Yet Another Day of Retro Divas

Oh boy making things in batches does speed up the work, but makes me feel a bit pressured. So not quite so enjoyable as pottering on at one at a time speed. As these dolls require several changes of thread it does eliminate many changes of bobbin and thread.

Look at those long legs dangling over the edge of the chair!

The cushion is 18 x 18 inches (45c45cm) so you can get an idea of size. The dolls are about 19-20 inches tall standing up.

Hmmm, now I wonder where my hair cam from, yup its some of the leftover cushion fabric.

I try to make each Retro Diva Doll unique, by changing the hair, lipstick, skirts and scarves. All the dresses are 1950's curtains and their arms & legs are some scrap fabric my friend Julie Howe gave me.

An oriental style face makes this one really different. Her boots are made from an old BHS tablecloth.

Butterflies on the cheeks and a choker necklace.

Three stars on each cheek and a pelmet mini. Each skirt is made from a doily - with the middle removed or a piece of lace from a chair back.

These are my attempt at Dolly Doc Martins. My friend Mary likes to wear DM's.

Weekend break now and hoovering up all those threads.

Busy with Retro Divas

This week I have been trying to get a stock of Retro Divas made.

A pair of 1950's girls with vintage doilies for skirts.

Lots of embroidery, done on my machine, on their hair and shoes.

This denim girl is feeling lonely as I sold her sister today. Didn't even get chance to take a picture. She's been snapped up and is now living in my friend Julia's camper van.

Nothing gets wasted, middle of the doily used as a hair decoration.

Close up of the denim diva. I've made the arms a bit longer and soft stuffed them so you can fold them.

Oh and they also now have knees, this really makes them easier to pose, but harder to stuff. You have to leave a small gap at the knee, its easy to forget and then you have to un-stuff a narrow leg!!!

Denim Diva just had to show you how nicely she can cross her legs.

I've got a new tool for stuffing the legs, a wooden chop stick. It's really good, narrow and pointy one end and wider and square at the other. It's also longer than the previous tool, a size 10 crochet hook.

I've got 6 legs and 6 arms stuffed and ready for the next 3 dolls.

Just to let you all know my eyes have responded well to the new drops. I've got into a routine with the 7 doses of drops and am getting better at putting them in my eye and not on my cheek. Tomorrow I go down to 6 doses. Now what shall I do with those few extra minutes?

Thank you all for your messages, prayers and support.

Three Muses Challenge - Red

Another great idea for a challenge - red is such a powerful colour. You can enter and check out all the entries at   The Three Muses

This is one of my earlier works in acrylic. The cross is textured and is wool yarn stuck on with glue. The texture is made with a thick mixture of house paint, powder filler or spackle (USA?). Then I used several shades of red and a vivid pink, plus a little bit of black and gold. The little figures were cut as a stencil. Canvas is 20 x 16 x 3/4 inches.

This goes up at Easter just to remind me its not all about bunnies and chicks.

Looking forward to seeing every one else's entries.

Baby It's Cold Outside - A dog just has to keep warm

Overnight its snowed. So late up today. Heating on and there is one sensible dog in this house!

Molly wrapped up in the lacy blanket, on the new cushions. 

She won't move until we go for a walk :-)

Making your own Paper Designs

Where do you get design ideas from? Is a question I frequently get asked, or sometimes it's "Don't you worry about running out of ideas?

Well the answer to the first is "My brain, it just works that way" and the 2nd is "No, see the answer to 1!

That sounds a bit brash now I read it again. But if I show you what happened when I had collected the following from a boot fair (Swap Meet) and a local Auction perhaps you will understand. I got sheet music and the watch parts at the auction. A shell bracelet at the boot fair and some beads from  my friend Danielle.

Browsing through the watch parts one piece caught my eye, because it looked like a wing. So now I started to search for a body, beak and face. Then I needed eyes, beads were an obvious choice, feet well those shells fit real good and just the right size too. Legs, bit more of a hunt, tried tooth picks, they looked horrible with the metal. Hmm, then I found a box of these wire thingys - have not a clue what they are - but hey great legs. And there my Mad Bird was born, from this also came the name of my business - Mad Bird Designs UK.

I tried him out on lots of designer papers and old newspaper adverts, none suited. He lay unmade for a few days. Then I was tidying my book cupboard and found a French song which is about birds, well ducks, at least I think it is. Long time since I did French at school.

It looked good as a background and I had an old box frame that was just deep enough. So he was glued and fixed. Of course I took pictures.

