Empress Wu Designs with Wilma

This last weekend was the annual exhibition of one of my dollmakers' groups, Hello Dollies. While I was "minding" the exhibition, I finished the doll pictured above. She is another version of my WOW (Woman of Wisdom) pattern. The body of the doll is embellished crazy patchwork and her costume includes hand dyed laces,brocade and silk. This doll has been named AGB because the type of embellishment is very much in the Anne's Glory Box embellishment class style. AGB is a stump doll  - a cloth doll with a "stump" as a body.   The Challenge for the exhibition was another stump doll - Oriental Dance by a fellow Hunter Valley dollmaker, Ann Maullin. I made mine as a Chinese Court concubine of earlier times. Her head was sewn from cloth, needle sculpted and then painted with gesso ( I think I did about 15 coats). After each coat of gesso, I sanded it with a fine sand paper. The last few coats were painted with gesso coloured with skintone acrylic paint and a flow me...

  On Sunday, 14 February, we will celebrate the Chinese New Year and welcome the Year of the Tiger.  So many of our family were born in the Year of the Tiger , including me, so we think it's a special year. Tiger people are known to be loyal, courageous, enthusiastic and generous, but of course there are some negatives - selfish, excessive and impulsive. Anyway, all the Tiger members of our family are really wonderful people!  Like lots of other family celebrations, it's a time to prepare and eat lovely food, and just enjoy being  together.  Happy Chinese New Year!    Exchange students preparing dinner at our place Grandchildren visiting our place. It will also be Valentine's Day on Sunday, so I wish you all a really wonderful day and am sending you all a big heart... Please also remember that there are only a few days to enter the ONE WORLD ONE HEART giveaway . Just scroll down to the blog post entitles One World One Heart ...

To celebrate February - the month of Valentine's Day, the Down Under Street Team (DUST) has a theme of "Roses are red, violets are blue" for its Etsy sale. I didn't really have anything in my shop which fitted this theme, so last night I created this little violet petal pouch just for the sale. I  searched my fabric stash for fabric with roses, but found this violet fabric which I forgot I had. I also adapted the pattern from one of inspirational books, Omiyage - Handmade Gifts from Fabric in the Japanese Tradition by Kumiko Sudo. I rediscovered this book on my shelf recently. It was a Christmas gift from my mother in 2003. I made little pouches like this previously and used a polymer clay face, but on this one, I covered a shank button with fabric and drew and coloured a little face. I was trying for " sweet and pretty" so I think I almost got it! The kiss curls were an afterthought. I have always thought fabric "beads" were a bit special, but t...

Since the beginning of the year, I have been struggling to find new inspiration, so this week I referred to a new book. Here is a dragonfly cache I made this week, all stitched and beaded by hand. It is a small hold-all for cosmetics, jewellery or just little trinkets.  My inspiration was this lovely book I got for Christmas - so appropriately named "Handmade Treasures from the Heart". It only arrived last week, as my husband bought it for me online, and the seller sent the wrong book . This one is so much better than the anatomy book sent by mistake! I am also inspired by my friends. I spent an afternoon recently with my very creative and productive friend, Bobbi from LamboArt. She has been making sumptuous Santas. These beautiful  art doll creations are certainly enough to inspire anyone.   Spending time with my family is not only relaxing it is also inspiring and motivating. A couple of days ago, we took our older grandchildren fishing ...

Today my sister-in-law had an operation on her pelvis. Before going to the hospital, we were talking about her friend who told her that she needed to think “yellow” as a special healing colour. I had coincidentally been reading about colour therapy, so we spent the morning researching and discussing theories about healing and colour. Here’s what we discovered about yellow from www.colourtherapyhealing.com : "YELLOW relates to the solar plexus chakra, situated below the ribs The organs to which this chakra relates are the liver, spleen, stomach and small intestine. The endocrine gland is the pancreas. Healing properties: Yellow helps strengthen the nerves and the mind. It helps awaken mental inspiration and stimulates higher mentality. Thus, it is an excellent colour for nervous or nerve-related conditions or ailments. It also energizes the muscles. Dark yellow soothes pains in the nerves (shooting pains)…. “ So while my sister-in-law was in the operating theatre this afternoon,...

2010 crept up on me, but I did make some New Year's resolutions. I am going to try to make less waste, especially with creative resources and to clean up my workroom after each project. I've done well so far, but 361 more days yet...  Ruth's bag (pictured) finished just before Christmas is a good example of using up bits and pieces of yarn and wool and recycling a handbag to create an altered, unique, scrumbled creation.  The wooden button is also made by my husband from offcuts of timber. By the way, my friend, Ruth was happy with her bag, too.   Between Christmas and New Year, I attempt to rid our house of unwanted clutter, so when I was going through old cards, I thought they were all so beautiful I should do something with them. Easy - I used the cuttlebug and cut the fronts of  greeting cards from years past to make hundreds of colourful and useful gift tags. I now have a supply of gift cards for all occasions. Perhaps you recognise a card you...

What does a Simmons' Christmas look like? Handmade ornaments adorning Wilma's wire tree... Generations coming together to celebrate... Japanese visitors enjoying a first Aussie Christmas...  Anticipation ...   Lots of food... Santa Stockings ... Family Fun - opening presents ... Sharing new toys with parents... Sharing new toys with cousins... Satisfaction after completing a new Lego kit... Playing until exhausted...   Sleeping after a big day...  Hope you enjoyed a happy Christmas Day, too!