Getting Ready for ADAA
It's almost May which means the All Dolls Are Art Conference is only 3 months away! The theme this year is The World of Make Believe and I can't wait. It is going to be so much fun. Vicki & I completed our table favor dolls and they are on a shelf in my studio waiting to be packed for the conference. I got the idea from Pinterest for the fairy jar centerpieces for the opening night Welcome to the World of Make Believe festivities that Vicki & I made this month.
I've still got to make my costume for opening night, pin dolls, stuff for my sales table, stuff for the goodie bag and finish my banquet centerpiece doll. I started the centerpiece doll yesterday and it is coming along nicely. Better get back to work, the conference will be here before we know it.
There's still time & space for you to join us, all the details are here All Dolls Are Art Conference
Here are some of the fairy jars and the table favor dolls.

Backyard Pond
Year before last we have very cold weather for an extended period and the large rock that is the basis of the waterfall for our pond cracked from the freeze. It caused water to flow out the cracks on the side and leak out of the pond. We had to use pvc pipe to route around the rock & waterfall. Last weekend we finally fixed it! Our neighbor's pond pump quit and she gave us her waterlillies. Now the pond is once again the lovely oasis in our backyard. Here are the results.

Floor primed

I've been wanting to get rid of the carpet in my studio for ages. I finally took the time off, ripped out the carpet and did a total redo of my studio space. We've been in our house almost 27 years and it was the original carpet and boring off-white wall color. My original plan was to decoupage book pages for the floor (similar to the paper bag floor I did in the hall bath a few years ago), but the floor was way too big and would have taken forever to do.
I thought I would just paint the concrete, but after doing online research, decided that probably wasn't a good option either, given the amount of time I had, tools and experience level. I went to Lowe's and found the answer. 18 x 18 peel & stick linoleum tiles with grout. Who knew you could grout linoleum? It was fairly easy, looks like real ceramic tile for a fraction of the time and cost. A perfect solution.

Starting to add grout

Walls painted

I first painted the walls with Glidden Soothing Green Tea paint. I love this color!

I had Bennie build me another shelf and moved two existing shelves to make room for it. I've taken supplies out of boxes and put them into glass jars where I can easily see what I have. I love my new creative space.

Stereo & Storage

Bead storage on double doors. These hold my semi-precious beads

Found this marvelous twisted branch in OK

New shelves w/glass jars

Making use of space behind door for paints & stamps

Large storage - surplus from manufacturing shop

Boxes on left are glass beads

Pages friends made for me, decoupages on the side of the big unit

I zentangled my ceiling fan blades

New ceiling fan for studio.

This Weekend's Art

Mixed Media

I had a couple of Tim Holtz's Configuration boxes and have wanted to do some mixed media pieces with them. Graphics 45 has a Steampunk collection, though I don't think of it as much as steampunk as Art Deco, featuring the art work of my favorite, Alphonse Mucha. I bought the paper a while back since I couldn't resist it (wish I had more now). I worked on these all day yesterday, combining bits and pieces from my collections around the studio. I'm very pleased with them. I just need to figure out how to hang them. I added lots of pieces from Tim's collections - sprocket gears, light bulbs, bottles, birdhouse and metal wings. I also used distress inks and alcohol inks to color the metal and plastic chess pieces.

Configurations Box

In The Studio

What a mess - works in progress

Heads on sticks - some are now witches

I've got a really great studio space. It was supposed to be the formal dining room, but we aren't formal dining room type people. I love that it has a big window the looks out onto my front yard and up the road. Lots of the pieces of storage in my studio are recycled and they work great for their new purpose. I also usually have lots of "heads on sticks", heads that I've sculpted waiting on bodies and to be incorported into the latest art doll. I like sculpting the heads best, so there are usually several pots filled with them. The first part of next year I plan on taking out the carpet in the room and covering the floor of my studio by decoupaging book pages on to it. While I have all the furniture out, I'll probably paint the walls. I'm thinking about corking one so it will be a permanent bulletin board and I think I'll cover one section with chicken wire so I'll have a place to hang things without sticking pins or nails into the wall.


Display of finished dolls

More heads on sticks

Supply storage

Wall unit from surplus - bead storage

Still Loving Halloween
I was gone the week before Halloween on the Michaels Crafting Cruise, but I still had a chance to create Halloween-inspired art this year. We did have a Halloween Glitter Ball one night on the cruise, so I had to create a piece of jewelry to wear. The spider is a great Bead Landing pin that I found at Michaels this year. I picked up several of them. I found some great spider web "coasters" when I was in St. Paul this summer, and appliqued them to a plain shirt. I added one of those spider pins to the shirt as well - perfect! I decorated a witch's hat with flowers, ribbon and tulle but didn't have a chance to wear it this year - maybe next....

The necklace is bead embroidery with dagger bead flowers that I made. The "web" is made from piece from the Bead Landing Metal Mania collection that I patinaed so they wouldn't be so shiny.

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.

All Dolls Are Art
I took a 3-day workshop at the All Dolls Are Art conference with Lauren Vlcek in July. This was the first year for the conference which is held in Austin at the end of July. Lauren's workshop was a Butterfly Doll. Here are pictures of my completed doll:


Butterfly Fairy



Close up of face

                                                      Close up of flower detail

Really looking forward to ADAA 2012, the theme is the World of Make Believe. It's really shaping up to be a fabulous conferenc. Hope to see you there!

All Dolls Are Art Conference Information

Been a Long Time
It's been such a long time since I've posted, I don't know where to begin. This has been the year of computer issues. First an upgrade on my aircard wasn't compatible with my older computer so I didn't have internet access on my personal computer. Fixed that and thought all would be well and my old computer crashed, burned and forever died. Luckily all of my info was on an external drive so I didn't look images, documents, music, etc. Bought a new computer, however had issues trying to load the old original photoshop so I could use my upgrade. I finally got photoshop issues resolved and the busy-nes of life got in the way.
It's been almost a year since I've posted and it's been a busy one. In January Vicki & I attended the Texas Beader's Retreat again. April brought a horrible hail storm which damaged trees, roof and various outdoor items. July was my first trip to New York City and the first All Dolls Are Art doll artist conference in Austin, TX. September was the Blog Her Creative Connection Convention in St. Paul and October was the Michaels Crafting Cruise.
Of course there was lots of sculpting and beading and such going on this year that I'll share soon. I'm going to try and catch up on my posts again and try not to fall behind again.

Happy Holidays!

 

 A little late, but none-the-less... I'm still not decorating for the holidays at home, but decided to dust off my collection of Santas that I did years ago and bring them to decorate my cube at work. It was interesting looking at the dates on some of them (gee, has it been THAT long?) and remember the workshops I took or classes I taught.

It's been a long time since I did decorative painting, I prefer sculpting more now. This year I did ornaments for gifts on small glass ornaments, Santa faces and little elves with burr oak caps.

I sculpted some old world Victorian-style Santas on heart-shaped glass ornaments, which I also gave as gifts.

 Our department has an annual ornament contest, which encourages me to create a more elaborate ornament each year. This year I decided to do an ornament featuring the 4 seasons, spring, summer, autumn and winter. I got the prize for best overall for this one.

 Winter is the old man with holly leaves and berries.

 Autumn shows the abundance of the harvest, with grains, grapes and fall leaves.

 Spring is the young girl with daffodils and morning glories.

 Summer features roses.

I hope everyone has a happy, safe and prosperous New Year!!!