Lazy Today.

This is me.
My couch is not that awesome

This is what I did all day.  It rained most of today and there are communists in the fun house.  I'm too lazy to try to draw my pj's so deal with it.  A long overdue update for my website is coming I just need to find my notes. 

To Quilt Or Not To Quilt...

The largest piece

So to get my mind off of the incredibly difficult knitting mess I've gotten myself into, I've decided to work on some sewing projects.  I think I went over some theories behind the weaving projects I've got going, the ideas of taking 'nothing' scraps of yarn and fabric and making cloth or sculpture from them.

 Same concept applies to most of my sewing.  I have this huge box of scraps that I've been slowly sewing up.  I started what's called improvisational sewing, but there were too many irregular angles to work with so I started trimming as little off of the fabric as possible to make squares and rectangles. 

 I really don't have any patience on this project, there's too much material and not enough time for me to be picky.  So far I've managed about a solid yard and I'm still adding to it.  

Smaller pieces

I'm looking through these boxes of scrap and I'm like "damn I have a lot of stuff."  I really don't realize just how much stuff I have.  It's starting to scare me, like, I think one day I may end up on one of those Hoarders shows.  First world problems, I know right?  If you couldn't tell that last sentence was sarcasm.  I'm going to go through my fabric again and find lengths to donate or just toss since it's a little gross.  I've got a good portion of fabric that smells like smoke, which is never a good thing.  At that point there's no saving them, if they smell like smoke even after several washes, I feel no remorse in tossing them cause that smoke smell will never come out.  
I mentioned in teh previous post that I had finished a project.  Here are some photos.

Bowl Me Over :3

I coiled lots of knitted cord over a form and then sat on the couch watching Pitbulls and Parolees and Walking Dead while hand stitching the entire piece.  

Side view

I had wanted to make the lip of the bowl curl over and down and across a surface, but now I'm like, "screw that"  I'd never finish the project if I continued it

Top view

 At some point I will use shellac or resin to coat it so it becomes like a sculptural object.  Not just art, but a functional piece so it can look awesome and hold fruit or something. 

As many of you have read in previous posts I applied to Anthropologie for a visual position.  I didn't get the job.  Even though my skills are 'impressive' they found someone who 'meets their needs more'.  I'm like "yeah, yeah fuck you too." in my head.  I think it really hard.  In their general direction.  I hope one day they spontaneously develop psychic powers so they can hear this.  Nicest mean letter I think I've ever gotten.  You know, I don't know why I continue to apply to this company.  I applied to Free People Clothing, Urban Outfitters and Anthropologie, and all of them have said something about me not 'fitting the brand'.  I think that's code for something nasty like 'you're too large to fit our clothing g.t.f.o.'  Seriously it wouldn't surprise me, because people suck. 

I applied to some jobs in the City.  I really hope I get one cause it's full time work at a gallery.  Guys wish me luck.  I really need to get out of retail and get a full time job. 

I think that's all I've got to say for now.  Thanks for listening ya'll.
~Amy

Nailed It

Redesigned the blog!  Hope you all like it <3

Monday September 24th

Well it's official, I'm obsessed with painting my nails.  This is kind of a new novelty for me.  Most of the time I smack my hand against something and the nail chips or from my nervous habit, I'll pick at the nail until that little white part comes off so they're too small to paint.  I went to a wedding this weekend, and I was determined to have long-ish nails to paint by then.  I did.  I've also discovered the awesome that is crackle polish.  My theory is, that the more interesting my nails are, the more careful I will be with them, allowing them to grow longer.  While up in Massachusetts for the wedding, I annoyed my friend to no end with wondering how crackle polish works, she got so fed-up that she looked it up on her phone, shoved it at me and said, "Here, read this and shut up."  Well, she said something along those lines. 

