Time Is The Enemy Of Us All

Here we are at another time change. It seems like the last one just a mere eight months ago.  I gained an hour this morning, so I made the most of it by sleeping in. 

Anyway, it has been pretty busy here at chez la vida loca, what with this week being Halloween, and with work being one adventure after another. I have been lax with my blog because quite frankly, my fingers hurt and my eyes are a little strained from learning a new system and saving others from themselves. I thought I had better, however, feed the machine regardless of personal pain and anguish ... <hand goes dramatically to forehead>

Yes, well, that is one person's opinion. 


Anyway, this week I remembered why Britannia rules the waves, in that I received my lovely dolls from Robin Britton  , and in record time too I must say, as it took only 4 short days to arrive all the way from England to Canada. Oh Joy, oh Rapture! I have to wonder if there wasn't a TARDIS assist involved here, because I have had letters take 4 months to arrive IN the country to get where they were going...possibly she used this service? 

Either way, interfering Time Lords or the Royal Mail magicians, I have received these beauties! 

Salty Sam - Love me a sailor!

Angus! Isn't he handsome. I am a sucker for a man in a Kilt.

Florrie (in the blue bathing costume, who I had Robin change a little to make her older)

Aren't they lovely? What a wonderful thing to have on your door step after a long hard week! I will be doing a seaside tableau, and I do have part of my beach hut made. 

It is coming along slowly but surely, but it is off season so no one is too worried it is still under construction.  I put it aside, admittedly, because I had a good inspiration for my Pedlar's cart - a witches' coffee trolley! It was one of those amazing "in the zone" times, and ideas and such sprang unbidden from my hands. I love it when that happens - much better than when everything just crumbles to dust. I really hate that. 

 Once again, the cappuccino machine I made. That is where I left it a couple of weeks ago. I found my machine a little too ungainly for the space, in that the base was a tad too big. I solved that by adding a small raised stand for the machine, and no worries mate from that point on!

I needed a little display stand too, as I wanted to be able to show off some of the fine products that could be purchased at the "Witches Brew" coffee cart. I decided that my dear witch was fairly innocuous, but she is a witch, so it is expected of her to have certain items for sale, although her real passion of course is brewing coffee for unsuspecting individuals looking for that magic cup of ambition, and she has discovered people are far more willing to pay for that kind of magic than anything else.  I made the above display out of 10 lengths of stock wood piled up in a pyramid, with smaller sticks accenting the structure. I wanted a rustic look, but certainly a nicer display could be built in a number of different ways or materials. This was nice because I didn't have to cut too many sides and make sure everything was level because it was already milled - i.e. I was lazy.

I wanted a little pot of coffee beans, so Esme (just calling her by her title was getting a little too formal) could have a stock of beans ready to scoop into the grinder. The pot is a copper pipe fitting, the beans mustard sees that were painted and varnished, and the scoop I carved out of some very accommodating balsa wood. 

 
 I needed some little potion bottles. They are very expensive and very difficult to find at the best of times (especially if you are searching in the jewellery aisle and they happen to be "trendy"), so imagine my great glee when I found some nail art in teeny perfectly sized glass (not plastic, but glass) jars. And they were pre-filled, so I didn't have to do much except label them, and they were dollar store finds, so in-ex-pen-SIVE! I found labels on the interweb, and went from there.

The final result. I could have changed the stoppers, but I kind of like the look this has, it would be more what you would see on a real witches' cart.  Well, maybe not a quote unquote "witches cart", but definitely the stoppers look more realistic in my eye than would a giant piece of cork.

Esme is happy to sell precognition devices, such as these crystal balls.  Our big box craft store had, in the floral aisle, decorative glass marbles. I paired these with some interesting bead spacers and caps, and a crystal ball was born. 

What Witch would be caught dead without little mysterious bottles of elixirs and potions? Not mine, that is for sure. Again, little decorative bead spacers, a variety of beads and findings, and a mustard seed as a bottle stopper (these were painted and varnished, to keep the critters at bay...I hope). Next time I make bottles, though, I will use a pin or a piece of metal to keep them lined up, and avoid gluing my fingers together - again.

As you can see, there is halloween carnage everywhere.  On the top shelf of the cart, you see a black widow spider plant, a lovely cake, some cookies (most likely gingerbread), tea and coffee for sale, and hanging on the sides there is a little garlic (for that vampire pest you have been meaning to get rid of) and an unnamed  and mysterious herb on the other side, but is always present on these types of carts for some reason - possibly for the look of the thing. On the side,  there are apples - poisoned upon request. The coffee grinder was a metal mini I found at some show or other, and I added some bling to it to dress it up. A bit of sugar to sweeten our coffee, the beans, the coffee pot, a cup hanger, and a lovely little spoon holder (bead spacer and bead caps - and for a change I actually had something as mundane as spoons...) The bottom I am not totally sure about yet. I like these apothecary jars, but feel they should be in a scene where they can be more prominent to show them off, especially the interesting tarantula in a jar (perhaps a wizard is in my future, I will check my crystal ball). I made some little bushel baskets for produce, although perhaps there will be something else, we will see.  There is a little black cat hidden at the base, which was a cheap resin mini which I repainted. 

 A little better picture, with Esme ready for business! 

Closer in for a little more detail. 

My little coffee mug holder, which is made like the fairy trees I have done in the past,  bits of wire with beads wound around, and wound around again to make a trunk, but I have added little bats for accents. The base is a bead on a bead spacer. Hmm, I could have sworn there were 3 spoons on my spoon holder, hopefully one didn't escape. 

For the hubcaps I used teeny little crow stickers. In real life I hate crows with a passion, because of their hateful call, and the fact that when they have a nest nearby they insist on strafing me - every blasted freakin' day that nest is occupied - and they will cut you, oh yes they will. You would think they would, as they do see you every day, realize that you are not about to scramble up a dumb tree to steal an egg, but they are not as smart as they would like you to believe, sadly. However, as long as they are cute and sparkly and not dive bombing me, they make a cute accent for my cart. 

Close up of my pre-poisoned apples, and one of the cute signs I resized and printed.

The handle side, and another pithy sign. 

So my dear, what can I get you today? 

There are a few other things I would like to do with the cart, but with all Zone Euphorias, this one petered out and I am done for awhile. Still, I think I carpe'd the diem right out of this quite nicely. 

To finish off, perhaps we would like to make a charming (see what I did there?) little apple pie ... happy 3rd day of November everyone, and may your witches brew never be bitter!