Cotton Spider Earrings

  Well, I've finally gotten around to posting the Cotton spider version of my Spider Earrings. As you can see they are black spiders with white dots added to the abdomen and randomly to the legs.
  Apparently what we call a Cotton Spider (My Grandmother called them that because they would see a lot of the spiders in the cotton fields) most people call a Jumping Spider. And what we call a Spring Spider (because of the way they spring on their web) most people call Cotton Spiders because of the way some of their web looks like it's made of cotton.

Here is a link to the add so you can by your own spider earrings: https://www.etsy.com/listing/122983739/spider-earrings?

 In honor of Halloween Bats Bizarre is having a sale! From today October 3rd until November 1st use coupon code HALLOWEEN for 15% off your entire purchase.


                 Thank you for reading Bats Bizarre's offical blog. Have a bat-tastic day!

New Halloween Lights and make your own ghosts

Normally we don't buy more Halloween decorations until November, but when we saw these spider and 24' purple and orange lights on sale at Kroger we couldn't help ourselves. It looks a little busy now, but next year we'll either be in the new house or will try to find a better place for them here. The spiders are great I'd like to get some more after Halloween. The purple and orange are cool, but I wish they were more purple. Hopefully there will be a string of solid purple lights this November.

   How to make your own ghosts. These simple, lovely Halloween decorations are very easy to make. Most of the items are garbage. Mom came up with this design years ago, using some gauzy fabric she had left over after making curtains. The best part is the older they get the better they look. Right now we have four and plan to add more. She made a bunch of little ones using dryer lint for the head.




What you'll need:
 Tulle or sheer white fabric
 Newspapers/ handful of plastic grocery bags (preferably white)
one plastic bag (preferably white)
Fishing line
Optional: Glow in the dark paint

   Cut the fabric into a rectangle-ish (you could cut a big circle too) shape that's about 8 inches longer that you want the ghost to be about 4 1/2 feet long and 2 wide. Make a ball about the size of a head (most of ours are around 5 inches in diameter) out of the newspapers/ plastic bags and cover with one white plastic bag. Place the fabric over the head so that some of it hangs a few inches below the head. Tie fishing line around the bottom of the head. Optional paint a face on the head. Thread an embroidery needle with fishing line and use that to hang your ghost in a tree. The lighter the fabric the less wind they need to fly.

They are great for telling which way the wind is blowing. They are very easily customizable, too.            



 In honor of Halloween Bats Bizarre is having a sale! From today October 3rd until November 1st use coupon code HALLOWEEN for 15% off your entire purchase.

                         Thank you for reading Bats Bizarre's offical blog. Have a bat-tastic day!

The New Chicken House

   We where out of cages, and the Surprise chicks were out of room. We didn't want to put 'Possum, Handful, and Amy's girl in with their parents because the peaking order is so horrible and we have a thing about putting all our hens in one house. Mom and I were trying to figure out what to do when it hit us: put my old play house in between the house and the garage and use the two 10'x6' fence panels to make a run.

                    The panels were going to be part of a second chicken house we planed on building, but didn't, because we might be moving soon and were afraid taking the building apart would weaken it.

    We've taken to calling it Barbie's Dream Chicken House, and have named the girl from Amy's brood Barbie.

   Here is a picture of the nest Handful made for herself complete with egg, which for some reason looks blue in the picture. 'Possum who is the same age as Handful isn't laying yet, but both of the Ameraucana girls took a while to start laying.

  The cats love it. Bird watching, particularly close up chicken watching, is one of their favorite things to do. And the chickens in turn seem to enjoy cat watching. Whenever they see a cat laying on the cinderblock or in the dirt near the pen they run up it and hang out. When they aren't watching cats they are usually ruining Mom's heirloom Amaryllises and Pineapple plants. The little flock is all together for the picture to the right. Possum is in front, Handful's facing her, and Barbie is to the right with her back to the camera.

   A couple of days ago when the cold front blew in Persephone, who's favorite place to hang out is the roof, jumped off the garage roof onto the play house and hung out in there while Mom and I finished setting up the light for the little girls. Before we were done Sephy was out. As you can see in the picture she was looking at the roof from the top of the chicken house so she might have jumped straight up onto the roof. We're not sure.



In honor of Halloween Bats Bizarre is having a sale! From today October 3rd until November 1st use coupon code HALLOWEEN for 15% off your entire purchase.

             Thank you for reading Bats Bizarre's offical blog. Have a bat-tastic day!

Horace Horse

   I've added a new stuffed animal to my listings. Horace the horse, named for one of the lead characters in 'The Ranger's Apprentice' series. (a great series of books by the way.) I decided to work on a pattern for a knitted horse because 2014 is the year of the horse, I couldn't find a pendent I liked, and I cannot make a horse out of polymer clay.

   It took me about fourteen hours to make Horace, most of that time was either spent holding up one of his body parts and asking my mother 'This looks like something, right?' or going back and fixing something I didn't like. I'm hoping the second one won't take as long. I'm shooting for nine hours, that's an hour more than Roxi Rabbit, but there is a lot more involved in making Horace so nine might be doable.

   I learned to make a loop stich for his mane, but I'm not very good at it, yet, that's one of the reasons Horace has the longest processing time of all my items. Hopefully I can lower that as I get better at making him. For some reason tassels, like pompoms, are hard for me to make. I don't know if there is some trick to it or if I just naturally bad at it. Not that that stops me. I sew the base of the tail to secure all the threads. Otherwise it falls a part if you pull on one of the threads.

  This horse doll is about 10 1/2" (26.67cm) when sitting up, not counting his ears, and is 8" (20.32cm) at the shoulder when on all fours. (It takes a bit of work to make him stand like that.) He is one and a half feet (31.75cm) tall if you count the ears. Horace's body is 4" (10.16cm) wide. His legs are 4 1/2" (11.43cm) long and 1 1/2" (3.81cm) wide. His luxurious, black tail is about 8" (20.32cm) long at longest point.
   Here is a link to the listing: https://www.etsy.com/listing/163016552/horace-horse
He ships everywhere. 
   Every horse is unique; yours may not look exactly as pictured. Each is signed with a brown J on the seat.
   Horace is latte brown with a black mane and tail, but custom colors are available.

  Mom thinks he looks like a buffalo on all fours, so I guess I'm half way to a buffalo toy. And 90% of the way to a unicorn or a Pegasus.  It took a bit of work to make him able to stand on all fours while still being able to move his legs, but I really wanted him to be able to. Some of my favorite stuffed animals growing up were ones that were like that.



                 
                             Thank you for reading Bats Bizarre's offical blog. Have a bat-tastic day!