Another bird treasury...

A beautiful bird treasury on Etsy includes my little ceramic chicken family. It's called "We can never get enough of birds" by starrydesigns.

A nest for the birds...

The girls are enjoying our new little birds and they certainly add a little noise to the quiet house here. Last evening I needle felted a small white nest for them. They were so cute snuggled up in the nest together!

In between packaging up several orders to mail out and cleaning house I worked on finishing these little birds to go with my latest cake topper base. The flowers are tiny vintage millinery flowers which I ordered especially for this project. I made the base over a week ago now but was so busy with my custom orders I could only dream of finishing it. The birds are somewhat smaller than my standard size to fit under the arch.

Tic Tac Toe

My daughter's head injury in the bathtub took a turn for the worse (headache and vomiting) and I was off to the emergency room with her at 8pm. She was terrified to go the the ER and screamed and yelled threats at me -- "I won't be your daughter anymore if you make me go!" But eventually we made it there. I was exhausted from my cold and I hate when my kids get hurt. It was a busy night and we waited forever. We brought a bag of library books and I read to her. When we finally were shown a room we played tic tac toe for hours. She loved winning and was so proud. I love her smiles so much! After a CT scan of her head we were told she had a concussion and that we could go home. It was 1am before we pulled in the driveway. I kept her home today with me so she could get more sleep and I could keep an eye on her.

I finished up the detail work on this pair of wedding birds today. The groom is an Orioles fan and the fall colors are so beautiful.

Nothing like a cold to ruin a day...

I knew that I would eventually come down with a cold. The kids have been bringing home all sorts of fun little colds to share amongst themselves. I really want to go outside and enjoy the warm weather we are having but I feel pretty miserable.

We have two new additions to our crowded house -- a pair of zebra finches. They and five other birds were abandoned at the local hardware store. I suppose that the owner planned on trying to give them to the nearby pet store but they could not take them due to quarantine issues. He asked an employee at the hardware store for some water for them and while that employee was getting the water he took off leaving the birds behind. My friend happened to stop in the store for paint and agreed to take them home. Before we were married and later before we had kids we had quite a few little birds like this so it wasn't difficult to convince me to bring a few home. They are noisy little ones though!

This is what I have been working on this morning. Another pair of wedding birds


and this colorful rooster.

Happy 275th Birthday!

Yesterday was our town's 275th birthday celebration. I am sure everyone was relieved to have such beautiful weather too! We decided to walk with our children in the 4H float for the parade. They did such an awesome job with the float. They had a sheep and several chickens in cages on the float and off the back a few bunnies in cages too!

The kids had several baskets of candy which they handed out to children along the parade route. Everyone had so much fun.

After we finished our march we headed back to the town common to enjoy the rest of the parade and grab something to eat.



I just loved sitting on the granite foundation watching everyone having so much fun. Girls ran around with flags and toy dogs on a leash and the boys were playing sword fights with inflatable swords. I was even tricked into touching a "shocking" pen. OUCH! Its times like this I really love this little town we live in.




On a different note I am so pleased to have my bird's nest wedding ring pillow featured today on the Etsy Wedding blog. Thank you so much!

Another busy week

Well I think I have finally adjusted to being alone in the house during the day. Early in the week I finally got around to fixing my hypertufa planter that I made and broke last fall. It was so large and heavy that when I turned it over I dropped a few inches and broke off one side into several pieces. That was a frustrating reminder that patience always pays off. I had made an attempt this spring at a repair but was interrupted by a visitor and the cement mortar dried fast and basically made the situation even worse. I think it looks fine now but probably not very strong so I don't intend to move it. Its really too heavy to move anyway and I know my husband hasn't enjoyed moving these planters around too much. I love their rustic earthy look!

I also played around and made a few cement mushrooms but the paper towel roll bases in my first attempt were much too small. So I made a rough cylinder form with some cardboard and tape that should make a sturdier base. I am hoping if I "plant" them in a shady spot I can get some moss to grow on them a bit. A buttermilk and crumbled moss mixture is a good starter for that.

This is one photo of my lopsided cement balls. I just filled in with concrete a few deflated balls the kids broke. I peeled off the plastic ball early so I could smooth it a bit too.

I took a bunch of photos of Mexican stone carvings down at the Museum of Natural History in NY this summer and would love to try making something like them in hypertufa. I think I will avoid some of the interesting "fertility" sculptures that might get too much attention from the kids though. They seemed amused enough at the museum!


I am busily working on my little birds and finished this one this week.


I just had to make something for Halloween and made this little display of pumpkins.



Take a look at this cute Etsy Treasury! Its called "I do ... do you?" by terbearco.

Caught off guard...

Every year around this time I am always surprised by that first threat of frost (the days seem so comfortably warm). We live near a river and our vegetable garden is down a hill in a low lying area. So we get a rather early frost compared to our neighboring towns. So (this year being no exception) last night I was running around "like a crazy chicken" covering all the plants I wanted to keep a bit longer. Just when the morning glories are so beautiful along comes a frost to kill them and turn them in to a brown tangle of vines. But for the most part it looks like the last night's temps stayed above the frost mark and we are given a brief respite before fall is here and winter comes marching along.

We have some huge pumpkins in the garden this year and I would love them to get even bigger. We have never had such big ones and after last year I was almost going to give up on them. The kids were so excited when they found them yesterday. I made a VERY tall stick trellis out of branches we cut. This week I will work on a second one. I also spent a few hours on Sunday with my hands in a bin of cement to make a few cement mushrooms. I also took two popped balls to fill with cement too. I basically took over my kids sand pile to do this project. This summer I had no time to do this since any free time was consumed by my custom orders from my shop.

