Fresh Hatching

Fresh from the kiln ... are these little pottery chickens. These are pretty much all singles and each are painted with their own unique colors. I will be adding these to my etsy shop gradually within the next two weeks.





I also wanted to share my lucky find of vintage lily of the valley flowers. I can't believe that I was able to get each bundle for 75 cents. I have seen them online for nearly $5 each. Of course I couldn't help getting much too many but I hope I can finish up some nice wedding birds with these.



Tonight we enjoyed our Halloween tricking and treating too. We carved our own home grown pumpkins!



And these are my "little" monsters and a friend.

The eve of Halloween

This has been the weekend for kids birthday and Halloween parties. The rainy day has us indoors and catching up on a few things (and watching the leaves fall outside in the wind). The hot water heater leak all over the basement floor was not a fun clean up and we finally moved a dehumidifier in there.

Another Etsy treasury to share...

Bird's nests

I have never been interested in planning for Christmas until after Thanksgiving. My only exception to that rule is that we start working out the details on our own homemade holiday cards towards the middle of November. I have always hated seeing Christmas stuff even before Halloween is over.

This year though I realized that if I want to sell any Christmas things in my shop I am going to have to get an earlier start. And so I have been thinking on this a little and came up with these little bird's nests on tiny clothespin clips for the tree. The majority of our own tree decorations are birds though we include all the special vintage ornaments that we have treasured over the years. Last year's tree falling disaster really destroyed quite a few of our ornaments so I am determined to make a few more this year.

So here is my first set of ornaments for the holidays which I am selling in my shop...



Our school canoe trip which I chaperoned was a lot of fun. The wind was crazy though and made the canoing a little difficult. I can't include the pictures though because there were so many school children in them. But I think the kids learned a lot and had fun too.

Enjoying the colors

The trees outside are so beautiful this year. Every time I look outside I am stunned at the colors. Even rainy days look bright and warm.



I am off to chaperone a school canoe trip this morning. It should be a fun and wet day! We should have fun exploring the river banks and discovering all sorts of interesting things.

I finished up on these two birds yesterday. It was supposed to be my day to run errands but the hot water heater had leaked all over the basement floor so I was "hostage" to my home again -- waiting for a plumber that might or might not show up. Luckily he did and its all fixed now -- just a bit of a mess for me to clean up.





And finally I wanted to share this cute little treasury on etsy that includes my little bird by wildlifer78.



Another wedding treasury called "Going to the Chapel" by beadgaldesigns includes a pair of my wedding birds.

Fall is here!

I was reluctant to let go of summer but starting to enjoy our cooler fall weather. We haven't had a killing frost yet -- just enough to kill the basil and pumpkins. But the morning glories are lingering on. Yesterday was so cool in the house that I finally made my way to the thermostat and crossed my fingers that the furnace would start up. We are still keeping the temps down but the kids are complaining of the cold.

I finished up these little wedding birds and wanted to share them






I am always amazed when they are finished and enjoy their sweet little faces.


I also finished up these two birds while traveling over the weekend



Which reminds me.... We had our tenth anniversary/reunion with the other families that traveled to China to adopt their daughters. It was so much fun to see them together and they really enjoyed our short visit together. I can't believe how fast the years go by.

A nice rainy day.

One of my new little hand sewn birds is included in an Animal Friend Treasury on Etsy by PatriciasPalette.

Chicken love

I finished up this little garden sculpture/ornament that I have been thinking of. I found the blue hen at a flea market store and since it was missing its base it was so inexpensive. The little cement eggs are just cast from plastic easter eggs. The bowl is just from left over cement just cast in the sand (pretty rough). And the rusty barbed wire was found on one of our railroad track walks. I might make a cement column base at some point but the small granite stone is fine for now.

A visit with friends

We had a wonderful weekend visit with friends this weekend. They came all the way from outside of Montreal to see us. The kids are missing them so much now.

There is so much going on right now in my art/business life and I will be sure to share the news soon (when I have a moment to breath!). I had to take a short break with the needle felting due to my carpal tunnels problems. But this meant I had a chance to make these little handmade birds that I have so long been thinking of. They are each hand sewn with wire legs and glass eyes. With some I will use vintage fabrics and other will have soft fabric tummies.

Inspiration

The little birds that chatter and flit about their cage while I work on the computer inspired my latest project -- a little bird cage with a pair of needle felted finches.



The wire isn't particularly cooperative but I still think its a cute cage -- even if it is a bit lopsided. I love the newsprint on the bottom. This came from some old paper we found in the house and has interesting want ads listed.

Autumn Moon Festival

We celebrated our annual Autumn Moon Festival on Saturday. It just happened that grandma and grandpa were visiting and my sister, her husband, and two kids joined us as well. Friday night we were up late making the cookies. We pressed the dough into the wood molds and added bean paste and almond paste fillings.


On Saturday morning we gathered all our festival lights and pumpkin lights to set up our decorations on the porch. We usually celebrate in the playhouse but with so many joining us this year we had to improvise a bit.

Once everyone showed up and dressed in their chinese silk outfits, we started with decorating lanterns. We used my daughter's new set of watercolor pens and they worked out very well. I cut a cardstock 8.5x11 paper in half lengthwise and gave every kid a paper to work on. We brought out a few of the chinese "chop" stamps to use too.

When everyone had finished a panel or two I stapled them into a cylinder. I gathered up several glass jelly canning jars and candles placed the lantern collars around the jars. We lit up a bon fire in the back yard by the playhouse and toasted a few marshmallows (if you have a fire this is clearly required).




We put on the chinese music tape and the kids gathered up their ribbon sticks to dance about the yard. Its always so pretty at dusk as they run around with the smoke from the fire making everything so mysterious. They pretended to be dragons and raced about chasing each other.


We ordered chinese takeout for dinner to make it easier (with that many additional people) and the kids ate on the porch amongst all our lanterns and lights. After dinner we had our chinese green tea and mooncakes as well as a few fortune cookies.


We waited until the moon was up to take our traditional walk down to the river. We gathered up our handmade "lanterns" and one small flashlight and walked through the dark field and woods down to the bank of the river. There we set two apples afloat with small candles on the water. A beaver upstream was busy slapping the water and scaring the kids a bit. We stood in the moonlight quietly watching the candles float downstream saying a quiet prayer for loved ones near and far. My youngest -- hearing one too many "swamp monster" stories in her life made a quicker exit with grandma. I always love this walk by candlelight.