This poseable Wish Doll wears a black dress with orange sash and comes with a musk oil fragrant sachet pillow. I was inspired by Guatemalan Worry Dolls to make these 3 inch tall flexible wire and bead dolls. I wrap the wire body with fabric remnants or ribbon, and use more to make the dress, sash and braid. I sew seed beads to the braid and sash. Each is slightly different, with different combinations ... Click Here to Visit My Etsy Shop!

...because I've been making Wish Dolls. Each one comes with a small fragrant pillow - either a lavender sachet or Indian musk blended with a touch of Orange blossom. The lavender is easy. It's dried lavender flowers from Lavender Wind, a pesticide-free farm  on Whidbey Island north of Seattle, that I sew into mesh pillows and then inserted with a minimum of stuffing into the Wish Doll double sided pillow. The great thing about lavender, aside from the aroma, is that to refresh the sachet, all you have to do is squeeze it. The musk is a little different. I cut small squares of muslin or poplin and stuff them in a sealed jar with musk oils and orange blossom to absorb the oils. I wrap each piece in some poly batting and stuff the pillows. When I say Indian Musk, I mean that literally. My mother-in-law traveled to India a lot in the 1960's and 70's and brought back oils, incenses, art work, and amazing fabrics.  She sent over a very mysterious, small dark bottl...

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Here's my simple technique for distressing the edges of photos or cut cardstock - any flexible surface that you want to break down. I line up the edge of the photo along the edge of my bone folder,which has a gentle convex curve that works better than any flat surface I've tried. Then I can file the edges, moving the file downward across the edge, with whatever file I have. I've used a glass nail file for some things, but pictured here is one of the Crafty Cat specialty craft abrasives. Easy-peasy - to be followed by the inking of your choice.

I made a rolled rose using Best Glue Ever , and my Tweezer Bee tweezers . First a quick sketch of a wacky oval spiral. I like roses that are a bit uneven and have a cabbage rose feel. Important tip: use double sided cardstock unless you want one side to be white. I cut out the lines and inked the edges, dried the ink fast with my Perfect Crafting Pouch , then I wound the rose from the outside around my Embellie Gellie stick to relax the cardstock into a curve. I used my tweezers to grab and hold the wound paper, because they are sprung to stay closed. (I don't use them nearly as much as I used to since I have the EG to place small items, but I like the non-stick surface.) A nice blob of BGE, and I carefully set the rose aside to let the glue dry a bit and get tacky, then I pushed the coil into the blob and held it in place for about 30 seconds. It gripped and held! Next the leaves - cut out, inked and split to allow them to be 3D. The tweezers held the fiddly little ov...

Only this time it's Neon Orange Dream Star doll featured with some really cool looking art and textile art items .

This is a pretty one, with some nice items. Green with a hint of pink .

People at craft fairs like to pick up and examine my art dolls. They have questions, some serious and others odd. 1/ Do you do this all yourself? Yes, although I usually use existing fabrics. I hand paint the faces, do the beading and make the charms and paper beads. My daughter helps me by choosing the yarn hair for some of them, but I stitch it on. They are also my own paper pattern. 2/ How long does it take to make one? That's a good question, and in truth I haven't timed a single doll from start to finish. I usually work in batches up to a point. I paint a bunch of faces over a couple of hours which I later match to the doll bodies. I sew a bunch of doll bodies, then I sit and trim them and turn them, another several hours. Once the faces are on, I tend to like to stuff the bodies in a batch as well. Then I start working on each as an individual, beading, dressing, embellishing and adding hair and charms. I've tried making charms beforehand, but I'm rarel...

Since I enjoy making tags, I decided to get some plain cut blanks ready to go. I was very happy with the shape of these once they arrived. I also had some pretty prim/folk art style hearts I hand cut from corrugated cardboard. Why do I like corrugated cardboard so? Any hoo, I did some inking, some ageing, some stamping, some glueing, and this is the first set of sweet tags in powdery pastels and a nice rose pink, as a set. I also made more stamped "washi" style tape for the project. I enjoy stamping more and more, especially now I have a fine collection of Colorbox inks thanks to Amy at ScraPerfect . They are on my Etsy , if you want to see more pictures. I use tags a lot around the holidays instead of attaching cards to the wrapped items. How do you use tags most? For scrapbooking layouts (eg journalling), or on gifts?

A sweet little stamped bird on a swirly branch says "Hello". Layered stamps including fun text, lazer cut shapes and dimensional elements make this card very special. Fade resistant archival inks. Size: 5 1/2 x 4 1/4 inches aligned horizontally. Blank for your own greeting. This card co-ordinates with a similar card aligned vertically - but these are all I will make in this particular d... Click Here to Visit My Etsy Shop!

A sweet little stamped bird on a branch, pretty cardstocks and dimensional elements make this hand made card unique. The text to the side is a double layer of roller stamps. Archival inks won't fade away. Size: 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 inches - aligned vertically. Co-ordinates with a similar card aligned horizontally - and that is all there will be in this design. Blank for your greeting; Envelope incl... Click Here to Visit My Etsy Shop!