A Baby is Born

I can't even begin to describe how happy needle felting makes me. I have been an artist my whole life and will admit that '3D' mediums always left me feeling..well...lacking.

I had issues with proportion and the front might look fine but the back would look like a disaster!

To finally, after all these many years, to find a medium where I have no problems creating in a totally 3D format just makes me giggly lol

Here is my first new friend of 2012. He is a little "chubby' bunny. The core is made of merino wool then covered with gray alpaca (I love how soft the alpaca fleece feels!)

I gave him oversized eyes and nose to increase the cute factor. :-)

He stands about 3" tall to the tip of his ears.

And now for the baby. This took me 2 weeks to complete, not because he was difficult but because my neck issues have decided to flare up in a huge way so looking down for long periods of time sends me into horrible neck muscle spasms (trust me, it is not as fun as it sounds!)

I would like to introduce Seymore. He is a baby monster. He seems to have lost his mama (which I think is probably a good thing for me) but managed to keep a grip on his trusty teddy.

He also has a merino wool core and was then covered with a varigated baby blue. I am not sure what type of wool because I got this HUGE ball (at least 8-10 ounces) of it for free because an online vendor messed up my order and tossed in the blue as a thank you because I was patient and didn't complain. It is super soft! (some times it pays to be a patient customer) :-)

As you can see, he has a tight grip on teddy and is also sucking his thumb.

And, of course, a pic from 'behind'.

Seymore is about 3 1/2" tall.

He definitely strays from my normal bunnies and sheep but he came to me one day while I was day dreaming so I had to bring him to life. Now I have a gorilla floating in my head! We'll see if he appears any time soon lol

Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and a joyous New Year.

Everything was quiet and peaceful here. It was so nice to just sit back and relax and enjoy the season. Unfortunately, that also meant not getting anything 'created' either.

And here we are, over a week into 2012 and still no art projects started. My muse seems to still be on Christmas vacation. I hope she returns soon because I am getting antsy!

But, to kill the time, I have visited a few of the local antique malls. :-)

On Saturday, I found one of my coolest finds ever!

Isn't this just the most awesome cookbook you have ever seen? (and yes, I am assuming you are as hooked on cookbooks as I am!) :-)

Ok, it looks a bit grundgy and dirty....but I could see there was something beautiful under that black gunk!

See, I told you! Look how bright and shiny it is now! And all it took was a bit of liquid handsoap, a soft toothbrush and some hot water. Yay!

I had never seen a book with an aluminum cover before and when I discovered it was a cookbook!!! it had to come home with me!

Here is the cover page, see the copyright? 1933 This thing is in really wonderful shape for it's age. It almost looks like no one used it (which is sad for a cookbook) But one former owner did add a few of her own recipes into the pages so someone at sometime prior to me did make a bit of use of it.

I found out on Wikipedia that this cookbook is the first one ever to tell the cook to use a fork to flatten her peanut butter cookies....now loving peanut butter cookies as I do and having baked more than my fair share of them....I thought this was cool!

Each recipe has it's own little page with instructions on the front and sometimes the back. Kind of neat!

And in case you want to order your own copy, this page is printed in the back of the book. :-)

I hope 2012 is a very artful year for you all! (and hopefully soon for me too lol)