CREATIVE: Dinobot, a Cross Stitched Poster

Everyone probably remembers the infamous Obama "Hope" poster for his 2008 presidential campaign, and everyone has seen countless variations using celebrities and so on in the same design. One such similar design was created for Dinobot, a character in the Transformers Beast Wars animated TV show from 1996. With Dinobot being one if not the favorite character of Joe's when it comes to the entire Transformers universe, it was time to turn it into a cross stitch design. 

So who the hell is Dinobot and why is he shouting honor around?!

If you're not familiar with Beast Wars, Dinobot may not be a character you're aware of (at least as an individual - groups of Dinobots did appear in the last Transformers movie but we don't talk about that urgh). Dinobot actually started out as a baddy - an aid to Megatron has they landed on what they believed was Earth. While Predacon (the baddies) Dinobot was ruled by his strong code of honor and lives to die gloriously in battle. In short Dinobot rebelled and joined the Maximal team lead by Optimus Primal. Eventually he gets his wish of dying a hero when he sacrifices himself to save a group of protohumans (hunter gatherers) from a Predacon onslaught. These hunter gatherers having observed and interacted with Transformers who happened to appear on their planet  so yes, you could say in this universe at least, Transformers helped the evolution of humans.

So, after transforming the poster into a pattern, the design was pretty much straight forward. Using only four colours was somewhat novel, I wasn't really sure how it would all look stitched up, perhaps turn out looking a bit too flat especially without any form of backstitching, but it turned out a lot better than I could have hoped. It's always awesome when that happens.

Three months and 9,920 stitches later, Dinobot is complete. It measures a little under 6 x 9 inches and self framed in a dirt cheap frame I picked up at an estate sale. Now to find a place for him alongside that other Transformers piece I stitched earlier this year.

And as for the recipient, Joe loves it. Which is the biggie.

LIFE: Photo an Hour March 2015

Another month, another attempt at me keeping up with the photo an hour link up with Louisa and Jane - so far, so good! Oddly enough this year they keep falling on Saturdays were our plans go out the window (we had a great stock fill up at an estate sale the weekend previous so there was so real need to hit any this weekend) but they kinda show how daily life for me really is. 

9 am // because we'd finished off all the yummy cinnamon & raisin and the banana bread muffins (thank you Thomas the Baker) it was back to the odd Reeses Puffs for breakfast. I have to admit, a sure sign of me getting older much be this eating of breakfast malarkey. And ya know, awesome Yorkshire slang coasters. 

10 am // you can always tell when life gets busy by my lack of cross stitching which basically made up last week. I'm totally slacking on the SAL piece i'm working on so it was high time I tried to catch up.

11 am // both cats were having one of their rolling around like beached whales sessions. Smokey (pictured - you can see Ed doing the same here a couple of days previous) loves paper bags - sitting on or in them, but nothing beats rolling around on a paper bag showing off her tummy because she wants tummy rubs. 

12 pm // because it's just awesome to put Transformers into badass poses. 

1 pm // after wrestling with the self service machine in the Post Office I met Joe at the garage (well technically he met me at the cross roads because I HATE HATE HATE crossing roads in America, especially when they are five lines by myself) where the car was getting an oil change and something else done. I got highly amused watching it go up and down while reading months old magazines in the waiting room. 

2 pm // trip to Meijer to finally get me some potting compost for starting off some of my seeds inside, some little pots and some veg seeds for when it gets warmer to sow (radishes, fancy coloured carrots and onions). 

3 pm // back home via Toys R Us and I finally got around to trying some local tea. Joseph Wesley is a Detroit company and one of their teas (no 2.) was inside of a Mitten Create box I won before Christmas. I'm not a big loose tea drinker, but this was pretty tasty.

4 pm // binge watching Armitage III while trying to get back to doing some more sewing but Ed has other ideas. This is a typical scene if i'm on the sofa stitching on an afternoon because she can see straight out into the front garden and see the girls on the feeders. That and she wants attention.

5 pm // know me and you'll know Taco Bell is a massive weakness of mine. The new Sriarcha Quesrito being a new favorite of mine. Tasty tasty in my tummy.

6 pm // trying to catch up on blog read and, while having a break from the anime, we watched a couple of episodes of the Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt after hearing great things about it. It certainly lives up to the hype. 

7 pm // it took a while for the sun to come out today, but i'm loving not only hearing the birds chirping away in the morning, but the lovely lighter evenings. 

8 pm // enjoying a slice of banana bread (baked from a 1944 recipe) and how the rest of my evening was spent - enjoying some whiskey, watching more anime and working on some blog posts. 

