, so I got a bit discouraged and put the whole idea on hold while I pursued other designs. Well a couple of months ago I decided to pick it back up, do some redesigning, and get it out to you by the holiday season. That process started with a big batch of 8 ice cream dyed yarns! So fun!

My initial redesign included Barbara Walker’s Long-Slip Textured Pattern for the cones, and rounded tops. After finishing the earmuff pieces, I brainstormed up the headband idea – adding one extra scoop to each and joining them at the tops. (The flavors you see below are, left to right: lighter rainbow sherbet, berry chocolate swirl, mint chip, mocha fudge, spumoni, orange cream, blueberry cheesecake, and raspberry.)

So I made a complete headband, with merino/angora/cashmere blend lining, crocheted the pieces together, then decided the design wasn’t quite complete. The final design is basically the same, except with reverse stockinette ridges at the bottoms of each scoop to look more scoop-like, and the top scoops are rounded in more. Sadly, I like the flavors in this first no-good headband (as well as the fancy lining) much better than my final headband!

And (after a twitter poll) I decided sewing the pieces together is the better way to go, but I still included crochet directions in the pdf in case anyone prefers, which looks like this. It makes the edges thicker, which you may or may not like…

As for the kits, they include scoops of yarn in your choice of ice cream flavors, coffee-dyed wool for the cones, and your choice of back lining yarn, packaged in some kind of clear, recycled container (from Scrap), with the pattern booklet, marked with the custom kit contents on the back. I have a bunch of these containers pictured below, but they don’t have lids, so I’m not sure how to close them up; today I scored with some tennis ball containers with lids, which are super perfect like they’re made for ice cream knit kits! But, the thing about keeping my packaging recycled, those will run out and I’ll have to find something new, so packaging is definitely subject to change.

I’m glad I got this released before December 1st, since a kit would make a fun gift for a knitter, and finished earmuffs or a headband would make a great (relatively quick to make) gift for someone silly like me who would wear such a thing, or for a kid! As Pearl shows us:

Links all together in one place for you: kits are in the shop, the pattern page on leethal.net, and the ravelry pattern page here.

November leethal quick knits club!

I’ve been a bit off track for the last week or so, first due to trying to finish a new project that I’d planned to release on Monday, but then due to food poisoning everything got bumped and I’m hoping to finally release it on Friday. And this post was supposed to happen on Sunday, but yeah, here it is – everyone should definitely have their packages by now, except for possibly the few far away international members…

November quick knits club! The theme was Winter giving… First, the yarn! The spun yarn was a wool/mohair/nylon icy blue and white strand, wrapped in white angora/nylon, for a cold as ice, fuzzy-tastic bulky yarn, named Winter Wooskie. The dyed, Winter A-Go-Go, was lambswool/angora/nylon, dyed shades of green over a bright white base, with white showing through to look like snow on green leaves.

And the patterns to match: Winter Leaves and a Wee Gift Bag (rav links). The cute drawstring bag can be given as wrapping for a special gift, or it can be for the knitter to keep for storing something special (it would be a great way to hold some nice stitch markers with your notions stash!); the leaves can be used however the knitter likes… decoration on a wrapped gift…

turned into tree ornaments or home decoration… or made into a necklace…

I know the necklace is kinda crazy, but I really like it! In addition to the necklace how-to, I included a pom pom how-to for anyone interested. Each club kit included 2 pieces of ribbon, to be used for each pattern – for the bag and necklace – or to be cut into ornament pieces or used any other way.

Each kit also included a set of 3 yarn photographs, taken by me of yarn that I either spun or dyed or both, to be used for anything, but I included a note with a couple of ideas fitting with the theme. I gave a link to Alicia Kachmar’s photo ornament how-to on photojojo:

And gave the idea of cutting them into gift tags (yes, that is an awesome “knit” gift bag, I think from the dollar store!):

So, with the 3 photos, you could make 2 ornaments and 4 or 6 gift tags, or 1 ornament and up to 12 tags! I also included a pair of paper fasteners to be used for one ornament. Or, of course, the photos could be framed, or used in any kind of photo craft or art project!

And lastly, everyone got a copy of my winter mix! It’s called I wanna be buried in snow, and it’s in a floppy disk sleeve! I won’t tell you the track list yet (that’s still a secret) but I will tell you that the yarns are both named after songs on the mix. By the way, the floppy disks all came from Scrap, and the ribbons all came from Knittn’ Kitten!

So here is everything that each member received…

And here it is all made up! (If you’re wondering how non-members might obtain these patterns, I am planning to release a mini-ebook of the first 4 months of club patterns in February – so at that time, you’ll be able to knit yourself a moustache, superhero mask, back-to-school set, ankle pouch, and everything from this kit.)

The club has gotten some great member feedback so far – Kristin Roach wrote about it on Craft Leftovers, and April blogged about her package on Studio Strategos. I need to start a feedback section on the club page; if you are a member and you’ve blogged about your package, be sure to let me know so I can link to you!

