Fun loving Free Spirit...

Free Spirit is the last doll in the Trash It Out doll swap. Sending her off was bittersweet, sweet that she is going home after several months of travel, bitter because I'll miss looking forward to my visits with these amazing creations.

Six of us participated, myself and five incredible artists including our host - Monica Magness of GirlGoneThreadWild. This was an amazing experience, educational, emotional and above all else... FUN!



Free Spirit arrived pretty much complete by my definition. I made some jewelry for her and her companion to wear and deliver to her owner.



I started with a two small clay cabs, a rectangle with "LIVE" on it and a cute little heart. I acquired these pieces as a participant of The Best Little Bead Box earlier this year. I believe they were created by Fired and Fused.



In my rush to get her packed up and ready to head home, I neglected to take measurements of the pendant. I will guess it's about 3 inches around. Not including the loop that attaches it to a neck wire.



I used fresh water pearls, Swarovski jet bicones, vintage sequins, glass hearts and seed beads in various sizes.



It is backed with rose colored Ultrasuede.



I made the heart into a small brooch/pin. It also has several sizes of seed beads and is backed with the same rose colored Ultrasuede.



One thing I forgot to take photos of was her journal. The journals that accompany each of these dolls are entire separate, detailed amazing works of art. I'm sorry I did not take a photo of the journal that goes with Free Spirit.



Next blog post will be about my doll and her arrival home. I have not yet opened her carriage (the box in which she has traveled all over the US), but will do that in the next day or two. I want to have the time to savor every moment of the experience.

Reminder - all photos are clickable for a larger view.

Beautiful Marwa...

The latest doll in the Trash It Out round robin is Marwa - and not only is she a vision of beauty, the first thing I noticed as I opened the box upon arrival was the amazing smell that escaped the box before I ever laid eyes the doll.



Marwa belongs to Sandy - her name is of Hindi origin and means Sweet Marjoram - a fragrant herb. Heaven is what came to my mind when I first saw her...



Check out that cute bee in her bonnet



She came with this book of herbal recipes and other healing remedies. The book is a work of art with page after page of wonderful recipes/messages in an amazing array of colors.



Above are the pages I added to the book (Monica - do you recognize the heart up in the right hand corner?).



Marwa had a secret garden added while traveling. I didn't add anything to the garden at her feet, but it is a marvel to behold.



I did add a little bag of fresh herbs - picked from my garden - attached to one of her arms - that's in a photo further down the page.



As you can see - her backside is just as pretty as the front with a big bow and lots of layers in her skirt.



In her hands she lovingly holds a big heart to which I added a big glass lady bug.



And a bird button by Debbie Mumm with a final touch of red and black glass beads in a picot stitch around the edge of the heart.



I happen to have a beautiful clay cab on hand by Golem Studios with a blue bird on it - it at just seemed to go with Marwa. I was lucky enough to see their work up close and personal this past June at the Bead & Button show in Milwaukee. The beaded piece is pinned to the doll and can be removed and worn. (Just below the bird is the small bag I mentioned earlier with some fresh herbs).



There are glass beads in several colors and small Swarovski crystal bicones around the outside edge to add some extra sparkle.



It is backed with red Ultrasuede.



Last is the small journal that travels with the doll - besides the Imagine A Woman poem seen here, I noted the items I added on another page.



Only one doll left to work on before each of our dolls come "home". This has been an incredible experience for me - so many good lessons learned and to be included such awesome company is just a giant bonus!

Each photo is "clickable" for a larger view.

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...

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

I am a little late in posting - okay, maybe more that a little late. Lots of stuff going on here keeping me busy, and it seems the blog post always fall to the bottom of my "to do" list. Fortunately it has not kept me from beading and working on some other creative things.



In the current doll round robin in which I'm participating, my second visit was with Esperanza. A stunningly beautiful doll - she looks as hopeful as her name represents. She arrived pretty decked out with a wonderful journal to accompany her. I'm guessing I'm not the first to feel this while participating in a round robin - but I find that I don't want to do anything that will take any beauty away from the dolls coming to me in this round robin and am stumped at times in figuring out what to add to complement what has already been added. The women with which I am participating in this collaboration have seemingly endless talent and ideas. I am quite literally stunned with each new arrival as I open the box containing the doll and whatever accompanies her.



I thought she might need some pearls, so added some to the bottom of her dress. I thought the effect was pretty, I hope her owner (Gloria) will as well.



Also added - a couple of silver metal loops with a cross, some square swarovski beads, dragonflies and hearts. I love hearts :-)



Because beading is my comfort zone in this type of artistic endeavor, I tend to head in that direction often. For this doll, I found the perfect connector bead by Lisa Peters. It had wire loops on each end, I sewed those down to the backing and added a Swarovski crystal bicone to cover it. Also added - gold freshwater pearls, bronze colored glass beads.



