we interrupt my dollar store crafting...

I have to post this doll who I have finally completed after at least three years. I had made her parts but I couldn't seem to position her head and arms correctly, and she sat in a box until this week. 

She is mostly a pattern that I can't remember the author of and need to look up online... but her head is my original creation.

Her name is Indigo... but she is also Oshun, the Yoruba goddess of fresh water, who is also related to Erzulie, the Haitian goddess of love.

She's in an inner tube, which is a representation of a dream I once had:

A street in the town I grew up was instead a river that flowed down a steep hill. It was night, there was a full moon, and I was tubing down the river alone.
At the end of the dream, I had this realization that it was a Friday night and I was alone, and that this was the best thing that I could have done for myself.




And now that she is finally complete... maybe she will help me do further creating.

More pics - a closer-up, and one with my cat Yeti for size comparison.

................................

Rambling about blogger code:
aaaaaaaand... I'm still being driven crazy by this blog formatting! I know how to get rid of these black frames around the images, but not in an easy way, and I can't find what it is in the coding that's causing them, and the biggest annoyance is why on a post with no images, the writing has a different amount of space between each line. I've done lots of css, and html, and whywhywhy can't I figure this out? I feel so frustrated!
I guess I have to go back to my css studies. Blah.
And then I'll have to check it out in other browsers and on a PC as well as my Mac... I just want it set up right so I don't have to mess with it anymore! I'm making a list of everything weird that I can't understand in the posts. For instance, right now, there seems to be a space before the beginning of my first paragraph - for no reason!

(And I know that currently this blog has maybe two readers - someday when I'm a famous craft/art blogger, someone will look through my archives and be able to see what's in the code that I'm missing.)

have some (just a little) angst with my Dollar Store Crafts

So I won this box of stuff from Dollar Store Crafts. (this picture is from them.)
See that package in the center with the black-and-white thing? That's mine, mine, mine... mwah-hah-hah!

(It was the weirdest thing - as I was filling out the entry thing, I knew that I was going to win... I didn't know there would be over 600 entries(!) but I just knew.)

And now I get to play with things!

The b-and-w thing is a miniature rug. Of course my immediate idea was to make a bag, but I'm not sure I'll do that. Unless I can make an Incredibly Cool one, I don't want to just do something totally obvious with it. There are some zippers so I could add pockets and things... I'll have to think more.

There is a package of cardboard stars in an odd color. Those have to become a garland. But I'm going to spray paint them a different color first.

There are some yellow leaf-shaped doilies. Some of them will go into my art journal, glued in or stenciled over, but then...?

There is pink lace that I want to put on the bottom of a skirt.

I'm of two minds here: (ok, I'm of many minds, all the time, but two for now) to try to combine as many of the things into one project as I can, or to make as many different projects as possible. The second one seems slightly more likely because there is so much variety... but the first one would be more of a challenge!

Here is a preview of the first project I've started. It seems to be coming out a little too Easter-y for my tastes, when I was hoping for Indian-sari-style - and I'm hoping it won't end up being a total Craft Fail.

I guess I'll get busy on it... it's a totally unpleasant weather day here in New England and I'm wishing I had a fireplace to curl up next to with my crafting. I thought of a tray of candles instead but I'm pretty sure my cat would have something to say about that - I'm going to have enough problems keeping cat hair out of my gel medium.

On an unrelated note, I'm having issues with my blog formatting... I can't figure out why it's making some images have a frame, and some posts with different spacing between the lines... I did some coding but I can't see where all of it is and it's driving me crazy! I think I might be too much of a perfectionist to do these things!

Scanning woes and art plans

I've been making lots of art, really - it's just that you can't see it yet.
I want to spend time *making* it, not scanning it, uploading it to flickr, and then writing about the process of it!

But I really want to document it beyond just having a sketchbook of it, so eventually I really will get around to it.
Although this week I have a major sucky cold and it's sapping all my energy beyond zentangling and laying on the couch and trying to find anything worth watching On Demand when you only have basic cable.

