Winter in the High Desert

We did get a bit of snow.  Did I get a photo?  I did not.  But I will carry the memory of it forever, because it was Gypsy's first snow.  She's around four years old, but she grew up down in the frying pan of southern California, and spent another six months south of Phoenix, so--first snow!

She was astounded.  And delighted.  Couldn't explore it fast enough.  First, she ran around trying to figure out why the smells were so muted, and what IS this cold white stuff?  She poked at edging rocks around what had been flower beds--are those still rocks?  Yes.  She bounded THROUGH what had been flower beds, a thing she quit doing months ago because it made the humans yell.  Okay, they still yell when I run there. 

She tried to eat the snow, she pawed bare spots to check if the dirt was still under it, and it took FOREVER to get her to go pee so we could go back inside.  We walked in it, and she apparently has some sled dog in her, because our formerly well-mannered walker was suddenly pulling like a draft horse.  Finally I got her twenty foot lead and just flew her like a kite--she'd run wide arcs in front of us, back and forth. 

So our mountain snow dog got her first snow, and we know our move to the White Mountains this coming spring will make her verrrrry happy.  And since we'll have a good fenced yard there, we'll be happy too.  Ha!

Since the snow all melted (it doesn't last long at 5,000 ft elevation), we've had a mix of sun, rain, and--just recently--lovely fog.  We don't get fog up here often, so I enjoy it when I can. A view at 7:30 in the morning from our back porch--normally the sun's well up by this time, but we can't even see across the golf course!

In case I get my head stuck in the clouds or a project, I hope your holiday season--all of it, in all its aspects--is full of love, peace, and sparkle.

Our South Texas Christmas

No kids visiting this year, so it was Phil and I and the dog-cat show.  We got a late start--for us.  I didn't roll out til almost 6:30!  I have a tradition of wearing my Santa Hat every year on Christmas morning, primarily to hide the bed-head.  Phil was up earlier, and had the music playing, the twinkle lights on in the living room, and some extra stuff under the tree--completely unauthorized, I can tell you.  We'd already agreed not to buy much this year.

An ornament with Juniper's handprint!

Every guy needs a weather station clock...

One of my sons and his wife sent presents as well (also unauthorized) to include Schultz and Willie.  The fur-babies were quite happy with this renegade gift-giving.

If you could see how fast his tail is wagging...

She's on a vet-assigned diet, but...it was Christmas, after all.

Phil and I had a gloriously lazy day, very quiet, full of reading, good music, and a late afternoon dinner of smoked turkey.  And naps. 

Schultz and Willie are always willing to hang out at nap-time.

Several of my friends in the doll world live up north where they're getting bad ice and snow, losing power, buried til the weather lets up.  To stave off guilt over our balmy temperatures, I have to remember our brutal summers.  Here's a rose I cut on Christmas Day from the front bed--they don't do nearly this well in the summer.  That hand-shaped pencil vase is actually life-size, to give you an idea of that rose's dimensions.  I really wish you could smell it...a fragrance so strong you get a little dizzy from it.

I hope your Christmas was full of warmth and good memories.    

Welcome to our house.

Just farting around with the camera this morning.  Okay, part of the reason why is that I got the living room and dining room cleaned up enough to actually have people over (not dusted, yet, just tidy.  So don't look too closely.)

So other than a few doll pics, this is home.  I'm definitely not a decorator, I can't afford antiques, and (to fans of minimalism), my house is busy.  But it is home, and we like it.  Pardon the picture heavy post...it just worked out that way.

These are the Izzies I'm still working to dress, lined up by the hearth in the family room.  I like to keep them in "found" old clothes because when they're all sitting around naked, they whisper at me. (Dresssss usssss!!!) They're a motley crew, but it'll get better.

Remember after reading captions that you can click on the photos to enlarge them.

16" and 21" Izannah Walker repros...I love the red coat, but it doesn't fit her well.  I'll make a revised pattern from it, though.

21" Izannah, in a chair my Father-in-law made, with her lamb. 

16" and 21" Izannahs, one with only her petticoat and the other in a flannel nightgown.

