Goodies in the Mail!

Who doesn't love getting goodies in the mail? I did a little mini swap with my new blog friend Heather from Speckled Egg. She has a fabulous blog full of eye-candy and an awesome store filled with goodies. She was eying my spun cotton bat girl and I was eying pretty much every single thing in her store, so we decided to swap! This is my first swap and boy was it a good one! I had such a hard time picking things out from her store...I wanted everything! I'll be purchasing as soon as I run low on millinery. ;)

She gave me full rein to pick out whatever I wanted. After much hemming and hawing and changing my mind about what to pick out from her shop, I decided on several bouquets of her vintage millinery flowers bundles in fall colors, a sprig of golden velvet leaves, a pack of plastic mushrooms and two sets of plastic cracker jacks animals (for my typer's drawer shelf I recently posted about). I was not disappointed when I opened the tiny box! Even her business card is stunning. Sigh...what fun! And my bat girl is feeling right at home with Heather!

Also in the mail came a recent internet purchase. An assembly of vintage Christmas goodies. I'm in love with bottle brush trees and those white flocked reindeer are just fabulous. I have to decide whether I want to use them in my creations or keep them for display...I always have a weakness for vintage holiday anything. I can't help myself! :)

The Joys of Parenthood...

Ahh yes. Parenthood. I am not yet a parent myself, but having two little sisters that are 8 and 14 years my junior...I sometimes feel like I've gone through parenthood already. My mother is great at being a mother, but when she needed a break, I came in as the relief mom. Between the whining and crying for no apparent reason to the messes they make all over the house. When my littlest sister Suzi was still in diapers, she would put anything and everything in her mouth. You'd see her chewing on something (more like gumming, since she didn't have teeth yet) and you'd have to run over and stick your finger in her mouth to pull out fuzz balls, rocks, dust bunnies, etc. One time I pulled a giant metallic blue wasp out of her mouth. It was already dead and not a stinging species anyway, but still!

So yes, the joys of parenthood. Even though the crazy and sometimes trying experiences stick out in my mind the most, I know there are real joys to having a bouncing baby boy or girl. Even though they've grown into wonderful young ladies, my little sisters dissuaded me from having kids for a long time...but now, every time I see an adorable little baby or child, smiling and laughing with their parent, I feel all warm and fuzzy inside and start to crave that for myself. Yes, one day after Ben and I are married and settled down, we'll have an older boy and younger girl named Henry and Lola, they'll be perfectly behaved and will never get sick. Ok, that's probably only in my dreams... We'll most likely end up having twin boys who run around destroying everything in sight. Sigh...

Anyway...these recent thoughts must have been what inspired me to create these figures who are questionably happy about parenthood. The one guy gets so frazzled he has to wrap his throbbing headache in medical gauze! They're the perfect gift for that new parent in your life. I also created a more than happy nurse carrying twins but somehow forgot to photograph her... These figures will be for sale on Etsy. :)

Fairy Sneak Peek

Tadaaa! Here is a sneak peek at my new fairy series, inspired by the wonderful Pippastrella. She has a glorious ebay store and sells lots of my OOAK pieces and so much more! Her selection of goodies is absolutely wonderful! Many of the fairies in this series are garden fairies, although I've nearly completed a fun and fabulous Western Saloon Fairy (she'll have a hobby horse and all!) and a Southern Belle Fairy, among others. I'll of course have little children pixie fairies too. These four pieces are the first completed for this continuing series...


These two are the Pink and White Garden Fairies, made with spun cotton bodies, crepe paper dresses and lots of vintagey details. They both hang from ribbons in mid-flight, on their way to cast some fairy dust on a deserving little girl (or grown woman!).




These two little cuties are Garden Pixie Fairies. They have spun cotton bodies and crepe paper dresses and are swinging from the handles of elaborate garden baskets decorated with vintage millinery, ribbon, tinsel and glitter. The blond pixie also has a little dachshund dog at her feet!




And I've also made another batch of cat and bat girls and they're looking on from on top of the cabinet, awaiting new homes! Stay tuned, more fairies to come! :)

Treasures from Brimfield

Whew! What a busy weekend! Saturday was a wedding near the Catskills. Sunday was an 80th birthday brunch in Long Island. And in between was a lot of driving! However...on Friday, before all of that madness began, I took a little trip to the Brimfield Antique Show. It's only an hour away and I had Ben's older brother in tow. I usually don't bring other people with me, since very few have the patience to wait for me while I sift through boxes of old junk. But he was looking for some Shabby Chic end tables for his apartment and was pre-warned about my tendencies to linger in any tent selling holiday items. He was really good and seemed to enjoy the new experience. We did find some great shabby chic sellers, but none had end tables and all claimed to have sold to Rachel Ashwell, Queen of Shabby Chic...which I certainly believe, seeing how she mentions Brimfield sometimes in her books. (You really should pick them up from the bookstore or library...such fabulous inspiration!!)

