Dolls, Desires, and a River

Hey! Remember this?

I've been slowly working through projects and reading books, but haven't felt much like blogging so haven't shared. While I've been away, I completed a baby quilt that is a few months late but my friends will definitely not mind, repaired the seat in our bike trailer for Acorn, finished 2 new paintings, and have been steadily working through all of the categories of stuff in my house Konmari style to pare down to the things that truly bring me joy!

I've also finished a few books, which you can keep up with if you're on goodreads. You can find me here. I'd *highly* recommend Glennon Doyle Melton's first novel Carry on Warrior if you're wanting some woman, mother, wife comradery and musings on life that will hit you right in the feels. My copy is dog eared, underlined, circled and tear stained and I only read it once.

That all cleared up, what am I working on this week?

I'm working on a waldorf doll for Acorn using this amazing tutorial from Faith and String. I've never made any sort of doll before and this has been a super easy tutorial so far. I'm really enjoying the process and the only thing I had to buy was the knit for the skin. So I'm $6 in to this. Not bad!

I'm currently reading two books at once. Danielle LaPorte's Desire Map as recommended to me by several friends (and my therapist two days after I had bought it!) and Cathrine Ryan Hyde's ( of Pay it Forward fame) new novel for a review with TLC Book Tours.

What are you all up to?

Cleaning and The Broken Fellowship

This week I don't really have much in progress that is worth showing off.

I'm collecting pieces to re-vamp my Tank Girl costume from a few years ago to wear to the local Comic Con this weekend, plotting a costume for Joe and Acorn that I hope to be able to pull off in time (my husband will tell you, I am the Queen of Last Minute Costumes.), and have started coloring in a coloring book I bought a few weeks ago.

I've been suffering from a pretty bad case of the "I don't wannas", the blahs, lack of motivation... whatever you prefer to call it. I'm in a little bit of a low spot emotionally, and for once I'm just floating along on the current and letting it be instead of fighting it. It actually made the whole thing a lot easier to deal with and I feel a lot less drained.

Go figure.

Today though, I had a pretty big burst of energy this afternoon, so I started deep cleaning the kitchen. It doesn't look like much from the photo, but I scrubbed out the dishwasher and have it running an empty cycle with vinegar and baking soda to further clear it out, did the sink full of dishes by hand, swept and mopped the floor, cleaned out the fridge and wiped the counters. All during nap time!

Later on, I want to finish up the dishes, wash the windows, clean out the freezers and *maybe* the junk drawer. But right now, it's a beautiful day and I'm off to play with my son. Housework can wait, like it's been doing. :)

I'm still plugging along on my all-in-one copy of The Lord of the Rings. I finished the Fellowship of the Ring last night and think I'll hold off on beginning The Two Towers so I can watch the first movie in between. When I first watched the movies, it had been years since I read the books, so it'll be interesting to me to see how I feel about them when the book is still very fresh in my mind.

Maybe it'll be like Harry Potter and I'll love them both. We'll see.

One Ring and A Very Pink Gift

It's been a hell of a week around here, so I'm sharing my work in progess Wednesday a day late. Rules are more like guidelines anyways, right? :)

This week I've begun a re-reading of The Lord of the Rings by hobbit friend and lore-master J.R.R. Tolkien. It's been over a decade since I last lost myself in the pages of this incredible work and I've forgotten SO MUCH! I always enjoy rediscovering a beloved story.

As for my work in progress, I bought the materials for my niece Khloe's 5th birthday gift. 5 years! How did that happen already?!? She's very in to super heroes and her favorite color is pink, so this amazing shiny fabric and extra glittery elastic will become a cape, mask, and gauntlets befitting of such a big birthday occasion.

What are you all up to this week?

Art Journal & Happiness

Work In Progress Wednesday - I'm resurrecting it!

There's nothing quite like knowing you'll be checking in with yourself (and others) at a set time to keep you motivated and get some projects done. :)

So here's the deal. On Wednesday, let's all share what we're working on *and* what we're reading currently. That way we can gather inspiration, stay motivated, and add more books to our reading lists on Goodreads or in our journals. (or both. I'm not judging!) Feel free to snag the button in the post and on my sidebar and link your posts in the comments if you're joining in so we can see each other's stuff!