These are tucked in behind the Christmas tree, under the living room window.  One is the Harry Coleman Walker Doll, the others are jan-made and up for adoption.

Waiting for Santa.

Here's a series of views from the chairs in the room.  I love chairs, and the hubs says I have a Chair Orphanage in our house, because I bring home strays.  But it makes for plenty of seating, right?

Our house defies a color scheme.  Blonde pine and dark Brazilian cherry?  No problem.

Stained concrete floors...easy to clean, tough and beautiful.  I carved the fish with a Dremmel out of a pc of 2 x 12.  Upper right is an antique calendar page/print of Dogs Playing Poker.  There's just no accounting for taste.

This coffee table has been with us since the kids were little...proud of its scars.  I painted it in (?) 2007.  The hubs created the leather insert for the mirror...his Triple Horse Celtic Knotwork pattern. 

The man I love is a skilled carpenter/cabinet maker with leather working talent.  Am I spoiled much?  :~D

View from the glider chair.  The Thoreau quotation tapestry is embroidery cotton on linen...I worked on it for years, but finished the border in 2010 while sitting with my Daddy in hospice.

View from the blonde pine chair toward the kitchen door.  Schult's purple pig goes well with the rug, don't you think?

View from the dining room.

Our simple Christmas table.  The big map on the wall is of San Antonio.  We love maps.

And of course, these rooms are full of dolls, tucked here and there.  I don't have an organized way of displaying them (although the hubs has offered to build a couple of glass-door cases next year for the more fragile ones...woohoo!)

Crazy Wax doll has found a friend, and so has the Martha doll, although she's still mad at me for leaving her in jammies with a people-size Santa Hat.  Humiliating.

Messy bookshelves, dear dolls. 

Martha-baby and friends.  She's still not talking to me.  I don't blame her.

Well, I have more photos, but this post is too full as it is.  I hope you all are enjoying the season, taking time to just breathe and enjoy the wonder of lights and music, and each other.
Be well.

So many dolls, so little time...

I'm not talking about the dolls I'm making.  Still haven't gotten to sewing unders yet, but all nine have their second skin tailored to them.

The dolls I mean are the ones I've managed to collect over the last few years.  All of them but one are still waiting for clothes!  Does that make me a bad doll-mom?  Gloriana (my Martha doll) has a baby gown on, so she's at least covered.  Tansy (my Sherri doll) came with incredible hand-stitched clothes that sometimes I remove just so I can re-visit the incredible sewing skill.  But the few papier maches, Bubbles the Effanbee baby, the Mad Alice, a really nice china, and a not-so-nice but endearing Anita type boudoir doll?  They're all sitting around either in what passes for unders, or in white baptismal gowns just to have something on them.

And now, I've added two more: Crazy Wax Doll (from Dixie) and Theo.  Theo was an ebay purchase that cost me a whopping three bucks plus shipping.  He is "supposed" to be a girl, but he and I know better.  When I learn from a friend of mine in nearby Seguine (or Diane?) how to refinish him, he'll need clothes too!

Theo.

Crazy Wax Doll need mucho help, but I love her all the same.  She's in really rough shape, so after a little more study, I'll make her a second skin, sort of like the Izzies, to keep her arms and legs from falling off.  Poor thing.  Not much to be done for her damaged shoulder plate or her melted face, but maybe with a little wig and hat she'll not look quite so...um, well, the hubs says I have to keep her somewhere besides the bedroom. 

Crazy Wax Doll has the coolest weighted sleep eyes!  But they "thunk" when she closes them.

In the meantime, I've been decorating for Yule.  I posted a story about our new tree...got it decorated and sat for hours in the glow of its lights.  I had so much fun unpacking the ornaments the kids made when they were little.  Every year we'd sit around and make new ones to give as gifts--a tradition I continue to this day.  So they have the year written on the back...some are clay, some are leather, some are wood.  And each has a story.

The Yule Tree.

My son Josh made this in school, and the little campfire is one I made in first grade.  The little paper spiral of smoke is long gone, but the felt campfire seems to endure.

This was one I inherited from my mom...it's a leaf that's been dipped in gold.

