Halloween Spun Cotton Ornaments 2013

As some of you know, I made a big move from New Jersey to the beautiful Teton Valley of Idaho in the nothern Rockies last month – and I am absolutely loving my new home.  Now that we are all unpacked and settled into our new home, I am getting started on my holiday 2013 line of spun cotton ornaments.  These two witches are are the first in the Halloween collection for this year.

spun cotton witch ornament

spun-cotton-witch

Next I will be working on creating some patterns for my doll designs, as promised – stay tuned!  I have a new Halloween doll in the works too.

Halloween Spun Cotton Ornaments

spun cotton ornament

Halloween spun cotton ornament

spun cotton Halloween ornament

spun cotton dog ornament

spun glass Halloween ornament

The ornaments pictured above are my newest spun cotton and spun glass designs for the 2011 holiday season. I am now working on another batch of Halloween primitive dolls – a black cat, a witch cat, and a witchy moon. More spun cotton Halloween ornaments will be added next week, and perhaps a Halloween paper doll or two.

spun cotton ornament display

Halloween Ornaments

The orange and black chenille Halloween ornaments below are the latest additions to my line of chenille ornaments for the 2011 holiday season.  Click an image to visit them in my Etsy shop.

halloween folk art

primitive halloween ornaments

What will emerge from my workspace today?
artist workspace

I have new spun cotton ornaments and spun glass ornaments in the works – they will be added to the Old World Primitives Etsy shop later today and tomorrow.

Chenille Cat Ornaments

A new set of Christmas kitties are available now from Old World Primitives!   I think they are my favorite set of cat ornaments that I have made yet.

chenille Christmas cat ornaments

I also realized that I never posted the new set of black cats (for Halloween – or any time of year!) here on this blog yet, so they are also pictured below. They have been available in my Etsy shop for a few weeks now.

chenille black cat ornaments

Both sets of ornaments are available at either my:

or my brand new:

Both online storefronts allow you to shop my entire inventory, with the main difference being that my ArtFire shop allows you to buy in larger quantities without requesting a custom listing.  ArtFire also does not require you to register for an account in order to make a purchase.

Celebrate 365 Magazine Halloween Issue

I just received my Fall 2010 issue of Celebrate 365 magazine in the mail and I am drooling over all of the wonderful talent on each and every page!  There are so many unique and creative Halloween goodies in this issue – I would love to have one of each in my collection.  This is the cover of the issue:

Celebrate 365 Magazine Fall 2010 cover

And here is a peek at pages 18-19, the spread that includes three of my sets of vintage style chenille Halloween ornaments – I am so honored to be featured here!

Celebrate 365 magazine Halloween 2010 issue

And a closeup:
Celebrate 365 Magazine Fall 2010 issue

Chenille and Spun Cotton Halloween Ornaments

I am busily assembling a cast of characters for Halloween this week… the last spooky spun cotton ornaments and chenille Halloween ornaments are below.  The spun cotton witch kitty will have a sister tomorrow.

spun cotton black cat Halloween ornament

spun cotton skeleton Halloween ornament

Halloween chenille ornaments

I have a few new dolls in progress too.   I am excited to use my new antique shop finds – grungy old buttons and antique lace – in some primitive creations.

antique buttons and lace

Time Flies When You’re Going Bonkers

I have been all over the place since my last post… oh gosh, where to start. I’ll start with the embarrassing part first – my husband and I attempted to move for the second time within three years, and our plan flopped once again. We have been trying to move from the suburbs to an older farmhouse in the country… something that I always thought was my dream… to live in a 1700s or 1800s farmhouse decorated like one of the homes I have so often drooled over in Early American Life magazine. But our attempts to move have taught me that this may not be my ultimate dream after all. The country escapes that we found ourselves pursuing were still just a little too “more of the same,” albeit in less developed areas. We don’t have the big bucks required to completely “get away from it all,” and we just couldn’t find anything that was quite enough away.

So now we have a new plan in mind… bear with me here, as this may sound crazy… to save up enough money to REALLY move into the country… or rather, a step closer to the wilderness. We are going to save up, purchase a motor home, sell our current home, and pursue the freedom of living full time on the road, camping at remote, wild and beautiful spots along the way. This is an idea I have been toying with for 6 years now, but I never thought I would be able to make it happen. I felt too entrenched in my current way of life despite how much I wanted to give this a try. But now, if we can save enough to make this plan feasible… there is a new goal in the horizon.

