Skip to main content

Christmas Countdown Local 2022 #7/25 : Gumnut Dollies Tree for Charity



In a previous post, I featured some of the Trees for Charity, displayed at the Wesley Uniting Church,Hamilton ( Newcastle NSW)... and today I return to show you how my local doll making group, Gumnut Dollies  Newcastle  decorated our tree to raise funds for cancer research. 


We decorated with handmade dolls - dotee dolls ( simple basic shaped dolls with no arms or legs, but with a beaded decorative "tail") If you want to know about dotee dolls - check out my previous blog post  Throughout the year, many dolls were created, so the decorators had plenty of choice ... perhaps you have already spotted a favourite? 







Gumnut Dollies Newcastle has been participating in Trees for Charity for many years, with the only  the last two years missed because of the Covid restrictions. This has been the initiative of one of our founding members, Dolores, who each year works tirelessly to raise funds for cancer research and other charities. 

This year , Dolores was happy to have a visit, while she was decorating, from our local Member of Parliament, Sharon Claydon, Member for Newcastle. Sharon always takes an interest in community activities and even though this is such a busy time of the year, it is great to see her supporting charities in the local area.  Thank you Sharon. 


Merry Christmas from Gumnut Dollies Newcastle... 



Photo credit - some of these images were taken by Gamarna , member of Gumnut Dollies Newcastle 
 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Fish and Sticks : Art Dolls

This week I've been working on fish and sticks ....  The sticks are the message stick art dolls which were very popular, attracting some attention and a few orders at the Wise Women exhibition. Each of the message stick dolls are from the Wise Women series, each with her own personality and  message of wisdom, handwritten on a handmade timber tag. I gather the sticks during my walks around my neighbourhood and the tags are made from special bits of timber, some collected by me or  my husband or from off cuts gifted to us  from another doll making friend whose husband makes bagpipes. These dolls start off very simply with a wrap around a stick, in the general shape of a body. 'Naked" message stick dolls - strips of wadding wrapped around found sticks.   Then I usually wrap other layers of fabric, wool, and/or fibres, over which I do some simple embroidery. I sculpt  or mould small face masks for these dolls. I really like using "sari ribbon" as w...

Textile Art Tips

Background : Today is Tuesday -  Tag day. I belong to a very talented group of artists who weekly produce a small work of art as a tag. We post photos of our tags  on the Tag Tuesday blog .  Currently our theme is alphabet, and we each could decide on our own sub-theme. I chose Australian plants and each of my tags is an experiment with a textile art technique. Here are February's tags and a brief  descriptions of the techniques used.  Technique 1 :  Heliographic Art (Sun Painting)  as in the photo above - close up of Tag E . When special sun/light sensitive paints are applied to wet fabric where objects have been placed on top, the outlines and shapes of the objects are transferred to the fabric. In this example I placed dried Eucalypt (gum tree) leaves on top  a piece of originally white cotton painted with yellow and orange" Setacolor" transparent paints and left it in the sun for about an hour. I then cut one of the leaves out and ...

Winter Beach : Tag Tuesday

"Beach" tags for Tag Tuesday  Last weekend, I was very privileged to do a workshop with Belgium based artist, Jette Clover.  One of Jette's series of small works features postage stamps of famous people, so after the workshop I rediscovered my stash of stamps ( most of them still attached to envelopes). Fortunately for me, this fortnight's Tag Tuesday theme is " The Beach" which seems to be recurring theme for Australian stamps.  These collage tags have been assembled from torn bits of painted paper, magazine pages and stamps. I have called these tags "Winter Beach" as  the beach still looks as bright and the water as blue even  in winter here in Newcastle. Today's  winter maximum temperature was 16 degrees C with a clear blue sky and warm sunshine. ...with Jette Clover in fromt of her art work " Lives of Girls and Women" in  the STITCHED UP exhibition.