So the wedding.  A good friend of mine from high school got married to her long time boyfriend.  I wish I had the forethought to have taken pictures (I left my camera in my suitcase ::face palm::).  It was a beautiful ceremony, outdoors on a little farm-like area, a low stone wall and a gazebo with plants, and dragonflies everywhere.  For anyone who doesn't know me I'm terrified of insects.  Legit.  I'm not kidding you, I cried so hard walking through butterfly cages as a kid at zoos.  Things that crawl don't bother me as much as anything that can fly around my head and praying mantis.  Anyway, the bride looked amazing and I couldn't stop grinning like a loon, I was so happy for them and to see her really happy (especially after all the drama that comes with planning a wedding) was amazing.  The reception was great too, there were lots of cute roller derby guys there.  I'm still kicking myself for having not talked to at least one of them, but I'm anti-social like that. 

I've been involved with this battle of wills between my room and myself.  I really need to clean the space, but it's exhausting just looking at it.  Since I don't seem to be getting a call from the temp. agency today (it's like 10:40 am now), maybe I'll gear-up and jump back into the battle.  And when I say 'gear-up' I mean turn on some music and dance around while I try to find some bookends. 

2:01 pm Monday October 8th.
It looks like this is gonna be a post where I'm gonna date it every time I wanna add something to say.   Keeps the number of posts down.  The Battle of the Abyss aka the never ending effort to clean my room has come to a temporary truce.  I never really grasped how much stuff I have.  I'm proud of myself though, I've got clothes, accessories and comics to give away or donate.  I have this little self-satisfied smile on my face right now.  There's been furniture moving and the never ending laundry as well just to make the past week extra special. 
On the plus side, I rented seasons 1 and 2 of Torchwood from my local library.  I really need to catch up on that.  I also found an amazing knitting book.  It's a comprehensive guide on how to design a knitted garment, from sketch to pattern to knitting.  Super excited about this!

Featuring my
lovely pink carpet

On top of the many projects that I have going, I found a decorative birdcage at a flea market.  I've been looking for a nicely shaped birdcage to make a lamp out of it.  So in an effort to use up a good amount of my glass bead collection, I'm wire wrapping beads into the spaces between the bars to make the lamp a little more awesome.  Getting the bottom off of the birdcage was not easy, it was welded into place.  I eventually resorted to using bull-nose wire cutters and was able to take out the solder points.  Ruined my nail polish doing that lol.  

Look at the Pretty!

Not sure if this is good news or not just yet, but I applied to Anthropologie in Princeton for a Visuals position.  I had an interview with them and I felt like I had left a good impression and with any luck I'll get the job.  I followed up on that and they said they are still conducting interviews but they'll have an answer at the end of this week.  Guys send me some good luck cause this job would be amazing if I get it! 
Now's probably a good time to take my measurements so I can start making a knit pattern.  It's been damn cold here yo. 

6:33 pm
So, I finished one of those projects from so-far-long-ago-that-I-forgot-I-started-it.  OMG shock and awe right?!  I have an I-Cord maker, that makes I-cord or knitted horse reign.  I found a little crank-it-out one that makes a 4 stitch tube in Jo Anns Fabrics.  It's an absolute godsend!!  I don't know how I could have done any work without it.  I took 12 balls of emerald green yarn, knitted it into cord, then pinned it to a dress form and hand stitched a project out of it in college.  Which I then promptly lost in the mess that is my room.  Well I found my little godsend machine and started making cord out of these balls of yarn that are a pain in the ass to knit with since they're so freaking thin.  Then I was stuck with all this cord, so I thought "Hey!  Why don't I coil this up and make some sculpture with it?"  Brilliant deduction right?  Well that turned out to be a several month set of projects and then the sketchbook with the drawings in them has disappeared into the Abyss (I'll reference my room as "the Abyss" from now on... less to type).  So about a week ago, I found the unfinished project and have now finished it.   I was working on making some bowls or planters or something, and I finally finished hand sewing it.  It needs some starch or shellac to harden the form so it retains it's shape, but that can wait.  The point is that I will not be hand sewing that bastard anymore.  In the meantime I've neglected the Whale yet again.  I'm really starting to dread working on that piece.  Every day I look at it and I'm like, "Oh God look at all that white empty space T-T  ." 

