Posey Hornbeam: A Lady Gnome!

Another little gnome is finished, only it is a little lady one this time. She is solid needle-felted wool, and she stand 7-1/4" tall (including her flower hat). She will be in the "winter" section of the gnome diorama, so she's all ready for the cold weather with her shawl and white, woolly muff. :) She took about thrity-five hours to complete!

Click here to see larger pictures.

Posey is rather loosely based on the same "Rainbow's End" books as the other gnomes. I took more "artistic liberty" with her! The next gnome doll is going to be a little girl and she is almost half way done. Hooray! We're hoping for eighteen gnomes for the diorama, so I've still got quite a way to go.

Flap Jack: A Felted Friend for Toby

This is the newest gnome that I've actually got finished. He is also based on the "Rainbow's End" series illustrated by John Patience. We've decided to make a four-season diorama with felted gnomes to enter in the fair. Mom and I planned out the positions of the dolls and accessories, which ended up needing eighteen gnomes! Flap Jack will be standing in his bakery.



This doll is also eight inches tall (including the hat) and took about thirty hours to complete. Click here to see larger pictures.

I have almost finished another little gnome, only it is a lady this time and she will be part of the "Winter" section of the diorama. She is much more loosely based on the book illustrations, so we have given her an "acorn" theme! Pictures to come.

Toby Claypot: Another Felted Gnome

This doll is based on the children's series "Rainbow's End" illustrated by John Patience. The books were always favorites of ours when we were little, so it seemed only natural to make this little gnome next.



Toby is a 102-year-old "odd job" gnome (in the books). The doll is eight inches tall (including the hat), solid wool, and took twenty-four hours to complete! I think that there is something extra special about Toby as he just has such a sweet look about him. He's so cuddly looking! Click here to see larger pictures of this doll.

Naomi the Gnome: A Needle-Felted Doll

Here are more needle-felting pictures! While I've been laid up with all these breaks, I've had great chances to do some felting. With enough time on my hands, I finally decided to tackle the job of "sculpting" a face. This is the first doll that I made (finished about two weeks ago). She is seven inches tall, including her hat, and solid wool. She took about eighteen hours to complete.



The pictures above give you views from different angles. I think that she has the best face of the dolls that I've made (more pictures coming), her eyes are so sweet looking! Click here and you'll see larger pics of the doll!

Have a "Smurfy" Day: Felted Smurfs

Here are some more pictures of felted projects. These little "blokes" were a Christmas present for Elizabeth. She's always been a nut for smurfs . . . not the TV show, but we had a little picture book called "What Do Smurfs Do All Day?", which we read a million times when we were little, so I thought that some felted Smurfs would be so cute!


Left to right, in the photo above, you see Papa Smurf, Baby Smurf, Smurfette, Baker Smurf, and Smurf. The tallest felted smurf is about 3-1/4" tall with Smurfette being about 1/2" shorter. Just click on any of the pictures to see them full sized.



I've got one more smurf almost finished (he just needs a nose and face). He will be Painter Smurf, and he's got a yellow coat on! The box that they're standing in is something that Dad made for them. We're going to make a little picnic table to go with it, that way it will make a whole play set to go with them!

More felting pictures coming. I made a frog for Dad for his birthday, so I'll have pictures of that soon. :)

A Felted Rose for Mom

Yay! I've finally gotten around to taking pictures of the needle-felting projects that I made for Mom and Elizabeth for Christmas. This is the needle-felted rose that I made for Mom. The petals were each felted separately and then connected to a small felted center. The stem is green wool, felted around a pipe cleaner, with leaf and thorns attached later.

We kind of made this up as we went, and Elizabeth and I thought that a pipe cleaner would make a good stem, but it is not wuite heavy enough to support the weight of the flower. Next time, we're going to try some real heavy floral wire. We'd really like to figure out a good way to make a sturdy stem as Elizabeth wants to make a whole vase full of these; a vase filled with all of the flowers named after Grace Kelly (Princess Grace of Monaco).

One great thing: our Gramma gave us a bottle of perfume that is called "Tea Rose". It was a fitting name because the stuff smells exactly like a rose, so we sprayed this wool rose with the perfume, and it actually smelled real!

Our New Car (2007 Honda Accord)

Well, I am finally posting pics of the new car. Figured it would be better to get them up now instead of waiting around to put up pictures of the crash as well. Nobody around here is too keen at looking at the crash photos, so we never seem to get around to scanning them. Hmmm . . .

(Click on the Thumbnails to Enlarge)

The first picture is the car (of course) about two days after we got it. Then there are pics of the front and back seats. Isn't it a beauty?! It's very spacious inside and we've all voted it probably our favorite car that we've ever had.

It looks like Spring is just around the corner. It's in the 40s and 50s all week (supposed to be, anyway) and the snow is melting rapidly. The front yard hasn't got any snow on the ground, though the bushes are still covered. Apparently, the back yard is still covered by almost two feet! Here's hoping that the warm weather is almost here to stay!

Misc. Family Videos

I know this is a funny post, especially since you all want to see pics of the crash and the new car, but . . . what can I say?! Those pics are coming. We got the crash scene pics in the mail yesterday and we're going to scan some in and post them for you.

This is a six and a half minute compilation of two year old home video film posted for a friend of mine in the UK. I know that it's not well edited, but hey, Elizabeth wasn't here this afternoon to help with it! :) It will give you an idea of what we sound like at any rate. The first portion of clips are actually from this past Summer. We drove up to Lake Erie for the day and I got a little film. Elizabeth is in the blue shirt and I am in the white. That's Mom and Dad with us.

The middle portion of film is from two years ago when we were putting up Christmas decorations. Mom filmed that and also shows some of the rooms in the house downstairs. They don't really look like that anymore, as we've rearranged, but it will give you an idea! I am in the brown shirt and Elizabeth is in the green with the pony tail.



There is a short clip showing our TV room/Library which is upstairs. That is Elizabeth sitting on the sofa while she's working on her stamp collection. I'm filming and talking in the silly voice behind the camera! We sold that sofa this Summer and the TV is on the opposite side of the room now, but you can see the book shelves.

The last section of video is from two years ago when we got twenty inches of snow in one weekend. They actually closed all the roads in the county to anything but emergency vehicles! I am in the purple sweater and Elizabeth has the red jacket on.

I'll work on getting newer film, but this should give you an idea of where we live and all. We've got film from the trip we took to Florida a few months ago, so I'll see if we can download some of that. More later.