Oh Tanenbaum, Oh Tanenbaum...

It's taken me ten years to finally realize the 3ft Christmas tree doesn't make me happy.  Yesterday I'd gotten out all the decorating boxes and tried to begin the task when I realized--it felt like a task.  Why is that?  I used to love this part!  I gave it up, hoping to find renewed inspiration with the morning.  But as the morning dawned, the realization dawned as well: it's that tree.  That poor tiny "down-sized" tree was like saying that with all the kids gone, I had no reason to enjoy a big tree. What's the use, when the kids can't be here?

I'm well aware the size--or even presence--of a tree doesn't have anything to do with a level of happiness.

But doing without my kids hurts my feelings so much already...why was I making it worse???  SO...today the hubs and I went and bought a big one.  I'm like a kid at, well, Christmas.  The tiny one will now have a little table in the family room by the fireplace (with the blue lights on it for Phil), so THERE.  I have two trees!  Pictures soon to follow of the crazy mess I call Christmas Decorating.

Of course in this process, the Halloween and Thanksgiving decorations find their storage boxes, which makes it hard because Miss Gertie just arrived with her friend Miss Astrid (from Pam at Yoborobo--thank you!).  Miss Gertie might just hang out in my studio, where the calendar just doesn't matter.  She makes me smile every time I see her.  Isn't that just the best big ol' grin?

Gertie

Astrid

Astrid will have an honored place on the Elf Shelf, along with my very first cloth and clay doll.  Elf Girl never got a name, but she's a great sport about it.  Having no name is the least of her worries, if you were to judge a book by its cover.

Astrid and Elf Girl.

Boy, was my sculpting skill newborn back then!  'S'okay.  We all have to start somewhere.  Now Elf Girl has a new gal-pal, which is great because all the other elves are smelly boys. 

Tomorrow I will get the ornaments on the tree (must let the cat explore it tonight without tempting danglies...)  I'll get photos of the finished decorating, and photos of two other additions to my doll collection:
Crazy Wax Doll and Theo.

I hope your weekend is fabulous, dahlinks.

Bread and Butter

I don't normally eat bread or refined carbs.  But life's too short to completely cut out things we enjoy, so on Christmas and Thanksgiving, (okay, and my birthday) I'll give a little on the "rules".

Today we're headed across the street to spend Thanksgiving with our neighbors.  Our kids are scattered all over--the nearest one is a twelve hour drive--and the inlaws are in Arizona, so often the holidays find us "just we two".  For my part of the cooking, I am baking bread.  Ironic that I don't normally eat it, because it's one thing I make really well.

So a loaf of sourdough and a loaf of multi-grain, with special butters to go with.  I learned both the bread making and the herbed butters when playing in the SCA (y'know, those silly people who play like they live in medieval times).  I make Scarborough Butter and Spiced Honey Butter--both are super easy.

For each, you want to really soften however much butter you want to make (it freezes, so make plenty).  Then you decide which one (or both?) you want to make.  It's always good to make these several days ahead of serving, to let the flavors develop.

For the Scarborough Butter, add--you guessed it--sage, rosemary, and thyme.  The parsley goes on the plate as a garnish.  Use an herb grinder to grind the dried herbs into powder...I don't measure, I just put "oh, 'bout that much" into the grinder.  If you like strongly seasoned stuff, use a lot.  You can always add more butter if it's too strong.  Salt it too, if you like.  Blend well, then pour into muffin tins.  Refrigerate, then when you're ready to serve it, you can sit the muffin tin into a bath of warm water for a minute and they'll pop right out.  They look nice on pretty china saucers.

The Spiced Honey Butter wants pumpkin pie spices--allspice, nutmeg, cinnamon, and a little ginger.  Same seasoning rule applies here: you can always add more butter.  Mix in honey to the melted butter--I do measure this: about 1/4 cup per three sticks of butter.  Stir it all together, and put this in muffin tins too.

Hope your day is full of fun and laughter and good memories, whether there are few or many of you gathered together.  There's a lot to be thankful for.

Fall has fallen!

We actually have leaves turning color, and chilly temperatures that might. just. stay.  We can only hope, right?  I know folks who live up north who would tell me to be happy for the warmth, but we get enough warmth with our summers.  The hubs is not happy--he's a Phoenix boy, born and bred, so he'd be happy if it never got below 60.

I drove up to Fredericksburg this Tuesday to visit Edyth O'Neill.  We had a great day of "visiting" with dolls, as well as working in her garden a little bit, and setting up a couple of Christmas trees.  I look forward to when she posts her decoration photos--she has a good eye for display, and the antiques to do it up right!

A pile o' Izzies...and some un-Izzies, but they're all welcome.

Is it just me, or do their imperfections make them better?

Virginia visiting with Hannah.

On my way out the door, Edyth had me prune the culinary sage that grows near the porch, so I was able to bring home an armload of it!  I love sage, and so far have not been able to grow it successfully.  Fredericksburg is up in the hill country, a little less humid than down here.  I won't give up trying to grow it, but neither will I turn down an armload of organic sage!  As soon as I got home, I separated out the bundles to hang for drying (our office smells wonderful right now) and shared some with my neighbor across the street who loves to cook.

Lovely sage.  Enough to share, and to dry and store for a long time.

