So first I want to let you know, cockatiel Gwyneth has returned to the aviary in good health!
She was very, VERY happy to see her husband. While she was still inside of the house (the aviary is outside) she could hear her husband yell, and when she yelled back they where so eager to see each other!
She was released and it was so amazing to see them reunited. They are a happy couple again and it's like they've never parted. Here's a picture of their favorite thing to do together, search the ground for food :)
Let's go back to the Troll- adventures, shall we? ;)
I've created more little pixies and planning to make a small batch for a in-between sale on Etsy this week or the next :)
I'm trying to make them small enough for the mailbox so the shipping won't be terribly high ^_^
A work in progress - picture of a head :)
The batch of pixies so far, pretty colorful if you ask me :D
Brennis with one of the pixies
Aslan and Puck getting fed-up with them, they're everywhere!
I've also created a new duo teacup trolls, more pictures soon!
And last week I've uploaded pictures of the glass pumpkin. The pumpkin now has a wooden floor, a real working light and a fireplace. I'm still working on furniture and such, it also needs another layer of paint on the walls :)
For the upcoming week I will be working on some bigger trolls ;-) We went to a event this weekend called "Volkel in de Wolken", which is a event where they have airshows, it's near a militairy airport. There is also a large market with all sorts of items. There was a very special stand with .. owls! The owners have a shelter for sick or neglected owls and where there to collect money to keep helping owls, which is awesome! I had the opportunity to hold one of the owls and it was a dream coming true of me. Owls have a very special place in my heart and it was so special to hold one of them. It was scary and amazing at the same time!
There also was a beautiful sky last week, I didn't edit or alter this picture, this is all nature's doing! Isn't it gorgeous? :D
So that was the blog for this week, hope you enjoyed it! ;)
This week started out good, the teacup project is finished! After the baking and painting process, the troll received his hair and a few pieces of clothing. The resin-test worked out great so the troll is now sitting in a cup of tea! Success!
I was busy planning new projects when Wednesday we received a phone call from my father-in-law, who has an aviary with all sorts of parakeet breeds. He had bad news..
His young female cockatiel (big bird on the right), who was breeding on 3 eggs, fell out of her nest onto the aviary floor. She was very weakened, was puking and drooling all over the place. She was dying, poor thing.. It was heart breaking to see :(
My partner lifted her up and wrapped her in a towel, keeping her warm with his own body temperature. We took her home with us to do anything within our power to help her, as my father-in-law was about to go on a holiday. As soon as we got home we put her in a box with towels and a hot-water bottle, to keep her warm during our trip to the vet.
At this time she couldn't even lift her head anymore. She was laying very still and the only movement she made was breathing lightly.
The vet told us she was suffering from a serious crop infection and therefore she was not able to eat or keep any food in her stomach.
There was a chance she wouldn't make it trough the night, she was already very weak. We wanted to try it anyway and hope for the best. We are both animal lovers and didn't want to give her up!
For the night we decided to feed her every 3 to 4 hours, so an alarm was set to make sure she was fed and getting her medicine.
We moved our mattress to the living room and stayed with her the entire night. I ended up pretty much staying awake all night so I was able to feed her every hour.
She got antibiotics mixed with baby porridge trough a syringe (without the needle) and a few drops of water too. She was eating from the syringe very well, of course, regarding the sweetheart hasn't been able to eat for a few days and was starving!
Around 5 in the morning she was able to sit up straight, I was in tears of joy, she made it trough the night and was visibly better than the evening before. So proud of her!
That morning she was still fed porridge and water, around 9 o'clock she carefully ate a bit of her normal food. We put a cage over the box for safety, so she wouldn't fly into a window or meet our cats along the way, who had to sleep in the bathroom for the night so they were not very happy and friendly to our little ball of feathers!
Later on she even sat on my partner's hand, still a little wobbly but already gaining strength! Look at that little mohawk! Fierce little lady! :D
Because she needs to get her antibiotics for 10 days total, we bought her a cage so she could stay with us a little longer to complete the cure. The cage was bigger so she would have more room to move around and be safe. We have two cats, so cats + a cage-less, weakened bird = not a good combination ;)
At first she not very fond of a cage (the aviary of my father-in-law is pretty big!) but she slowly started exploring it by climbing around and sitting on the perches.
After a while she decided to try the swing that was in the cage as well. With a little squeak of approval she seem to enjoy it and kept her balance perfectly on the moving swing.
This was just around 1 in the afternoon, we could hardly tell she was more dead than alive just one night before!
As I'm writing this she's in the cage next to my desk, enjoying the sunny and lovely weather in the Netherlands and she is doing so, SO well! She's very curious and mischievous. Every day we see her gain strength and eat, drink, climb and "talk" more.
