Felting, birdies, collages and kitties...

It has been a warm week and very unseasonable. Spring has skipped straight through into Summer. We have a scorcher summer predicted this year which is not good. And especially not good in light of the bushfires we had earlier this year. Hopefully we will be better prepared this time. A lot of people are still rebuilding after the fires and I know the emotional scars would be very hard to erase for lots of people. The loss of life and property was tragic.

Yesterday I made this piece of wet felting. First time I had made a piece on my own and I enjoyed the process of selecting bits and pieces to felt with. Including some small pieces of Sari silks to add some extra color. I can see that I need to stock up on felting supplies as this is quite addictive. My kitties were most intrigued at their mama felting on the kitchen bench and had to be shooed away as they tried to ' help' he heee..
I also finished a bird I was making for a friend's birthday. Used some wet felting as the base and lots of delicious crystals. And included a Czech Glass button in the centre. Love the dimension that wet felting and Swarovski crystals (and now Czech glass buttons) has added to my art. I am also loving using felt pebbles from this lovely etsy seller. Highly recommend Catherine's shop as she is very friendly and her felting is of a very high standard.

I am using lots of quality embellishments these days which are expensive so will be increasing the price of birds, collages and dolls I sell from now on. Have kept the prices down to keep my art more affordable but need to re-coup some of dollars I spend on embellishments. And also believe I offer a quality product that takes many hours to create. To me it is about putting a higher value on my time and myself. Not here to make a fortune but would love to ultimately make art for a living. That would make me SO happy....

Last post I shared a photo of some sari silks a colleague had bought back from India for me. He wouldn't take any payment for them so I decided to make him a fabric collage as a thank you ; using some of the fabric he gave me. Thought you might enjoy a couple of work in progress pic's The first photo is of the fabrics (and a piece of felting) that inspired me to make this piece.

Next step..

And many happy hours later the finished product. The collage measures approxiamtely 8 x 8" and is mounted on a wrapped canvas that I painted with Twinkling H2o's. Thought it would be a nice reminder of my colleague and his family's recent trip to India. He really liked it (and his wife loved it).
The other weekend I was stitching away in my light filled lounge room and noticed Ronnie staring out the window intently.

And noticed Essie doing the same thing at another window.

I looked outside and saw who they were looking at! It may be hard to see in this photo but there is a black cat (who is a bit of a menace) sitting in the middle of the driveway. Both Ronnie and Essie were very alert watching him.

Couldn't resist this photo of Ronnie. It was taken from the front of my unit and I chuckled at the sight of Ronnie looking out my bedroom window. There are lots of good viewing places in my new home. And the kitties take advantage of all of them.

And finally a photo of Ronnie taken after a long day's adventure. He was very tired after being out and about for 8 hours the day before. I didn't realise when I took this photo that he had been in a cat fight and I needed to take him to my vet last week to get a nasty cat bite seen to. He is on the mend now but was not a happy cat for 5 or so days. I think Ronnie is still getting used to not being top cat any more. He will always be top cat in my books though - I am totally besotted with him. And get very upset when he is hurt.

Hope you have a good week.

Dot xx