One last club thing – there’s no December club, but right now you can sign up for January, or for a 3 month subscription Jan-March. A club membership would make a great gift for knitters – if signing up as a gift, you can let me know and I’ll put the recipient’s email address on the list so they receive the pdf on mail-out day (and of course, put their mailing address in the paypal order).

Now I get back to work on this secret to-be-revealed-on-Friday (hopefully) project… want some hints? It involves a knitting pattern, and a ton of hand-dyed recycled yarn in very special custom colorways! Happy Thanksgiving to you all, and enjoy your turkey if you’re into that kind of thing, or your mashed potatoes and vegetarian gravy (yummmmmmm) and stuffing and cranberries and veggies and pie and pie and more pie………..

Craft Leftovers giveaway winners and coupon for all!

Well that was a fun giveaway! I learned that a lot of you have a lot of leftover yarn – you all know about my quick knits links list, right? It’s a massive list of patterns that use 20 yards or less, so it might be useful to all of you with bits of leftover yarn and nothing to do with it! Anyway, the winners…

The randomly generated Craft Leftovers Monthly zine winners are Penny and munch! So I’ll be emailing you two for mailing info.

As for everyone else, I’ve got something for you too! Kristin has given all of you do stuff! readers a coupon code for Craft Leftovers! The code is “leethal” and it’s good until December 15th for 20% off your entire order when you get anything from the Craft Leftovers Monthly category. Awesome! (Pictured are the September CLM zine/kit and the Clutch Duo Kit below)

One unrelated thing… I haven’t gotten much of a response for the mix swap I’m trying to organize, and I’m afraid it’s because I scared everyone away with too much information and saying it’s a big commitment. It’s not really that much work, and it’s super fun, so I’m leaving sign ups open awhile longer until there are some more swappers. Right now, there are just 8, and I’m hoping to maybe double that, but I don’t think you need to fear ending up with 30 swappers or anything.

Oh and in case you were scared off by how much I wrote about it last time – it’s really not complicated (I just like to write a lot). You sign up, you make a mix cd, you send it to everyone else, and you receive all of their mixes. Doesn’t need to be a themed mix, doesn’t need elaborate artwork, just some kind of packaging with a track list. Awesome, simple, you should do it!

Craft Leftovers Monthly for 2 of you!

You crafty readers are probably already well aware of Craft Leftovers, but for anyone who isn’t, I’m happy to enlighten you! Craftleftovers.com is Kristin Roach’s website, which is focused on projects you can do with materials left over from bigger projects. Ranging from sewing to knit to crochet to embroidery to bookmaking to weaving and much more, you can find the archive of all Kristin’s free projects here.

So, in addition to those free projects on her site and blog, Kristin also has a fabulous zine! Craft Leftovers Monthly is all about living life creatively. It’s full of resourceful projects, patterns, and ideas for using what’s on hand. It turned two years old in August, and is 100% recycled and handmade! There’s also an optional kit each month that you can order with with the zine, so fun! And starting with the current issue, the zine format has been upgraded to 5×7, 32 pages, and now with projects by guest designers!

To celebrate the new zine format, Kristin has donated 2 copies of the winter issue for me to give away to two of you! Awesome! Just leave a comment here before Monday at 8pm (west coast time), telling us what craft material you have most of in leftovers – for me it’s probably yarn, but I have a ton of fabric scraps too! I’ll choose 2 zine winners at random, which I’ll post here Monday night – and there might be a little something special for all non-winners too!

Say What?! Some news for Portlanders…

Hey locals! My guy Pete, who has been hosting trivia nights every few weeks for the last year and a half-ish at Zach’s Shack, has gotten a gig doing his own exciting new trivia night regularly at the Radio Room on NE Alberta!! Every 2nd and last Tuesday night, starting next Tuesday, with that awesome name – Wet Hot American Trivia! – and some seriously fabulous prizes, it will be superfun for all!

Prizes, I say? Oh yeah! Ranging from $10-$30 in restaurant/bar credit (check out their delicious-looking menu!), to all kinds of amazing things we just bought today at Goodwill and Dollar Tree, knowledge knowers will surely be rewarded! If you’ve been to any of his Zach’s nights, you know he always has a signature audio round (usually music, sometimes movie clips), but WHAT will be taking it up a notch with video rounds!! I don’t even know what to expect, but I know I’m excited (everything is kept super-secret from me, so I can play)!

Follow WHAT news on facebook here and on myspace here.

And since I’m sharing Portland event news for locals, I think now is a good time to tell you I’ll be selling leethal stuffs this year at the Crafty Wonderland Super Colossal Holiday Sale (Dec 13th)!! It’ll be my first time there, at the huge convention center event, so I’m all kinds of stressed and nervous and super excited about it!! Yay!

