Every Dollmaker Has a Few Santas in Their Closet.

I found some snapshots of some of the very first dolls I ever made and thought I would share them with you. I started by making Santa dolls about twenty years ago. Most doll folk I know have a few of these guys in their past.

This is the only Santa I ever wanted to keep forever. We have many musicians in our clan and this guy felt like family with his fiddle ready to be bowed and his singing mouth. He is the only one I dust off and set up every winter.

This Santa found his way into a friends house as a gift. There weren't very many early Santas that I wasn't a little afraid of. Catching the right Santa expression is difficult to say the least. I'm sorry to say that I churned out my fair share of this next guy......

Maybe he was a Halloween Santa?

:D

Making Faces

Here are some of the face molds I've produced over the years. I think it's time to update the collection and make them available to everyone. In the past I've only given my students the opportunity to purchase them.

These are the products of five or six different face molds. Most of these pieces were included in classes and given to the students so they could practice painting detail.

This is the first mold I ever made of one of my dolls. I have a few of these ones left in a bin in the studio.

This is the original doll without her wig.

Here is another mold I pulled from an early doll. I like this one because you can see the teeth. These simple little molds hold a surprising amount of detail.

I'm thinking of putting these on ETSY. Any thoughts?

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!

The cover of PolymerCAFE Magazine!

This project was the hardest ever to keep under wraps.There are sooooooo many step by step pics included in these instructions this issue must be HUGE! Follow the links to get yours.

I are still blushing and my face hurts from smiling....

:D

Tell me you love her as much as I do!
I am so honored to be included in this fabulous publication!
And to score a Halloween Issue cover is like a dream come true!

And seriously.......... check out that cute little steampunk guy Kathy Davis gave birth to!
GENIUS!!!!!

Some People Just Don't Like To Get Wet!

Maggs and I decided it was time to bathe the dog.
I don't think he enjoyed it very much!

My Work Table

The new Planet of the Apes movie was a huge hit with us!

I don't want to spoil it for anyone out there so all I'm going to say is this movie gave us a "that could happen" beginning to the series. We even bought the box set of the original movies so the kidiots could see them. It was a great day!

It occurred to me yesterday that we could dust off the flying monkey prosthetic we did with Maggs a few years ago and revamp it into a Zera costume. Here is the original prosthetic build post for anyone interested.

Just thought I'd show you what happens to my work space after I have worked on a project for a week. I try to keep things as organized as I can but it really is a disaster.

For comparison, this is how my workspace starts out. Next three projects due in two weeks! I'm going to be a busy bee.
:D

What are you guys working on?

Today

We're keeping busy around here lately. Today we are off to the city to watch the new Planet of the Apes movie. I LOVE this series of movies!

I blame my Uncle Tom. He dressed my brother up like this when the original movie first came out. That is plain old plasticine stuck on my brother Wade's face. I have no idea how he made it stick there I think it was just luck. Pretty cool beans just the same. It's what started my love of all things special effects and nerdy. I blame him!
:)

Maggs found this on the top of our pink lemon aid ice-cream when she cracked it open. It makes me smile too.

I have been spending my evenings in curlers.

Maggs and I have some new earring cuff ideas after our vacation.

Will let you know how the movie was.

:D

It Happened Again. The Monster Meatloaf Dinner Party Returns.

We've been working way too hard around here with no play in between. We have had to turn down all kinds of cool social events, camping with DOOM, good and true friend's birthday bashes, Pirates with Ira, mostly because I had commissions due. I love that there is so much creative work around for me and am gobsmacked that my little business is growing, but I have to remember to play with my friends every few weeks at least. We decided on a dinner party yesterday. Then this happened.

It's The Meatloaf!!!!
One pound of old cheddar on the inside, one pound of ground turkey (Trying to keep it healthy after the whole gallbladder failure and removal), two pounds of extra lean ground beef, one pound of thick cut bacon. I added peppers and garlic and spices and breadcrumbs and eggs to the meat before I wrapped the cheese with it.

We baked it for two hours at 325.

I used the electric knife my brother got me for Christmas to cut it. Worked like a dream. The fork is three times the size of a regular fork. A giant one for serving. The meatloaf was ginormous!

We had some retroish hors d oeuvres. Mini sausages in pineapple pepper sauce and a pinned pineapple with cheese and grapes. We also had layered jello and frog eye ambrosia salad for desert.

Anybody want a meatloaf sandwich?
:D

Sebastian needed an after dinner nap too!

Our Version of.... Frog Eye Ambrosia Salad

We've been enjoying this salad for years. It's a messed up version of Frog Eye Salad meets Ambrosia Salad. I'm afraid it's probably very bad for you, but it is delicious and it has a texture that only a mother could love. A conversation starter at parties for sure. If you like a good tapioca pudding, this salad is for you.

Frog Eye Ambrosia Salad

Ingredients to build the salad:

2 cups of uncooked acini di pepe pasta
2 cups of whipping cream
3 tbsp of sugar
1 cup of vanilla yogurt
1 tin of mandarin orange segments
1 tin of pineapple segments
1 cup of sweetened coconut
3 large handfuls of coloured mini marshmallows

Add the sugar and whipping cream to a large bowl.

whisk until stiff peaks form

fold in the yogurt until blended

this is the package of acini di pepe I used. It's teeny little pasta balls, smaller than regular tapioca by about half the size

Boil the acini di pepe noodles as you would any pasta. Cook them until they are just a little bit firm in the center, about 8 minutes.

