It's Beginning to Smell a Lot Like Christmas

It's not over till the tree is down!  This year, for the first time in several years, we had a real tree.  And by sheer luck, it ended up being a balsam!  I don't know if anybody else even cares what kind of tree they have, but my mini-vacation here has been four days of balsam-scented heaven.  I don't plan to throw this tree out until nothing remains but a stick.

It's been a great Christmas for me, spent with my two favorite men.  Other than spending Christmas Eve with Sparky, we didn't do anything special, in fact we didn't do anything at all, but getting to see our son is a rare and precious thing.  We never know when we'll get to see him again, and tomorrow he flies back to that wild and foreign land known as California.  This time we got a bonus, and actually got to spend a little time with Kaela as well so that was pretty awesome.

So now the Christmassing is over, except for the tree of course, and I'm looking forward to 2013.  The reason I never get post-holiday depression is that I have already started planning my projects for the spring.  I have lots of plans for this year for the shop and the Etsy shop, and I have already started on some of them. 

By the way, I am disabling the Anonymous comments feature from this blog; if you want to leave a comment you will have to leave your name.  I am hoping that this will result in fewer porn posts in my mailbox.

End Of The World Suite In G Major

   Well, we're still here.  Can't say I'm surprised really, after all every couple of years the end of the world comes and goes pretty much without notice by most people except those who read the tabloids.  Wicked weather this morning DID almost spell the end of the world for Preston's truck; the top half of a huge pine tree snapped off and fell, missing the side of the truck by literally three inches. It could have been totaled. So I'd say this was a pretty lucky day at our house.

     Anyway, here I sit watching The Santa Clause once again, if only because everytime I watch it I have the same thought, which is that I would really like to move in to Santa's place.  The sets for Santa's workshop are so beautiful and detailed and cheerful!
     So in between watching TV I was finishing up some Christmas presents and hemming some pants that I'd promised for tomorrow.   Also I was commissioned to put some wording on a big Jolly Roger flag that some lucky pirate is getting for Christmas.  Never a dull moment in my world, seriously.

Straight Outta Who-ville

Cause that's how I roll...with beads and glitter.

Like many other things, I didn't really have a plan when I started these; I was making Santa ornaments, and the shape I had in my hand looked kind of tree-like.  And since I've had nontraditional colors in my brain this Christmas, I went with the cotton batting.  To make them stand up, I used those wooden circles (which are actually pieces I scavenged from some game I can't remember that got thrown away years ago) and little shaker pegs with the tenons cut off.  The tallest tree is about 6 or so inches high.  But that's as far as the idea went, the rest was just getting out the beads and glitter and waiting to see what happened.  I do like the one in the front with the bead garland, and the one at the back on the right which has little green plastic leaf beads hanging off of it.  I generally am a bead snob and avoid the plastic ones, but these were really cute and I thought SOMEday I would come up with a use for them!  The other trees I''m not too excited about.  So unless I get slapped with some sort of glittery epiphany, I probably won't make any more.  I asked Preston, "so are these cute and funky, or just weird and wrong?" and he said they look like something out of Dr. Seuss.  Which is kind of what I was going for, so I win!!!

The Holly and the Chaos

It has been brought to my attention that I'm always posting about stuff I'm working on, but never stuff I've completed.  The question was, "Do you EVER finish anything?"  Well, yes and no.  In the case of the nativity barn in the previous post, that project is kind of in a holding pattern as I percolate over how to do the people and animals.  Sometimes it takes me a long time for things to work themselves from the depths of my brain into reality.

Case in point:  I have a tote full of twig wreaths that I bought years ago.  Small ones, around 6 - 8", kind of too small to hang on your door and too big to hang on your tree.  I don't know what I thought I was going to do with them, I didn't really have a plan, but they were on sale and well made, not junky, so I grabbed them. I had some vague idea involving beads and wire, but although I've mulled  THAT over for a long long time, I couldn't ever formulate any kind of design.  Last year, I bought these neat berries at Hack and Livery (and if you've not been there, you need to go.  I have to go in every once in a while and just take it all in.  It's magical.)

They have been sitting on my desk here for about a year now, looking pretty and defying me to come up with a purpose for them.  Then at some point a few weeks ago, the hand of inspiration reached out and slapped me.  I needed to combine those berries, those wreaths, papier mache birds (which I'd been meaning to make also since last year) and handmade holly leaves.  Birds I can do, I've worked with papier mache before many times.  But holly leaves?  How to do that?  Of course I could BUY some and stick them on there and call it handmade, but that just wasn't going to work for me.  If I didn't already have the berries, I'd find a way to make those too.  But the leaves were enough of a challenge.  How to make leaves that are 3 dimensional (as much as leaves are), had a shape, would HOLD that shape, and look as realistic as possible, not cartoony?  Percolated about that for the last couple of weeks.

