The writing group recently wrote about their experiences creating little houses for the upcoming Little House Auction! (Find event details here and don’t miss your chance to see — and buy! — the 150+ amazing Little Houses created for us!)

Little House Emergency

By Mandy Gardner

A challenge it turned out to be. The lesson - persistence, ripping off decals and glued paper, painting over and over a yellow chimney stack, obsessing whether words in the title should be splayed up or down and the final hoo-ha, how to affix Barbie to the sloping roof of the Little House.

Wood glue slathered on the nylon bikini bottom barely covering on her tight little buns. A fixative that is guaranteed to stick to anything did not. The glue turned into a white snow melt and Barbie slid down the roof. She was not dressed for this weather. Mod podge. It worked on everything else, why not Barbie’s butt? A sludge defying the categories of liquid and solid and down she slid again. Mortar and she would be wed forever to the rooftop, I surmised. First the lumpy mixture scraped onto her bikini bottom then, apologizing, I pulled down the back of the tiny garment and marred her buns with sloppy gray mortar. I held her down. I tied her down. She slipped. She slid. I now know how to clean wet mortar off wood, plastic, and nylon. In the end it was Walmart and little dots of Velcro, one affixed to each bun and one to her shapely calf. It helps if you match the Velcro pieces in the correct manner. 

Good, Better, Best, OK, I Don’t Know, Maybe Good Enough?

By Phil Hughes-Luing

I finished my “Little High Desert High Rise for this year’s Little House Auction three weeks ago, and it felt pretty good. Really, three weeks ago, it felt quite good because I’d placed it on a flat, 4” rotating base so I could spin it around, taking it in from all sides with all its different angles. Over the ensuing two weeks, however, it began to feel just good enough, adequate, but it stopped making my imagination soar. That, I realized, was what was missing. A high-rise building soars, and mine looked a bit squat.

I began rummaging through my cabinets, perusing my collection of discards that might prove useful someday, and I came up with a tin can lid, a black glass candle jar with a copper-colored metal lid, and a small, ribbed black plastic top to an empty V8 bottle. They assembled themselves into a modernist architectural base that elevated my little building’s height by a third. In the process, I ended up adding more paint atop that which I’d already applied, turning the rotating views into the midnight sky, the midday sun, and the rosy light of dusk or dawn in the desert.

I was supremely pleased with it until yesterday, when I helped with check-in of other artist’s extraordinary examples of technical expertise in a plethora of media coupled with their multi-faceted, soaring artistic visions. Compared to the pizzazz of their work mine fell back into a “good enough, I suppose, but do I really want to show it” status for a brief while. It quickly bounced back, however, to being my own artistic best, and that was perfectly good enough for me for this year.

Doing our honest best to express ourselves and being recognized for that is what comprises a vital, nurturing artistic community full of artists at peace with their creativity. 

Baby Bird House

By Joan Robins

Creating a little house out of a seven-inch tree branch topped with a roof and chimney was an experience in learning, figuring out – day and night – telling all of my predicaments and finally just doing it.

I started with painting the rooftop yellow and red, following the wood pattern, thinking I was imitating light and shadows. My Friday art group, which is more of a support group of four or more friends, told me they liked the color. Next step was to sort the feathers from tiny and fluffy to tail feathers from mourning doves and other smaller patterned bird feathers. Some feathers were from bird kills – I hoped to make amends. 

My idea for the large feathers was to surround the branch below knots – about halfway down the branch. I enlisted Denise to drill holes for the long feathers – following her advice to measure twice cut once – I trimmed down my effort to just four feathers, signifying the four directions, and since I couldn’t see the holes among so many other bug holes and cracks, I thought of placing toothpicks in the holes until I glued in the feathers – she elaborated on the toothpicks and gave me good advice on wood gluing everything. 

Unfortunately gluing the small feathers on top was a sticky mess on my fingers sticking to me, not to the top of the little house roof. In crying by email to Phil – he’d replied with a way to glue the quill tip, good technique - next time. I topped it with the bird’s nest I originally found in our backyard and brought to this group the day a month ago I signed out the branch little house.

I named the little house “baby in a bird nest,” having played with stuffy clay at OffCenter early in my little house expedition. This is only my second little house completed.

Gee, next year should be grand.

Whimsical, No Judging

By Nancy Lee

The Little House provided a great opportunity to create something whimsical that wouldn’t be judged too closely. I cut paper strips before I picked up my house because I was thinking that in May flowers would be blooming and I was ready for spring and summer. I even used some of my strips to make some woven paper to possibly use but until you have the house in hand it’s hard to picture it.

I finally remembered to pick up the little house on the last Monday in March. I had things ready to go and I got most of the quilling done. Then I got stuck. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to paint the wood. I think I have some paint but I’m not sure where and the few places I looked didn’t turn up any paint. Next thing I got bronchitis, and I was down for three weeks. I didn’t have much left to do but it was going to have to wait until I was up to it. Susan, who is so much better organized than I am, had paint and gave me some very easy paint to try it with. I wound up using several different colors to go with the woven paper sides, then I just needed to glue the quilling on. It was harder to get them to land in the right place. Harder than I was expecting, but it all came together.

When I was around 14, I went to an art show with my mother, and she bought a quilling kit. It was the first time I had ever heard of quilling. It has enchanted me ever since. I made a few Christmas ornaments but never really got started on it. I had a photo customer who did some beautiful quilling that she needed photographs of. It was beautiful work. She gave me cards that she made and a beautiful Christmas ornament. She has since then passed away, but I will remember her when that ornament goes on the tree.