haven't been too successful at taking & completing online courses up until now. I'm taking two classes from the Doll Street Dreamers. Janet Clark is teaching an 8 week class on using the Embellisher. I bought my Janome Xpression over a year ago on a whim & never used it. I tried to sell it this Summer, but no one wanted it. Thank goodness I didn't as I'm really enjoying this class. Nothing nice enough to share yet, but I'm having a ball. Only thing is that the noise of the machine sometimes makes my Vertigo "shake me to the core". They are pretty noisy so if you don't like the sound of bang, bang,bang...don't get one. BUT...you can make some really fantastic fabric with it. We are into our 3rd week & already this class is making my MUSE jump out of her skin with things to do with the pieces I've created.

The second class is this Michelle Munzone's Enchanted Tree. I LOVE IT! She has a very creative way to make a tree with wire armature. I've done wire trees before, but this is so creative and has limitless possibilities. I've posted the tree that I've made. I did do a couple things different from the class instructions. Michele had us sewing a head and then doing needle sculpting on the doll. Now, I do confess that I really don't like to sew much, so I was looking around my table to see what I had for a face & this ugly yellow clay face was staring at me. I'd done a face from a mold by Pearl Moon a couple years ago at MM&M. Okay, I only had yellow clay so that is why it was yellow. But I always liked this. So then I looked again & it spoke to me. I took the face & put a cloth overlay that matches the tree fabric. Then I painted the cloth with gel pens and a micro pigment pen. I like how it looks. Then for our 3rd week instructions, we made leaves with organzas & open flame. I was in my element. Chris yelled to make sure I didn't burn the house down, but I do know something & had a bowl of water next to where I was burning leaves. It was FUN! I made way more than we were suppose to for this class. I then decided to frame the face on my tree with the burnt fabric vines. So there you go. I can't wait until Thursday so I can download the instructions on how to make the fairies that go with the tree.