New Work - February 1st

Hi everyone!

It's been an incredibly hectic January!

 Jizos by the dozens, the busiest January by far over the last 7 years! YAY! Writing for the Ledgerkeepers book, the podcast and Bewilder and Pine "atlas" all going SO well. Sadly,  my old faithful Mac mini died but luckily the hard drive was able to be saved and I did not have to go to a Genius Bar (ugh) at a Mac store to have it done as there was a place her in our little town with a few geniuses of their own! (Thanks Evan!) Got the new Mac mini a few days later via overnight delivery and am back at it again.

To all my lovely blog friends, I miss coming by your blogs and I promise I will be by this week to catch up. I

I am also less than three weeks out from my cross country Amtrak train excursion to visit mom and looking forward to three days of intensive writing and editing each way bookending the 8 days in the middle spent at the family home with all the old fat spirits, childhood ghosts and voices of the past. Always seems to be an inspiring trip for me. . . and always aware that it may be the last.

More on all of that in the weeks to follow but for now, just my selection of new work from January. It's heavy on the Shadow of the Sphinx side as I was inundated with custom requests there all month long. :)

Thank you for dropping by and I am hoping that magic is inundating YOUR world each day!

It had been awhile since I made Wadjet/Cobras and I really enjoyed this one!

Never tire of making towers. . . or imagining who dwells within. :)

I always forget about Groundhog Day till people start ordering these little guys! We refreshed the photos this year and. . . 

. . . added an image of the little, landscaped box "burrow" we make for each one to ship in! :) 

Wenut, the Hare or "The Swift One" is always fun to make!

Hadn't made a mini Moai Statue (4" tall)  in a long time too! January was really filled with all sorts of requests.

Mossy Lane Fairy House in Lilac.

This was my favorite request of the month. Hathor in cow form and another cobra to match! 

New Work and Updates - December 1st

Tis the Season, life gets crazy
Fa lalalala lala la la!
Weeks go by and days are hazy
Fa lalalala lala la la!

Hey folks!

OK so updates first:

To all of my blogger friends I regularly visit, I WILL be by again soon, I promise! November was a whirlwind. Busy as usual but also refusing to set aside my outside projects for 2017, I just found myself, most days, going full tilt from 6am til I dropped each day and still never able to check everything off the to do list.

I continue to write every day. allowing myself one day a week for research instead of word count. It's been a joy and I'd say that my goal for completion of my short stories in 2017 is a very realistic one.

The bonus has been that a good portion of the exploration of stories has lead to other avenues too. A quick for instance is that I dabbled with modern fairy tales, looking at old fairy legends and thinking how they could be transferred to the hear and now.

The result of that thinking and tinkering is that I want to also try to create a podcast next year as well. We've been enamored with a few fairy tale podcasts the last year or so, namely "Singing Bones" and "The Myths and Legends Podcast", and I am also a huge believer in the idea that everything we do in our life, or that we experience, can and does serve a purpose going forward. For me, that includes the 20 odd years spent as a musician,  composer, sound and recording engineer. I left much of that  behind when the Etsy shoppes and my little imaginary worlds took front and center in my life again. However, the idea that I could do the entire Podcast with little to no outside assistance at first is very enticing to me. I still have the necessary digital recording/editing equipment, the high end microphones and the ability to sound proof a closet for recording in a snap! :)

I am thinking that the recounting of old fairy tales and myths is being done well enough (see above podcasts) but that there is a space for a modern Fairy tale exploration, an "F-Files"? "Fairycast"? "The Little People We Know"? etc etc. So less narration as opposed to a more "research/exploration" that revolves around a central character discovering the possibility that these old legends carry thru to the world around us and are very much alive today. Asking what does a Bogle or Kobold look like today and how do they "blend in"? What are Wood fae and Will-o-the-Wisps? Who is Jenny Greenteeth? Or Jimmy Squarefoot? What about Urban Mermaids?

