Love Some Bunny

 

The finished menagerie!

Three are traveling to New Mexico.  Four are heading to California.

I will say it again, I don't know how my grandma made so many (probably 30) and retained her sanity.  They were a labor of love.  Definitely a labor.  Only love let me finish.

They are just far enough in the rear view mirror that I'm making one more for an extended family grand-little and not dreading it.  It's possible that sewing one at a time might be more fun than creating them via assembly line.  I guess I'll find out!

Teensy Teaser

:

 Yesterday was a good day on the bunny front.  Turning and stuffing the arms, legs and heads just seemed endless--then I began embroidering the faces and the clouds parted and trombones sounded!

Is it because embroidery was so much easier?  Or just more creative? 

I'm going with the latter.  Suddenly they just had personality.  

 Here is a bouquet of the four little bunnies.  A teaser of what a warren of seven little fully dressed bunnies will look like!

Hippity hop!  Back to include bunches of carrots and overalls with suspenders and buttons.  All much more fun than the basic body parts.  I can't wait till they are all done.

p.s. I found a remnant of a stuffed arm on the carpet.  Bummer!

If I had to reconstruct the events, I'd go with:

• Said arm fell off the sofa and onto the rug as I stuffed others.
• I didn't count up arms and legs so I didn't miss it and begin looking for it.
• Somepup saw it laying there and decided it was a new toy
• Chewing is fun and ingesting muslin and stuffing in small amounts causes no problems
• The new toy was abandoned in a remote corner of the dining room.
• Only to surface two days later
  

Loving Some Bunny

 I have a treasured Easter bunny that my grandma made long ago. He looks pretty spry for a sixty year old.  I wonder how old that would be in bunny years?

(He's been living with all the other bunnies on a special shelf in my lawyer's bookcase.)

I thought I'd try reproducing him. Not bad for a first try without a pattern.

I'll be making a few more destined for a new generation of grand-littles.  

Possibly I should have taken photos earlier when there was still daylight...ya think?! I promised myself I'd post decent lighted and nicely edited photos of the whole litter of rabbits when the last stitch is set.

But for now, a poorly illustrated post is better than none.

Dolls and More Dolls, Episode 2

It is a truth universally acknowledged that one thing leads to another. (Yes, I'm a Jane Austen fan and especially fond of Pride and Prejudice!)

Michelle and the Rosebud live two states away from me and I was worried that the doll clothes I was eager to sew wouldn't fit properly.  So, of course, I needed a "model" to try on the clothes.  I chose a knock-off doll, inexpensive and available.  

Meet Annabelle Kate. She has the sweetest expression.  I just love her!

She's adorable dressed for Easter here, but looks can be deceiving. 

Her Yacht Club dress, those cute slingback sandals and the Easter basket filled with Peeps probably distracted you.

The horrid truth is that she has the worst hair in the world.  It would be impossible for any little girl to comb her trainwreck of a coiffure.  All I could do was braid the disparate lengths into two thick braids, add red ribbons and call it good.  Well, not good, but the best possible.  And she stayed that way for four long years.  

Until I discovered the infinite wonder of doll wigs on Etsy.  When it arrived, I cut Annabelle Kate's hair.  It was such an improvement that I should have given her a trim years ago!

She looks much happier now with her new, very brushable, silky hair. 

Annabelle Kate wasn't the last doll to arrive at Meadowsweet Cottage.  You knew that was coming, right?

When the Rosebud visited and we played with Annabelle Kate (pre-makeover) and Michelle, the difference between American Girl doll hair and the knockoff doll hair was sadly even more apparent. I've always loved the look of a shorter-haired American Girl doll. And sure enough, I found a great buy on eBay.  If you think she looks like Kit Kittredge, you'd be right.  She even came with some of Kit's meet outfit and her book, which was a bonus.

I renamed her Mabel Gabriella--Bree, for short. Although I admit I sometimes think of her as "Kit".  It just means that the dolls need to play together more so I get used to calling her Bree. 

There's something special about owning such a great doll.  I'm not knocking the knock-offs, but she's made so well. Her hair is so silky and easy to comb and style.  She sits and stands beautifully.  I kinda love her!

 

 

Dolls and More Dolls, Episode 1

I like dolls.  

