Sculpt 5, Little Mo type doll, Flower child, polymer clay

Polymer clay hippy girl

 I bought this tutorial for making A Little Mo doll about two months ago, way before I started sculpting, and finally gave it a go.

The tutorial is excellent; well written and detailed, and the doll artist, Paulette Morrissey,  has an entire town full of adorable little dolls, called Fern Lake

Polymer clay hippy girl

 I had the idea in my head of a little girl watching her big sister get ready for a 70's party, then demanding to be dressed up too.  This resulted in Melanie, a little girl with attitude, even though she's doing the peace sign with her right hand.

If the photos were better you'd see she got into her sister's makup and put cover up all around her eyes, like a raccoon, then put not one but two sparkly flowers on her face.  She threw a tantrum until her sister made her a headband to match her dress, too.

Polymer clay girl

 Melanie has long wavy super soft strawberry blonde mohair, a dusting of freckles that don't show up in photos, and baby blue eyes.  Her entire body is polymer clay, as are her slippers and socks.  She can stand but is wobbly so is better off leaning against something.

Little Mo dolls normally have clay hair but I wanted to try mohair, and am pleased with the results.

Polymer clay little Mo type doll

I crocheted the dress with matching undies and headband for her. 

Polymer clay flower child

She's bigger than my other sculpts, but still a tiny thing.

I love my little flower child, especially her long soft hair, and the expression on her face.  I wish I could get good pictures of her; I tried at night, and again early in the morning.  Maybe afternoon light would be better?

Polymer Clay doll eyes and Crocheted doll cradle

 I had a blast trying various polymer clay eye tutorials, even though most didn't turn out right, lol.

Polymer clay eyes

 The yellow and brown eyes were made with polymer clay, printed irises, cut  out and centered on the clay, then covered with Sculpey bake and bond, which I accidentally bought thinking it was liquid sculpey.  They were cloudy until I used the heat gun on them, and then they turned glassy pretty quickly.

My heat gun, made especially for polymer clay, is in storage so I had to use my Dad's heat gun, which is much hotter than mine, and it blows things around, so I lost some of the smaller eyes, lol, and burned others before I got used to the heat settings.

 I can't wait until the weather gets warm enough that I can dig through my stuff in the garage and find my art supplies.  I did find my genesis heat set paints on the last day that was warm enough (-10 C) to brave the garage, but it's -24 C with the windchill today so there's no way I'm going back in , lol.

I had to cut the irises out with tiny curved manicure scissors.  I blew them up in a major way for the photo; all of these eyes are smaller than the head of a sewing pin.  I ordered some hollow hole punches so I'll be able to cut things out better when they arrive.

 I also made this bassinet for my little girl doll; she still doesn't have a name, poor thing.  Some friends suggested Lily, others Violet.  She looks more like an Emma to me though.

Crocheted bassinet

crocheted bassinet

Crocheted bassinet

 The yellow and brown eyes were made with bake and bond, and the rest were made with translucent liquid sculpey.  The bake and bond actually came out nicer!

Polymer Clay eyes

 Various eyes, following various tutorials I found online. 

Polymer clay eyes

 I made these eyes (below) without following a tutorial.  I have a zillion tiny clear glass bear eyes, so I painted some blue, green, and brown, and after they dried, cut off most of the wire and shoved them into slightly flattened clay balls to make the ones on the top of the white plate (below).  The rest were made in the same manner but with fish lure eyes instead of glass bear eyes. They came out great, even though the colors are weird (red, gold, clear).  I liked the way they came out so much that I ordered 100 blue lure eyes, and 100 green ones.  I think they'll make lovely fairy eyes with the whites, and without, they can make cute animal or dragon eyes.