This week, I've been working in the massive art journal I created from old artwork last week. I've got a spread started that I'm just starting to really dig. I love all the texture of modeling paste and old book pages as well as these deeper colors. As per usual, I don't have an agenda with this, just seeing where it takes me!

I *just* finished Hector and the Search for Happiness. I really enjoyed the whimsical, quirky way in which the story was told - it felt a bit like a children's book written for adults which made me happy. There were a few things in it that had me sighing and saying "Oh, Hector", but overall I was moved by the stories of his travels and the things he discovered about what causes happiness.

It was a very quick read and just over 150 pages and if it weren't a library copy, it would have most certainly had a bunch of highlights, notes in the margins, and maybe even some glitter thrown in to it. Definitely something I'd read again.

Work In Progress Wednesday - Gaia

Working on a new Gaia painting. This is the sketch that I'll be painting over the next few days. Sorry about the annoying watermarks, my stuff's been showing up around the intertubes cropped so my single watermark is missing and uncredited, so this is what I'm doing now. *le sigh* I also didn't post the completely cleaned up scan for that reason, in case anyone is curious about the weird white smudges.

Once she's painted, I'll be offering a limited run of prints. The Etsy shop is closed right now while I decide if I'd like to continue to use them, so I'll most likely be doing orders via email for her with paypal invoices and such so I can skip the middle man. Just an F.Y.I, since some of you have asked if and when I was going to be offering up new Momma Earth art. ;)

P.S. Thank you all for your encouraging words, thoughts and prayers. It means so much to me that so many people from all over this beautiful Earth are looking out for and thinking of me. This isn't going to be a simple or quick journey, but I know I'll make it through no matter what may happen. Sometimes just the writing and venting can be cathartic. Thank you all for listening and for being there. *hugs*

Work in Progress Wednesday - Sketches and A Frog

I sometimes like to share my processes as far as creating my stuff goes. So here are my two most recent sketches, you may recognize the gnome riding a snail from another sketch I did a while back. The difference is this one is on watercolor paper so he's ready to be painted. The one in my sketchbook would have turned mushy if I had attempted to paint him. *sigh*

As you can see, I sometimes doodle in the margins. When I go to paint, the margins will be filled with paint samples as I test my mixes.

The other sketch you see here is a work up of a wise old goblin shaman. As some of you know, the creature of faery most often on my brain is indeed of the green skinned variety. I can't help it, I love them.

And speaking of goblins...

She's all felted! A friend of mine gave me some advice on how firm she should be (like a well done steak) which really helped me out. I've been felting everything to be much too squishy but not this time! Overall, she's taken 14 hours. She has merino skin in earth tones and her hair is a blend of wool, mohair and sparkly fibers. I plan to work on some clothing for her from bits of deer hide and maybe some silks. She's also going to be a shaman of sorts (holy theme week, Batman!).

And finally, a painting that was sketched out nearly a year ago. Better late than never, right?

This is 'The Frog Prince'. Done in watercolors at a size of 5"x7", this was my first foray into the use of masking fluid, which I used to keep the highlights and firefly bums clean while I painted the rest of the picture. I'm not sure how I like it, because it's gloopy and application wasn't as smooth as I'd hoped but it definitely got the job done!

That's about all I have in the works right now, aside from gathering fabrics and cutting squares for one of those twirly circle rainbow skirts. I'm not really very patient when it comes to sewing, but for whatever reason I've decided I need to make one. So I'm currently gathering and cutting 136 color coordinating squares. Oh boy.

And this is all on top of working extra hours, weeding (the never ending chore!), laying down new mulch, helping the dude put up a new fence around and move 10 tons of gravel into the vegetable garden to replace the old wood mulch. Free time? What's that? ;-)

What are you working on this week?

Work In Progress Wednesday - Felted Goblin

For no reason whatsoever, aside from discovering an acorn cap and some really pretty green merino roving in my closet, I decided to give needle felting a goblin over an armature a try.

I've been working on this gal for 6 hours now and have just started to green her up. I used some undyed wool for the core because I'm cheap like that and making something nice and tight requires a lot of wool.

Free standing! Woo!