She still gets her antibiotics twice a day, and she's not liking it! My partner holds her so that I can give her the syringe of water mixed with antibiotics. Works like a charm! My partner does need to wear gloves, she's not a tamed bird so she loves to nibble on his fingers while he holds her ;-) We have a strong feeling she got this sick from eating old chickweed. Remove old green food from the aviary before it has a chance to rot or mould, else it might cost you a precious little bird-friend! We learned that the hard way!
Her medicine stops this Saturday so after that she can go back to the aviary, to her husband who is anxiously waiting for her. The eggs she laid are considered lost, have been too cold for too long, but we are far too happy that our sweetheart is alive and healthy again.
She is such a beautiful, brave and strong girl. We are so proud of her! We now call her Gwyneth, which means Fortunate, Blessed.
With this adventure I'm afraid I didn't have any time to work on any of my projects for the past week, or even respond to messages at all, I'm so sorry about that! Now that our little feathery friend Gwyneth is healing very well, I hope to show you guys more new dolls or progress next week. That is, if I can concentrate on sculpting, cockatiels turn out to be pretty loud!! ;-)
I'm cheering for myself that I actually keep up with a blog now, haha! So, as promised, a weekly update of the progress I've made this week :)
At first, I've ordered new marabou feathers last week, they arrived and are gorgeous! I'm very pleased with them, now I have a very colorful group of pixies! Say cheese!
12 down, 18 more to go @.@
I'm planning to put 10 of them per day (3 days) at my booth so we'll see with how many I end up after Castlefest. All the dolls that didn't find a new home at Castlefest will be in my Etsy store.
My mother in law gave me a few old teacups to work with and I have a lot of fun things in mind for them! There was one cup that was a little broader than the others and I think it makes a perfect bathtub for a troll!
This is the broad cup I'm talking about :)
A work in progress! This looks REALLY silly :D I'm testing out size and composition here, after this I start shaping it to look more like a troll.
Ha! I can recognize a troll now! :D At this stage he is baked and almost fully painted. I've painted the spoon a dark brown so it looks like a wooden spoon. I'm still working on his hair to make it look wet, but at the moment I'm not sure if he will keep his hair or if I'll just leave him bold with a few bubbles on his head.. We'll see!
This resin is colored with food coloring and curing as we speak. I don't have any experience whatsoever with resin so I'm testing it out first. I don't want to think about messing up the troll and the teacup!
So that's one teacup troll so far! I have 5 more to test out :)
My mother in law also had a old glass pumpkin that she was not using anymore, so yay! More fun stuff to work with! At the start of this week I tried out a new medium, called Gesso. It's actually a primer for paintings but it also works pretty good to color glass :D I tried it out on two old glass bottles. I've made one white and one purple, added rope, beads and feathers of our aviary birds. I think they turned out pretty good for a first try!
As for the pumpkin, I've colored the glass orange and green. But I'm not telling what I have in mind for it, yet, you'll see! ;-)
A personal project I'm working on are... dreadlocks! Whaaaa!!! I'm so in love with dreads and wanted them for god knows how long, but too much of a chicken to take the step and put them in my hair ._. After some searching on the interwebs I found a material called Kanekalon Jumbo Braid, loose hair you can braid, or twist into dreadlocks!
You can put them in your hair and it will not be permanent. So it's ideal to test out! I'm planning to try it out this week, just placed the order so fingers crossed! So these are all the updates I have for you, I hope you have a wonderful week! ;D
Soooo it's been a while since I last updated a blog, I'll try to give a weekly update this time! ;)
I'd like to show pictures and talk about stuff I'm working on in preparation for a fantasy event in the Netherlands. The dolls are created for Castlefest, a lovely fantasy event in August I will be attending. A lot of work needs to be done, I'll try to share a weekly progress with you guys, working towards this event :)
Pixies! I've decided I want a group of small and colorful dolls for my booth. I've created pixies before which where a tad bigger but colorful and cute enough to create more of! I went for a smaller size this time to see how that works out. I've had some old jars laying around which I now used for them to sit on. I'm not sure if I'm going to stick with the glass jars. It has been pretty difficult so far to get similar ones with a black cap, so I've made a few small round displays from scrap clay to test out. I'm planning to visit a few stores this weekend to see if I can get a hold of similar jars. If not, I'll stick with the small displays. For now, here is the progress of a pixie on a jar cap! ;)
This is the sculpted pixie doll, unbaked. I'm posing it to see how it's working out on the cap :)
The dolls are baked, painted and their wings are added. Time to add some fluffiness!
So fluffffyyyy! I've used Marabou feathers for the hair and for the tail. The pixie is glued to lid and I'll be adding moss and beads around him/her once the glue is cured.
This would be the almost-final result of the doll, I still need to add iridescent beads and figure out what to put in the jar :) And here are some freshly sculpted pixies. Ready for the last phase of smoothing and cleaning before they're going into the oven to cure ^_^
I've also ordered more Marabou feathers in Green, Yellow and Red. I hope to do another update next week, now I'm off cleaning, there are Marabou feathers everywhere!! ;-)
