Stoats and Hares

Traveling to Bude this week has inspired this second blog post. The road I sometimes use is great for spotting wildlife. When I used to work at the newsagent, on the early morning journey I would see Deer, they would run down the middle of the road and jump into a field when they got to a gate or into the woods. 
This summer has been fascinating as we have seen lots of Stoats. We were going to our local beach one day and spotted a pair in the middle of the road either playing or fighting. Its times like that I wish I could blink and take a photo, but here is one from the internet, they look really cute but I also know they can be vicious but that is the way of nature. 

Not only have we seen deers and stoats, we occasionally see lots of Rabbits, foxes, badgers and birds of prey, we once saw a barn owl flying along the hedge, that was an amazing sight. The other animal we used to see a lot of are Hares, though over the last couple of years we haven't seen them as much, which is a real shame.

Talking about the hares brings me to what I've been busy at this month. Some of us on the Craft Pimp Forum Etsy team have been taking part in Mentor Month. I have been teamed up with Jill of Kiln Fired Art, she makes lots of beautiful items like fused glass, jewellery and my favourite her hand painted ceramic. Her mugs, plates and vases with Hares on are just beautiful. You must go and have a look at her shop on ETSY.

See you next time
Victoria xx

Pumpkins & Dark Elves

The weather has suddenly decided its autumn, lots of showers and its noticeably cooler. Naturally now I'm thinking about halloween. As my friends and family know I love halloween and we try to grow our own pumpkins, unfortunately the past two years I have had to buy a pumpkin or two from a supermarket. This year our pumpkin plants have decided to fruit, unfortunately I didn't expect only one and certainly not this big.

Carving this pumpkin will certainly be challenging, I may have to get my children and their friends to help. I usually have the pumpkins in our porch but I think this year this one might have to go by the gate.  

I love dark things and after recently creating a treasury on Etsy called Dark Times with some gorgeous Art Dolls, I was inspired to make an elf into a dark art doll. Well I found an old wooden body that I had sanded down, the shape was ideal for the look I wanted and I had two, So now I was making two. After painting the bodies with a gesso primer and then acrylics I handpainted the face. If you follow me on twitter and facebook you may have seen sneaky pictures of their progress. Yesterday I finished off Marnie & Hester, as I was now calling them, by adding the merino hair and hand sewing witches hats.

I'm really pleased how they both turned out and I think I will be exploring the dark side a bit more.

See you next time

Vic xx

Cupcakes and Tan Danglers.

Today I decided I would make some cupcakes and it seems like forever since I made any. My two children wanted me to make chocolate ones but me being me I just had to make them a bit different, so we ended up with Turkish Delight cupcakes. I just made a basic chocolate cake mix and baked them then I had to wait for them to cool. While they cooled I cut up two Frys Turkish Delight to put on top. 

Next came the fun part I used the apple corer to make a hole in the cakes. I then spooned some Rose Petal Jelly into the cake, I got the jelly from a local herbery called St.Kitts, then I covered up the jelly with the little plugs of cake I had cored out earlier. Then the fun part I iced the top with chocolate frosting which I added a dash of rose water to, now It just need the Frys Turkish delight on top. I had to test one out with my lunch of course and it was delish, perhaps the frosting could've had a bit more rose flavour in it but it was still nice. Next time my children want to make Lavender biscuits, yummy!

So to the Tan Dangler, well I had a couple of sales last weekend so I decided I would like to treat myself to a piece of glass art from a very lovely Cornish artist Tan Grey. Her Etsy shop Tan Grey Glass is full of gorgeous glass creations. I have to admit I struggled to choose and I was very tempted to buy a fish bowl or tan dangler but I went for my favourite instead a moon gazing hare. It arrived today not long after I had finished the cakes. I have it on my wall in the sitting room now and I love it. 

See you next time

Victoria xx