I used a vintage digital collage sheet of children and a 1 inch circle punch to cut out the faces and glued them inside a bottle cap which I then filled with Diamond Glaze. 
I decorated the backgrounds with randomly selected papers, scraps, Sharpie markers, and Bic Mark-it pens.
I hope you have as much fun creating your own unique ART DOLLS as I did creating mine :)
I am in a mail art swap on ATCsforall and the theme is funky birds. No matter what I do I just can't seem to get away from color. 
I love big, bright and bold color, no art piece seems to be complete until I throw some bright color on it.
I have to make 3 more pages before I mail them out to the hostess and so I am going to take some photos and possibly some video of the step by step process of making one of my Funky Bird Pages.
Next, I will be making some mini ATC's. I dropped by Rocnic's blog at www.whatsuproc.blogspot.com and was inspired by her mini ATC collages. If you haven't dropped by her blog yet, follow this link and check it out!
I woke up this morning and decided to get busy making some new items for my Etsy store. My dining table is still covered with all manner of papers, glue, stamps and paints. I cut about 150-200 pieces of paper to make these tags and journaling cards today and I will probably be up all night getting them done.
Spring Hand Made Tags!
I have recently discovered the art of handspinning........and I am in LOVE! I am a big Etsy promoter, and I buy my spinning supplies exclusively on Etsy. I purchased this bundle of fiber from North Star Alpacas on Etsy. It is a blend of 70% Alpaca and 30% Silk. The Alpaca was a natural fawn color and the silk was dyed red, together the fiber becomes what I refer to as a Dusty Rose color. I absolutely love this fiber. I spun up 2 oz of it already and it made 144 yards of a light worsted weight yarn, 12 wpi. I am knitting a cowl and shawl in this fiber. I have started the shawl already. I was going to wait until I had all the fiber spun, but I just couldn't wait to start knitting with it. It is a dream.
I purchased my solid oak, top whorl drop spindle, from Spinsanity on Etsy. Both shops are based here in Michigan, which is another bonus. I am very dedicated to shopping local whenever possible, and there are many shops on Etsy owned and operated by fellow Michiganians. I guess, with the economy the way it is, many people are turning to running there own business. At least that way, you will never be downsized, and you can spend your time doing something you love.
Back to topic, I know I run off on tangents sometimes, in addition to spinning my own yarn and carving rubber stamps, I am still very active in my mail art trading.
My sister and I went to the Fire House Pottery Studio here in downtown Marshall and picked out some ready made pottery to paint. We both had been looking at 2 Tea for One sets , each a different style, and finally decided to paint them.
On a final note, I just had to share the rubber stamp I carved for my Dad yesterday. He had asked me to make a stamp for one of the companies he works with (my dad writes tv and radio spots for advertising). Here is the finished stamp.
Well, I have not yet completed Wednesday's Challenge because I finished off my Little Books for a swap on AFA and sent them off in the mail today.
Since I had only purchased one carving block at Hobby Lobby, I had to go back today and buy another. In the future I will have to buy them online since Hobby Lobby seems to only keep one of each size in stock. While I was out buying my new carving block, I also stopped off at Wal Mart and grabbed a pack of pink erasers so I could try my hand at carving them too.
A few weeks ago my dad tore down the old roof to his backyard deck with a plan to cut new rafters and redo everything. Well, my parents are very interested in the Caribbean since they took a trip to the Bahamas and the Dominican Republic many years ago, and they thought an ocean theme would be great in the backyard. I made the mistake of mentioning how great it would be to paint the rafters in an under the sea theme with all kinds of tropical and ocean fish and sea shells etc. My mother's exact response to my suggestion was "that's a great idea, why don't you do that". So it was decided that I would paint the rafters and I was told that I had 1 week to paint them all so that my dad could put the roof back up over the next weekend. Suffice it to say I spent the next 5 days painting morning til night. I couldn't wait to see the end of painting all those fish, imagine my chagrin on day 3 when I realized that I had to paint both sides.
Luckily, my parents decided that 3 of the rafters could be painted to look like sand and we could put dried starfish and sand dollars on it along with some sea shells to break up the monotony of all the fish and add some interesting 3 dimensional elements. I was quite relieved because until that moment I hadn't been sure that I could complete this project in just 5 days. With this change I was able to finish by the weekend, but..........
As a result of all this creative energy, I was able to list my first finished notebook on my Etsy Store today, and I am anxious to see how it is received. I would love to be able to make art each and every day and make enough money selling my art to pay living expenses and feed my need to make more art. I know the majority opinion is that once you take something you love, and turn it into a job, it ceases to be enjoyable and just becomes work. Well I am hoping that this isn't true. I can't say for certain that it isn't, because I am not currently making a living with my art, and paying the bills does not require that I sell something today or tomorrow. Right now , Art is a yearning that makes me get up every morning and brush my teeth and wash my face. I look forward to getting my coffee and sitting in front of my laptop with all my art supplies and my art board and scanner filling up the dining room table. I log into all of my art sites, my blog, my Etsy, and keep a Google page at the ready if I need to research anything while I am working. I stay up until all hours of the night and well into the early morning when inspiration strikes, refusing to close my eyes until the piece is completed. I even go to bed thinking of all the things I want to create the next day. This is how I know that spending time on my art is the right thing for me, right now.
I have always loved paper dolls, and dolls in general of course. But their is just something beautiful about paper dolls with their fragile accessories and fold up houses. I am equally in love with Faeries and have decided to combine both of those passions into one, and create some Faerie Paper Dolls. In order to do this well, I have to get into the mood, and to get into the mood I basically started painting. I thought I would begin with some girly girl pitures based on my daughter Molly (who is so NOT a girly girl) But since I wanted the color pallet to include more than black, and I am not adept at gothic style drawing yet, she is currently depicted in pastel laden hues with all the frills....oh, and I am including her dog Karma in many of the art pieces as well. So this first painting is an 8 x 8 acrylic on card stock that has been prepped with gesso. I love gesso. Basically anything can be transformed into the perfect canvas with a simple coat of gesso. I call this "Molly Dolly and Karma"
I am in the process of completing a 3rd one that is yet to be named depicting a princess and a frog ( who is wearing a crown and obviously a prince under a spell) It is a much larger piece and I will have to take a picture of it and upload it since it is too big to scan.