 Baby dolls, Raggedy Ann dolls, Amish dolls, Barbie dolls. Dolls from the store and home-crafted dolls. These two lovelies were made by my grandma in the 1960s.  She made them for all her grandchildren and we got to choose which one to keep.  At family reunions, the Raggedies come too! Can you tell two blondies picked these?  Mine just coincidentally happens to have brown hair and blue eyes.

 

But my current favorites have to be American Girl dolls.  I blame it on my grand-daughter.  We bought the Samantha doll at Costco for a decent price and that was her birthday present at five.  I don't think I'll ever forget her ecstatic reaction when she opened her gift!  Priceless!

I was aware of Pleasant Company and their product--dolls from various historical periods that came with appropriate clothing and accessories and a storybook of their adventures.  I didn't know that they eventually became part of Mattel. Or that there were knockoffs (which meant that little girls from less-advantaged families could enjoy imaginative doll play also.

But once Samantha, renamed Michelle, became part of the family, I wanted to sew for her--sort of a family tradition.  And I discovered doll patterns. That meant all those little scraps of cute fabrics that I couldn't bear to toss suddenly were the right size for my projects.  Do you know how dangerous it can be when literally any material can legitimately be saved?  A stash can expand exponentially!

 

For better or worse, I discovered Pixie Faire, an online shop with the cutest designs ever! Great designers like Liberty Jane, Eden Ave Couture, Forever 18, Miche Designs--I could go on and on. Basic American Girl clothes from tee shirts to mini-skirts.  Fun accessories like bunny slippers and Halloween costumes.  Furniture from bunkbeds to sofas. So I started getting their free patterns then ordering new ones.  Four years later I haven't stopped sewing and crafting for Samantha/Michelle! 

In Episode 2, one thing leads to another...

Friday Fave -- Christmas in January

The nights are getting shorter and the days longer--although you can't tell if you're not paying attention because you're too busy freezing your bewhondus off.

All the twinkling lights are packed away as are the tartookers, bizilbigs, popcorn and plums. So what's a girl to do to ward off a severe case of the dreaded January Doldrums?  Funny you should ask!

It helps that I've hoarded every post-holiday sale cross-stitch ornament pattern that I've ever seen.  I have kits marked Shopko $.30--and we haven't had Shopko here for a decade, people.  And, oh, how I miss that store!  So I'm loving lots and lots of cheery projects to stitch while I watch George Eliot's Middlemarch on Netflx, with an occasional Marco Polo episode  thrown in to satisfy my sweetie's viewing habits.

It might have taken a few days of digging in various boxes and bins to round up all the kits that have scattered over the years, but I managed to herd them into one corral finally. So maybe the correct embroidery threads aren't with the right kits. Details, details.  Close enough.

I'm just started project number seven!  Which sounds impressive--especially with an exclamation mark thownin--but three of them were already mostly finished (similar to "mostly dead", but in the opposite way) and took just an evening to wind up. 

Don't you just love that little gingerbread house on the green Aida?!  It's my favorite.  Atlhough the little hen with the brown eggs that says Merry Eggsmas on it (not pictured) is darn fun too.  In a chicken-loving way.

I'm not only avoiding the post-holiday letdown but I'm a whole eleven months ahead on next year's Christmas ornaments!  Whoot!


 

My Cool Old Horse

Last October I bought a cool old horse at My Friends and I in Niles.

The horse caught my eye immediately.  I loved that it was a draft horse (my ranching family has a history of draft horses: my grandpa's Star that my mom drove during haying season, my uncle's Belgian mares, and a hitch and wagon owned by some cousins currently.  I loved the patina--but a bargain it wasn't. I walked past it a second time and found myself envisioning a Christmas tree being hauled home and was tempted, but the price still made me think twice.  Well, the third time I passed it...I gave in.  If an object is calling your name that insistently, what else can you do?

When I got to the register, my saleslady said she was glad someone wanted it.  She just thought it was a cool old horse so she'd obtained it for her booth.   I laughed when I saw my receipt.

(It's a bit faint, but it says "cool old horse".) Yeah, that's the price too.

Getting a Christmas tree for my draft horse to pull was easy--Walmart has bottle brush trees in various sizes and guises every year. 

