Arbour ready ( we think) and we made some baskets

Today Dafna came and made and glued on the last flowers on the arbour we made some time ago
You can see her here on the left making wisteria to hang in the background and on the right she is plaiting threads to make handles for our canvas baskets:-). You can see she is a dancer - I am not quite sure I could plait while sitting comfortably in a double eight or something the like...

And oh dear...

AGAIN I fell for one of Kristy's critters....
Isn't this guinea pig ABSOLUTELY adorable ?? I am still very much convinced that Kristy loves all critters big time generally,and her critters clearly do show this.

He is on his way( I again snagged a pic from Kristy's blog!) and I hope to be able to rehome him soon!

Bracken

Last week I finished stitching Bracken , Chelles dog ( Chelle lives in the UK). He went over the Rainbow Bridge some weeks ago and Chelle asked me to stitch him, as a memory.
Fortunately , she was delighted with it,as was her husband.


They will make a frame for the stitching themselves, so I can only show the stitching. Not that I mind if anyone wants to frame :-)
And again some bucks for animal rescue! Hurray!

Working on another doll

I have loads of nekkid dolls. Amongst them was this beauty, made , wigged and decorated and bejewelled by Stacy Hofman .
Because of the green colors in her jewels and hair decorations , I searched high and low for fabric to go with it.
This brocade was the best I could come up with ; unfortunately it does not sit well in a victorian dress, or at least the one I had planned for her.
So I gave her this vaguely Edwardian one(based on Emilie by Cynthia Howe, from an earlier class) with some modifications and additions of mine. Now for the fun part : I still need a lot to do to this dress, I think most of it will be making lotsa roses, either silk or cold porcelain ones. Anyone seeing this any ideas ??? Each suggestion welcome !

YEHAW !!! Floris again....

I am just back from the Veterinary faculty with my radiated kitty. Professor is delighted with him ( "my favourite cat!!") and we can wait 6 months till the next check-up visit now,unless something crops up, that is.
HOORRRAAYYYY !!!!

And now for some grisly things...

Around Halloween last year my friend Marlene sent me some lovely skellies which I meant to park into the Highwayman, my robbers'inn.
I had not yet got round to placing them into the pub , as I thought I would have to hacksaw my way into positioning them. Surprisingly, however, I just needed to saw them halfway through the joints to get them seated and so I did.
They have been placed in the dining room(there will be more, I have loads of skellies left!)
Now don't forget : this is an inn with two kinds of guests : the usual, rowdy gang who go in and out and sometimes unfortunate richer guests. They enter once and are never seen again...
Y'know , this tale is based on that of a real pub that used to exist in London!

Restoring my ego

Yesterday was very frustrating! Not only the doll ( I glued her arm again this morning and haven't looked at her since), but also , just before I went to bed , my new computer went crazy and died on me.
Today it was rebooted again and it seems to work now.

To get my sanity back, I dived onto a side table kit , made by McQueenies . It went together like a dream , like all their kits ( warmly recommended!!!) and after the assembly had dried , I shellacqed the lot , as I had learnt from Larry , a great woodworker who happily shares lots of his knowledge. I had received loads of flakes from Pat in Arizona, a lovely friend, and shellac is so easy to work with and gives such a lovely finish!

Thank you to Hazel ( Minis4all, who organizes the on line workshops), to Lynne and Bernard ( who made up these kits), to Larry and to Pat.
And thanks to David, my computer guru , who kicked my laptop back into shape.

Tearing my hair out and losing arms....

Today I tried to dress Adella, that lovely lady made by Nancy Cronin.
Somehow I have difficulties putting her together. Worst is the arm ; I have been losing it five times now , glueing it back again , changing glue, changing wire and generally becoming more and more desperate...

This is the VERY last try, if this does not work , I am going to fix her in air draying clay or so( I already modelled her bodice in Milliput as she wanted to get rid of her legs , too)
AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH !!!!!!!!

Dafna made roses

Yesterday Dafna was here again and she determinedly set to work making the most beautiful roses for her arbour. They are lovely indeed ! We just used a simple household punch for the petals and painted printer paper . For the leaves, I had to use a punch , of course, and she patiently veined the leaves.

She is not yet done with them , of course, but one can see she worked quite hard.
A pupil to be proud of !