Awards and Thank you

Oh my gosh another award! I am not sure if I deserve all these awards from you lovely people. Nicola has just made a special mention of my blog in hers. Thank you so much Nicola you are much too kind. I really enjoy seeing, appreciating and getting inspiration from all sorts of art and craft work even though I may not do it myself and your blog is really inspiring.

Another award!!

Ok so I thought I was going away but due to circumstances beyond my control I am still here. Hopefully I will fly on Tuesday. This comes as a real surprise to me! Two awards in such small space of time! Merci beacoup! Sylvie you are too kind. There are so many creative people around so consider all of you being awarded this award by me however here are some that I would like to mention

spiralsun65

JudiA

Patti

Jean Bernard

Stephanie

Going away

Just a quick post to show you what I made for Mavis before I leave. I will be away in India for 2 weeks. Talk to you all after I get back. Have a good holiday those of you who are on holidays and those who are going to go away. Have a lovely summer anyway. Will be back soon. Au revoir and a bientôt

Meeting with Judi Ward

On Monday I met up with Judi Ward at Mavis's place. I was really thrilled to meet Judi as she is the one who gave me a kick start in doll making. What a small world we live in. I never ever imagined that one day I would meet her. We had a lovely time talking about mostly dolls is it a wonder lol! Judi gave Mavis and me this lovely pin. I gave her one too which is nowhere as beautiful as hers. i made one for Mavis too but couldn't get it finished so will have to post it to her and show you the picture later as well. Sorry for the aweful photos as my phone battery was running low. Bad organisation as always lol! Here you go Linda this is my pin for Judi This is Judi's pin

Judi and Mavis with Mavis's lovely bears Here you can see Judi's Ruby Buttons and Violet Pickeles in the back ground.

Tagged

The very talented Linda tagged me so here goes..

1.What was I doing 10 years ago? Working as a technician in a University in London

2.Name 5 things on todays 'to do' list finish the pins that I am making as a gift, Put some stuff away as some workmen are coming to do the bathroom, have a shower, download the camera, go to sleep.

3.Snacks I enjoy...I don't eat much snacks

4.Things I would do if I was a millionaire....I would love to travel the world.

5.Places I have lived...Here and India

I will tag Colleen, Sue, MaryO, Sherry, Tami

Sculpt

I was trying to do something constructive with some polymer clay that I have. So I tried my hand at sculpting. I followed directions from a free tutorial on the net http://www.cdhm.org/tutorials/learn-to-sculpt-face-and-head.html It is actually for a fairy face but I changed and added clay here and there to make it look like an old person. I was actually thinking of a Santa Clause face but I don't think this looks anything thing like it. At least this face is not my idea of a Santa face. I think for a first time ever sculpt it came out ok. Although it has become rather big from the original size I started out with. But I have no idea how to make it all look smooth not that I am going to do anything with this one it is not good enough. I don't have an oven either to bake it. I know one could do it in a normal cooking oven but I am not keen to bake clay in what I cook. But I do enjoy the process of sculpting. I will just practice a bit more and see how I do. Many of you are good at sculpting so if you can point out my errors or what I need to add or substract from the face please feel free to do so.

Funkins the little pixie was trying to catch the sun while it was out on his favourite toadstool in his corner of the garden. When suddenly... whooosh and in his fright he fell off his perch. He looked up and was astonished to see that on his favourite toadstool a magical looking creature was sitting and looking down at him. Funkins being such a sweet natured fellow got up sat on his little toadstool and waved to her. Ahoy up there! What are you? Are you are fairy? The magical creature answered sorry dear little fellow to startle you so! Yes I am the gypsy fairy and my name is Serephina. What a funny little creature you are. I guess you must be a pixie. Funkins said he was a pixie and he could do lots of funny things that is why he is called Funkings. He said he could do this..

and this! and even this! Serephena laughed and laughed at all his funny little antics. Then Funkins wanted know if he could have a closer look at her for which she agreed. So up went Funkins. He was facinated by her jewel encrusted hair.

Her jewel encrusted magical shoes! and her oh so delicate shimmery wings that he was afraid to even touch them. But he was very careful with them and decided that he would like her to stay in his woods and be friends. This is a 8" inch doll which I decided that I could do it only with a stretch fabric. So I used some of the old Doe suede that I had left over. I needle sculpted her and hand stitched her cloths. Although I have made pin dolls smaller than this doll I have never hand stitched the cloths for tiny dolls. I decided to do it and oh my it was very fiddley working with chiffon and silk fabrics and took me ages. So here she is all complete at last.

PS. You know I don't like throwing away anything so I made Funkins with that tiny bit of paper clay that I had left over.

Award

The very talented Chris passed on this award to me. Thank you Chris. The rules for this award: 1. The winner can put the logo on her blog. 2. Link the person you received your award from. 3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs. 4. Put links of those blogs on yours. 5. Leave a message on the blogs of the girls you've nominated As many bloggers will find that there are so many wonderful blogs around that it is really difficult to choose but for this time I will choose a few that I have come across recently and have enjoyed reading them.

Sandra Everton

Linda

Sesga

India J

Linda Misa

Karen Mallory

More Indian Inspiration

This time when I went to India I took some photos of subjects I thought I might like to paint. I decided to paint today and this is what I painted from the photo that I took. It is not exactly like the photo as I decided to choose what I wanted to paint from the photo. I found the figures in sarees really hard to paint so I just painted 2 lol! there were more ladies in the photo and some men. But I think it looks ok with just those two ladies standing and the lady sitting down. By the way the lady sitting down is selling chilled lassi (butter milk). I should have used some more techniques in painting that pot of chilled lassi but I just forgot to use them.

Enchanted Toadstools

I seem to do this quite often. I buy things which I think at that moment is a good idea. I bought some Hearty clay for a class that I was going to take with Sherry. I only wanted a little bit of white colour clay. But when I went to buy I saw that they were selling it as a special purchase with some other colours. So I went and bought 3 other colours with grand plans of making some great things out of it. Well you know what happens with these grand ideas they get shelved. Yesterday while searching for something I came across the clays and decided it was time to make some jewelry out of it . So I went and opened all the packets hoping to make this jewelry I had planned. There is always a spoke in the wheel when you plan things and guess what, one of the packets had gone off so there went my grand idea of making designer jewelry lol! The other 2 packets were fine but since I had opened the packets I had to use them. I was so annoyed that without thinking I took the clay out of the packets mixed them up and started kneading them. Slowly this is the shape that evolved. I then painted it with acrylic colours sealed the paint. Embellished it with glitter to my hearts content that even I ended up looking like a Christmas tree. Added pearls and crystals and micro beads to give it texture. I like what has evolved. Actually it looks much better in real life than in a picture. The picture doesn't show all the glitzy stuff that has gone onto it. Now all I need is a little fairy to sit on it to complete the picture.