Polymer clay eyes

 The blue cloudy eyes in on the white plate, below, are the same as the blue clear eyes in the photo on the brown ceramic tile, above.  I had to use the heat gun to make them clear.  The ones in the middle of the brown tile were made just by adding liquid sculpey on top.  The blue and green ones in the lower left corner of the brown tile were made by making a little hollow using a round tool on the clay, then adding the iris, then adding the liquid sculpey.  I like the look of the eyes without the depression better, and I like the bake and bond eyes (yellow and brown, upper right corner) better than the liquid sculpey eyes.
                                                                                                                    

Polymer clay eyes

My favorite eyes are the red, gold, and clear lure eyes, baked into clay.  They're sparkly, lol.The blue and green glass eyes came out nice too.  The brown eyes look dull.  When they're in a face, maybe they'll look better as only a bit of the whites will show.

Sculpting baby dolls, 4, First human: It's a girl!

OOAK baby girl

This is my first baby human, and I'm so pleased with her .

Tiny Ooak baby girl

She's another tiny girl, and I really struggled with her facial features as I had to use a 5 times magnifying glass just to see what I was doing.  I should have bought more clay when it was on sale for half off, as I'm running out, and thus have to sculpt small, lol.

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It took me more than 12 hours to sculpt her head.  I rushed on her arms and legs because I was so tired, and just wanted to get them done, but they still came out OK.  Not perfect by any means, but my camera still selects infant setting for her, lol.

Tomorrow I'll add more, but for now, I just wanted to get some photos of her new outfit, which I finished this evening.  Isn't it adorable?  She chose the colors herself ;-).

Good night!

Plastic canvas fantasy boat cradle

I wanted to make a cradle for my baby blue tufted elf, but none of the plastic canvas patterns i have seemed to suit him, so I designed this little fantasy cradle for him.

Fantasy plastic canvas boat-cradle

 I basically lay the doll next to my plastic canvas to measure the size, and cut with the scissors, freehand.

Crocheted blankie for boat cradle

 I crocheted a matching blanket for him as well.

Little mobile for fantasy cradle

 His mobile is made from an earring backing and beads.  I was lucky I had some leaf shaped beads, as they go with the leaves on the cradle so nicely.

I did the flowers and leaves in long stitch, freestyle. In my mind, this little baby is a rare blue tufted  elf, living in the Forbidden Forest near Hogwarts.

 The mother elves weave a magical tapestry around the boat cradles can drift among the pond flowers and remain hidden.

Blue tufted elf babies can drift off to dreamland in style in their little flowered boat cradles.

 I didn't write out the pattern for the boat, but I did take a photo of the pieces after I cut them out. 

Plastic canvas fantasy cradle pieces

If you decide to make it, I suggest cutting the sides and back out of stiff canvas, but use bendy canvas for the bottom (the piece that looks like a thick sharp pencil, lol).  The little piece was going to be for the rockers, but I decided to leave them off.

If you try the pattern, I'd love to see photos.

Take care!

Sculpting, Doll 3, First open eyed baby fairy

Ooak art doll, baby fairy, polymer clay

 Meet blue fairy baby, my 3rd sculpt overall, and my first open eyed sculpt.  He looks a little scared in the photo and I can't say I blame him; I'd be scared too if I were thumb sized, lol.

He's not perfect; heck, my Mom even says he's ugly, but I love him.  He's my favorite sculpt so far.  He makes me smile, just looking at him :-).

 I started with a some polymer clay: living baby, and sculpey 3.  I find the sculpey three too soft but love the colors, so I mixed translucent white and red to get pink, and then mixed that with the living baby flesh color (which looks pasty to me).  The little flower fairy I did the other day (earlier blog entry) was straight living baby, and I didn't like the color.  My first baby was straight sculpy three, in translucent white and red (pink) and I absolutely loved the color but hated how soft it was.  Her tiny facial features disappeared during baking.  The living baby (I think that's what it's called) is also by sculpy but it seems to hold the details better.

Anyway, here's the head I ended up with.  Not bad for my first open eyed sculpt. I  even used tinfoil as an armature.  I gave him big waggly ears, but in retrospect, not big enough.  Nest time I want really big, droopy ears.