Another thing that helps me with my art is that I get OCD (obsessive compulsive) about things, it hinders daily life sometimes but for practicing art its great :-)

On my previous computer I had a Coral Photo program. I loved that software and was pretty annoyed when the computer died. Never mind my lovely son managed to salvage all my pictures for me but not the software. It had a really neat function the Kaleidoscope pattern. You could center on part of your picture and then press the button and you got these great patterns. Move the center and you got another one. 

and another

Once I get into something I like I play for ever so we get another.

and finally

So you see what I mean when I say my brain just works that way. Really to me, its nothing more than playing around with what you have to hand. But more than that it is allowing yourself the luxury of indulgence of doing what makes you happy.

Another thing that helps me is to swap from one medium to another, so textiles one week, collage another. That way you don't get bogged down with one thing and if you get stuck on a project (yes I do get stuck) you can turn to something else. That lets your brain work on the problem in the background. 

Also I spend a lot of time sorting and resorting my junk. Moving it round to try to make the piles smaller, never works. But I do often go "Ah that's just the thingy (I've got a lot of thingys) for that box I've been stuck on". Then the junk gets stuffed back in the box or cupboard and all thoughts of tidying are gone.

And I forgot to say (now editing) that I use these designs as backing papers on some projects.

Have fun making your art. Why not use some of these ideas to make your own projects or experiments.

THINGY = a thing you have, that you don't know what the heck it is, but it is just the thing for your ART.

Denim Retro Diva Cloth Doll

My friends do really get me and my obsession with re-use and do not waste! Gilly gave me a pair of leg off cuts from her girls jeans. In need of cheering up I set to to find some fabrics that would "Go" with the jeans.

An old acrylic wool scarf, some red polka dot fabric and also a small doily that escaped the photo shoot.

So I decided to make her in a more relaxed style, with most of the seams on the outside. That seemed to fit the worn nature of the jeans.

I've called her Dee Dee, short for Denim Diva!

Adapted the boots to be a bit more like shoes and kept half the label on the scarf. I've sewn around the scarf to stop it fraying as this is going to be for children of 3+ years and needs to be child friendly.

Little flowers at her wrists.

Two lace hankies in her pockets, which have three kisses on each.

Back view, guess who forgot to put red in the bobbin??? But I think it adds to the unfinished look.

Flowers in her hair.

Standing up so you can see how long her scarf is. The scarf is detachable.

Lovely red lips and 1960's eye liner. 

Hope you like her, I'm going to give her back to Gilly as she's helped me out a lot lately by dog sitting Molly.

I really needed cheering up today. Yesterday was a very hard day. I have been having a lot of trouble with my eyes and vision since 14th August last year. I was driving on that day and it was hot so had car windows open. Something landed in my eye. On 31st August I went to drop in Doctors at our local hospital. Nurse said "Nothing in your eye". Went to Nurse twice at my own Doctors,  over next three months, same response. But she did give me antibiotics (drops) as I had an eye infection. Two weeks ago went to Doctor and saw lady Dr. Its your age you have blepharitus, permanent condition, you are on meds and thrice daily washing of your eyes for rest of. Came away pretty unhappy. But meds and daily washing were just making my eye much worse.

Decided to get 2nd opinion at a new opticians. What an eye opener.. He found the item in my eye. He's cleaned the eye as best he could. Now I have to go to the hospital to have the rest of the metal dug out. Because its been in so long it has actually started to rust!!!! The relief at knowing I was right and not failing due to age was so much that I nearly cried.

Hopefully after tomorrow I will be back to proper eyesight.

Inspiration Avenue Bridges Challenge

This week the theme is bridges. Heres the link Inspiration Avenue .

Now I knew I had no art relating to this, bridges as an art subject just don't do it for me.

Well a search through my family pictures brought up this view of Tower Bridge in London.

Also in the picture are very dear friends of mine, Lawrence (1st left and hiding), Patience (5th Left with the hat) and Waveney (2nd right) - Patience and Waveney  are twins. We all went to boarding school together, 1964 - 1969 and have remained friends since that time.

So we have built bridges of friendship over continents. Lawrence lives quite close to me 50 miles, Waveney lives in Germany and Patience lives in Phoenix, Arizona.

Those bridges have crumbled sometimes but always we mend them as we love each other.

I have traveled to Phoenix, USA, Frauenalb,Germany, Edinburgh, in Scotland, Liverpool, England and nearer to home to see them. They likewise have traveled to those same places, so have their children and grandchildren.

So my entry is an emotional one really. Life is all about building bridges of friendship and tending them and keeping them standing. Sometimes its the hardest thing you can do to build a bridge of friendship.