Halloween Décor



The materials

Adding glass beads for eyes
and forming nose

 I spotted these cool foam skulls in Michaels from their Celebrate It! Halloween collection. I thought they would be the perfect base for sculpting - after all they are already the proper foundation for a head.

Starting sculpting by adding
clay around form

Finished with sculpting




Sealed with gesso, then antiqued
with wash of brown acrylic paint





Glass jar that I've had for years

from Michaels. I used a rust

patina on it to age. Added dried

lichen moss.

 

 

                  2-step crackle medium added &

                    antiqued with black. Eyes painted.

                         Glaze added to lips and eyes

 

    

Finished Head-in-Jar

 

 

More Dolls

I've created several dolls this year. I had the opportunity to test a new clay prior to its arrival in the store. It is Art Minds Clay Mache, Michaels private label brand of air dry clay. I LOVE it. It sculpts like a dream, is easy to smooth and blend into itself and sands beautifully. I like it so much, I've done more air dry clay dolls recently than polymer clay ones. The good news is that it is now available in the Michaels store. Here is one of the first sample dolls I made with it. She is entirely sculpted from the air dry clay, head, arms, hands, legs, feet and body. She's dressed with stuff from the floral department and her hair is faux fur.

Close up



Aren't those glittered tennis shoes the coolest?

This summer I also took an online workshop with Christy Meyers of CC Whimsies. We created a pumpkin fairy doll. The workshop was a doll to hang on the wall, but I'd found these really cool glittered tennis shoes at Treasures of The Gypsy at the ADAA doll conference in Austin and wanted to use those, so my pumpkin fairy stands. This was a great workshop as it was all done with videos and Christy even generously provided us with a pdf file as well.

I sculpted a couple of extra heads during the workshop. One I turned into a steampunk box doll and the other one is still waiting on my to create the rest of it.


This doll is also from the clay mache clay and uses a paper mache mannekin form for her body. She's a mixed media doll inspired by the Santos dolls.

I played around with some polymer clay dolls this year, too. One has a box body and the other has a candlestick for the body. I taught the box one as my break-out session on the Michaels Crafting Cruise in October.