An Exciting Year Ahead - 5th Friday Post - December 29th

Hi Everyone!

So here we are on the cusp of yet another New Year.  I've written before about no longer making resolutions but there ARE a few things I DO like to do before or at the New Year.

First, I love to choose three words that I want to be my focus for the coming year. I print them out and keep them above my editing station and I check in with them from time to time.  I haven't settled on any of the three yet for 2018 but I feel I DID manage to stay true to the ones I chose for this past year, especially "diligence".

Second is an old family tradition that I loved when I was a kid. Every New Years Eve I put several coins out on the windowsill and leave them out overnight until New Years day. The coins should be silver (symbolically, not literally) and when you bring them in on New Years Day, you put them somewhere safe so that you do not spend them the rest of the year. If you do this, it is said to ensure that you'll always have enough through the year and I will say that it's always worked for me. . . but not when I was a teenager. . . I was always broke then. : )

Third, I will make my annual reading pledge at Goodreads. Last year I chose 30 books as my goal and ended up reading 33 or 34 I think. . . I may increase it to 40 this year ( I can always sneak a few comic collections or graphic novels in if needed).

I'm looking forward, as always, to the year ahead. I've got a full range of new ideas for my shops, I'll be furthering work on "The Ledgerkeepers" novel, working on off Etsy web sites for that world and for my Shadow of the Sphinx shop. Oh and I will be starting up on Instagram in January!

Ok, can I just make two small complaints about instagram already? I signed up and chose an account name a few weeks ago.  It's not my name OR any of my Etsy shop names by the way. . . that's just me preferring a little anonymity. . . . and I was immediately bombarded with a list of people I might know/want to follow. Now, I have not been active on any social media platform for quite some time and so almost all of these people they've recommended are from the distant past. . . I just find it creepy that they instantly know and are linking me to people who I've known in the past! AND, I checked in yesterday just to get myself ready and I already have two dozen followers. . . only one of them is someone I know, the rest are random accounts, some seem fake, and a few local area business accounts. Come on now.  I have ZERO posts! Why would anyone who does not know me be following me already???  What if I start posting really bizarre or disturbing art? Still wanna be my friend there "Tiny Vacation Home Rental in PDX"?
Hmmm?

OK, rant over. :)

That said, I AM looking forward to getting the visual feed going and I am secretly hoping it allows me to find artists who inspire me from all over the world, like the old days on Myspace when it was still cool and ad free.

Well, I think that's it for this edition. . .

I am sending wishes to you all for a wonderful start to your own New Years and may it be filled with light, love and inspiration each and every day!

XO

Nicolas

Merry Christmas! - Fourth Friday Post - December 22nd, 2017

Hello everyone!

Since we have five Fridays this month I am going to take this one to wish each of you a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Yule!

I hope the last 10 days of this year are filled with light, love and the making of wonderful memories!

When I return next week, I'll go back to the Bewildering Pine, my usual fourth Friday post. In January I will begin revealing a bit more about the world I am creating in greater detail but next Friday's post will focus on the why.

Why I am taking time out from an already busy creative life to write these stories and create this elaborate world, what inspired them and where do my characters come from.

So until then, I send love and light to all of you!

Oh, I wanted to share this with you all too. Each Solstice or Equinox Sofie and I chose two fairy guardians for our altar. Last night it was time to pick our Winter Fairy Guardians. We choose them from the vast and well known flower fairy selection of the artist Cicely Mary Barker, then we print them out and mount them on card stock, setting them on the altar window.

Snowdrop Fairy for Sofie

Burdock Fairy for myself!

For me, I am reminded of the mischievousness of the burdock fairy. When I was home last February, I was doing some work for my mother in the driveway and came inside later to find hundreds of the sticky burrs on my pants, socks and coat. . . and just like when I was a kid, I never saw the plant! There they were as if by true fairy magic! It was an unexpected but lovely step back into memories of the past so I had to choose him this year!

Much love and fairy magic to you all!!!

Nicolas

First Friday New Work - Álfablót - November 3rd

Hey everyone!!

Well the holiday season is off and running already around here. My custom work slate is now practically full and I am already a little behind this week.  I'll have another start to finish, work in progress, series of pics for December but this month I'm going with examples of completed new work from the shops.

Speaking of the holidays. . .  we are going to be following along this holiday season with a wonderful book, "The Old Magic of Christmas" which talks about the old traditions and origins of the holiday traditions in many European and Scandinavian countries and, most importantly (for me) the baking that accompanies it. :)  It's ALL about the baking isn't it?

