Looks Like Christmas

We busted out the boxes yesterday, and pulled out Christmas!

The family room is looking merry and bright.

I made a bunch of these cute little houses for a colorful Christmas village.

My collection of tiny deer feel right at home amongst the pretty houses and bottle-brush trees.

The Santas are all hanging out on a big old trunk.

The kids have made many Santas over the years. . .

. . .each of them a treasure.

We have a little fake tree that we like to pick a theme for every year. It comes out with the rest of the decoarations, a week or two before the real tree.

The themes aren't very complicated; this year's is White.

We used silver and clear too, because they're close enough.

We made these easy and inexpensive additions wth clear glass balls and some ribbon-

We just threaded the ribbon into the ball and replaced the little top thingy. Voila! An ornament craft that even a teenager can do. Under the tree sits a Dylan-made sled and some scrappy stars.

I know that stockings are traditionally hung by the chimney with care, but a table works too.

Each year we add a little charm to the stockings. I haven't added this year's charms yet though.

Can't forget our furry friend, Tuesday the Wonder Fluff.

The teddy bears come out to play at Christmastime.

I got that one with the blue-striped shirt for my 1st birthday, many Christmases ago.

Naturally, they insisted upon party hats.

Hopefully, we'll get the real tree next week and get to bring out all the ornaments (each of them with a tiny ghost of Christmas Past attached).

All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.

They are running amuck. . .

Elephants and owls and goats, oh my!

 here                  here                 here

Not to mention a bunny, kitty, and bear (whose ears are a little too big, I must admit).

here

The animals are running the farm!
But not for long. They'll be gone tomorrow.
I wonder if I'll miss the mutinous little herd?

Little Houses for You and Me

I've been having too much fun making this colorful little neighborhood the past couple of days.

So much fun in fact, that I put together a little How-To so that we could all play.

☺

They're really easy. You'll need:

-cardboard

-Tacky glue

-hot glue

-fabric

-Xacto knife

Using this simple template. . .

. . .I cut my house pieces out of a recycled box.

Then, using a thin layer of glue, I stuck the pieces to fabric. I used one color for the front/back/sides, a contrasting color for the roof, and another color for the door.

Then I cut my pieces out like so.

I snipped off any corners, and made little snips all along the top curve of the door.

 

Next, I glued the fabric edges down with Tacky glue

Then I cut little X's in the windows to make foldy-over flaps.

You'll have to snip a bit extra off the flap closest to the edge, like so--

All glued and pretty and ready for the next step--

Then I glued scraps of fabric over the inside of the windows.

Next, I hot glued the sides to the back. . .

. . .and then the front.

Finally, I glued on the roof, the little door, and a button for a doorknob.
Tah-dah!

Little Housey Goodness!

I played with my template, making bigger and smaller houses and other shapes and styles. Here's another template for you too--

So many possibilities!

Check another one off the list.

House heads!

I finally did something with one of those unfinished houses sitting on my work table for the last few weeks, and we added a new piece to our Living Houses series.

It's a House Cat!

We have an ever-growing list of ideas for more house-headed goodies (thanks Chuffy for all the suggestions) to go along with the rest of our never-ending lists.

So many ideas,

so few hours in a day!

As I make Thanksgiving preparations this week
(more lists), I am so thankful for
such a generously deep well of ideas.

My cup runneth over.

What intangible thing are you grateful for on this fine day?

Itty Bitty Teeny Tiny

Remember Fisher Price's Little People toys?

I do! I can practically still taste them.

(Yes, I was one of those kids.)

Well, lately I've been noticing a surge of arty revisitations on that theme in the form of little wooden peg dolls.

Like this tiny family by The Green Market

Or these cuties by Naked Peggies

I wanted to play too!

But I wanted a cloth version on account of that's what we do. I made the tiny template and asked Dylan to work his magic.

Tah-dah!

Little pilots!

They're about 3 1/2 inches tall (or just under 9cm for you metric types).
I didn't know if he'd be able to sew and stuff such a very small thing, but he took it one step further and managed to sew and stuff super teeny tiny arms for the little folks! I don't know how he does it, especially with those big ole sausage man-hands of his.

He even made teeny tiny wooden bases for their. . .bases.

We've been combining wooden bases with our cloth dolls for awhile now, but lately we've been having fun stretching the combination of media.

These dear deer have itty bitty wooden feet,

and the latest one has little wooden antlers too.

Speaking of deer, we had some unexpected visitors yesterday-

OK, they're not deer, they're elk.

There was a herd of about 30 of them

that camped out in our backyard for most of the day.

A wonderful gift from Mother Nature herself!

Messiness Into Silliness

Last week's paper mache messiness. . .

. . . has turned into this week's silliness.

          here             here       here

Well, not all of it turned into something else;

those poor little neglected houses are still sitting there,

waiting for inspiration to strike.

Sometimes I'm a decision-making machine, impressively firing off decisions with lightning speed and not a second thought. But then there are other times when even the simplest of decisions just seem too hard. Never mind deciding what to create next, I can't even decide what I want for lunch. I'll blame the rainy daze.

How 'bout you?

Silliness that (sort of) Rhymes

Twas the month before Christmas

and all through The Cart

The dollies were ready for the party to start.

Ginger was wearing her finest attire

(and she smelled mighty sweet sitting next to the fire).

A little angel, her light shining bright,

Held fast to her star, awaiting The Night.

All bundled up and wishing for snow drifts,

Ellie imagines a sleigh, with elephants to tow it.

Even the moon and stars don pajamas,

getting tucked in by celestial Mommas.

Bunnies dream of holly jolly things

Like stockings and packages tied up with string.

A little elf waits for Santa's call.

She does her part, no matter how small.

The Big Guy himself is packing up toys

For all the good little girls and boys.

What is that silly woman up to now?

Glueing teeny tiny strips of paper towels

to the bottom half of plastic easter eggs that have been

attached to little wooden dowels, of course.

Like so.

Mushrooms? Boobies? Tiny umbrellas?

I'm not telling.

But here's a sneak peek at a corner of today's table,

if you wanna try to figure it out.

I'm playing with paper mache and paperclay today. Almost anything is up for grabs when it comes time to make armatures-- Styrofoam, wood, cardboard, plastic easter eggs. . . My favorite armature-building material is recycled priority mail boxes. That's what most of this table's stuff started out as. (You can find the template for making those little houses here.)
I'm down to my last little bits of paperclay, but there's more on the way. Goody goody! It's best when it's fresh. I love Creative Paperclay brand best. We can't buy it anywhere within 80 miles, but we periodically order a big batch online and save lots of moolah. My paper towel supply is still going strong, which is good beacuse who knows when I'll come across more of my favorite kind. And I have enough white glue to last awhile. Ya think? I had that big ole jug-o-glue on the kitchen counter the other day and almost poured some on my Cheerios instead of milk. Oops!

What favorite art supply

can you not live without?