Happy Holidays

Here it is almost time for Christmas. I wanted to make several dolls for friends, but ran out of time. Oh, to not have to work & just spend the day down in the Art Cave creating, but I have to work so we all can eat around here. I have the weekend off a the hospital, but have to do the family thing & pick my Grandmother up from Portsmouth. My fingers will be itching as I'm in a critical stage of creating a doll. It has the body & legs done, with the head sitting on the desk ready to be needle sculpted, and the fingers needing to be "gloved". But I have time to do that...

I got my package from Australia with all kinds of goodies to play with. Chris & I are planning on the spending the two days after Christmas experimenting. He's really getting into making more fabric faces for me. I even caught him down in the Art Cave with an Iron! I think he's hooked too.

Here's a picture of Chris & I back in 1978 on Christmas at my parent's house in Portsmouth. Chris had brown hair & I had LONG hair! My goodness we both looked so young!

Deep Sea Diver

This is a project that I finished for my Ohio Beaders Challenge called "chip challenge". We had to use chips of some kind in a beading project. I've been wanting to do a fish for awhile & had been playing around with different forms. When I bought a strand of dyed MOP chips, it just clicked that they should be scales. The base for the fish is a felted styrofoam ball with tyvek beads. I used one of two baby dolls I found at the thrift store & made her into a mermaid riding on the fish's back. I didn't really attach her to the fish, as I'm thinking of using the fish in a class proposal for AFIC 09. I am going to call it bead coloring as I used the patterns of the material as a basis for the bead patterns. I'm going to be working on more projects like this to see how this bead coloring thing works out.

Sept & October

I've finally got the camera out & took pictures of my leaves for Sept and October. I'm still stuck on the November one & might skip it for a couple more weeks until I can wrap my brain around what I want it to be. November is a tough month for me. My Father died on Veteran's day back in 2001 & so I thought I'd like to do something in remembrance of my Daddy. As for Christmas, I have a picture of my Scotties sitting on the stair case watching me decorate the tree. Nothing like looking up & seeing three Scotties desperately trying to "hoover" popcorn into their mouths.

My September leaf actually does have a picture of Brutus Buckeye in the glass blob. It is just hard to see, but he's there. Gotta brag, but the Bucks are going to BCS championship in January. Go Bucks!

Holiday jewelry

My friend Katie from NJ, asked me about beaded sea horses in a Jill Oxton Cross Stitch and Beading magazine. So I finally found it under a pile of other projects I wanted to work on. Well, that was it! Now, I'm stuck doing square stitch sea horses. Darn that Katie! I've got Christmas cards to work on, shopping to do, and a doll to make, but NO....I'm addicted to making those sea horses. Here's a picture of a necklace I came up with. I used the spiral rope article Beki Haley wrote in this current edition of Bead Unique. Oh yes...I want to bead the Rivolis too, but time. Think Santa will bring me more time?

More bragging

Along with Sparkle getting in 500 Handmade Dolls, I have another brag. Pat Duchine asked me to write an article about beaded art dolls. I couldn't figure out what to do that hadn't been done before by other beaded doll artist. Then my boss asked me if I'd like some plastic beaded curtains...OF COURSE! I'm a hoarder and will take almost anything. At the time I was working on a wrap doll with the fabric faces that Chris does for me. I threw the plastic curtains on my work table next to the other project & it was like a piece of bolt lightening smacked me. So I came up with The Podlings. At first I called them Pod Babies, but someone took that name in a previous issue of Soft Doll & Animal. Pat loved the dolls & when I actually took them down to Annie Hesse's MM&M conference in Richmond Ky, I sold all of them. I had 3 weeks to make dolls to send with the article for photography. I was really a Speedie Beadie then. But I'm so happy with the article in the Feb 08 issue of Doll Crafter and Costuming. The close up photos are just amazing. Oh, I have to thank my husband Chris for doing all the graphics for me . He's a treasure!

Finally back

I'm finally back to blogging after being so busy this Fall working on projects, projects and more projects. I have to take a moment here & do a little bragging. First off my doll Sparkle is in the new Lark Book 500 Handmade Dolls. Page 213 & yes, I do have it memorized! What really surprised me is that she is on the back cover. A member of BeadArt posted that she saw someone's beaded doll on the the back that looked familiar. She wrote and said that it looked like my doll. I didn't believe it, but then someone else wrote & told me the same thing. I about fell on the floor when I got my copy & there was Sparkle on the back cover. Knock me over with a feather! It was a big kudos day to me. Here's a picture of the back copy