I've got a loverly bunch of coconuts...

... along with various and sundry other bits and pieces ....
The one with the blue wig is definitely a keeper.  It is from a class by Judy Skeel...and I am very happy with it.  I still do want to do something with that one.  It had some amazing techniques that I think I managed to accomplish very well.  Just didn't feel impelled to complete the rest of the doll as it is in her pattern and so I quit.  Seems to be my MO some days.  The others...?  well, if you are doll maker, you will see the problems... although, some of them can be overcome with proper hair or banding or hats or something I suppose.... Most of them were trying to get a grip on how to put a second skin over the original stitched heads in order to hide the centre seam.  And..they did work.. sort of..... but, man, it's tough to get rid of wrinkles ..... as we know!

The tiny head is a bead.... haven't a clue what to do with that...although I did see some bead head angels on a Flickr site the other day.... perhaps a possibility.....

Doll Street is having a Boneyard challenge.  I have plenty of discarded or unused body parts and yet.... looking at them does nothing to tweak my imagination.  Who needs a head...an arm...a leg? ...to complete their doll.  Let me know the general dimensions or a size you are interested in....I may be able to help.

One leg has the beginnings of a shoe on it....hahahha.... from when I was making my ...erm... which doll was that now? ...... I think it was this one.... maybe .....

or , perhaps this gal..... who knows now. Years go by.........

Stuff accumulates........ my poor, poor crafting room.....yes....a whole room ....with a huge table and a large enough desk.... and I still have no room to work...and wouldn't know where to find anything to begin with...............

ohhhhhh...... look, poor little Rumpel....still unfinished .... .... I am pretty annoyed with myself now....

 Hey.... there's even a little mouse in there.  Obviously it's time to dig a hole.  No, not to throw myself into...but to make some room to play with some fun stuff in there.........

the green fairy......

Her little shoes are finally trimmed...but, not without mishap. Even though I glazed them with a protective lacquer.... the Scotch tape I held on the decor with while the glue set...peeled off some paint....sigh. Well, I say a mere sigh now...but, that isn't what I said at the time, believe me@! I've been mixing paint to try to get the exact match...and so far so good...but, need another coat on one spot.... then I paint a tougher glaze on top....















....a glass of Absinthe was in order.... hahhaha....

nawww....it's just my cute little liqueur glass of dipping water...but, it does look a bit like Absinthe, slightly louched....
on it's way to the "perfect opalescent milkiness".....


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Yes.... that is Mickey Maria! My sister's beautiful quarter horse. I hope to be petting him one day soon when I make my annual trip to her little farm in B.C. Click on each of the "Mickeys" to hear some of his story.... he is a great horse. A stoic as Vikki calls him.. and right now she is working overtime to help heal a deep gash that he got on one leg months ago... something scared or chased him and he injured his leg on something.... it is healing, but slowly... and she is playing vet as most folks do with animals. The vet comes a few times...shows her what to do and ...then, she just does it. At the moment, that includes cleaning and cutting away the remnants of unhealed flesh or crustiness... applying salves, dressings.... etc..... what a gal...and what a trooper Mickey is to let her do it.... it has been a long road on this one... and not his first leg/foot injury...















Mickey last year...

a fun Friday.....not to mention productive....

Tea dying..... fun, easy, and it turns out so pretty. From stark white to any number of lovely shades of pinky beiges in minutes.... Love it. That's what I did first thing.











Then I got my "right attitude" on, and found a perfectly matching heel in a little chunk of Apoxy Sculpt... in minutes! I should have quit fiddling with yesterday's clay long before I did. Sometimes it is better to quit, if at first you don't succeed, and try again another day... I must remember to do that more often. Why waste hours struggling when it just ain't happening? I even got the sole on one of the shoes...but, now..have to wait for the heel to dry on the new one before I do the second sole; hopefully I can find a bit of play time tomorrow. Somebody has plans for us to do a few things that include hardware and plant stores .....











Hey, I even found a tutorial on French seams....and made her some bloomers. I wanted to use this gauzy soft fabric...but, it frays like crazy..so hid and protected that problem in the seaming. I can't claim I didn't have to do one of the legs twice. Silly me.... I was reading the wrong step and didn't I cut my beautiful seam after I stitched it all up perfectly. So.. began again at the step that said... cut to 1/8" after stitching the seam....














