New Studio

Well we're into the mess of the new studio. I finally convinced my husband to switch rooms with me and to make "his" TV room into my art studio and my sewing room into his TV room.

Well convince is a nice word for bribe. I pretty much had to promise him the moon and the stars to get him to do this, but now that he started he's really into it.

So far he's almost done with the murphy bed and then he's start with the counter tops. Everything is quite a mess here and it's definitely stopping me from being very creative. but soon enough it will be done and all will be well with the world again. Here are some photos of the progress.

Finally done

Well i finished the 8 necklaces and once again didn't take a photo. What's up with that? Well now I have to start working on the necklaces to sell at Minda's. I bought new beads today and will start on them tomorrow.
These should go faster since I don't have anything specific to follow. I can just use what I have and follow my own ideas. Much faster.
I also have to make some Christmas gifts as well.
Good think they moved the challenge due date from Jan to April. I'm making the Mr. Whiteface clown doll from Terry Pritchetts(?) Discworld series. He's sort of an evil clown. (Aren't they all?)
Anyway it should be fun and I'll be able to start right after the holidays.
Well, got to go now.
Lorraine

More orders!

Well, I delivered my orders and low and behold, she ordered 8 more. Double Yikes! Now I really have to get busy. I started working on them and realized I didn't have as many beads as I thought I did. Now I'll have to go out & buy more beads.

I've put in some pictures of the 3 I made already. I forgot to take pics of the 3 I already made 7 sold to her. Not such a good salesperson...am I.

Anyway, I guess I'm back in the jewelry business, and the handbag business and the re-fashioned clothing business as well. Busy Busy Busy.

Happy Thanksgiving to All and to all a good night....whoops..wrong holiday. LOL

Holiday Show

Yesterday was the holiday craft show at our church and it was a great day. Busy but not crazy. A steady stream of customers most of the day. At first I was getting nervous, as was my friend Cindy..although she was trying not to let me see. No one was buying anything. Just looking and putting down.

Then suddenly.....the tide started to change and we were selling handbags and jewelry. Yea! We really didn't want to have to lug it all home again. We sold about 15 bags and a few necklaces. We even took some orders for what we didn't have. Yikes!

Well here are some pics of how the table looked and if you look hard you can see Cindy as well. Thanks to Ginny for getting me squeezed into the fair at the last minutes and Cindy for helping me out that day. I've had to update the Unique Design blog to show which bags were sold. WhooHoo!

First Show

Well I had my craft fair show on Saturday. And yes... of course... it poured raining outside. Does that really surprise anyone? So between the rain, the economy and the not so great marketing of the event it was pretty much a dud.
I did sell a few things, and I got an idea of what people like, although no one wanted to spend any money. I also found out who my clientele really is. Now all I have to do is find them and sell to them. Not as easy as it sounds but do-able.
Anyway I got to meet some new people...crafting people, which is nice and maybe made a new friend as well. One can never have enough friends. We'll see.
I forgot to take a pic of my table. Stupid! I took the camera and everything, and then didn't take a pic. Oh well, take my word for it.. it was ok. I will change things in the future but it was alright for the day.
Well now I'm going to go and clean up the mess in the sewing room so I can get back to work in there. Needless to say, it's quite a mess.
Also I'm working on a slide show of my handbags. There's a link now, but it only has my old ones, and not all the new ones. I'll put those in shortly.
Lorraine

The weight of it!

So here I am 18lbs lighter. It was a lot of hard work and I still have at least 10lbs left to lose. I'm sort of stuck in a rut now. Back and forth with the same 5 lbs. I'm going to have to do something to shake it up. Less food...more exercise.

Here are some before and after pics.

Looking at the "after" pic, I might need 15lbs!

For those who are interested...I went on the Medifast diet on June 20th and to date have lost 18lbs, It's really pretty easy and I'm not really hungry on it, which is remarkable for me.
I also go to Curves 3x's a week as well.
I might add, walking to this regiment. Oh yea, I also play my Wii game.
So that's it for me for now.
Back to the diet.
Lorraine

What's new here.

Well things have been busy. I recently started working at a beautiful natural fiber/art to wear boutique in Charlottesville. It's really nice and I like working there. Very relaxing...at least so far.
I get to help decorate and do the display windows and the store as well as work the store itself. It's only part time but I really like it so far. The name is Minda's boutique and she's a sweetheart. She & her husband use some of the profits to help with their ministry overseas. Really nice people.
She also said she will give me a small place to sell some of my art to wear items as well. They will be setting up a web site soon.

Our new addition.

As some of you know, we've been looking for a new dog for a few months now and sure enough a few days after Rusty left us...we found one. I swear Rusty send him to us. He's perfect!

He was found walking around a landfill with another little dog. They were so pathetic. Long matted hair, dirty and skinny.

