My husband is a Production Sound Mixer, member of Local 695 , so we have the opportunity to be part of the Third Hollywood Below The Line Parking Lot Sale. Sellers will all be below the line crew and film production vendors. As well as a way to make some post holiday cash, it is a way to raise awareness of the number of people it takes to get a movie made, below the line workers who are often relatively invisible. The goal is to have at least one person from every crew position. When: Saturday, January 10th 2009 from 9am 'til 1pm - so only four hours. Where: the parking lot of History For Hire Prop House, 7149 Fair Ave., North Hollywood CA, 91605. (map) I'll be offering my usual stock, as well as some tie bleached t-shirts and in keeping with the theme, some used clothing, shoes and even some books. My 9yo daughter, Jayn, has started making earrings, and plans on selling them too.

Here are some of the new half a dozen of the soft pillow doll I make for kids - at least for the time being. These may be illegal after February, depending on how the legislation pans out, so get them while you can! $6 each on Etsy.

Saturday December 20th 9am - 3pm South High School parking lot in Torrance. Look for the colorful Iggy Jingles easy up. Everything you see in my Etsy Store, and more.

New on Etsy.

... Here is a humungous tote made from handpainted Iggy Jingles faces. Also another pretty Dream Star doll

After another fairly successful craft fair (lots of sales of the latest batch of Either Way dolls) I have some new things ready for Etsy. Actually a set of three Dream Star dolls who really would look nice together.... After a couple of years of rarely selling my handpainted Iggy Jingles character lavender sachets, with comments made such as "what do you do with them?", I decided to make them into something more useful. So I have taken apart the sachets, and am in the process of making them into patchwork totes and small hand bags. The faint aroma of lavender unfortunately will not linger, but they are now much more practical. Here's the first to be completed:

A quiet but pleasant day at the Promenade at Howard Hughes Center . If you are in the area next week, Friday December 12, please come by and see me. Also attending Pia of Enchanted Musings with her crocheted pretties, and some folks selling lovely scrapbooking stuff and handmade paper goods. Nice and unusual gifts.

I'm going to be doing a Craft Faire at the Howard Hughes Center on two upcoming Fridays, December 5th and 12th. 6081 Center Drive, Suite 121 Los Angeles, CA 90045 The Promenade at Howard Hughes Center is conveniently located off the 405 Freeway, Howard Hughes Parkway exit, just ten minutes from the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) This is a nice venue with a luxurious cinema and Imax, and lots of restaurants. The event is being coordinated by the owner of Sonja’s Scrapbook Spot . I'm making dolls and Christmas decorations as fast as I can. There will also be some fun crafty activities for kids: Friday, December 5th – noon-6pm Photos with Firemen & decorate a frame – Noon-3pm Kid’s Holiday Card Workshop 3-6pm Marionette Show 4:30 & 6:30pm Friday, December 12th – noon – 6pm Kid’s Holiday Card Workshop 3-6pm Another activities TBA. I'm also going to be at a Craft Fair in Torrance on Saturday, December...

I've been published in this magazine. Twice - two little things I make for the holidays. No pics of my things, but the magazine itself is lushly shot and glossy. I'll be doing a bunch of my cookie cutter soft tree ornaments for sale next month.

The first of the next batch. Following advice about keeping my shop at the top of the search engines, I'll be putting one up for sale each day.

This is the Shaman/Spider Woman doll I made as a very special wedding gift. I wanted to invoke the Native American connection to their wedding ceremony . Many of the items for the charms and trim are from vintage jewelry including a Kokopelli pin and road runner turquoise earrings that were my mother's. Some of the beads were new purchases, others from vintage necklaces taken apart. Many of the fabrics used in the patchwork over robe were given to me by my mother-in-law. She has a huge collection of different vintage fabrics that she has collected over the last 40+ years in her travels. I combined upholstery fabrics with antique embroideries, printed Indian silks and quilting cottons, including small scale liberty prints. My daughter contributed a lot of her design talents to the project. It was she who designed the tattoos for the doll's cheeks. She also chose the yarn combination for the hair, to coordinate with the robes. She sewed the little felt bag for the Kokopelli , a ...

I have completed and presented this doll, a wedding gift for our friends who married in an extraordinary ceremony in Sedona, Arizona. My husband took some good shots of the completed figure, which I will post later tonight, I hope. But here are some in progress shots. This is the first time I have made cloth hands. Some blowing out of the silk, but I am still happy with the results, after needle sculpting and painting of details. My daughter designed the face painting - a spiral and a bear print.

Well here are the two Dream Dolls (between 11 and 13 inches high with an internal wire armature)that I finished. The fabrics were cottons and flannels that were special leftovers from garments made by and for members of my client's family. The flower petals, most of the charms and large beads were equally significant and historical. Even the paper beads were from pages of magazines that were important to her. One makes me think of fireworks and flamenco and celebrations, the other of spring mornings and tea parties and a cottage garden. I'm happy and so is their new owner who has received them into their new home.