Speaking of bloomers..... look what I found in the garden this morning. It looks like a fluffy type of narcissus.

it begins with ideas floating around....

........in my head, on paper, .... then... a few trial runs stitched up and stuffed. And, if it is a new shape or size...then all the body parts usually need "trial running" because I have no clue how big or small they will turn out... or if there is some other way to figure out how each size will look in comparison. I bet there is a ratio scheme, and if I ask Mr. BumbleVee..he will whip out his calculator and tell me. Like he did last time I wonderd how big some feet should be in comparison to a head or something...I forget what it was now. Anyway... it seems to me there is no rhyme or reason to most of it. And it certainly doesn't matter. Some doll makers love huge hands... some like big feet.... some heads seem overly large to me in comparison to bodies....etc.... I seem to prefer tiny on all counts. Which can make things tricky in some situations. It's just that with this particular doll, I want more or less lifelike proportions.... with the usual exception... not too short. I probably like tall and willowy because I am not.
...soo, on with it.....

a bit of posing with my trial legs... ... ...with or without a body ...just to get the "feel" of them. How big they really are ... etc... I can never tell how they will look til I actually get my hands on them.














I don't know if there is a way to make the heel/ankle area more narrow...but, so far I haven't found it in any of the few patterns I have seen. I was thinking perhaps some darting might work...but, haven't tried that yet. And stitching up two pieces of fabric...the ankle area always seems too thick to me...doesn't look dainty. This is my trick to shape the feet before I begin modeling some shoes on her.










...strategically placed stitching with some strong craft and button thread.. almost simulates ankle bones....

For this doll...I want shoes that are not at all bulbous at the toes.. so made her toes quite narrow to begin with...and then also flattened them with some stitching.














Today I got the first layer of Apoxy Sculpt on. I begin with the heel... and work my way down towards the front. I have absolutely no idea how anybody else does it... but, it would be nice to pick somebody's brain that has done several pairs of shoes... ....and how great would it be to see some done first hand.

Somebody mentioned last time to hang things on a hanger to dry...hahaha...but, then I had to search around for something tall enough to hang that from so it didn't drag on the table. And... I wanted to keep it there with me while working on the second shoe... because invariably I will get one larger than the other or the sides will be too high or too low...if I am not looking straight at it as I work on the mate.














Usually I don't do the whole shoe on the same day as I have a tendency to squish one part while concentrating too much on another area.... arrrghhhh !!...that is so annoying.

This clay takes a day to cure ...so I do some more on the second day and hopefully by the third I can begin to paint them.... doesn't always happen...but often does if all goes according to my loosely woven plan.....

the unveil...

First, let me say thank you to all my blog buddies for your kind thoughts and condolences regarding Vikki's beautiful Tiffany. She was a very special little girl....Vikki will be at loose ends for some time coming to grips with it... as she mentioned also in the comments of last day's post..











It was a week when not much was accomplished...but... I did finally complete my little silver haired doll.... as yet un-named... although I am leaning towards Peri......











She began like this.... and progressed...

her face is paperclay over cloth... inspired by Bonnie Lee Fontaine's latest dolls on her blog..
After adding more paperclay and getting the features I finally was trying for, I sanded and and smoothed...then painted with acrylic paints.... and added some watercolour pencil work to add extra depth to the eyes...

























I fiddled around with sleeves...but, just couldn't come up with anything I liked. At a suggestion from Richy, my bear making friend... I pieced together a lining fabric and a skirt material...... which is what he suggested next time for a circle skirt if I don't want to be plagued with how to hem it. I made a long rectangular tube...turned it and..voila... sleeves became a shrug instead.















Her blouse is strips of ribbon...















