Doin' Dolls

Yea!!  I get to work on dolls again.  Keeping a little baby every day takes lots of my hours away that I would normally get to be creative in any way I chose.  But now I have to be creative on how to get a baby to quit sucking up all the dirty things off the floor as she crawls over them.  Or how to be creative gettting a baby to take a nap when she THINKS she wants to stay up and play.
Well... I had a good motivator in that I am making the helper doll for one of my UFDC clubs to send to the national convention this year.  She is all done. Now for the thing that I am the worst (or the best?) at procrastinating over.... the underwear.  The lady even has dresses.  But no underwear.

I really like the way her face turned out.  She has a pensive look.  I might turn her the corners of her mouth up just a little but maybe not.  Her dress is one from my Lilly Grace collection and I am in the process of adding some lace and frills to the dress and bonnet.  I will have another dress and a shawl for her before she is done.  But oh the underwear!

Her hair is made by sculpting ooey, gooey, gluey thread onto her head.

I'll post a finished picture of her when she is done with her unders and shawl.

I finally finished the cat. I have always wanted to dress her. But seems she has an attitude about covering up her tail. So she ended up with a boa and a peacock feather fan. What do you think?

I have had fun working on finishing up some projects. I have a long way to go but I do feel like I am accomplishing something.

I finished the little felt doll and she has gone to a new home. The antique style doll is almost ready to go to a new home.

I thought I'd add a nice photo of the tree in my front yard all covered with snow. I don't know what it is about snow, but it makes me feel all warm. hmmmm......

Merry Christmas!

I had a very nice day today. I hope that all of you reading my post did as well. I reminded myself ever so often that the celebration of this day is not all about the gifts, the food, or even the gathering of family and friends however wonderful they all might be. It is all about the celebration of a child being born over 2000 years ago. A child whose name was Jesus. I have much to thank God for every day. But the most important one is that He has forgiven me of my sin and is my friend on a day to day basis. And it is all because a child was born in a manger so long ago who grew up to pay my debt.

And yet, we still love to give and receive gifts. We draw names with our children and their spouses now to be a more thrifty in our celebration. And my husband and I ended up with both our daughter and daughter-in-law. I would have said "both our daughters" but then those who know me would have said "What..?" My husband built a very nice wall shelf unit with a towel rack underneath for my daughter in law to put in her bathroom. (My idea... I noticed that she needed one.) I think she was happy with that. I wish I had taken a picture before she left. But I didn't think. My other daughter received a collage of portraits I had made of her little girl Lillianna. I was very pleased at how it turned out and now that she has it in her possession and it need not be a secret I can post a picture of it here. It is at the top.
I started out with photos that I scanned in and then spent hours editing in pnotoshop. I did NOT use any 'sketch' filter which is what people have been thinking. There is no way one of the filters will do this. I used a different technique to get it to a stage where I then printed it out onto watercolor paper and then used pencils to finish it by hand. She was pleased with it. I scanned the finished product in and have already printed another one of the completed sketch out for myself.
I had great fun making Christmas ornaments this year and plan to continue doing so all through the year next year.
Merry Christmas!

Christmas is almost here.
I have been working hard on lots of little Christmas ornaments to give as gifts. I love making Christmas ornaments. They are little works of art that people take out to make their holiday more special. They pause to remember who gave them the ornament and when. I have ornaments that I made over 30 years ago. I love to look at them and remember making them so long ago. I always say, "And these are older than my son."
I also enjoy wrapping them in a special way so that they seem to be a little 'more' than they really are. The package can make something inexpensive seem more special and costly.
I made Christmas Penguins from egg gourds, Santas from dried Okra, and little mice stuck in raisin boxes.

New Doll

It seems like a long time since I was able to post about a new doll I have made. But I am almost done with the doll I started at the Susie McMahon workshop I took in MD. She still need her unders and another more simple day dress. Maybe a coat and hat. I am very happy with her.
I love the new technique I learned for the hair. I worked hard on the dress which is made from one fabric. Although it looks like different matching designs i pleated the vertical lines to make the dress look like it was made from different fabric designs. I like the blue better around her face. The trim is all vintage or antique tatting. I do like her but I am willing to part with her so she is up for adoption.

I also am still waiting to dress the little pressed felt face doll I have made.

I love how she turned out but I will never make another one like that. It was really difficult to press the felt in the mold when I think I can get the same results by gluing the felt over a sculpted face.
I am also working on some really cool paper mache Christmas Carolers. Which I hope will be done before Christmas.

More Digi Stamping Fun!

I have joined a new community of artists who do digital art. Making cards, crafts, scrapbook pages, and embroidery. I have created digital art for years and rubberstamped so i thought this would be another good outlet for those small works of art I love so well.
Here is another card I have made using one of the freebie digi stamps. This digi stamp image was created by "Mujka Chic" and is called "lonely tree". I did manipulate the image and edit it. I added background with photoshop brushes and script which says "Silent Night, Holy Night, All is calm...." all around the border. I printed it, layered it on brown card stock and then printed another tree which I cut out and layered on top of the first tree. Then highlighted the tree and bits of the snow with glitter.
You can see the digi stamps and papers at My Grafico. There are pages of freebies that are fun to look at. including brushes for Photoshop CS. Having an older version means i can't use them. DRats!