I've been doing masses of zentangles, and a couple of GPP's challenges, and I'm working on some earrings from this book.

Next I'm thinking of a frame for a drawing I bought my sister for her birthday - I was going to buy one, and then I remembered that I want to do much more using-up of my supplies this year - so I think I might make one out of felt, cereal box cardboard, and beads. I sort of have a vision.
Since the drawing is Ganesh, I'm thinking beaded shisha mirrors and sparkle on black felt - but not too much, because I don't want to take away from Mei's beautiful art.

a quick blizzard

Actually, this isn't about the blizzard.
It's a quest... to stop music on blogs.

To be more specific, music on blogs is fine... but I think it shouldn't play automatically.

Players should start IF the person looking at the blog wants to listen and hit the play button.

I know, one point of a blog is that you can do whatever you want and if someone doesn't like it, they don't have to read it - or in this case, listen to it - but I'll be surfing along quietly and all of a sudden music will start blasting out of my computer.
And no, I don't want to turn off the sound just in case I come across music. I keep it on for notifications and stuff.

So this makes me sound old and grouchy - but from a web design perspective, it's amateur-ish to have music playing for no reason... and you can keep the players, just use ones that don't start until the reader wants them to.

Come on, I know someone else feels like this - can't we start a movement?

I don't want to seem grumpy, so I will also give you this picture of a blizzard I was caught in the other day while walking the dog.

entry formatting...?!!!

I am SO confused - in my browser, different entries of mine have different amounts of spacing between the lines of type.
I think it happens when I post an entry from flickr, vs posting through blogger, but I'm looking at the page source, and the html & css, and I see NOTHING that would explain it!
In case anyone reads this blog and is better at that stuff than me, can you tell me where that code is?

grr.
thank you.
xox

Remains of the Day Book

Here's one of the pages from the book I made in the Remains of the Day class I talked about in the last entry. If you look at it on flickr you can see all of the pages. These are just the background for adding photos and writing... I like to write a lot in my books, so I'm sticking in more envelopes for me to fill with writing on cards and notebook pages.

The idea of these journals is that the pages are made up of things you've collected and never used, or pieces of junk mail that would get recycled, or just your pile of SCRAPS.

Now that I've made this one, I feel like I got the hang of using my stuff that's just sitting around and I'm collecting a pile of stuff to make more pages. I have too many journals I'm working with already, so who out there needs a scrappy journal? Maybe I'll give it away when I make the next one...

Creative Experiments!

I don't believe in making resolutions, but I want to start updating my blog more, because I've been making lots of art that isn't getting shown to anyone.

I've also been spending too many hours looking at other people's blogs and their art - which sometimes leads to happy discoveries like this one.
Daisy Yellow is AWESOME. There are so many great ideas, inspiring art, links to follow, etc. that you could spend weeks just looking at everything there.
One thing Tammy does is post lists of Creative Experiments. List #8 has just been posted for January and I am going to get the hell off the computer right now and get to work!
(My current project - ok, one of zillions - is the online journal-creating class I am taking with Mary Ann Moss, Remains of the Day. I'm about to bind the signatures into the cover so I can start filling up my book and I am SO EXCITED.)

Abundance Totem

I need to update more frequently! Sorry about that. Is there some easier process than the eight-million-steps that I need to do to get things from my camera to blogger?

Anyway. I made this Abundance totem several years ago now, when I discovered the Connecticut quarter. That's it, on her abdomen, that big, beautiful tree.

This is to remind me that Abundance comes in many forms.

And also, that every time I start a long bead embroidery project, by the end I swear I will never do another one.

They say it's my birthday/Good Dreams Angel

...and I'm getting a new CAMERA! So I will now be able to take pictures of my new stuff. But in the mean time, I thought I would start posting some of my older work that hasn't been blogged.

(I've been knitting a lot this winter, and haven't taken very good pictures, but I will eventually make an entire knitting post.)