Yes she has a bald patch, she'll be getting hair though, so no worries.

Yikes! She sure is scary looking in those photos. I promise that in person, she's much less frightful. I've sculpted my first ever 3 dimensional nose along with some cheeks, eye sockets and eyeballs and while everything is getting very close to rock hard, I don't feel there's enough contrast to make the features pop. (Hence why the eyes look sort of terrifying.) I may go back and add some bits of brown or grey roving to create deeper shadows in some areas, we'll see.

Let me just say, that having only done this much of my teeny 3.5" doll I have a profound respect for felters who work in a much larger or more intricate scale, I don't know that I have that sort of patience or dedication in me!

Work in Progress Wednesday: Autumn Cleaning

A lot of people do their annual giant house cleaning in the Spring, but not me. For as long as I can remember, I have always preferred the task of rummaging, organizing, tossing and cleaning in Autumn. I started the massive undertaking on Monday, starting with a few random unpacked boxes and then tackling my closet and tossing anything that doesn't fit or I just know I'll never wear again into bags to be donated. Between yesterday and today I've been sorting through the boxes of stuff in the closets and decided to finally attempt to put the last several years worth of photos into some semblance of order. As you can see in the photo up top, it hasn't been a short and sweet process.

Once I'm done decluttering and gutting the closets, it will be time to scrub everything down and give the house one hell of a spiritual cleansing and blessing. While I do these several times a year, once again, Autumn is the time that I do my main one.

Who else gets these almost manic boughts of clean-fever this time of year? I know I'm not alone!

P.S. I've added everyone who has commented that they're participating in my blog party to the sidebar and the original post. October's nearly here!

Work in Progress Wednesday: Wee Pumpkins

These little buggers were extremely hard to photograph, even with my macro lens. The largest one is less than 1/4 on an inch. What am I doing with the babies? Why, making pendants, of course! Who doesn't want a wee pumpkin patch they can bring everywhere with them?

P.S. We've started a gaming group with a few of our friends. We meet every Wednesday and play Dungeons and Dragons, which I have never played before despite desperately wanting to! The boys I grew up with who played had a strict 'no girls allowed!' policy and as such, with my being a girl and all, I was never invited to play. We're into our third week and I think I'm finally starting to get the hang of all the dice rolling and stats and stuff, so I can put a little more thought into actually playing my character. So far, I'm really enjoying it! The boys should all be over soon enough, so I should probably work on getting my tail offline. ;)

P.P.S. Thank you all for the comments and visits during the gypsy party! I'm still working my way around the circle of lovely wagons and tents, so if I haven't gotten to you yet don't fret I'll visit soon!

Work in Progress Wednesday - Pickles and Jam

I've been busily making things out of the last of some of the summer crops, creating strawberry and peach jams as well as pickles. My cucumbers have succumbed to some sort of worm that burrows into them and pushes out the insides in a spectacularly gross and smelly fashion. So, these pickles are the last of my crop. These are my first ever attempts at canning, so I'm hoping they all turn out tasty and hold up well!

I'm thinking there may be enough time left in the growing season down here that I could possibly start another batch of cucumbers and squash. I fully intend to plant spinach and lettuce for a fall crop, so if I could get one more hurrah from some other veggies too that would be awesome. Any thoughts from anyone in this area? I'm in agricultural zone 7a.

What are you working on this week?

P.S. For those who aren't over on the Whimsical Cottage Facebook page and didn't see the announcement, I've ended my summer vacation and re-opened the Etsy Shop. Stop by and take a peek, I'll be adding new things as I work on them.

Work in Progress Wednesday - MMHQ

Mess Making Headquarters. Still in progress, but coming along nicely!

What have you got in the works this week?

Work in Progress Wednesday - The Spare Room

It's been a few hectic days around here. I've been itching to post something, but have either not had the time or have had the time but not the ideas or initiative. A testament to the fact that I'm not completely out of the funk I've been in yet. Soon! *fingers crossed*

Last night I was laid up with a random and vicious stomach problem, it came on out of nowhere as I was cooking dinner. There was a sharp pain and then I felt violently nauseous and remained that way throughout most of the night, falling asleep on the couch several times while Joe finished up dinner (which I was feeling far too wretched to eat) and worked a bit on our latest endeavor. This morning I woke up to a slightly squirrelly belly and a freshly painted craft room!