I am so happy to report that I have finished two big doll commissions. I'll give my client a chance to see the dolls before I post some fuller pictures of the completed ladies. It felt so very meaningful somehow to be making dolls from fabrics and trinkets that had such emotional connections for my client. It made me work more slowly, and if it is possible more thoughtfully with every stitch and every embellishment. I'd love to do more of this type of doll - perhaps people will send me pieces of their wedding dress, their child's first baby clothes, christening robes, deceased elder's clothing, fabrics that may look like scraps but have deep meaning and stories behind them - and allow me the privilege of making a Dream Doll for them from these special textiles. But not until next month! I have some other smaller commissions still, and a wedding gift doll to make. Alas for my big plans to make a bunch of halloween inspired dolls. Stay tuned....

I've made a batch of beads using the very pretty pages from a couple of homewares catalogs with a rather nice matt finish paper. Here they are all set up to dry after being sealed with Royal Coat decoupage finish. The whole process really does make a very solid, rigid bead.

I know I haven't posted for a while. I've returned from a wildly successful, on many levels, trip where I delivered the Bead Head Granny to her happy new home, and sold another 8 Dream Stars and a bunch of Wish Dolls and Face Pins. This photo is people decorating masks at a funshop I facilitated. I have come home reinvigorated, but also carrying the usual noxious cold that travelling always seems to give me. So I have been slow to return to posting and working. Now I have several commissions to make: two Dream Dolls, a special Wish doll, a couple of draw string bags. Also a couple of past customers are eager for some seasonal Dream Star dolls and even some more crocheted baskets. Plus I am intending to particpate in a couple of EGADS team challenges, one of which may lead to publication in an art magazine. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, I evidently did not get accepted for the Felt Club show, so instead I am applying to the Pasadena Art Fair in early December. I hope tha...

Dream Star dolls and a couple of Dream Dolls thrown in. I have some with beading begun, some stuffed and ready to be beaded, some awaiting stuffing, and some waiting for their faces. I am planning a couple of Dream Dolls in Asian quilting fabrics, with Kabuki faces. I am really looking forward to making the witches with their little felt hats. Next week I will be attending the Live and Learn Conference , leaving home Tuesday September 2nd. Any purchases made on Etsy on that week won't be mailed until I get home Monday September 8th. I hope that's OK.

I'm working on a bunch of commissions and some seasonal dolls. Here are a whole lot of painted faces - acrylic on muslin sealed with acrylic sealer. I had fun! The faces really come to life once the shine dot is put in the eye. Lots of different ethnicities and makeups. Yes, I am planning some green faced witches for Halloween! The two faces on the left were painted by my nearly 9yo daughter as her contribution. Such personality.

This doll head is using the lampwork glass eyes I bought at the bead show made by Ralph McCaskey. This doll will be a dryad whose robe will be made of handmade and a few manufactured leaves. You will notice the ridge running over the head between the ears. I have noticed a tendency for the headdress to want to slide backwards and I am expecting that this ridge will stop that from happening. It will not be visible in the final doll. Stay tuned....

My mother-in-law sent me a box of bits and pieces of vintage fabrics including a vintage silk kimono that had been cut down. Now it has been cut apart and washed and I am looking forward to making dolls from it. The lining is a lovely flesh tone silk, which is also good.

Aren't they cute? I'm tired of losing needles when I put them down, or having to push them into my clothes or the tablecloth because my regular pretty pincushion is too big to carry around when I am sewing or beading on the go. I also seem to go through a lot of thread, especially since much of it is inherited from my mother's store and the reels are partly used. I just hate tossing so many empty reels. Here's my really fast solution. A piece of felt, a circle of colorful fabric and a small wad of polyfil. I have a feeling all my friends who sew are going to get one.

As promised a bunch of new stuff is now at my Etsy shop for sale. Check out the Etsy mini to the right of the page for a preview. Have fun shopping, and don't forget to check out some of my favorite Etsy shops if you are looking for other art dolls. There are some wonderful artists doing different stuff from mine there...

Well, I finished my first artisan fair, and I would say that it was reasonably successful. I want to thank the organizers for getting it happening, and I hope New Directions was pleased with the results. Statistically, I did well with somewhere close to one quarter of the people who stopped and really looked at the stuff on my stall buying something - many of them being other vendors. My big seller was Wish Dolls, which are a nicely packaged, moderately priced item suitable for gifting. The turning point seemed to be when people had the chance to smell the wonderful Indian Musk essential oil in the pillows. I sold a Dream Star Doll and a Pin Doll, and received a lot of positive feedback both about my two bead head dolls and the crochet plastic bags which everyone seemed agree were clever and cool. BUT no one wanted to spend the money to buy them. My biggest disappointment of the day was the low turnout and the absence of affluent art lovers I had hoped would come by. Sadly it seemed t...