A New Set of Eyes...

That's all that was needed.

Tessie was standing atop the plant stand this morning, trying to get to the new bird house. 

She was complaining as she went.  It's too small for her to live in!

When she attempted to get to the top, she dropped a foot. That sometimes happens with detachable feet.

It doesn't hurt.  It is just an inconvenience.  Hard to walk or climb up to birdhouses.

She enlisted me to help search.  I couldn't find it anywhere, even though I watched it fall.

We gave up searching.  I went to look for spare parts.  Nope.  No right feet.  No left feet either...

I am going to have to sit down and make more spare parts.  She is rather hard on them.

Anyway, we went ahead and took photos with her sitting down and her skirt covering the missing appendage...

Tessie insisted that she should show you her new Talavera Mexican pot.  Actually it's mine, but you know how that goes.  Anything that comes into the house is hers.

It is beautifully hand painted.  The photo doesn't do it justice.  I am going to paint the terra cotta pot the same yellow as the vase itself.  That way it will look more like the plant is growing inside.

The brown and gray pot next to it is one that Seth(son-in-law) made.  It was my Christmas gift a few years ago... He is my favorite potter!

Since Tessie couldn't do much running around this morning, I put her to work on the edge of the Russian carpet... Actually, I worked on it for a couple of hours this morning.

She did about three stitches before heaving a heavy sigh and whining... "I need another foot..."

About that time, Walter got home and volunteered to do another search of the crime scene.

He found it!  It was right where I thought it was, in one of the pots below. Evidently, I looked in all of the right places at the wrong angle.  Thanks to him, Tessie is now up and doing a happy dance.

Back to work.

See you tomorrow.

Full Speed Ahead....

I am about to tear down the house...Again...  It is for a good reason.  This time I will start gluing and making things fit.

BTW.  Yesterday, all of the talk about un-warping things yesterday, made me nervous.  I hope that you all will think twice before taking drastic measures.  The methods that I suggested are only for when you can't do it another way.  Go slow and think about it before doing anything drastic.  You can first try just weighting the pieces down with books or something else heavy for a while....Sometimes that is all you really need.  This morning the porch roof is a lot straighter and it was just weighted down overnight with the canister of coffee.

What I did on the German Kitchen was a last resort.  Unless you have a house made out of heavy wood, I wouldn't recommend that.

Now to the house at hand.

I played with the tower idea for a while yesterday.  There will be tower...

I simply laid one of the gable ends on a piece of foam core to get the right angle for the base of the tower.  This is just a "see how it looks" trial.  The foam core is not cut to size.

As you see it here, the tower would be six inches square.  I have some other ideas for making it a bit bigger...We shall see.

Tear it down and start for real this time.

I couldn't resist playing with the birdhouse this morning.  I did it with the pieces that you saw yesterday.  With the shingles, the color was hard to put on with both pen and pencil. 

I added some self adhesive gold scroll work, just for fun, but I noticed that it doesn't stick well to the wood.

I am thinking of doing it over with heavy card stock or poster board.  Maybe even watercolor paper would be good.

If I do that, I will add tabs to make it easier to put together and draw a real pattern for you.

Hang in there.  I am liking this one.  I will do it again.

Of course, Tessie thinks it is swell and for her alone.  I am not telling her different for now.  It will keep her amused whilst I work.

She keeps yelling, "Here birdy, birdy.".  I highly doubt that any self respecting bird would come to that call.  besides, I think that the hole needs to be just a bit larger. It's only fit for a humming bird right now...

I also started a couple of wicker chairs for Daisy's house last night.  I worked on those until my eyes crossed and I couldn't see the subtitles on the Korean drama that I was watching. 

I am going to try to work on something that will go in the house at night.  That way I will be ahead of the game when I get to the finish line.  And it will be less boring besides.

Back to Bringing Down the House.

See you tomorrow.