Bird Feeder Challenge and Wild Weather

Well its been a very stormy start to our New Year, with storm surges, heavy rain and flooding. Our local beach is made of stones and is often changed by the storms so it will be interesting to see how it has fared during the recent storms, I will have to go see when the sea is a lot calmer. 

Apart from the wild weather I took part in a challenge on the Craft Pimp Forum. We had to make bird feeders from only recycled or items you had available at home apart from seed and fat. It was a great idea and I thought I would get my children involved. First we had to decide what type of feeder we wanted to make, fat balls was the main idea as they are easy to make and all we needed to get was some lard.

 I really wanted to push the seeded fat into some pinecones but we didn't have any so we had to have a search about the house to find something.

We eventually found and old soda water bottle, a fizzy pop bottle, an old plastic cup, some shoe laces (instead of string) and my son found a stick from the garden. The soda bottle was turned into a seed feeder by just cutting some holes in the bottle and pushing the stick through for a perch. With the other items we mixed up two blocks of lard and added seed and then filled the containers with the mix after adding the shoe laces. As we had melted the lard slightly we had to let the feeders harden a bit so we just left the out in our porch which at this time of year is nice and cold.

We were going to put the feeders out yesterday but we still had very strong winds and the bird feeding station / pole was swaying a lot in the wind. I did put one feeder out today even though its still a bit blowy, I haven't seen many birds out there today apart from the odd curious Blue Tit. 

Until next time

Victoria xx

Another year nearly over.

Wow where has the time gone? this year has whizzed by on roller skates. Usually I'm really organised for Christmas, Cards written, present shopping finished, tree up etc, but not this year. My husband got my decorations down from the loft for me yesterday and I spent an hour or two with the children sorting through the decorations to choose the colour scheme for the tree this year. It was a bit sad as I had to throw away lots of glass baubles as they had broken, some of the baubles were bought when I first got married and from when the children were little. So the tree didn't go up yesterday but it will during the week, it takes me a few days to decorate the tree and our conservatory for Christmas but only a day to take it all down.

As its coming to the end of the year and with the new one just round the corner my thoughts have turned to what I want to achieve in the next year. I have already planned some new elves including a Super Elf, who got painted straight away. I also repainted some old elf bodies and turned them into winged fairy elves.

I think you will see a few more Cloth Art Dolls next year including some made from my own designs. I hope to blog a bit more or have a bit more of a plan on what I want to write about. I haven't any plans for any new hobbies yet, but I expect something new will grab my interest at some point.

Until next time

Victoria x

Dr Who and me.

This weekend I will be at two Christmas Craft Fairs, the details of where and when are on my facebook page. Also I'm very excited about the fact that its the 50th anniversary episode of Dr Who and I love Dr Who. I think watching Dr Who on Saturday evenings was exciting and very scary, that and possibly Star Trek (TOS) were responsible for my love of sci fi.

One of my earliest memories is from when I was about 4 years old and seeing and episode that featured London and a giant rat in the underground sewers. There are so many memories of watching Tom Baker as the Dr and sat in front of the telly eating a tea of homemade chips, egg and sausages. I liked all of the following Doctors but I was very disappointed when it finished. 

When Doctor Who was brought back I was so pleased as I knew my children would love Dr Who as much as I do. They loved the Sarah Jane Adventures we used to sit and watch them back to back on CBBC on school holidays.

I have to admit David Tennant is my favourite Dr, Sarah Jane Smith was the best companion ever, River Song is a brilliant recurring character, baddies has to be the Master and for monster well no question it has to be the Daleks.  So Saturday night I will be locking the door turning off  the phone and will settle down to watch and The Day Of The Doctor, Happy Anniversary Dr Who.

See you next time

Vic xx

Father Christmas and my essential tools

Well its been a busy two weeks, not only have I finished the second father Christmas with his red suit, I have made four mini cloth art dolls. They have turned out really well, I made two Christmas ones and some flower fairies. The reason to make so many in one go is I have two craft fairs next month so I wanted enough to sell. Well I should say I did have four I sold the Green Christmas Fairy before I had taken any photos. I have a few other pieces to make for the fairs mainly felted acorns, and GreenMen Cloth art doll decorations. I also need to retake photos of my Christmas Elves so that I can list them on ETSY after Halloween.

 

I was considering recently the most essential tool I couldn't do without, well narrowing it down to just one for me is hard so I have listed a few for each craft I do. 

Jewellery -  Pliers (round nosed, snipe nose) and cutters.

Seed Beading - Thread, needle, scissors.

Metal Smithing - Saw, bench peg, hammer, drill and drill bits.

Lampworking - Torch, kiln, gas, didymium glasses.

Art Dolls / Sewing - sewing machine, scissors, material, thread.

I could add a lot more to that list including the materials like metal, beads, glass, glue and so much more.

See you next time
Vic xx

Giveaway and Christmas

As you can see from the title I'm doing a giveaway and making things for Christmas. I'll tell you more about the giveaway later but first Christmas.

I decided in the summer that I was going to use the Troll pattern (by UteVasina) to make a couple of Santas / Father Christmas. Naturally they had to be made in green and red. Unfortunately I only had enough craft velour fabric to make one Father Christmas so I got on and made one while waiting for the Craft Velour to arrive.  He was great fun to make, I did a lot of measuring to get his trousers and clothing the right size. As usual I made the hair out of merino wool, putting on the beard was interesting and to be honest I wasn't sure for a while but I thought he certainly looked like a Father Christmas when I finished.

He is now ready to order in my Etsy shop and I will be making a start on the Red Santa at the end of this week. 

So to the Giveaway, I have been thinking of doing a giveaway for a while and I had just recently passed 100 likes on my FaceBook Business page . So naturally it seemed the right time to do the give away, but what to giveaway.  Well I have also been meaning to make my own original Cloth Art Doll from my own pattern design. Also I wanted to make a smaller doll that would not only use up the doll fabric scraps but would also be a little more cost effective for my customers. This is the first one of the Scrap Fairies.

I will need to make some very small changes to the pattern, but I'm pleased how the pattern worked out. So this original and first scrap doll is up for grabs on my facebook page  until Monday 14th October 2013 and the winner will be announced on Tuesday 15th Oct 2013.

see you next time

Vic xx

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