You see, my brother and his girlfriend (who have been staying with us while they looked for a place) found an apartment and moved out Friday afternoon leaving me with a large empty spare bedroom. Mind you, I've been coveting the space and biding my time since me moved in so it's no wonder that we moved them out Friday and were at the home improvement store the very next afternoon buying paint and lumber to rebuild the closet.

It's still in progress, but here are the before and after shots of the paint. It's now officially decked out in colours only a Danni could love:

Before:


After:

Soon I'll be moving my desk and all of my boxes of mess making supplies and art junk in there and really making it into my space. For the first time since we've lived on our own I'm being all weird about hanging things on the wall, I keep telling myself 'what if I hate it there? Then there will be a stupid hole in the wall that I'll want to fix, which means putty, sand, paint... repeat! Ugh!' I'm hoping since I'm usually incredibly liberal with my craft spaces and hang stuff all over the damn place that it will burst this weird bubble of decorating terror I've managed to get myself in to. *fingers crossed*

What have you guys been up to? I feel like it's been ages since I've been around, though it's only been a week or so!

Work in Progress Wednesday - WOTY

My most recent page in my pagan art journal, a spread dedicated to the Wheel of the Year. I'll go into further detail when I share the finished page. This shows one of the ways in which I work things up though. Coat the old book page in paint, sketch in pencil, ink over it and don't really clean up the pencil all that much. You can click the image above to view it larger.

Work in Progress Wednesday - Neighbors

Those of you who are friends of mine over on Facebook have probably read my incredibly profane rant about my awful upstairs neighbors. For those that haven't, let me take a moment to explain my situation to you. My husband and I moved into our gorgeous apartment with it's gorgeous view and fabulous layout in March. For the first month we were here we didn't even know if we had upstairs neighbors... we never saw or heard them.

It turns out, we did indeed have neighbors. A fact I was alerted to by the presence of a stinky nicotine and tar colored puddle of liquid that mysteriously appeared on my porch. Upon a quick glance up, I discovered it was dripping from the porch above me. I went over to the complex office and alerted them to the problem. I also photographed the mess to have proof that I wasn't making it up. Around this time we also decided that our neighbors couldn't possibly be human, rather elephants who enjoyed wrestling and doing laundry at 11pm most nights.

The dumping of their ashtray cleansings happened twice more and twice more complaints about their lack of courtesy (as well as the dirtying of my patio furniture and the fact that had I not been inside getting a drink I would have had the offending liquid dumped on my head) as well as their noisy habits were lodged. Things were fine for a bit, until this afternoon when I came home and it being a gorgeous day wanted to paint on my porch. A simple enough goal to achieve, correct?

Perhaps. If your neighbors didn't dump a gallon of milk on their porch and subsequently onto yours. My table, chairs and half of my patio are covered in sun baked sour milk. You can bet your ass this witch has had it. I took pictures, printed them and stormed over to the office. I was told the manager herself will be calling me back today about the problem and they will be taking care of my neighbors this time.

Right, just like the previous three times?

I'm frustrated. I'm annoyed. I want to fling cat poo onto their porch and see how much they like it. I also don't want to move to another apartment complex... I love this one and just finished unpacking and organizing everything maybe a week ago. If the universe is going to be fair, the 6 obnoxious elephants packed into the 2 bedroom apartment upstairs should be the ones to leave, not us.

In the meantime, I'm open to any suggestions to dealing with this be they mundane or magical, because I'm seriously getting ready to fling hexes along with the cat poo. Are there any good protection spells or banishing spells you know of that may help? How about ways to get them out of here so I don't have to leave, aside from documenting everything they dump on my porch which will really only help me out if I decide to break my lease.

I'm trying to pack for my trip and work on some new deity paintings of Nut, Cernunnos, Lugh and Demeter but this aggravation is really getting in the way of my motivation.

Breathe.

Work in Progress Wednesday - Casting Out a Cold

Happy Wednesday, lovies! I hope you've all been creating and doing wonderful things! Let me know what you have in progress either in the comments or on your blogs. If you blog, share the link in comments so I can be sure to visit you!

