In spite of our cats, our yard is filled with birds all year round.  At our feeder, we’ve seen woodpeckers, cardinals, doves, nuthatches, finches, titmice, bluejays, chickadees, sparrows and even wild turkeys!

Bird on a Branch Felted Bag

Last summer, a pair of chickadees made a nest in a birdhouse in our yard and laid their eggs.  For some reason, the parent pair abandoned the nest after the chicks hatched. (sadly, I suspect it had to do with having pest control treat our house for ants).  We called the Wildlife Rehabilitators Association of Rhode Island to find out how we could save the chicks.  They were so helpful! Since it was a weekend, the rehabilitator whith whom we were working told us how to rescue the babies and take care of them until Monday when we could bring them into the rehab center.  We took the roof off the birdhouse to carefully remove the babies, placed them in a shoe-box with a towel and kept them warm with a heating pad.  Every few hours we fed them mashed up grapes.  When Monday came around, Jon drove the chicks to the rehab center where they could receive the care they needed.  I’m happy to say, all of the surviving chicks made it and were eventually released back into the wild in Rhode Island.

Opening Up The Birdhouse

Happy Chicks

Feeding the Chickadees

Recently, I was reading the WRARI newsletter and realized how expensive it really is to rehabilitate a wild animal.  Baby animals require round the clock care, special diets, and, depending on their situation, veterinary treatment for injuries.  Did you know it costs about $500 to rehab a fawn, $80 to rehab a baby bird and $25 to rehab a baby cottontail rabbit?  So, I decided to make a felted bag for the animals.  All proceeds from my “Bird On A Branch Bag” will go directly to the WRARI.

I’ve also put together this treasury of other Etsy sellers who are making items for charitable causes.  Please check them out when you get a chance.

Bird On A Branch - Proceeds to WRARI

Bird On A Branch – Listing

This post doesn’t really have anything to do about creativity or any other type of artistic endeavor.  I’m really just taking advantage of a forum to vent on a very common, yet annoying problem — the mystery of the missing sock.

The Lonely Socks Club

When we moved to Rhode Island almost 2 years ago, I started a missing sock box.  Each time I did laundry, and failed to make a match, I would stash the single sock in a box.  Every so often I would sit down and sort through the socks to see if any of the singles matched up.   (Kind of like my own sock dating service.)  Anyway, I went to match up some socks earlier this week and realized that my missing sock collection had grown to astronomical proportions.  Even after matching up 7 pairs, I was still left with 50 single socks!  What the &%@$??? Where ever did they come from?  Have the neighborhood socks heard about my service and immigrated to my house in the stealth of night?  I swear i don’t even recognize some of them.

The Sock Pile

I’ve checked under the beds and behind the dressers, but haven’t found enough evidence to justify 50 missing socks!  Anyway, I will keep my collection until I give up hope of finding their mates.  In the meantime, let me know if you have any creative uses for single socks. I’m open to suggestions!

UPDATE – Some of my lucky socks have been claimed by overnight guests who can now reunite them with their mates.  A few others have turned up inside pillow cases and the corners of fitted sheets.  Alas, the vast majority remain in “The Pile”.

Before I say anything, I need to credit my husband Jon with this recycling idea.  He had a vision, whereas, I had my eye on the trash can.

Teddy and Zelda

Anyway, about a week ago, Jon presented me with a pair of old twill pants with frayed cuffs and rips across the knees.  They were too far gone for even the best mending efforts.  As he tossed them to me, he said “maybe you can use them for some type of craft with the kids; I don’t know, maybe you can make a teddy bear and use the pocket buttons for eyes or something”.  The pants sat on my desk for a few days, and then I suggested to the kids that we try to make a teddy bear for my son out of Daddy’s old pants.  My daughter was the benefactress of my last project, so I thought it would be nice to make something for my son this time.  Well, he was fairly indifferent to the idea, but my daughter thought it would be really cool to make a doll.  So, off we went to create a cute rag doll out of an old, ripped pair of pants.

We used most of the usable fabric on the doll pictured above, but we did have just enough material left to make her cute little teddy bear companion.