Drain the pasta and rinse it in cold water to stop it cooking. Let it remain in the colander until it has drained completely. Make sure to use a colander with small holes.

Put the pasta into a large container. Drain the liquid from the orange segments and add them to the pasta.

Drain and add the pineapple

Add the marshmallows

and the coconut

now add the whip cream and yogurt mixture and fold it in until everything is combined.

serve and enjoy it right away or store it in the fridge covered until you need it.

I hope your family enjoys this as much as mine does.

YUMMY!

Lighting and Using the $13.00 Light-box.

We went to Canadian tire and picked up some clip lights. I had some in the garage for the dart board and wasn't going to spend the money for new ones but they were under ten dollars each so I splurged. I guess you could say this makes my $13.00 light-box into a $43.00 light-box........ But it's still very inexpensive to make (even better if you already have clip lights) and it works like magic.

Here's how it went.

I am using an old tv stand to hold the light-box. The clip on lights hold nicely onto the stand frame. You could use directional desk lamps with goose-necks also. I just happen to like me a good clip lamp. Use what you have around the house. The only important thing to remember is you want to use a warm light. The curly bulbs give a much warmer light than an old school solid bulb. Having three lights, one aimed at each of the three tissue paper windows has eliminated most of the nasty shadows. I played with the light angle and layered and un-layered more and less tissue paper to adjust the shadowing.

Keep the light bulbs away from the issue paper. They get warm and could start a fire if you leave them on and walk away. I only light the lamps when I'm right there using the light-box.

There is still some shadow in this shot, but overall I like what I'm seeing in the picture as far as detail and correct colours. I can see loads of fingerprints in this project. Something I'll have to watch in future if I'm going to be taking clean shots like this.

It's hard to get good shots of clear anything. So I threw a plastic bead bracelet in the box to see how that would work. Once again I'm pretty pleased with the results. I used the macro setting on my little digital camera for most of these shots. I'm still getting some shadow here and will have to play a bit more with filtering the light.

Here is another clear item. It's really hard to get the detail inside resin pieces. It's a leaf inside the resin with loads of gold sparkle. I'm not very happy with this shot and will have to practice loads more with resin pictures.

Some of the shell pedants I made after our vacation. Thought I would try to get some professional looking shots with these. It was tricky. Propping successfully without seeing the prop is difficult. I used a black twist tie coiled up to prop the piece up a bit and give some interest with the angle.

These next shots show how different a piece can look on a different background. I tried a few different pieces of scrap-booking fabric. I'm not sure what one works best. I may be partial to the plain white.

Let me know what you think about the whole homemade light-box thing. I'm really interested to know if you have used one and how dealt with it.

Light-box Build For $13.00

I take an unreasonable amount of detail pictures for project instructions. Normally I have to either work in the dining room to capture great lighting, or lug each step upstairs into the dining room from my studio so I can get an acceptable photograph. Both options are a huge inconvenience...... I want to be able to do all the steps to a project right there in my studio, so I decided it was time to build a light-box so I can create shadow-less detail photographs in the dark spooky basement studio.

Thought I'd share what happens here with you.

Things you will need to build a light-box:

Two three by four foot sheets of foam core ($5.00 each)
One pack of tissue paper from the dollar store ($1.00) I used three sheets of the ten pack.
One roll of packing tape ($1.00) I used about an eighth of the roll
One sheet of white Bristol board ($1.00)

Tools you will use:

An art knife or exacto blade or box cutter to cut the foam core
A straight edge long ruler to measure and cut against
A cutting surface
Pencil

Cut one piece of foam core 20" by 20"
and four pieces 20" by 15"

Three of the 20" by 15" pieces will have the middles cut out.
Measure a 2" border around the edges of these three pieces.
I used a grid ruler for quilting to get really even borders.

I used the grid ruler as a guide and cut out the middles of these three pieces using my box cutter.
BE CAREFUL!!!
Seriously.... don't cut the table or floor or yourself.
It's easy to make a mistake so go slow and take care.

Lay the pieces flat like this. The 20" by 20" piece is in the middle and the non cut out 20" by 15" piece is on the bottom. Tape along the edges that meet.

Fold the sides up and tape them with small pieces of tape just to make sure everything is fitting ok.

Check to make sure everything is pretty square and fitting correctly. Make any adjustments by re-cutting now if you have to.

Flip the box up onto it's base. (The solid 20" by 15" piece is the base.)
Re-tape all the joins so they are solid and permanent.

Cover each opening with a single sheet of tissue paper. Tape along the outside of each sheet to prevent wrinkling. Wrinkles cause shadows later.

Looks pretty good so far!
(Why YES... that IS a Storm Trooper helmet on the living room coffee table!)

Cut a piece of Bristol board to fit from the bottom front edge of the box to the top inside edge and tape it in place temporarily. You may want to change this card later because of wear or damage and don't want to have to pull the box apart to remove it. Small pieces of tape in the corners will do fine. I plan on covering this board up with decorative paper or fabric for most backgrounds. Just need the card there for support.

I'll post next time about lighting the box and let you see how the pictures compare to real daylight shots.

Have any of you had success with a home made light-box?
I'd love to hear from you!
:D