Handmade Primitive Dolls and 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.
What will emerge from my workspace today?
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.
No longer content to be mere works in progress, a group of four new primitive cat dolls have come to life.
Each of these primitive dolls may be found in the Old World Primitives Etsy shop.
I’m working on a gaggle of primitive cat dolls this week. Look for them all finished and ready for adoption in my Etsy shop after the holiday weekend!
One of the greatest things about being my own boss is that I can have cause to make two vacation posts on my blog in a row. After being back home from my Yellowstone trip for a little over a week and spending that time working on some new creations, prepping to improve some of the older photos in my Etsy shop (which I hope to complete this week), and planning for Halloween and Christmas (I know, it’s early – but I promised myself it had to be done earlier this year!)… I was lucky enough to be able to leave for another vacation to California, where my husband spent two weeks road tripping, camping and hiking our way through Yosemite, Death Valley, Joshua Tree, Sequoia, and Kings Canyon National Parks.
Below are some of my photos from our travels. My husband has also added a bunch more (even better!) photos to his Etsy photography print shop, Max Gorski Photography.
I also have two new spun cotton ornament designs to share – two kitties in fall friendly colors. The second one is the first of my Halloween 2011 designs – many more to follow!
This week I am back from vacation after a week spent backcountry hiking and wildlife watching in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. This was my 4th time visiting Yellowstone, and this time I was lucky enough to spot wolves, grizzly bears, black bears, bison (including a mother and newborn calf – just 2 hours old – right in front of Old Faithful), pronghorn, big horn sheep elk, mule deer, sage grouse, sandhill cranes, marmots, colonies of ground squirrels, eagles, and two nesting osprey. I also saw a moose in the aptly named town of Moose in Grand Teton on our final day.
It was definitely a great year to have my brand new spotting scope along with me! Through it I saw a wolf attempt to steal a bison calf from the herd, only to be chased away by an angry mob of mother bison; a grizzly bear sow with two cubs charge away a male who was stalking them… twice!… until he got the hint and left; and a large bison bull charge a black bear who decided that meant it was time to flee the area.
Below are some photos from my trip of the wildlife that was within range of my 300mm lens.
I have been working on a new series of primitive cat dolls this spring. Here is the herd, so far.
I am having a lot of fun with these cat dolls, so there will be more to come throughout the year – including Halloween cats and Christmas cats.
As a follow-up to my post about the 1771 farmhouse I grew up in, I now present to you the outbuildings.
This was “the big barn,” with its saltbox style roof. An old man in the neighborhood remembered that this barn used to house a cider press that everyone would bring their apples to by wagon. Once the apples had been pressed into cider, he would deliver it back to the customers.
This was “the little barn.” (That’s me collecting Easter eggs in front of it, many years ago!) The closest door led to a storage area where we kept shovels, rakes, gardening tools and such. There was also a giant wood pile inside. The second door led to a former blacksmith shop. Inside, there was still a work table, shelving, and a blacksmith’s forge with an old bicycle wheel that turned the fan.
I couldn’t find any closeups of our outhouse (… except for one where it was in use at the time… ) so you’ll have to look for it in the far right of this photo of my Dad, a snowman that he and my Mom built, and our dog. The outhouse was a 4-seater, with two adult sized seats and two child sized seats.
Coming up in my next post in this series: pictures of the interior of our house.
My daily run out to the mailbox to check to see if today will finally be the day that my issue of Prims arrives has finally ended – it’s here! The Spring 2011 issue of Prims magazine is just packed full of artists whose work I have long admired – and collected. I feel extremely privileged to have two of my primitive dolls, Laura and Rebecca, featured in such amazing company.
This is the house that I grew up in. It was a 1771 farmhouse – the entire single-story section on the right was a huge country kitchen with a woodburning stove inside. That section also had a saltbox style roof, which you can see in the second photo below. The historical society told us that the front room on the left side of the house was once a midwife’s birthing room. The house is painted white in these photos, which is the color it was when my parents first bought it. I remember the house being the dark blue color pictured here that my Dad later painted it to.
Below is the back view of the house. That’s a grape vine in the foreground. The white door led into what later became the bathroom, so that wound up getting sealed shut and the steps were removed. In 1771, there of course were no bathrooms, just the outhouse, which was still standing on the property. When my parents first moved in, the bathroom contained only a toilet. There was no hot water or heating system in the house either. An elderly woman was living in the kitchen with the woodstove and a space heater.
Below is a side view of the back of the house. The barrel collected rain water that fell from the gutter.
Photos of the outbuildings will be in my next post.
Sarah-Lambert Cook is the creative force behind Tuckoo and Moo Cow. With a shop name that adorable, can you resist taking a peek? I have recently had the pleasure of getting to know Sarah-Lambert via Etsy, and she is just as sweet as she is talented! She creates hand painted jewelry – each of the items that you see above contains a hand painted original miniature watercolor painting, permanently sealed and protected with clear resin. These are not prints, or mass produced items. Each one is painstakingly hand painted, one at a time.
I really enjoy the serenity and charm that Sarah-Lambert’s work exudes. Much of it gives you the feeling of being swept away to the country or a quiet moment in the woods when you look at it. I’m a huge fan of her product photography as well.
Stop by for a visit with Tuckoo and Moo Cow in her Etsy shop: Tuckoo and Moo Cow – Hand Painted Miniature Art and on her blog: Tuckoo and Moo Cow – an artist’s journal.