Doll Street challenge

First off I'd like to thank you if you have taken the time to vote for the Land of Odds Illustrative Tapestry competition. If you haven't there is still time as the deadline is not until January 2012.

I belong to an online internet doll makers group called Doll Street. I really enjoy this group as it has so many talented doll makers willing to share ideas and help out folks like me that get stuck in a project and needing a helping hand. We also have challenges from time to time. Judi our fearless leader decided it was time to get out some of those pieces of dolls we all have laying around or in my case in a big basket and actually make something with them. At first we were referring to it as the bone yard challenge, but consensus decided it would be more fun to call it the Morgue Mix up challenge. You can see the rules here.

For my first challenge doll, I picked out a few "parts" that I've had hanging around nagging me to finish. The first was the doll body, stand and fabric that I had made at my second MM&M with Pearl Moon. The legs were from a class I'd taken with Judy Skeel in her studio which I believe was her dragonfly rider class (I shrunk the pattern down for this). The face was from a workshop held by Cyndy Sieving at a Guilded Lily Retreat. The roushing ribbon was also from a workshop Cyndy held. The beaded belt was my class sample from Byzantium. I found the knitted fruits, and I do indeed have no ideas who made them or where I got it all. The head dress was made from the Inca Prince class by Barbara Schonoeff at a Gala up at Punderson Resort.

I put them all together put a few beads and some paper flowers that I bought at 1 Stop Bead Shop into the mix and came up with Bountiful.

Now I did indeed need to bead a doll to keep my fingers nimble, so out came all these pieces from different experiments I'd made over the past 4 months trying to learn enough to make up my own doll pattern. Oh yes, these definitely were all the rejects. I did like the head, but the nose when needle scuplted was too tiny. The feet/shoes were actually a piece of fabric from Arwen's crate padding. And horns...oh I had to throw the horns from my Pocket Monster into the mix.

This bead soup was something I had in a bag. I have no idea why in the world I made these colors. Maybe it was back when I was trying to learn the color wheel or something...blah! Most of colors came from a bead mix I'd gotten from Land of Odds, but the green I added was just too much. No wonder this was a morgue reject bead mix! But it worked with this. I added the brightly colored yellow for the hair to try to tone down the watermelon & green & reds.

And I had to end this with a picture of my Arwen. Arwen is doing well with her treatment. The Piroxicam is helping her with the symptoms of the bladder cancer. Her liver enyzmes have even gone back to normal. Love my baby dog and hope she stays with me a while longer.