It is backed with brown Ultrasuede and has a pinback with pendant bail so it can be worn as a brooch or a pendant.



Before Esperanza was sent off to her next destination, I added a page to her journal with one of my favorite poems by Patricia Lynn Reilly.

Trash it Out - Art Doll Round Robin...

Recently I received an invite from my very good online art friend Monica, an invitation to participate in a doll round robin. My immediate thought (and answer) was YES! I have been involved in several collaborations with Monica - each has been special and memorable.



Monica is one of the very first art online friends I made when I started beading. She has been, not only an inspiration to me, but one of the biggest supporters of my beading from the very beginning.

Besides all that, she is a magician when she gets her hands on fabric, thread and a sewing machine. The things she creates with found items (or trash to most people) is extraordinary. If you know her, you know she is very talented and quite creative. So after I said yes and saw the list of participants, I couldn't help but panic just a little inside. She has brought together an amazing group of talented artists and me - a beader (not like that's a bad thing).

In order to grow creatively - we should push the envelope, right? Step outside our comfort zone. That is what I'm doing here and I'm jumping in with both feet! A little scary, but fun and exhilarating at the same time.

This is going to be a lengthy post with lots of photos, so if you're in the mood - settle in and stay awhile...

First, meet the talented ladies included in this round robin - Cheryl, Joanna, Sandy, Gloria and our hostess, Monica. See what I mean? I wasn't kidding about the talent!

The premise is using scraps and leftovers from other projects or basically "trash". Now being a beader, I will incorporate that kind of stuff as much as I can - but there are few beads that I throw away. Left over from another project, certainly!

We all started with a similar "kit" supplied and beautifully packaged by Monica, including a doll form with some "trashy" goodies. The two photos at the top of this post are of the package upon arrival.

This is what I found inside



We were encouraged to do whatever we wanted with our doll to get it started, make a journal and give our doll a name. I don't feel as though I'm terribly clever with that kind of thing and I wasn't sure how much I should add to her to start, so I made her a dress out of the fabric scraps I found in the box. I dipped the fabric in a mixture of glue and water then molded it around the form.



Give me a spreadsheet and I'm a whiz, but I struggle with artistic ideas at times. This was one of those times as I tried to name my doll.

I ended up using one of my old cross stitch pieces as the cover of my journal. And once I decided on that I could not get the name "Dorothy" out of my head, so my doll became Dorothy and off she went to the Cheryl for the month of April.

For the month of April, I worked on Joanna's doll, her name is Zona. She arrived, already a treasure - so much thought and detail added to her by Joanna. Look at that sweet face (click photo for a larger view)!



And the journal - *sigh* - simply wonderful! So many great little details - and the inside is just as beautiful.



The journal shared some thoughts/dreams, which include (among other things) travel and gardening. With that in mind I made wings for Zona, I started with a hand made doily that I found at a garage sale a couple years ago. Formed it into wings and then embellished them with glass beads and crystals to give them just enough sparkle, then attached them to the doll.



I have had the good fortune to have traveled to some wonderful destinations. On one such trip, I visited a friend who was living/teaching in Liberec, Czech Republic. While there, we traveled to Hungary for a couple of days. Not long into our first day touring around Hungary my friend was suffering terribly with blisters from her new "comfortable" shoes she purchased for the trip. She was in agony, we walked (all day) all over Buda and Pest. Since we wear the same size shoes, we were able to switch off wearing the dreaded new shoes in order to share the pain and blisters - because we certainly were NOT going to cut our day or our trip short. Because of that I have attached a pair of sneakers to Zona for long comfortable walks in foreign lands.



Also attached is one earring I have left of a favorite pair I purchased in Czech Republic - I bought these from a local street vendor on the Charles Bridge in Prague, and after only having them a short time, I lost one of the earrings. It is a tiny piece of slate wrapped in wire.



I also attached a vintage Swarovski crystal angel (to watch over her as she travels), next to a heart from Joanna's mother.

A girl cannot possibly travel without a suitcase, can she? I altered an Altoids tin to carry her valuables. It was painted with blue acrylic paint to which I added bronze Pearl-Ex (a first for me and SO much fun!). I added a "Dream" clay cabochon by Lisa Peters Art, and a little beaded handle made of old wire and glass beads



Lined the suitcase with red felt



And added some travel stickers to the back



Inside the suitcase is a special surprise just for Joanna, a heart shaped pin. The cab/button is another clay creation by Lisa Peters and embellished (by me) with glass beads.



One Swarovski crystal in the middle and vintage sequins around the outside



It is backed with pink Ultrasuede and closed with a pointed edge stitch using glass beads.

Also included is a red felt bag - pieces of fabric are attached to the front and back with beads and filled with some seeds in the event Joanna wants to start a sunflower garden.



Zona is now ready to fly off to her next destination. It was a pleasure hosting you, safe travels little one!