More Teddy and Zelda

And, yes, we used the pocket button for Teddy’s eyes and nose.  I didn’t use a pattern for this doll.   I drew the pieces freehand directly onto the pant legs.  The dolls head and torso are one section, and each arm and leg are a separate piece so that her limbs have some movement.  Zelda, as I named her, is wearing a dress that I made using leftover cotton fabric from a baby quilt I made a few years ago.  Her hair is just basic craft felt.   I wanted to use acrylic paints to give her a more vibrant face, but my daughter insisted that we didn’t have that kind of time — dolly needs a face NOW, so I used a tube of purple puffy fabric paint to draw on a quick face (and belly button!).  Teddy’s scarf is made from scraps of a felted sweater blanket.

For those of you do a lot of sewing, I think making a rag doll without a pattern is a really fun way to go, especially when working with a very finite amount of fabric.  However, if you would like to try it with a pattern, here are some site with cute rag doll patterns from Make Cute Baby Stuff, Fluffy Land, Martha Stewart’s Bunny, and Martha Stewart’s Dolls, and  I also found the twill pant material was pretty easy to work with and lent itself well to a rag doll project.  Teddy probably would have liked a softer material to help give more curve to his ears.  They seemed to come out a little jagged.   My biggest piece of advice for you — if you decide to make your doll without a pattern, cut your pieces much wider than you want the finished item to be. For example, the unsewn arms and legs were almost twice as wide as they appear on the finished doll.  Between the seam allowance, turning, and stuffing, it is amazing how much the pieces ’shrink up’.

Hanging Out

All Together

I really like how these upcycled toys came out and love having another fun use for old clothes!  I will definitely stash away any old pants that we have for our next rag doll project.

Along with Valentine’s Day, myriads of people around the world will be celebrating Chinese New Year on February 14th.  This year, the Chinese Calendar will be entering the Year of the Tiger.

Chinese Inspired Felted Bag

When I lived in New York, I always looked forward to the huge Chinese New Year celebration that took place downtown every year.  We would bundle up in our warmest coats and hats, take the subway in from Brooklyn, watch the spectacular parade, and hit our favorite restaurant for dim sum.  I even have a packet of red money envelopes left over from a few years ago.  They are really quite pretty, with a picture of a girl embossed in gold leaf.   I am the first to admit that I don’t know much about the traditions that lie beneath the celebration, but I certainly enjoyed the opportunity to experience the festivities.  Now that I live in Rhode Island, I won’t be able to go to the parade this year, but I thought I would show a parade of items from Etsy artists that have a Chinese or Tiger inspiration.  Enjoy!

A few  years ago, I went through a soap-making phase.  I wasn’t serious enough about it to really sell anything, except a few bars to some of my husband’s very supportive friends.

Valentine Soap

But, I did manage to make enough to give to everyone I knew for every holiday that came to pass.  And, I did manage to accumulate a pretty big stash of soap-making supplies.  When it came time to decide what to give my daughter’s teachers for Valentine’s Day, I remembered my chunks of olive oil & goat’s milk soap and my little vials of essential oils & aroma oils.  Thus, began a very interesting foray into soap-making with a 4 1/2 year old.

I won’t go into instructional detail about how to make melt & pour soap, because, frankly, you melt it — then you pour it.  Pretty straightforward.  OK, I guess it is a little bit more involved than that.  If you are interested, here is a very informative article on the melt & pour technique.   Instead, I’ll just share with you some helpful hints that I’ve learned along the way, and share some fun photos.

Stirring the Soap

Checking out the Molds

Filled Molds

Hint #1 – Bees Wax – Use a little bit of bees wax.  It will make your soap last longer and its good for your skin.  You can buy the little yellow pellets at most soap supply companies.  I don’t really measure, but I use about a tablespoon or so to a batch of 2-3 smallish bars of soap. (I know, I know, I should measure!)  When we did this project, I just let my daughter throw in a handful.  Beeswax melts slower than soap, so pre-melt your beeswax and then add the chunks of soap base.

Hint#2 – Color – I read somewhere that you can use melted crayons for colorants.  I tried this and found that it didn’t work very well with opaque soaps such as goat’s milk, but did a nice job with transparent soaps like olive oil.  For this project, we tried the crayons, because it was fun, but I ended up using Wilton’s gel food coloring to brighten the color.  I’ve also used powered soap colorants, but always had a hard time getting them to blend in.  All and all, food colorings always seemed to work best for me.

