Ugly Duckling Syndrome

Our girls are growing so quickly!
They will be three weeks old on thursday and as you can see they are definitely much larger than those little fluff balls that fit perfectly into small hands only days before :)

The kids thought they looked a little bit like ugly ducklings today *grin*. Their fluffy down is being replaced by feathers and the transition is so interesting to watch :) This little girl must have felt small today as she kept stretching as tall as she could!

We brought a couple of them into the house today and set a towel down on the living room floor so that they could roam around a bit. They really seemed to love my daughter and gravitated straight for her...

She's like the chick whisperer *grin*, and the boys were just a tad jealous of all the attention she was getting LOL.

It's a little bittersweet to see them maturing so quickly but then again I am really looking forward to all of those fresh eggs!

Hugs,
Rosina

Chick Love ~ Fuzzy Baby Overload

We brought in some of the babies so that we could cuddle and love them and somehow it turned into a bit of a photo shoot. I just couldn't help myself!

In my defense though I did warn you that I might go a little chick crazy... but could you resist such an adorable little ball of fluff?!

I thought not *grin*.

Such sweet little girls :) They were so content to just hang out in the little dishes we put them in so we could ooh and ahh over them *grin*. After a while they got a little more adventurous and started hopping in and out and checking out the flowers. They didn't stray far though and they are so incredibly docile to. We can pick them up and cuddle them and they don't squirm or try to fly out like past chicks we've had.

Of course it was inevitable that there would be a little 'incident'. At least they kept it on the paper that I had put down for just that exact reason *grin*.

Hugs,
Rosina

Easter Babies

Our little chicky babies arrived today and just in time for Easter :) It couldn't have been better timing!

Everyone was so excited to peek into the box we brought them home in and help move them under the heat lamp :) Of course we had to have the 'you have to be really gentle' talk with the little man but he truly wanted to be as careful as possible with them and he is going to love them so much *grin*.

They are so stinkin' cute!!! I'm going to apologize now because I think there might be quite a few baby chick pictures in the coming days LOL.

Hugs,
Rosina

Spring Chicks

I am moving full steam ahead into spring and surrounding myself with cheery colors and springy items like these little chicks I've been making *grin*.

I had some old sheep's fleece in my craft cupboard that hadn't been carded so I lugged out my big drum carder and cleaned it up nicely to use as the centers of my chicks. I just couldn't bear to use all of my new pretty yellow wool rovings to make them so I wound a tight ball using the natural cream fleece (sorry I can't remember what kind it is) and then just wrapped enough of my yellow corriedale roving around to cover the white and then wet felted them.

I'm really pleased with how the yellow balls turned out :) I was afraid that the yellow would slip on the white as I started to lather and rub it around creating bald spots showing through but I made sure I was extra gentle and it blended together beautifully. For the bottom of the egg shell I used an old plastic easter egg as my form and worked the wool over top of it so that it formed a nice concave shape for the chick bodies to sit in and I trimmed up the edges once they were dry so that they looked like that had been cracked open *grin*.

I was at a bit of a loss though when it came to how to felt a sheet of wool that I could cut out shapes from for the tops of the chick's heads as I've never tried doing it before. All I could think of was that I've seen others do it using bubble wrap or window screen and other similar things to keep the wool together while they agitated it but I didn't have any of that on hand. That was until I spied one of my reusable mesh produce bags! I loaded it up with enough wool roving to make a small 6 inch square, put it in the bottom of my sink on a cutting board and lathered it up and it worked! I think next time I'll work it a little bit longer to make sure it is a little more compact but it felted together enough to cut out little pieces to put on top of the chick's heads to look like bits of broken shell :)

What do you think? Do they look like they're popping out of their shells *grin*. My oldest was giving me a bit of a hard time before I put their eyes and beaks on because he said they looked like tennis balls with stars on their heads LOL.

Hugs,
Rosina

PS. Looking for more crafty ideas or inspiration? Pop over to Natural Suburbia's Creative Friday and see what others are up to :)