The Schultz supervised the Sage Bundling operation.  Very fragrant business that is.  When we came in, Willie wanted to know why we smelled so "herby".

The Schultz on his throne. 

One nosy cat.

Work on the Izannah dolls continues, with a few added tasks, so I press on.  Body suits first, and then clothes.  I'd get more done if I could just stay on track...but who's to say if those little tangents don't add to the art?  That's my story, anyway.  Nevertheless, we know what I'll be doing over the holidays.

Have a fabulous weekend!

Bound for Maryland

No, not me.  But Virginia is.  The lady she's headed home to will maybe call her something new, but I always seem to need a name for dolls while I make them. 

This doll is just about the perfect size to work on...large enough that the detail work isn't hard, but small enough to display well and feel delicate in the hands.  I have enjoyed her immensely, and hope her new Lady enjoys sewing clothing for her.  Virgina wears wool boots with cotton laces, tailored to fit her little bare feet. 

I have a couple of business-related projects I have to work on over the next two weeks, and then I'll get busy clothing these six Izannahs (and a few of their friends.)  Hope your weekend is fabulous, dahlinks!

 

Little Lessons

I've worked on dolls all weekend.  (Yes, I worked on the studio too, and it's in much better shape.  But perhaps my declaration that it will be actually clean by Veteran's Day was...aiming a bit high.)

The remaining dolls begun last March (as we were listing our old house to sell) are now almost finished.  There are two completed 21" Izannah Walker repros, with clothing and all.  There will be three more by the first of December, as well as three 16" Izannahs.  I've got them all painted and assembled, ready for their second skin and new clothes!

I had to stop in the midst of it all because I got a commission order for an 18.5" Izzy, and she'll be headed to Maryland at the end of the week.  So why is this post called Little Lessons?  Because this mad rush to finish so much so quickly has had me sitting quietly while I work, oddly enough.  And as I'd posted last time, that quiet work allows me to think.

It's a scary job, living in my head, but somebody's gotta do it.

The newest Izannah Walker (18.5") and an Experimental Friend who needs eyelids.  See the one hanging by her toes in the upper right?  She was drying, not being tortured.  I promise.

Some things I've observed: small organizational efforts really do add up and help in the long run.  I've been afraid of this studio for months, overwhelmed by the immensity of what needed doing.  I made some good changes this weekend, and there's hope.

On a less philosophical note, there are two other things that might seem like a "DUH!" moment for some of you, but here goes.

A.  Clean your acrylic paint brushes with water and soap.  I keep an old sour-cream tub for water at my paint table to clean brushes as I go, but you'd be amazed at the paint that comes out with soap that water doesn't get.  That paint is what hardens at the join and eventually makes it less flexible.  I finally learned that if I'll take all the damp brushes to the sink at the end of a painting session and scrub soap into them, they stay flexible and smooth much longer.  

B. Get a new needle!  Being of a (cheap!) thrifty nature, I keep a hand-sewing needle as long as it's straight and has a point.  I've seriously had some of these needles for years.  My pioneer ancestors would be proud.  But it occurred to me--as I attached the 25th of 28 limbs using heavy button thread on heavy muslin--that maybe my fingers wouldn't bruise so bad if I had a sharper needle.  Eureka!  So I got a fresh needle, closed my eyes, and threw away the old one.  Those last three limbs were shockingly easy to sew, and I vowed to become an absolute spendthrift when it comes to needles! 

I have made another declaration as well, regarding the studio cleanup effort.  Rather than "It Will Be Clean" by a certain date, I believe that those little efforts--putting a bit of cleanup on my plate before the yummy desert of creativity--will get me where I want to be.

Happy Veteran's Day.

Taming the Time Panic

I realize it's self-inflicted, this sense of time running through my fingers.  Like so many of us, I waste hours and cry over lost minutes.  The hard part is deciding which tasks (blogging?) are important, and which are robbing me of time I could be putting to a better use.

Then again, there are those subjective chunks of time that might have been better spent in productive activities...but what if the reading/dreaming/gardening that was done instead is vital to the more "responsible" hours spent in productivity?  You'll notice I didn't say "surfing" in that list.

Not to knock surfing the web--I've spent hours on Ebay and Ruby Lane, browsing page after page of old dolls.  Pinterest?  They should have called it The Black Hole Of Time.  I tell myself I'm seeking inspiration.  But that always feels like a waste after I've done it, so I suspect my subconscious is trying to tell me something.  I end up with a gillion ideas--scattering what focus I've managed to gather--and very little EVER becomes of it.

One thing I have noticed is this: when I do chores with TV as an entertainment, I experience more general time-panic that week--even though I'm getting my chores done.  If I do chores with silence or with music, I have less.  It's as if the chore is more satisfying, or I was multi-tasking, only without the anxiety.  I'm thinking/dreaming/solving while I work, instead of letting the TV use that time for me.  But I love Madmen!  I deserve that mental junk food!  I do.

But as with food, too much of a good thing makes us...well, fluffy.  I don't want a fluffy body, and I REALLY don't want a fluffy mind.  So I will get out of this computer chair and into the laundry room.  There is ironing to be done, and thoughts to be thunk. And then doll parts to paint.  And a dog to bathe, and bills to pay, and floors to sweep, and...

What do you do to tame the time-panic?