Peep, peep, chirp, chirp!

There are 14 new friends in the studio today. 10 fuzzy yellow chicks and 4 fluffy yellow ducks. Paddy is beside himself. He's enthralled with the little peepers.

This will be our 3rd set of chicks. We raise them for eating. Sometimes people are horrified when they see those gorgeous fluffy birds and find out they'll be dinner in just a few months. You get past those tugs at the heart strings when they reach the stage where they act like horribly rude, bossy, greedy poop machines.

This is our first set of ducks and I wonder if the same thing will apply to them. They are far too cute for their own good and much more entertaining than the chicks. We've already named the ducklings too (very bad sign) Tank, Connie, Fifi and Doug. Too bad we can't tell any of them apart at the mo'.

But for now we'll just enjoy the bundles of fuzz and let them a have cozy life under the heat lamps for a wee while :)

Feel Good Freebie

My worktable is covered in 'to-do' projects. I had planned on staying up late to get things done last night but... well... I fell asleep at 9:30 instead. I'm sure they'll still be waiting when I finally do get around to finishing them up. I'd better get cracking because I've got a show or two lined up and I'll need goodies to take with me!

Being sick for almost a week has left my house amazingly messy. The laundry piles are so high that I'm afraid to scale them for fear the altitude will affect my balance and I'll fall over, potentially giving myself a concussion. But the sun is shining and I can't get enough of that air dried laundry scent so I'm going in.

While I tackle the house work why don't you make something nice? The world needs more nice afterall.

So do me a favour, download this pdf collage sheet and make something sweet. Say something nice and spread some joy. If you're super awesome (and I know you are) you'll post your creation on your own blog, and come back and tell me all about the fun you had while I was doing laundry all day long.

Do me proud, fellow mess makers!
xoxo

Love

I read this post today I stuns me that the lesson I learned at 15, avoids so many grown ass people today.

When I was young and dumb (I mean really young and really dumb) the thought of having gay friends sort of freaked me out. I mean, there was simply no way that I could be friends with a lesbian. Can you imagine?! It would be weird. I'd be totally uncomfortable. Ewww! Ick! Blah!

Then my best friend came out to me.

Actually, my best friend was so terrified that she had another friend tell me.

My reaction? "Where the hell is she? We're going for coffee."

In that instant I saw with full clarity it didn't matter. Not a speck! I felt like absolute crap because I realized that her sexual orientation (or anyone else's for that matter) had absolutely nothing to do with my love for her. I loved her because she made me laugh, she was kind, she was nice, and she put up with me... nothing else mattered.

Our job, no matter what faith we follow, is to show kindness to others, and to love one another... that's it. If you're worried God doesn't like what someone else is doing, or how someone else is living their life, I'm pretty sure he/she/they will deal with it.

So I'll sign off by saying that no matter who you are, I love you. I really do. No matter what, you're pretty damned nifty in my book. I hope you'll pass a little bit of love on to someone else too, because sometimes just a little bit of extra love can make all the difference in the world.

xoxo

Recovering and Renovating

I let my guard down for one moment, one tiny instant, and the germs attacked. As soon as I got caught up and breathed a sigh of relief they pounced. I've been sick as a dog for almost a week. I was a terrible hostess through Easter and can only assume I made it through the holiday with the boatload of drugs and smelly home remedies I took.

BUT I'm feeling better now. Hurrah! So it's on to better thing and bigger messes.

In a previous post I mentioned a new-to-me doll house. I saw this baby on kijiji for $25 and jumped all over the listing despite it being 3 hours away. Thankfully it was close to my mum and she agreed to pick it up.

It's massive! The thing has to be about 2" wide... much larger than any of the other houses I've worked on.

This is the condition it arrived in. I haven't even given it a proper look over yet. There's a lot of work to be done, and I'll likely completely overhaul the gorgeous beast. I'm thinking this is going be a long term project, one that I can savour and put real treasures in. *girly giddy dance*

In the meantime I've got to get cracking on the goblin pub! The Brighton Art's Council is putting on a  spring craft show in May and I'd love to show it off... get cracking indeed!

We are but dust and shadow.

Before Christmas I was approached to paint a custom skateboard.

I agreed and that board sat in my to-do pile for eons while the gentleman who sent it to me waited patiently.

I finally got my act together and started on the board. About 80% of the way though I decided the design was terrible. I started over.

The gentleman still waited patiently.

And today, after ages and ages, the board is FINALLY done! Here she be....

The words are "Pulvis et umbra sumus" which is Latin for "We are but dust and shadow."

I'm pretty pleased with it and would love to see it when it's truly complete: stained, sealed and decked out with wheels and stuff. I really hope that nice fella likes it too after his wait which was FAR too long (poor guy).

Apparently he's the jealous type

A robin came to Pixie Hill last week, and we were certain that the lovely fellow was an extra special herald of spring. Silly humans. Our red breasted friend has been making quite the fuss.

Who? Surely you can't mean me?

Don't fall for that innocent feathered face. He's been trouble I tell you!

Nonsense. I am a delight and you are lucky to have me.

For over a week now this fellow has been flying into our windows. All of them. Over and over again. The windows are an absolute mess and, as much as I love pirates, I'd rather not have the 'poop-deck' jokes write themselves.

When spring arrives and birdy love is in the air, things get territorial. Seeing his reflection in my spotless (ha!) windows our feathered friend has become agitated that another male is encroaching on his bevvy of girly birdies. The more crazed our robin becomes, the more crazed his reflection becomes. In no time at all you've got bird gang-land warfare.

What to do? For the time being, it looks like there's a birthday party going on in the Pixie house. Balloons and tissue paper cover the windows that are attacked most often. Padfoot stands guard... which really does nothing because even the birds know he's a big softy. Now we wait and hope that our robin gets over his jealous rage because there's no way I can cover all of the windows in the house and I'm already none too pleased about the cleaning job ahead.


xoxo

An altered fairy chip board book

I've had this chipboard book sitting around for quite some time. When I came across it while cleaning a couple of weeks ago I was inspired to jump in with both feet and just do it. And so, after many, many hours it's finally complete! You may have seen a couple of the pages but here's all 10 layouts and some of the chunky goodness...

  

 

 

 

 

 

I kinda love the pointing finger on the back.

I removed the ring and opted for an extended Chicago screw to put the thing together. It's quite a fussy to rotate the pages because of the 3dimentional bits but I'm really pleased with them. There are a couple of slips of sort of gossamer between a couple of the layouts but I might add some vellum and parchment between the rest for protection sake. Besides, a little extra chunk never did any harm ;)

P.S. Great Wolf Lodge has restored my faith in customer service! They sent us a bit of a refund and said they sent the maintenance crew in to fix the air/heating unit in the room. Huzzh!