Sunset For the middle of the week.

Mark three more seats off the list! Only 4 more to go and I'll be all caught up! The sunset was quite stunning tonight, with the actual sun making an appearance for a change! Only a couple more days before the solstice. It rained most of yesterday and all of today until the final few hours. Hope everyone Else's week is going by splendidly. Oh! I found a picture of a lovely carving I want to try to make on my next tree. I'll have to see how it goes. My goal is to make a ship figure head similar to this one out of laminated pine. All I need is money.....$$$

Tuesday seats

Carved up three seats tonight. It's one of those accounting situations that would make Wall Street proud but Government Angry. That is to say you see...We paid our HUGE Ebay bill so we are now all caught up. The Catch? We are broke at the moment. ( well not totally, but awfully close)We have neither the money to buy the seats we sold nor ship them out! So we have to sell seats so we can buy and ship the previous batch. So for tonight, we got enough money to buy three of the nine that need to go out. Great huh? All we need is five more and everything will be good, fine, great and you will never have known. But don't let that distract you.. the main thing to take note is that the HUGE Ebay bill is paid off and that was nothing short of a MIRACLE! (This is not shortchanging the water to wine, feeding 5000, or walking on water. As far as miracles go, this may be a minor one to anyone else, but a major one to us!) I took some pictures of the Wood Nymph that I was working on last night in the daylight. She still has a ways to go with her hair and wings. But a picture of the progress is always nice.

No carving Monday!

Well, not really. I did work on the wood nymph a bit tonight and made some real progress. I'll have to post pictures later when it is light. Tonight was a wonderful sunset. but with no pictures to show off, I'll just have to post one of my old carvings. Here is one of my all time favorites. It was the first bear I ever carved up with chisels. I have made several since then, but none of them ever turned out this well. It's of Cherry, and I love his expression. The model was a bronze statue I saw in a magazine a long time ago. and for those who love Anime, Here's the opening to Ah! My goddess. A fun show for all ages. Enjoy!

Sunday night Paint-a-thon

Just finished painting the seats for tonight. But while I had a fairly easy night, I took a few pictures of the next tree project I have been working on. It's not much at the moment, and the sun cast a nice shadow right in the middle of her face. But at least it shows a little progress. Tonight at the beach, Cheryl and I posed one of the origami beetles inspired by the parsnip beetle along the lake shore. It was nice and warm at the shore for a change. the water was also warmer than usual, but still kinda cold to take the plunge.

What happened to all the elongateds?

It was an exercise in frustration tonight, chasing around to two cities, four stores and finally settling for less than expected. That is, we are still missing one elongated seat. Anyway, I did manage to carve up 8 seats tonight, and get a base coat of paint on them. But it is late and it took all of my motivation to get that far. So I will finish painting them tomorrow and with a little luck, the stores will RESTOCK! Com'on Keep up the supply, guys! Because I have not posted any origami as of late, here is a new bird, based off the french guy that does origami. It's easy and has a wonderful rounded shape. Enjoy!

Origami anyone?

It's been a while since I posted anything about origami/ So here is a video that will blow your mind! Enjoy!

Where did the week go?

For some reason, I'm missing a day. I was convinced that yesterday was Tuesday. Which doesn't make much sense. So I am missing a day but that puts the weekend that much closer. It's funny how a week full of carving flies by! Anyway, I carved up only 4 seats tonight because our stores have not replenished their supplies yet. We already have a rather large order starting for the weekend, so I'm hoping they get some seats back in soon. In the mean time, Cheryl found some old carving pictures that we took a while ago for our old website. They were with the old camera so they are not the highest quality. Anyway, enjoy! Someday, I'll have to post the story behind the moose antlers. A tease, I got them while on a super secret mission in the Army in Alaska. Super secret location. Are you impressed yet? Wanna know more?

Coast Guard sunset at the beach.

Took a small break from carving today, choosing instead to work on a new tree carving. Nothing worth taking pictures of s of yet, but at least the tree is roughed out a bit. So then we decided to head to the beach for our usual sunset walk, when we were able to witness the coast guard helicopter once again. This time I was able to get some really great photos of it. The lighting was just right and the sunset was great. White beach combing for "goodies" Cheryl and I found these really great beetles that wash up on shore. Lake Michigan is one of those places that capture the local insect broods in force. I have not seen a really pretty beetle like this before, but ladybugs, milkweed beetles, bees, and thousands of butterflies wash up as the seasons change. This one is called the Red Turnip Beetle, and was so cool that when we finally found a dead one, we brought it home so Cheryl can make a necklace out of it. The rest of the evening, I spent cleaning my room and getting ready for tomorrow. I have five seats and several of them are rather difficult ( time consuming is a better description. We'll see how we fair tomorrow!

Hurray for sales!

A quick post because it is late and I'm tired. Carved up five more seats tonight and have several up already for tomorrow. We have sold more seats already this month than all of last month. ( May was bad this year) I really hope this continues. The beach tonight was rather gray and cloudy. I'm really liking this cool weather, even if the beach walks are rather cold. That's all for now. See ya tomorrow.

Great Lakes shipping

Another five seats tonight. Several of them I have not done for a long time. Namely, lion, koi, and the brown trout. Tomorrow is looking like an easy day so far, with only three seats, but hopefully we will sell a few more. We still have a HUGE Ebay bill to pay off! Anyway, we had some time to visit the beach and see the sunset, Even thought it was raining most of the day. I was hoping to capture a rainbow, but instead I got one of the great lakes ships that deliver either coal, fuel or gravel to Grand Haven. My money is on Coal to the power plant. Anyway, the ship was almost as long as the pier! They don't come in very often, but it's a site when they do, especially when you are standing on the Pier as they come in!