Painting birds

I told myself that I wouldn't be doing any more paintings but last night I was sucked back in. There's something about painting that I find rather meditative. It soothes me and clears my mind.

Birds have always been one of my favourite subjects. I'm not quite sure why I like painting them so much. Perhaps because they're usually skittish but cheeky... a bit like me.

Anywho, here's a little acrylic on canvas Red Breasted Nuthatch I finished up. He's rather sweet and small, measuring just a smidge over 4.5" x 7".

He's available here.

A pic or two

Given that I've been a tad miserable lately, I thought that perhaps I should go looking for lovely things this afternoon. On my short stroll the thing that stood out most were the bright mossy patches at the bottom of our hill. The dreary rainy weather has not instilled the holiday spirit, but these little spots sure are cheery.

Just look at that soft feathery moss!

Perhaps its time to find those tiny bright spots, things of beauty, and daily gifts from the wee folk once again.

Creating hope

It's been a terrible flipping week.

The attacks on children in China and Newtown have had me holding D extra close. I can't even begin to imagine that horror. There simply are no words.

And.... I lost my job. I've worked part time as a graphic designer for a not-for-profit for eons. I've been very fortunate to have had a bit of secure income that guaranteed, even in the leanest times, that groceries could be paid for every week. Despite my longevity with the place, they're small with a limited operating budget so there's no severance pay. A week before Christmas, I'm sure you'll agree, is pretty shitty timing.

I've never lost a job before and it's been 20ish years since I've been completely out of work. Frankly, it scares the hell out of me.

But what is there to do? The only thing to do is to pick up and move forward. And when you can't find hope for yourself, perhaps creating it for someone else can help. So here's the baker's boy, bestowed with striped socks and a crown and instilled with a strange thrilling wonder.

Etsy listing here

While waiting for this little monkey to cheer me up, I'm going to eat a pound of fudge and roll around in some glitter to drown my sorrows.

Here's hoping tomorrow will be a brighter day.

One of those days

Yesterday was one of those days.

You know the ones I mean.

Before my feet even hit the floor I knew I was in trouble. The kiddo was sick. The sky was grey and dreary. The Christmas tree had fallen over in the middle of the night. Before noon I'd broken three different things. I thought about going back to bed to start over but I didn't crawl back under the covers ...  I just stopped. I kept to laundry, light cleaning and angry birds. That seemed to confuse whatever goblins were meddling and I avoided any further disasters.

From now on, when I'm having a bad day... I'm taking the day off.

But it wasn't an entirely wasted day. Late in the evening I decided to see if the bad mojo had passed and made D a Christmas gift!

My kid is rather obsessed with hunting squirrels. Thank the heavens those little buggers are fast and D can't hit moving targets with his bb gun.

While at the One of a Kind Show in Toronto, the kiddo spied some needle-felted mounts by FeltFactory.com. He was awed. Finally a craft that I can do AND he likes! And so, after a rotten day I managed a rather nice needle-felted squirrel head mount for my cheeky boy.

Here's hoping the rest of my Christmas crafting goes so well!

Wish you were here...

There's a bit of a sale going on in the Pixie esty shop right now. Pop over and check out the listings in the "Wish You Were Here" section for some discounted cuties. You'll find...

Thimble Gardens  Faerie Specimen's

 Mandrake Roots

Snowballs

Sleepy Moons

Shrunken Heads

Tiny Bundles of Pixie Books

and more stuff to be listed this afternoon.
(all prices listed in CAD dollars)

Hurry, hurry! because everything needs to be shipped out tomorrow 

to meet the postal deadline for US Christmas arrival :)

xoxo

More brooches for very fancy ladies

Today I'll be cleaning house like Santa himself is expected tomorrow. How do I manage to leave so much till the last minute? I blame goblins. Surely there were one or two throwing wrenches into everything yesterday.

Today I'm just showing off a few more altered art brooches.

I think I have one little tin left to play with so I'll have to start a batch of something new! Hmmm.... I wonder what will pop out of my bag of tricks?

On the sixth day of Christmas...

On the sixth day of Christmas our true love gives 6 geese a-laying. Now, while I usually find geese rather frightening (thanks to bad childhood memories of angry birds chasing screaming children at a bird sanctuary) today we're going to pretend they're all peaches and cream, cuddly, lovely feathered friends.

And so, here's my ode to the sixth day for Alpha Stamps 12 Days of Christmas...

I know what you're thinking. "Meh, it's one stinkin' goose on a box" A-HA! How wrong you are! First of all, THAT is Mother Goose (the greatest goose of all time) AND this box, like many lovely things, has a secret....

 

This is a Victorian Exploding Box and opens wide when the lid is lifted! Inside I've created a secret garden with a miniature carousel.

But there's another secret still...

The little carousel lights up to reveal 6 shadowy geese a-layin' inside!

You'll forgive me for not doing a step-by-step of this particular project, but I WILL show you a few things you might find useful if you'd like to create your own.

The carousel is made by creating a tube from translucent paper. Here I've used three layers to get the opacity I was looking for. Don't go crazy, you need some light to shine through. The 'fancy bits' are trims like Gold Fleck Trim, 2mm Rhinestone Chain and Thin Looped Dresden Borders.

The silhouettes are just paper cut outs that are adhered to the rim. Rather than spend ages cutting out geese you could use these Black Dresden Swans.

To achieve the peaked roof of the carousel, I cut a circle from the Robin Red Breast Collage Sheet and then made straight cut from the edge to the centre. Overlap the edges and you'll get a shallow cone shape.

 
For the lighting I used this LED with Battery Pack. To accommodate the light, I cut a hole in the centre of my base...

... as well as the bottom of the box. To make things tidy I cut rings from the Artisan Elements Borders Stickers and placed them over my rough cut edges. The light will fit though these holes snugly. If your light tilts to one side once through, the shadows will become distorted. You may find it useful to place a small pit of plasticine or clay around the light to hold it in place.

Decorating! You want to make sure that you can close the box comfortably without squishing the paper carousel inside. With a bit of fiddling you can actually get quite a bit in there. The trick is to open and close your box repeatedly to make sure everything fits. Here, I've used moss, Mini Rose Buds - Pale Pink, Mini Rose Buds - Ivory, and Tiny Paper Roses. They're so pretty and just the right size for that small space. 

Finally a couple of words about the outside. I've used Small Wooden Finials for the feet and they are quite important. You'll need the box to be elevated to facilitate the wire from the LED with Battery Pack. Also, I've used a Small Wooden Box Foot as a sort of lid handle (who says they're just for feet!) but try not to make the lid too heavy or else the box will tip backwards when opened.

And that's just about it! Here's a list of all of the supplies I used for this project...

 Mini Rose Buds - Pale Pink • Mini Rose Buds - Ivory  • Tiny Paper Roses
Glittered Holly Berries  • Gold Fleck Trim  • 2mm Rhinestone Chain • Mini Numerals - Half Sheet
Rhinestone Chain - Amber   • Robin Red Breast Collage Sheet  • Mother Goose Covers  

Scrapbook Paper • Large Victorian Exploding Box • Small Wooden Box Foot
Artisan Elements Borders Stickers • Small Wooden Finials • LED with Battery Pack
Plastic Pearls (Strands) • Thin Fleur Dresden Borders  • Thin Looped Dresden Borders