Hello & Etsy!

Hello Blog mates!

It's been that long since I last blogged, I'd 

almost forgotton how to do it!

Hope this finds you all well and happy.

I haven't been doing much craft-wise apart from the

obligatory family and friends' greeting cards.

I did buy some fabric a few months ago though

from the Tim Holtz Eclectic Elements range

 

I bought the 'charm pack' 5" x 5" little squares

and it's totally lush.

Then I couldn't decide what to do with it and it

sat on my desk for ages and ages.

I finally decided it'd make great little outfits

for paper dolls - what else would it be for me!!

So I busily got to work and made

 ten lovely mixed media dolls.

I'd often thought about opening an Etsy shop but never did -

these little dolls I made gave me the push to go ahead.

I'm useless at self promoting as it feels so un-natural to me.

However, the deed has been done so here's the link

 If the link doesn't work (when you click on the pic)

there's a link near the top of my side bar.

I've called the shop 'GemstonePaperDolls'

because as well as loving making paper dolls,

I've also been buying a lot of genuine gemstones recently to

be made up into jewellery - although I don't know how

long that's going to take me to get around to! 

Got to start somewhere though I suppose.

I'll leave you with one of the dolls - she is actually

wearing a tiny little coral gemstone around her neck.

Her boots are real leather -

an upcycled old purse of mine.

Thanks for looking - 

I'll try not to leave it so long next time xx

Row Houses Swap

These are my ten little houses for the swap taking place over on Paper Digital Art and Images by Kim.  The theme was 'in a colorful neighborhood' - or as we'd write here in the UK 'in a colourful neighbourhood', and we'd call them terraced houses not row houses - but I love the differences.

Kim provided us with the sturdy little house blanks which measure 2 inches wide by 3 inches high - so they are quite small - her brief said 'this is the chance to create in vibrant colors.  Just in time for spring, lets have lots of bright yellow, lime green, neon orange, hot pink, firetruck red and blue sky!'

I used a variety of different things to create my houses, rubber stamps, inks, acrylic paints, ultra thick embossing powder, rafia, tissue paper, Brusho paints, beads, charms etc - so I think it's safe to call them multi media.

My favourites of the row are the ones below.  I love the little dolls in the Pink and Hawaiin houses which are stamped images from a Hero Arts clear stamp sheet called World Dolls.  The quirky looking house with the pink door is again a (slightly adapted) rubber stamp from PaperArtsy Squiggly Mini series.

I just need to get them packaged up now and sent off to Kim in Canada and wait to see what lovely ones I get in return!

The last row houses swap I did were inchie ones and you can see mine here.  I have only recently received my swaps back and here they are in all their glory!

I just need to find a good way of displaying them all - they are far too lovely to hide away somewhere.

Garden Goddess Art Doll

The current challenge on the Flickr Art 'n' Soul group is to make a 'Garden Goddess' using the template by The Enchanted Gallery and to use some embossing on it (either powder or metal).

Here is 'Fern' the Autumn Goddess.
I cut the shape from mountboard, covered it with some Decopatch paper and free hand scribbled some lines to emboss - I didn't want to cover too much of the paper up as it has lovely autumn leaves and ferns on. I glued on a few buttons near the bottom (after removing their shanks) to make the cute little plant pot and flowers.
 

The hair is part of a tassel and it's just the right colour I think. 
The heart shaped sign is actually a button which I've rubbed a little gold metallic cream onto to tone down.   The wording says 'How does your garden grow?'  Quite appropriate for this garden Goddess.
 
Autumn is my favourite season and I really like this doll and can just picture her in a pot plant - or hanging up in my dining room - maybe I'll forget to enter her into the challenge!!  As she was so quick and easy to do though I think I'll make another to keep for myself.

Meet 'Fritzi' the Festive Fairy

Whilst blog hopping recently I came across this intro  'Do you like a challenge? Do you like Art Dolls?  Well you have come to the right place.....'  Where is this place you ask, Artist Trading Dollz Challenge Blog created by Linda B - her own dolls are truly amazing and if you like art dolls do go have a look and a drool over some of hers. 

The first challenge was to create a 'Festive' doll she said 'think parties, celebrations, happy times, lots of colour and sparkle'.

My doll 'Fritzi' is from Germany and over Christmas went to a fancy dress ball as a 'Festive Fairy'!  Her crown and outer wings are made from some fabric leaves which are absolutely dripping with silver glitter.  The rest of her clothes are an assortment of fabrics.  She just couldn't get her hair right on the day so wore a glitzy, red sequined wig instead.

Lovely as the silver glitter is, it does unfortuntately get everywhere - much to my hubby's amusement!  Over the last few days he's gleefully informed me that I had a silver moustache and a silver neck!  I had to laugh though when after I gave him some sandwiches he asked what the glitter was actually made of - is it glass?  His sandwich was liberally covered in the stuff and he was actually contemplating eating it!!   What does this say about me?  No, don't answer please. LOL.  I didn't do it on purpose to get my own back - honest!!  I will say though that I did take the sandwiches off him and made some fresh, glitter free ones!  Incidentially, what is glitter made of? LOL

The festive fairy has a lot to answer for!

UK Art Raffle - 'Dark'

This is my entry for the above raffle. This month's theme is 'Dark'.

It is a canvas 5"x7" which I've called 'Adore'. This is the first completed canvas I've done and it was a bit scary at first, but once I started it was fine! It's another beeswax collage which I started by scribbling some oil pastels in black and blue over the canvas then melted some beeswax over the top and blended it altogether.
I then put a bingo card on with more beeswax and blended that into the background. I then overlaid some white tissue to soften the overall effect. A piece of wide dark blue ribbon was then laid on and some more fibre at the bottom. The image was next - again adhered with more beeswax. Finally a ticket saying 'adore' was distressed and put at the bottom right hand corner and a flower at the top. This was quite a messy job and I ended up with pastels everywhere - so I sealed the whole thing with some porcelain gloss spray. It didn't take completely but it adds to the whole distress finish (yeah, right!!)

I am pleased with how this has turned out and it's given me the confidence to try to some more.

I hope whoever 'wins' it in the raffle likes it - if not, they could always send it back to me as I'm sure I'll find somewhere to hang it!