CRAFTYisCOOL: CraftyisCool's Big Adventure!

So this is how it went down. Big news around town is that Conan and Pee-wee were coming into town for SXSW (South by Southwest). My two favorite people, here at the same time! What are the chances?! As luck would have it, Stacy at The Knitting Nest also loves them, and she wanted to do a display for the store to welcome them to Austin. I took the dolls to the store and she displayed them in the window along with an adorable banner that read "Welcome to SXSW Coco and Peewee!" Then look, she snapped this picture and tweeted it to both Conan and Pee-wee!

Display window at The Knitting Nest with Conan and Pee-wee live on stage!

So after we both tweeted a few times inviting them down to the Knitting Nest, which I live really close to, Pee-wee's people got in touch with our people and long story short, they didn't have time to make it down Congress to the store, but invited us to Sunday night's Comedy Death-Ray Radio with Scott Aukerman at Esther's Follies downtown.

LISTEN to the show! At 56:00 it gets really good! ;)

My husband and I raced downtown and got in the door quick since we were "on the list" :). I spotted two seats right in the front, to the right of the stage, but within 15 feet of where the great Paul Reubens would be sitting. It was already loaded with SXSW badgeholders, and within a few minutes the line of people waiting outside started to trickle in. Finally Paul Reubens and Scott Aukerman came on stage and we were in the greatest seats! Right by the stage, with Paul facing us the whole time! My little Pee-wee amigurumi was sitting in my lap the whole time, and I was really hoping there would be an opportunity to not just fling it on stage like some crazy person but to actually hand it to him politely and tell him he was my hero.

It was an amazing interview! Listen to the whole thing and you'll hear some stuff you never knew, I'll bet!

At the end, Scott thanked Paul for coming and they both stood up and the crowd did too. Lots of applause, and I stood closer and waved the doll around at him, hoping he wouldn't just exit the stage without taking him. He looked at me and I shouted "Can I give this to you?" and he just beckoned me up on stage!

I walked up and gave him the doll, and he held it up for the crowd and told me he'd seen it so many times and loved it (he tweeted about it twice!) and then I asked him for a hug! Ha! I hugged PEE-WEE!!!

So lifelong dream fulfilled, I left the stage and my husband shouted back at him that our kids LOVE him, which they do, they really really do. (We have the whole Pee-wee's Playhouse series on DVD and they want to watch it over and over, and for our oldest son's first Christmas he got a talking Pee-wee. We've gone a little overboard since then, thanks to eBay and my husband's collecting. We have the Playhouse playset and all the figures and they adore them!)

Here's some more pictures of my absolutely amazing night! In the one where it looks like I'm trying to flash the audience (ha), he had asked me about what I had made for Conan (the doll) and I showed him and the audience the picture Conan had posted with the blimp I made him too!