Nine new critters!

Sam

Kitty

Ellen

Connie,

Eva is a bunny in progress. her little pink cardigan was from a Barbie clothes pattern. Just the right size for my dolls!

Oleg, I thought he looked a little Russian. Plus it is my Dad's real name.

Paul, although I'm not really happy with this name, but it's the only one that came to me while I was listing him:(. I read the other night that a company called Classic Bears, don't name there bears. They leave it for the recipiant to name them. Makes sence to me, after all I named my bear Tony Curtis when I was 5 and I don't think no bear manufacturer would have thought of that!

Barbara.....note the pink pom pom on top, yep my first needle felted ball in use already!

Getting to be quite a little doll factory in my studio. Just churned out 9 more little critters for my Etsy shop. Looking through my folder on flickr I'm actually surprised at how many dolls I've made. To date on Etsy I've sold 42 critters. My most recent sales where 2 elephants that went to a woman in San Jose, California. A lot of my dolls have sold in the USA. I have a collector that has purchased 9 of my dolls, she lives in Amsterdam. One of my Elephants now lives in Spain and a bunny in the UK. The correspondence between myself and the buyers have always been very freindly and supportive.

needle felting....look!!

Just look at my little babies! my first go at needle felting. I only stabbed myself once. Inspired by Vivien's adorable little felted birds and sheep. I went and ordered some needles from KPixie.
When my needles arrived in the mail I was blown away by the size of the package, why the hell would they pack such tiny little needles in such a big envelope, I know these things are sharp...but?? So when I opened it up and to my surprise there was a huge thick piece of foam inside I thought great is this a joke? After reading the instructions and watching a few YouTube tutorials I worked out what the foam is for....and a good thing it is too! Now I'll be able to make all the little pom poms I want too!

Alex Bear

Just listed another bear on Etsy, he is my favorite so far!

Tony is finally out and about!!

My first of many more bears is for sale today in my ETSY Shop
Tony, named after my own very first panda bear my mum gave me when I was 5, (yes I still have him). tony is my first of a series of 6 bears that I'm currently working on.
All are made from calico, distressed using coffee and wax,
Sailors collars are a real favourite of mine, I love making them and I think they look pretty cool.
The sailor hat I designed my self. After trying to find a free pattern on the net I decided to see if I could wing it. I'm pretty happy with the end result. the hat is anchored down by a few stitches to Tony's head.
I was hoping to write a little story for him but drew a complete blank!:(
Go take a look

Lenore wip update

All last night and early this morning I've been trying to come up with a poem for Lenore, I should have had a pencil and pad next to me to write down some of the lines I thought of!!
Yesterday I added hair, not sure if I like it plated yet...but I'll wait and see.
a little peter pan collar and a brown ribon and vintage brown button.

A gruby little child
nasty inside
likes nothing better
than to eat mud pies.....I'll keep working on it

Parents be warned don't name your child Lenore
As sweet a face can be,
on the outside everyone can see
but venture inside
and there you will die from........still working on it!!:P

a contribution poem by Lady Euphoria

Once there was a little dolly,
Mama wanted to call her Molly.

But once her darkness started to seep,
She didn't even let out a peep.

Papa let out a mighty roar,
This ones name must be Lenore.

Thank you Lady Euphoria, I thought this poem should be out in the open and not lurk in the dephs of my comment box:)

Earth girl wip....Lenore

Lenore, earth doll

Over at ADO (art dolls only), a quarterly challenge is organized by certain members. As a new member I decided to jump right in and try my hand at the 4 elements challenge. I choose 'Earth'

So here she is in progress. This is my first attempt at needle sculpting a face. I like the result although the instructions showed a smiling face but as usual my dolls are unhappy... try as I may get them to smile it just doesn't work out!

At the moment she has just been dipped in warm coffee and is drying in the sun.

A quick note and a sneak peek inside

Thank you for all the compliments on my new LBCstudio banner.
I've taken some of the suggestion on board and will be making a version two soon.

My studio at the moment!!!!


Other new is that I joined a fascinating group called ADO short for art dolls only.
It's an Etsy group for original art dolls. Very cool and talented and inspiring people.

a new creature soon to be added to my ETSY shop!!

painting update

I've been sick with a cold for a few days and so not much painting was attempted. More detail of the cats patterns have been painted in. Areas around Ned's eye's I'm happy with and will not do much more there. Poor Ned's mouth area is looking a little dodgy and will need a bit of playing around to get that right. But so far so good. Still not sure what to paint in the green area.

works in progress

putting newspaper and amazon boxes to good use!! Good fun on a rainy day, playing with a pot of glue and shredding newsprint.
The newsprint wont stay for some of these I'll be finishing them off with some nice Victorian style wallpaper.

changes, and painting

Like I have nothing better to do than playing on my blog....but I really, really wanted a big new header for the top of my page. I'll see if I still like it tomorrow may change it a bit as the weeks go by. Its autumn you see and I feel a change in the air!
yes I've been painting!!! A bit at the time. I've started blocking in a bit more detail and cleaning up the rough line work. I do tend to paint rather tight but always start off very loose.
Fat Kitty has a lot of colors in her fur so I've slowly been adding oranges and browns. Ned is very gray but has a hit of cream around his eyes and forehead. I've also fixed up their proportions and painted them standing a little closer, (there is now way that this would ever happen in real life!) The back ground will be left fairly simple. The green border will get some sort of patterning.
It's very helpful looking at the photo's on the blog as it puts the painting into another environment and you can start to see whats working and what's not.
Another good technique is to turn the painting upside down or view it in front of a mirror.

painting update

Blocking in colors adding a green border.
It's been a bit of a hectic few days so not much painting has been achieved. I have the whole night to myself and if I'm not lured by my new DVD of the latest Batman movie then maybe a bit of painting. :)

when the cats away.....

Last week while BF was at work I re-arranged the lounge room and moved my painting stuff into a corner. My actual studio is so full of my sewing and knitting that I've had to move out.
Fortunately BF doesn't seem to mind so long as I do paint and not sit on the sofa watching black and white horror movies and knit:(!

Because I haven't painted for a while I thought I should start with something reasonably small and a subject matter that I'm familiar with and won't get bored.....What better than my two gruesome twosome!
So here it is so far I will keep an up to date record of the progress.....gulp!