A Wall Doll

Today's photo is of a pretty little wall doll that I made for a doll challenge. We were given a pattern and asked to create a doll in whatever style we felt this shape represented. I had a piece of lovely lilac colored fabric and starting with that as my center, I started to set aside other fabrics that coordinated with the lilac until I created a very pretty combintion that I liked. Then I pieced and sewed these fabrics into a small crazy quilt, from which I cut the doll's body piece. The arms and head I made from the lilac.

I was at a loss as how to finish this little doll as I had her pictured in my mind as a more exotic style doll than how a quilted fabric is normally used - as in a 'country' style. I remembered that I had a box put away with some unusual bits of fabric that were not what I normally used and when I found it under the bed and opened it - there was this piece of beautiful shimmery net that I had not thought I would ever use but could not bring myself to discard. It was perfect. Added some earrings and she was complete. This is one of the few dolls that I have made that has no facial features. Somehow she was beautiful without them. She is a special doll and hangs on the wall in my studio,

Thank you for looking! Wishing you a good evening!

SU Card Stock Colors and Designer Paper Samples Rings

Well the sun finally came out this afternoon, but now there are severe thunderstorm warnings for our area later today. My weather radio alert siren went off today for the first time this summer and scared me to death! I have it set to send an 'alert' and a weather report if there is potential severe weather in the county I live in and the surrounding counties. I had plugged the radio in about a week ago, as it is that time of year again here in WI for severe storms and/or tornados, but I wasn't expecting the siren to go off as the sun was out and I had definitely not remembered how loud the siren is!

To get to the subject of today's post: One of the most helpful things I have made to assist me in my card making has been to assemble a ring of all the SU card stock color samples by their SU family - Bold Brights, Earth Elements, Rich Regals, Soft Subtles and the 4 In Colors. In addition to that ring, I also made a ring of all the SU Designer Paper series that I have purchased by their individual series. And last, I made a smaller ring of all of the card stock colors by color shade. All of the colors of the SU families listed above - BB, EE, RR, SS and the 4 In Colors - are included together in this one, so that I can see at a glance the difference between the color shades of the different families. (blues, reds, greens, etc.) This was very time consuming I admit, but well worth the effort - as they are each a permanent tool to use and need very infrequent updating.

For the card stock color samples, I used a large scallop circle punch for each color and wrote on the circle the name of the color. I layered these by family and punched a circle of white, wrote the family name on it and put one before each family of colors - these served as dividers. For the DP samples, I again used a large scallop circle punch and this time I just layered the individual pattern samples in each series and wrote on a white divider the name of the DP series and also the coordinating card stock colors used in those patterns. In the smaller color ring, I used a small square scallop punch to punch a square of all the colors of card stock, wrote the color name on it and layered them by color shade with no dividers - just had the reds run into the oranges run into the yellows, etc.

In the photo above you can see the SU card stock colors in the ring on the upper left (each color circle has its color name on it and the white dividers have the family name on them), the Designer Paper samples in the ring on the upper right (white circles have the individual DP series name on them and the pattern circles of that series are layered behind them) and the smaller squares in the ring at the center bottom show all the card stock colors (each square has the color name on it) by color shade.

I hope that my explanation makes sense. If you have any questions on how to create/assemble the rings or would like to purchase one of these rings from me, you can reach me at bdr@chorus.net Thank you for stopping by today and I wish you a good Tuesday tomorrow!

A Silly Card Today

Rain, rain and more rain. Gloomy day here in WI today. I thought I would post a silly card to lighten things up this morning. My son loves the Changito Monkey stamps - and they are cute! So funny and silly and make one smile to look at them. I made this card for him and one for myself. :<} Wishing you a good Sunday!

Thanks for stopping by!

Love These Characters!

I saw quite a few examples of the Sesame Street characters using Stampin' Up punches when looking through one of the galleries on Splitcoaststampers and thought how cute they were! I made them to use on a card and also to cover some Peppermint Patties candy.

I have been wanting to make some of the other characters on that TV program but have not done so yet. I will post them when I do. All of the work for this card is in making the faces. Once the faces are completed this makes a simple card but a happy card as the colors are great and they never cease to make me smile when I see them.

