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.

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.