Art Doll Cool-Aberration 2008 - Colette

Here's another collaboration doll from Art Doll Cool-Aberration 2008. This is Gloria's doll, Colette, and she began her journey in New Jersey looking like this.I was the second player to get Colette and I had a ball with her. Susan in VA had already embroidered her wonderful face and added her arms and very cool hand beads. As I got to know Colette, I discovered that her ancestry included rainbow beetles and fireflies, and her namesake, great-great-grandmother Colette, was a gypsy moth. (Colette was a big wine drinker, tho', so I can't vouch for all her stories... :) )Colette left me donned in gypsy attire and sporting her new appendage - a firefly bug butt!

After leaving me, Colette flew off to visit 3 more collaborators and went home to NJ looking like this.

Here're the pages I added to Colette's journal.

Weeds? Nay, WILDFLOWERS!

So I have an old, decrepit riding mower that my ex pretty much demolished back in the late 90s mowing our horse pastures. I managed to keep it going for a number of years, but now it's dead more often than not. And anyways I can't use it right now with my shoulder injury 'cause it's real hard to steer. So I haven't mowed my "lawn" this year and the weeds have gone wild. As in wildflowers! I've been out picking bouquets!

Guess what these beautiful flower buds are.They're onion grass buds! I think they're so cool and, so far, the ones I'm drying upside down are holding their color.

And these are some cute pink wildflowers that remind me of pink lavender. (That purple bunch is lavender.) Unfortunately, I don't think they're gonna hold their petals as dried flowers, but I've really enjoyed admiring them as they dry and will continue to do so till all the pink falls off.

Who needs boring old grass when you can have wildflowers? The birds love it, the bunnies love it, the dogs love it (for searching out the bunnies and field mice), and I love it.

Seahorse

This is a fabric-wrapped critter that I made in quick time, but I love the way it turned out. I started out planning to make a caterpillar, but my little woolly worm turned out a bit chubby in the gut and kindof pointy at the ends. Then I saw that my little many-legged worm was determined to be a seahorse. Which is pretty cool, 'cause I love seahorses and I really don't care for caterpillars too much - too many legs. Ick.

So anyway, this tiny stallion is just a piece of fattish coated wire wrapped in a bit of batting and then fabric strips. Then wrapped with embroidery thread and wire and embellished with straight pins, beads, and jewelry findings. He's about 4 1/2 inches tall.

Art Doll Cool-Aberration 2008 - Eloise

Last June I started an art doll collaboration which, thru a spelling error, became known as Art Doll Cool-Aberration 2008. I just completed work on my final doll in the round robin, Eloise. Eloise is Kris' doll and began her life in England. Here's what she looked like when she began her journey last year. And here's what she looks like now after visiting 7 more doll artists.

Pretty cool, huh? She was pretty loaded by the time she got to me, her last stop. I slipped boobies into her bikini top and added tiny paper mache feet clad in lime green ballet slippers so she can dance with the gods!

We all sent travel journals along with our dolls. These are my contributions to Eloise's journal.

It's been so much fun working on these collaboration dolls and journals. And even though we did end up with a few flakes in the project, we had enough dedicated and talented gals to do the dolls justice. I'll show more of the dolls as they complete their journeys. Can't wait to get my doll, Dave, back!

NEW ART DOLL GROUP

My friend Jeanne has started a new yahoo group for art doll lovers called Decidedly Different Dolls. I'm an assistant to the group. There are a few art doll groups out there that have been around awhile - too long actually as they're pretty much just sitting there doing not much of anything. Jeanne plans to host regular, well organized challenges and swaps as well as tutorials. Come join us in the group and let's see what we can get going. There is also a blog associated with the group where tutorials, challenge dolls, etc will be published.

Mystery Doll

Here's a doll I made awhile back that's kindof out of my normal style. It turned out I wasn't real crazy about her except for her headdress. And maybe her hands. So after she was out in my house long enough to get real dusty, I put her away somewhere. That's the mystery - I cannot for the life of me remember where the hell I put that doll. She's a larger size doll, I think about 12 - 13 inches, so she couldn't go in my display case. So where is she? Every so often, I half-ass look around for her, but so far, no luck. Either she's buried in my craft room somewhere or she felt unloved and took off for greener pastures...

I do like her headdress and I wanted to look at it again. It's full of mismatched buttons and beads and coiled wire and polymer clay moons and fibers and fabric pieces. I call her "To the Moon" because she's looking up to the moon and offering it a rose, and she has moons on her garment and in her hair. Maybe she flew off to the moon?

MAY GIVEAWAY WINNERS

The random numbers drawn were 20 and 43 making Baba the winner of a fortune doll and Gryhund the winner of a paper mache rattle. I've emailed you both for your mailing addresses.

Thanks to all of you who visited and entered the drawing. I hope you'll return often. And I hope I start creating some cool stuff so I have something to show you... :)