10:09 am Tuesday October 9th

My workspace

Well, I have a walking path through the Abyss.  Score one for me!  I've also been taking my measurements so I can start drafting a pattern to knit.  There's so much math!!  T-T  My head hurts.  I had to take so many measurements last night and I took more today.  If you ever read the first Harry Potter book, the scene where Harry's at Madame Malkins getting measured for his robes.... yeah like that.  I'm surprised I don't need to measure the length of my teeth or something with the way this book is going.  Anyway, here's a picture of the sketch I made, and what I hope to knit.  Now that I look at it, I'm thinking of making a Peter Pan collar instead of the V- Neck.... hmm.  Wouldn't it be awesome if I made a book of patterns O.o ?!

The Sketch

I think that's all for now, I've got a long and tedious day ahead of me with dentist visits and the continuing effort to clean my room.  Oh.  Joy. 

Do you feel the enthusiasm?  

See Ya'll Later!

50... er, 4 Shades of Grey

So photos of the Whale.  This post will have them. 

The Whale as of 5 minutes ago

Today was amazing, I met up with Dory in NYC today.  She took me to the Garment District to find bead stores so that I could color match beads for the Whale project.  Now some of ya'll know that I have been working on this piece for almost a year now.  I started on November 13, 2011, and I took like 6-7 months off from the piece in order to complete some costumes for Otakon and Steampunk Worlds Fair.  Well I want to finish this piece ASAP.  One of the biggest challenges, besides the sheer amount of time it takes to sew down the beads, was that I was unable to find the correct shades of grey for the whale in the local bead shops.

E.L. James aint got nothin'
on my shades of grey 

  Ac Moore and Michaels craft stores have failed to offer more than one shade of grey, so I looked at specialty shops within a reasonable driving distance.  Well out of the four I looked up, only one was still in business, and they sold the grey tones I needed, but not in the quantities I needed to complete this piece.  The dimensions of this piece are 36x24 inches at least.  That's a whole lot of surface area to cover.  Sometimes I look at it and feel like I want to cry.  Now my brain (the one inside my head lol) is running ahead (lol) without me.  I've already prepped 3 more canvases in anticipation of continuing this series of work.  As I've been working on the Whale, I've been thinking about the deeper meanings in the project.  What makes this special to me, and the big question, why did I pick a whale when I've never seen one outside of an aquarium?  So this got me thinking about what the nature of what my art is, in regards to this subject matter.  Have I seen death?  And I came to the conclusion that, yes, I have seen death and it's almost a daily occurrence in the form of road kill.  I live in an area that's suburban, but it backs up onto wooded areas and some farmland.  Unfortunately people can't seem to figure out how to drive, so there's always dead deer, raccoons, squirrels and birds on the side of the road.  So I came to the conclusion that I should make art from what I see.  I see road kill every day, let's make art about it.  Not a terribly original concept, but this and trees are what I see everyday besides the inside of my house.  I looked into what happens to roadkill in NJ and found that most road kill is incinerated/ disposed of or left to rot on the side of the road.  It's not an honorable death and certainly not a pleasant one.  The exception for the rule is deer.  If the deer is freshly dead, there's a number of groups that are licensed to remove the carcass and if it's in good condition are allowed to give the meat to charities/ soup kitchens.  Of course health and safety rules are in place, but the flesh ends up not rotting on the side of the road and is put to good use, but only if someone reports it and it's hauled away within a certain time frame.  So now the art has become almost an effigy for the spirit of the dead animal.

On a lighter note, I'm learning the dainty art of tatting.  No I'm not tattooing people, tatting is a form of lace.

