Angry Bean Bag Chair

Just finished the birthday present for my nephew Tyler who turns 6 today. He loves Angry Birds. A few months ago, he came up to me with his iPhone (yes, he has an iPhone!) and showed me the official plush Angry Birds toys that are available for purchase. He pointed to the screen and told me, "You can make these for me. All the ones." He didn't ask if I would make them for him; he told me to make them. But he said it in the sweetest way, I couldn't say no.


It's been a while since I was given those little orders, but I haven't forgotten. Tyler probably had some small ball-sized birds in mind, but this guy here is about 3 feet in diameter. I think he'll have a fun time throwing this around the house.
Overall, this took about 6 hours to make. I didn't want to buy a pattern for the bag, so I drew up my own. It's basically a giant fleece beach ball with a zipper at the bottom, and inside is a second bag, made of muslin, to hold the bean bag pellets.
The only big frustration was when I spilled some of the bean bag pellets on my apartment floor. Imagine hundreds of statically charged foam balls rolling all over the ground. It was like I dropped a giant box of Kix--Kix that rolled away when you tried to scoop them up, then clung to your hands when you tried to deposit them into the bean bag!
Next up: two more bean bag chairs...one for my niece Olivia, and one for my nephew Barrett!

happy new year!

already february 2011. it's been over half a year since i posted on here! since my last post, i've spent a month on jury duty, camped in canada (road trip!), partied in miami, and splurged in spain. maybe more on those trips later--right now i want to talk about my newest focus: training for a half marathon!

i've never considered myself to be a runner, and i actually find running to be a bit boring...but my friend jon asked me out of the blue one day, and i thought "sure, why not?" of course, as with most of my crazy plans, i roped in the boyfriend. he's been a great motivator, and even did his best in getting me on my feet when i was sick. we found a half-marathon training schedule online by a man named hal higdon, here--it's a 12 week program. this past week i was really good and successfully completed week 1 of training. my legs are quite sore right now, but i have good momentum going! hopefully training will continue smoothly and injury-free (knock on wood)!