the dangler of international happiness

Some time ago – maybe three or four months back the lovely Fran at The Road to Serendipity had one of her sparkling good ideas and decided that I needed to have – and I quote ‘A Dangler of International Happiness’. It was an off-the-cuff, spur of the moment, random act of kindness that half delighted and half terrified me.

To this end she invited all her readers who wished to, to send me something I could create said ‘Dangler’ with. I was supposed to also invite any of my readers who wished to, to also participate but I had a momentary meltdown in confidence and decided not to do that. At that time I was the recipient of what seemed like an overwhelming amount of gifts from far and near and I felt asking for more was just plain greedy! Silly I know, but there we have it!

Several of our mutual blogging friends committed to send something and over the ensuing weeks little packets arrived in my letter box. Some came with beautiful little notes and messages,

some with longer letters and little notes on envelopes. All were equally welcomed and treasured.

The gifts sat on a tray in my art room, a vastly different array of items, from tiny glass beads to big wooden beads, threads of broken jewelry, ribbons, glass hearts, buttons, crochet flowers, palm frond spirals, lengths of ribbon, hearts with names on and a guitar pic. All mixed in with my collection of broken sun catchers and glass hearts, flowers and chandelier chains. There is such a huge variety of items I was quite bedazzled by them and I had no idea where to begin.

I wanted to incorporate the smaller notes into the dangler and I needed to think about how that might happen. That took a while!

I also needed to decide on shape – was it to be one long thread or several long threads? One morning I stumbled upon an unused plastic embroidery hoop which was the perfect size and the shape dilemma was solved.

Still all the bits sat in the tray, overflowed really. Siddy ate one of the little notes and later, another. I moved the tray and got on with my painting. October ended.

November arrived. I signed up for FBF Goalfest again! So this is the month when I am finishing – well starting and finishing – my ‘Dangler of International Happiness’ which nine dear friends have contributed to. and whose contributions continued to be sitting in a pile in the designated tray waiting to be allotted their place on the plastic hoop.

I wrapped the hoop with ribbon. I divided the hoop roughly into three and in each third hung a palm frond spiral from Christi and Keith and all Fran’s beads threaded onto one drop of wire. I added three of Linne’s hand died ribbons and topped the dangler with Kym’s three gold leaves. The dangler was up and almost balanced.

That turned out to be the hardest part. The rest was a joy of playing, threading, joining, adding and hanging.

Alys had sent three little hearts with names on. I wanted to ensure her handwriting stayed safe so I laminated them

Doing that also made me realise I could laminate all the precious little extras – well, the ones Siddy hadn’t eaten that is. Alys’ hearts also inspired me to make a heart for each participant in the dangler and include them as part of the finished piece.

Here it is

I am totally in love with it and now have a constant reminder of some of my friends from around the globe.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Thank you to dear Fran, whose idea it was and to Stevie-boy for the splash of bright colour from his guitar pic. Do you notice how I played it up with matching beads? What do you think? I wrote out the message you left me in a comment somewhere about the key and included it behind said key – you can see it in one of the photos.

Thank you Dr. Snail for the crochet flowers that help balance the circle and weight it at the bottom. The two gorgeous antique buttons are not hung, I couldn’t get them to hang straight so I am saving them for another project – I love them!

Thank you to Linne for the pretty ribbons of just the right colours that divide the circle and make little bows at the top with Kym’s gold leaves and the necklace that hangs entire within.

Thank you to Kym for the pretty gold leaves that also divide the circle perfectly and look so nice at the top of the dangler.

Thank you Wendy for the wonderful assortment of jewellery pieces that you can see add sparkle and depth all around the dangler.

Thank you Christi and Keith, your ‘invention’ of palm frond spirals makes me smile. You made them and sent them all the way from Hawaii and they were still first to arrive in the letter box! Your happy, waving cartoon figures, drawn so wonderfully onto the mail packet, are now laminated and hanging on the dangler.

Thank you Alys for the beautiful and thoughtful and care filled hearts and beads and pictures with accompanying notes. I’m so sorry Siddy ate two of the papers, though I don’t think he is – he had a wonderful time with them. I managed to save the ‘Joy’ piece and it is laminated and hanging.

********************************

I wish you could see it. It glitters and sparkles and shifts shape. It sighs softly. I think I want to add some bells in and hang it in a window so the breeze will make it sing.

I am totally in love with the idea of sending small bits of designated things to other bloggers and then seeing what they come up with – it is such a challenge, such a gift and just another way of making this lovely community of ours more vibrant and supportive.

Is there something you would like to make that we can contribute to? For example Jan at The Snail of Happiness made a blanket with squares from all around the world.