Sculpting an OOAK fairy baby head in polymer clay

 I didn't have any wee human glass eyes, so I used bear eyes.  Since he's an elf, I guess it works.

Limbs and head, baked and painted with blush and eyeshadow

 I sculpted his wee limbs and put loops in the ends so I could later attach them.  Both arm loops fell out and had to be replaced, but the leg loops held. 

Sleeping baby elf

 His body is once again a finger of a glove; the thumb, this time, as I wanted him to be chubbier.

Thumb sucking OOAK

 I sculpted him so he can suck the thumb on his right hand.  He looks sooo cute in this pose. 

Thumb sized body.

 He's a cute little guy.

I was going to leave him bald at yesterday, but today decided to give him a big mop of hair.  I have some pretty blue yarn, similar to eyelash yarn, but fuzzier.  It looks like wefted hair, so that's how I used it. I crocheted a wig cap out of crochet cotton thread, and sewed the wefted yarn onto the cap.

 

 

Ooak art doll

I love his blue hair, but he looks scared, lol, poor tyke.

Ooak polymer baby elf

Here he is, reclining on his blankie (a baby washcloth), with a pillow of green wool batting.  I put this screensaver up for backgroumd, and it seems to suit him perfectly.  He still looks scared though, so I decided to give him a gift.

Here he is, investigating the box.

He's taking his time opening it.  What a polite baby eff boy ;-0.

Ooak polymer art doll with needle felted bear tody

Oh look!  A teddy was in the box.

He seems to love his new friend. 

We'll leave him to rest now, on his woodsy front yard, just outside his tree stump home.

Goodnight baby; we'll need to think of a great name for you.

Sculpting, doll 2, a fairy

Little Flower Fairy polymer clay, crochet, needle felt

 

I am having so much fun learning how to sculpt in polymer clay.  Meet my second creation, tentatively named Sparkles.

Polymer clay doll head 2

 For this doll, I sculpted a bit bigger than my first, and gave her exaggerated features because I'm learning how to do them.  Noses are very hard for me, lol.  I painted this doll with chalk and eyeshadow.  I love fairies and elves and think I will sculpt as many as possible, lol, hopefully improving with each one.

Polymer clay fairy

She was sculpted without molds, in Sculpey Living Baby clay.
 I did her head first, on an armature made of wire embedded in a tinfoil ball, then covered with tape.
Then I sculpted her hands and feet and placed them on an wire armature that i made myself. Then I sculpted her hands and feet again because I ruined them while putting them on the armature :-).

Armature for polymer clay doll

 I needle felted her a body, around the wire.  That was the easiest part of dollmaking, for me.  The wire armature gave me the most trouble.

Needle felted body for polymer clay doll

 She's very bendy and poseable, but with closed eyes her poses are limited.  I want to learn to do an open eyed doll next.

Needle felted armature for polymer clay doll

Poseable polymer clay doll without clothes

 She looks very comfy, doesn't she?  I am very happy with her, considering she's only my second try.

Crocheted outfit for polymer clay mini doll

 I glued on some mohair for her hair.  It's a bit of a mess. I've trimmed the bangs since these photos were taken and she looks nicer now.

I crocheted this cute outfit using embroidery floss instead of yarn, and gave her flower "wings". I didn't have enough of the light green, or I would have made most of the outfit in green, with only a bit of the orange.   I've ordered some crochet cotton in pretty colors and it should be in next week. I can't wait!

Polymer clay fairy asleep

I do like the vibrant oranges and yellows of the embroidery floss, even though they were my second choice for colors.  This little doll makes me smile.  My aunt loved her.

I am really excited about learning how to sculpt because it's allowing me to combine so many of the crafts I already do (needle felting and crochet, reborning (the painting).  I can even make some plastic canvas furniture for the dolls.

Thanks for taking a peek at my flower fairy.  Should I keep calling her Sparkles, or can you help me with a better name?

Take care!