My Bee Kidz

Wow, 2 months since I posted. Good grief, where did the time go. Oh yes I know. I have been working on a special project. My friend Janet that I mention a lot (mostly because she’s such a great supportive friend and should be mentioned), asked me to do bee themed dolls for her store this year. She has new honey products and suppliers to go with her over 170 varieties of tea, so she wanted to add some bees to the mix.

I thought about how to approach it because I wanted to make it more than just “A” doll or two, I wanted to make a noise, kind of like a beehive noise. This idea popped into my head and I ran with it. Of course, I always have had great respect for those who create design and publish their work for the rest of us to enjoy.

This whole project came to life using a press mold by Sherry Goshon. The face just looked like a cute little bug and with the glass eyes I chose, the little bees were hatched.  The story goes, that the bees saw the doll maker busy with painting little chairs and decided it would be great fun to dip their little toes in the paint cans (in my world bees have human feet and flip flops), and fly around splashing paint everywhere causing all the chairs to go from pretty little chairs in yellow or black to the new shabby chic of anything goes.

After that little game, they decided to rest a while and see what the tea shop might have to offer, so off they went in search of something new. Each of them found something, and surprisingly mini sized items that were just the perfect fit for them. I did manage to get them all to sit still long enough for a family portrait and individual pictures to, and that wasn’t easy, let me tell you. All in all, they were pretty well behaved and have settled down now to enjoy the comings and goings of the tea shop and let’s hope they don’t spot the honey…

Madame Zlotska

I just finished this doll for a commission. I used the Madame Zlotska pattern by Barbara Schoenoff. She has the most peculiar body shape when stuffed, but it made sense once I started to dress her.

I had a whole different colour scheme in mind, but after the first couple of minutes of putting patterns and fabric together, I just kind of sat back, looked at this poor naked doll with fabric hanging from her arms and legs and ended up changing direction. She was going to have black hair, but that was to dark for her. The purple just brought her to life, so to speak…

I made two cushions for her to sit on to raise her up better and allow her to lean forward as she gets into her readings.

My customer does tea leaf readings, so that’s why there is a tea cup on the stand, rather than a crystal ball. The overskirt and table cloth are made from a scarf, which is a soft velour type fabric. The table is a candle stick. I left the little nicks in it as they are, just to give a more aged look.

The sign reads “Tea Leaf Readings”, “What does the future hold for you” and the vintage image just seemed to fit well with the theme.

I made a little satchel for her that holds her Tarot cards. Here and there I’ve added some crystals as requested by the customer.

A little silliness on my part, I made her boy sandals and socks. They do suit her though, and besides, her feet might get cold so best to be prepared.

And the finished look.

Mother Nature’s Power

I thought you might like to see these videos. One is the sheer power of Mother Nature at work and gives new meaning to bravery. Those brave souls who are out there in these powerful moments are to be respected.  They film all these things to share with the world. It was never in me to be a storm chaser or put myself in harms way for the purposes of research or just for the thrill of being there.

The first video is very intense and I cannot even imagine being in the situations in order to capture the footage. Just spectacular. I have no idea what happened at the end, perhaps I don’t want to in case it wasn’t a happy ending.

The second video shows, the number of satellites that are revolving around our planet. I think the world has gone crazy. With all this space junk out there, is it any wonder planet is struggling.

There are any number of those satellites that don’t even work anymore, they are just sitting out there. Because there is no signal from them, there is no way to communicate to bring them back down. So now we’ve gone from cluttering the earth, to cluttering up the orbit around our planet.  So enjoy…..or not…..

Steampunk

Have been hard at work updating pages on my website. The newest ones I’ve added are some Steampunk pages and finally now they are done. Click on my Steampunk Jester below and she’ll show you the way.

I would love your feedback as I designed these pages from scratch myself and that’s a big job. I have so much respect for those like my friend Maria in Australia and Tineke in Holland who are so talented on the graphics end of web design. Maria’s site is down at the moment, but as soon as she is back, I’ll send a link. She has spent countless hours working on web templates for me and is so appreciated for all she has done.

