Lumpy Head, Triple-Cute, and Fuzzy-Horned Sweetness

Remember this paperclay-headed pair from Saturday?

Well, I thought you might like to see who they turned in to.

The wolf-shaped one turned into a companion for Little Red. The wolf-shaped one turned into a wolf? I know, shocking. You can see them, joined by a half dozen of their closest friends, in that last post down there.

The lumpy-headed one turned into this winsome fellow-

You can tell by his dreamy expression that his head is in the clouds. He doesn't seem to mind a little precipitation.

I finished up a bunch more of the little oddities on Saturday too. This one perplexes Dylan, but I like the little thing. Things? Whatever, they're triple cute.

I got to work on my poppy quilt a bit on Sunday. yay! It's coming along. All the poppies are done (totally hand-stitched no less), and I'm starting to sew them onto squares.Then the squares are becoming strips. Eventually there will be other strips in between the squarely strips, but that's as far as I've gotten in my "planning".

I'm hard at play on a brand new batch of beasties now.

There are masks, and Jacks, and skellies-- Oh my!

No sneak peeks yet, but here's a glimpse of a fuzzy-horned bit of sweetness that I spied visiting us this morning.

Hope you're all having a delightful Thursday.

Little Red Rides Again and I'm a Lucky Duck

We just finished having a challenge in a little cyberspace group I'm in. We each made our own version of Little Red Riding Hood. We did this once before, last February, but it is always fun to revisit Little Red. So, without further ado, please allow me to present. . .

Theresa's-

Susie's-

Mine-

Mandy's-

Lone's-

Jackie's-

Maija's-

Cynthia's-

Cindi's

and last, but not certainly not least, Dixie's-

I wish they could all come live at my house.

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Most of them are for sale. If you click on the pictures, they'll take you to their auctions.

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Speaking of Little Red, a couple hours after I posted this parade, I won this wonderful little work of art! I'm a lucky duck today!

Barbara and Marcos Suarez are the curators of BrightColorArt, and they're a husband and wife team too! The giveaway was hosted over at Elsa Mora, Elsita's beautiful blog. Thanks!

Saturday

I'm finishing up next week's batch of goodies today.

Here's where they started this morning-

They're all dressed and ready for me to draw and paint their little faces, except for the clay pieces. They're in their dipped-in-chocolate phase.

Today I get to paint them up and bring them to life.

Not a bad way to spend the day ☺

When I get to spend enough time working on Friday (my longest workday of the week), my Saturdays are lovely and leisurely, spent running small errands, doing little chores around the house, spending time with the kidlettes (when they're here, which isn't very often anymore now that they're teenagers), all while adding finishing touches. La, la, la! Happy happy, painty painty!

When I don't get to spend Friday working, it's another story altogether. A scary story in which everything takes too long, and impending deadlines lurk large and ominous just beyond the horizon. **cue threatening horror movie music**

Hope you're all having the lovely and leisurely kind of Saturday.

Thursday

It's 4:00 in the afternoon, and a beautiful sunny day here on the Oregon Coast. I've been playing/working on the latest batch of goods. Yesterday I got everybody (almost) base painted and I started on 2 paper mache goodies.

Can you tell what this one is going to be?

He is a bit of a departure for me since I relied heavily on a stuffed cloth armature. Can you do that? Apparently, yes.☺ I built up muzzle and ears over the cloth using matte board, then covered everything with my favorite paper mache recipe. After drying overnight, I was pleased with my lightweight and flexible support structure.

Today, I'm doing the paperclay bits.

He's starting to look like something!

I'm not a huge fan of waiting for things to dry, so I stuck him in a warm oven to rush the first couple layers of clay. He's on his third go-around now, sitting on a fan, awaiting final scultpty details (like a nose). How does he smell?

You can still see some of the darker paper mache bits

peeking out here and there.

I've been working on his cloudy friend as well. He has a more traditional armature-- made of styrofoam, wood, and bits of aluminum foil. Here the unfinished pair sits, waiting for lips.

I'll work on them again after dinner, after they've had a chance to dry some more. Speaking of dinner, I've got plenty of "help" in the kitchen this week.

This well-meaning witch keeps trying to turn things into love potions, but really just sorta burns stuff. The most useful thing she does is to give things a stir with her staff.