These little bead wreaths are some my Air Force students made me when I taught Basic Instructor Course.

I didn't get to the Elf Shelf or the collection of Toy Soldiers yet, but maybe I'll get it done tomorrow.  And as my granny used to say: if there's not another tomorrow, it won't need doin' anyway.

And last, a photo of my newest granddaughter, Juniper.  This is her first Christmas, and her first tree.
Peace, y'all.

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.

Yule at the House of Conwell

I don't go too heavy on the decorations, for several reasons.  First, the hubs is only willing to alot (cheerfully) a certain amount of year-round space to storage.  Second, our family is too far and too spread out to come see us over the holiday season, and few of our friends are willing to travel this far out to visit.  That's not as pathetic as it sounds.  Or maybe it is, but oh well.  I'd throw a party if I thought it would help, but we barely remember how to throw parties.  Third, and maybe most salient: what goes up, must come down. 

But I do have a few odd collections, one of them I collect for the hubs.  I've always collected for him, with or without his permission, because he's just not a collections kind of guy.  So between the nutcracker soldiers (we are a military family), the vintage toys, and the elves, I have enough to keep the Bah Humbugs away, but not enough to require a storage unit and a week to put it all out.  Our tree is three feet tall.  Maybe next year, when I have grandkids here (only six hours away...oh. my. goodness.) I'll push for a big tree, but for the last few years, this little tree has worked fine.  I have to put mini ornaments on it, and save the larger of the kid-made ornaments for the pine garland over the entertainment unit...but it's a cute little tree.

The "husband's collection" of nutcracker soldiers, along with the beer steins his brother got him when stationed in Germany.  I like that they're standing under a copy of the Constitution.

The Elf Shelf.

Toyland.

Our tiny tannenbaum...

So while I have three reasons for not making a ginormous display, I have one really good reason for dragging it all out every year, even if the hubs barely looks at it.  I love to revisit all the things my kids and I made together over the years.  The ornaments Josh and Renee made in first grade, with gap-toothed pictures of themselves, Jason's art-class masterpieces.  The technicolor reindeer Casey painted the year Phil and I met.  I have a felt campfire I made back when dinosaurs roamed the earth.  The little paper spiral of smoke is long gone, but the little logs and flame are still there, literally hanging by a thread.  The ghost of Christmas Past comes alive, smiling sweet memories for me every year.  I make everyone new handmade ornaments every year, for the Ghost of Christmases Yet To Come.

I don't think it's too early to wish everyone a wonderful season of Holy Days.

A Reindeer for your favorite Science Weenie.

I had so much fun making this guy.  Bought the papermache deer at a thrift shop, did his eyes and nose with paperclay, and then covered him in a vintage--at least 1950's, maybe earlier--physics text.  As I went through the pieces of torn page, I kept running across little phrases that made me wonder...maybe physics and the mysterious flight of reindeer are not mutually exclusive?  Nice to think so, anyway.

Whadda ya think?

Two sales, one coupon code...

Has to do with a leaky memory, maybe.  Dunno.  But on our two stores, the Hermits' Garden on Artfire, and the JDConwell Etsy store, I put up a coupon for discounts until December 18.  The Hermits are offering free shipping on every item, and JDConwell (love the third person much?) is offering 10% on any item.  Mostly I was just playing around with coupon codes, having decided I should at least see what they're about.

Pretty fun, really...and easy.  Almost too easy.  Yeah, so why use the same code?  I just liked the code, actually, and it seemed to work.  SOooooo, to that end, if you use coupon code 2010Yuletide in either store, you'll save a little do-re-mi.  And that's always a good thing.

This little guy found a new home for the holidays, he and his birdy buddy.

Folk art Christmas Elf Doll

I haven't named her...and am open to suggestions at this point.  But I have always felt there needs to be more girl elves for the holidays, and so here's one I made of cloth and paperclay and paint.

This was my second experiment in paperclay sculpted over a cloth doll.  The first one was a rounded, pieced head, this one was a flat, rag-doll head.  I like her a lot.  One of the dangers of making dolls is...I want to keep them all!  (This one especially since I collect Christmas Elves!)