So this doll is the first doll I made when I discovered that there were people selling doll patterns on the internet. When I was in high school I used to make dolls from the 1950s sewing books in the library, and corny patterns in Family Circle, but then I found that there were these awesome patterns online. I think this was probably in the mid-to-late 1990s? I discovered the mother-of-all interesting doll makers, elinor peace bailey.
This pattern is elinor's "Retro Guardian Angel". From the first doll I made starting then, I knew I wanted them to have a purpose, not be merely decorative or play-things, and this doll is my Angel of Good Dreams - she guards against nightmares. Her little bag is full of herbs for good dreams. I made her little slippers to go with her flannel sheep pajamas.

unfinished doll

This doll is in progress. It was meant to be a valentines doll, then I gave it green hair and decided it was a christmas doll, but now I'm thinking I might make it pink and go back to the original idea.

And it will get arms, which aren't there yet.
An original pattern by ME.

lellerphant bag

for the meedle seester's birthday, made from a felted sweater. Sorry for the dark photo.

Felted flower (a separate pin) directions from Betz White.
Purse directions here: dabbled.org

i'm alive! ALIVE! and here are some pictures.

Two presents from patterns from other blogs!
I like that little blog connection even if these people don't know me.

These were presents for my friend Megan
who I've known online for ages and ages and who I first wrote to because I was so in awe of her beadwork.

The gingerbread man pattern is from Elsie Marley. I painted the icing on with acrylic because I didn't have rickrack.
The thread holder pattern is from The Stitching Room. It's so adorable! I thought it would end up being smaller than it was, because said it was for holding the cut off ends of your threads when you're sewing, but it ends up being several inches across.

This one was an experiment in color for me. I wanted to use the gold fabric because it reminded me of something Megan would use, but it is *absolutely* not something I would normally use and I didn't know what to mix with it, so it was the perfect opportunity to use my 3-in-1 Color Tool. I'm really happy with the final color combination, which I NEVER would have come up with by myself!

Suddenly I saw it.

Every time I do a craft show, someone (or several someones) comes up to me and says "do you know that all of the dolls you make look like you?"
Sometimes I am offended if they are particularly ugly.
I never mean them to look like me.
This one, when it was done, I kept looking at its face and thinking, MAN, I am so sick of this face I keep drawing.
Then I held it up to the camera - it had to be my webcam because the other camera was broken - and there it was...
um.
I saw it.
Yikes.

Anyway, this doll, which you are seeing backwards in my webcam, says "Bon Appetit" and is my Aunt Beast's 2007 Christmas present in honor of her redecorated kitchen. I would have liked it to have crazy wooly hair but I'm housesitting and there is no crazy wooliness to be found unless I shave the dog.

Busy busy busy

There is a lot of crafting going on over here, but I can't really SHOW it yet! Here is an older doll, I think from last year, for your holiday blog enjoyment.

Ok, I really have to get back to work. Things happening today are all coming from Instructables, for The Boy, things like a bike seat cover for protecting it from the rain, and a Cholula Holster (that one is sort of a joke, but only sort of), and maybe boxers made out of Patriots fabric I found at a tag sale, and I don't know what-all else.

And I want to decorate! And make little houses out of old cards!

All I want for Christmas is...

A Ravelry for sewing and crafting. Can't someone programming literate make a Ravelry-type website for sewing project organizing, pretty please? I have soooo many projects I want to do and I can't keep track! I like it that all the things I want to knit and crochet are at least in a list now, even if that list is, um, over a hundred things long.

Here's a picture to keep this post from being boring, even though she's from last year or the year before, I can't remember.

The next thing to work on with this blog is a list of links to other blogs, but there are so many that I read, it's hard to begin and I don't want to forget people I love.

too cute to poke!

This here doggie is a pattern from the awesome book Art Doll Adventures by Li Hertzi. He's a pincushion, but how could I possibly stick anything in this smiley guy?

I love this book - the idea behind it is to take images from other cultures and build them into new creations.... and do lots of playing and experimenting. This dog has beading, embroidery, fun fur yarn, an old dog license tag around his neck, and general wackiness.