Still, she's worlds more helpful this this guy. He just stands around impatiently, tapping his foot. Honestly, I don't know what he's a such a hurry for, he doesn't eat anything at all. And then there's this pesty pair. One of them keeps sneaking red pepper into everything, likes it extra spicy. I can't figure out which one of them is guilty though. They both keep blaming each other.

Tonight I'm making super nachos

and strawberry-lemonade smoothies. Yummy!

Then it's back to the clay.

What are you having?

Be Here Now (or Later)

I'm catching up to myself! On Monday I was doing Saturday's stuff. So naturally, Tuesday was Sunday. I'm trying to fit Monday in here too, so that by Wednesday I'll only be a day behind. Oh wait, it is Wednesday! crap. By this time next January I should have it all worked out.

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This week's goods were a little late in coming to market,

but they made it all the same.

Aside from some time wonkiness due to baseball, Bar-B-Q, and my baby brother's birthday this has been another bountiful week.

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I found these glorious bamboo coasters that just begged for tiny portraits-

Naturally, I had to oblige.

There are more where those came from, albeit in a bit more naked state.

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And what week could be truly successful

without a bit of genetic engineering?

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This little owl guy is my very favorite though, I must admit.

I want to make one in every color!

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I'd better get back to it if I ever stand a chance at catching up with the future. Or the present. The past? sigh.

I'll think I'll just give up and be here now.

Baseball and Birdy Feet

It's official, no more baseball games for us this Summer. The last couple of days have been spent at the ballpark watching the youngest member of The Cart play ball (and sit on the bench a whole lot to be perfectly honest) at the end-of-season tournament. Our little ragamuffin team held their own for a while there, but alas, no pennants were won, and disappointment prevailed. The blueness was short lived though, as disappointment and baseball go hand-in-hand. Soon enough, submarine sandwiches were eaten and the the sun shone brightly once again.

It's a lovely way to spend the day, but work was neglected. We DID get our patterns back from the printer's though (yippee!). And a new batch of rather sullen creations (they pout when I don't pay enough attention to them) impatiently awaits their finishing touches.

In the meantime, I managed to indulge some of my overwhelming silliness by putting virtual birdy feet on virtual beasties.

Have you managed to do something silly today?

Day Tripping

The fog is hanging all cozy-like over this lovely morning. There's a pair of baby bunnies hopping around friskily on the dewy lawn. Funny little things. I saw a momma deer with two tiny speckled fawns too. SO cute! I feel very lucky to live in such a beautiful place. Here's a midday view of the lake we peek at from our window, it was taken from the top of the very steep hill that Dylan likes to climb. It was so beautiful and sunny yesterday that we just couldn't stay at home (pretty as that may be), so we headed down the road to McMinnville. It's about an hour away (distances out here in Oregon are measured in time it takes to get there ☺), but it's a lovely drive. That's where our favorite printer is. And we were lucky enough to make a stop there to get 3 new (and 1 old) patterns printed! hooray! We should be able to have them listed by Sunday.
We got Holiday Parade done- And Stars & Stripes (although, technically there are no stars on this particular Old Glory, but Circles & Stripes just sounded silly)- Amanita's Garden is my favorite (and a good beginner Cheater Quilt for those of you wising to try your hand at making one).-

And lastly, we got a second printing (with a few revisions) of our most popular pattern, Storybook Girls-

I can't wait til we can make the trip back to pick them up,

all fresh and shrink-wrapped in pretty little stacks. Whee!

Wings and Things

Here's what my work table had on it by Thursday-

It seems to be a week of wings. 6 of them, to be precise.

I had particular fun with this beastie-

It's the latest in my Househead series.

OK, this one's head isn't a house.

Guess I'll have to change what I'm calling the series.

How about Living Houses?

(I can change names of stuff whenever I like on account of they really only exist in my brain.)

Anyway, here's what Birdhouse looked like by Saturday-

Don't ya just love those birdy feet??

Now I wanna give everybody bird feet!

You can see more of her HERE.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, for your reading enjoyment. . .

What's the difference between a bird and a fly?

A bird can fly but a fly can't bird.

. . . . . . . . .

Thanks for coming out!

You've been great!

Remember to tip your waiters.

☺

Tiny Hookah-Smoking Caterpillar

"Who are YOU?" said the Caterpillar.

This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation.

Alice replied, rather shyly, "I--I hardly know, sir, just at present-- at least I know who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then. . ."

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I know how Alice feels, don't you?