Mermaids are Magical Creatures

Presently working on a possible Mermaid-en....Its great fun to see the individual personalities pop up out of nowhere as hair is sewn on, material choices are being made and fun findings (buttons, laces, sequins) are placed.

These are the moments that are what make "dolls" magical for me and why I keep making them.
My husband asked me one day why I continue to make them....(my thumbs are losing their lining-a bit painful sometimes.) And I answered...."they're Magical to me" I feel kind of lost without that time that I spend in creating them and I love being able to share that "Magic" and joy with others.

 I chose a simplified body structure (my own pattern-just squares and rectangles) because I wanted to do a lot of covering with the dressing and tail. I may even at this point re-work the body...not sure just yet.

So this is where I'm at right now and still playing with the hair style, but who knows what we'll end up with..that's the pleasure and the magic of making dolls.

I'll be back soon! Oh and be on the look out for the Funkefragmentz website! we're in construction now! yay!

Thanks for stopping by,
Michelle

Next segment of "The Making of Mahdreen"

Hello again!  I'm posting more on The Making of Mahdreen today.......

I applied a coat of gessoe and then let it dry, applied 2 more the same way & sanded with fine sand paper after each.

I attached some mystical jeweling to Mahdreen's left hand and painted her face with flesh colored acrylic. I've also added a bit of coloring to her eyes and lips with water color pencils.

These are a few of my favorite things...to work with. Acrylic gessoe, a glue that will hold a wide array of embellishments, watercolor pencils, the chopstick that comes with batting!, cloth tube turner and my hemostats (love these guys a lot). All these items make my life so much easier when I'm making a doll!

I repainted Mahdreen's face a lighter flesh color and started the eye and lip coloring all over again....this is the amazing greatness of creating! You can decided what you do and don't like, its all up to you!

Mahdreen with her hair and outfit. I pieced together all clothing with scrap fabric, following the idea of a doll's pants for her jumper. I then had taken a few small pieces of upholstery fabric (scraps) and sewn them together,....kind of mish mosh..for color effect. I played with it for awhile and ended up folding over two corners to make arm holes, sewed them together and had her coat. I had also by this time repainted her face with more watercolor pencils and started adding embellishments.

The back of Mahdreen's jacket, I gathered the back up a bit to form fit it to her. I've also zigzagged a ribbon onto the edge for another fun effect! As you can see her hair hasn't been trimmed yet.

I added some flesh colored knit to form her breasts, gathered them by a hand stitch and sewed them onto her body. I stuffed them with a small amount of fiberfill, then put on her pantsuit.


Well enough for today......I have the last of few pictures that I will post by Monday! Again if you have any questions for me about the making of Mahdreen or purchasing the pattern with full instructions leave a message and I will get back to you asap. She will also be posted on my Etsy store in the very near future!

Thanks for dropping by,

Michelle

 

Mixed Media Art doll workshop

Back from the Art Doll Workshop and I had a great time. They taught everyone how to make a "pin doll" tonight, so I have that to show you. And I also have some new pictures of Mahdreen :) I made eyes as I previously posted and I have put them in and added eyelids.

I gave her face a coat of gesso and let it dry then sanded it once and added another coat. I will sand one more time and then paint her features. I will also work on her hand addition, I'm excited to see what I can come up with. So far I'm loving what she is evolving into, I couldnt be happier.

I'll be brief for now...I'm tired, go figure :) I've been going non stop all day. Up at 8am, working on Mahdreen and then straight into gathering my misc. for the workshop. We meet next thurs and have decided on a Mermaid project. Looks like lots of funnn!

Be back tomorrow with more :)

Michelle

New Elf in the works :D

Just wanted to take a few minutes to show you what I've done so far. Im now working on a female elf with my own pattern. I've drawn several and have cut and sewn 2 so far. I'm working on the head first, as I've said before this is where you find all the personality! The rest just seems to follow along and additions come together easily :)

I'll leave you with the first of my Lady Elf pictures. I'll be back sooon with more,

Michelle

A New Day and what to make, hmm

Well as I stated in the previous post there were some copyright issues. I did hear from Ute regarding this and she assured me that it was ok for me to continue to post my progress. I thanked her and let her know that I indeed was having a fun time working on her pattern.

With that said I have decided to go with my original plan before I came upon the troll pattern. I was in the process of working on my own patterns and was making a female elf of my own. I have decided to do just that, work on my own creations. I came to this decision due largely in part to the events that I've dealt with over the last year. It seemed there was always someone, somewhere, deciding what and how and when events should and shouldnt be happening. I felt like that with this episode of copyright issues. I have some knowledge of copyrights with a magazine that I was in the process of putting together many years ago. Sounds very glamorous doesnt it, it was, for a while. It was a small project that struck my creative edge and I gave it a try for a short time. I did some research for that project in the copyright arena and gained some knowledge in the process. So suffice to say that I have chosen to work on my own creations and not venture off into the land of someone else's power field.

I have enough creative energy and ideas to keep me busy for a very loooooong time so here we go :D

I have been working on a pattern for an elf, a female this time. She will be my own from top to bottom. We will start from the head and work from there. I will draw the entire doll first but won't bombard you with all the bits and pieces, just the head. Of course the head is where all the personality comes from anyway and that just spurs you on to invent and create more! It always seems to me that once I have the head in progress that the name just seems to pop into my mind. I can't wait to see what creative being comes together next.

Ok, I've got my excited, creative energy in full rev!! Im off to the sewing room (you know, I should name that too, the way people name cars :)) to retrieve my drawing inventory and continue the pattern drawing process. I will return with some good, no, GREAT ideas and a beautiful, womanly elf for all of my readers to join in the fun with! :)

Be back soon,

Michelle

This Week seems to have..

slipped right through my hands....I seem to remember Friday and finishing Mr. Zandar (that was last week!) and then all of a sudden here I am and another Friday is upon me.

