Autumn Love

 Autumn is such a cozy time of year. I enjoy sitting outside in the late afternoon with my creamy cup of chai tea. It's watching the slow turning of the leaves to brilliant shades of multi colors, hearing the anxious honking of the geese flying past (and they are noisy buggers, lol) and an occasional hoot of a hunting owl, that for some unknown reason, I find very comforting. Thoughts of the coming winter chill and all the complications that winter brings are on the back burner for now. Right now, today, I'm reveling in the gorgeousness of the clear blue sky and the crisply cool air.

This is the time of year that I start to work on my dolls and and other fabric projects. The Bone Sisters were able to make their appearance a little earlier this year, they showed up in August.

 

AnnaBella is heading to Georgia for trick or treats.

 

Wensdae is happily sharing a shelf of honor in NY with two other of these mischievous pixies.

 

Aranea and her spider buddy are still waiting to travel.

digiliodesigns.etsy.com

Others have made their way to lovely homes, I have so much fun fun creating these little Halloween pixies. This coming week I will be working on new designs, the Harvest Moon will be featured.....

 

Thank you for visiting.   

Autumn

Layers, sweaters, boots!

Reds, golds, oranges and browns!

Apples, ciders, doughnuts, figs!

A favorite time of year for me and many other people also, 

even my dog Rocky seems to be a little more excited to be outside.

The leaves are just starting to drop,

 when we went to the zoo this week we spotted a few gold and orange leaves.

Very shortly, this scene from the train will be much more colorful, but I

love the greens and golds and greys together.

 

The asters seem to be extra vibrant this year, aren't these gorgeous?

Frida Bones is especially happy to be traveling in cooler weather.

She is joining her sisters in upstate NY where the colors will be really popping 

by the time she gets there.

Hopefully by Wednesday this week, I will have these girls ready

 to be listed in my Etsy and Ebay  Shops.

Enjoy your week!

Lucky Black Cat

Never too early for Halloween Shenanigans!!!

This handsome fellow is ready to come and help celebrate Halloween with you.

 

He is a sweet celebration mate and will always laugh at any and all Halloween jokes.

 

A wire armature was used so that his arms and legs and tail can be bent to many positions,

 and to assist in helping him to stand on his own.

I made his Trick or Treat bag from a small orange bag and decorated it with one of my Halloween artworks.  It has a wire handle and can be filled with your choice of sweets.

The crepe paper covered mast that he holds is also displaying another piece of my holiday artwork the scary cats inspired by vintage ones. The mast also aids in helping Lucky to stand on his own.

He is listed in my Etsy Store and here is the link:

 

www.etsy.com/listing/629701751/halloween-black-cat-handmade-collectible?ref=shop_home_active_1

It's been awhile.....

since my last posting here. 

The summer flew by and it was a busy one!

Lots of family time...

 

 

 

and jumping in muddy puddles!

 

 

 

Now that it's autumn and back to a regular schedule (of sorts, lol)

I am busy listing and creating and getting my show schedule firmed up.

 

The Bone Sisters are currently keeping me very occupied.

 

They adore posing for photos...

 

 

and traveling......

 

 

and a day out!

 

 

DiGilio Designs 

Enjoy your day!

 

Happy Halloween!

Wishing you Happy Tricks and Sweet Treats on this Halloween night!

Halloween, Autumn and New ETSY Listings

I love this time of year, the fun of Halloween and the

perfect autumn days. I even love November...once the 

leaves have all dropped the trees are bare, the beautiful lines

that the branches make against the sky never fail to fascinate me. 

But that will be another blog post :)

Today I have been busy photographing my owls to list on ETSY.

Good old Houndstooth has a new friend.

 

Another owl made from that vintage coat fabric.

 

This guy Ollie is all set for his Halloween Celebrating.

 

Along with his friend Olivia!

 

Their celebratory hats and pendants are removable

so that they can stay around for the rest of the year. 

 

 

 

Houndstooth the Owl

Finished....almost.

I tried to use almost every part of the old coat.

The buttons on the front and back.

The interfacing on the top of the wings and around the face. 

The satin lining under the wings.

Still a bit more tweaking to do but

I am excited for how he looks so far.

I thought that this old coat was a tweed, but a good friend reminded me that it is houndstooth.

So I am calling him:

Houndstooth the Owl

On My Drawing Table: Author Portraits, Washington Irving

The third in my (very slow to put together) series of author portraits.

 

I completed the pencil sketch last year,

 



After researching images of Washington Irving ...

I also wanted to combine an image of one of his most popular stories, like I have done with Poe.

 



 

 I think that my image has shaved about 20 years off of the one I used for

research. But that is not necessarily a bad thing :)

 

Prints of him will appear on my etsy site tomorrow. And I will be bringing

them along to the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery Craft Fair,

 

October 26th.

Merry Halloween!!

Looking out my studio windows toward the road.

Still smiling our halloween smiles!

My mother would hang this black cat on our front door on halloween night.

Here in the Hudson River Valley most of us are tucked in and waiting out this historic storm.
We are ready with our generator if the lights go out and hopefully we will
be able to hook up the tv and watch Hocus Pocus! (My favorite Halloween movie!)
Of course the party is postponed till next weekend, but more poeple will be around so that is good!
(especially our son who will be up for a visit from DC :))

Snowy Halloween!

The weatherman is saying four to six inches on saturday....oh brother!

Here in the Hudson Valley we had an October snowstorm about fifteen years ago

that caused problems for weeks. The trees are still leafed out and when they

get filled with snow they get heavy and break and bring down power lines.

I am doubtful that I will be able to have my annual Halloweeen Party on saturday :(

I Love Halloween!

The Living Room Fireplace

Part of the Mantle

Hutch in the Kitchen



Rat in the Kitchen!!



I love the autumn holidays, Halloween with it's fun dress-up and Thanksgiving with it's food!

Where we live, we don't get many Trick or Treaters if at all, so the past few years I have been having a Halloween Party and sleepover with my nieces. It gives me a good excuse to get out all my decorations.

We play games and dunk for apples and then stay up late and watch scary movies and eat popcorn.

I love to scatter little decorations throughout the house and I placed a faux rat on top of my microwave. When I was cooking today I needed to get into the cabinet above and so I moved the rat to the open shelves next to it. As I was busy cooking I forgot that I moved it

and scared myself when I went to reach for the EVOO!

Finished Projects!!!

It is so nice to be all ready for the holidays (as far as my house goes!) this early in the game. The decoupaged table has already been put to work as a bar area with great success, even spilled red wine cleaned up beautifully.
The little sewing table is now in my new dining room and is holding the silverware chest and extra serving pieces, oh what bliss to be so organized. (it's the little things in life, right?)
So I decorated for Halloween and I will have a party this year. We don't get very many showing up for trick or treat. Last year we had an all time high of 12, so having my friends and family in for a party is a great way to celebrate.
I also wanted to show a few pictures of a desk that I refinished. It has quite an interesting story, my brother in law found it near a dumpster at work. He liked the way it looked and brought it home but my sister couldn't find the spot for it and asked me if I wanted it. I looked at it and thought that I could break it up and paint on the top, maybe take the legs and saw them down for different projects so home with me it came. When I really looked it over to start breaking it up the next day I realized that there was not one single nail in the whole piece, it is completely dove tailed and notched together and you can see that it was hand made by a master craftsman.
It truly is my nicest piece of furniture and all I did to it was clean it up and use re-finisher on it. It is missing a drawer, the fronts of the two remaining ones are not right but I love it. Everytime I walk past it I run my hand over it and think about all the hours someone put into creating this beautiful work of art and hope that he or she knows how much I appreciate it.