Hint #3 – Molds – For this project, I we used silicone heart-shaped muffin pans and rubber heart-shaped ice-cube trays.  I found them in the dollar bin at Target last year.  They were so much easier to use than the plastic soap molds I’ve used in the past, and they were much cheaper.  I’ve also used bread pans lined with saran wrap.  Just pop out the ‘loaf’ and slice it.

Hint #4 – Supplies – I’ve always had good luck buying soap base, bees wax and aroma oils at Brambleberry.  They have an enormous selection and a helpful site.  I used to buy great essential oils from a company called Cedar Vale, but they don’t seem to be around anymore.

Hint #5 – Making It Kid-Friendly – Obviously, you need to be very careful when dealing with hot, melted soap around kids.  Some of the things I let my daughter do were to pick out the colors and aromas, put the cut up of chunks of soap base into the bowl, squeeze an eye-dropper of essential oil (filled by me) into the melted soap, and stir the essential oil into the melted soap base while being carefully monitored.  She also had fun popping the soaps out of the molds when they were hardened.

The Finished Product

When we were done, we ended up with some really cute heart shaped soap in pink, orange, yellow and blue.  We bundled them in pink tulle and plan to bring them into school later this week.

Usually, when people go to a play, they talk about the great acting, wonderful singing, gripping story line, artful staging etc.  Maybe it’s the hidden seamstress in me, but the first thing that I notice are the costumes.

Hair - Chrissy's Dress

Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate all the other aspects of a great show, but the visual effect of the costumes always makes the biggest impact.  That’s why, when I saw pictures of the dresses that were made for an upcoming production of Hair, I felt like I had to dedicate a post to them.  The thing that love about this dress is that it looks like it would be as much at home walking through Williamsburg, Brooklyn, as it would be dancing through the summer of love.  And, yes, a dress with this much flair could walk and dance on its own!

This is one of several dresses designed by Carole Hamilton for the production and will be worn by the character Chrissy, played by her daughter Meghan Hamilton.

Style in the Age of Aquarius

Carole has been designing costumes for Dracut High School drama for the past 11 years, and recently designed costumes for the Counter-Productions Theatre Co’s production of Psycho Beach Party which was directed by Meghan.  Carole draws her inspiration from the personality of those individuals for whom she is designing.

For those who aren’t familiar with the play, Hair tells the story of the a group of politically active, long-haired hippies of the “Age of Aquarius” living a bohemian life in New York City.   The Boston-based Counter-Productions Theatre Co’s production of the show will be held the Stadium Theater in Woonsocket, RI,  February 19th – 21th.  If you happen to be in RI, check it out.  Don’t forget to wear flowers in your hair!

Don’t you love having fans?  My biggest fan is my 4 year old daughter.

Kid's Fingerless Mitts

Every time she sees me making something or working on a new project, regardless of what it is, she exclaims with genuine enthusiasm “Oh, that’s so pretty! I love that! Is it for me?”  There’s always a brief moment of disappointment if I have to explain that no, its for someone else or for sale.  More often than not, I end up making a smaller, child’s version of whatever it is I’m making.  In fact, her only criticism of my work is that I don’t make nearly enough things in pink.  In her eyes, the pinker, the better!

Last week, she caught me working on a pair of Happy Hands fingerless mittens.

Making Pancakes in Her New Mitts!

She liked them so much, I ended up chasing her around the house to get my prototype pair back. So, of course, I ended up making a pair for her, too.  She couldn’t decide if she wanted hearts or flowers on them, so we went for one of each.  I think they turned out pretty cute, if I do say so myself!

The mitts are actually pretty fun to make.  I bought a bunch of second hand wool sweaters for another felting project I’m working on (another post on that, another time!) and realized the bottom part of the sleeve would fit perfectly as a fingerless mitten.  I sewed an opening for a thumb and used wool yarn to embroider around the raw edges and then added an applique from a another wool sweater in a contrasting color.  Voila!  Thick, warm, felted mitts!  If you like the kids version, check out my adult version in my Etsy shop.