The editing part of a website, which includes the content of a webpage is so easy compared to the creative side of it.

I have also added a couple of Steampunk tutorials that you might like. One is free for creating this cute bug out of polymer clay and gears.

This tutorial is for creating polymer Steampunk cogs and gears. This one is a purchase tutorial, but is not expensive.

Links to both tutorials can be found on my Steampunk pages.

I have also included several links to Etsy sellers that carry all these kinds of gears cogs and other bits of mechanisms and fun things.  So have fun and I hope you draw some inspiration from what I’ve put together.

Pearl and Millie

A few months ago, my friend Maria and I spent a day in Sidney poking around in stores. We came across this wonderful display of greeting cards by Pondering Pool, designer Susan Mrosek. We instantly knew this could be a changing moment and decided to challenge ourselves to create dolls based on the card we chose. Isn’t she just the most adorable little character.

The decision was made, I would do a clay version, Maria would do cloth. We had our “reveal” yesterday… What a hoot. It’s quite amazing what you can do when you really do challenge yourself. So from the start I decided to use the techniques I learned from Dawn Schiller’s class, Steampunk Oddfae. This is where she began. I first wrapped the armature in warm and natural batting, then cotton. She’s very tiny, barely 10” and I wanted to keep that mature slim lady look for her.

From there I just pressed on designing her outfit. I used Habotai silk for the undergarment which consists of a bodice with sleeves and her bloomers and trimmed up with lace. The silk I purchased from Joggles. Cute huh… Pearl was mortified that I took these pictures. First unclothed, then bottom’s up. The last part of her outfit, the overdress, was made from a piece of very lightweight curtain material that had just the most simple pattern in it, just right for the proportions.

She’s done and decked out in her lounger now, a bottle of Champagne bubbles at her side. Her tiara firmly in place, her pearls (naturally) her fuzzy slippers with a touch of bling, and lastly, her lovely manicured nails. Ready for a party somewhere, anywhere.

Here are the girls, Pensive Pearl and Melancholy Millie.

They were pretty happy to finally meet each other, then proceeded to chatter away to each other through the whole visit. Didn’t Maria do a great job with Millie. If you would like to see more pictures of Millie and how she got to be her pretty self, pop over to Maria’s blog here, and more specifically the post for Greeting Card Challenge here.

Thanks for the challenge Maria, I’m sure we’ll come up with another one sometime this year. No better way to stretch those creative minds.

Emelio

Have just finished this doll. I suggested to a friend we pick out 11 patterns that we keep putting off doing. It doesn’t have to be the same patterns, just pick out 11 each from our stash. The 12th pattern is actually a challenge we’re going to do. Her doll will be a cloth version, mine will be clay, but more about that in another post.

This is the first one of  the 11 I’ve crossed off my list. This is Emelio, a design by Michelle Munzone. I’ve been wanting to make Emelio for ages but for whatever reason (I’m sure we all do this), I kept getting distracted and worked on other things. Now I’m happy to say that he’s done, and the first of my “Hope To Do” things is crossed off the list.

Thank you Michelle for this wonderful Jester design. I hope you will keep creating them, you know they are my favourite theme. ;o) 

 

Ruby Valentino

I finished my first doll of the New Year last week. She is a Cindee Moyer design. Just in time for the first special day of the New Year, Valentines. I did make a couple of changes to the pattern.

The first thing was to change the hands, I don’t care much for mitten hands, so I re-drew the hand pattern to create individual fingers. I showed the pictures to Cindee and she was okay with that…..

The other change, was to give her something to hold on to. In the original design, her arm is outstretched, but it felt like she needed something, so I made a long stem red rose for her and had the black velvet leaves to finish it off with.

I used the same kind of roses on the back of her head, but black roses. I’m very happy with how she turned out, black and red make such a bold statement.