Cranes for Killian

I was stumbling around on Dude Craft the other day and came across one of those rare, eye-misting causes that happen everywhere, all the time. But only pop up online like this every now and then. It was Cranes for Killian. Killian is a totally amazing teenager with cancer, who loves the 1000 cranes story (if you grew up anywhere near the Pacific Rim, you'll know it - if not, it's this). Anyway, the call went out for people to make paper cranes to send to him. So I got a posse together at work and we all learned how to make them together. Since then, the cranes have arrived and a pic of them has been added to Killian's flickr group. Which made Thalia (my friend at work) cry. Awww. If you want to make some too, you definitely should. It's easy. And nice. And the details are all here.

Art in the Attic

Last weekend, the lovely folks at ArtQuest asked me to create a stall for their annual artist jumble sale. So I set up shop offering a free valuation and restoration service to hunt out the hidden art treasures lost among the jumble. Turns out, the room was full of priceless objet d'art - all they needed was a bit of restoration. During the day, I uncovered a pencil that was actually a Jim Lambie, a few unlikely Damian Hursts and a Chapman Bros work. A humble print from a charity shop turned out to be an unsigned Chris Ofili (the dung was missing - but I restored that with some fake poo I from Preposterous Presents). I also found a rare Jeff Koons, a Yayoi Kusama, a Bruce Nauman audio recording, a raft of Christos and a long lost Banksy. After I'd restored these incredible pieces, the proud owners got a certificate of authenticity with a valuation for insurance purposes. I got to meet some lovely folks, have some fun and illicit the odd knowing guffaw. And wear a pair of cardboard comedy glasses. All of which are undoubtably good things.

Juvenile, peurile and irresponsible

But still quite funny though.

Spectacular failure

We had an 11 year old down to visit over the weekend. So that meant trips to TK Maxx, expensive tickets to London's *star* attractions, teen movies and lot's of coke (a-cola). But nothing we did was as much fun for her, or us, as failing miserably at making a tyre swing out the back of our house. It was a total disaster. Getting the rope over the tree branch was a ridiculous process. Then once we'd hung the tyre, we realised it was so bald on one side that the metal reinforcing mesh was sticking out. Which punctured several fingers. Then started tearing the rope. Which, incindetally, began to stretch. The more we swung, the longer it got. So we ditched the tyre. Then tied a stick on instead. The rope got longer still. We tried another one. Even longer. Until parts of the rope were so dangerously thin we decided to get out the scissors and call it a day. It was brilliant though. The more it went wrong, the more fun it became. And all our fussing attracted neighbouring kids, who got involved too. And that earned us waves from the busloads of bemused people going past. So below is not a picture of a perfect tyre swing. But perhaps something even better.

Luscious locks

I've said it before, and I'll probably say it again, but I'm a bit obsessed with Paks. Maybe it's the leave-in placenta conditioner (gross). Or the whole aisle of real human hair (also kinda gross). Or the fact that I have no idea how to actually use any of it. But I find it endlessly fascinating. Anyway, on my last trip, I nabbed a massive length of blond polyester for £2. A quick spruce later and we were both ready for a night out. I've had a couple of requests for hairy rope chains now too, so I imagine they'll be cropping up around these parts sometime soon...

(As a side note, these pics were taken in the small hours, which should simultaneously explain both the slightly crazed expression, and the bad focus (which I incidentally quite like)).

(As another side note, I'm not actually a caner - ignore the above).

Plastic penises at the ready

Last weekend I had the dubious honour of putting together 7 outfits for a clubnight. With zero money. The afternoon before. Eek. Anyway, the theme for the night was 'feminity, so I thew together a last minute hen-night for the occasion. The end result wasn't big, and it wasn't clever. But it was funny, and cheap (£7 each, yessss). I tell you what though, hen-night shopping is not for the faint hearted. I spent a good half-hour sifting through an elaborate array of penis-shaped tat, until settling on glittery penis deely-boppers (and heart-shaped ones for the more demure), penis balloons and a penis-whistle for a bit of piece of flair. Then scoured the market for lays, L-plates, klaxons, fake nails and net curtains to complete the...look. I must admit, dressing in a pack is actually loads of fun (go Crips!). But perhaps more fun was when the outfits disintegrated and the deely boppers started circulating around the party. They even ended up on the bar-staff at one point. Hooray!