Friday, December 30, 2016

Happy New Year and moley spread

This is November's Moley journal for Will on the theme of Alice in Wonderland. She decided to use a different kind of journal so the paper was thinner and I had to use a different media than usually. These pages are colored with regular colored pencils.
Last weekend, actually on Christmas day, we went to a private ZOO park near us that had a live nativity display. Let me first tell you that I don't support ZOOs because animals don't belong in cages and poor living situations for our enjoyment and when my hubby wanted to take the kid to the city ZOO, they went without me. But this ZOO is rescued animals only. They rescue animals that would be put down by the other ZOOs and tend to injured, sick or orphaned wild animals. One way of raising money to keep the ZOO park is this nativity display.

Even though we're not religious and the reason we went is because the kid loves animals, I must admit it was magical. It was late afternoon when it's already dark, there was some mist because that's the kind of weather here at this time and they had torches along the path. The locals were dressed as nativity characters on different spots throughout the park including the animals and they were playing on these large bells that I don't know how to call but the sound was divine. 

I was most impressed by the bear which I thought would be hibernating at this time and white wolves. They closed off the bear's enclosure so he would be closer to the path and we could see him better. 

However, I had some issues with it. This was our second time visiting this ZOO park and I wasn't impressed by the enclosures then and it didn't get any better now. The owner said to us then that they plan on expanding and my friend was told the same some time before we went but to this day nothing changed apart from him getting some new animals for the ZOO. So the money can't be the issue since he told us he would be buying and importing those white wolves from another country. 

Ok, let me just get this off of my chest. Enclosures for the animals are too small. The wild boars are literally enclosed in 2x2 m cages. The first time I thought maybe it was because one had babies and it was for their protection but this time there was no reason for it apart from having them closer to the path so we could see them. One of them was exhibiting stress by rocking side to side. I saw the same behavior with a racoon that was pacing the same path up and down. I saw him the first time we were there and I saw him again this time. Another thing that bothered me was that animals had no inside shelter. There were roofs made but there was no closed stable to keep them warm. 

And call me crazy but it doesn't make sense to me to reproduce animals in captivity, if they're not on the brink of extinction. This place is rescuing animals, why would you make babies? It decreases the enclosure space for other animals that are already there and makes it harder for the place to get new rescues. It's like getting a cat and letting her reproduce and keeping all the kittens. You end up with 50 cats in an apartment and a title crazy cat lady. 

I saw several pregnant goats, a sheep with twin babies and already mentioned baby boars from a while back.  I don't know about the rest but I think it's safe to say that birds were reproducing as well since there was a whole flock of agapornis fischers along with a bunch of guinea pigs. 

I'm torn now whether to support this ZOO park or not. They have the right idea but execution of it is poor. I guess one could say the animals are better off here than dead but are they really?
I'm making an exception for this photo and showing you my baby boy because he's so darn cute. :)
 Happy New Year, everyone! 
Have a fabulous 2017!

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Friday, December 23, 2016

Antler Girls and Happy Holidays!

This is the closest I have for holiday art this week. For some reason I haven't done much wintery or festive art this year. So pretend they're Santa's reindeer. :)
Some randomness:
  • I still haven't bought a gift for my hubby but we tend to exchange gifts on New Year's so I'm good for a week
  • It's freaking freezing around here. I go out with the kid and we come back frozen but there's still no snow. 
  • I'm making a bucket list. In general not just for next year but I'll try to make it happen next year if possible.
  • I found a really tasty vegan cheese and I'm obsessed with making toast every day. Toast for me is two pieces of bread with cheese in between and toasted. I guess you call it grilled cheese?

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone!

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Friday, December 16, 2016

Handprint snowmen tree ornaments

Last year I made Christmas tree ornaments from my kid's footprint and handprint. This year I wanted to do something different because his hands and feet are a bit too large for hanging on the tree. :)

However, things didn't go as planned. I painted his hand which he was curious about and then I had to do a bit of coaching for him to hold the bauble. Ok, not perfect but that's fine. I wanted him to do another one but things went downhill pretty fast. The kid does not like his hands dirty. He was freaking out because of it. I quickly made another handprint with his hand which turned out messy and then we had to wash his hands.

No matter what I said to him, he wasn't going to let his hand get painted again. Ok, so I resorted to idea #2. Just fingerprints. That should be ok, right? No, no really. He was telling me to do it, so I did. I showed him how to stamp with my fingertip. He was curious about the paint on my fingertip so I tricked him into stamping his finger with the yellow paint. But that's it. We had to wash his hand again.
Fine. Let's do stamping with a cork, so we can finish the bauble. He wasn't particularly interested in that either. I had to help him but we did it in the end. The kid obviously doesn't take painting after me.:)

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Friday, December 9, 2016


Round Robin is a set of 3 cards which one artist starts, send to another to add something to the set and then sends to the third artist to finish everything. Each artist keeps a card that's why there are 3 in a set.

I started the set with the penguin, Miss M added the one with antlers and Linda4atc finished it with the background.

Since it's a holiday season and it's time for gifts let me confess I'm not very patient when it comes to gift giving. I'm the kind of person that gets what I want and/or need at the time when I want and/or need it. I suck at waiting and planning.

That's how my kid ends up with loads of toys. I bought some great stuff months ago thinking it would make a lovely gift but I ended up giving it to him straight away. I'm just so exited with new things and I can't wait to see my kid get excited when he gets new things.

I actually had to stop myself from buying gifts because I knew they won't last until holiday season. Now it's December and all bets are off. I bought a firefighter truck bed for him which already arrived but luckily we need to assemble it, that's why it's still waiting to be given as a gift to him. :) Oh, and since his birthday is in February, I did buy him one of those wooden balance bikes. Again I'm lucky it needs to be put together, so it's waiting in his room for now. I'm good at procrastinating so that works for me.

You can imagine how hard it is for me to plan any kind of sale. I already buy everything as I go along so when the sales come I bang my head against the wall for not waiting and getting a deal or I'm buying stuff I don't really need but you know, it's cheap so why not.

It's tricky though, buying gifts, because I want to wait until later but as I've been proven lately, something goes wrong and you can't get to the store on time and you're shopping for gifts on your way to the party. It's either the kid gets ill, or the car breaks down, or I'm sure it will start snowing soon and the roads will be a mess and so on.

We have three gift giving traditions here. First is on 6th Dec. when it's St. Nicholas bringing little something, usually fruit and maybe a toy. Our kid was given a kid accordion which he adores. :) Then it's Santa Claus on Christmas day and Grandpa Frost on New Years. Some celebrate all three, some only two or one. It depends on the family tradition. I grew up with Grandpa Frost and usually some fruit for St. Nicholas. Santa Claus came later when there was greater outside influence from abroad.

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