So I'll be baking up a host of special holiday season treats this year. Icelandic Snowflake Bread, Cattern Cakes, Lussekatter, Sisky and others as well.

Tonight we are celebrating Álfablót, a welcoming of the elves, or Álfar, in after the harvest. In Scandinavian tradition this is a local celebration in homesteads after the harvest as winter approaches and the celebration is not only to honor the ancestors, but also other spirits, such as the elves and the land spirits, the "Landvaettir". This is a home/family celebration, doors are left ajar to let the elves in and strangers were not welcomed near the homesteads during the celebration. 

You want to celebrate Álfablót between Samhain and Thanksgiving, tying it in conjunction with the moon (waxing better than waning) and not on a recognized day like St. Martins day (Nov 11th) when the elves would have to share their day with anyone else. :) 

We'll be welcoming the elves with this invocation: "Let them come who wish to come, let them go who wish to go and do no harm to me or mine". It is not considered auspicious to converse with the elves beyond that welcoming. Simply to welcome them in and provide the feast. Of course, we in the human world may talk among ourselves as we would at any gathering.

We'll set out a red table cloth hoping to draw a few elven female spirits, the Dísir, to the feast night as well. There will be no electricity after dark as it can disturb or irritate the sensitive elder folk among the elves so candles or a hearth fire is best. Simple foods like bread, meat and milk are preferred for feasting with the Álfar.

I'll try to photograph it and post pics mid week. :)

 Next weekend we will be celebrating Martinmas or St. Martin's Day November 11th by making Turnip lanterns (if we can find big enough turnips) and Martinmas Horns. They can be made with a cookie dough or with a yeast dough and are filled with apricot jam and a touch of marzipan.  I'll probably make the yeast variety since I don't get to do nearly enough yeast baking these days!

For now, I hope your November is off to a lovely beginning and to close this First Friday post, here are a few new creations from the Enchanted studio.

Thank you, as always, for dropping by!

Nicolas

I love the sod topped houses of the Faroe Islands. The black houses (color provided by pitch on the real houses)
are as much a favorite as the red ones which I also make! 

Three Mushroom Fairy Houses on Stars. Always a holiday favorite and I am
trying REALLLLLL hard to get ahead on them! 

A custom request for a little Glitter Shoppe on a star. New Pink trees and the druzy disc
on the roof gable add something magical too I think.

I've been making these translucent "alabaster" Egyptian pieces. In making them I realize how much I count on the aged patinas to cover the dings and blemishes where as these require more attention to getting the smoothness of the sculpt.

A special request from a customer for this piece with two angels sitting on the bench conversing,
representing two family members who had passed.

These are hand-painted N scale figures that are about 1/2" (1.25cm) tall and check out those tiny little metal wings!

A Little Bit of Christmas Past

Hello all! Hoping the season has been magical thus far wherever you are whether snowed in or hoping for a white Christmas!

Just thought I'd share a bit of our holiday world today.

Since we've added a full size floor loom and another work table to our set up we had to downsize the tree a bit this year to fit it in but it is still a lively 5' Nobel Fir.

The Santa is from the first tree I can recall as a child. I looked forward to seeing this "old friend" every year and I still do.

And these glass ornaments must be at least 50 years old now.  I've managed to keep nine of them in tact.

Danish Christmas Snowflakes Sofie got at a Christmas market when she was in school abroad. 

One of my favorite Etsy finds of all time. Originally I wanted to make little winter scenes for them but decided we should keep most of them for ourselves to hang on the tree. 

Sofie's Grandmother's tree topper! I love this bird and look forward to placing it on the top bough every year!

And the last few years, when we had much larger trees, we needed ornaments so we made dozens of these origami bows.   I am hoping to take a day next week and make a few dozen small ones to go on this year's tree.

And one last thing. . . last year we watched what is one of my favorite, nostalgic, Christmas movies which is "An American Christmas Carol" starring Henry Winkler, (yes, that's right, THE FONZ !) as the Scrooge based character. Now, I will admit, it is not as good a movie as I recalled (acting wise) from 25 years before, but I still reveled in seeing it again. It's hard to find but Netflix had it last year and it was a delight to watch.  Of course, Nothing beats "A Charlie Brown Christmas"  for me, the sad little tree, the monologue from Linus about what Christmas is all about and of course, Pigpen's endless dust clouds even when skating or exhaling while singing! Classic. . . 

Any favorites you'd like to share? LOVE to hear about them!

Happy holidays!

nicolas