Then, while digging through my Little Shop of Chaos for something else, as is frequently the case, I came across some really stiff felt pieces that someone gave me.  Didn't think I'd ever have a use for them, but you never know, so I stashed them in there (which is why it's chaos. My dad would approve wholeheartedly.) and the fact that I didn't have any green didn't bother me in the least, as I wanted them painted anyway.  So then I had to figure out how to give them shape.  Gathering thread down the center just made them frilly, and that wasn't what I was going for.  BUT, after playing around with one for a while, I discovered that if I folded them in half and made a seam down the back and then gathered THAT, it made them curve in just the right way!  Looks like this.

So next I've got to get them all painted and then figure out how big to make the birds.  Cardinals? Bluebirds? Goldfinches? Chickadees?  Some of each?  I've got a lot of wreaths, and a limitless number of leaves.  But only one spray of berries.  Maybe I'll have to figure out how to make berries after all. And back into the Little Shop of Chaos I go!

Old Moss Woman's Nativity Barn

I'd like to address all those people, whoever you are, who commented (and then deleted them) on my last post; these people said all sorts of nice things like "you've given me lots to think about" and what a "thought-provoking post" that was.  If you read my last post, you'll no doubt agree that none of those descriptions apply.  So I'd just like to say, don't bother commenting and then deleting your comment, just so I get the email; I'm not clicking on your links because I'm not stupid enough to fall for whatever phishing scam this is.   ANYway.....

...hope all our east coast peoples are all prepared for Sandy!  The wind is picking up outside already even though she's not supposed to hit until tomorrow night.  I need to go to the store sometime today and get some last minute stuff but right now I'm trapped in my house.  Preston is really sick (head/chest cold) and literally didn't sleep all last night so he's sleeping now.  While that sounds like a good time for me not to be here, I can't even get dressed because if I do my dog gets all excited and starts talking to me and she doesn't know how to use her inside voice.  Plus she starts running around the house and making general dog noise so I'm just sitting here enjoying my third cup of tea and trying to figure out what kind of figures I want to make to go with this nativity barn I put together.  I was thinking something that resembled Matreshka dolls, and so far looking at how the barn came out, that's still the plan.  Kind of making it up as I go along. It makes me think of a picture from Old Moss Woman's Secret Garden. I've had the stick barn for years not knowing exactly what direction to go with it,  but apparently this is the year I actually make it happen. It called to me from the depths of my stockpile of raw materials. So today I glued green stuff from a model train tree kit and this viney thing to it.  So far so good.

It's Hard to Get a Head...

...unless you have $5, that is, in which case all you have to do is find the right yard sale.  I found this plaster head at just such a yard sale today just when what I needed most was a life-size head that weighs enough that the wind won't blow it over.  We were at the farmers' market again, Sue and I, and the wind was exceptional.  But thanks to my fortuitous find, I was able to stop picking up my prairie bonnet every two minutes.  The previous owner of the head informed me that she made this head in sculpting class at URI, and it made her happy that it found a new home.  I think it's a great job.  I do have to paint it though, it's got some discolorations on it, but I'm thinking I'm going to leave it white. Right now I really can't tell its gender, and I think for my purposes that's a good thing.  He/she is going to live in my shop in between shows, and for now showcase Sue's hats as they're kind of heavy and the styrofoam heads tend to be too tippy.  Besides, those wig heads have no personality whereas THIS one has loads of it!

While that one may remain white and undecorated (that may be hard for me to do), I also bought a doll bed at the same yard sale which is destined for...I don't quite know yet, but not white.  Marked at $3, it was a simply constructed box with a headboard and footboard with a cutout heart at each end.  It spoke to me.  It's American Girl size, and I envision it with a mattress and pillow, fitted and flat sheet and pillowcases, and patchwork quilt.  When I was little, one of my favorite things was a doll bed that my grandfather made, and all the linens, ruffled pillowcases and pieced quilt that my grandmother (or was it my mother?) made to go with it.  I still have all that stuff. 

Getting my Gaelic On

My latest project, whatever it happens to be, is always my favorite.  Today's latest project--or rather tonight's, as earlier in the day I was into something else--is a welcome banner.  I have made these in various forms for years, the most popular being a celtic knot, but I've had requests for all sorts of random images and sayings.  I'm not sure what inspired me to do this one, although it may have been the humungous thistle Sue has growing in her garden.  I always eradicate the thistles from my garden, and I always feel a little bad about it; in spite of their prickly disadvantages, they're really quite beautiful and attract goldfinches and assorted other critters.  But they tend to take up a large amount of real estate, and my garden is small.  Anyway, Sue and Frank allowed theirs to grow, and it's quite magnificent...easily taller than me and bigger around than my dining room table.

So this banner has been kicking around in my head for weeks, and today was the day to actually begin it.  What you see here is, of course, not the finished product but just the basic shapes ironed on to the backing.  With any luck at all, I'll finish it by the weekend.  If you care to broaden your horizons and pronounce it, it's FAHL-cha.  Much easier to pronounce than most Gaelic; I will never attempt to learn the language of my ancestors, I envision getting cramps in my tongue.