Candlelight

I hope everyone had a good day yesterday. Hopefully your day wasn't a "celebration of obligation" as a person near and dear to me calls it. It was a low key day around here. Watched a Dr. Who Christmas special from last year via Netflix in the afternoon and then went to my Mom and step-Dad's place around 3. This year due to finances the whole gift giving hullaballoo was scaled way down. Yeah!!!! The gifts were fewer but more thoughtfully selected it seems. I would be happy if we skipped the gift giving totally but that is heresy as far as my Mom is concerned. As it turns out, I am quite glad we didn't skip it totally. I received an Aebleskiver pan from my brother! I am thrilled! I will report on the outcome.

HAPPY CLUCKMAS!

This year's Christmas card. I struggled for weeks trying to do a collage card with images of happy Victorian era children and jolly Santas. It just wasn't coming together at all, even after Hannah and I had our crafty evening. I was packing up my artsy, craftsy Christmas stuff when I came across some of last year's hand carved stamped cards. I got an itch to carve some more stamps. This chicken is based on an image I saw in a British magazine a long time ago. I combined her with some of last year's holly and flower stamp and bingo! A card is born. Inside for those folks who don't cringe at bad plays on words I have stamped Happy Cluckmas! For those who cringe the standard Happy Holidays gets stamped as the message. I also carved a virgin Mary stamp and had fun doing some mail art for my mentor and friend Jill.

I took a collage class at Jill's awhile back that used an exercise to kind of just let go and not get attached to the outcome. At the end of the class we all (4 of us including Jill) agreed to send each other mail art using the technique we learned in the class. It took me awhile to get them done but I mailed them off last week (before taking pictures, Doh!) As the base for the collage I cut some cardboard boxes to postcard size and slapped some paint on them and then wrote and glued and painted and pasted and wrote some more and then I wrapped clear packing tape over the whole thing and mailed them off. So much fun! I loved getting cool artsy mail and loved the process of letting go and seeing where things ended up.
I attended Jill's Solstice party on Sunday and thought I would do a collage as a thank you for Jill. It was a lovely evening and thought it would be fun to send her some art using techniques I've learned from her. I used a test stamping of the Mary stamp and added some other stamps then collaged some scraps and just had a good time. I think I will be doing more of this in the new year.

Big news on the Buffy front...she laid her first egg last Saturday! Buffy is a Bantam as is her surrogate mum, Betsy. Betsy's small egg is the white one, Buffy's is the even smaller brown egg. She seems quite pleased with herself these days.
I hope you all have a happy holiday time.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas....

Sort of. My friend Hannah came over yesterday afternoon for some crafty fun. I had hoped making Christmas cards would get me in a Christmas frame of mind. It hasn't sunk in yet that Christmas is less than 20 days away. I had a good time with Hannah but still not feeling the Christmas spirit.
The weather is doing its best to remind me it is December. It is clear and cold. The Willamette Valley is being visited by an Arctic front. Lovely but freaking cold. I went to a holiday faire on Saturday. My friend Alysse from Bliss Monkey Studio was there selling her fabulous fingerless gloves. My pair that I have will be worn tomorrow at 5:30pm at 5th Street Public Market here in Eugene MoveOn.org is hosting a Cost of Delay Candlelight Vigil. There is likely a vigil in a city near you happening. If you feel that the US needs a public option for health care NOW then please make your voice heard and attend a vigil if you can.