Shopping and inspiration: Antiques in Hancock, MD

On the drive back from a weekend in Cleveland, I got the urge to stop along the way and do a little antiquing...and found some great stuff at Hancock Antique Mall in Hancock, MD.

My favorite spot was definitely the Lill booth--the owner had set it up super cute, with all kinds of teapots and china and glass trays and lovely tea things. I also considered getting a shabby chic sort of carved wood frame mirror but it looked like it needed some repair...and there were some pink goblets to match the bird bowl that I wish I had picked up too. Might require a return trip!

 

From top:

Dep pink bowl with birds on side: Lill

Popegosser china dessert plates: Lill

Kentucky Cardinal apples sign: Lois

Nippon handpainted dip plate: Lill

Blue marble trinket box (with cockatiels on it!!!): Lill

Vintage hankies: Lill

Micro floral tapestry vintage pin: Val

Metal coaster set: Lill

Car coasters: Lill

Omg I was SO excited to find the cockatiel box especially. I happened to go back to the Lill booth after my round of the entire antique mall...I was really looking for vintage hankies and teacups so I overlooked it on the shelf somehow the first time! This is definitely my favorite new piece.

In other news, welcome to fall! I was half-surprised to see the leaves on the sidewalk yesterday, even though the weather is getting noticeably cooler.

 

 

Might be time for a road trip to enjoy all the pretty fall leaves :) Or more apple picking!

Fall is here...and projects in progress

Yay fall! The leaves are just starting to change and it's getting cooler finally (man I hate the heat). Other things to love about fall:

• Boots weather! I can finally wear all the awesome boots I bought this year.
• Halloween. Jenny and I purchased some crazy costumes online so we can at last go as ABBA...although I'm not sure if we'll get any guys to agree to dressing up as Bjorn or Benny...
• Candy corn season! I always forget how much I love candy corn until it hits the stores again in the fall. Along with some coworkers, I ate a whole bag of candy corn this week and it was delicious!

This inspired me to finally start on a project I'd had in mind for at least a year--a candy corn purse.. Here's the purse in progress...I decided to go with a variety of candy sizes.

Picking out the fabric for the lining should also be interesting. I'm thinking either a black/white print or something with both yellow and orange. I want to finish it this week to have it in my shop for Halloween.

I finished my second felt cockatiel softie in time for Bill and Allison's wedding a few weeks ago...

This one presented a little more of a challenge as I was trying to make it look like a pearl cockatiel. I used sticky felt to make the white spots on the back.

I also managed to stitch a bunch of new pins this week (while watching lots of bad tv, of course--current favorites are Say Yes to the Dress, What Not to Wear, and Millionaire Matchmaker).

I should have the new pins available in my etsy shop shortly!

Felt cockatiel softie!

So a friend who's getting married contacted me a while ago to make some cockatiel felt sculptures to use on top of a birdcage at the wedding. What a cute idea!

The couple sent me a picture of their birds, who are "whiteface" cockatiels, an interesting mutation that doesn't have the bright orange cheeks and yellow face that are most common. I wanted to make my felt birds to match theirs as much as possible.

Surprisingly, I did not have a "craft fail" at my first try.  Perhaps this is because I have been around my birds so much--I know pretty well how they are shaped! While I've made some cockatiels out of felt before, they weren't totally 3-D so I thought this might be a challenge.

I totally love how he came out! He's got a puffy belly and the wings are a little bit movable, so you can hold them out a little bit to make a "cape" like Edy does when he's happy. The beak is a little bit adjustable too--couldn't decide if I wanted to sew it down closer to the face or not.

I really wanted to make the crest lifelike so I used two layers of felt to create the "feathers." His tail is still a little bendy despite three layers of felt tail-feathers.

Here's a view of him from the top/back.

And sitting on my couch, from a distance it looks like a real bird! Haha.

Here are some of the supplies I used to create my cockatiel soft sculpture...fiberfill, embroidery floss, and gray, black, and white felt. You can also see some of my templates, which should make the second softie go much faster--wing templates, crest templates, underside of the tail. The light gray felt tube on the right will be used for the head, and the dark gray tube for the body.

I did not add feet to this softie...once I hear back from the bride & groom we'll see if the feet are necessary. I thought it would be pretty complicated to add them, and might require purchasing some floral wire, which I tend to stab myself with a lot by accident.

More soon on cockatiel #2!

Some birdies to welcome the spring!

Between a bunch of parties and other fun things this weekend, I found time to work on a few new pins for my etsy shop. The first pin came out exactly as I had imagined it...two cute little birds in love!

The second pin was kind of an experiment, to see if I could even make a cockatiel that small on a felt pin. It actually did not come out the way I was expecting, although it is still kinda cute.

 

More pins coming soon!

Placemats, snow, birdies, and boredom!

I have decided that being sick is really boring. The snow seems to be melting, so I'm not really snowed in...but I still have a bad sore throat and probably shouldn't go anywhere.

However, I have managed to do lots of cleaning, sorting, and crafty things. Here are the latest pics:

More ribbon placemats! I finished 6 of these last night.

Also, cut more felt shapes for heart pins...

And here's a look at the snow. Most of it has melted around here, although we didn't get hit as hard as other parts of MD.

Here's Tiny's impressive batch of eggs. Well, several batches. She has 18 eggs currently and I suspect another is on the way. Poor baby.

 Here she is...she was annoyed with me for taking pictures of the eggs.

With a little help from my friends

As usual, my helpful cockatiels Edy and Tiny decided to lend their assistance to my craft projects today.

 Edy enjoyed running around and picking up the felt squares I was cutting for barrettes. 

And Tiny had a good time getting into mischief while I was weaving ribbons into a table runner.

She likes to climb on top of the stacks of ribbon, but hates walking on the tape.