I'll let you know more as that gets going but it's a distant third right now behind the writing of the short story book, and the alignment of the shoppes to the stories I am creating. I'd want to have  6 episodes ready to go before I move forward and I plan to write them after completing the first draft of the short story book, so hopefully in February or March for the writng part.

Over Thanksgiving weekend we also experimented with doll making and the results have been very enticing too. But really, the to do list is quite long enough right now. lol

In December I will be posting a few policy and FAQ posts to redirect from my shoppe as well as.  Nothing exciting for my readers, I know, but a necessity for the year to come.

I also intend, beginning in March, to start posting small excerpts from the stories/book. Just snippets and little teasers here and there.

And most of this year in Bewilder and Pine will be spent on making the world of the Pine fit from book to shoppe. House styles, elven figures, towers and creatures etc etc.  So less exploration and more working towards having everything tie together between the two.

OK, I think that's it for the updates! And now, since it's been a very busy month, I have to choose what to show for New Work day! I hope you enjoy these and I look forward to getting back into the blog routine again as the month goes forward.

May the Yule or Holiday season be filled with love, wonder and magic in YOUR world each day and may the Year to come be the best and most amazing yet for you and yours. ;)

nicolas

Tiny Little Basket Elves! Under 2" tall!!

I love making these little Shadow Box scenes. . . the Fairy Girl is half an inch tall!

I was inspired to create a run of small, simple Houses for the holidays!

I've had some wonderful custom requests in Shadow of the Sphinx this month! 

This Sobek, at 7+ inches long, is the largest I have made.  He's off to Norway today!

Small Sekhmet, my stylized, full lioness version is finding it's place these days

These towers really started the whole book idea.
They're the inspiration for the Ledgerkeeper's towers with those crazy rooftops. 

I was suddenly reminded of a little shoppe I used to go into years ago with the same name. . . Toad Hall. . .
yes, it was magical too! 

Woodland Fairy Hermitage. . . the colors on this one really spoke to me. 

The Inner Nine Year Old Strikes Again

It's funny, The more that I have been thinking about the idea of wanting to please my inner nine year old, the more that comes to me about what that actually means.

On the surface, it seems easy to do. Seek out the tv shows, music, games etc that one loved so dearly in childhood. It is all, thanks to the internet, at our access after all. But, in truth, I wanted to go deeper than that to something more essential.

First, I chose to think of my inner nine year old because, in truth, I can barely remember anything of relevance from that time. No single major events. . . but a world of joy and imagination.

A few years earlier? Yes. . . I have recall as far back as 5 or even 4 and I know I can recall some key moments from even those years.

Everything pretty much from age 11 on?  Absolutely. Crystal clear.

And I have glimpses. Little bits that come to me that I THINK might have been from that time.

But with nothing concrete to grab ahold of, it seems my mind goes in search of something deeper and, in all honesty, I am not sure what it means or how one would exactly embrace it.

This is what came to me the other day.

Do you remember being anywhere in that 7 to 10 age range and having made a plan to go outside and, perhaps, play a game with your friends? Maybe tree climbing or rope swinging? Maybe to the pool? Maybe the weekend neighborhood wiffle ball game or unexpected sled riding on a snowy winter morning? Anything from that time that was something you just couldn't wait to do or be part of when the time came?

What I want to know is this. . .

Do you remember the urgency with which you ran to do said activity? Do you recall being so filled with excitement that you literally could not contain it and hit the front or back door of your house RUNNING? The latch pushed and the door thrown open in one single motion while almost at a full run. . . the door swinging as you bounded out and across the porch, or yard, or down the steps. The inability to contain the fervor for whatever lay waiting you in the coming hours just beyond that door?

 Or maybe you were running to come back inside to catch a favorite show or movie on TV.

Yes?

When was the last time you experienced that same thing as an adult? Now here we are, as adults, we shuffle here and there, keeping composure and cool. Always wanting to be in control. We may be feeling something that would inspire such behavior inside but, outwardly, we are often not able to let that same childhood joy show.