So that was basically my Saturday, nothing really to write home about but just the little things that pretty much make up my life daily, which if you're interested you can find me sharing over on IG. How was your weekend?

CREATIVE: That Time Optimus Prime Nearly Beat Me

Sometimes cross stitch pieces can teach you things even after 20 years of stitching. That cream isn't the best background colour. That said cream thread shows up your cats fur so bad. That freehand back stitch is harder than I thought. That and Optimus Prime was nearly the death of this cross stitch piece. 

And you really can't say that too often. 

The design is actually one I came across through Jucie Lucie's blog (via Pinterest). Originally designed to be crocheted into squares but the pattern was basic enough to be converted into cross stitch. The tricky part came with adding the details that comes with back stitching, which I basically made up as I went along. Optimus Prime's face being a right royal annoyance. He looked, at one point, more evil Decepticon than earths savior (he's the third square down on the far left).



It really wasn't all prime at that point.

I have to be honest in confessing there was times I really disliked stitching this piece. It probably wasn't until half way through the tables started to turn I actually started liking it. The cream background wasn't my wisest idea - mainly for how much it shows cats fur, my hair, basically anything, to how lighter colours seem to make my stitches appear less neat.

I could say my interest in stitching this piece was through Joe's love for Transformers (the toys, the cartons - we won't mention the films urgh). But lets be honest here, I have a fair high level of enjoyment watching Transformers Prime and now with Robots in Disguise. So while it's finding it's place on the wall of our record room come Transformers hang out, it's for the both of us to the point where I already have another Transformers piece lined up to stitch.

Plus, getting to play around with the Transformers while taking these photographs, that was pretty fun too. And yes, yes, if you're a Transformers geek you'll be well aware that the design is one based upon G1 Transformers for which we don't have any toy lines, so please excuse the other universe lines of Transformers. Ahem.

LIFE: #Photoanhour - Lazy Sunday

Sunday's, well I try to keep them lazy. They normally call for reading, sewing, endless marathons of Law & Order, CSI Miami, maybe even some NCIS. So I guess you could say that yesterday's #photoanhour was a great way of capturing some down time - the normal Sunday routines of watching TV, food shopping, eating something bacon related and everything in between. 

9am // after crawling out of bed, turning the heating on and falling over two hungry cats, Sunday mornings call for some read (this instance Visit Detroit and Gone with the Wind) and a mug of green tea. 

10am // got around to looking for something to do which I thought would be for filled with a quick attempt at tidying up the office, which really turned out into just moving random piles around to another part of the floor

11am // long way around to going food shopping via Target, the husband's on the look out for the new Transformer toy releases and I'm basically his enabler. But Target's been pretty poor showing for Transformers lately. 

12pm // trolly pushing time around Kroger for the weekly shop - lots of food and lots of coupons

1pm // because bacon for lunch

3pm // after going back to Target (don't ask) and missing 2pm, we got back just in time for a photo of our front door somewhat decked out Christmassy with a wreath.  

4pm // inspiration has been a little lacking, and it's hard to get down and write something half decent for the blog lately, so i started writing up this post while watching NCIS marathons on USA.

5pm // taking a screw driver to Optimal Optimus - he lights up, or at least he use to, the battery is dead and the screw is worn out.

The rest of the night was basically spent on the sofa, watching endless TV shows, cuddling the kitties and eating pizza.

How was your Sunday?

LIFE: Our Collections

Sharing a one bedroom apartment with four collections between me and Joe is just one of the reasons why we need to expand into a house. I've always collected something - for at least as long as I can properly remember that is, whether it was badges to Nancy Drew books and now having someone to not only share my collections with, but to additionally collect stuff together is an added bonus.

So I thought i'd take the time during this 2014 Blogger Challenge post on collections to talk about the four main collections I/we live with, how we got into them and what they are all about. Sadly nearly all of it is all packed away for moving, hopefully they'll see the light of day again soon!

Vintage Powder Compacts
So collecting compacts began back in 2009 after my gran died and I inherited (well saved from the rubbish) some of hers - one being a Statton, another one being pre WW2, both piped my interest and the collection grew from there. They mainly date from the early 1930's through to the mid 1980's and I currently have brands from France, UK, US and Germany. It's a slow to grow collection, while they are easy to pick up on ebay I prefer hunting them out at estate sales. Still, I think the collection is at around 80 these days. 

You can find out more about my collection under the vintage powder compacts tag.