You might notice that the tree it has a very realistic trunk.  I just pulled off the white plastic base, used my pruning shears to cut a branch the appropriate length, drilled a hole in said branch and glued the tree wire into it.  Easy upgrade!

Next project was giving the horse a harness.  I Googled "horse collar harness images", then grabbed some Sculpey and shaped my own version.

 After baking it, I painted it and then rubbed it with dark shoe polish--it looks just like leather!  All of the sudden you can see my cool old horse leaning into her load.

For the holidays I used doubled-over brown binding tape as traces (the straps that attach to the load being pulled) to let my cool old horse haul the tree home from the woods.

I plan to find some leather shoelaces to create traces as well as attach a swingle tree for a bit more authenticity.  Don't you love the evocative sound of "swingle tree?"  You can almost tell what it is from its name:  a wood piece between the traces and the tree   There would actually be several more pieces to a working harness but a harness, traces and swingle tree will do the job.

I'd been on the lookout for a vintage pickup that needed a Christmas tree on top but obviously the Universe thought I should use a horse instead. Good call, 'Verse.

 Stay shiny,

Last Year's Projects: Rescuing Jenny Lind

She wasn't a roadkill.  Just a damsel in distress.  Wait, I'm getting ahead of the story.

It helps when you volunteer at the PTA Thrift Shop because you get first crack at the goodies as you unpack them.  Sounds great, right?

Remember that saying "No good deed goes unpunished?"   Lavender-blue dangly earrings--check.  Flannel-lined sleeping bag like the one I had as a kid--check.  Vintage Jenny Lind bed--check.  Jenny was a find with a capital F and more than a bit of a bargain at $7.50 but still dangerous to those of us with more vision than sense.

Still, there are times you grab the deal and hold your breath until you're safely away.

In my defense, I didn't price it--some other volunteer mom did and the finish was disastrous.

On the other hand, that was in 1987 dollars and she's been stored since, so maybe she wasn't quite the bargain I'd intended? 

Tell me that I'm not the only one who's held on to a project for eons.

I always meant to re-stain the bed, but the thought of all those turned-wood posts meeting sandpaper effectively discouraged me from starting.  Then we moved Nevada from SoCal and she's been tucked away in our garage ever since.  Waiting.  And waiting.  And waiting.  Not unlike a princess asleep in her tower.

A very messy, garage-like tower with large gargoyles office desks lurking in the shadows.

Pinterest to her rescue.  A very playful, adventurous yellow or red or aqua rescue--I absolutely knew no white knight paint would suit her.  As a bonus, if I painted rather than re-stained her I wouldn't need to sand even one spindle.  That's a win/win, in my book.

I fell in love with this bed from Land of Nod currently "on sale" for five hundred down from five hundred ninety-nine (allow me to interject an exclamation mark at both those prices here). Inspired, I bought a subtle Robin's Egg Blue paint sampler from the Paint Mart and was ready to begin the transformation.  Sort of like a fairy godmother. 

That was the plan.

It always seem easy at the start, doesn't it?  Then reality interrupts that pleasant easy DIY daydream.

I was NOT pleased when I wiped off all the dust and spider webs and found my damp cloth was brown.  And not from dirt either. I had not bargained for bleed-through at all. (I did think it was odd though, since the old stain wasn't of the reddish/mahogany variety and I wasn't dealing with veneer.)  But the second cleaning gave me a brown towel again.  ARG!

Bear in mind that I worked on this project as a way to avoid the elephants in my garage (aka the two huge office desks that take as much space as a Mini Cooper)--not trying to give myself another headache. 

This story has a happy ending though.  Turns out the original finish was in such poor shape that I was actually wiping it off with a washcloth.  Crazy good!  I was able to use a medium sandpaper and "flick" the entire bed, spindles and all, down to bare wood without breaking a sweat.  Might have taken a whole hour, at most.

The only way it could have been easier was if the finish disappeared when I gave it a stern look.  Or waved my Fairy Godmother wand.

The result may be my favorite painted piece of furniture of all time! 

It is just the most perfect color possible.

 Pictures don't do it justice. 

The ironic part is that after all these years I don't intend to keep this sweet bed for myself!