So maybe pleasing that inner 9 year old is about allowing ourselves to really feel the utter joy of those simple things again.  Dropping the adult overtones and just basking in that cup-flowing-over of happiness and anticipation.

I feel like I DO have an adult's sense of that joy. I am truly excited to get up every morning and begin my day. It's always a French press cup of coffee (yay adulthood!) and a fresh pastry from the bakery a block from our place. But I have never, in four years, RUN down the stairs, out the door and all the way to that bakery. Though my excitement for an Almond Bear claw or a Cherry danish is no less now than it was back then. Maybe MORE so since I can go and get one whenever I want and I do not have to ask for it from a parent. : )

I feel super excited to create every day too. To invent the things that I do and ship them out all over the world.  To make up the little stories that go with them and make booklets and maps and all manner of creative outlets that are part of the world I dwell in. . . but I think I can let that joy out a bit more than I do as an adult as well.

And, just yesterday, as I was thinking of all of this, I saw a little girl of maybe 7 or 8 with fairy white-blond hair, picking the first dandelions of the season across the street. Selecting them ever so carefully with her discerning eye and then, bouquet in hand, turning abruptly and running with that same urgency I've been talking about across the park to give them to her mother who was sitting on the bench just 100 feet away.

THAT is the urgency I miss.

Maybe it's harder as adults because we are supposed to have our emotions in check. To maintain that cool exterior and the idea of keeping it together. But really???  JOY is supposed to be that visible. Excitement for what we are doing should come with such outward expression.

So I will be running to the bakery at least once this week. And unashamedly beaming at the job I am blessed to be able to do here. And maybe, just maybe, more of these little facets of the joy of the inner 9 year old will be revealed?

Do you have any you'd care to share? Please feel free, I am all ears. . .

nicolas

And just one new thing to share. . .

Another HO Scale Fairy House. . . I rediscovered the word "Chantry" while researching ideas for this cottage. I think, if fairies were to borrow from our old-world architecture, stone and belfry bells and heavy wooden doors would be musts!

Reinvention - In Progress Pieces

Three items, all reinventions of older work with new ideas, techniques or stories / themes.


Have wanted to revisit these little guys for a year now. Originally called Grumpusses, they were garden or terrarium trolls who were, well, rather Grumpy. I believe i made 6 of the originals and they all sold but I knew I had to evolve their story. . .

Now these new editions are called Grumpus Garden Gnomes and, while they are NEVER grumpy with their human companions, they ARE quite grumpy with each other as each sort of sees itself as the self proclaimed "King of the Fairy Vegetable Garden".  This guy, who obviously favorites fairy carrots, has gone so far as make his own crown to claim the :throne" which,of course, is completely disputed by the Bok Choy,  Radish and Cherry Tomato Grumpus gnomes who all have their own crowns. . . I recommend owning more than one only if you are up for the role of peacekeeper in the fairy/gnome realm too.  

Still needs some inclusions in the "moss coat" and some sort of cuffs and bottom "hem". . . and a name. . . King Carotene perhaps?

These guys are 3 inches tall and perfect for little terrarium and fairy gardens.

Next is a new rendition of my wall-hanging pieces.  I've done little villages and fairy scenes but, again, wanting to get more into figurines and art dolls, I came up with this idea for little scenes.

The bamboo box is 6x6 and the little sweet dreaming elf is just 3 inches long. Still want to ad something in the tree's knothole and along the branch.

So sweet sleping among the tulips and the mushrooms! Of course, this will have to wait for the final story to be written too.

And lastly, this is the second edition of my Fairy Houses of Giddings Hill. Giddings comes from the street that ran along my childhood home bordering a lovely dense wooded hill.  These will come in 6 pearl colors and have different windows and adornments as they are developed.

My favorite part of this house is the winged accent with the crystal at the point of the roof!

These are around 4 inches tall and 2.5 inches wide!

Hope you enjoyed these sneak peeks into some new work and the constant path of reinvention I like to indulge in with my creations!

Have a wonderful day!

nicolas