Look at my pretties

These are my samples. I'm very proud of them. This is not an easy process to learn, well, any lace process is not easy to learn. I haven't even begun to attempt bobbin lace, frankly it scares the bejebus out of me. I'm still learning techniques and it'll be a while before I'm making awesome stuff, like doilies.  My great grannies would be proud. 

That's about as much adventure as I can take for now,
See Ya'll Later
~Amy

It's a Whale of a Tale

So I'm battling an epic cold.  it started like a month ago and now it's just gotten worse.... or possibly better?  Either way I'm coughing and there's all kinds of gross bodily fluids involved and yeah.  You all totally needed to know that.
So anyway, I know I posted previously about how I wouldn't post about my job, but right now I'm finding that a difficult promise not to break.  As of today, I'm going on about 4 weeks of no hours.  I work in a women's clothing store, and apparently myself and one other girl who are cashiers, are 'expendable'.  This means that we get like 5 hours a week (off season) on the schedule and then are called the day of and told that our 5 hours for the week have been cut (this has happened 2x in 2 weeks).  Well I hope my manager doesn't expect me to be available the next time she makes a schedule, cause I'm finding a new job.  This happened once after the holiday season from the tail end of January into February, and my manager promised me it was a one time thing.  Load.  Of.  Bullshit.  I've been job hunting since I started working in retail for a full time job, but every time I'm asked if I'm currently employed I have to answer yes.  But I'm in a retail limbo, I'm technically employed, but they won't give me hours so I end up with a 'working status' (according to the unemployment agencies) but I'm really sitting on my ass at home.  This has caused me to loose job opportunities because they don't wanna hear about how I haven't been given hours in over a month.

As a result of my sitting-on-my-ass syndrome, I've been working on my art everyday.  If I didn't work on my art I'd probably go crazy and start watching more "quality" TV shows, like the Jersey Shore.  I'm thinking of going down to the real Jersey shore, ok not Seaside or Point Pleasant, but Sandy Hook beach or Keystone beach.  Sandy Hook Beach is a beautiful nature preserve and there's always shells littering the beach.  Mainly hermit crab and snail shells but I manage to find the occasional conch shell laying around.  The last time I went, I brought home a bucket of shells with the intent of distributing them to all the kids at the studio.  Well I quit working there and I still have a ton of shells sitting in a bucket in my garage.  So I don't want to go back and then bring more shells home, cause I think my mother will have a shit fit.  Well, she has a shit fit over nothing anyway do it's nothing new.  Well back to what I was previously saying, I've been working on my art more.  The Brain is sitting in the corner right now and I'm focusing on getting more work done on the Whale.  I spend hours working on that piece and I'm only managing like a square inch every day, or at least a very small area.  I'm still working with the first color of beads!  I need to find a specialty store and color match the beads to the reference that I'm working with, then buy them in bulk.  I've got another 4.5-5 inches left with this color and I'm hopping that I can finish that section in about 4 days. 
Today's an amazing day, it's sunny but it's also raining on and off, without losing the sunshine and it's breezy.  I had wanted to go into NYC today and job hunt, but I realized that most of the places I want to go to are not open until Monday or Tuesday.  Maybe I can convince Dory to skip out on church to hang out with me on Sunday and walk the Garment District.

So I found some great comics via some friends and also from 'link-hoping'.  First there's Minor Acts of Heroism I love this comic. The humor is believable, the characters are adorable and the plot line is so far really engaging.  It also helps that the artistry is all kinds of awesome.  I've encountered web comics that even with the of best plots, I lose visual interest in because the art work is just not polished enough.  The humor is great, it doesn't sound hookey or campy, it sounds like something myself or a friend would say in an everyday conversation and they have some great one-liners.  I highly recommend this comic to anybody who likes super hero comics.  There are a few panels that may come off as being a little boy love or hinting at a relationship between two male characters, but the overall theme doesn't feel like it's swinging in that direction.  But if you don't like that, read at your own risk.  
Then for those of us that are DC comics fans, there's JL8 by Yale Stewart.  This is an incredibly cute series of comics with the Justice League as Kindergarten kids.  This is just all around cuteness.  It's too freaking cute <3

TCHOO TCHOO!!

