You Make My Day

Judy gave me a "You Make My Day Award" yesterday - which was lovely!

Here are the guidelines for this:-

Give the award to up to 10 people whose blogs bring you happiness and inspiration and make you feel so happy about Blogland! Let them know by posting a comment on their blog so that they can pass it on. Beware! You may get the award several times!

Some of the folk that I would pass it onto - also got it yesterday too!

I have decided to very selective about who to mention and pass on this award too.

There are so many of you out there who "Make My Day" Blogland is a wonderful place - and in my experience such a supportive community.

I will give this award to

Sharon Young

Because I enjoy her blog - but also she is a wonderful reader of my blog and so many other blogs. She also takes the time and trouble to leave comments. Her questions set me thinking, and her support is great.

The other blogger I would choose is

Catherine Kerr

I have only recently discovered Catherine's blog and I love it. For me it is a gentle reminder every morning to live a soulful life - and for that I thank her

Here is my second to last doll - This is for Denice - who signed up for the PIF - way back. As I didn't have a picture of her - I transferred a picture of a Venetian Mask to the doll. I had hoped to get it to her for Christmas - but time ran away with me - so she got it today!

One more to do - hopefully tomorrow.

What I did Next

Printed image and "shrinked" image

For my three girl-friends here in Wales - I decided that although they had their own doll - they could also have smaller versions of their two friends to hang on the Christmas Tree!

(Although one of my friends has such a tasteful Christmas tree - her decorations did not make it onto the tree!)

So I photographed the finished doll. and printed it onto "shrink paper" for an ink jet printer.
After a few trial and errors - I printed the image nearly the full size of an A4 paper, and as you can see from above - I really lightened the colour - because during the heating process the colours darken.

Close up of the Christmas Decoration!
Size approx 3 ins high

The images shrink a lot during the two minutes that you heat them in the oven. I also discovered that they don't shrink evenly - so if I printed figures sideways (landscape) on an A4 sheet - they turned out small - but slim!

However portrait I could do bigger figures - but they were slightly "well rounded"

Anyway - it was fun and I have wanted to try shrink plastic/paper for the inkjet printer for ages.

Another doll

This was the only "boy" that I made!

I was trying to do a gingerbread man - but he looked a bit strange - so I had to give him "Christmas trousers" and a bow tie!

I made a doll for Judy as a PIF - and the photo she has on her blog is better than the photo I took - so if you want to see Judy please click here

The paper mountain is slowly decreasing! I want to get it done and dusted so that I can be in the studio with a clear conscience otherwise it sits like a grey cloud in the back of my mind and I get grumpy.

Happy New Year to you all

Happy New Year to you all. I apologise for not blogging for ages - there were two reasons for this.

The first was the dreaded vertigo - which - fingers crossed, for the most part is better.
I have been seeing the osteopath, and she has really helped however the process of recovering from the vertigo gave me a very uncomfortable back - so I could only be in the studio for short bursts of time!

The other reason is that I was making "art dolls" as Christmas presents and for the PIF exchange and I did not want to post pictures until I was sure that all of those dolls were in their new homes!

They did prove to be slightly more time consuming than I first thought - although they were not really very complicated - just fiddly. The hardest part was turning the doll right side out.

However - they were a joy to make!

I will post more pictures over the next couple of days - as they are not all in the "group photo"

Here are links to two more fun tutorials on art-e-zine;- for making this type of doll which caught my eye when I was first thinking about making "fairies" for my friends Christmas Trees.

http://www.art-e-zine.co.uk/teedoll.html

http://www.art-e-zine.co.uk/createdolls.html

One of my resolutions this year is to try and stay on top of "paperwork". I seem to have half a Brazilian Rain forest of papers and "stuff" to sort out. (I think I say that every year) So no studio time for me until I have made some inroads into my paper mountain.

So I wish you all a wonderful 2008, thank you all for visiting my blog and all your comments and e-mails.