Dream Chaser

New fairy I called dream chaser. I love her one legged stance although she is not so sturdy as I like her to be. LOve the colours and her face came out great. This pattern by Mary Tressler.

Clam the mermaid

I have sold Merle and had to make a replacement mermaid for selling. I am not very happy with the pics of Clam - but still listed her. I will have to see if I can take some better ones later. Hopefully tomorrow will be sunny and light outside - it does seem to help tremendously with taking a good photograph.

Hope she is also going to sell as quick as Merle!!

Francesco and the fool

This doll is my first fully air dry clay sculpted doll. I am very happy with the way he turned out. His costuming took forever to do and while a normal cloth doll takes me about 30 hours to complete, he took almost more than double the time. A lot of time had been waiting time for the clay to dry as well as sanding in between layers which was a cumbersome task.

I only did the face in clay and was contemplating doing the hands as well but I decided against that since I used gold foil on the arms and would not have anything to hide the seam between the cloth and clay. I am eager to see how this clay will stand up to the time and wether it is going to crack and become brittle with time. This has been only an experiment but I am absolutely thrilled by the way it turned out. I am definitely going to make more clay sculpts now. I still like the manageability of the cloth for posing of the figure and will have to make some kind of transition to full clay sculpting. But thats for later, now I am just enjoying my newly found love for sculpting. I have considered selling him but am going to charge a whopping price (perhaps he won't sell and I get to keep him!!!). Am I fooling myself???

Merle the Mermaid

Recently I had a request for a mermaid doll from South Africa and decided to do another one for the etsy store. The one that I sent to SA I forgot to take pictures of since I was in such a hurry to get her on her way! Silly me.

The one I made for my shop uses the same materials and embellishments but with a different face. I have to say that I like the first one better but because I don't use patterns they tend not to come out the same twice.

La Nouba

We recently went to Orlando FL with the main purpose of taking Marelie to Disney world for her birthday. We all had a wonderful time and I was inspired to make more dolls by the exquisite displays all through Disney world. One of the highlights of our trip was taking in a performance of Cirque du Soleil. The performance was called La Nouba. Oh what a wonderful experience. The costumes and acts were superb and the whole show a trip into fantasy land. I made one of the characters to commemomrate our very wonderful trip. I picked "Birdy" since she was so color ful and the main stay of the performance. She came out just as colorful as the real time character. Oh what good memories we made on this trip!!!! For this doll I highly adapted parts of a PMC pattern.

Boo

I have been making more of my fantasy clown dolls since I have sold 2 of them recently and need some more stock. Boo is a winter clown seeing that he is dressed so warmly!! He looks a bit contemplative but is not sad.

Stealing Time

This past week end has been such a sad one for us since one of Marelie's friends passed away in the hospital. Sayre Colt would have turned 10 this week and we are going to miss his ready smile, soft, kind hearted and generous spirit.

Sayre and Kaylee were Marelie's first friends in the US as they were our neighbours in the condo we lived in down town.

I made this doll in honor of Sayre but also to remind myself that time flies away and every second spent with our children is precious. Never do we know when our time with them might run out.

Sometimes we allow unimportant things to steal time away and we need to live, love and laugh every second we can.

Sayre we will miss you and will never forget you. You touched our lives and our hearts.

New arrival in Mulberry Meadow

A new fairy has arrived in the Meadow. Her name is Hazel, due to her beautiful brown eyes! She has some big decisions to make about which hat to wear to the butterfly ball and is anxiously contemplating her decision. Adapted PMC pattern.

Story to follow soon........

Muse

I have decided to make a doll that honours my MIL and sisters passion for painting and all things weird and wonderfully creative. She turned out almost as I had envisioned her. The basic concept was that she represents the "artistic muse" and carries a pallette and paint brush but she herself is the canvas (hence one white outfit). The crown on her head is filled with pieces of "canvass" , some of the paint from the palette and the crown itself represents the ideas flowing from the intertwining of these 3 elements.

Hoffman Challenge

This year I entered my first doll into the Hoffman Challenge. Looking at some of the others entries I am amazed to see the level of artistry and skill dispalyed in the dolls. Results of the challenge should be posted by middle August.

