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.

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.

This is what childhood memories are made of...

We had a busy week with my sister and having a fun time with the cousins. Cook outs on the 4th of July, late night board games, walks in the woods, walks along the old railroad tracks, hide and seek in the graveyard, a beach day, movies, swimming in the pool, catching frogs, the tire swing, and a day at the amusement park kept us pretty entertained. I have two sisters and there are now 7 children among us. The kids really had fun together.

Today I am enjoying a quiet house but still missing our guests. The rainy day seems to fit my mood since I don't like goodbyes. I did have time to work on a few projects and finish up some too.

A sweet custom order robin's nest...



A custom made pair of needle felted turtles...



My biggest project for the week was a custom order pair of wedding birds with a cake topper base. I often got up early to work on these or found a quiet spot to work while the kids had fun.