Empress Wu Designs with Wilma

Art Tags "Invisble Crown " #4-#6 : Wilma Simmons  Here's my other "favourite" stamp for the Tag Tuesday challenge - "always wear your invisible crown" ... I have used it before, and loved the result of small tags created with the stamp and a  British postage stamp depicting Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth in a stylised format.  The challenge this time around was to create  with 'brown".  Previously I used the stamp to create a set of "pink" tags. Art Tags "Invisible Crown " #1-#3 : Wilma Simmons   

With a rather late start to 29  Faces - an online challenge to create a face a day for the month of February, I  have a lot of  catching  up to do. To make it easier, I have chosen to follow a "Fairy Tale" prompt list and am drawing faces on small gift tags , and yet it is still a challenge. Fairy Godmother from "Cinderella" - "Even miracles take a little time."  Red Riding Hood  "Every moment is a moment when you're in the woods"  Sleeping Beauty " If you dream a thing more than once, it's sure to come true."  Snow White -"Remember you;re the one who can fill the world with sunshine"  Donkeyskin - "Virtue always triumphs" 

At Tag Tuesday, Joan   set us a really fun challenge.... tic tac toe . We were asked to create a tag using three elements in a row from the tic tac toe grid Joan provided.  For my first tag,  I chose the top row - washi tape, stamping and reused item. ( I also used a stencil because I saw stenciling on the grid, but this was not one of the essential elements)  The washi tape is at the bottom of the tag, the stamped message is "be happy, be bright ..." and the reused item was a magazine page, torn into little pieces , and then I cut a circle from the collaged paper to create the bauble shape. And here is a Christmas themed tag...   For the second tag, I used the diagonal row starting from the top right hand square - reused item , buttons/brads/flair and stenciling. Again, the reused item was a magazine page, torn and collaged , the brads are like little buttons, with stenciling in white to create a contrast.  Thanks Joan and ...

Art Dolls only hosted a Midsummer Challenge  for doll makers around the world.... here are some of the beautiful dolls made in response to the challenge. 

Fussy cut  pattern on a text background, with hand stitching-  WS  The current theme at Tag Tuesday   is TIME/CLOCKS, nominated by design team member, Joan who prepared some great tags as inspiration. Sometime ago, I cut very carefully these white rabbits  out of a piece of paper... I loved the  pattern design of the shared ears being part of the central chessboard. This seemed a good time to find it in my stash and create a round tag for this challenge. I continued with the Wonderland theme, and remembered the Mad Hatter announcing "It's always tea time!" so here is another tag inspired by that saying... watercolour and ink drawing with photo transfers and text an fabric. Watercolour pencil and ink drawing ( Alice) , photo transfer ( trees and quote)  onto text background paper, with fabric. WS  Please visit Tag Tuesday for  contributions from other tag artists who have interpreted this theme.

  I knew very little about Santos Cage Dolls when my doll making group set us a challenge of creating our own interpretation of a cage doll. The image below which I found on Pinterest is a lovely illustration of these historical figures.    Image :  http://pinterest.com/pin/277112183292720280/  from the board, Santos Love   Here is more information from  http://www.santoscagedoll.com/pages/history-of-santos-dolls ... “The Santos dolls take their name from the Spanish word for Saint, and are also known as Santons (French) and Santibelli (Italian)…Originally, Santos were used as in- home altars especially in small villages which did not have a priest, as well as for when it was not possible to travel to church, such as during times of war.  Their development flourished in Europe in the 1700's and 1800's, primarily due to these wars. European Santos dolls were also brought to the Latin Americas during the Colonial age of Spain'...

Finally on Friday, my project "Seasons" for the Hello Dollies challenge was ready for presentation on Saturday... as usual, last minute touches were needed. I decided on a "flat doll" project, for this challenge which was to "create your own fabric" to make a doll from a basic pattern provided. I thought the stump doll pattern lent itself easily to the flat doll idea. I had been working on the idea for a long time, making all sorts of different fabric, most of which was rejected and has since found other uses. I finally settled on four bits of  machine embellished  and embroidered fabric to complement a piece of space dyed commercial fabric on which I had stamped face images.  Trying not to use anything other than what was in my stash, I chose a neutral coloured fabric for the background and gave it a bit of depth by going over the surface with a black fabric pastel with a textured mat  underneath. My original idea was to have these dolls appearing to ...

To herald the beginning of Winter, the weather has been cold, rainy and stormy this week, so like most people who live in Newcastle ( NSW, Australia), I have been thinking of that memorable June weekend in 2007, now known as the Pasha Bulker weekend when this huge ship ran aground on the beach during a winter storm ... but I have bigger challenges related to Seasons to contend with. My doll makers' group, Hello Dollies, has a challenge to create a cloth doll, using the theme " Seasons" as inspiration and with only one rule that the fabric used must be of our own creation. As usual, I have left it to the last few weeks and although I have been thinking about the project for months, it is only in the last week or so that I have been propelled into action. I chose the stump doll pattern from the choice of two patterns provided. Idea No.1 was to paint fabric and then machine embroider it and use it as the body for the doll and I was going to use the tree template to create t...

How lucky am I ? This is the beautiful doll I received in the Gumnutters Doll Group Cup Challenge. It was made by Marg from a small collection of fabrics, lace and an embroidered piece I provided. The Cup Challenge is fun - a "doll challenge" which began at the Gumnutters Christmas in July meeting and finished on Saturday at the December meeting. Each participant provided some fabric and it is rolled inside a cup/coffe mug and the parcels are swapped. The cup is a gift, but each person then makes a doll or something else (if requested) using the fabrics provided. Most unlike me, I chose "pink" and gathered together pink/maroon coordinating fabrics from my stash. Thanks Marg, your interpretation of the bits and pieces I gave you is absolutely beautiful. There were of course many other fantastic dolls unveiled, including a very richly dressed Santa,  cheeky Christmas elves, and starry angels, and brightly costumed elegant girls. Congratulations to all who partici...