5 days and counting!

Well, only five days off left. i've been busily trying to think of all the things I have to do before returning to work. I still have to buy school uniforms for my boys, all the expensive stuff they have to have that's been printed and embroidered etc. But that's okay...
I am quite pleased with myself for yesterday though. I managed to find time to complete a card for one of the CB swaps, and have the bare bones of others ready to do today. I really enjoy these, because they give me a challenge, working in styles I'm not used to. I'm hopefully going to finish the rest of them later today for the September swaps. I've never made tags, atc's or bookmarks before...will be fun!
I thought I'd explain a bit about my screen-name today. It also explains how I got to meet Disturbed, and more specifically their lovely singer David Draiman.
I started making teddy bears when I was twenty, fully jointed mohair bears like Steiff make. I quickly got bored of following patterns though, so I began to design my own. In my late twenties, after I started listening to rock/metal and going to gigs, I came up with the idea of making bears to imitate musicians. As I had tickets to go and see Disturbed and had recently had a portrait tattoo of their singer I decided to make a David Draiman bear first. When choosing the material I looked through my fabrics and decided none of them were metal enough. So I looked in my local car boot sale and found a black suede waistcoat for 50p! Bargain. It was very hard to sew suede, as I sew all my bears completely by hand, but I managed. So I made an eight inch black bear, then the funny bits began! As anybody who knows David could tell you, he has a fantastic and very individual double labret (lip) piercing, in which he wears two spikes which hang down over his chin - like a metal goatee. It was hard to emulate this, but I managed to do it with some heavy gauge aluminium wire which I filed to points and put through the bears chin! I thought it looked great, and couldn't wait to try and get it to David.
The bear and I went to the gig. Hubby went before me to get us a place in the queue as I was working on the day, and while there he got chatting to a girl who had won a meet 'n' greet with the band, so she was given the bear, and she went and gave it to david. She reported back that he had laughed his ass off, then said 'Shame I couldn't meet the Metal Ted Girl'!
So there's my name, right there! A few years later on a return gig, we were once again queueing when one of the tour managers started walking up and down the lines with his digital camera and video recorder asking if anyone had anything to show the band. My hubby yelled himover to us and I showed off my tattoo. He asked if David had seen it - I said not. Then he said he was going to go show him it right there. So I told him about the bear and asked him to tell David I was the one who had made it. He gave me a pen and asked me to write a note, so I did. He disappeared and five minutes later came back to me and said, 'David sent you this.' I looked at his hands expecting to see an autograph or such, but he gave me a backstage pass! And that's how I got to meet one of my favourite musicians.
I have many other stories to tell on this - I have previously met Nine Inch Nails, Godhead, Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster, Amen, Wheatus, Billy Talent and The Darkness among others. But they will have to wait for another day, cos I've got crafting and shopping to do! TTFN!