A Little Bird

January seems to be bird themed. The inspiration for this bird came from a very cute piece of Japanese fabric I bought recently. This silly looking bird is about 4" tall and his feet are made from paper clips. My daughter got me a wigjig for Christmas. I think she was hoping I'd make jewelry with it. It worked great for bird feet.

In case you're wondering why the very long gap in posts. First it was Christmas. I made at least 20 different batches of cookies in a very few days time. Then there was the few presents I made. I wasn't able to photograph them. There just wasn't enough time. Then just a couple of weeks ago my computer got a virus that took out windows. I'm still recovering data from the other drive. In fact, I just retrieved my pictures a couple of days ago. I hope that never happens again. It is very inconvenient.

For the new year, I have quite a list of projects. I'm looking forward to sharing them here. Blogging about my finished projects really helps to keep me inspired.

What A Cute Bird!

It was a dark and stormy night. No, it really was. That is except for the flashes of lightening. This explains the bad picture. My daughter and I made bird puppets this last weekend. I had to hurry up and do a photo shoot before he was whisked off to his new home, the physics dept. at the local university. He's quite popular with the staff. Rocket scientists seem to like cute fuzzy things. At three feet tall, Schroeder, makes quite an impression. Not only that, his head bobs just enough to make him look very nonchalant when he's walking. In this picture he is standing on the bed (bad bird) and looking back towards his tail. Of course, with that cute face what's not to love.

Reusable Gift Bag

I love making small gift bags. It can add a unique touch to any gift. A cute reusable bag is almost a gift in and of itself. This particular bag is a variation on my Treasure Bag. I've made it slightly bigger, added a separate casing and made it reversible(for those of us who like options). Of course, something special is going in the bag. You'll just have to wait and see.

The Show

The above image is the mailer for this year's Craft Art Market. It's held every year between Thanksgiving and New Year's. I was surprised to find they used my "art". Hopefully sales will be better this year than last year. My "art" tends to be whimsical rather than useful or traditional. It's suppose to be fun, like bring a smile to your face, fun.
Here's the picture I took of the "Dotty Jester" a few months before the show. He was originally made as a challenge for the Central Coast Art Doll Club, which I am very involved in. Actually right now I'm the president. This is one of the most kick back but stimulating activities I do. The hardest part of being president is actually keeping everyone focused on the meeting at hand. The "other " conversations are very interesting. Probably more so than the current business we are trying to accomplish. In spite of this we actually accomplish a lot. We do a variety of challenges and projects every year. More importantly everyone has a great time. Lots of smiles!

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls

My poor blog has been a bit neglected lately. I haven't forgotten about it but I've been so busy that I haven't taken any pictures to post let alone log in. October means Halloween. Halloween means costumes. Guess what? Even if your children are grown up you still end up making them costumes. Bigger kids means more sophisticated costumes. Well... sometimes. My daughter found a tutorial online for a pretty easy and good looking costume. Any way you're probably wondering what this all has to do with pumpkin cinnamon rolls. It turns out I had a decent picture of the rolls and not the costume. I will give more details when I get a good picture of the costume. I have a great recipe for yeasted pumpkin bread and I turned it in to pumpkin cinnamon rolls. One word: yum. Of course, I put chocolate chips in them. Just about everything tastes better with chocolate. And maybe if I catch up with myself I'll have time to post the recipe.

The Pencil Bag

This is the pencil bag my college age daughter designed to replace the one that died. I did help a bit with the construction. If I thought googlie eyes would survive the book bag I would have glued them on. Of course, I not sure how anything survives being in her book bag without getting smooshed . It's always stuffed full, coffee, water bottle, lunch, snack, extra snack for those with puppy dog eyes, books, notebooks, misc. and of course the pencil bag. Now the pencil bag the last time I saw it being stuffed into the book bag was also stuffed to the max. I asked her "What's in there besides pencils, a bunch of candy?" Oh ya! It's amazing she got it zipped closed. I was told the candy was every bit as or even more important than the pencils. Those kids do have their priorities.

Momiji Doll Birthday Greetings

Momiji dolls were a recent discovery for me. I'm not sure why it took so long to find out about them. They are small and cute. Just the kind of thing I adore. Of course, when I did discover them I just had to make my own version. I'm still tweaking with the pattern a bit. But I did make this one as a birthday present for a close friend who recently discovered zakka. I made a special coordinating gift bag.
And as you can see, she can hold a secret message. A friend of mine commented it would be a great way for little girls to pass notes to one another at school. My oldest daughter, who is a teacher, wasn't so sure about that.