Playing Spiderman!!!!  I love the guy who makes these comics!!  The art is like an old comic strip from a news paper and there's even texture added to make the effect believable.  I love the villains too!  There's a great sequence with the Joker and Batman where he's like "c'mon hit me!!"  and I was squeeing so hard for the movie references it comes from.

Now for those of you who like retro stuff (and I think I can thank Marina for this link) read I Was Kidnapped by Lesbian Pirates from Outer Space.  (link should take you to vol. 1 cover).  This has a great 1950s feeling to it and it's freaking hilarious.  Basically you meet Susie and she's kidnapped by lesbian space pirates and the crazy adventures that ensue.  The art starts off a little shaky and amateur, but as the comic progresses the art and the plot get better and better.  Of course being a ship full of women, there are lots of shoe jokes, and the ineffectiveness-of-men jokes so all around the humor is pretty good.  The characters are extreme personalities, but that just makes them likeable, but there's no subtlety going on it's all pretty much in your face.  

Well I guess that's all I have to say for today. 
See Ya'll Later!
~Amy

The Continuing Story of the Horns.

Well unfortunately I don't have any photos of the second phase of the horns... sorry guys I dropped the ball.

But I can give some detailed instructions.

First locate your cardboard horns.  Make sure all holes and hollows are plugged up with hot glue.  Some of the cardboard pieces are gonna have big dips in them and it's gonna make the next few steps that much harder if they are not filled in with hot glue trust me.
Next, find your reference images:  these images are what will determine the texture of your horns.  I chose to model my horns after a gazelles.
So now we need a medium.  This is what will cover the horns and allow for some sculpting to take place to give it texture. I used a two part clay called Apoxie.  Two part clays are a clay that has a part A and a part B and you mix them (in this case in equal parts).  If you can't get Apoxie, try another air dry light weight medium.  Paper clay, or paper mache is light weight, malleable and you can sand it.  Don't use standard air dry or terracotta clay since it's brittle and will not adhere very well.  Basically if you would make pots or tiles out of it or if it shatters when you drop it, don't use that clay!  Once you have your medium, spread a thin layer of your clay over the entire horn.  I worked in small sections to allow the clay to harden before moving on to the next spot.  I worked the Apoxie this way so that I would have a hand hold and be able to set the horn on a flat surface to dry without getting marks in the surface.  If you end up with rough patches I've found a basic clay tool (wood or plastic) with a flat, rounded head is good for smoothing out these textures or use a dab of water and rub your finger over the rough patch.  Apoxie has a dry time of about 24 hours according to the package.
When the pair is entirely covered in the primary surface of clay, sand it until it's smooth or the awkward textures you don't want are gone.  Sanding can also help shape the tips of the horns into a point if working with the wet medium fails to produce one.
This is where the reference image(s) are crucial because now any ridges or texture gets added to make the horns seem real.  The gazelle horns I modeled my pair after were smooth and shiny black with large, defined and rounded ridges.

This is the reference photo I used
(via bing search)