Tri Shutter Card

One of the cards that is popular now is the Tri Shutter fold. I do love this card and am making a new one today. This is one that I made last week and I do love what the finished card looks like using this fold. It is easy to make and the results are impressive.

I saw a card this morning on one of the Stampin' Up demonstrator sites that I really liked as it uses the Stampin' Up set of God's Beauty - which is a favorite - and I want to see how it looks as a Tri Shutter card. Hopefully I wil finish it today and I will post it tomorrow. For today, here is the one I have made.

Completed Magic Box

Good Morning!

Last weekend I posted photos of a Magic Box I was making at that time. I had seen the box on this wonderful website Creations By Patti and wanted immediately to make one. Patti is a fantastic cardmaker and her creations are truly beautiful and always unique. I forgot to post her website for you that day so here it is now: http://www.creationsbypatti.blogspot.com/ Check out her site today and I can guarantee it will be on your favorities list!

I also forgot to post the photos of the finished Magic Box so I am doing so today. It turned out just the way I wanted it to and I am so happy with the results! I am now making another one for a little girl who has been very ill and is now home from the hospital and I will post photos when I am done.

For today, here is my first completed Magic Box. Thank you Patti for your inspiration!

Beauty of Spring in My Back Yard

I love this time of year when all is in bloom! The photos above I took of an old apple tree in back of the apartment building where I live. It is the most gorgeous tree when it is blooming!

It is sunshine again here today in WI. Wishing you a good one wherever you are!

Surprise in My Take Home Perkins Bag!

A surprise in my Perkins take home bag!

On a visit to a Perkins restaurant, I ordered muffins to go to send to a friend of mine who is in a nursing home. It's a good thing that I looked in the bag as I was going to transfer the muffins to a gift box and this is what I found! Packets and packets of flower seeds!

I called the restaurant and they said to bring the bag back - not what I had figured into my schedule for the day - and when I did, there was my bag of muffins waiting for me by the register plus 2 extra. It seems that they put the bags of take home items behind the check out counter to give to the person when they pay their bill and someone had brought in the flower seeds for planting in the restaurant's flower beds and they were put in one of the Perkins bags and set behind the counter until the gardener did the planting. The staff person grabbed that sack by mistake and gave it to me as my to-go order when I paid my bill.

What are the chances of this happening? I don't know but it was a shock to open the bag and also pretty funny - even with an extra trip to the restaurant and back.

Odessa

Today started out as a beautiful, sunny day here in WI but now the sky has become more and more cloudy and it looks like rain again.

I have been working the past two days on my PictureTrail - updating the photos and information, creating new files, etc. I have most of the photos updated - just a few more to add - but still so much writing to do. It has been a lot of work after being away from it for so long, but it is also fun to see all these creations in front of me. The slide shows are great! Especially for large files like my Snow White & The Seven Dwarfs as there are many photos recording the process of creating that set of 8 dolls.

One of the dolls I made this winter was Odessa. Today's photos are of her. She is made from wool felt - my fabric of choice. Her features were created using a technique called Traupunto and I love the results and used it on another doll - of which I have no photo. Odessa is a small doll. Sitting on her moon she is only about 8 1/2 inches tall. Her hair is an acutual wig that I made and it is sewn to her head.

Wishing you a great evening! Check out my PictureTrail if you get a chance. You can find me at http://www.picturetrail.com/whimcees

The Magic Box

I'm late posting today - in fact it no longer is today but is tomorrow, if that makes any sense! :<} I have been working on my PictureTrail site all day literally - since early morning of yesterday I guess it is now - as it is 2:15 am. I want to get those files updated as it has been a very long time since I added to that also.

I finished the Magic Box and wanted to post photos of it at another stage of opening. It took a very long time to make but it is lovely when finished! I can't wait to make another. Above are photos of the front and the back of the finished top and one of the top off the box. Going from right to left - as I forgot how this works and I am too tired to redo this post.

My next post I will have photos of the opened box. Wishing you a great Monday!