A Witch, Unicorns and an Arctic Hare.

Its been a busy few months for me with shows, meetings, appointments and a much needed weekend away with my friends. So I have neglected this blog for nearly two months, but I'm here and I wanted to show you the new dolls I have made since my last post.

As always I try to have at least one of my small Witch doll's available and in October I made Sabrina.

I've had the cotton in my stash for a while and it was originally meant for another doll, but I felt it was nice for Sabrina. She has found her new forever home and was consequently my 100th sale on Etsy so she helped me pass a milestone in my Etsy Shop. 

I have also tried something different with two new small dolls and they are both Unicorn Princesses called Aura and Eluna. 

Both feature a handmade polymer clay horn, satin / taffeta bodies with chiffon skirts and trimmed with lace and crystals. 

They were fun to make and I have a few more horns spare including some larger ones so I could make a larger doll at some point. 

As I said its been a busy few months and quite a few of my dolls have found their new Forever homes, it has been sad to say goodbye to them but I know they will be loved.  But it has meant I needed to make some new dolls and large ones too. Which brings me to the last of my recent Dolls Arabella the Arctic Hare. 

 The pattern was a dream to make and what drew me was the eyes and it has given me a new style for faces. I made her in silk and cotton fabrics which were all in white ivory and cream and I knew straight away I wanted to give her an Arctic Hare look.

I trimmed her with cream and lace ribbons along with a ceramic heart pendant made by Kiln Fired Art. The hair colour was tricky as I wanted to use white but it didn't look right, next was a dark red but still it wasn't right but in the end a pale grey seemed to work and took on a slight lavender tint. 

Arabella was a nightmare to take a decent photo being all pale colours but I'm so pleased with how she turned out. I've always wanted to make an ethereal looking doll and she seemed to happen by herself as it always seems to with the dolls they take on their own personality. 

Arabella made her debut a week ago and very quickly found her new forever home, which means I need to make some more dolls. So next time I may be blogging about a new witch, a mermaid and another large doll. 

Until next time.

Vic xx

Christmas Pixie Elves

Its been a busy few weeks and sadly I've had not a lot of time to create but I did manage to fins some time to make some new Art Doll Brooches and this years Christmas Cornish Pixie Elves.

As you can see from the photo below there are two new witch Art doll brooches and also two Sugar Skull brooches which have a paper flower in their hair. The two Sugar skulls are already in my Etsy shop and the witches will be available soon.

For the Christmas Pixie Elves I painted a family set in teal and added a snowflake decoration in white. 

I also painted a large Pixie Elf with a Santa in the shape of a crescent moon, I was going to paint a bell on the end of his hat but decided that a star would look nicer. 

The next Pixie Elf I painted I decided to paint a snowman but this one is different to the snowmen I have painted before. 

I have a busy weekend with a show in the Artist Limelight group on Facebook it will feature a few halloween and maybe the christmas Pixie elves. Details will be on all my social media over the weekend including a link to the group. 

Until next time

Vic xx

School Holidays and Pixie Elves

Its been a busy few weeks as it has been the school holidays, in fact girlie and the lad went back to school this morning and it is a bit quiet. We had plans to go a few places but because they are teenagers they didn't get up until midday or later so we had to shelve those plans. But I did manage to get them going twice and we made a visit to Launceston Castle.

 

They hadn't been there since they were at Primary school so it felt like they had never been before and they seemed to enjoy it. In fact I even managed to get a selfie at the top of the keep with them.

The second trip out was to Boscastle and a quick visit round the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic, they had an interesting exhibition on about Halloween past and present, worth a visit if you get the chance. 

Because it was the holidays I tend not to get much work done plus I had the added problem of my Muse / Mojo / Inspiration and general get up and go had disappeared somewhere. But it did come back for a short while and it was enough for me to make four new Cornish Pixie Elves. 

Runestone

 Runic and Runestone I enjoyed making, they both have runes written on them in silver and gold. Each one has different Runes which are Old English and Viking Runes.

Runic

The next two Cornish Pixie Elves are large elves and had been in my sketch book for a little while and it felt right to make them. 

Cupcake

I've always wanted to make a cupcake pixie elf, I'm pleased with how it turned out and I suppose it would make a great birthday gift with the candle in the cupcake.

Henge

The Henge started off as an idea of a stone circle and I thought a black silhouette would look good. 

I have a few new ideas beginning to swirl around my head so I'm going to grab my sketch book and doodle before they disappear. 

Until next time. 

Vic xx

New Elves

I was busy at towards the end of the month painting some new Cornish Pixie Elves, since then I've not been as busy making or creating. Mainly my mojo decided to go off to warmer climes and is probably still sunning itself on a beach sipping cocktails. Also the past two weeks Mr Cornish Dragon and I have been busy being a taxi for the Girlie as she is currently on Work Experience in Boscastle. Its a forty minute drive each way twice a day so we have been taking it in turns, good job the view is stunning though one day it was quite foggy and mizzly, the photos below were taken by girlie while I was driving and they really haven't done the view any justice.

