A Sneaky Surprise for Cynthia

Yesterday, my best friend turned another year older.
I had a sneaky thought and decided to act upon it:
Decorate her house while she is gone.
I am very, very sneaky.

Plus, I love cutting things out of construction paper.
It’s kind’ve a win-win.
This is my trial run of the proposed decor on my kitchen floor.

I fell in love with this crazy ‘w’. It will be hard to let him go.

Her front door is about to get decorated and it won’t even know what hit it.
I was thrilled at this point that I hadn’t misspelled anything.

Giant confetti bits will be dotting the windows of her house.
Watch out world, here we come.

And no birthday decorating extravaganza is complete without flowers.

I have become pretty obsessed with tying notes to things using ric-rac. It just adds a little sassy pizzaz.

Biceps was on ‘tape duty’, I was on ‘placement duty’.
I regret making the ‘I’ in ‘Cynthia’ so dang large. I don’t know what happened there.

I think we added just the right amount of crazy to the birthday girl’s house. And gave her puppy a little excitement during the day. Sorry about that Mabel….
Oh, well. Happy Birthday, Cynthia!

Pride in my Parental Units

There’s this really great couple that gave birth to me.
Well, the couple didn’t, one of the two did.
At any rate, I have been secretly visiting them
for the last couple of days.

Hanging out in the book store that they own, I’ve been focused on bothering their customers and generally just raising heck.
I’ve even been messing with their facebook account. Heh heh.

When they weren’t looking, I started poking around, making a wish list. I loved these. Now, I just need a little kid so I am not a weirdo for owning them.

Same deal with these cute onesy’s. I mean, seriously. A felt lamb with a cute little tail stitched onto a pink onesy? Maybe a kid wouldn’t be so bad….I’ll need to run it by Biceps.

And the plethora of exquisite yarns makes me want to pick up the needles and get to work on all of my knitting needs. The variety of gorgeous, enticing, colorful…

…plentiful, beautiful and soft yarn draws me in like a moth to a cat’s mouth.

Baby, this yarn just don’t quit.

I love these gloves. I need these gloves. These gloves need me.

‘Pipsqueak Knits’ caught my eye-but the pictures inside of tiny tots bedecked in knitted hats, jumpers and gloves-captured my heart.

I spend most of my time in this section, catching up on my reading, playing with toys and hogging the comfy chairs.

But, eventually I try to seek credibility by heading back into the ‘more mature section’, browsing through the fiction, the biographies and the study guides.

Fake maturity can last for only so long. I re-shelved the Bonhoeffer biography, drawn to something more enticing.
Chuck Norris and lots of it.

After two cups of free coffee, I usually end up buying something. I bought this for a neighbor’s new baby.
It’s one of my favorite books that they carry and it’s written by the same author of ‘Goodnight Moon’.

The koala travels the world, seeing the moon shine down on the different countries he visits. I think I relate to the koala on a deeper level than most. Not on a ‘furry with big ears’ kind of level, but more of the ‘traveling the world’ level.

Eventually, I end up in the Bible section; fascinated and overwhelmed with all of the different versions and translations. It’s a good thing that I have smarty pants parents that will straighten me out, if need be.
You should stop by Parable Christian Bookstore if you are ever in Arnold, Missouri. My parents would love to show you around and offer you a free cup of coffee.
And while you’re there, tell them that I am pretty proud of them.

The Making of a Bear Costume

What do several yards of faux fur, margaritas and sewing machines all have in common?
They are all needed to make a bear costume.
I wasn’t surprised when Biceps had this unusual need for his band’s video. Nor was I surprised that my brother would be wearing tighty-whiteys and extracting a fish from the river with his teeth in said video.

This is all very normal in the Greiman household.
(I haven’t even delved into the numerous amount of sock puppets I made for their first video. Another day, my dears…another day.)

Baby brother made the head from chicken wire, plaster of paris and a hard hat. Yep, a hard hat.
We then covered it in a faux fur they found online. The fur really flew. Literally. It was all over my house.

Baby brother also made the nose and teeth from modeling clay, baking them in the oven.
He hand painted the nose a glossy black and yellowed the teeth to make them as realistic as possible.
Cowboy did not like this bear head one bit.

Sister-in-law and I cut up an old sheet to simulate the fur, padding Biceps’ body in the appropriate places to try and make him look more bear-like.
He was thrilled with this procedure, as you can tell. I think he was just trying to get into character.

The boys made margaritas while Sis and I began sewing. Have you ever tried shoving 2” thick fur through a sewing machine?
It’s fun.

Sis got really into being a bear, modeling the arms for all of us with many bear-type dance moves such as this one.
I believe this dance is called, ‘Showing your bear biceps to the other bears.’

Biceps is wearing one of the bear legs as a skirt. Boy, am I going to be in big trouble for this.

We used an old man onesy (jumpsuit) underneath the costume to attach the stuffing to. Biceps is inside the costume, sweating profusely, wearing the jumpsuit covered in stuffing and underneath the 2” thick fur.
No wonder bears are grouchy.

By the end of the night, no animals or humans were harmed in the making of this bear costume. We still needed to add eyes and claws…but we decided to end on a high note and go to bed.

If you would like to see the bear costume in action, here’s the final video:
Man Vs. Man Video, Bruder
Please don’t judge our weirdness….

Recycled Art, Steel Drums and Free Food

(All that you need to throw a good party.)
My brother was asked to participate in the Tulsa Young Professional’s Art Show.
The entire show focused on using recycled materials. My brother submitted five pieces and was allowed to show them all.
I was allowed to eat free food.

The show was held downtown in the Living Arts Studio in the historic Brady district.
I want to live in this building. That is, if everyone would clear out and give me some dang privacy.

Light-hearted, fun and not too pretentious, the steel drums and acoustic guitar set the mood.

Here is the man of the hour, next to my favorite piece he’s ever created.

This piece is called, ‘Facade’ and I want it back in my living room.
It once was there, and then my little stinker of a brother took it back.
Meany.

My brother created this piece after studying in Korea. He named it ‘DMZ’ for the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea.
I respect his political viewpoint, but of course, I gave it ‘pounds’ more than once.
Is that wrong?

My brother found these masks in an abandoned gas station in Illinois and turned them into ‘Me Minus Fifty’.

This piece of my brother’s, ‘Moniker’, was the winner of the ‘Best 3-d Design’. He almost threw this away when it didn’t turn out as he expected.
He promptly sold it thirty minutes into the art show.
I guess we’ve all learned a little lesson, haven’t we?

This is not my brother’s, but I loved it so much, I just had to show you. Aptly named ‘Heartbeat’, the bulbs would light up in sync with your heartbeat when you put your finger in this little clampy device.
How cool is that?

This was done by another local artist, Kris Atkinson. (He also did the scissors you see in the first picture.)
The vivid colors from his pieces mesmerize me.

This is my baby brother’s piece, ‘Captured Nature’.
The blurry thing in the center is a real working fan, recycled from a walk-in cooler.
I have tried capturing nature before…and let me tell you, it bites.

Look at this man that I refer to as my ‘baby brother’. He has grown up before my very eyes.
The world needs more men like this guy. What a stud.