..her little belt is three layers of fabric... the light blue twisted and also has a thin black thread wrapped around at each twist opening lies on a layer of deep burgundy tulle, which is on top of a strip of the same gauze ribbon that is in her hair and from which the little flower is made. I tried all sorts of colours alone and nothing looked right...so just kept experimenting.... it makes a great break at the middle and adds a lot of visual interest.. well, I think it does anyway. Much better than a single colour or a flat piece of fabric.














her shoes, if you remember are made from Apoxy Sculpt ... sculpted directly onto cloth feet. I checked out glam flats from Jimmy Choo and others...and hey... these rival the haute couture guys... as a matter of fact I like the finishing at the edges better on mine...hahaha... ooooh...I am cheeky. That is a length of thin yarn glued onto the edge of the shoes. My jewels are square sequins glued on in an overlaping circle...with a bit of fluffy matching yarn in the center. Maybe next time I won't bother giving my shoes quite the deep creases... make them look fresh out of the box.

Happy St. Paddy's Day! (a day early)

Here's some green for ye.... in case I don't get around to posting tomorrow.... and also a photo of the week for my group doing that. Not that I don't put a picci on every single post..just that I don't post every single day. But, when I do..it's not just words for me...no, no.... must have a pretty picci.....

Looked around the house and ... well, not much green that I thought photo-worthy today. Well, other than plants perhaps... but, all of a sudden, my eye caught a fun thing with the teensiest bits of green on it. My elf chair. Although, at our house..it is a chair for little bears right now.

I made this back in '05..while in England visiting a doll maker. She got tired working on her doll and said...let's try something else...so we played with some newspaper, wire, Apoxy Sculpt and we made a little chair for a fairy or an elf.... then continued work on our dolls while waiting for the chair to dry (which take about 24 hours to make sure)











Don't know if you can see..but we poked some little holes in the wet material so we could hang
some beads through later..





















We sprayed the whole chair with copper colour.. touched it up withsome darker colours and some golds here and there.. added beads and even put some gold and pearls in nooks and crannies...














These two like it..... I think...

Hard to tell from those expressions..... hahahha.....

Magical staffs... pixie chairs....

Here is my tiny bit of info regarding Apoxy Sculpt for the "dolling" people. I am not a pro by any means...I just tried it once and now, love to use it for making shoes, boots, staffs, pixie chairs...etc... sky is the limit...it is great for modeling, sculpting and repair work... I am not sure what the taxidermists use it for ..but that is the only place I can find to purchase it. Here is a pair of boots for my "cursed pirate"..oh!! and his bones too! And a well worn shoe for a clown dancer in the Moulin Rouge....

I like to make the shoes before I attach the legs...learned the hard way...it is a wrestling match the other way.




You must have a protector of some sort on your work area (I have a large towel that I spread out) and also a small container of water nearby... you must keep your fingers lightly moist to handle it or it will just be sticking to you! If water drips from your fingers...wipe it up immediately..it is like glue! Sticks really well to anything and everything. As a matter of fact..if you need extra strength or sticking power for something awkward... like, say... a skinny "bit" holding a larger "bit"?.. (the doll people will get it)...lol......just add a bit of Apoxy Sculpt and it will never fall off......whatever "it is.
When I use it for shoes I just begin to apply it directly to the foot of the doll. It sticks to the cloth wonderfully...no need to do anything else. I probably fiddle a lot more than I need to...but I like to add small amounts at a time so that I can control how they grow. You can sand it smooth once it hardens if you need to .... but if I can get a nice smooth finish when I am working with it I prefer that. It is air dry...hardens overnight.... you can paint it wet...or wait til it dries... a wonderful product really. Who likes waiting for things to dry to paint? .. Well, actually? ..me! By the time I have had my neck bent forward for as long as it takes me to apply the amount I need and shape it...I am glad to rest my neck. The next day..if I decide they are not nearly large enough shoes for my doll ( I have a habit of giving all my dolls tiny feet...then I can just add more Apoxy Sculpt over what I have done..it sticks ....no problem. Did I mention that I love this stuff?

This is another shoe I did for a fairy doll ...I wanted to make them look like they had a soft suppleness to them... and paint them in sort of a watercolour look...the trim is a bit of a fancy ribbon...I love how they turned out. Around the top edge I put a very skinny "rope" of Apoxy Sculpt...that was awkward...!! to finish them off nicely. I paint my shoes with acrylic paint and even brush them with a bit of gold shine... a finger dipped in gold acrylic and lightly brushed on strategic areas. This doll was the winner in her category for a challenge. I surgically altered her legs as well as a few other bits and pieces...