Hi everyone
Jennie (Live the Dream) here with you today being creative with our current theme of Art Dolls.
My granddaughter and I love to create articulated dolls from scraps and stamps and we always have a lot of fun creating a little art doll with (as Caitlyn says) attitude! Although my Lynne Perrella doll is quite arty I hope the basic steps will provide you with some ideas and fun which can be shared with younger crafters.
I love her transparent butterfly wings and thought she looked lovely fluttering in the greenhouse! By using eyelets instead of brads I was still able to articulate her arms but this allowed me to add some wire for a hanging so the transparent wings can be seen.
Our theme this quarter is Transparency and so my use of plastic packaging and lace fits the theme. She has also been made from scraps of previously printed gel plate papers and odd little bits of lace that I seem to have lurking in my lace jar, so a sustainable project too.
My starting point for this project was the stamps as I needed a nice looking "face" to be able to isolate from the stamp design and was easy to cut out. I chose LPM03 as my main character stamp and added MN109 to be able to isolate a word or two and also MN115 for the wings. Being PaperArtsy Minis they were all in scale with each other.
The next job was to find "body parts" ! It is possible to find a number of free templates online and these are usually my go to as I am not that confident at hand drawing them. They can be printed out at different scales to fit your chosen "head" and if I am creating with Caitlyn I often print them directly onto patterned paper so she only has to cut out one set.
Given the vintage look of my lady I knew that lace would be involved and I find these little pearl gems are good for adding little details around the neck and sleeves.
And finally some scraps of paper. When making these small art dolls I try to keep patterns small so that they are in scale with overall doll. I keep all my little scraps of gel plate prints in a folder as they are generally useful for some smaller projects. I decided on this pink piece which I had created for a PaperArtsy project some time ago. It had some lovey imprints from some stencils and I had thankfully written on the back the paint colours! PaperArtsy Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylic Professor Plum FF109 and Sour Grapes FF115.
The first step was to ensure the head was in scale with the body and I found that a print scale of 75% worked well. I traced my body pieces onto heavyweight cardstock after my attempts at printing them directly ended in a massive printer jam!
I had decided against legs as I wanted to use the stencilled patterns on my papers for a long dress. It was easy enough to hand draw a template for a long skirt.
I now had my basic doll with everything at the right scale.
And now to the fun part! Once all the parts had been covered with the papers I marked the areas where I needed to punch holes to make the arms articulate. I would normally use brads but decided on eyelets instead as this then allowed me to attach some wire so the doll could hang. They make the arms slightly stiffer but they are still able to move.
I decided not to articulate the head, but glued that directly instead so I could get the angle I wanted and the ruff just showing above the neckline.
Before adding the head I had used some inks to add a little colour to her hair and lips and also added a hat band from the left over gel plate papers.
The wings probably caused me the most problems ...... I had a few pieces of plastic packaging in my stash and thought they would be perfect for the transparent element of the project. But .... I struggled to find an ink that would dry on it. There must have been a film of something on the packaging that wouldn't allow the ink to dry. In the end I experimented with different ink pads and then reversed the plastic. Game changer! the ink dried...... eventually !
I now had all my main elements completed and then on to another fun part - adding the final details.
I am a huge hoarder of lace - even the tiniest little scraps! however these are just perfect for a little project like this. The little pearl gems just finish off the sleeves.
The sentiment came from isolating one word from MN109. There were a number of possibilities from this stamp but "thankful" seems to fit nicely.
This was such a fun project as at various times the character of my doll peeked through - the tilt of the head, the placement of the arms, the way she turned when hung. And the butterfly wings give her an ethereal feel. My granddaughter is already in love with her.
I hope my project gives you some ideas of how you might be able to create something similar with your own children or grandchildren with just a few scraps or papers and lace. There is so much fun in choosing the face to create different characters and even when finished more fun in placing the arms and legs to create even more character - or attitude!
As always thank you for joining me.
Jennie x
Blog: Live the Dream
YouTube: Jennie Atkinson
Instagram: atkinsonjennie
So fun! Great tutorial. I’m going to give this a try.
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