A few days ago this beautiful mushroom showed up in the yard just when the mushrooms starting growing in Animal Crossing. We’ve often had the old brown kind but this was new.

In the summer issue of Stuffed there was a cute pattern for this doll by Michelle Bernard which she called Little Me. I made three versions, a mummy, sweater girl and goth girl. I am going to make some winter versions next. I can see an elf doll, Mrs. Claus or snow queen.

Dopplegangers

I love the dolls made by this amazing artist, Mimi Kirchner at her Doll website. She is giving away one of her delightful Tiny Worlds, a pincushion/landscape that is built in a teacup.

Anna Lena was born on a farm called Kallbacka which I believe means a hill with a well or spring. Here is a picture of her home that my great aunt Mabel took when she visited Finland in 1970. She was the sixth child in a family of eight children, Three of her brothers Anders, Gustav and Johannes came to America but Anders returned home and has descendents in Finland. When Anna died it mentioned her brothers being in the east in her obituary from the Butte, Montana paper. Anna’s mother was Maria Mattsdotter Slip born in 1840.

Since I’ve been slow to craft this summer I decided to add some of my genealogy information to my site, craft art genealogy! I will start with my great grandmother Anna Lena Mattsdotter Kallbacka. She was born in the town of Purmo, Vaasa, Finland, a Swedish speaking part of the country called Ostrobothnia. She immigrated sometime after her husband to be Matts Leander Anderson and they married in Anaconda, Montana in 1899. Matts worked as a miner in Butte and he built a house for them himself. My grandmother Esther was their first child born in 1900 and her sister Mabel came along in 1903. A few years later Anna heard that her mother was ill and traveled back to Finland with the two girls, planning to stay about a year. Unfortunately she became ill on the journey and died in September 1907 in Finland. Her body was put into cold storage until Matts could be notified and he traveled to Finland where Anna was buried in the church graveyard in Purmo. Her grave has an iron cross and the reason listed for her death was childbirth fever so it seems she was expecting when she left home. Matts brought the girls back home to Butte in December of that year. They traveled on the Lusitania, a trip that took two weeks. My grandma never talked about that but you could never get her on another boat the rest of her life.

There is a contest for these neat cargo bikes made by Madsen. Click on the picture to check them out and help me win one for my husband who has been riding his bike to work for twenty years.

Just finished this little woodsy scene, I found the shadowbox at the Goodwill and repainted and made new innards for it. The doll was made from the book Felt Wee Folk by Salley Mavor. I cut down a craft birdhouse to use for the house and used some silk leaves and some real nature items for the scenery. It was fun to create a setting for the wee person.

Here’s the reason why you shouldn’t use the same pincushion for forty years or more. I took this one apart and found over 200 needles hidden inside. I mentioned this to my husband and he said he remembered my brother visiting us and saw him push all the needles into the pincushion then. Plus the natural tendency of needles to lose themselves and voila!

Since I’ve been uncrafty lately I decided to just post some of my favorite artists. A new one I like is Brian Kershisnik. Here are two of his reading ladies that speak to me.

She Reads

I was inspired by the cute snowmen in the current issue of ClothPaperScissors to make these guys. It’s fun to gather all the bits and pieces you have and make something. I had some old glitter that I sprinkled on after coating the snowpeople with gel medium.