   Why?  Well, I don't foresee a vacation cabin on a lake in my future.  Or a home with a loft where I can put multiple beds covered in homemade quilts for all the grandchildren. Some dreams you just have to let go.  And I already have a cutie-pie red iron bed in our guest room. 

So next summer (sniff, sniff) I'll take some evocative photos of an aqua Jenny Lind dressed in lace and ruffles in our flowery backyard and then with a great deal of reluctance (sniff, sniff), I'll post her on craigslist (for a bit less than the Land of Nod price).  Somewhere out there is a sweet little princess who needs the perfect bed for her tower.

The other happy ending...I was so happy with this project that I did actually finish the  two gargoyles elephants desks before the snow flew!

Stay shiny,

 
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Fun With Fabric: Custom Color Shoelaces.

These tennies were an impulse buy at Target.  

• The polka dots were sweetly crooning my name. 
• They were "lowest price of the season" ($12). 
• And buying myself shoes while birthday shopping for my son must surely count as multi-tasking.

I knew with a pop of color they'd be awesome.  I mean, why settle for ordinary when you can amp up the style quotient make them colorful and fun,  Hmm, black with white polka dots...what about turquoise shoe laces?

I thought I'd have to look for some colored laces, then I realized these tennies came with white cotton shoelaces and I have a huge stash of acrylic craft paints.  Free is good.

A bit of fabric medium mixed with Navy Blue and Jade plus Pool Blue provided the intense turquoise I was mentally visualizing.  I thinned the paint still more with water in my fabric-dying container provided by StarKist and soaked the shoelaces for a couple hours after smooshing them well into the paint using a plastic bag to protect my fingers.  Then I draped them over a branch of our apple tree to dry. 

The key to using acrylic craft paints on fabric is to heat set the final product. I can't stress this enough.  I set my iron on "cotton", protected my ironing board with a brown paper grocery bag and protected my iron with a paper towel over the laces. Good thing I did too because you can see lots of paint ironed off!  So protection is good if you like your iron and your ironing board cover the way they are.

I ironed slowly along the length of the laces, then turned them over and ironed the other side.  A fair amount of color bled--even though I ironed slowly on both sides.  More than I expected, but still well within reason.

I checked for color-fastness by holding them under running water in the sink.  The water stayed clear but just as I began congratulating myself and thought about lacing up my new shoes, I began to see first a hint of color, then a flood of turquoise pigment even though I knew I'd heat-set the paint pretty well.  I think the color was from the interior of the shoelace weave because the visible part of the laces stayed the same vibrant turquoise.

I dried them again on the branch (thank heavens for temps in the nineties--quick drying suits my impatient nature) and then re-ironed them and checked for color-fastness.  Again.  I maybe impatient but I'm not stupid enough to want turquoise paint bleeding onto those white polka dots. 

The colorful result is casual, happy, and carefree.  And totally unique. 

It's nice to know that I can custom color my shoelaces.  What would I do different?  One thing:  I'd thin the paint even more than I did--watery would be better than soupy.  And the finished shoelaces wouldn't be quite as stiff from the acrylic paint. 

Now that I know that...I'm thinking those polka dots would look cute with cherry red laces too.  Or hot pink.  Or rainbow tie-dye.  Or goldenrod for autumn.

Be (INSPIRE)d,
 

Playing With Wood: Christmas in July

Yes, I know Christmas is in December, but I worked on these in July.  Happens every year--I finish a holiday project or two. In July.  Go figure. 

When it's hot outside, it's nice to have some small, easy, stress-free projects to work on.  And all three of these came under the "playing with wood" category.

First I painted a teensy frame red for this cross-stitched Santa that my SIL sent as our Christmas card for 2013.  I didn't realize that Santa's bag was purple before.  Who knew?!

Then I happened to be cleaning my workroom of clutter at the same time that I was browsing my Pinterest boards.  The result was these penguins created from the three little unpainted wooden flower pots that had just been sitting around awaiting inspiration.

  Love'em.  Wouldn't they be even cuter wearing little scarves?  I'll get on that.

Next.   I bought an unpainted laser-cut tree at Joann's last October.

