December Already??

 It has been a busy week around the ole Cart. Along with a lovely Thanksgiving dinner for 8, house prettifiying, and about a zillion dishes, we managed to get 4 new pieces done. I put the finishing touches on everyone yesterday morning, just in time to greet December.

This fashionable snow couple has been leisurely strolling around the studio.

I felt more like a dentist than an artist at times making these toothy fellows.

A happy moon with a little friend likes to spout poetry.

In a couple of hours I'm meeting a couple of on-line artist buddies in real life for the first time. We're having a girly day with crafts, the beach, antique-ing, lunch, and probably lots of giggling. Yay for new friends!

Happy December everyone!

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 of 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 little foldy-over flaps.

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

All glued and pretty and ready for the next step-

Then I glued little bits of fabric over the inside of the windows.

Pretty!

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-

The possibilities are endless!

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!