But now we got him and he's all shaved and cute as a button.His name is spanky and he's about 1-1/5 yrs old. He's a blackish gray terrier/poodle mix. Here are the first of many pics to come.

Back Again!

Hi to all,

Well I've been busy and haven't had time to write. That's not good so I'll try to be better at that.

In the mean time, my poor little Rusty ( 17yr old Corgi mix) passed away. He had gotten very sick and eventually his kidneys gave out. Basically he finally gave up. He had a wonderful life...well at least the last 4 for sure. We adopted him when he was 13 from the shelter so we only know those last few years.

But now he's with Rosie and Toby at the Rainbow Bridge. We'll see him again there.

Here are some pics of our Rusty.

My first doll visitor- Mimi

Well she finally arrived and none the worse for wear. she's is a beautiful felted doll. Wow I was blown away from the talent of this woman. I don't think you can appreciate it from the photos. I'll try & take a better close up one next.

We took her to Charlottesville and went to eat at fishbones.

She was quite the hit.

I hope you enjoy her and much as I am.

Lorraine

4th of July was great. We got to spend it with my brother David and his family. As you can see we had a great time. The kids love the dogs and got to play with them for the whole week. Not too sure how the dogs liked it, but they all survived.



At one point we left my husband Cris to watch the kids. Needless to say... this is how it ended up. Who's watching who?


All in all we had a great time and I can't wait until they come back again. It's a long drive, especially with two small kids, but I'm sure they'll forget the pain and plan another trip here soon. lol


Love
Aunt Lorraine xxxooo

Esmeralda goes on a Trip!

Well, I've joined in a travel doll challenge where we make a small doll (10") and then we send it to 5 people on our list from all over the world and they each keep the doll for 2 weeks. They will also be sending me their dolls as well.

During this 2 weeks you take the doll all around the "world" that you live in, taking photos etc. then when the 2 weeks is up you pass the doll on and get a new one until we each get a chance to visit with all 5 dolls.

I found this very challenging because as a new doll artist I'm still very critical of my work, and I know that most of the people in this club are all wonderful seasoned doll artists. Very intimidating!!!

Anyway I finally stopped working on her... and she is what she is. Definitly not my best work, but it's funny because she ended up looking a little like my mom. She has the same crooked nose my mom had. No matter how I tried to fix it, it just stayed crooked. I didn't notice it until I saw the pictures. It's so funny.

Anyway her name is Esmeralda because she is very prim & proper, ready for travel in her faux fur and long skirt suit. However...I think with a little prodding she can be quite the party girl. We'll see.....

I'll keep you up to date as I get the dolls.

Lorraine

Challenges

So I keep joining these different challenges and then I stress myself to the max trying to come up with some idea of what to do. Right now I'm doing the travel doll. this is really hard. I've never worked quite this tiny before and it's making me a little crazy. Especially when I saw what others are doing for their travel doll. YIKES! As usual I'm having problems with the face. I think I need to take a face class. LOL

Here are some pics of some of the previous challenges I've gotten myself into. The first two was from my Las Vegas days with the Silver Doll-ers. We had a Thrift store challenge. We bought $20.00 worth of junk & had to make a doll from it. The other was the parts challenge we're we had to pick parts from a bog and make a doll. She's Alice through the looking glass.

The third is from the Doll Street Runway challenge which was an evil elf, out to meet the queen at court and the last was a doll costume make from "shapies" only. Enjoy!

Our new grandbaby!

Here are pics of our new baby granddaughter Isabella who is 1 month old now. She's a real cutie and we got to visit with her on Father's Day. Here are the pics of her with Granddaddy, Daddy and Great-Granddaddy.

We love ya, Isabella!

My first doll class

So I finally did get to go to a doll making class...right before I left Las Vegas. I took a class with Natalie Hamade who taught us how to make her Nissa Doll. It was great fun & I really learned a lot of great things to help with making my dolls. Here is a pic of my version. It's a little cut down, since I was in the middle of moving and couldn't pack & ship the regular size doll which is quite big & heavy.

Anyway I loved the class and loveed Natalie. She was such fun and a great teacher.

Thanks Natalie!

Lampshade Dolls

Here are my "lampshade" dolls that I made a while ago. I found these small lampshades and thought they'd make perfect dolls somehow. I decided to see how many ways I could make these dolls using different items. The first was from paper mache, then corn husks, buttons and coins, rope, lace, fur, and finally leather.

The doll bodies are all different. Some are old "Barbie" type dolls where I re-painted their faces, some are just plain wood balls with faces that I painted on them and one is actually and old stuffed animal. Since these were some of the first dolls I ever made they are somewhat primitive.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy my adventure into doll making.

Some more art works...oldies but goodies!

Here are some old pieces that I've worked on the last year or so. As you can see I've been involved with all sorts of art work. I used to think it was just me who couldn't settle on one type of art medium, but now I see I'm in very good company.

Mama's got a brand new bag.

New handbags I've been working on.