Transformers

I happily share my living space with about 200 Transformer Toys - Joe's main collecting habitat, although a majority of them are packed away for moving. His collection mainly revolves around the Beast Wars, Prime and Generations toy line and I find them rather nifty myself, and I'll happily admit to asking for a Grimlock Transformer along with a couple of others for myself. Back in 2012 I shared a little more about the collection here if you're interested.

Vinyl Records

If you're a regular reader you'll know we have a love for all things vinyl, well we have a big weakness for vinyl's lets be honest. We began collecting in 2012, picking up a couple of records even before we had a player. After picking up a then unworking original 1970's Sony record player for $3 the collection just grew and grew. With records spanning everywhere from the mid 1950's to the present day with everything from blues, to jazz, sound tracks, Motown to heavy metal we've taken to using Discogs to catolgue our collection because we have too many to remember. I've managed to catalog 826 of them so far, but there's at least a good couple of hundred that were packed away for moving before hand.

Find all things record related under the vinyl tag.

Model Trains

Our model train collection is something I've never really got around to talking about, possibly it's a little too geeky to share. Anyway individually we both have a love for trains be it the real ones for travelling for the model rail kind. We have a big collection of model engines, stock cars to mini trees and track that we've collected from estate sales, sadly they are all in boxes and have never yet been played with due to a total lack of space - hopefully whenever we get a house we'll set up a track in the basement and get it working.

Those are the big four, that and a liking for collecting vintage postcards (particularly Detroit/Michigan ones) and crafty things. I'd love to hear what about what you collect!

LIFE: #PhotoAnHour

I've been meaning to a photo an hour post for quite a while, but working from home, in my pj's by the TV isn't the most ideal for finding pretty things to see and do that are worthy of being noted. So I tagged along for the first time with Jane's #PhotoAnHour challenge (which you can follow along or join in month under it's hashtag and see who else joined in). Being a Saturday we were busy and out driving around estate sales, so at least I get to share some of the places and things we find, plus some extras.

9AM - Using the first of our buy one get one coupons from Biggby Coffee, the day began with a Mocha Cameral Latte, rather tasty. Joe had a Neapolitan Latte which apparently wasn't all that good, sad times. Estate sales tend to either start at 9 or 10am, so we headed to our first and got warmed up on this icy Saturday morning. 

10AM - Catching a quick photograph of Detroit along I-75 has we drove from one sale to another. At this point my phone was being pissy because i'd been in a couple of basements and it likes to have a hissy fit and need restarting, wah. 

11AM - Driving back along Lake St Clair between sales in Grosse Point and St Clair the lakes even more icy than it was the last time, chilly times indeed. I have a lot more photographs of the lake so there'll probably be another post on it soon, just because.

12PM - Picnic in the car (first week in a long time that it's actually been warm enough to do that) up in Clinton Township of a tuna sarnie with dortios, every sandwich always tastes extra yummy when you stick crisps inside right?!

1PM - Leaving the 7th estate sale of the day up still in Clinton Township, yeap 7. We actually visited 8 this weekend, which although seems a lot, in the summer months it can be double that. Integrity are one of our favourite companies that run such sales, mainly because of their last day $5 bag deals which means I get to stock up on craft stuff, cookbooks and vinyl's. At this sale we bagged three bags of cookbooks. Score.

2PM - Pit stop at Target for windscreen washer fluid for the car, drooling over notebooks that I don't need but find pretty. I was also drooling over an aqua colour Kitchen Aid mixture.

3PM - By now we were home, I'd tried to have a nap but that wasn't working out so a well deserved cup of Earl Grey and a couple of limited edition marshmallow Oreo's - okay but not as tasty as the cookie dough ones.

4PM - Hour spent sorting out our purchases for the day, including this pretty square vintage hand embroidered tablecloth with teacups and teapots in each corner. Can't wait to have a proper dinning space to have it on the table (currently it's home to the toaster, microwave, paper, oil lamp, random rubbish that I haven't got around to putting away/finding a home.

5PM - Sitting down to have a read through another find of the day, a copy of the Senior Prom magazine from 1950, it has some great articles on "the meaning of sex" and blind dates, there's probably a post coming about it in due course once I can get it flattened out enough.

6PM - Teatime of the leftovers from Friday night's shrimp Gang Pa curry from our favorite Thai Curry place. Twas yummy, but not one of my favorites from them (I'm actually working through their menu every other week).

7PM - Playing with the Grimlock Transformers toy Joe brought me earlier in the day, his mouth and eyes light up, yeah you can get corrupted into wanting Transformers yourself when you live with a collector.

