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I did, and my darling husband took some spiffy pictures of the goldfish bag. I ended up being too impatient to sort through my craft supplies for beads so dug out the embroidery thread to do the eyes. It’s hard to determine in the pictures but the black embroidery stands out ever so slightly from the white, so it’s 3-dimensional in real life.

I was a little worried about doing the top hem (where the drawstrings go.) Fortunately it was simpler than it looked on first glance.

I have no idea what I’m going to work on today. I sort of fancy making a few more small items, but Matt thinks we should do a spooky (ala Nightmare Before Christmas) Christmas theme (including spiders made from jingle bells) which is a great idea, but I worry about traumatizing the children. Of course, the fact that the children have to put up with parents that actually apply themes to holidays is probably enough to put them on a psychiatrists couch for a session or two.

I’m also studying up on how to make Waldorf dolls. I think it’s about time Lexi had one, and they are definitely worth the money to buy– there’s just no way I can pass up another crafting opportunity. I feel kind of bad because I had to reiterate our position on Barbie dolls, Bratz, and other sexed up plastic vixens.

Mom tried to argue that it didn’t seem to hurt my sister or I one bit that we had Barbies growing up– um Mom, you and Dad took us to see the original Exorcist movies and the Wrath of Kahn; we had other issues. I have to wonder if my parents ever noticed the people staring at us and giving them dirty looks as we walked out of movie theaters.

Speaking of childhood horrors– when I was ten I remember watching people near rioting and beating each other on the evening news at toy stores trying to get Cabbage Patch Kids and BMX bikes. I was completely mortified when I unwrapped a Cabbage Patch Kid, not that I didn’t want one (because I did already have three of the original Xavier Roberts Garden Patch dolls you can guess my preference) but because of the madness that they invoked on the news and the expense of the doll (my family was not well off at all, and those dolls were spendy at $35 in 1984 money.)

That incident to this day really influences my approach to major holidays and gift giving. There is no toy or gift so cool that people should risk bodily harm and/or financial ruin to aquire it. Worse, I connected that doll with what was wrong with the way we celebrate holidays in the “civilized” part of the world; I never played with it, I never enjoyed looking at it, and I felt bad even owning it.