And, as I’ve done the last 2 years, I’ll also be at the Scrap Holiday Bazaar (Dec 19th)! Always a fun one, a fantastic store, great people, hope you can all make it!!

leethal “recipe” – Spicy Cup of Yum! (plus mix swap idea)

My Threadbanger roundup on Friday was Drinks for Winter Warming, and ever since then I’ve been excited to try some yummy hot drinks. I thought the White Spiced Coffee on delish sounded so good, but the super crazy time-consuming recipe involves simmering the crushed coffee beans in a saucepan (not up to leethal “recipe” standards!), so I combined some ingredients from that one with a Christmasy Coffee recipe given to me by Diane, with my own additions, and this is what I made (and very much enjoyed)!

I used:

1 big-ish serving worth of ground coffee beans
cinnamon
ground cloves
grated orange peel
soy milk (original flavor) (I’m sure regular milk would be good too)
honey
cinnamon stick (optional)
dark rum (also optional)

Make the coffee as you normally would (I use a regular drip coffee maker, but it would be even yummier using a french press I’m sure!) except add some cinnamon, cloves (not much), and orange peel (more) mixed in with the grounds. If you have a cinnamon stick, then add only a little or no cinnamon, but if not, then add a whole lot of cinnamon with the grounds! Now pour your spiced coffee into your mug and add milk – as much as you like, or a little more than you’d normally add. Stir the milk in with your cinnamon stick! Now stir in some honey, as sweet as you like it! Last, add some optional rum if you want your yumminess adult-style. Keep the cinnamon stick in there and it’ll get spicier as you drink it! Enjoy! Mmmmmm.

So I’ve been thinking about this idea for awhile, and now that’s it’s halfway into November, I think it’s a good time to do something about it… Back in college I organized some Winter mix CD swaps with my fellow radio station DJs and buddies, and I have such fond memories of them that I want to do another one! So I’m opening it up to anyone who wants it, but be aware, it’s a pretty huge time and effort commitment, so only join up if you want to do it right! Here’s how it works:

Swappers each create an original mix – it can be Winter themed, or not, any genres, no musical requirements, as long as it’s made with mixxy love! (I spend so many hours on my mixes, it’s ridiculous, but you don’t have to be so crazy like me)
Everyone participating makes a copy of their mix for everyone else (20 people swapping = make 19 copies)
All mixes include some form of packaging with some kind of artwork which includes the track list
Everyone mails their mix to every participant (remember, postage costs $ so this can add up a bit), except for swappers you see in real life, of course
So each swapper receives a mix from every participant (20 swappers = you get 19 new mixes! so much music!)

I have no idea how many people there will end up being – it gets to be just too much effort if there are more than about 25 people, so I’m kind of hoping for a low-ish level of interest. Also, it needs to be restricted to US only, because of postage, sorry everyone else. But you can organize a swap like this in your own country!

So, right now all I’m doing is putting the idea out there – if you are interested, or might be interested, email me at leethalkoala at yahoo dot com with something like “winter mix swap” in the subject, by Thursday night at 8pm (Portland time). I’ll see how many people express interest, and I’ll send out a follow-up email to let everyone know about how many people there might be, and then if you want in for sure, you’ll confirm then. So, emailing me now does not mean you’re committing, but please only email if you think you probably want to do it, so that I have a semi-accurate idea of the swapper number.

If a ton of you are indeed into the idea, and I get well over 25 interested mixers, I’ll figure out a way to divide it into 2 or more groups, so that everyone who wants in can do it, without have to make and mail like 50 copies. Oh, also, once it’s all organized and planned out, it’ll probably be a couple weeks from now, which means after Thanksgiving, which means holiday gift-planning/crafting stress galore – so, the mix mail-out deadline will be after Christmas to make it easier on us all, and allow plenty of time for track list making. (Around the first week in January perhaps?)

As for some specifics, if you need more info to decide whether you’re into it… I’ll be making up a .doc file with every participant’s name and address, so we can all print that out to attach to packages for easier addressing. You can totally include anything else you want with your mix packages (like a business card for your website, or anything else like that) – the only requirement is that each package for each swapper includes a copy of your mix CD with packaging/artwork.

Want some packaging ideas? Of course there’s a normal CD case, or the skinny kind, into which you can slip a piece of cardstock (or photo paper or whatever) with your art. You could go all out with a normal sized case, making art for the front and back, or even a booklet, but that’s pretty intense. One piece of paper or cardstock can fold into a case, by folding the 2 long edges over the CD first, then fold the short edges in and tuck one end into the other end. I’ve made a few mixes like that, including my leethal mix, made with this strip of art/track list which gets taped onto a recycled book page folded around the CD:

There are other ways to fold cardstock into CD cases/envelopes, or you could experiment to figure out your own weird way of making cases. Mix CD packaging doesn’t have to be a big deal, but be creative with the artwork, because it’s fun!

So yeah, let me know if you want in (or might want in) via email – I’ll be doing all the swap organization and communication through my yahoo email, so even if you let me know via twitter or elsewhere that you’re interested, please still send me a quick email. Thanks! And comment if you have any questions or confusion, and I’ll answer in the comments for all to read.