Inspired by Jeri Lander's scherenschnitte (of which I proudly own a framed piece), I painted a tree of Life.  Not that I'm anywhere in Jeri's league, but her art makes me happy and so does this little piece.

Am I the only one who mixes up December and July?

Be (INSPIRE)d,
 
The comments section turned up other Christmas-minded blogging friends.  Including a party at Journey Back!

If a Bird Can Build a Nest, Then So Can I

Birds just have their beaks assisted by basic instinct to guide them when building a nest. I've got two hands, opposable thumbs and a lawn filled with birch branches blown down by the last windstorm--how hard can it be?
 
Since I had to gather up all the twigs anyway, I kept some to weave into a nest.

First I took all the wispiest pieces--some were already off the ends of larger branches, some I clipped off  if they were attached to pieces to thick to weave together.

Then I circled them all in my big soup pot, covered them with hot water and heated it to a boil before I turned off the burner and let them soak for thirty minutes.  The branches in springtime are usually alive and pliable anyway (as opposed to dead branches in the fall), but the heat makes them extra springy and less likely to break as I work with them.

Then I bent a few into a circle and spiraled both ends into a wreath shape.  Perfection isn't required--lots of ends stick out but we'll deal with them late.  Keep adding twigs until you have a nice hefty little wreath.  

Make one large wreath, one medium and one bitty.  My large was less than four inches in diameter and each smaller one was about an inch smaller.  The sizes aren't exact.  They just need to be graduated so that the next littlest one is smaller than the one above but still overlaps the inner diameter a bit.  You can see I made the littlest one nice and full--it'll be on the bottom and you don't want your eggs to fall through.  I had enough twigs for a second nest and my top was almost six inches, so you can make them as big or little as you'd like.

Then stack them up--can you see the spaces showing between the layers?

I saved some fine and very pliable twiglets to use as "thread" to sew the layers together.  I just wove them in and out, using areas that were open, until I had a more-or-less unified look.

Then I basically gave it a haircut--I clipped off the spikiest stems that stuck out before I glued on some moss.  When you hot glue a very thin layer of moss (Dollar Store or craft store) on top you camouflage any flaws as well as make it an softly inviting place to lay a few eggs.

I shaped a piece of wire about six inches long like a hairpin and stuck in through the bottom of the nest so I could easily attach it to my grapevine wreath and remove it as needed.  If you're displaying your wreath atop an old trophy or on a shelf, you obviously can just lay it in place without wiring it.

I'm an Offical Craft Hoarder so of course I've had a little bag of speckled eggs laying around for years just waiting for a project.  I squirted together a bit of light blue, ironically named Blue Jay, and added a dollop of a lime green acrylic paint to get just the exact shade of robins egg blue that my brain was visualizing, painted one side at a time and patiently waiting until it was dry before carefully painting the other side.

(And if you believe that I have some tropical acreage here in Northern Nevada that I'd like to sell you!)

Paint at here at Meadowsweet doesn't have much of a chance to dry before I'm ready to put on a second coat.  I have a system dedicated to my impatience now--an index card with thumb tacks pushed through that I use as a little drying rack.  It keeps the eggs from rolling around and the little points support the eggs but allow the paint to dry without needed a repaint to cover places where wet paint stuck to whatever I previously set them on.

A bit of hot glue--making sure that your eggs are attached to the twigs beneath the moss rather than the moss itself--and nestle your little robin's eggs in place.

Voila! You're ready to attach your nest to a wreath

or place it in an old trophy, 

or set it on a china plate.

  Nothing says springtime like a bird's nest filled with eggs!

Be (INSPIRE)d,

More wonderful springtime lovelies at My Romantic Home's Show and Tell Friday!

Making a Chalkboard Printable--Success!

Not bad for my first try at chalkboard art (digital rather than actual).  It was so easy and fun that I know this Valentine's Day quote won't be the only time I create a virtual blackboard. Ideas are churning around in my brain--so many holidays, so many fonts, so many quotes--I'm in heaven!

Yep, I'm chalking another successful craft up to Pinterest!  That's where I found the link to Angela at atypicalenglishhome.  She has a nice tutorial and a helpful selection of fonts--best of all, she had the blackboard image to download that made it possible.

  Be (INSPIRE)d,