I called her Tuka that means "peacock dancing".

Mally the Moth Painter

This doll has been a commission for someone in South Africa and has been sold.

The fairy tale has been written by my daughter Marelie.

Mally the Moth Painter
by: Marelie Vorster
Once upon a time there was a fairy that was called Mally. She lived in a forest called Mulberry Meadow. All the faeries had talents and jobs but Mally didn't know what hers was.
She was a very lonely fairy – she had no friends and nobody wanted to play with her. One day while she was sitting on a mossy patch she found a golden branch that reminded her of a paint brush. She quickly looked around to find some feathers to attach to the end. Now she had a paint brush but no paint! Suddenly a berry plopped down ,from the tree above, on the ground next to her and some juice spilled on her dress. She looked at the juice and thought “this could be paint!”!
Excitedly she looked around for something to paint on. Mally heard a faint cry on a branch above her and found a little moth crying her eyes out. She told Mally that she was crying because she wanted to go to a butterfly dance but she was so ugly that they would never let her in.
Mally offered to paint the little moth and quickly they were searching for all kinds of flowers and berries to make paint from.
The little moth was so happy that she called her friends and told them about Mally.
That is the story of how Mally became Mulberry Meadow's famous Moth Painter. Now she has many friends and is extremely happy that she can help others be the best they can.
The end

More Oopsadaisy

More pics of Oopsadaisy

Oopsadaisy

I was recently asked by Hospice to make a doll that they could auction off at one of their events. I did not feel like making a sad doll and decided to do a little boy doll. He is supposed to look as if he just landed on his bum - explaining the stunned expression on his face!

I love the way he came out!!!

My new doll is called Sonvanger (Sun catcher)

SONVANGER
Valiant Swart
KYK OF JY VIR MY DIE SON KAN VANG
DAAR'S 'N KAMER IN DIE HUIS WAAR ONS DIE SON KAN HANG
DIS DONKER BY DIE VENSTER IN DIE MIDDEL VAN DIE DAG
ONTHOU JY HOE HELDER DIE KAMER KON LAG
KYK OF JY VIR MY DIE SON KAN BRING
DAAR'S 'N LIEDJIE IN DIE GANGE WAT DIE SON KAN SING
WANT DIS STIL IN DIE HOEKE, HIERDIE KOUE SEISOEN
KAN JY SIEN WAT DIE WIND EN DIE REËN AAN MY DOEN
S-O-NVANGEREK VRA JOU MOOI, LAAT HOM WEER VIR MY KOM SKYN
S-O-NVANGERLAAT MY VERSTAAN
HOE 'N SOMER SOMMERSO IN DIE NIET KAN VERDWYN
EN LAAT HOM SKYN
KYK OF JY VIR MY DIE SON KAN KRY
DAAR'S 'N HUISIE IN MY HART WAAR DIE SON KAN BLY
KYK OF JY VIR MY DIE SON KAN STEEL
DAAR'S 'N PLEKKIE IN DIE TUIN WAAR DIE SON KAN SPEEL
BRING 'N BIETJIE LIG VIR DIE DRAAIE OP MY PAD
EN 'N HANDJIEVOL STRALE VIR DIE DONKER IN MY HART
S-O-NVANGER

speelmaats

my liefling het 'n skilpad
groen gemaak van lap
wat met sy doekvoet-pote
snags oor my gewete stap

my liefling het 'n houtpop
Pinokkio is sy naam
en oral waar my liefling woon
kan jy sweer woon langneus saam

die twee heers ewe opgewek
al jare oor my lief se bed
maar sedert ek by hom kom speel
maak hulle berekend vir my plek

Doll project

My absolute favourite project so far this year. Making dolls with the fourth grade class!

Art dolls?

What where????

Maureen Carlson's book

Bought a book and I absolutely love the trolls! Looks like someone I know.

These guys are tiny - the papa troll is about 4 inches tall and baby less than 2 inches.

Frustrated further attempts in clay

She looking better!!!

New polymer clay tries

Polymer Clay experiments

I tried to make dolls from polymer clay. This is far harder than it looks. She cracked herself laughing

some could dance

some can only sing!

and then there were the faeries...