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.

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.