In the mood to create some dolls

I am in the mood to dress some dolls. I have some children in mind. I think I have a couple of porcelain kits for children tucked away, but these dolls will not be elegant, so I decided to create my dolls from scratch from Fimo Classic. I 'sculpted' and baked body parts yesterday. DH was impressed, but less impressed when I reminded him that I have face and hand molds from Sue Heaser. It still takes time to shape the heads and the rest of the body parts.



Today I painted the faces and assembled the dolls. The limbs are made of chenille wires. The wires allow the dolls to be posed. Often with clay dolls, the the thighs and upper arms are also made of clay tubes. I skipped this step, since these parts of the dolls will not show. If the limbs turn out too be too thin, I can always pad the upper arms and legs with cotton.

If you look closely at the the face on the right, you may get an idea of how this doll will be dressed.

Spokane workshop Finished Bed

The bed is done!



Click on the picture if you want to see it a bit bigger.

The picture does not show the quilting stitches on the spread, but they are there. The workshop instructions had patterns for 6 small pillows and directions to make the bolster. I made one bolster, 2 standard sized pillows and 3 smaller throw pillows.

Spokane workshop progress 4

Pillows and tie-backs are done. I might finish dressing the bed tomorrow.

Spokane workshop progress 3

I am still working on dressing the bed.

This is how the pleated panels look after they have been pinned in place and steamed. These are the two drapes that will go at the foot of the bed.


Pleating can be done without a pleater. The drapes at the head of the bed is one piece. Here, I have gathered the top, and have started pinning the drapes to my ironing board.


Here, I have started folding pleats into the fabric.


After all the pleats were pinned in place, I held my iron over the drapes and used a lot of steam. I let the drapes dry overnight.

While the drapes were being pleated, I worked on gluing the swags and the valence to the canopy frame.

Here are all three drapes done, and glued to the canopy. (The canopy is upside down.) I pulled out the basting threads after the glue was dry.


I started work on dressing the bed. I covered the foam mattress with fabric.


I also made the bedspread. There is a layer of flannel between the top and back pieces.



The fabric looks too flat, so I am quilting the fabric by hand. The quilting will be done in a grid pattern, and I have marked the quilting lines by cutting squares from freezer paper and sticking them to the fabric with an iron. The paper peels off easily and does not harm the fabric. I like to mark my fabric this way, because there will be no chalk or marker lines to remove later.

TCPTUES29

This week's TCP Tuesday challenge is hosted by Toni, and it is a color challenge to use blue/gray, pale yellow, and dark red.



These colors felt gender-neutral to me, so I made a birthday card that could be given to anyone, especially a person who likes cake. :-)



Supplies used to make my card:
Stamps: "Smells Like Cake" and "You Say It's Your Birthday" clear sets by The Cat's Pajamas.
Ink: Palette Noir, Colorbox Frost White, Stampin' Up Bordering Blue and Barely Banana, Cold Stone Prismacolor marker, Prismacolor pencils
Paper: All cardstock by Stampin' Up--Very Vanilla, Bordering Blue, Barely Banana, Bravo Burgundy.
Other stuff: Very Vanilla embossing powder, circle Nestabilities, pencil eraser to stamp glow around candles.

Spokane workshop progress 2

I am still working on the furniture every day.

I finished varnishing the bed and I wove the mattress support on Saturday. I finished the chest on Sunday. The drawers all open.


All the fabric parts for the canopy are cut and the edges are finished. I marked the valence's pleats with pins, ironed them, and pinned them in place. With all the pins holding the pleats, handling the valence is dangerous work!


The drapes for the canopy are to be gathered. In this picture, you can see that I ran two rows of basting stitches across the top edge, and pulled up the gathers. The center is marked with a pin.


The next step will be at the ironing board, where the fabric will be pinned into the correct shape and steamed. Some people use hairspray to hold pleats in fabric. I find that steam works well, if I can wait overnight for it to dry, plus it doesn't smell as bad as hairspray!

TCPTUES28

This week's TCP Tuesday challenge was hosted by Jen, who challenged us to make a card, based on this image.

I didn't find this image inspiring, at first. The stamps I have from The Cat's Pajamas just did not lend themselves to the objects in this vintage photograph. However, I knew I had the new Fright Night set coming in the mail, so I waited a couple of days to work on my card.

I decided to start with the black and white (and gray) colors. However, while working on my card, I just had to introduce color! I chose orange, not only because orange flames under the cauldron would look good, but because I wanted to color the witch's hair red as soon as I saw the stamp. Why red? Because Alma named some of the stamps in her new line interesting names.... Trevor, Hedwig, Ginny. If these names are meaningful to you, good for you! It means you enjoy books, just like the woman in the picture! Anyway, Ginny is the witch. And the witch she is based on certainly has red hair, since all Weasleys have red hair.

Here is my card.

Elements I pulled from the inspiration piece are the colors. The square layer represents the book. The witch represents the woman. The cauldron and the witch's circle pick up on the round shape of the pumpkin.

Supplies used to make card:

All stamps from Fright Night set from The Cat's Pajamas
Cardstock: SU Going Gray, Basic Gray, Whisper White, Apricot Appeal
Ink: Palette Noir, Prismacolor pencils
Other: D'vine swirl embossing folder, circle nesabilities, wave scissors to make faux rik-rak. Cauldron and Giny were cut out; cauldron was attached with dimensional sticky dots.