So that was pretty much my Saturday, the rest of the night was spent catching up on blogs, writing some out, messing with photographs while watching TV. I thoroughly enjoyed joining in and I'll certainly be making a point to remember future #PhotoAnHour days in the future, so watch this space.

How did you spend your Saturday?

Help us to win!

Two collection posts in a matter of hours but this time you can all help us win. The Big Bad Toy Store's facebook page is holding a competition for the best toy collection, so of course we've entered with Joe's Transformer collection. Above is his ENTIRE 125 plus figures which I kindly spent Thursday morning arranging for him to photograph and enter into the draw. 

It would be a massive help if you could log onto the Big Bad Toy Store page via your facebook, click onto the photo contest [you'll have to like the page] and vote for him [either by looking out for the above photograph or going by the name Joe Jenkins]. The more votes we get the more likely we get through to the second round.

Pretty pretty please?!

Collectors Club: Transformers

Now this collector is an addict and because it was his birthday yesterday I thought he more then deserved the last slot in this collecting series. I call him an addict frequently but it's allowed because I'm married to him. So I admit Joe isn't a blogger, but I felt my guys collection was worthy of being included because I share my life with it. Plus it lets us have an insight into a man's collection!

Close up of Cheetor from the Beast Wars line

In 1996 an 11 year old boy got hooked into a new cartoon called Transformers: Beast Wars which was based on robots which transform into animals on an Earth far into the future. Divided into two factions - the maximals [goodies] and the predicons [badies] they are the descendants of the Transformers we see in the films, from which countless toy lines were manufactured. At one point his mum threw out a garbage bag, little did she know she was throwing out his entire Transformers collection. 15 years later that boy is recollecting and still obsessed with the show.

When I first started dating Joe I knew of his love for Transformers but I was amazed at how many he actually owned. Currently the total stands at 109 [I think, excluding the ones awaiting being put on eBay] and predominately they are from the Beast Wars, Beast Machines [both old cartons from the 1990s] and the Transformers Prime [film and the contemporary cartoon] lines. Yet it involves more then collecting toys, it involves cartoons, films, searching eBay, membership to the official club, getting member only toys and trips around countless stores to try and grab them. Even I could name your Optimus from your Cheetor to Soundwave to your Snapper. Date a guy with a collection like this and you get interested too. 

Comic within the official Transformers members magazine and Optimus Prime from the film line.

Joe's was always one step ahead of me when it came to collecting, he can part with, and sell them on eBay if he's buying in a lot and there's some he doesn't want or he already has. We don't make lots of money but we hope they go to a decent home. It always come down to condition just like compacts. Paint and chrome-ware all come into account, missing parts and missiles all affect the price. We never keep them in their original boxes [unless selling them], they are toys and they are meant to be played with so that's what we do. But it's why we need an extra bedroom, just so I can contain them into one room. It always surprises me how many grown men are buying Transformers in stores and bid on them on eBay, there's many more Transformers widows out there. The things you do for love!

*  *  *

This looks to be the final post in the bloggers who collect series - although i'll gladly accept any more posts if you want to fling them my way. I want to say a huge thank you to everyone that took the time out to make this little series happen. I hope you all enjoyed it just as much as I did putting it together!

LIFE: A Weekend in April

For us, we had a bit of a lazy weekend, watching too much telly, playing too many games on the Wii, eating take outs and drinking margaritas. I think how windy and cool it was made us pretty much stay in, plus it was a pretty quiet week on the estate sales front so we're saving our energy for next weekend.

But the weekend started off amazingly well when Joe came home with a huge bunch of roses for me as a total random act of loving. They are some of the most gorgeous roses I've ever seen - pinks, reds, oranges and yellows and they actually have a smell to them. He even brought a vase seeing we lack common homely items. On the note of love i'm getting sick and bored of some of the issues of having to deal with [say family members] when it comes to me moving - apparently moving for love isn't the thing to do. I'm just getting to the verge of just wanting to remove that hassle for good. They always have the ability of making me feel shit for moving to be with Joe. What would my Monday be like on LOTS without a rant?!

Anyway .... I've been drawing out maps of the homeland to create my next crafting project which I can't wait to show and tell you all about. Finally getting word from the Student Loans company that they finally understand why I'm not earning money yet in America [seriously they have been one of the biggest hassles since moving]. On Sunday we went for a wander to Target which then became another trawl for the newest editions of Transformers [yes yes those toys again]. There's even websites which allow people to upload their latest sightings of the newest toys - it's a big craze. Saying that I don't mind Transformers to a point, merely because I enjoy selling the spares on eBay like the photographed generation one from 1985, complete some of these figures can go sky high on prices. 

How were your weekends?