"I'm Late! I'm Late!" said the White Rabbit

Do you ever get that feeling? The feeling that sneaks up on you and leaves you feeling all panicked and flustered?

I don't feel like I've had a minute to myself in ages. Even feeling rushed to have a shower or eat a meal. But there's no real reason I can think of other than I'm a little off my track at the moment. I have so much to finish and I just don't like it. So many dolls waiting for the final bits and pieces. Things I'm waiting on for some through the mail, finding time to just get my head down and work, and my never ending list of things I want to send with Cerridwen to Linda in Florida so we can get to the next stage of our huge double doll project are just a few. And then what do I go and do???
Decide it's time to start my next sculpt batch :S
I'm Nuts!!!

With me I find sculpting dolls in batches works better for me. I always have a huge list of dolls I'd like to make so I know who roughly half of them are. The rest I like to let just happen, not concentrating too much on what I want them to look like but just letting the faces come together as they want. I'm not lucky enough to have my own studio so you can imagine the state of my house at the moment. As my husband said it looks like forensics have been in and gone nuts with the finger print dust.
I try and get them sculpted, dried, sanded and painted before stringing them together, adding labels so I know who's who and then I can put them away in a box till it's their turn to be dressed and finished.
My poor dear patient husband really doesn't like mess, and me being me just doesn't notice the rows of dolls on the table tops and cards of limbs stood out of kitty reach on the radiators. He's very good to me.

This weekend I worked like a banshee sanding every limb and body and face to smooth perfection. Honestly I can't feel my finger tips but it was worth it. So this week will be all about the paint :)
My Lucrizia Borgia here is getting very fed up of waiting for her lace from China (My fault as it was an amazing deal). But she's looking better now she has some hair, and her eyes are just looking perfect now.

My little seamstress is coming along and her story is growing in my mind day by day. Next she needs something in her hands to sew and a basket of the dolls clothes she makes in her spare time from the scraps the tailor she works for lets her keep. He's a very kind and religious old man that doesn't want to see her having to work the streets like other girls have to.

These four little horror dolls are still waiting for their little coffins as I've found them quite hard to make. It's not the shape or size or even getting them all together that's holding me up, but the lack of proper tools. I really need to invest in a good small precision mitre (and a few other tools too) so I can do these things properly, but they are on their way.
The two little zombies are still too neat and tidy so need to get messed up and dirty before I add some blood and gore :) And the little vampires are almost there.
If your interested in any of these little dolls please just let me know and give me the kick up the bum to get them done. Finished as they are they will be the usual £20 each, and if you'd like them with the coffin they work out to £35.

I'm looking forward to getting home to painting tonight. I love to process of layering up the paint and colours to bring them to life :)


It's a bit of an odd thing to add here now at this point but I just wanted to make my position clear on one little thing. I had an odd situation this week that had a bit of an odd outcome. I found someone on a social media site using one of my photos of one of my dolls as a profile pic, and I felt rather hurt by it. I hadn't been asked and no tags were given to link it back to me. I e-mailed to try and explain that it wasn't that I minded but that I would have appreciated being asked. And asked them to please tag the photo back to me, explaining that (as we all know) it's hard to keep track of our pictures on social media and as it's of my artwork I try my best as you never know which second or third or forth hand party will pick them up and use them as their own.

Am I right?
I believe I am right, and know others will agree. I have asked to use other artists photos for use here and have always given a link to shop or blog or whatever the owner would like. And I have granted the same permission to others to use my photos too. Most of the time I come across one my picture when no-one has asked me they have always normally had a link or at least my name, or even if it's just been a doll related thing somehow.
I don't want to be mean. And I'll always try to be accommodating. If I'd been asked in this case I would probably have said yes so long as a tag was added.  But it's not ok to just take other peoples photos to use as you please, so please don't do it. Please give credit and ask the person first. I know it seems like I'm making a big deal out of what was probably intended as a compliment. But some of us are just small artists, making things because we love to do so and giving away a small piece of our heart every time something leaves us to go to a new home.

Social media doesn't allow us to lock our photos, and most of them insist that the pictures used on their sites are somehow their property, but everyone can see that that just doesn't work.
As an artist our only way of advertising is to send out photos out into the world with the hope that they will be noticed. It's just wrong to take them, and it hurts. Please remember there are real people behind the cameras lens.

You Should Always Wear A Flower

Two little Zombies and two little Vampires waiting for hair.

I often wonder at other people. I wonder how such pretty young girls can feel they need to wear such skimpy clothing for example. Blue with cold and shivering while thinking they look attractive. And I wonder at the cluelessness of the answers you can receive to a simple question. Like the price of an item at a fair that your then made to feel guilty about as the stall holder hadn't checked her pricing before putting an item out.
But most of all, the most irritating and annoying thing of all that makes me wonder, is why is it some people go through life being so mean?

Lucrizia Borgia - Just waiting on a lace delivery so I can carry on.

I'm not for a minute suggesting here that anyone has been really mean to me directly or about my art work. I'm a big girl and I can stick up for myself ;)
But you know the person that only has to walk into a room to get your back up. The one you avoid dealing with at all costs, and do your best never run into???  Them. What's up with them?

Aahhhh! Lollypop heads!!!!! Can you spot my littel devil?

