Elf Ornaments in Progress - Part One

Well, I have regained my focus and creative motivation. It is June already and in a short few months we will be into the thick of things so I am making as many elves as possible this year. In the past, I drew the faces on the elves. After working on the gnome this year, I decided to paint them. There is a sweetness to their faces that gets lost when just drawn so I think it was a good decision, albeit time intensive. 

 The elf heads start out as unfinished hardwood beads. The tiny elf heads measure 1/2 inch and the regular sized elf heads measure an inch. I coat them with gesso and then base coat them in 'Santa's flesh'. Believe it or not, this step alone takes a great deal of time.

 I then lay in the whites of the eyes to give me some sense of feature placement. Since the mini elf heads are so small they have black eyes where the regular sized elves have blue, green, violet or brown eyes. I also made a number of 'Eskimo' faces. I know that term is archaic and unflattering to the Inuit people but since I am inspired by the designs of the 50's and 60's, it is a rather appropriate image. I do hope that the finished 'Eskimos' will be so darling that no offense is taken.

mini elf heads (closeup)

more mini elf heads

I finished 53 mini elf heads and 20 regular sized elf heads. It took me most of the weekend and Monday to complete them.

Regular sized elf heads.

Regular sized elf heads (closeup)

Mini elf heads. 

 

All that remains is to finish all 73 heads with Lascaux Acrylic Varnish with UV filter. Then on to creating bodies and attire for each one. That will be another post. I think it is probably the part I love most about creating the little elves. It is in this step that their personality really comes out. 

The clincher is the wool roving hair. 

This year I added 3 colors to my repertoire: Lavender, Iceberg Blue and Natural.

I expect there to be some super cute elves in the near future so stop by my facebook page for the most up to the minute updates! :o)

A Little Inspiration - Part 2: Bronner's CHRISTmas Wonderland

As promised here is Part 2 of our trip to Frankenmuth, MI.

This is a very image intensive post because it is our trip to Bronner's CHRISTmas Wonderland, the main objective of our trip to Frankenmuth. Now keep in mind, I am a Visual Merchandiser at heart. Of all my jobs, by far my favorite was visual merchandising. I especially love the big dramatic Christmas displays we used to see in all the big department stores. That said imagine how ecstatic I was when I walked into Bronner's for the first time!

My favorite tree display
(probably because it is so close to my own!;o)

Spending the day in Bronner's really helped me get re-inspired to organize a community event centered on Christmas Windows. It also put me in just the right frame of mind to come home and start working on my ornaments. The little elf above was one of my favorites, so joyful!

The sugar cookie star was my son's favorite!

How clever is this train?
Loved how it was designed with the chocolate sandwich cookies
and ice cream cone as the smoke stack.

This was the display that really got me charged about creating big Christmas props again. I even love how the large red and gold ornament is placed.

I adored these lamps. If only I could figure out a place to use them.
Another moment in time when I wished I had my own storefront!

If being in Bronner's doesn't get you excited for Christmas,
you really don't like Christmas.

Not only do they merchandise the inside of their store, they fully decorate the outside, too!

Loved these elves in the outside window.
Similar to my favorite guy inside and just as sweet!

Oops!

The sign I wish I would have seen sooner. Luckily, I noticed after a couple photos and the wee tot was good about staying out of the rocks.

Oh, and not only do they decorate outside, they light it up at night, every night. It looked gorgeous and my little one loved driving under the lit archways.

Well, that's it for our trip to Bronner's. We bought a bunch of ornaments. My favorite was a big Santa hot air balloon made in Poland. Oh, and my Polish eagle ornament. My husband made sure he got a Scottish ornament, the little one picked out a dinosaur ornament and, of course, we bought a personalized family ornament for 2011.There were more but I may have to do another post of all our goodies just to entice you a little bit more into visiting Bronner's and Frankenmuth. :o)
It's definitely a worthwhile destination. Allow yourself a full day to explore Bronner's and at least a day and a half to explore Frankenmuth (more if possible).

Happy To Be Me

This morning I woke at 7 am, took the beast out for her morning constitutional (watching the bunnies in the neighbor's back yard while she circled looking for just the right spot to do her business).

I have a busy day on tap, I have to catch up on my Christmas cookies as today is the last baking day. (My trays have to be done by tomorrow morning when the husband goes to work.) I have three more types of cookies to make and chocolate mice. As I started prepping for my first batch of cookies, I decided a cup of Chai tea was in order. I started my tea kettle, and pulled out the small sauce pan that I warm my milk and honey in. I went to the fridge and lo and behold, the condiments must have had a wicked thirst. My entire water jug, save for maybe 3/4 of an inch at the very bottom, was emptied into the door and veggie bin. Luckily, I had no cookie dough chilling in the veggie bin (it was actually as empty as my water jug) It may have been a very different story but after cleaning up my mess for over an hour, I realized something about myself.

It's not really a *new* something, I've noticed it before, but I don't think much about my demeanor until I am faced with adversity. Now granted, in the big view of life, a wet fridge isn't much of an adversity. Faced with a full baking schedule, a grumpy three year old that needs tended to and Christmas looming large, it becomes one if you let it. I didn't let it. With my little grump waking up and growling at me, I so wanted to! Instead, I just growled back and told him why I was *so grumpy* and a funny thing happened, we ended up laughing about it and neither one of us stayed grumpy. I'm not one to dwell in misfortune, let's face it, having to clean your refrigerator when you didn't have that on your to do list for the day is a bit of a nuisance and misfortune (the time allotment to clean the fridge just throws things off). To me it really was more of a nuisance. In reality, it did need to be cleaned, although I had planned on doing it after I was done with all my holiday baking. (Weird, I found a three year old does tend to get jelly everywhere on the inside of a fridge or maybe it was my 40 year old husband, either way it needed to be done!) But the good part about being me, is I don't tend to stress, the big stuff or the small stuff. I do stress when everything big comes at me at once (case in point, when my dad was ill and I had just moved to Pennsylvania from Ohio to manage a record store. I felt helpless, like I couldn't do anything) but I have a unique way of relaxing in the midst of chaos. I regain my center and remember what is important. I know, this is healthy behavior, but most of the people I have been around must not be healthy because this same event would have brought many a woman to tears and ruined their day. I laughed, I cursed the condiments in their thirst and I sopped up wayward water. Even better, I taught my little guy that it's okay to be grumpy but it's even better to brush it off, put your head down(as in getting to work) and carry on. And so today, I am very happy to be me.

1st Finished Candy Ornament

This is the first finished candy twist ornament. (we affectionately call them chubbies in our house, the idea originated in old-fashioned candy sticks and then transformed to this!) I think it came out very cute. So cute in fact that I have finished making 6 ornaments each of 9 different colorways (and more planned in my head) I hope to make little sets of the different candies that coordinate and package them in a nice gift or display box. I have just posted another poll (since you were so helpful helping me decide last time!) I'm trying to name my store section in my etsy shop as well as branding this line of ornaments. I hope to actually transform my web page into an online store from what it has been for 3 or 4 years(a place holder!). I would like to have individual shops represent the jobs Santa's elves hold in his Christmas Village (bakery, candy, decorations, cobbler/leathersmith, seamstress) I plan on designing a product tag for each ornament I make, so the name of the "shop" will be very important and prominent. If you have any better ideas please share in a comment, Hubby being a network geek [01010101] isn't always all that imaginative when it comes to these pursuits of mine (I can't wait til the tike is old enough to help :o)