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.

Running around like a chicken ...

I had to drag them out of bed today for their last school day. A late night return from the Thursday night band concert was the culprit. It was a rather cool night for a summer concert. The girls headed off to school this morning with wrapped bottles of our own maple syrup as teacher's gifts. My youngest made up the bottle labels this year and they are rather cute.

Once they were off to school I hurried up my work on a needle felted set of little white hens. Yesterday I finally dragged myself and some of my work down to a local antique/plant/art shop to show the owner my work. She really liked a little white hen that I had made and wanted a bunch more for today (she has a show somewhere else on Saturday). I am not sure why I stood there tongue-tied -- obviously I should have said "no". With the band concert that night it was a near impossible task. I spent most of the afternoon working on these and even worked on the little wire legs and feet while sitting at the concert. I worked late into the night and stopped when I found I was stabbing myself more often than the wool --- ouch!

I had a vet visit scheduled for our older dog and the Farmer's Exchange called and said our chicks were in. And before you know it all the kids were home from school (half-day). I scrambled to get the little cage ready and drove down with the kids to pick up the chicks. They were SO tiny and SO cute! I just wanted to sit on the porch and cuddle them all afternoon. But I was supposed to be down at the shop around 1pm with my hens and some pottery chicken families. I didn't make it though. I wasn't done until nearly 3 and dragged everyone down to the shop with me. But the small parking lot was full of trucks and was dug up since they are repairing the septic system after spring flooding ruined it. So all this rushing for nothing. Arghh! I missed out on a perfectly beautiful day stressing over getting this done. Ah well.

But I do have some rather cute hens to show for all this fuss. Here are a few photos of my little needle felted hens. They look so cute in their chorus line.







And I have to share these little darlings, Rosie, Moe, and Johnny...




The girls discovered that when you tip the little chicks nestled in the palm of your hand -- they go to sleep. These little bantams are the smallest chicks we have ever had.

We ended our evening with the last 4H meeting of the school year. The kids made yummy vanilla ice cream in a ziplock bag. Ice and rock salt in an outer ziplock bag and a lot of jiggling, jumping children made some very good ice cream.

Ice from the sky

We had a surprise hail storm yesterday afternoon. It was so noisy outside and in the house my youngest was terrified and I was a bit surprised too. I just looked out the window at the plants getting pummelled by the 1/2 inch balls of ice. There wasn't much I could do to save them because the lightening was very close. Thunderstorms kept rolling through all afternoon so I opened up the sewing machine and started a few sewing projects. I am working on some stuffed fabric hens and chicks. I have sold the hens locally in a few shops and at fairs. I have a basket of them in my living room that makes me smile too. I made up the pattern myself but I am having a little trouble getting the little chicks to look cute enough. I want their heads to be larger and round but they aren't quite coming out like I am imagining them. I guess a few trials will be in order.

I finally finished painting the wooden base for this handsome rooster so he could be ready for the shop. I love the black and white coloring on him. Mounting him to the base was a bit of a trick but I have a tiny drill that worked out fine with a little patience. I loosely modeled him after a photo of a Fresian rooster that I saw on Flickr and loved. I am thoroughly enjoying all the beautiful pictures shared on Flickr.

Chicken girl

I have been wanting to make a few little dolls for my shop but only managed to get this little one done.


I guess I am a bit rusty on doing this. I have made so many over the years as birthday gifts, party favors, Christmas decorations, but its been a while since I had the opportunity to do this again. I dreamed of this little chicken girl a few days ago and wanted to try it. I couldn't decide whether to make the precious hen black or white but settled on black in the end.

A set of my little pottery chickens is in another Etsy Treasury called Big Cocks by poorlulu

Another rainy day...

I finished this little french hen or "la poule" today. Craft night with my friends is tomorrow night and I'm really looking forward to it. I started work on another wedding couple and I may be doing a custom order for an upcoming wedding. Exciting! Anything to do with weddings is so much fun.

Well it looks like rain in the forecast for the next few days too. I think this will mean the end of the lilacs for us. My beautiful white crab apple only had 2 days before the rain spoiled the flowers. Here is the last photo of the lilacs I took while the sun was out. The deep purple is already fading.

Getting through the week...

I am getting dizzy driving my kids to and from activities. With three of them there always seems to be some overlap of activities so its difficult to work this out. With my husband now working so much farther away I can't count on him for "pick ups". This will all be over in another month and then we can relax a bit, I hope. In the mean time I am more than a little stressed.

I finished up my little hen and chicks that I had been working on for a while. On Monday me and my youngest took a walk over to the nearby antique store and found the base for this. An antique salt container missing its chicken top was perfect. My daughter also collected a few little glass figures there too. It is difficult to shop with a child who would rather talk a walk outside. She pestered me CONSTANTLY. But once she picked up her little trinkets she was quiet.


My needle felted penguins are featured on another Etsy treasury. This one is for felted items and was put together by kraftymomma.


My daughter and I checked up on the lilacs and they are really so beautiful. We cut some and put them in water to bring inside. I wish I could do this everyday of the year. I suppose since these things are so temporary we treasure them more.

The Hen House

I really like the name "The Hen House" and may just make a sign for our little hen house with just those words on it. The french word for this would be Le Poulailler and this would be cute too. There is a group on flickr called the Le Poulailler or The Henhouse and I joined this group very soon after first uploading pictures to my flickr account. I love looking at pictures of chickens and even shared a few of my photos with that group. My little hen illustration was just voted picture of the month for April. I'm glad they like it. I named it "Did I do that?". And I know that is how I sometimes feel about many things.


My flickr account
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rainsend/

Le Poulailler flickr group
http://www.flickr.com/groups/henhouse/

This little ACEO is still for sale in my shop.
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=5456496


I finished and mailed out this custom ordered bluebird this morning too.