So, as always I'm on the lookout for pretty much anything that strikes my fancy. Which lately has been old ladies hats from the 30's and 40's. Especially hats filled with millinery flowers. I found a whole mess of them from an old man selling all kinds of great things. There's one I bought that I might wear even though I'm not a hat person. It actually looks kinda good on me! I also found some great vintage Christmas doodads and loose millinery flowers that I plan to incorporate into my creations. I'm debating whether to keep the frilly lampshade or to pass it on to someone else who will appreciate it just as much as I do. I bought a series of old children's books filled with fabulous illustrations and a fun deck of cards from a guy who charges way too much for most of the junk he sells, but I can't help but buy from him every time I'm there! I bought a Wade England cow that matches the cow illustration in one of the books perfectly! I got a great deal on that old pink crepe paper party favor. You're supposed to pull the sides and a toy or candy pops out. I really want to know what's inside! Of course I can't bring myself to rip it to pieces....it's too old and beautiful! Finally, I went to an everything's-a-dollar tent filled with jewelry and bought some funky earrings for myself. Some naked mermaid hoops and some totally 1980's white danglys...I can't wait to wear them!

What a successful Brimfield shopping trip! I can't wait until September...where I can do it all over again! :)

PS - I'll be selling some of the hats and some of the other items on my Vintage from Crystal etsy store. Check it out, I'll hopefully be posting them tomorrow! :)

The Circus is Coming to Town!

The circus is here! Or at least my little version of the circus. This is my brand new Woodland Circus Creature set. Lately I've been trying to come up with figures that could be displayed everyday, not just for the holidays...and these little guys make the perfect quirky and whimsical year round companions!

I've been working on them on and off for that past oh...maybe two months. I knew what I wanted to make...even did detailed drawings of them beforehand. I wanted them to be perfect so I really took the time to figure out exactly how I was going to execute them. I did the squirrel first and that's kind of what got me started with the whole circus idea. I did three squirrels...one brown, one pink (a girl squirrel) and one wound up turning into a striped skunk (they'll be posted for sale on Etsy soon). Then I thought...I'll have this little brown squirrel hold some acorns. Oh wait, I'll also have him balance a bunch in his hand. When that didn't work (the weight of the nuts on one side made him tip over) I decided to try balancing the nuts on his head. Voila! Circus squirrel! Of course only one circus act is really just a street performance, I decided to come up with some other acts. And here they are!

Chippy the nut balancing squirrel. Buttons the clown wolf. Sparky the sword swallowing reindeer. Mr. Brown the chipmunk juggling bear. And of course, Sasha and Tasha, the acrobat vixens. I just posted all of them for sale on Etsy. They're so much fun and I think they're my favorite figures to date!

Bits of Fun!

I have many shelves in my apartment filled with lots of great goodies. The one that takes the cake, however, has to be my chippy white typer's drawer in the bathroom. I got the drawer at a flea market in my home town of Saratoga Springs, NY for only $4! Sadly that flea market has closed down a year or two ago....but not before I scored some awesome stuff. Over the course of about 5 years I've filled it with tiny vintage animals, people and furniture. I filled it up quickly once I discovered the Brimfield Antiques Show and especially after my trip to Germany 2 years ago (the best pieces came from Chemnitz and Berlin). I even had to take some little guys off to put older and more unique figures on. This is where it hangs now...contrasting nicely off of my turquoise walls, perched precariously over the toilet. (Luckily nothing has made it into the toilet...yet, lol.) I'll be on the lookout for another chippy white shelf like this one to start another collection! :)

Two little birdies...

Can you guess which bird is just a ceramic statue? Sam couldn't tell the difference and he sat here on the window sill for quite some time yelling at the inanimate object. To be honest I think he was upset because the statue wasn't talking back. Michelle, Sam's birdie friend who is actually alive and can talk (budgie talk, not people talk), likes to stay in the cage while Sam prefers to spend his time roaming around the dining room. He's always yelling at her to join him in front of the giant mirror displayed in my built in shelves, but she typically ignores him...just like I ignore Ben when he tells me to stop bringing his favorite tupperware to work. I guess at this particular moment Sam thought he might have better luck with the bird that's been sitting on the window sill since before he was born! I just happened to have my camera handy and snatched this too adorable photo of him and his new acquaintance. Unfortunately the didn't form that long lasting bond he was hoping for... Maybe he'll have better luck with the next birdie figure I bring home! :)

Introducing....

Kangaroo Mom and Baby! Aren't they adorable?! This summer I'm working on Halloween items, but I also wanted to make a series of everyday figures... You know, the kind you never have to put in storage to await the next holiday! My white cats, bats, and bunnies were a hit, so I decided to expand on that same style, but with new kinds of animals.

Well...there are ALOT of different kinds of animals...which ones should I make into little animal people? I was having a hard time deciding when Ben suggested that I do a kangaroo with a baby in its pouch. Genius! I made one so far and she came out great! Baby comes out of the pouch... unbend her tail and she stands on her own! She slips easily back into the pouch where she's safe and sound. They're for sale right now on Etsy.

I'll be making other new animals soon as well...although I'm still not sure what the next few should be. If anyone has any ideas...let me know! :)