anlina on July 25th, 2010

Next week is the Enchanted Doll Artists Conference in Albuquerque.  I’m not attending this year as my class choices didn’t make, but I did agree to make table favor dolls.  I had no idea what I was doing and had to get it figured out because tomorrow is the last day I could mail stuff and have it arrive on time.

I woke up early yesterday morning and laid in bed with the cats.  In that half asleep, half awake state, I had an idea for the table favors.  It wasn’t fully formed, but enough that I could sort of picture how it would work.  I got up, got breakfast, got my car in to get the oil changed and got laundry and cleaning done, as I really wanted to leave my afternoon free to be creative.

I started designing the doll soon after lunch, and knew that I wanted to use my collaged bottle caps for the heads.  I had to make some though, and since the resin takes overnight to cure, I needed to do it quickly.  So that was the first step.  I got the body designed, and had a flash of inspiration for the stand.  Unfortunately, the flash required a trip to Michael’s.  By the time I got home, it was late.  I started on the first body, found some black felt that was in my fabric pile and, flash, another inspiration.  I got one done enough last night that I could see what I needed to do.

So I finished them up about 4:30 this evening, except for the one I’m giving to Pamela for her birthday.  Unfortunately, I did nothing on the crow this weekend and only got a little bit of the prep done for my trip to see Pamela.  So, tomorrow is another day for that, with the trip to the post office in the middle.

Here are the dolls.  I’m going to make some more of them, as Mom wants one and I want one.  I think I’m going to make some to add to my submission for the Christmas Art Bazaar I’m going to apply for.

blue_fleur_fl

blue_fleur_head

blue_fleur_arms

Green_fl

green_head

green_arms

orange_fleur_fl

orange_head

orange_arms

pink_heart_fl

pink_heart_head

pink_heart_arms

red_fleur_fl

red_fleur_head

red_fleur_arms

Aren’t they cute?  Weird, but cute!

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anlina on July 22nd, 2010

sparkly

As weeks go, this has been a very, very unpleasant one.  I had to force myself in the studio this evening and was literally counting beads to attempt to redirect my thoughts.  I switched the ipod over to playing all of my Train CD’s and after a few songs and a good deal of beading, my mind was no longer replaying unpleasant moments.  I was very happily in the creative zone.

I’m so excited over the crow page!  Mr. Crow is beaded, has a beaded necklace and is now situated in a leafy background.  In addition, I added a metal “W” to fix where I forgot to include it in the quilting.  Oops!  I started beading down the trim which is going to frame the page when it was time to stop.

crow_almost_done_fl

crow_cu_2_0722

crow_cu_0722

I’m sitting in bed as I write this post and both of the cats are here with me.  Mari is curled up next to me purring and wheezing.  Everyone once in a while, she reaches with her front paws for me.  It’s a nice end to the day.

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anlina on July 21st, 2010

crow_0721_cu

I’ve continued to bead on the crow, in between finishing up the computer.  I’m 2/3’d of the way done adding beads to his body.  They add sparkle, which every self-respecting crow needs.  I think I mentioned that I covered the cathedral transfer with silk gauze and stitched it down.  The picture of that is here tonight as well.  It has been a frustrating and exhausting week at work, so I’ve not accomplished as much in the evening as I’d like.  The good news is the work week is half-way over.

crow_0721

corvinus_0721

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anlina on July 18th, 2010

sunflower_6

Boy am I glad to be done with the garage sale.  It was such a hot day yesterday – I am still tired today and haven’t left the house, except to get the paper and put out bird seed.

I spent yesterday evening and most of today reinstalling my operating system and all of the software on my computer.  The performance had become so bad I couldn’t do anything.  That combined with all sorts of very ominous error messages whenever I started up or shut down convinced me I needed to start fresh.  So, here I am, almost 24 hours later, and I’m completely back up and running.  There are a few things I haven’t redone yet, but I’ve got the necessary bits completed.

I didn’t sell any of the journals yesterday, so all of them have now been posted in my Etsy shop.  So, if you would like any of the following journals – they can all be found in my shop.

coptic_1a

coptic_2b

softcover_1a

softcover_2a

softcover_3a

I did a bit more beading on the crow, working on his body while I was reinstalling my Photoshop Elements catalogue.  I also attempted to transfer the cathedral to a piece of silk gauze and will go check how it ended up here shortly.  As a last resort, I’ll take off the binding and take the page apart to fix it.  I hope it doesn’t come to that.  I’m going to do a bit more beading this evening before calling it a night.

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anlina on July 15th, 2010

Just a quick post this evening. I’m sorry there are no pictures, but I’m attempting to figure out how to deal with an “oops” with the Corvinus page for Pamela’s book. That is the back side of the crow page on which I did a lazertran transfer of one of my photographs from Budapest.
While I’ve been beading the crow, I’ve apparently been rubbing off bits of the transfer, so now I have a much less intact image of a Cathedral with a crow.
I think I’m going to transfer the image again, onto silk gauze, but this time reversing it from the way I did it before. Then I can flip it, so that the transfer is on the inside. I just have to figure out how to attach it on top of the existing transfer, especially as I’ve sandwiched, quilted and bound the front and back together already.
So, hopefully I’ll be able to deal with that tomorrow. I finished beading the other foot of the crow, gingerly holding the page, as by this time, I’d figured out what was happening on the back.