Hi everyone! Time for a new blog, I can't believe Castlefest is in a month, so much to do! :)
Last week I showed a picture of two huge troll feet, guess who they belong to now!
This fella! Remember when he was just a head?
A behind the scenes picture, you should know that my cat is in almost every troll-picture I've taken so far! She loves to be around when I take pictures. It took me 5 minutes to make her move over a little bit, sigh! ;-)
After a couple of days I managed to finish part of his shirt and hat, it needs to be adjusted but I thought this picture was hilarious! Poor thing can't see anything!
"Smile to the camera!"
"Where's the camera?!! Mom? MOOOM?!"
I've tried to make some sort of terrarium in a bottle, these are just tryouts. It's pretty hard to take a good picture of it, the colors are turning out pretty weird, LOL! I'm not sure I'll take them with me to Castlefest. What do you guys think?
This week I'll try to finish up the big Troll and start working on more pixies and cocoon babies :)
Hi guys! A quick picture dump today, not much time for a blog, I'm sorry! I'd like to share a few pictures of new friends that came to life last week :)
I'm currently working on the big troll's feet, I hope I can finish him in time for Castlefest! :D Yep, that's my hand! ;)
Last week was again quite busy but I took some time to make more pictures, finally! :D
The big Troll got his ears and his head is now cured :) I'm currently working on his armature and then proceed to sculpt his feet and hands. He's going to be pretty big!
Here's a picture of the big Troll's head next to my regular size dolls! (18-21 cm) Huuuge!!
I've already shown a picture on Facebook of our new hanging lamp in the living room, but I've added some lights to it. It looks so magical by night! :D
This is the lantern by day, I've added more lights to it (shown on the picture below) There are 3 Trolls having fun in this lamp, Birch (in the hammock), Puck (on the swing) and Aslan right above them, you can see his nose if you look closely ;)
The hammock is handmade, here is a picture of the work in progress :)
The lamp by night, love all the little lights!
The weather was lovely and our garden was so colorful that I had to take some pictures of the Trolls outside!
We are also very excited about the young birds in the aviary, they are growing so well!!
These little cuties are Splendid Parakeets with their mother, only a few days old! This was May 22th.
And here we are, June 12, look at how big they are already! Can you believe how fast they've grown? They are almost ready to fly, since they are flapping their wings like crazy :D
Also a important reminder, the Pixie Giveaway ends the 18th (2 days from now!)
The past week was a week of sculpting in challenging sizes, small and large! First, the smallest size is meant to be Trottle 2.0! The first Trottle was created back in July 2013 and I wanted to challenge myself to create a newer, smoother and smaller version. They might be part of a collaboration soon, but I can't tell much about that yet ;)
This is one of the first Trottles, July 2013
This is a smaller, new version of a Trottle. He's 1 by 1 cm tall. I'm currently working on casting them, the first bubble-less cast finally worked! :D They will be coming along with me to Castlefest as well, I'm going to put them in a small bottle :)
And after a whole day of working this small, my hands where itching to create something way bigger! This picture is from a work in progress, he has ears now and is ready to be baked :)
I'm also dressing the previous sculpted dolls, this one is going to be a captain :D
This is the blog for now, I'm currently madly busy with dressing and sculpting and planning and resin casts, I hope I will have more time next week to take pictures and write more :D
Time flies, only 8 weeks until Castlefest! Eeeek!
Thinking about all the Trolls that still need to be created make me so nervous! But I'm really having fun so far creating all these little fella's.
I hope I'm still able to put them up for adoption and not be tempted to keep them all, LOL! ;-)
As far as my planning goes, it's going pretty well actually! The inspiration seems endless and sculpting goes very smooth.
Last week I created two Troll friends, still thinking about a name for these guys :)
I also had a accident with the oven today, I thought I did put my oven on 130 degrees Celsius but nope! I hit 160 degrees Celsius by accident! NooOooOoOOoo!!
Because of this 5 of my freshly baked heads have burnt ears and / or noses.. Yikes! I'm not sure yet if I can use them, maybe I'll use them anyway if the material is not damaged too bad. Next time I need to be more careful! o_O
Aaaand because I've reached 750 Followers on Facebook (crazy!!) I decided to throw in another give-away :) Please go to my Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/ShirleysStudio to enter the giveaway!
That's it for now! Thank you for reading and good luck with the Give-Away! ;-) Also, this music is so pretty!!
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!! ;-)
