A tisket, a tasket, a really fancy casket

Tuesday was not such a great day for me.  Late Monday night I forgot that eating rich chocolate late at night is a bad idea, and so I woke up with a severe headache.  I spent most of the day in bed, sleeping or being bored.  But there was a bright spot to the day.  This package arrived late in the afternoon:

The first thing I saw upon opening the big box was this:

My very own cabinet!  There was lots of padding to remove, and another box.  Finally, this sweet piece was revealed:

It took me quite a while to figure out how to open all the secret (and not so secret) compartments.  And boy, do I have a lot of work ahead of me to get this thing into finished shape!

I have learned recently that the last of our specialty threads have finally arrived and are on their way to us.  My plan is to work with those fibers on the miniature box we were provided last year, and practice applying papers and fabric to that box before moving on to work on this big one.  So this will be a long work in progress.  Still, I'm excited to have the casket itself with me!

In other news, the eggs that I shared about back in March hatched right around Easter.  I have to say, baby birds are kind of ugly.  I didn't take many photos, because I tried to disturb the nest as little as possible.  Here's one shortly before they were ready to leave the nest:

Doesn't the guy at the very bottom look like he's rather grumpy about being squished by the others?

A day or two after I took this photo, I saw one of the babies sitting in a bush near the front door, with his parents, or siblings, or both, fluttering around in the trees above, chirping away at him.  It took him over a day, but he finally flew away, presumably to live out a happy little bird life.

I love watching this aspect of nature in action!  I'm off to plot designs for my casket.  Stay crafty, my friends!