Thanks for coming by today, I love that you did! 🙂

I know, I know – it’s been a while…. I am a poor blogger, incapable of keeping to a schedule, or even regular posts. But as most of you know, this is supposed to be a blog about my arty-crafty output – and my arty-crafty life has been severely curtailed by a bouncy little fat puppy who LOVES the work room because his mumma zones out somewhere else altogether and he gets to rearrange and change up – or down – all he likes until she eventually becomes aware all is not well …….. usually by picking up on the fact that it has been Q-U-I-E-T for a long time…………

Last time I zoned out and was concentrating on a work in progress he removed all the paints from the shelf at the back of the easel. took them into the lounge and chomped holes through two of them leaving artistic stripes of blue and red – and therefore purple too – along the bottom of my lovely white door curtain……….. Oh, look – another excuse to change up the decor. 🙂

For me it has been interesting to discover that when I’m in the zone, artistically speaking, I hear nothing. I am totally immersed. Totally in the moment, totally zen 🙂 Who knew!

Right now I’m not though. Right now I’m typing this with a little round puppy sitting beside me doing his best Marx Brother impersonation with a chew stick poking out the side of his mouth which he is chomping on most enthusiastically while occasionally leering up at me and giving me a gentle nudge.

Don’t you love this photo? Does it make you smile or laugh out loud?

Orlando is asleep on the table which has become his new residence and which he shows no signs of being prepared to give up. Anything for a quiet life – I don’t host dinner parties any more any way.

Life these days starts with Siddy and me going for an hour long walk, which includes a good twenty minute romp at the dog park. Except for two or three mornings when the bitter cold Antarctic blast sent all us wimpy puppy owners running for home. While our usual claim to be the Riviera of Antarctica suits us pretty well, sometimes it feels like we are right down there at Scott Base!

Due to any outing being curtailed we must then come home and, after his breakfast of porridge, milk kefer, DE and savoury yeast, its a rambunctious game of fetch up and down the hallway. Then I can get on with my tasks – but always constantly accompanied by a keen and eager little pup – ‘Whadda we doing now?” “Where we going now?” “This way?” “That way?” “Where now?” “Whadda we doing? Whadda we doing? Where are we going?”

But I have to say yet again – he is probably the best little puppy in the whole world!

Here are a couple of shots so you can see how much he has grown – I know you want to know! It’s the same toy in both shots, the first one taken when he was about 9 weeks old and the second one today and he is now 19 weeks old.

We have had our up’s and downs since last I graced your lovely reading spaces – YD’s beloved cat Stanley became unexpectedly and quite seriously ill and was eventually diagnosed with feline aids, picked up many years ago most probably in a fight [he always was a bit of a bovver-boy] Stanley is a rescue kitty, adopted when he was grown and therefore most likely spent the first three years of his life living in kitty poverty. Nobody knows for sure. A cat of much charisma, great charm and friendly demeanour, YD had said a while back, ‘He is not the boy he used to be!’

It was devastating diagnosis. Getting medication into this cat has always been claimed by his mumma to be an impossibility. Our slightly raised eyebrows and quiet disbelief in this claim was blown completely away when we found out it took the vet and two practise nurses to hold him down and administer an oral dose. The vet was preparing us for the worst and I was mopping my baby girl’s tears. But Stanley is not a boy to take anything much lying down, including dying. He fought back and after three days was on the mend enough to go home. The vet whacked an intravenous shot of antibiotics into him and since then he has spent most of his time sleeping, waking long enough to eat – and eating more and more every day – then back to bed again.

We got lucky and have more time with this lovely boy.

Recently my dear friend from Serendipity Farm, the lovely Fran aka narf77 had one of her dastardly good ideas and announced that I was to become the proud owner of ‘A Dangler of International Happiness’ This all came about because I admired her dangler in this post. If you go on to read the comments you will see how she ~~coerced~~ encouraged our shared friends to take part.

A few days back I received a wee package from Hawaii with the first items enclosed. It was most fortunate that they got through NZ Customs who are notoriously anal about allowing foreign flora into our country in case it grows legs in the middle of the night and eats us all in our sleep …… and look, an original stick figure sketch from the BO exactly as they appear in this fabulous blog ‘Farmlet’ subtitled ‘Living cheaply and richly on an acre in Puna, Hawaii’.

Christi is a writer, married to the Bearded One, who, it appears, is master of anything that needs doing and cartooning as well. They recently relocated from Washington State to Hawaii and are busily involved with preparing to live as much off the grid as possible. These are good folks with huge hearts – I love them to pieces!

I have more for you too friends – take a look here.

I admired these on The Twisted Yarn ……………..

and next thing I know I am happily cutting threads with my very own pair of stork scissors sent all the way from the UK. Aren’t they gorgeous!! Phil made the pretty cover and I now have a sample of her so neat crochet work 🙂 If you are into things like crazy good knitting and yarn bombing go check her out and see what she gets up to when there’s a break from paying attention to her toddler twinnage, her day job or her allotment! I know you will enjoy her as much as I do!

I am working in my art room, just small projects that can be worked at without me losing track of the doings of one little puppy. I hope to have something to show you next week.

Oh, and just in case you are wondering how the detente is going – I now have a daily ritual of a purring cat on my knee with a quivering puppy trying very hard to contain himself beside us – and last night both of them were cuddled up in bed with me for about an hour. Orlando teases Siddy, Siddy ‘bites’ beautifully and usually gets wapped for his trouble. It’s great fun to observe 🙂

I’ve requested a ‘family portrait’ for my birthday. We’ll see.

Thanks for coming by today, I love that you did!