Looking to the New Year

The year is almost over and a new one starting. New stuff here and everywhere. Starting in February I will be teaching a Bottle Spirit Class on the Class Heaven website. If the classes go well and do well I will most likely be doing more classes. I already have lots of ideas. I also plan to work on doing beading contests that I have wanted to do and didnt have the time for. Im planning some Steampunk pieces and some more art dolls both beaded and wrapped. And more bottle spirits and sculpts done with UTEE.

I will also be working on creating cloth dolls and trying to get comfortable with sculpting clay. Hoping to create some new things to put up on website for sale as well as some of the old stuff that I still like.

For those that dont know what a Bottle spirit is here is a picture. And check out http://www.classheaven.com/ Lisa has classes and some supplies also. Heck sign up for my class if you feel froggy lol.

Hairyetta Pippsiwiggle

Hairyetta is now finished. My daughter made her face and I did the body. She was stubborn and required decapitation in order to perform neck stabilization surgery. But she made it through with flying colors.

Now that christmas presents are mostly done I get me time once again. Reading, learning new techniques, and polishing old ones. Have projects planned to stay busy, and things to learn and master.

I want to do some more mixed media and also do some Steampunk but in my own style. There will be steampunk jewelry and steampunk dolls so far and who knows what else.

Also want to work on chainmaille jewelry and soft doll making along with teddy bear making.

So Onwards and Upwards we travel along.

Well Harryetta only needs a face now she is painted, fiber wrapped, beaded, and flowered. She will be out in the mail to her new home soon.

I am finishing up the beading on a stick horse that will also be a Christmas present. Once those two are done I can finally do some me time in works.

After the Christmas Rush I plan to try and hunker down and write up some mixed media classes which I have wanted to do for a while. I have started reading again thanks to my wonderful friend Heather and am on the third book of Wicked series called A Lion Among Men. I have to say I'm not sure if I like this one as well as I did the first two. It's not as meaty as the other two and a tad hard to get into.

I also have a couple of projects that have been on hold for a while. One is an altered beaded elephant beanie named Hortense. I will be finished the beading on her and then hopefully by then her Prozac will be working well enough for her to tell me what kind of wings she wants. Yes wings. Hortense has been a testy project with a will of her own at times but will be a great accomplishment for me.

The second project will be a mixed media Winter Tree Spirit I have started named Elora MoonFrost. I found a vase at a thrift store that looked like a tree trunk all white so I painted it a pearl white added some beads so far and thats it. I will be adding beaded leaves and a beaded cabochon face and more goodies to her soon.

The last immediate project is a fairy house made from a small bird house. This is a contest on a a yahoo doll group called Making Dolls. Wonderful and talented bunch of ladies on there. The group has done a lot to spark my imagination and keep me going at times.

Many more projects are planned but still in the planning stages such as more bottle spirits, mixed media projects, maybe some cloth dolls, and some Steampunk done my way.

Until then I bid you adieu and hope everyone has very Happy Holidays.

The Christmas graphic was made by me using Paint Shop Pro. The elf , text, and holly pics are the original creations of Outlawbydesigns. More of her elements can be seen at http://www.freepsptubes.com/ and http://www.outlawbydesigns.com/ . She has some free tubes for download for those of you that work with graphics programs and also has cd's of her work for sale as well as subscription service to her members site to get all of the things she makes for up to a year. All are reasonably priced and beautifully done.

Monkey King

Been busy getting Christmas presents done. This is for a friend of mines 12 year old. It won first place in a beading contest also. Friend was trying to get me to do art dolls and I was hesitant. Then remembered all the beanie babies my daughter had so I confiscated them and this was the first one I did. His name is Monkey King Tiki. The wings are hand beaded and are almost 8 inches long. Was gonna change out the wings yesterday but he threw a fit so he kept his beaded wings. I think they really suit him.