I had really expected to be in full swing with another doll but seemed to have been side tracked with pattern making. Not such a terrible diversion so Im cuttin myself some slack, :)

I've decided to hone my skills as a pattern maker and have been looking up sites, online classes and just in general, how to's. I'm pretty happy so far with what I've learned from just the how to's online. Of course my mother was well versed in pattern making and did show me how to modify patterns but not the actual process. I wish now that I had actually had her show me how to make a pattern. So a little bit of this and a little bit of that and I may come out with a do-able understanding of how to make a pattern (im hoping the pattern making genes were passed on! :)

I do have some great and exciting news to share though...I have sent my first pictures to the SDA magazine in hopes of being featured or mentioned in one of their upcoming issues! I have sent a few pictures of Zandar and also a few pictures of Ankri, she's the traveling gypsy that I have shown you in past posts. Let's all keep our fingers crossed and our eyes peeled for Zandar and Ankri (on-kree) in a future issue of Soft Dolls and Animals! That would be amazing:D

Well back to pattern making and also a new project, Im thinking a female elf, hmm, yah, I think that's just the right project for me.

Hope you will excuse the sideways view of Ankri, I tried to post it twice in an upright view and no luck, so here she is!

See you all in a few,

Michelle

ZANDAR THE ELF :D

I've been very busy working on Zandar and he's almost ready to make his finalized "Presentation" to our beautiful Universe. I'm so excited with all the recent additions that I've made to this wonderful being and I can't wait for you to see him.

I've enjoyed every minute I've worked on my precious Zandar. And I have even incorporated my Sophia ( she's my dear little 6 month old jet black kitten, for those of you who have not had the pleasure of meeting her ) successfully to the doll making process. She is my newly appointed quality control officer :D. She makes sure that all dolls are happy and having fun and being as silly as she is, he,he. She is such a cute little button and a stinker bug at the same time and I love her lots. If by chance there is a flaw of any sort then Sophia gets that piece as a play toy. You can imagine how many pieces she deems unfit for doll making!

I will post the final pictures of Zandar on Monday, Tuesday at the latest if there are any glitches. Well, its getting late and sleep is on my list so I will see you all in the next few days. Have an amazing Sunday!

This is a pic of me, probably somewhere around the age of 4-5. I remember already sitting at my Mom's side while she was sewing any chance I could! Which was very often....

Michelle the Elf maker and Sophia the kitty assistant :)

One Elf on Its way :)

I thought that I would name him Zandar. I almost have the body finished, had to remake one of the hands because I blew out too many fingers! So I have sewn it and glued it and am waiting for it to dry. In the mean time I will sew the legs to the torso, I have one arm already sewn on.

I can't decide if I want to paint the entire face or not. By that I mean..do I want to gesso the entire face and paint on that or do I just want to primer the places that I want color on? Hmm, I'm not sure. I like the way the material looks now, with the slightly fuzzy effect. But I don't think the paint will come out the way I want it to without any primer. So definitely will have to prime at least the spots that I want to paint, like the eye and mouth area. I can do the blush without any primer.

Yep, I will only primer the eyes and mouth. I love talking to myself...haha, it really helps me think things out.

So here's what we have so far, a naked Elf! I will post some pictures of what I have put together and then be back with more tomorrow.

Also I have a picture of Ms. Sophia with one of the "mistake legs" I made. I had sewn it on the wrong side and didn't realize it until I went to stuff it. Oh well, a great cat toy. She loves to carry it around in her mouth, throw it up in the air and catch it, roll around all over the ground and then start all over again :)

Im having a great time with this project, and of course I feel great! yay!

Enjoy the rest of your day and I'll see you soon :D

Michelle, once again dreamweaving.....

Oh My.....This stuff is hard to shake!

Its been about a week since I was last here and I have to say...wow, that intestinal thing was most definitely hard to shake..yikes! I'm hoping this is the last.
No progress on the doll but I did feel well enough to rummage through the garage today for an hour and found some new (well,old)patterns. I used to put all my patterns in these cute pink striped boxes. They were just for patterns and they had places for marking which were where. I really loved these boxes and used to refer to them often. I also have two craft books in this box too! You know the kind that they would advertise "buy the first set of inserts" and they would send you a free binder to hold them in. Then once a month they would send you another set of inserts (pages that had craft/sewing pics and then step by step how to's). I loved these craft books and my girls would look into them for ideas and patterns all the time. All the patterns are full size and are at the back of the book in pocket holders, easy to find.
I'm getting ready for a garage sale at a local neighborhood center. It will be outside unless it rains, which it looks as though it might this coming saturday. Hence the reason I was looking through the garage. I have been needing and wanting to go through things for years now. I moved 4 yrs back to a smaller place and boxed everything up and as they say "if you haven't needed it or used it in 2...time to get rid of it". So that's what I'm doing this next week, clearing my clutter.
I think I'll get out my book "how to clear your clutter" to remind me just why I need to get rid of some things. It has lots of handy hints on dividing your items and great reasons for doing so! You know, clearing my clutter might just be the trick to getting my energy and well being unstuck. Im an old school Feng Shui girl and truly believe that when things start accumulating in your dwelling space you can certainly expect to feel your energy levels stagnate.
Well, Im going to listen to my body today and lay down for awhile. I can start again tomorrow on some more clutter clearing. I'm also reading a book on Toltec Wisdom a definite move in the greatest direction.

Talk to you soon, Dulce