I've been struck down by quite literally my 6th serious cold in the past 6 months. This time my husband caught it too and we spent an ever so romantic evening last night lounging on opposite ends of the couch sneezing, wheezing, sniffling and sipping tea. We went off to our day jobs feeling equally crummy but something odd happened when I came home... he is barely stuffy, runny, wheezy or sneezy. It's as if he wasn't ill yesterday at all.

I, on the other hand, can barely breathe from my simultaneously stuffy and runny nose, have quite the raw throat, am coughing, red nosed and generally worn out. Also, my sinuses are being effected a bit too strongly by gravity and leaning over is putting far more pressure on the front of my face than I'd like.

I have imbibed more than a dozen large mugs of tea, most stirred with copious amounts of honey and lemon. I've sprinkled cinnamon on top of a few cups of the herbal stuff when I wanted something less bitter. I've been consuming food as usual and resting whenever possible, but I know from past experience that colds tend to linger with me for what feels like an eternity.

Tomorrow I have the day off and plan to get plenty of rest, rejuvenation and tea interrupting only to make a trip for fresh chicken soup and to ship something out. Friday, however, I need to be up and out of the house at 5:00am and as such need to be feeling well enough for a solid night's sleep. I'd also like to be healed enough to make it through my final marathon shift before the new availability I submitted goes into effect and still have enough energy to go to Apple Fest in NC this weekend.

So my dears, I'm asking you all... what do you do to cast out a cold or to gain yourself a few hours of relief?

Work in Progress Wednesday - A Day Late!

I swallowed a huge chunk of fear and summoned up my courage to join in the 2011 Sketchbook Project. When my sketchbook is complete, I'll mail it back to the Art House Co-op and it will go on a tour of art galleries around the country with thousands of other sketchbooks before being put on permanent display in the Brooklyn art library.

I tend to have a hard time letting go of artwork that I put a lot of myself into and I know when the time comes to let this book go, it will be hard. So, I picked a theme I wouldn't necessarily long to horde and one I am all too familiar with, nightmares.

I've worked on 5 pages of the book so far and thought I would share my progress. My idea is to model the book after one of my somewhat frequently nightmare plagued nights. I often wake myself from one nightmare only to fall asleep and find myself falling into a different nightmare. I'm hoping to work the book in a similar fashion, running though a few different nightmare sequences. I'll also be working in different styles and mediums throughout the book.

Work in Progress Wednesday

That's right, I'm making up my own weekly meme so I can keep myself on task with my creating. Give me some time and I'll make a fancy button to go with this but in the meantime, feel free to join me and share what you've been up to on Wednesdays. It doesn't have to just be art either, it can be anything! Decorating, Home Renovations, New Recipes, Fiber Spinning, Weight Loss... skies the limit.

I'm happy to report that I finally finished my goblin painting about an hour ago. He's dry and ready for you all to gaze upon his handsome green face:

This has been my most labor intensive watercolor to date, coming in at just around 7 hours. This is also the first time I've worked on a background and been pleased as can be with the results, normally I loathe backgrounds that I've created or I just work on the figure and block in background colors. If anyone is interested, Goblin Prints are in my shop, just waiting to be adopted!

I've also sketched out my next painting. Another watercolor, possibly with some colored pencil. We'll see how it goes. My scanner loathes, hates and despises scanning pencil sketches so I'm sorry about the shoddy quality of this. You can get teh basic feel of the painting though:

Other than these, I really haven't been up to terribly too much. Coffeebucks has me working a mix of evenings and 5:30am shifts that has completely screwed up my sleep cycle, so I've been doing a lot of cleaning and reading in between painting and working to stave off the urge to nap and exacerbate things. I'm a terrible sleeper. I have difficulty falling asleep unless conditions are absolutely perfect - pillow must be just so, it has to be cool, dark and quiet and for the love of the Goddess Joe can't be having a bought of restless leg twitches. Once I manage to fall asleep, I'm generally ok. Unless I wake up during the night and happen to see a clock when I know I have to be up before the Sun. Then I panic about having to be up soon and end up being completely unable to go back to sleep.

I'm hoping my schedule settles down or Hypnos takes pity on me and pays extra attention to me soon.