So. I’ve wasted a ton of time this summer house-hunting, packing… and then un-packing (ugh!), but I’ve still managed to get some new dolls and ornaments created, and to do a bunch of gardening and pickling too.

garden

Do you think my tomato plants are happy?? 😀

tomato plants

And now I invite you to meet an extreme primitive doll named Nadine, and a primitive witch make-do named Hexe:

extreme primitive doll

primitive folk art witch make-do

Plus my newest ornaments in spun cotton, spun glass, and chenille:

spun cotton ornament

spun glass ornament

chenille Halloween ornaments

All of the new creations above can be found in my Old World Primitives Etsy shop.

Welcoming Summer

The unofficial start of summer is here, so I have decided that I must get out of my gardens and back to the creating table.  There are many dolls and ornaments in progress that are calling for my attention!  Here is a look at the spun cotton ornaments that I have added to Old World Primitives Etsy shop since my last blog post… yes, I am already preparing for Halloween!

spun cotton ornament

spun cotton ornament

spun cotton ornament

spun cotton ornament

And this is Laura, my latest primitive cloth doll with a sculpted Paperclay face – she is traveling at the moment, preparing for her feature in a future issue of Prims magazine.  🙂

primitive doll

I have been working ever so slowly on my Izannah Walker doll class, which thankfully has stayed open long enough for slow pokes like me.   This is where I am at with my doll now – her sculpting is done, and I am ready to apply her stockinette next.  I think that perhaps I have been hesitating with moving onto that step for so long now because I’m a bit nervous about messing her up!

izannah walker doll

Witch and Angel Ornaments

This week finds me once again busily preparing items for both The Witches Ball on October 10th in Mount Holly, NJ (can’t wait – it looks like it will be such a fun evening!) and the next Early Work Mercantile update on October 1st.  The fun weekend excursions of fall have also begun – if the weather cooperates this weekend, I will be taking a trip out to beautiful Lancaster County, PA to do some shopping, get lost in a corn maze, and soak in the beautiful sights in the countryside.  I am also looking forward to going to The Great Jack O’Lantern Blaze again this year.

I have also managed to squeeze in two new additions to the Old World Primitives Etsy shop.  First is a set of 2 vintage style Halloween ornaments made of chenille, crepe paper, and vintage witch faces printed on card stock.  The set includes 2 of the wee witch pictured below.

vintage style chenille witch ornaments for Halloween

Second is a set of 3 Victorian angel Christmas ornaments made of chenille and Victorian angel faces printed on card stock.  They can be used as feather tree ornaments for Christmas or everyday, and would also make nice handmade wedding favors.

Victorian style angel ornaments

Vintage Style Chenille Halloween Ornaments – and Photos of my Gardens!

I just added a new set of 3 vintage style chenille  Halloween ornaments to the Old World Primitives Etsy shop. Each Halloween ornament is handmade of chenille and hand cut vintage Halloween images printed on card stock.

Halloween folk art chenille ornaments

I also added this new set of Halloween ornaments to the Old World Primitives Etsy shop last week.

Halloween folk art chenille ornaments

And now I have some garden photos to share – what a difference our new raised beds with great quality soil have made this year! We are using organic and/or heirloom seeds and seedlings, and absolutely no pesticides or chemicals. No fertilizer has been used yet, but we’ll add some of the organic compost that we are creating in our backyard Earth Machine composter soon.

my garden - July 2009
My orange bell pepper plants are so happy and healthy this year! I can’t wait for them to get ripe.

my garden - July 2009
Does anyone need any jalapeños?? I didn’t realize these plants were going to be so prolific – in a couple more weeks, we’ll be swimming in them!

my garden - July 2009
This row of red and white onions were planted from seedlings, and they are extremely happy. I made the mistake of planting snow peas right next to them and THEN reading that snow peas don’t like to be next to onions, but they are still steadily producing nonetheless.

my garden - July 2009
These are my onions planted from seed, after thinning, with my herbs behind them – dill, basil, parsley, and cilantro. I went a little too crazy with the cilantro.

my garden - July 2009
Grape tomatoes – I picked and ate a few after I took this shot.

my garden - July 2009
The biggest cluster of tomatoes I have ever grown – 9 and counting!

my garden - July 2009

my garden - July 2009

my garden - July 2009
Help, help – the pickle cucumbers are coming! My husband is a pickle fanatic, so we planted 23 pickle cucumber plants this year. The canning might begin this weekend or early next week.