DOTEE DOLL

A fantastic day for me, as i received a gorgeous parcel from the Dotee Queen herself, my friend Dot from Australia.

here are the beautiful goodies that she sent to me, and i feel truly blessed. The photos i have 'borrowed' from Dot's Flickr page.


The beautiful dotee doll was carefully wrapped in some beautiful material tied up with a chiffon ribbon
These are scanned pictures i made.

FIVE bags of beauuuuuuuutiful beads

Aren't they delicious.
and last but not least.
2 MOO CARDS. woweeeeeee

Thankyou Dot, from the bottom of my heart. You can never know how much this means to me.xxx


Soooo, pinching an idea from Dot, i've decided to give my first matroshyka Doll away. This has been designed by me, and finished this afternoon.
This is the first of 5 dolls i have designed, and cos the matroshyka is the latest fad, decided to make this one first.

So stay tuned, tomorrow i will be putting up all the information for how to 'win' this doll.

Zettiology Painting & Dotee

Been both busy and down with the flu this week. As soon as my husband recovered, I went down with it, but kept going, even when i completely lost my voice. (Husband was escatic over that one LOL).

Finished a dotee which is going to a very special lady. I just hope she likes it. I've called her English Rose, as I'm a UK artist.
I used a porcelain rose bead, and metal rose beads along the bottom of the doll. The crotchet lace, i dyed with acrylic paint.

Next on the 'finished' list is one of the paintings which im putting forward to the exhibition i'll be doing in April. Just got a feeling the owner of the gallery isn't going to like these. If he doesn't like them, then i don't think i'll bother doing the exhibition, cos i really don't want to be painting stuff i don't like. we'll see. It won't be the end of the world. I could always put it up for a swap lol.
It's an acrylic painting on a canvas 12" x 12", which is a bit small for me, but wanted to try out concept.

Altered Jigsaw

This is my first ever altered jigsaw that i made for a Jam swap I've joined . There's five of us altogether in the swap, and I have chose the theme Shabby Chic for my pieces.

This first piece I've altered is for Nicky, and the theme she has chosen is Family, and so after MUCH deliberation, decided to go with "Home", as i consider this the heart of the Family.

I used a metal buckle for the house, after seeing them being used by Dot
the Dotee Queen , in the same way. I loved the effect she got with them, thought they made the PERFECT house shape, and by chance came across them on Etsy, being sold by a Julieh7 in Australia. They took less than a week to get here.

They are originally silver so i sponged them with gold paint, and used a verdigris embossing powder on the edging.

The actual jigsaw, i covered with 3 colours of tissue paper, and embossed on top with gold , and stamped around the edge with turquoise chalk ink.

The initial N (which is what Nicky asked to be incorporated), I hand drew and cut out of thick card, painted with acrylic paint, embossed again with gold and embellished with different beads and wire

I just hope she likes it, as she is an expert at altered art, and i'm just a novice. lol

My husband is at last on the mend, and so I can breathe a sigh of relief. I have been soooooo busy, looking after him, painting 2 pix for the exhibition, (which i'm not sure they will like), did the altered jigsaw, and started the dotee for Queen Dot. Sooooooooo worried about this one, cos she is the master, and me a mere mortal, lol, so have spent a week just searching for ideas to try and get it perfect for her. Again i hope she likes it. I've done the Zetti ATC's for her, and want to put a couple of extra's in the parcel before it flies its way over to Australia. Better put extra large wings on it, cos it has a looong journey.

I hope you like my choice of music that i've selected for my blog. All 11 songs are by Michael Buble. Can you tell i like him lol. ROFLOL.

OVERLOAD

Got myself into a pickle, trying to do too much at the same time.
Swapping, sewing, Designing dolls, NOT painting for a forthcoming exhibition, and my Dear Husband taken ill. He suffers soooooo many different ailments that i won't bore you with, but it breaks my heart whenever he takes ill. Hopefully he's on the mend.

managed to get a dottee doll done early this morning. This is for a swap-bot one for one swap, in the shabby chic style.

My favourite part is the hat, made with a cut up crocheted coaster doily, with a polymer clay rose attached. I love this bead, and can't find any more of them. The lady who I bought them from (i managed to get only 2), no longer operates on ebay, so booo hooooo. lol

I've managed to make a start on a couple of small canvases on my forthcoming exhibition. Not sure if they'lll work, but that is my reaction on EVERY painting I have ever done. We'll see. It will probably evolve as i go along. This is mainly because I'm trying to FIND myself in this particularly style. Zetti. Love love love it, but want to try and evolve it into my 'own' style. We'll see. lol

I'm also trying to design my own art dolls, and when i do, you will all be the first to see them LOL.

I will also be offering free patterns for various dolls, just as a thankyou for looking at my blog.

So this is it for today, my glass of wine beckons, and so i bid farewell my friend.

DOTEE FACES & BUTTON FLOWERS

Managed to get a few things done today, even though i'm feeling under the weather. I woke up with a sore throat and a headache, and i keep suffering dizzy spells. Went out to the library, and had 2 dizzy spells in there. Walking around as if i was drunk, (which i wasn't lol). Managed to get some lovely books, creative stitching, and one on felt and buttons, my two crazes at the moment.

Went into the charity shop to ask if they had any buttons, and i ended up buying the entire tin full. Couldn't wait to get something done with them and so here are the Button flowers. soooooo easy to do, and quite effective

I also managed to get some dotee faces embroidered today. I have a couple to make, both for one to one swaps. One of them is for a lady on swap-bot, who is running the shabby chic dotee swap. I did try to join the swap, but was having difficulty finding my way around, and ended up missing out. So the lady said she would like to do a one to one swap with me She has been sooo helpful to me, i think without her i would have just ended up walking away from swap-bot for ever, without ever having done a swap. That would have been a crying shame, as there are quite a few dotee swaps going on.

4 little maids in a row LOL.

Did have the bodies cut out, but tonight i bought some Laura Ashley and Liberty material from Etsy, (oh god help us, now i've found that place as well as ebay, we'll definitely be into liquidation LOL).

Plus ordered lots of flower beads, both swarzovski and clay, can't wait for it all to arrive This art doll world is starting to take over me.

ART DOLLS

I organise monthly doll swaps in our yahoo group, which i find really enjoyable. We only started in January 2008, and our first swap was the Dotee Doll.

This was one of the two dolls that i entered for the swap, i ended up making two as there was an odd number for the swap.
This one is Mop Head dotee, lol, after my photo.

Here is a link for you to see the entire swap, and boy there are some beauties
http://www.flickr.com/photos/margaretfield/sets/72157603536569831/
February's swap is the Button Fairy, for which i have devised a tutorial, as there wasn't one on the entire web.
Here is the button fairy i made for the tutorial, and as it is the very first one that i made, it isn't exactly how i would like. So another one will be made for the swap, and of course i will be showing the finished product here.

So carrying on with the theme of art dolls, yesterday i made one just for myself. I love the simplicity of it, and will be showing you a tutorial tomorrow. I call it simply "Japanese Doll'