Circus - Trash it Out - Art Doll Round Robin...

A girl named Circus came to visit, and would you look at her? She is an amazing little thing! I had her here for just about a month and even though she's gone now, she did leave a smile in my heart.

This is the third doll in the Trash it Out Art Doll Round Robin. With each arrival, I am SURE I have not seen a more amazing doll - then I receive the next one and am proven wrong in that thought.

I have been absolutely amazed at the transformations of each of these forms - the stories they have become and emotion that has been put into each doll by all the participants. I truly feel lucky to be part of this round robin.

One thing that caught me by surprise in the project are the journals. Each one is just as amazing as the dolls they travel with, honestly words do not adequately describe what I see when I open and carefully go through each box.

I will say that with Circus - I was stumped in what to add to her. I want so badly to add beauty to each doll however I find I am rather inexperienced in the diverse skills exhibited by my fellow round robin participants. FINALLY, I came up with what I thought was a brilliant idea - pink cotton candy hair! Well, my intentions were good, but the reality was a disaster. Thankfully I worked on the hair without actually attaching it to the doll.. whew, disaster averted.



So Circus left here with just those beautiful bows and a just a wisp of hair that was already placed by someone else.

I did find an old Austrian crystal pin in my stash and attached it to one of the bows on her head. At first glance, the little thing looks like a seal wearing a top hat playing with a ball. But wait... I see fins for the "feet", but the hands/arms look like paws - so maybe it's a cross between a cat and a seal? Regardless - perfect for a circus!



I moved on to the journal and man oh man what a journal. True to her "thread wild" name, Monica has produced an amazing artful journal made up of cloth, old quilts, lots of threads, it is a work of art in itself (as are all the journals).



Plenty of room to work in the journal, so I worked on 2 facing pages. As will all the journals so far - I added an Imagine A Woman postcard (poem by Patricia Lynn Reilly) on one side and a glimpse into the inside of the big top on the other side. (Note to Monica - the pink beads scattered throughout the page are a new shape and are called "peanuts", I couldn't resist).



As with the other dolls, I wanted Circus to deliver something to Monica when she arrives home. I found this itty bitty flower bead by Lisa Peters. I knew right away it had to be a ring.



The little flower is anchored by a Swarovski crystal bicone bead, the flower is surrounded by 24k gold plated beads and more Swarovski crystals.



It is backed with chocolate colored Ultrasuede and mounted on an adjustable gold toned hammered ring blank.



I wanted to make a little treasure chest to hold the ring. Found this perfect tiny cardboard box. I glued a little ceramic pink heart to a piece of Nicole's bead backing and started to bead around it. I added some beautiful vintage light aqua sequins and then glued that to the top of the lid.



I added a strip of pink felt around the lip of the lid and added lots of sparkly dangles to the lid. More vintage sequins were added tot he bottom of the box and 4 glass beads glued to the bottom as "feet".



The inside of the box is lined in red felt.

Two dolls left in the round robin - could it get any better? I think it just might...