 This worked out really nicely for me since it meant I didn't need to make small, freakishly difficult textures on both horns.  After the sculpting was done I took a fine grade of sandpaper and gave the horns a once over to get rid of any unwanted rough patches etc. 
Once all of the sculpting is done, you need to prep your horns for painting.  I picked up a can of glossy black spray paint from Home Depot for like $11.  I chose not to use a primer paint like gesso since I was going to be painting it black.  If  you plan on painting your horns any other color besides black, it may benefit you to use a primer before painting to get an even under tone or a "blank canvas" effect.  After that the painting is all up to you.  I took a black plastic trash bag and split the side seams for a tarp to spray on top of.  It was cheaper than buying one and I could dispose of it after I finished.  Also always spray paint in a well ventilated area like outside and wear a mask.
Methods of attachment can range depending on what you're goals are.  I attached mine to a hat, and the horns were pretty heavy by the way.  I've used 2 tie pins in the past to hold pieces in place, this way I could remove them and exchange bits depending on what my costume goals were.  In this case, due to the weight of each horn, I bonded the horns to the sides of my hat via a combination of E6000 jewelers epoxy and hot glue.  This stuff ensures a strong hold but it takes away the interchangeability of your props.  
So here's what the hat and the horns looked like when I finished:

My lovely work space.

Hot right?  Well here's a picture via the lovely Jillian of the costume I wore it with:

Otakon 2012

I think I wore this for about 2-3 hours before I started to pass out from the heat.  It was over 100 degrees Fahrenheit for that convention and that skirt weighed a few pounds on it's own.  I was sweating my bum off. Oh yeah I totally sewed that skirt in like 5 days and used nearly 6 yards of fabric, but it looks awesome! 

Otakon, now there's a ...cluster fuck.... nah that's too harsh.  It was full of convention drama.  Although the highlight was probably the Cosplay Burlesque Workshop.  We got on line early so we'd get seats (when I say we I mean, Jillian, Mike, and others who I'm too lazy to name but are more than likely a part of the Red Horizon or Phoenix Airship.) and one of our group members shows up to join us on line.  Now, he's dressed as Jay from Jay and Silent Bob (I'll just refer to him as Jay), he walked around with an "Eat Pussy" sign and a boom box along with his friend who was Silent Bob.  So the boom box starts to play that song from Clerks 2, where they do a parody of the Buffalo Bill dance from Silence of the Lambs, and Mike starts to strip.  I'm not kidding you he started shedding layers of clothes.  I'm sure there's a video of it out there on the internet, I just can't seem to find it.  It was really funny though cause Mike had a lot of layers to shed.  There was his gloves, belt, harness, gun and holster, vest, shirt, pants and various other bits and pieces.  All this is happening with the music in the hallway waiting for the workshop to begin.  From the time we were waiting until the end of the workshop which was about 3 hours, Mike managed to strip to his skivvies 3 times.  The workshop was great and at the end, they had a strip-off.  3 guys from the audience got up and danced for our amusement.  The first guy wasn't all that amazing, and then there was a Spock cosplayer and he was just so freaking graceful.  He very nearly kissed one of our group who happened to be in the aisle seat and he was just great to watch.  Then it was Mike's turn.  Now you have to remember that it was over 100 degrees Fahrenheit that day so we had all been sweating like crazy.  So Mike starts stripping again and it's like watching some cheesy 70's porn with this goofy grin on his face.  Well he gets to his shirt, and he swings it around and throws it into the crowd of spectators, and this girl with a braid catches it and her face is priceless, cause that shirt was soaked through with sweat.  You can imagine the horror.  Well after regaining all of his bits (lol) Murder Nurse (one of the Cosplay Burlesque performers) asks Mike to apply for a position in the group.  As of right now Mike claims to be too busy for it, but I think he should apply anyway.  Could be fun right? 

Well I think that's all for now.  I'm sure more Otakon stories will leak out into my posts as I find them relevant or start rambling about them.  So, yeah.
Se Ya'll Later!
~Amy

Plastic is so 1980

It's been way too long since I last posted.  Projects have been crazy and jobs have been too. 

I guess I'm writing this post,
A) because it's 3:30 am and I can't sleep, and
B) I just saw this commercial and I really needed to get my thoughts out on... virtual paper. 