I think (I don't have the book in front of me) that Li got the idea for the pattern from an African sculpture, and I just noticed that the yellow eye beads are beads that my uncle sent to me when he was stationed in Togo with the state department - how perfect!

A couple more views of him at my flickr.

This Little Piggy

Greetings if you are visiting me from Sewmama! My blog has never had very many readers and it is my goal for next year to build up some online blog community.

The Boy(friend) is obsessed with pigs - he told me that the only thing he wants for Christmas is a real live pig, which sadly wouldn't work out very well in our apartment. However, I made this one for him from the adorable (and free!) Wee Wonderfuls Pattern. He didn't want the whole pig-on-wheels-ornament, because he wants to pretend that it's his pet pig, so I'll just let him keep it like this. Although I think it need some embroidered nostrils, because the pig nose is my favorite part of the pig. Cute waving nostrils!

Believe Angel

I sincerely apologize that my camera isn't working, only my webcam, so you're not getting any nicely focused and bee-yew-tee-ful pictures right now, just whatever I can hold up.
I made this angel for my Boy's mom Jo Ann. It looks huge in the picture but it's maybe five inches tall. It has a little hanger on the back so it could be a tree ornament or hang on the wall or I guess even get pinned to her clothes or whatever - she's an angel fiend!

Snow Day! And Handmade Holidays!

I didn't want to do this because I haven't decorated my blog like all the people who have been featured, so I feel a little silly. but I'm celebrating that it's snowing right now and I'm lighting my pine-scented proud-locally-made Yankee Candle and lighting all my light strings and answering some of these questions to get me in the right mood.

It's funny, I was a little grumpy about the whole Handmade Pledge thing, because when you're an artist and you don't have money, you always make presents, without thinking about it. I can't remember the last time I bought someone something - oh, yes, I can, actually - but it was from another artist.
After a long time of being poor, you've given everyone all the handmade pincushions, aprons, eyepillows, stuffed animals, dolls, fabric boxes, record bowls, etc., their houses can take. This year I happen to have more money than usual and I was so excited to NOT have to make all of my own presents.

And then... I started seeing tutorials. And suddenly I have these lists a mile long of things I want to make in the next, oh, TWENTY TWO DAYS!
So I'll tell you some of them, but try not to say any of them where people who might actually read this might learn anything they shouldn't know yet!

My mom is getting a painting, which I have sketched out but not started because I haven't painted anything in years! It's called OUR LADY OF PERPETUAL DOG BISCUITS, because a thing we do together is walk her dog, and as we walk, all the dogs in the neighborhood come along and look into her pockets for treats. One day a few years ago, I had decided to start naming all of my dolls as saints, although she didn't know that, and that same day as we were walking, she proclaimed, I AM OUR LADY OF PERPETUAL DOG BISCUITS. So I'm going to paint her with all the dogs surrounding her looking for snacks.

My two obsessive fisher"man" cousins are getting scarves made out of old t-shirts (green crafting?!) for keeping them warm while they are obsessively fishing at all hours of the day and all months of the year, like this:

(they kiss the fish before they put them back in the water.) (My cousins are SO awesome and I miss them all the time and wish they lived closer to me, they are the funniest, cutest little boys! - even though now they are LARGE)

One sister who I hope won't read this is getting boots for her delicate dog and a front door organizer made up in some kind of fancy, Moroccan-style fabrics with mirrors and stuff for the way she wants to decorate her new apartment.

I have a lot of other things I'm making, but starting to read through this list, I'm thinking that I should stop blogging and thinking about all the cute ideas I have for decorating my blog that I haven't gotten around to yet and actually start WORKING! :)

I'll also tell you a couple of my traditions: I've been trying to START some new ones because even though we always get together and hang out, I feel like we don't have any actual traditions, so the two I've started so far are:
1. Watch the movie Elf which I love.
2. Make Espresso Shortbread. I made a recipe card as a present for anyone who is actually reading this... here it is! Open your present!

and here's a countown for beader-types...

Every day in December a new thing at http://www.suzannecooper.com/christmas/calendar.html