I started up a list of links on my blog side bar called "who loves chickens". I would love to add more links too so if anyone has any to share please let me know. I found several last night and added the awesome flickr groups I love.

Adjusting to the quiet house...

Well I have almost survived my first week at home with no kids during school hours. The days actually go by pretty fast and I still find myself with not enough time to finish what I want to do. And my art and craft work keep me very busy too. So its not so bad. I guess I just need a routine and some way to get me through the drearier rainy and then cold winter days.

I took my camera onto the porch and a pair of wedding birds to take a few pictures. In an elm tree of ours that died suddenly this summer there were a pair of woodpeckers pecking noisily at the trunk of the tree. They were larger than the small downy woodpeckers I have seen visiting the tree recently. I have been thinking about what to do about this tree quite a bit. Its so sad just looking at the dead limbs and I am tempted to cut it down. My other thought was to put up many bird houses on the tree. We have a gourd plant growing crazily in our garden this year with so many gourds too. So I could hang a bunch of these up. I'm not sure how pretty it will be and certainly won't provide any shade like that lovely tree did but it would be nice for the birds. I like having the woodpeckers visit too.

So here are my latest pair of wedding birds. This bride has a sweet little birdcage veil. When I was making it my youngest pointed out that it looked like a birdcage before she even knew what it was called. I was pretty happy with her unsolicited compliment though!



My middle child interviewed me this week regarding "how I use math in my daily life". It was fun talking to her about my store on Etsy. I think she was a little surprised at what I needed to do to have a "store".

Birds of a feather

I finished photos of this pair of birds this morning though the wind was not making this an easy task.



I adjusted the groom's head a bit so he looks at the bride and he looks so cute. The teal and white colors on the groom are quite attractive too. The bride's veil is a birdcage veil and I am pretty happy with it. I love the feather and the pearls.

Woof woof! I do!

As promised I dressed up my needle felted pair of dogs for their wedding day. The groom is sporting a rather dashing top hat and the bride has a sweet flower veil. They are wearing matching turquoise collars with the groom having a bow tie and the bride a jeweled necklace.







The will be off soon to serve as a cake topper for an upcoming wedding. They are so cute I am going to miss them.

Who let the dogs out?

This seems to be the never ending question as kids go in and out the door all summer long. We live on a busy street so this is a big concern for us with the dogs. This weekend wasn't a happy one for our older dog. She appears to have injured her good leg while trying to get off the couch. Poor thing can't even get up now. We have to carry her outside. I guess she won't be making any of her mysterious escapes anymore.

My sister's family is also going through a difficult time with their older dog (only 8 years though). The poor thing was diagnosed with cancer last weekend and she is fading fast. She was running around with our puppy this summer without a care in the world. The cancer has moved in fast and spread to her internal organs. The family is facing some difficult decisions this month. How do you explain this to young children when its so hard to deal with as an adult?


I have been working on these little needle felted dogs for a custom order. They have kept me busy nearly the full morning -- which I need as I adjust to this QUIET that is almost deafening (kids at school all day now). They are just so awesome -- I can't believe I made them myself.

This handsome fella is a Bernese Mountain Dog



This sweetheart is a Husky ...



I will be "dressing them up" this evening so they are ready for the "big" day.

Rainy days, clematis, and a cute little squirrel

We are enjoying our first rainy day after pretty much a month without rain. Everything was turning brown and the asters are flowering early this year due to the drought. My autumn clematis is blooming and looks so beautiful along our fence. So many white blossoms.


I can't help but taking more and more pictures of it. I am so glad I remembered to keep it watered during the drought.



This little squirrel is a custom order gift for bride's maid and will accompany a pair of wedding birds to the wedding. I love the cute little eyes!



We survived the start of school last Thursday but I am missing my youngest now that she is at school all day. She talks so much and it is much too quiet without her. Normally she can drive anyone up the wall with her chatter -- but I love it sometimes. Am I the only mom out there to miss their kids when they finally go off. No one else seems to mind and most are celebrating.

Twenty years!

Today is our twentieth wedding anniversary! I can't believe that that much time has gone by. The years go by so fast. My husband fixed me breakfast in bed this morning (crepe suzette and caramel cappuccino) with a dozen red roses.


This is a photo taken on our wedding day as we walked together out of the church. I was so happy that I just closed my eyes to savor the moment. Whenever I see this photo it brings me back to that moment of pure happiness.

A nice day for a hike

We are meeting up with my sister's family to hike Mt. Kearsarge this morning. It should be a fun hike and the day is nice and cool. We are bringing some cucumber sandwiches and snacks to eat at the summit. Now if I can just get everyone out the door ... including me ;)

These are two more sets of wedding birds that I finished and sent off last week.







.... We had a lovely day hiking. The young kids pretty much ran up the mountain on a very steep rocky trail. We brought along our younger dog and my sister brought theirs too. What fun those dogs had as they wrestled and tumbled up and down and up and down and up and down the mountain. Overall they probably traveled the equivalent of several mountain climbs. And they never seemed to tire at all. I with my knee and recent ankle sprain and my oldest daughter with her ankle sprain were a little slower going up. The view from the top was breathtaking and so clear. We enjoyed the panoramic view of all the other mountains surrounding us. The trail we took down the mountain was considerably easier than the trail up.

Late afternoon we drove to my brother in laws parents house to enjoy their new in ground pool. It was heated so the kids were in heaven. They didn't want to come out of the pool. We left for home when it got dark at 8pm and even then we had to drag the kids out. The young kids were making a lot of progress in their swimming too!