So I'm watching Tanked on Animal Planet, cause lets face it there's nothing else on at 3am.  Then this commercial for a new line of Barbie dolls comes on.  Now normally I just ignore it cause why would I be interested in dolls?  Dolls, frankly creep me out.  What was interesting, was that this is a line of Barbies from all around the world.  Well, that's partially true.  All the dolls looked like various shades of Caucasian at first glance.  So I decided to check out their website cause I figured "That can't be right.  I must be tired and not seeing things right." Well, so far the Barbie website lists 8 dolls: Argentina, Chile, China, Holland, Ireland, India, Australia and Mexico.  All of them look like Caucasian girls.  There's very little difference in skin tone or facial structure.  The darkest skin tone looks like a bad Jersey Shore tan. 

Now the bone I really have to pick with Mattel, is the Australia doll. 

And she gives tours of all the
great Australian nail salons!

This was a great opportunity to teach young girls about indigenous cultures, and Mattel decided to go with what I guess is more marketable: a white outback girl with a koala.  This would have been the great opportunity to have an Aborigine Barbie.  A black Barbie, allowing girls to have a much more diverse world to look at instead of the mildly different skin tones of Mexico and India (as portrayed by Mattel).  I feel like there's a gap in this Mattel world view.  And that gap is called Africa.  I can understand not having an Eskimo or Lithuanian Barbie, they're kind of not so well known cultures (and I'm pretty sure there's an Eskimo Barbie already out there), but to be completely missing the quintessential black girl character from a "multicultural" Barbie line?  Are you kidding me?  This is how we hobble young girls.  This isn't teaching them what true multiculturalism is and it's not a very wonderful role model for young girls of African or Aborigine descent.  This is teaching, "Yeah it's great to be from different places in the world!  But only if you look like a white girl or have an exceptionally light toned skin."  Maybe I'm looking too hard at this or I'm just looking for trouble, but at the same time that's how the commercial reads to me. 
I can't begin to describe how much it bothers me to see some of these kids toys that are... gentrifying the world.  It's like other cultures loose their identity because a company needs to make them more "accessible" to an American market.  These are supposed to be the kind of toys that are like the gateway drug into cultural tolerance.  (There's so much intolerance in the States it still amazes me.  I've been called a Cracker a few times in Baltimore, and I had to wonder if those kids even knew the meaning behind the term.)  We need to return to what the basic function of a toy is.  It's not something to give your child when you want them to shut up: they're learning tools.  Toys are to teach us many things that we need later in life.  They teach social skills like cultural tolerance or are practice for human interaction.  Toys also made us use our imagination, they are inanimate objects that depend on the child to come to life.  This stimulates the brain and makes us think or use, what my mother calls, a "struggle muscle" (the part of the brain that develops the problem solving skills).  Many of my toys were meant to challenge and exercise the brain and to be honest, I benefited from it later in life.  Something as simple as a bucket of Legos was enough to keep me occupied for hours on end just building different structures (the favorite was the upside down pyramid). 
My sister and I recently discussed this.  She went into a local Toys R Us to find a basic bucket of Legos.  Her problem was that this particular Toys R Us didn't carry a set of Legos that was not a pre-made kit.  You could get the Star Wars kit, the Fairy Castle kit or any other pre-organized kit, but getting a basic bucket of Legos without a set of instructions was impossible.  Now don't get me wrong, making models is fun, but the idea behind a bucket of Legos is to let the kid build what they wanted to build without having to use a set of instructions, a free-will sculpture if you will. 

I guess I really wanted to rant about the subject of toys since it was already on my mind.  Sometimes I just want to express an opinion so bad, that I end up with a bad case of Foot-In-Mouth Syndrome.  I just wish these companies would remember that there's more at stake here than just "the bottom line".  There are important skill sets that children need to learn in order to function later on in society, and toys are the tools for that.  This happens to be my belief based on my experiences.  I'm not a child psychologist, but this is my set of ideas just based on what I remember toys being when I was a kid and how different they are today. 

So I guess thanks for tolerating my Foot-In-Mouth Syndrome. 

See Ya'll Later!