I often think to myself that I'm anti-social. That I don't like people and want to be a hermit doing my own thing and being left alone by the world. But that isn't true. I'm very humbled to know and to have met many lovely people. I have wonderful friends and family and get to talk to amazingly creative and intelligent people all over the world. My recent birthday really showed my just how much I'm cared for. I was really spoilt rotten with wonderful cards and gift and messages and I felt like a princess.
Making my dolls has also led me to meet and talk to a huge range of lovely people that I find hugely inspiring and supportive. So No, I've decided I'm not anti-social. I like people, just not the rude ones.

I love these wonderful Orange eyes <3

I learnt something about myself a few years ago that many of you will understand and know about yourselves already. I'm just odd! And odd is good :)
Why would anyone want to be like someone else? How could we all manage here on earth if we all did and thought the same way? We'd be extinct in no time!
My husband jokes that I'm no longer able to look after myself but he's partly to blame :) I'm lucky to have the most supportive man as part of my life that puts up with me and my strange ideas and odd habits, and also dolls in all shapes and forms and in all various states of undress and states of completion. Even at this moment he has to put up with my mess as I dive into another huge sculpting session. I don't even notice it, but he's very good at ignoring the table tops covered in severed heads, and the rows and rows of limbs hanging from boards propped up on top of the radiators so that the cats can't get at them (the kitten likes to chew!). At least he doesn't mind for a little while and what more can anyone expect.

Limbs!

I'll just never understand why there are still some people in this world that feel they have to fight against everything and everyone around them. Why do they feel that asking nicely or cracking a smile now and then is such a bad thing? And Why, oh why do I have to put up with their crap?????????

Lady of The Lake to be at the top.

Bring back the days when general politeness was the norm. And while your at it make it acceptable for me to wear white gloves whenever I feel like it too :) (not that anything stops me).
Make it socially acceptable for us to turn round on these people and tell them what for or give them a taste of their own attitudes. I want to tell these idiots that my life is stressful enough without their shit on top of it so stop wining and demanding and talk to the rest of the world like an adult. You think you have crap? Well pull up a chair and me and my friends will tell you the proper tale of crap that we all deal with daily and don't go around bitching about like you!

Please excuse my rambling rant my lovely readers. None of you are included with these mad strange things that can't function in society as I know your all lovely :)
My photos have nothing to do with what I'm saying today I know, but I though as this is supposed to be a blog about my dolls I'd include some photos of what I've been making recently :)
Hope your all well and well loved :) Now go wear a flower for the rest of the day and see just how much it can make you smile :)
xxx

Lucrizia and a little seamstress.

Creepy Coffin Dolls - Zombie And Vampire Fun

Where does the time go?
I'm sitting here looking at the beautiful sunshine outside wishing my day away so I can get home to my sewing and dolls. As usual I'm a busy girl with lots to do, but I've given myself this week to work more on my Elizabeth I doll, sewing on more medallions and beads. She's getting heavier and heavier, and the more weight I add the more astounded I am these women could do anything at all. They must have had huge thigh and shoulder muscles!!!
I'm also waiting for something rather special to arrive from America. I was very naughty, but I'm sure you'll all understand how it is to fall in love with a doll. And the second I saw Loopy Boopy's wonderful Minny I knew she had to come live with me. I'm so excited to meet her in person :)

At the moment I'm waiting on delivery of new supplies so I can start my next big sculpting session, and as well as the usual wood and clay I'm getting some modellers strong strip wood to make up some coffins for a new series of peg dolls I'm planning. So I've been working on some quiet sewing of another 1500's doll in the meantime, but this one a very different lady.
If you've not heard of Lucretia Borgia I'd highly recommend a quick look at Wikipidia to read about this ambitious, murderous, scheming woman and her blood thirsty family.

I had the idea to make some cute creepy characters like vampires and zombies in their very own little coffins. And got myself some thicker wood to have a go first in a bigger size. A lady on Facebook was interested in a zombie for her daughter so I had a great excuse to get the tools out and start working on how to get all those angles right. It's amazing how the past can come up and give you a kick sometimes, and I found myself digging about looking for my old technical illustration tools to help me in my plans. It's been so long I was amazed I still remembered how to use them all, but I guess when you really want to make something then it'll get made one way or the other :)

This little doll to go inside is named Zoe (I know it's cheesy - Zoe the Zombie), and I dressed her in some drawers and a shift with a torn petticoat and corset under her bodice and torn skirts. Then I got to go to town tearing, staining and generally grunging her up to look like she'd crawled out of the ground.
I also took my sharp needles out and gave her some scars and nasty wounds which I painted with blood and thick gloss to get them all gooey and disgusting. I have to make more of these. They are so much fun :)

Once I'd finished Zoe I looked around my few unfinished dolls and it suddenly occurred to me that this was just the project I've needed to finish my doll Bound.
She's never looked quite right to me, although she was just as I set out to make her. But as soon as I saw her with a coffin I knew that I'd missed out on the fact that Bound was a vampire. An hour later there she was - New sharp shinny fangs gleaming, her rope exchanged for chains, laying in her coffin with a hand cut crucifix and a sharpened stake for just in case.
If your interested in Bound she'll be on offer to my Blog readers only until the 11th June priced at £45 instead of £65. Just get in touch so I can adjust her listing for you if your interested :)

I can't wait to get started on my next sculpting session, although my Hubby would rather not have to act as my vice holding tiny arms and legs still so I can drill through them to be jointed. And while I'm doing that I'll be able to make up some mini Vamps and Zombies to add to my shop.
Hope your all having fun :)
xxx