So back to the Cornish Pixie Elves, I decided to get prepared for Halloween and have two new Halloween pixies this year. I grabbed my sketchbook for some inspiration and decided on painting a gravestone and a witches hat on the bodies of two small elves. 

Next I got out a couple of bigger elves and I had always wanted to paint a dragonfly elf, I used some new pink paint for the body and some of my metallic acrylic ink. 

The next elf was something else I have wanted to paint for a while was a peacock, I had sketched a stylised version in my sketchbook and I decided to go from that one rather than something more complicated. 

Again I used some new pink paint and the acrylic inks, which sadly don't photograph so well but they do look fabulous and shimmery.

It will soon be the school holidays and hopefully I shall get creating on a couple more witches and maybe a mermaid and then I will be planning some christmas Pixie elves and dolls. But first I will be busy with a show on the LBA Limelight Facebook Group which starts Wednesday 13th July at 2 pm British Summer Time for 48 hours. And the Dragonfly and Peacock Pixie ELves will be joining inon the fun. 

Until next time

Vic xx

 

Trying out something New.

I've been very busy as usual and I have been busy making some new dolls two of my small ones and a larger doll from a Pattern By Sharon Mitchell, which stretched my skills. Before I show you the new dolls I wanted to look back at some of my older dolls.

This was my first full sized doll I made way back in  January 2013 and I still have her stashed away for safe keeping. I made a couple of other dolls and then I made a pirate doll, which was the first one that was sold in my Etsy shop. It was also the first one where I changed the pattern to suit my vision of the doll. 

I've learnt a lot in the process of those three years even designing my own patterns for my smaller dolls and mermaids. And I'm still learning and pushing myself to improve my skills and of course my dolls. Recently I bought two patterns by Sharon Mitchell one was on hands, it has some great tips and I felt my doll hands certainly needed a little bit of an improvement. Also there was a pattern that I fell in love with as the character of the face really called to me. So I made a start on it last week and finished Prudence earlier this week. 

With this dolls the colouring was completely different and part of the shading was done before the needle sculpting which made sense. Also it only used three colours of pencil, two pigma pens and my usual white gel pen. To be honest I thought I had over done her face but by the time she was fully assembled she looked great. 

Not only did I learn a different style of colouring the face I also learnt a few new things on the body, one was how to enhance the breast and give the look of a collar bone, also the dents in a spine and needle sculpted nipples. This was good for me as I hate sewing breasts on to dolls it's fiddly and I usually end up nearly throwing the doll across the room in frustration (like the new mermaid doll). I admit I loved making Prudence though I did add legs to her as it was supposed to be stump doll and I will be trying out the new colouring style again as it does give more character. 

Nerisa is the mermaid doll, who nearly got thrown across the room, small boobs are harder and fiddly. I did eventually like them, as I used the same material as her tail and after adding ribbon it looked like a bikini top. I also made another small doll at the same time she was originally going to be a witch or a fairy but I decided she didn't need wings or a witches hat. 

I'll probably have a couple of weeks break from doll making, I do have my eye on another Sharon Mitchell pattern that will mean using cotton lycra for the first time and is full of even more character. 

But in the meantime the three dolls will be stars of my next show in the Facebook LBA Limelight Group, which starts Friday 3rd June at 13:00 GMT for 48 hours. After that they will be for sale in my ETSY Shop or on my Website .

Until next time

Vic xx

Baby Trolls and Witch Brooches

Its been a busy month here and haven't had any time to update on here. But today as I've been busy  preparing and taking photos of the new creations well it would be rude not too say hello and show you what I've been making.

Oggle and Dingle Baby Trolls

I had the pattern for these two baby Trolls for a while and I finally felt ready to try them out. As usual I had great fun though the fingers are really fiddly. 

 I had to hand sew the head together as it was a bit too tiny for the sewing machine. I used clear fishing line for the needle sculpting for the first time and I liked using it on the nose and lips..
The pattern doesn't give the trolls hair but they looked odd with no hair so I needle felted in some merino wool to give them both a shock of hair.

Also I really didn't want to make a full doll or mini doll so I decided to make some Art Doll head Brooches, which I haven't made for a very long time. Well I wondered what to make and finally decided to make some more Witch Brooches. 

Lorna, Betsy and Jules, Witch art Doll Brooches.

I used the same pattern for each head and as you can see they all turned out differently and each with an individual personality. I do enjoy making the smaller dolls but it is nice to make a large one occasionally. 

Hopefully soon I can start painting some new Cornish Pixie Elves as I've had a couple of ideas and I want to make some more bears at some point.

Until Next time

Vic xx

Betsy

Lorna

Jules